When friends Veery Maxwell and Olivia Hellman met in Petaluma, over a shared passion for horseback riding, neither of them could have predicted where their friendship would lead.

Maxwell, 24, grew up in Woodland with her mother, Ann Brice, who is the co-executive director of the Yolo Basin Foundation, a nonprofit environmental organization.

After finishing at Davis High School in 2004, Maxwell went on to graduate magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a degree in finance. She is studying environmental law at UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.

Hellman, also 24, spent her childhood in Marin, later moving to the state of Virginia where she attended high school. After receiving her degree in sociology from Connecticut College, Hellman began studying at Miami Ad School to become an art director. She expects to complete her curriculum this year.

Currently, both young women live in San Francisco, their apartments only a block away from each other. It didn’t take long for Hellman and Maxwell to realize their shared passion for iPhone application development.

“We had spent time coming up with ideas, and finally just decided to execute some of those ideas,” the two said in an interview.

Inspired, the two women didn’t waste any time. Earlier this year, they formed Tillybird Productions, and began development on their first iPhone application, Vicious Vixen.

A game, Vicious Vixen asks users to play the role of a woman in pursuit of the perfect boyfriend. After each level, the player is awarded a new, notably more successful boyfriend. These men range from a college fraternity pledge all the way up to an award-winning actor.

Maxwell and Hellman created the app as a form of social satire.

“The idea behind Vicious Vixen was to create a fun play on the social aspects of relationships,” Maxwell said.

“We disagree with the notion that men always pursue women,” Hellman said. “Sometimes we feel it can be the opposite.”

Hellman designed all of the graphic elements of the game. She and Maxwell enlisted their friends and family to pose for the silhouettes that represent the game’s various characters, and all of the voices were recorded by the girls themselves.

“(Vicious Vixen) was definitely a homegrown application,” said Maxwell, who manages all of the editing and finances for Tillybird.

Vicious Vixen was launched only last month, and the women are already working on their next project. By the end of the summer, they expect to release Capacity, an application that will use information from popular social networking websites to show the user how many people are hanging out at a particular bar or nightclub.

Initially, the application will be specific to San Francisco, but the women say they will consider expanding to other cities if it is successful.

To learn more about Tillybird Productions, visit http://www.tillybirdproductions.com. Vicious Vixen is available at the iPhone App Store for $1.99.

PhoneAppW

Veery Maxwell, left, who grew up in Woodland, and Olivia Hellman show off their new iPhone application, Vicious Vixen, a game that asks users to play the role of a woman in pursuit of the perfect boyfriend. The women created the app as a form of social satire. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

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