Smiles

London, Ontario, Canada – November 12th, 2008 Sykhronics Entertainment would like to introduce, Smiles. A brand new game now available for iPhone and iPod touch. Smiles is a collection of 2 great games. Smiles Drop is an unconventional action puzzle game. Unlike many others, you don’t have to wait to make your next move. In addition, you’re not pressured in to making that move either. Play at your own pace. Make matches, break ice and rocks, twisting and turning your way to higher scores....

Final version of the Smiles video. It’s the short one again, but with me talking. Here’s your chance to hear and mock Mike. I’ve been getting a number of positive and amusing comments from the video. Such fun things as that I sound like an Infomercial host, and music sounds like “corporate training music”. Finishing this video has been an incredible hassle. Hard drives dying, frequent reboots, loss of WAV file playback in Windows, and YouTube difficulties....

So I’m still working diligently to assemble my complete press package. Putting the final touches on that video, writing the press release, e-mails, all that fun stuff. But as part of my procrastination routine, I’m hitting my usual list of sites. IndieGames, “The Sauce”, etc. And as I get to the iPhone gaming sites, I’m hit with this euphoric stupor. “Dude! That’s me!” “Duuuude! All them stars be yellow!” http://fingergaming.com/2008/11/smiles/...

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 +. ...