Indie mobile game developer Twyngo revealed to Inside Mobile Apps that their first game, Amazing Ants for iOS, surpassed the 1 million install mark in one week since the title’s launch on Jan. 10.

“It’s been very gratifying to see the degree of enthusiasm and success about the game, Twyngo co-founder Unni Narayanan told Inside Mobile Apps. “We knew that we had built an atypically high quality product with a rich experience that appealed to a broad category of people.”

Twyngo is the second game published under mobile game developer Pocket Gems, a new business venture that Pocket Gems announced it was pursuing back in December 2012. Developer dreamfab’s Chasing Yello for Android was the first title published by Pocket Gems in late December 2012.

Narayanan says Pocket Gems was a great help to Twyngo by guiding his team through the process of creating a successful game based on a freemium model.

“There’s exceptional value delivered in the game for zero price,” Narayanan says. “Pocket Gems was instrumental in helping us see the benefit of the freemium model. The reason the game is a success is that the game is of high quality and a rich experience, but it’s also broadly accessible to a lot of people because we’re doing the freemium model.”

With more than 1.3 million installs and counting, Narayanan believes the potential for Amazing Ants to continue to grow is huge.

“The potential market is very, very large,” he says. “We’re going after the same demographic that an Angry Birds or a Cut the Rope reach out to. The market size is huge. As long as at the grassroots level people like the game and are enjoying it, we can see more growth.”

Narayanan emphasizes that Amazing Ants’ appeals to people who are looking for a wholesome experience.

“There’s an untapped opportunity for people to still develop family-friendly games that appeal across multiple age groups,” he says. “The reason our game is resonating with many folks is that people want that sensibility, that rich, immersive cartoon-like experience. They want that, but they want a different mechanic than what they’ve seen already out there. That’s a sentiment that we’re tapping into.”

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Amazing Ants is currently ranked No. 4 on the top free iPad apps chart, ranking as high as the No. 2 spot on Monday.

Check out our review of Amazing Ants on our sister site Inside Social Games here.