2012! Maya Mayhem is the second game designed by Sofresh games that we review and include on BestFreeAndroidApps (first one was Megaflux) and it’s as addictive as its predecessor. One of the first popular games released in the 80s was Asteroids by Atari, where you controlled a vector spaceship and shot at asteroids over and over. For those of us that started their childhoods with those games, Maya Mayhem is the perfect addiction.

In Maya Mayhem your goal is to help mankind by the wrath of angry Mayan Gods. As we didn’t take very seriously the 2012 end-of-world prediction, they’re trying to destroy us now by sending waves and waves of powerful asteroids. Luckily enough we have the pyramids and we discovered their true purpose, that of defending the Earth.

In the game you control a pyramid that harvests the telluric energy and transforms it into a powerful cosmic energy beam that can destroy even the most evil meteor. The video below shows the main gameplay of Maya Mayhem and its most important features:

Maya Mayhem’s game-play can be summarized as follows:

  • You control a pyramid that’s protected by a field of purple energy. Everytime you see a meteorite, you tap on it and the pyramid will shoot cosmic energy at it. Aiming precisely is important as it brings combos and increases the score.
  • The game levels are actually shown as days. Every new level is actually a new day fighting against the meteorites. While it starts easy, the screen is filled with meteorites by the end of the day (you have a timer-clock in the top-right corner of the screen where you can see for how long will the assault continue.
  • During each level you get yellow energy everytime you destroy an asteroid or make a special combo and green energy at the end of the level depending on how good did you perform. From time to time there will be a comet passing by, if you hit it you’ll get a bonus for one of the 3 energy types (same as the comet color).
  • Using the yellow and green energy you buy skills at the end of a level. You can get skills that improve your shooting damage, frequency and other weapon improvements, as well as rituals, sort of like spells from classic RPGs. You can also improve your protection shield to last longer and have more mana (purple energy).

Maya Mayhem is free and with over 15 types of skills and a tremendous amount of levels is going to catch you in its addictive web until you get all the achievements (48 of them as of the time of writing) upgrade all of your skills and destroy even the meanest of meteors. It does show some advertisements and has in-app purchases (that remove ads too) which are recommendable if you want to progress faster with your skills and just enjoy the game-play.

Other important features of the game:

  • Beautiful graphics and excellent music + sound effects, that mix the Mayan and Egyptian symbols
  • Over 15 skills to advance through and improve your attack and defense
  • 5 types of spells (rituals) to use during the game depending on how much mana you have left (mana is the purple energy)
  • A total of 48 medals you can get for different achievements
  • When you think you have mastered the game, just try the Hardcore Mode
  • Your score gets saved online (via Scoreloop) where you can see how you rank globally

Maya Mayhem is that type of game that fully deserves an editor choice award for the hours of fun game-play it provides. You can visit the developer’s website to download the game (or try one of their others that are as addictive as this one) or get it via Google Play: 2012! Maya Mayhem.

With the amiability of Paul, the developer of 2012! Maya Mayhem, we’ve conducted an interview to find out more about how the game was created, as you can read below.

Q: Can you share some information about yourself with our readers?

A: I am Paul, 27 years old. Prior to making games for Android, I was a game producer and worked mainly on Nintendo DS.

Q: How did you come with the idea to create this game, what inspired you?

A: Well I’ve always been fond of defense games, and the Mayan apocalypse seemed like a funny & appropriate universe to create one. As for the Egyptian parts… I love ancient civilizations and at the time I began working on Maya Mayhem, I was deep into documentaries about the Great Pyramid of Gizeh!

Q: How long did it take from that idea until the first public release?

A: Huh… I’m not sure if I should be ashamed of this or not… actually we did an initial release of the game with only 18 days of work in it. All the core features, skills and spells were here, but after that we added some more polish, as well as new features: high-scores, hardcore mode, 48 achievements.
All in all I would say there are around 30 days of work behind Maya Mayhem. We still have a lot more improvements planned!

Q: We reviewed previously Megaflux, an excellent and thorough game, have you developed other games or do you have them in works as we speak? Do they target only the Android market or others as well (i.e. iOS)?

A: We have also developed RuniK, our first game on Android. It’s a colorful casual game where you have to collect tons of runes!
We have other games in works but are currently mainly focused on improving our existing ones.
As of now we only target the Android market, our favorite platform!

Q: With hundred of thousand of games and apps in the appstore, how do you make people aware of your apps?

A: This is really the hardest part. You need to invest a lot of time talking about your games on social networks, sending press materials to reviewers, posting on forums… this is especially difficult if as a young studio you can’t rely on large marketing budgets.

Q: What future plans you have for Maya Mayhem (new features, sequels), are bosses planned for the end of each level?

A: Prior to bosses we’ll add 6 more skills (including 1 spell). After that we’ll add a first boss and another batch of medals (24 at least).
Bosses will happen every 20 levels or so, but this will need to be balanced.

Q: What popular games are an inspiration for you as a developer and why?

A: I really like Hexage’s work! Good ideas with awesome visuals, overall great polished games. I’m also a fan of Kairosoft and their simulation games :)

Q: Have any tips/advices for other developers that want to start working on an app? Any tools that you consider to be a must?

A: Too many advices to give so I’ll just say that the most important is to love what you do and keep trying. Making a great app and letting the world know about it can take a long time and a lot of energy so you also need to be patient. As for the tools, I can only recommend to use those you’re best familiar with!