Well alright. I agreed to do a little contract gig back during the summer that finally caught up with me, so the past couple weeks were spent on that. Yesterday we finally finished and submitted that, so I’m free to work on what’s really important: Smiles HD for computers!

Wait… what!?

Okay, well I still do have my new-game scheduling plans detailed in the last post, but I’ll be slightly delaying that start time yet again, but not by much. After a general assessment of all the code and stuff I have, I think Smiles HD needs another serious week of work before it’s ready to be packaged and uploaded to every digital distribution store known to man. On my whiteboard for the past several months was a short 4 item TODO list; The 4 things necessary to finally finish (in my mind) the PC version 1.0’s. In all seriousness though, there are more than 4 things that should be done, but I wont know them all until I seriously dive in to it.

Still, that is my agenda. This month, I want to be “finished” and finally getting the game in to digital distribution. I plan to be more vocal and open about the development of my newer projects, and I’m not the biggest fan of pre-order and donate boxes, so I’d rather have a tangible product you could easily buy to support me and my new games. “Here’s me talking, buy this game to keep me talking”. That’s not to say it wont happen (watching how indie games have evolved over the years), but that’s not Plan A.

Q: Will there be public beta testing?

Maybe! I want to say yes, but until it happens my answer is a head-nod and silly grin while my eyes wander the room.

Q: What will be available first?

The first release (either beta or final) will be the Windows version. I think I’ve previously mentioned, though I’m a heavy Linux/Unix tools user, I do the bulk of my work on Windows.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve been contacting and chatting with a hand full of digital distributors. Apple’s Mac App Store is an obvious choice (I bought a Magic Trackpad specifically for testing), but that doesn’t launch for a couple months. So after the Windows version I’ll be playing it by ear, but have a suspicion Linux will be next, followed by Mac or maybe Android.

The goal is to be selling all 3 (in one way or another) by the end of the month.

Q: Wait, Android? What happened to that “Canadian’s can’t sell” problem?

Fortunately that era has finally ended, and not a moment too soon either. I’ve been promising a faithful Palm Pre->HTC Evo Smiles player that I’d do an Android port as soon as I was able, so I need to make good on that promise. 🙂

Q: Android Public Beta?

Because Android devices are so vast and plentiful, I think I need to public beta this. I myself have a Google G1, Nexus One, and a Tegra 2 Dev Board, but as I’ve seen that’s hardly enough.

That’s all for now. I have a little writeup to do for Ludum Dare now (That October Challenge thing? Yeah, I started it, but couldn’t even finish myself! How shameful!), and then it’s time to do that stuff above.