This indie game developer life...

Unity3D for iOS and Android Free till April 8th

2012-03-08T21:54:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone,

While I am still a firm user and believer in GameSalad, I have much respect for Unity3D. If I ever use an engine that requires programming, this would be most likely the engine I would use. It has amazing multi platform options, its reasonably priced, delivers great performance and a lot of hit games have been made with it.

For whatever reason, Unity3D is giving away its iOS and Android versions of Unity3D for free until April 8th. https://store.unity3d.com/index.html Check it out. Even if you don't use it, but might consider using it at some point, grab it and sit on it.

Thanks
Caleb

Excellent Zen Hopper review on Renegade Gaming

2012-02-25T00:14:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,

Very happy to report another great game review site has taken the time to review Zen Hopper.

You can read the article here:

http://www.renegadegaming.com/index.php/articles.html/_/articles/zen-hopper-review-r45

We really appreciated them reviewing our app sitting along side great AAA titles for Console and more. We hope more sites will come around and give Zen Hopper some much needed exposure.

Have a great day! :)

Zen Hopper gets 9/10 score at The Daily Appetizer! Check it out

2012-02-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

I’m really excited to report we an independent app review (www.dailyappetizer.com) well, reviewed our app and they gave they had lots of nice things to say about it. We hope we can find more sites like this in the future to give our apps the much needed exposure to help get the word out.

I was thrilled to discover that we were going to get our app reviewed on a serious web site dedicated to app reviews. They really made our day. Be sure to check their other reviews out as well. We have some good ideas on expanding the game. As we get more folks to give more feedback about the game, it will really help us know what things people want more of. I’m also expecting an update to the engine we used to make this to be releasing a major engine optimization which should allow greater performance.

New Part12 Studios website is live!

2012-02-04T05:25:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to announce that our old website is gone (goodbye flash) and hello wordpress! All the great stuff that a well rounded site should have are there now.

SEO, Blog, Google Analytics, Products, Services and more. Check it out! www.part12studios.com

I will continue to keep this blog active and mirror entries for the foreseeable future. I like blogger and enjoy the easy analytics to see if anyone visiting.

thanks!
Caleb

Zen Hopper is Live on iTunes and Amazon App Store. Check it out!

2012-01-20T19:46:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that Zen Hopper is officially live. I had some issues getting game center set up in a way that worked well for both people who do and do not use game center. Had a few iterations, but I'm happy with the version we have out there now.

Watch the trailer here

you can get to the store clicking these two links:

iTunes

Amazon

We welcome feedback on this games. Please help us out and leave a review in whichever version, if you decide to purchase it.

Also, you could do us a huge favor by simply sharing this blog post to help us spread the word. Post this blog on facebook, twitter anywhere that might be seen by other people.

Thanks!

Caleb

Boston Postmortem - Finding a job in the game industry

2012-01-20T00:23:00.000-05:00

So Wednesday nights turnout was one of the biggest I've seen in awhile. Of course the topic certainly drew more than usual as many people are looking for jobs in the game industry and advise on how to do it.

I took some notes for anyone interested. I tried to focus on points I thought were perhaps not as obvious as things like "use spell check". So these are highlight pointers from the presentation and a few of my own observations are inserted in there as well (will indicate). So on with the list.

Look for the job that is right for you. Don't apply to a bunch. - I've never had this problem, but I guess some people really do think they have skills in many fields and while this is true, employers usually want someone to have a specialty. If you're a great musician and you can draw ok.. selling yourself as an artist

Great link on networking in the game industry: http://tinysubversions.com/effective-networking/ this was referenced created by own Darius Kazami here in Boston. I need to go and read it soon.

Resume is good to have 2-3 pages. 1 page is not a good idea - Apparently there is a nasty rumor out there that resumes should be one page. The presenters (all seasoned game industry HR staff) explained that if you have more to say show it. If you have 15 years of experience, don't try and squeeze it into one page.

Show games of a style. Show his top stuff. - Rather than flood your portfolio with everything you've ever done, demonstrate a few of your best pieces.

Sync up linked in and resume (me) - I'm really not that invested in LinkedIn but everyone seems to be in there so this is more of a reminder for myself to simply flesh out linked in to insure it's not that outdated, missing tons of recent developments that someone may peruse right past.

Bullet points are good in resume. - Use them because it helps outline things rather than writing paragraphs of text explaining things. Make the job easier for whoever is reading about you to get the point and concisely

Keep resume text/classy - Keep your resume text only.. use one font... don't go all "creative" on it making it look like a myspace page.. and make it printer friendly (no all black backgrounds)

Cover letter should be revised per application. Often things change (me) - While it can be tedious sometimes to apply for numerous openings, it is easy to get into a copy/paste mentality. It is best if you can take a few moments in each letter to really address the company you're applying for. It shows that you're really interested in them as company and not just their job/money...

A suggestion is to put the cover letter in the resume to keep things together - I like this, although I have never done it. Pretty self explanatory. This isn't expected and its not the norm, but I can see how it was explained that by merging the two together you have one attachment.. everything stays together. Makes sense.

Before the interview happens, its ok to ask what to expect. How long? dress code? a test? How many people will you see? - Its ok to inquire about what is expected.

Bring a copy of your resume (me) - I have made this mistake in the past. Sure they have an office, printers and even your resume on file somewhere, but Murphy's law, printer could be down or email having trouble. You just never know. Have a resume with you just in case.

Be professional. Even if they cuss dont drop f bombs. Dont trash talk / negative speak. Be real but be respectful - Yea this could be an unintentional trap. Just keep yourself reserved and not eager to just pull your tie (figurative) apart as soon as an interviewer shows an informal aspect of themselves.

Follow up in a week. Its ok to remind. Be careful though and polite. Maybe have someone proof it. - It is very easy to assume that because you heard nothing, that they don't like you or that they at best didn't give you the job. This is not true. Hiring can be a slow process and they are busy like anyone else. It also shows you really want the job. It shows initiative. Obviously overdoing this daily harassing is not a good idea..

Interview them too. Have questions for them. - So yea just think of some questions about the company. Asking this shows you're eager to understand how they operate and that you want to know what would be expected of you. Having no questions could imply you either don't really care to know much about them or that you assume you know everything about the company which is very unlikely.

If you don't get the job. Don't let it get you down. Keep going. - It is very easy to feel your self worth diminish because you don't fit what they are looking for. Keep in mind also that sometimes you were "this close" to getting the job, but either someone a little better got it or circumstances change.

Stay active. Learn something. Make something. - Stay active in whatever field you are passionate about. make music if you're a musician, make game designs if you are a game designer. Keep active showing that regardless if these people hire you or not, you are doing what you love and who knows next time you apply for a job there (next point) you may impress them with your progress.

Remember just because you didn't get the job doesn't mean you cant apply again or that they didn't like you. - Keep positive and don't burn bridges. You may apply again down the road with new openings. It happens. The job you don't get this time is the job you get next time.

Hope some of these pointers help you in your job hunting efforts!

Thanks
Caleb

Gearing up for Global Game Jam

2012-01-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

In less than two weeks a big event is happening and I'm very stoked about it. The IGDA Global Game Jam 2012 will be kicking off January 27-29th

The official site is http://globalgamejam.org I'll be at the MIT location. Really excited to see what happens. This will be my first true 48 hour game jam. I'm really excited to see how different it is than my previous jam experiences.

In Nashville since we didn't really have a big enough scene or folks who could really commit to a full 48 hours, I came up with 12 hour game jams which really worked out well, much of the same challenges. Just with even less time.

Also check out my blog post at BRIDGE Technical Solutions Blog if you want to learn more.

Thanks!
Caleb

Please excuse the mess. www.part12studios.com in transition

2012-01-11T16:06:00.000-05:00

Looks like the DNS changes took place so that is nice. However as of this writing the web site looks like a hello world wordpress site and is pretty ghastly. So please understand it won't be like this for long. I've asked our web developer to perhaps put something more "Coming Soon" than it currently looks.

Thanks!
Caleb

Part12 Web Site in DNS Limbo for the next 48 hours or so

2012-01-10T18:30:00.000-05:00

So we're in the process of not only getting an all new web site, but moving over to a new web host. This means our DNS / URL stuff for www.part12studios.com is in transition right now. Thanks for your patience and I can't wait to get the new site launched!

Thanks
Caleb

Initial thoughts on Stencyl

2012-01-08T08:52:00.000-05:00

So I had a chance to finally sit down and make a decent attempt to work with Stencylworks to compare it to GameSalad. I appreciate some of the more sophisticated things it has. It has a nice help section, there just seem to be more options all around which implies more capabilities.

right now:

Game Salad 1 - Stencyl 0

However, all of this nice stuff didn't matter much once it came time to learn how to really use it. One of the biggest annoyances was that the starter tutorials were little more than slide shows which i found to be really annoying. Call me spoiled, but there is something much easier when watching a video. seeing the mouse move and click on things really helps me orient myself to the flow.. instead you have to look at the tutorial instruction.. find what they are talking about.. then go back and click next.. read some stuff. figure out terms, etc..

Also I realize that with more power may require more complicated processes, however I don't think this is a rule, just easy to fall into. Game salad was so cool. in a matter of watching one five minute video I had a good enough grasp to start making things do things. Sure I had to research specific cases that might not work like i thought they should, but what made GS easy to adopt was i got that immediate sense of progress. Stencylworks

However I'm not done, because the lure of being able to create actual swfs and being able to extend capabilities because the source code comes with could really expand my capabilities. I'm ready for Round 2 once I get some time again. Right now the pull of finishing up Apples to Apples, Klouds and another App is

NOTE TO GAMESALAD: If you opened up the HTML5 capability to not be so locked down, this could really close the gap between Stencylworks and GameSalad. Seeing the direction flash is heading. making actual swfs, i don't see being that significant.

Part12 Studios Quoted in New Mobile Game Textbook

2012-01-07T00:48:00.000-05:00

I had seen an email sent out to the Boston game development community and was really thrilled to have a chance to offer some input regarding game development. The book has come out and while I haven't read the entire book saw we got at least one quote in there which really nice. That made my day.

I want to thank Jeannie Novak co-author of this book for allowing me to contribute. I jumped straight to the marketing section to see if there were any pearls of wisdom in there that might help out and sure enough there were. There is always something new to learn about marketing especially in the digital frontier and ten fold in the mobile space to stand out and get noticed.

You can check out the book here

I'm glad to see that it shares about engines I love like Unity3d and GameSalad. It also comes with a nice starter CD with various tools to get you started.

thanks,
Caleb

New Part12 Studios web site coming later this month

2012-01-06T00:09:00.000-05:00

When we started out in 2008, it was pretty smalltime and I applied my mad HTML skills to make a very simple / clean p12 site... that was fine, but it was just blah.. When we had our first big time contract doing an Adobe Air project for Coca-Cola (sub contracted) and our point of contact, a very cool guy, had offered to help with our web site which was a polite way of saying.. dude your site is bad.. it was time for action..

So around that time not long after we broke the bank and spent $20 on a flash den web site template and never looked back.. well kinda.. going flash was great for overall slickness and what not.. it was configurable easy enough with xml.. a good site overall, however I was just getting good with google analytics which flash pretty much killed. Also the ability to insert pages into the site was more than my meager flash skills and timer permitted.. as well as SEO considerations went out the window too.

We found a promising web developer to create a new web site that will be build on wordpress and really get our site up to speed with a new blog (this one will likely be closed out once the other is live) that will be part of the part12studio space. We are still modeling the new site after the flash site overall.. new (blog), services, projects, contact. Also looking to incorporate a forum as well. I'm super excited to get google analytics back as well as SEO control again.

Thanks,
Caleb

Amazon App Store (yay) vs. Android Market (boo)

2012-01-05T00:25:00.000-05:00

So I got Zen Hopper ready for Android and was excited to get the game on the Android market and Amazon. Amazon went really smooth. It's waiting for approval. I hope I don't end up eating my words saying Amazon will continue to go smooth till its launched and available. I submitted it on the 1st of January and now I'm waiting. Hopefully without any hitches..

Then we have the Android market. Now of course this is the biggest I would imagine, but I've found it extremely frustrating. Of course this is just me. I know that tons of apps make it out there all the time. I just had a lot of trouble with it. Specifically the thing when submitted ended up being flagged as free and thus i couldn't change it. once its free it's always free because they don't want people to change the price after a free download..

The crux of the problem and what was so annoying is I hadn't (knowingly) launched the game with that free setting.. there should have been a warning for such a permanent option. Then I go back and rename some stuff (maybe this is the problem, but i don't care) to satisfy the fact that the other APK name had been used..

Anyway i then wasted more time trying to submit alternates when the site stopped accepting my graphics and my saves (because they wouldn't accept the pictures i guess) were not saving forcing me to start all over again selecting graphics, text etc.. it was a big waste of time..

other stupid things like you set your price at say, $.99 and then you auto convert for all other currencies. This is nice except that some require you make it more for that currency.. fine.. but since it must be at least x amount.. why not just auto convert to that value and not require me to go in manually and alter all the exceptions. it's not like i have a choice.

So for anyone looking to submit an app. Take your time and tred very carefully. I got an initial reply about the whole free forever thing 4 days after i emailed them.. but all the headaches that came after was really annoying.

Unless something helpful comes from their next response (probably another 4 days before i hear from them) I'm not going to submit Zen Hopper to the Android Market. I will give my next game a try since it will be a clean / new APK. I just felt like once i made one mistake everything after could never be right with this initial attempt.

Thanks,
Caleb

Zen Hopper Trailer and Marketing research

2011-12-30T03:52:00.001-05:00

Here it is, enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfDXpGX2HJg&feature=youtu.be

counting down the days. January 1st is going to be awesome. Not that I expect big sales or anything, but just to see a project i've spent a couple months on in my spare time finally go live.

I'm also apprehensive about Game Center working out of the box.. i think i did it right, but it seems like there is no way to test without getting the game out there, which is HORRIBLE if it doesn't work.. I guess since the App store approved it, they should have the means to teset Game Center functionality. Then again.. maybe not.. time to write an inquiry to GS support.

I've also spent a good amount of time hunting for some good sites to promote apps. What really helped was finding several already compiled "top x number of sites". From here I went through and put together a list.

here are the two source lists.. note that some of the comments reveal some sites as well beyond the lists:

http://www.altiapp.com/2011/09/ultimate-list-of-free-iphone-app-review-sites/

http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/promotion-techniques/26779-list-30-review-sites-promote-your-iphone-game-app.html

Since iOS only gets 50 vouchers per version, that meant that i couldn't go much beyond 50.. I've found my list. It's well above 50, but I know some of the sites after review many, really sound unlikely to be able to get to my game.

I was considering some of the paid sites and I might do that still but not till i've gone the free route first. I'm sure this is what most people do and maybe I'm being a cheapskate, but this project has always been admittedly my project to make mistakes and try things and see how it goes.

I'll compile a final list of which ones i went with for my 50 vouchers..

New Kid in Town - Stencyl (code free game creator)

2011-12-27T17:28:00.001-05:00

I love game salad and I look forward to how it continues to develop, however I was pleased to discover this alternative to game salad. I'm not really sure its really that new.. but its new to me. :)

I haven't had a chance to evaluate it yet, but I look forward to trying it out and seeing what it can or cannot do as well as GameSalad.

I will report back with a full and unbiased opinion of it. It seems to offer some options that GS just doesn't touch yet.. options I could really use.

http://www.stencyl.com

Thanks,
Caleb

New Official Screenshots for Zen Hopper

2011-12-27T10:07:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the talented stylings of Arbor Borrow (the background artist for Zen Hopper and other) we now have five screenshots for iTunes / Android Market. When the game goes live January 1st I'll feel much better that the over presentation is professional. Here are a couple of them.

+3 other images like this...

Klouds begins production for iOS and Android

2011-12-23T23:53:00.001-05:00

With Zen Hopper pretty much complete and now just waiting for it to go live on January 1st, I decided that the next game to do is actually the first game that Part12 Studios created in flash.

I named it Klouds because while its going to have more features than the original, it's not truly what I would envision as a sequel. Use of things like Accelerometer and offering some alternate game game rules will really make

Here is the original game. www.addictinggames.com/puzzle-games/klouds.jsp we've made variations on this, but i think all in all this was still the best version.

Using GameSalad I've built a very solid version of it already, however I have some new ideas to experiment with and learn some new tricks which will take a little time. here is a quick pic so far.

Lots of polish still needed, menus, etc.. but really if i can just get a good scaling container like the original working smoothly the rest should go pretty smooth as well. I'm also really happy with the frame rates so far. Zen Hopper

Android also will get a version of this, however much like my experience with Android and Zen Hopper, I suspect only the higher quality devices with good graphic chips will play it very well. I tested it on my Samsung Galaxy and its already pretty unplayable.. I'll have to do another benchmark system like in ZH and warn those with slower hardware to not be disappointed if it doesn't play well for them.

Thanks,

Caleb

Zen Hopper approved for App Store.. Coming January 1st

2011-12-15T00:26:00.001-05:00

So I made a first rough pass of the trailer this week. Its not final, but its a general idea. Right now I'm waiting on a few improved screenshots to come to make a better presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZScdV6Xq7oU

Once that's live on the app store i will most likely launch the android version the same day. What I hope to do is share some experience in promoting a game and getting some recognition. Anymore its not only about making a solid product, but also getting eyeballs to check it out.

At this point i'm somewhat of a blank slate. I have a few promotional leads that could be really awesome and I'll do what I can to help offer some of my lessons learned along the way.

Publishing to Android with GameSalad (phase 3 - Market)

2011-12-15T00:21:00.002-05:00

This is the third, but not final phase. I would like to do a fourth one regarding promoting an app for the android market. I've learned some interesting things in regards both in design differences and market differences from iOS apps.

So I paid my $25 registration fee. I ran into a little trouble uploading the APK but I think it had to do more with a bad copy/paste.. once i got my certificate / keystore set to the required 25 year validity.. (wow 25 years...) done.. the rest was easy sause.

Overall I found the android market / submission process way nicer than Apple, however I can also see how this lower bar of entry creates that much more potential shovelware and channel noise for apps to get recognized.

The only thing i felt was a little confusing was this below.. marketing opt-out.. that sounds pretty clear, but the description paints another picture.. why would i want to NOT have anything promoted outside google? I would understand if it read... do not promote my app in google services and allow outside promotions to occur.. anywho.. i guess the best thing to do is not opt out..

"Marketing Opt-Out

Do not promote my application except in Android Market and in any Google-owned online or mobile properties. I understand that any changes to this preference may take sixty days to take effect. "

So yea our game got approved today by Apple but I scheduled it to not go live till Jan 1st which gives me time to get some good screenshot art assembled to help give it a more professional presentation. I could have the android version out there now but really the game was designed for iphone and the Android port only runs well on nicer devices that have iPhone class graphics chips and CPUs.

I'd rather let the iPhone version be the first version that gets any attention and eventually follow up with the android version.. or maybe simultaneously.. leading with the android version just feels like a bad move at this time.

Publishing to Android with GameSalad (phase 3 - Market)

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

So I paid my $25 registration fee. I ran into a little trouble uploading the APK but I think it had to do more with a bad copy/paste.. once i got my certificate / keystore set to the required 25 year validity.. (wow 25 years...) done.. the rest was easy sause.

Overall I found the android market / submission process way nicer than Apple, however I can also see how this lower bar of entry creates that much more potential shovelware and channel noise for apps to get recognized.

The only thing I found weird was the marketing op-out.. I couldn't get a clear answer on this but its like.. the title is somewhat obvious.. opt out of being a google exclusive in regards to marketing.. however the way the description read to me was like.. yes stay in our network only... which doesn't make much sense to want to do if you can be in that network AND get promotions outside.

Thanks,
Caleb

Publishing to Android with GameSalad (phase 2 - APK)

2011-12-13T02:12:00.002-05:00

Ok so yea phase 1 was confusion.. there didn't seem to be any obvious instructions on how to compile an app in GameSalad for android, but thankfully once again the forums proved super helpful. This video worked perfect for me. It requires nothing but the android sdk.. i did one that required eclipse and it didn't work for me... this one rocks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtZGeb0yyQ&feature=player_embedded

Also, a really slick way to get an apk over to your device is to use https://www.dropbox.com/ just copy the file over on your mac.. then a few seconds later.. syncs up with phone and bam.. you're all set.. to install from that location.

So the next step will be to publish on the android and amazon markets. I'll share what I learn in that process and any pitfalls in phase 3.

Thanks!
Caleb

Publishing to Android with GameSalad (phase 1 - how?)

2011-12-10T10:43:00.001-05:00

So if you're like me, the ability to publish Android apps with GameSalad sounds awesome. Not long after the good news reality set in.. and that reality is uncertainty galore.

There is no obvious how-to and thanks to the helpful GameSalad forum, I got directed to a good link and I want to share it with you. here

I'm still very uncertain about testing the successfully compiled APK files. As soon as I know more about how to easily test APK without an android device I'll let you know. (phase 2)

I'm currently looking to buy an android phone to test with. I think I'm going to wait on getting a nook and / or fire till I get a better feel of how the android app market operates. I'll share more about testing and publishing as I learn more. (phase 3)

I love my Brother (laser printer / scanner)

2011-12-10T09:48:00.001-05:00

For the record, I don't have a biological brother... just an awesome younger sister..

I had an Epson inkjet printer / scanner for a couple years.. and it was fine as a scanner, but over time I realized that the ink I was buying was slowly being used up without me printing anything.. I rarely printed anything and yet somehow i'd keep running low on any given color of ink..

So I decided that this time I'd invest big money in a nice laser printer, big money because I assumed laser printers were still super expensive... assuming i'd be spending at least $500 or more to get just a nice laser printer and maybe hold on to my Epson CX6000 as my Scanner..

So I went shopping last month to find out how much damage it would be and while i did find some nice printers that went for as much as $500 with all kind of features I didn't really care about.. color printing? nah.. touch screens.. sharing pictures.. bla bla bla.. Just give me a scanner and a laser printer..

Then I found this Brother printer for around $199+tax. I couldn't believe it. Brother is a solid brand name. I got mine at Staples. The real bonus for me was the document feeder for me. It works great and really helped making PDFs a breeze.

Model:

MFC-7860DW

It even has features that are nice but that i don't use like wireless printing (I'm using USB) and fax (who has a land line anymore?)

I just had to share this because since I bought this, I'd never realized how handy the feeder was for scanning and quality ink. So if you're in the market for an affordable light usage printer, I would suggest this one.

Video Capture Software for Mac... what to use?

2011-12-08T05:27:00.001-05:00

I wanted to capture some video from the iphone and it seems that the best way is to do it from inside the mac rather than the device itself, which from what I could tell doesn't seem possible although it seems like there must be a way..

I didn't dig to hard on that front and decided to go with the desktop video capture approach which is useful beyond just mobile game demoing.. so I started to shop around.

First I trie the App store for Mac, but found the selection pretty limited and price / performance seemed iffy at best.. so I tried broader web searches and found this article http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-roundups/10-screen-recording-tools-for-mac/

From this article I narrowed it down to Screenflick and iShowU.. both have demos and seem to do everything I needed.. which is capture custom screen sizes and capture internal audio and / or external audio.. the only real difference seemed to be the price..

Screenflick is $29 and iShowU has several price tiers, most being considerably more expensive and not clear why... I found the iShowU tiers confusing and ultimately more expensive so I went with Screenflick.

Next step for me is to figure out the best way to present the video clips into an decent youtube video..

thanks,

Caleb

Apple TV, I like it. However...

2011-12-07T04:57:00.001-05:00

So Christmas came a little early for me and I got one of the new Apple TV devices. I like it much more than the previous generation Apple TV devices. The cost reduction and the increased features were both very attractive.

I was able to get everything setup really quick. I was concerned at first that mirroring wasn't possible, but after a quick google search I saw where the options were for my iPad2 and iPhone 4s.. once i got this working I was even more satisfied however... this is going to be great for doing presentations / demonstrations for meetings.

I now see that wifi controllers for Apple TV / Gaming might be problematic. The latency is pretty bad. I'm really excited to see Apples dedicated TV product if/when it comes out, however seeing how the wifi latency is, I guess they will need to look into a different way to pair using bluetooth or something else.

However, maybe actual response time will be faster if its not projecting a video as well. This might account for the delay more than actual time for packets to get from device to device..

I was playing Pinball HD, which btw, takes full advantage of mirroring by actually displaying a custom controller view on the device so you don't need to look at the iOS device at all, just watch the TV. Full marks. I was really impressed except that the latency was a good .5 seconds off making playing a twitch game like pinball nearly impossible.

if you're wondering how to mirror.. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/13/ipad-mirroring-mode-on-your-appletv-2-how-to-do-it/

Thanks,
Caleb

GameSalad and Android.. current state

2011-12-07T00:11:00.001-05:00

So I recently took the plunge and bought the GameSalad Pro license. This allows me to use a number of exciting features for iOS, but it also recently added Android publishing as well.

Unfortunately at this moment there is a hot fix needed for successful android publishing.. The good news is that this fix should be coming soon. That said, I can see that the initial configuration to make an android app is definitely not intuitive.

I'm hoping that its one of those things (like iOS provisioning/certificates) is not that bad with a little hand holding and guidance.

There hasn't been a clear resource on GameSalad/Android configuration 101 so far. I'm going to be working on finding out more about this over the next week or two while I'm waiting for the App store to hopefully accept my first iPhone game "Zen Hopper".

I'll share what I find out about complete android configuration here.

Thanks,
Caleb

Hello World!

2011-12-06T05:04:00.000-05:00

So I've been itching to blog for a long time, but just never really took the time to find a good solution. Thanks to http://blog.zorts.net/ Jeremy helped me in two ways:

1. giving me some great advice on how I should approach promoting my first mobile game. That advice included blogging.

2. showing me a good hassle free blogging service.

It's almost 5am here, just finished feeding my 3 week old son while my wife an 3 year old son sleep in the other room. She'll get the next feeding while I sleep in a bit (maybe).

So yea here I am on the cusp of releasing my first game using www.gamesalad.com which I really like. I'm on a bit of a wall breaking buzz as I was able to get my distribution certificate working last night. All it took was me (eventually) blowing out all of my old .cer files and reconnecting them to my .mobileprovisioning files.

So now I can effectively upload my app as soon as I get one more piece of art and some quality screenshots (something more like cut the rope than just dry screenshots) to help improve that first impression factor.

back to bed for a couple hours. Guess I should pace myself with the blog stuff and learn some good habbits for highly effective bloggers. First off I'll start with the theme stuff...

Thanks!
Caleb