Blogs

Hello there! I figured now was a good time to talk about a project I’ve been involved with for the past couple months now. Something we like to call, the Indie Indie Conversation. The conversation is a YouTube channel shared amongst a group of indie game developers where we talk about what we do, the challenges, and the lifestyle of creating games independently for a living. I’ve personally failed many attempts at starting a regular video log here on my blog, and in retrospect that may have been the uncomfortable feeling of “talking to a wall”....

I recently purchased a new laptop (Lenovo X220) and made some upgrades (160 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM) making it a great little development machine. I like it so much, that I want to use it even for my Linux needs. I like to do a post or series of posts whenever I do a notable Linux install, often because there are so many nuances you need to deal with that are easy to forget....

I did miss my June 23rd target date, but with good reason: I started on computer upgrades and setting up my new Laptop early. 😀 But yes, as you approach the end of something, there are always things you forget about that still need to be done. Like this, a Computer and TV-System appropriate trailer for Smiles HD (i.e. without entire screen rotating): As you can see, that is now done....

Yes, you read that right. It is ending. For real. June 23rd is the 3 year anniversary of Smiles (as in, starting the game). I have finished every single port of the game that I had planned on doing (except console ports, both I decided to abort); Some are still in submission or need of final packaging. Days away now. Today is June 15th, a whole week away from the anniversary....

Speaking of better, here’s the final gameplay trailer for Kindle Smiles: That is submitted and in the queue now. Should be available in the Amazon Kindle store soon. BONUS! I recorded a brief “making-of” video, showing how recording the footage for the above video would look. Now that Smiles is finally winding down, I’m hoping to do more little things like this....

Hey, well that didn’t work. Smiles for WP7 after a couple weeks. Note, that’s cumulative… which means total overall Or according to my data: 9 trial downloads, and 1 sale since. There was some twitter talking, some retweets by fellow devs, but there’s practically no noticeable spike. Ah well, so much for that. On to bigger better things....

Hi. I just received a 2nd e-mail informing me my “Microsoft Windows Phone Marketplace developer account” yearly membership needs to be renewed. That costs $99 USD, and I think I paid $129 CAD. I made this game (Smiles), and I paid a friend to work with me to port it to Windows Phone 7: It was available on launch day for Windows Phone 7. Looks like a pretty well made game, right?...

Looks like the Symbian^3 versions of the game went live this morning in the Ovi store. The full game Smiles you see there is for Maemo devices… i.e. the N900. Zen+Drop are for Symbian A 5-star positive review of both games so far. Excellent! I’m writing up a nice long post (to follow) about the new game. Hopefully finished soon....

Finally! Go take a look! The ‘No Android’ Smiles era has ended. Welcome to the era of Android Smiles. https://market.android.com/developer?pub=Sykhronics+Entertainment To say the Android port has was the most requested would be an understatement. I sent messages to the list of starred people in my e-mailbox, everyone that ever asked about the Android version… I hope I got everyone. It feels good to finally have this covered. Ahhh! There are 2 versions of the game available....

I’ve been making games for a really long time now, but one thing I’ve found myself rather resilient to was letting myself use Middleware. By Middleware, I mean 3rd party libraries. It’s funny since I always highly recommend that people use it (to save RIDICULOUS amounts of time), but I myself am just a really slow adopter of it. SDL is one of few long-time 3rd party libraries I use. It lets me write my game code against the PC, Mac, Linux, and a few mobiles including Palm/HP’s webOS and Nokia’s Maemo....