More than just a must-have piece of consumer technology, Apple’s iPhone has also become a major outlet for independent game developers, with its user-friendly tools making it both easy and affordable for new companies to find success on the platform.

InMotion Software is an Austin, Texas game studio that’s discovering that very kind of success with their recent hit game I Dig It, which was the best-selling iPhone app in July 2009. The game was designed in part by Full Sail Game Development graduate Chris Graham, who was hired on at the company to help craft the story, characters, and gameplay, all of which were part of the reason that I Dig It has been able to set itself apart from the tens of thousands of other apps currently on the market.

“We were all just on cloud nine after it took off,” Chris says. “You never think when you’re working on a project that something like this is going to happen. You’d like it to of course, but you never know how it’s going to do when it gets released. After we got the news we just felt on top of the world, and were celebrating for the next week.”

It doesn’t take long after you start playing I Dig It to understand why the app became such a word-of-mouth success. It’s an action/puzzle game that puts you in the role of a farmer trying to keep his property out of debt by taking control of a high-tech digging machine and drilling tunnels to find gems and precious metals hidden underground. There are around 60 different types of treasures to discover, the money from which you can use to upgrade your vehicle with new drills, radars, armor, and more.

“I think the exploration and collecting is what makes it so fun – it keeps you playing because you’re constantly finding new stuff and have this feeling of discovery,” Chris says. “It’s really a very simple concept, and it seems like that’s what really works best on the iPhone. All the really popular games are super casual, so anyone can just pick them up and play.

“We also listen to player feedback and go in and keep adjusting the gameplay and submitting new software updates. That’s the kind of thing that I think helps you stay popular in this market, when people feel like they can post on forums and you’re actually listening to them and taking their advice.”

InMotion previously had success with a pair of other early iPhone titles, Dungeon Defense and PocketDyno, and even though I Dig It was their most sophisticated project to date, the entire project was completed on a seven-week development cycle. That’s an incredible turnaround even for a portable title, and as Chris’s first iPhone game, he was amazed by how quickly the team was able to produce such a polished product.

“It’s so much different than working on something like a console game,” he says. “We’re talking about doing a complete game in seven weeks, where console games can take years. Apple has just designed a really good product, and made it accessible to everyone. Anyone with $100 can sign up and get the developer’s license, and sit down and do it.

“Working on the iPhone, I honestly sometimes feel like I’m back in the Final Project class [at Full Sail]. There’s one designer, one artist, and two programmers – and we all sit in the same room, and as you’re coming up with ideas you’re just like ‘Hey guys what do you think of this?’ It’s awesome to be in the gaming industry and still have that feeling.”

The InMotion team is currently hard at work on their follow up to I Dig It, with Chris once again acting as Designer on the closely-guarded project. Working in this creative arena has been a dream come true for the grad, where he’s pairing his technical skills with this new technology to create the next generation of games.

“I just feel completely blessed to have made it this far, and my career after Full Sail has been way beyond anything I could have imagined it to be. You can’t even fathom it when you’re first starting, and then all of a sudden you’re there. You look back and it’s like ‘Wow, I’ve worked on a number one iPhone game – I did exactly what I set out to do.’ I went to Full Sail to become a designer, and now I’m making a living out of it.”