Blogs

One of two promotional videos I’m making. This one is the “hands on” one, requiring a silly looking “camera on tripod hugging thing” to collect all the footage. Viddler Long Version: http://www.viddler.com/…/19/ Youtube Short Version: http://www.youtube.com/E4sUK241aRA Youtube Long Version: http://www.youtube.com/nEO1-zybCU4 In this video, I’m unfortunately assuming the player will pick up on all the nice things why this isn’t a Bejeweled clone. But to be sure, I’m going to spell it out next video, and briefly mention some of things not covered here....

A press pack is now available for Smiles. Hit the website, it’s currently linked from the front page. Refresh if you don’t see it. http://www.smiles-game.com Screen shots and high-res logo and promo artwork. Video is in progress. Hopefully by the end of the day Friday....

Just got back from the grocery store, and got the word. “Ready for Sale“. http://appshopper.com/games/smiles Search for “Smiles” and scroll down a bit, or browse the puzzle or strategy categories in iTunes. Contrary to the description, it’s an Action Puzzler. Lumines/Metoes ‘esc, or Bejeweled on crack. Thanks to some fancy design kung fu, it’s also what the description says. But that’s a topic all in itself. – – – –...

I’d love to say the wait is over, but now we start the next wait. Waiting for approval. As of 7:45 AM this Tuesday October 28th morning, the game is now sent. – – – – – – – Digging through my SVN logs for some stats. Repository was created on June 22nd, 2008. That’s a total of 4 months and 6 days. All code, art (except the original TTF font, though I did design and make the logo text), and audio created by me....

Wow, it’s been so long. The last game I did TRC for was Atomic Betty, the Gameboy Advance game I worked on before leaving Big Blue Bubble. That would have been some time during July of 2005. That finished up, and I was a free man for August 1st. By TRC I mean Technical Requirements Checklist. Every platform holder has them, though they sometimes have a different name for them. A TRC is a combination of guidelines....

It’s late, now 5 AM Saturday morning. Release Candidate 1 is just a few hours away. Some achievement tweaks, and minor bugs and we’re good. Should go out to Apple on Monday afternoon. Then probably a week and it’ll be live in the App Store. I’d have taken a photo, but I’m currently cameraless. – – – – The dummy website for the game: http://www.smiles-game.com Some time after it goes out, I’ll make a proper site....

Still going… Might actually be at a week +/- a couple days now. That stuff above was important, and means the rest should be easy. Of course, *should* is a funny word. … and by +/-, I really mean +. ...

Still doin’ the perpetual “one more week”, but I’m close. Very close. If things go according to plan, we’ll be beta next Monday (September 1st). I want to sit on it a couple days and test the crap out of it, just to be sure it’s all good. Then off to Apple by Wednesday-Friday. I wanted the promo+box art done a couple weeks ago, but I amusingly keep pushing it back....

Yikes, it’s a weekend again already! Sunday too! Ack! Rule of thumb. When Mike says game will be out in a week or two, assume month. Then assume longer. Ahem. There’s always the chance that this mysterious iPhone game may destroy my ‘cred’ as a physics guy. Though, I’ve been doing some fun stuff in it to rectify that. I’ve found several uses for effects based on verlet and spring physics, even though the game lives in a world of tiles....

Slightly off topic today. Well, if you’re expecting mystery iPhone game news that is. The weekend ended up being a little more slack-tastic that I’d hoped. Ludum Dare 12 after all, which always keeps me busy. With only a couple hours left, I decided I’d throw something together quickly. Well, those couple hours went very well. With so little time, I obviously couldn’t make anything extravagant. What I ended up with was a game best described as “a game designed to piss you off“....