This past June, Fusionary -- a West Michigan-based web and game developer -- did the seemingly impossible when it took the ever expanding world of Michigan craft beer and attempted to shrink it down to fit in the pocket of your jeans.
What it came up with is part game and part glossary listing 102 Breweries dotting the Mitten State landscape.
Available for iPhone and the Android platform,
Michigan Micro Caps plays much like the popular computer game "Bejeweled," however, instead of matching similar looking rocks, players try to link strands of bottle caps that feature local brewery logos.
"We wanted to do a game but we also wanted it to be more useful," says Steve Lewis, Fusionary's lead programmer. The game itself is engrossing enough that a quarter of a work day can easily be lost as you attempt to "collect" caps from all of your favorite breweries, so the "more useful" part Lewis speaks of involves the app's constantly updated glossary of brewery locations and information.
"There's so much pride in Michigan right now and in craft brewing," Lewis says. "It was something that we enjoyed and it just all made sense."
With new breweries opening constantly across the state, Lewis and his team of six who worked on the game aim to keep diligently adding logos and info to the game as new ale houses open.
"We try and keep our eyes open and find them, we'll go ahead and create the graphics for them and get them in there. I'll try to reach out to each brewery before they go in there and make sure that they're OK with us using their logo and their cap," Lewis says.
It's easy for Lewis to keep his eyes trained on the world of craft beer, since the Fusionary office is located on Grandville Avenue SW, kitty-corner from the Founders Brewing Company tap room.
"There's so much going on in craft beer and we get to watch it right from our window when Founder's does one of their big releases like the KBS (Kentucky Breakfast Stout) release earlier this year. We get to watch people line up over there and it's interesting to see the ripple effect of that," Lewis says.
For Fusionary that ripple effect can be seen in more than 2,000 downloads of the game, which can be found for free on iTunes. And for the craft brew industry, the effect can be felt in the advertising that Fusionary has built into the app.
"We have a way to download content right to the game in the form of ads or, as you play the game, you'll see an ad for a new beer or an ad for a craft beer related event or product," Lewis says.
The company so far has had no trouble getting breweries on board. Both Lewis and most of the Michigan craft beer world consider apps like Michigan Micro Caps to be the next wave of advertising for the rapidly growing industry.
"More and more, you're getting apps like this and we hope that it helps expose some of the great things that are happening in Michigan," Lewis says.
Writer: Jeremy Martin, Second Wave Media
Source: Steve Lewis, Fusionary
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