Blogs

What can I say? I like my weather. 😀...

Yep, it’s been in the pipeline since Saturday. Free Smiles is now available. It gives you both games to try (Zen and Drop). Zen is the patience game. A unique game that’s like the combination of Solitaire and a Match 3. Free Smiles includes a single puzzle. Drop is both a relaxing and action puzzler. It’s unique combination of timerless play, with various optional easy twitch gaming features like making multiple matches while other clear, twisting the iPhone, and floaters....

OMG! The IGF Mobile finalists reads something like this. IGF Mobile Best Game: Cubic Republic (IKS Mobile) – Flash Lite Smiles (Sykhronics Entertainment) – iPhone/iPod touch Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios) – iPhone/iPod touch Edge (Mobigame) – iPhone/iPod touch Wardive (And-or) – Nintendo DS http://www.igfmobile.com/02finalists.html Freaking awesome. So much for getting to sleep tonight. 😀...

As the topic suggests, Smiles 1.1 is now available. Smiles Zen and Smiles Drop 1.1 were sent earlier this morning, so they should be available in the coming days. Made a minor website update, since I didn’t win the “Best Casual Game” award, and to point out I’m in IGF Mobile. IGFM finalists to be announced Monday. One more little something for Smiles, then back to the scripture....

A bit swamped with stuff at the moment. Writing and some “OMG Smiles needs update now!”. Smiles 1.1 has been sent to Apple, hopefully to show up in the next couple days. After some lunch, I get to prepare Smiles Drop and Smiles Zen 1.1, then back to writing like there’s no tomorrow. Yee haw....

I know my track record for completing a blog series is pretty lousy, but this one should be easier. I kept a personal log with pictures during the development of Smiles, so most of the work is done for me. I just need need to go through it and regurgitate my notes. To start, I’m going to give a bit of insight in to what happened when I stopped writing my Engines, Names and Evolution blog series last year....

3x 2″ binders full of documents. Looks like I have some reading to do. PS: Happy new year. 🙂...

As the title says, Smiles is a finalist for Best Casual Game of 2008 on BestAppEver.com. Visit this link and give it a vote. http://bestappever.com/v/gcas Thanks! 😀 And a reminder, Smiles Drop is on sale for $1.99 (reg $2.99) until the end of the day new years. http://www.newyearappblowout.com EDIT: The Smiles Drop sale is extended until Sunday the 4th. Sunday night though, it’s going back up. Whee. 🙂...

At first glance you wouldn’t think a matching game like Smiles would feature physics, but it does. In several places actually. The most obvious example is the particle effects. Particles were used when ice and rocks break, and also for the tile clearing effect. The tile would be erased instantly from the board, and a particle would be created in it’s place. The particle would zoom in, slow down, then zoom out with a twist....

I kept video of some of my more interesting bugs/glitches/oddities in Smiles. Some more silly than others. The first I want to show is a bug in one of the effects for the game mode Zen. It was supposed to be a “toss a rock in to a pond” water ripple. It didn’t really work as expected. http://www.viddler.com/explore/PoVRAZOR/videos/8/ Here’s what it was supposed to look like. Cool looking, but the problem with this was the effect would make you queasy....