By MATT LINDSEY

POTSDAM – Madrid resident and SUNY Potsdam graduate student Trevor Dugan recently published his first app on both the Apple App Store and Google play.

The app is a game called PuzzleTopple which Dugan describes as a blend of the old favorite Tetris and the new game craze Candy Crush.

Dugan said it took him approximately three months to make the game which began as an independent study project for a class at college.

“The game features 50 levels of play with level 22 being the highest anyone has reached to my knowledge,” said Dugan.

Dugan himself has only reached level 18 with his wife, Kelly Dugan, being the one to reach level 22.

Dugan describes the game as “a puzzle game where the object is to remove the pieces, in this case crates, the more crates you remove at a time the better. When a solution is not viable, shake things up a bit by touching the "Crate Shake" button.

As the crates fly though the air you can eliminate pieces or wait for them to settle in a new configuration. The longer you delay on choosing crates to eliminate the timer counts down. You can only eliminate so many single crates, and you only have so many shakes or game over.”

The game was released for Google play the end of September and on the Apple app store Oct. 10 with over 800 downloads in just two weeks.

Dugan, an education technology specialist major says he has plans to add other features to PuzzleTopple, create a desktop version, and create educational based apps for toddlers.

“I want to make educational color and number-based games, but without all the other distractions that other games currently have,” Dugan said.

Although originally just a project for school, Dugan says creating apps may turn into a small business for him as he pursues a full-time career as a teacher.

Dugan said he had to pay Google $25 and Apple $99 to host the game.

The game retails for 99 cents and is currently available in the U.S. and Canada with plans for international release as well.

“Professor Tony Betrus was the driving force behind the project and it would not have been possible for the game to be a success without him,” said Dugan.

A “Launch Party” and PuzzleTopple tournament is scheduled for today from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Dunn Hall 399 at SUNY Potsdam.