suaveapps.tumblr.com

http://suaveapps.tumblr.com

I'm going to test/try tumblr out for my dev blog for a while. It seems a little easier which means I can focus more on writing/learning/coding. Check it out.

TWiP: Qvoid

TWIP (This Week I'm Playing) is a reoccurring weekly post where I highlight a game or app that I have been playing recently. This won't necessarily be about new games, just ones that have my attention this week.

I recently picked up (via promo code from @qvoid (thanks!)) a fun puzzle game called Qvoid. 

The puzzles in this game have been fun and challenging so far. You basically flip a cube around the map, picking up colors on certain sides, then matching that color to eliminate it from the map.

The polish in this game is astounding, from the animated menu to the level selection screen. I love the aesthetics as much as the puzzles. This game also feeds one of my major OCDs in iPhone gaming...PORTRAIT MODE!! I can't explain why, but I die a little inside when I have to turn my phone on it's side to play. It's just a little though.

Check it out today, it's only $1.

Redeemcodes.com Feature!

I'll be honest, I've never heard of this site before, but last week I got an email from them, saying they could feature my app if I gave them some redeem codes. I initially dismissed it, but then got really excited and thought, "what the hell, it's worth a shot right?" Any exposure is good exposure, and I still had the 50 codes from my last update, so I signed up, gave them 10 codes, and they told me they would feature my app today (which is also my birthday!). So check them out, it seems to be a raffle-type deal where people can click to try and win a code, and then they are randomly distributed. I'm hoping this can get me a little exposure today.

TWIP: Velocispider

TWIP (This Week I'm Playing) is a reoccurring weekly post where I highlight a game or app that I have been playing recently. This won't necessarily be about new games, just ones that have my attention this week.

Fun retro styled arcade shooter with great music and a unique theme. It's a spider-dinosaur shooting lasers at aliens, what more do you need? I got this a few days ago when it was free, kinda feel like it deserves some money though. There is an IAP to unlock all the levels, I might purchase that just to support the developer.

Well...

You may have noticed the ads are gone from this site. I originally put them up for fun, just because it's so easy on a Blogger site to integrate Ad Sense. I've said before, the only cost for this site is  $10/year for the domain name, so it's not that expensive. But a little money on the side is never a bad thing, right?

I normally run AdBlock on my browser, and selectively whitelist sites that I want to support by showing their ads. I do this because letting all ad traffic onto your computer is, in my opinion, a BAD thing. You never know which ad might secretly install things on your computer, but I do recognize them as a valid form of monetization, as they help keep sites free for the user.

So what happened to the ads here? For about 11 months, I had very little activity with the ads, as I had expected. My account got to about $30, but I wasn't able to touch it until I banked $100. A few weeks ago, I mentioned this fact, and got a huge response from a few people. I saw my Ad Sense account reach over $80, then drop back to about $60 in a day or two. Then, two days ago I got an email that said my account had been suspended for fraudulent activity. I was mad at first, claiming that a sudden spike in traffic could be totally explainable and legitimate, only to later realize that the amount of money I was fighting for was insignificant. Such a small amount of revenue doesn't justify having ads on this site, especially for such a small audience.

So, back to basics, and random thoughts as I continue to trench through the iOS jungle. I've been busy with normal life stuff, but decided to pick up Avoid the Sqoid again, and make some more headway building this game. It's ultimately what I want to do, and getting more products out there will only help me get exposure and practice.

TWIP: The Last Rocket

TWIP (This Week I'm Playing) is a reoccurring weekly post where I highlight a game or app that I have been playing recently. This won't necessarily be about new games, just ones that have my attention this week.

This Week I'm Playing The Last Rocket by Shaun Inman. This game has been out for a while, but I recently picked it up and have been loving it. The 8-bit graphics easily drew me in, but the interesting new control scheme and deep puzzles have kept me busy.

Title Screen

In Game

The game is 'cute', has style, and the music is superb. There is even a 'sound test' section in the settings, something that retro gamers are familiar with and reminiscent for. Now-a-days you have to buy the soundtrack as a separate purchase, but with The Last Rocket you get the whole thing for free, accessible from the menu. It's good music too.

Gears!

The early puzzles look simple, but quickly ramp up in difficulty and requires thought and timing. I'm really impressed at a game that isn't following the norm lately of a free download with in-app-purchases for tokens or coins that lead to upgrades. This is simple a great game with plenty of levels, and a fair price.

Yesterday was fun

I made a couple of posts yesterday, and they must have been posted at the right time, and I hit a sweet spot with the ads, added $31 to my adsense account. I still haven't been able to cash out yet, need to hit $100 before that happens. I think I'll be blogging more in the future.

...and another thought

One idea that keeps floating around in my head lately, usually as I clock in at my day job, is that I should be making things that make me money even while I sleep, rather than getting paid only when I work. This mentality didn't cross my mind when I was younger and just started working. I always believed that you only get money for spending time working. This is great if you honestly love what you do, but this isn't the case for most people. Instead, one should spend their time making something that they can sell or something that perpetuates money for them. With the iOS/AppStore ecosystem and the spirit of indie gaming/development that has spurred in the last few years, I am at the perfect position to jump into an independent work-for-myself business. All I need is the tools and skills to make it happen.

Also, this is my 50th post in this blog. Yipee! So far this year I have banked about $30 from the ads on this site. The only cost for me is the domain name, which is $10 a year, so I've already paid for 3 years of this blog. Pretty cool, eh? Until you realize that you can't cash that out until you reach $100. So, click an ad or two for me so I can cash out!

Another year, another resolution & goal

I started this blog near the end of last year, with a goal to get an app in the AppStore and start my career as an independent developer. I didn't really have a plan on how to get there, just a few tutorials and my Macbook Pro. Reflecting on this past year, I realize that a lot has changed. Most notable, I upgraded to a Macbook Air.

Seriously though, I accomplished what I set out to do, but not the the extent that I had dreamed. That I still dream. I learned the basics of how to hobble an app together from various tutorials. I made about $25 from sales, and have about 1,500 downloads overall. Not a smashing success, but it's a start. And having done all this in my spare time, I am constantly curious about what I can accomplish if I had more time to put towards this part of my life. Ready for it?

So my resolution for 2012 is to continue learning and creating apps, blocking out dedicated time each week to spend on doing this. No more "I'll do that tomorrow" or "I'm going to spend my weekend playing Skyrim". I am hesitant to make a monetary goal for myself because I want to focus on the creation side of this game. I truly believe that the developers who do what they love (and love what they do) will create amazing apps that will sell themselves. I think I can reach this level in a year, building on what I already know.

I also want to blog more. @theonlylars mentioned on twitter that the best way to learn is to teach someone else. I have always felt that I don't really have anything to teach to others, so why bother writing out a tutorial. But I think coming at it from another angle, and writing the steps out to cement them in my head would be hugely beneficial for me, and possibly some beginners out there. This might also drive some more traffic to this site, which would also help out financially if I got a few more ad clicks. I really hate to have ads on my site, but for the time being it's a necessary evil.

So there's some blog for you. This all has been swimming around my head for the last few weeks as I stock shelves and pretend smile at the customers, trying with all my might to tune out the Holiday music. Had to get it out today. Thanks for reading =]

A Nice Bump

About two weeks ago I decided to bump up the price of quadrobounce! to $1 for a week, just to see if anyone would buy it. I'd been having a steady trickle of 4-6 downloads a day (I know, watch out world), and I thought if only one of those people per day bought my game, I could buy a can of coffee or something. No surprise, zero downloads for the whole week. BIG surprise, over two hundred downloads over the weekend after the price drop.

Click to embiggen

The price dropped back to free on November 12. I had 116 downloads on that day, and 109 on the following. They were all free downloads, but still kinda cool, eh?

I don't know if someone was tracking the price, or if some automatic system watches these price changes, but it's nice to see a spike like that. What I learned is that I need to get ads in this game immediately, because there are a large number of new players.

Free Time = Nonexistant

Movement on my experiment to be a free-from-the-working-man's-life software developer has cooled off recently. Skyrim has already taken up a bit of free time, and I haven't even had a proper weekend to play it. That starts tonight after my night shift.
I want to spend more time coding and designing apps. I want to go through tutorials, both for coding and pixelmator. I want to get lost in code and show off my apps to the world. I just can't seem to get motivated when other things get in the way, namely my ~40 hour a week job. I have a new schedule at said job that I think will help me out. I now have two days off in a row (Tuesday / Wednesday), and I'm hoping to block out a large chunk of time, each week, to devote to development. It won't happen this week because of Skyrim, but next week DEFINITELY!
I have been actively taking notes though on things I want to make. I keep my moleskine notebook close so that when an idea pops up, I can quickly jot it down.

Inspiring

All of this Steve Jobs talk lately, watching his speeches for the first time, and hearing so much about his life and the passion he had for creating a mark on this work has been moving and inspiring for people around the world. I can't stop thinking about 'living someone else's dream' and not following your own heart and desires for your own life. I think I feel that spark for making apps again, even stupid little games that are simply about fun.

Man, I've been lazy

Or busy, I can't decide. All I know is I haven't touched iOS stuff in a while (same old story). Working two jobs makes it hard to work on the hobby job.
I have another 'practice app' idea, one that I could easily deploy with some ads and an IAP to remove them. I also want to add adds to quadrobounce because I have about 1500 downloads of the free version so far. But I can't decide if it's worth screwing over the people who actually bought the game in the first place. I'll probably do it, but I'm hesitant.

Still alive, just lacking in free time.

Creative

Check out "The Adventures of Timmy..." (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-adventures-timmy-run-kitty/id463104059?mt=8&ls=1) in the AppStore. Not necessarily for the app itself, but for the artwork/screenshots. I love how they stitched together a larger landscape image from the five available, and added pieces that overlay across the borders.

Gives me an idea...

quadrobounce! is live

iTunes link. Nothing in the game has changed except the name, graphic assets and the icon. If you like the old stuff, don't update, otherwise grab the new version.

New version submitted

Hopefully I changed everything correctly. I changed the name of my first game to 'quadrobounce!', which doesn't quite roll off the tongue as smoothly as quadropong, but I guess I will get used to it. Unfortunately I will (probably) be waiting about a week for the review process to wrap up, but I will announce here when the game is available again.

I was going to make a whole new app id for this name change, but I was curious if I could get away with just changing all the visible references of the old name and just use the same bundle. This way, it would show up as an update for those who already have the game. I changed all the artwork too, as well as the icon, which I'm sad to say I whipped up in about five minutes. I'm not super proud of it, but honestly I'm ready to move on to other things. I feel like this game is hobbled together and barely compiling as is, mostly due to an upgrade in Xcode and cocos2d mid-project. I strongly advise AGAINST doing this. Serious headaches await if you try.

My next project is another quick simple game, but something that I haven't seen a ton of out there. It's original this time, but still pretty basic in gameplay. Something you could pick up and play for five minutes, then come back to in a few days to try and beat your score. You may have seen this enemy squid that I drew for this project on my Facebook page.

SQOID!!

He will play a big part in this game, but for now it's the only thing I've done with this project. Hopefully this game won't take as long as the last one.

Good news everyone!

I heard back from Atari today, and the response was actually pleasant. Apparently the only infringing aspect of my app quadropong was the name itself, and the inclusion of their trademark name, 'PONG'. Atari said they have no claims to the graphics assets or even the gameplay mechanics, so if I renamed my app and resubmitted it, there would be no further problems. Sweet!

This is a slight pain, and will take a few hours of work to change some graphics around, but I am worried that I will have to resubmit to Apple as a completely different app ID. I haven't poked around iTC yet to see if I can keep the same bundle ID but just change the name slightly. We'll see how big of a headache that side of this ordeal will be.

Which brings me to my next point, and an outreach to my dozens of readers; what should the new name be? I had some funny suggestions on Facebook from my friend Greg, including 'quadro-ping' and 'comparewithactiveingredientsinatarispongx4'. I kind of like the idea of a long ridiculous name like 'Happy Fun Four Sided Bouncing Ball Game', but a simple tweak like 'quadropUng' would be funny too. Any suggestions? Leave a comment or a tweet (@jonnysuave) with your ideas.

Well that was fun while it lasted (copyright infringement!)

I was notified by Apple a few minutes ago that they got a letter from Atari, demanding the removal of quadropong from their app store, stating it violated their copyright to the game/name "PONG". So of course I went through iTunes Connect and removed the app for now, but I am a little conflicted. Yes, they created this game like 40 years ago, and yes, they have a legal right to defend that name, but I can't help saying "COME ON!" A quick search for 'pong' in the app store brings up dozens, if not hundreds, of results for pong style games, some of which are designed to actually resemble the original game. Why are those still allowed in the store, for sale? Maybe they all got letters today too, I don't know.

I'm just doing this for a hobby. I'm one guy trying to make games, sorry for not being completely original on my first try. Guess I should take down my ticalc.org version too incase they see that.

So cheer me up and click on an ad or two, I'm might need some extra revenue soon. *pleaseDon'tSueMeAtari*

Now to test from the blogger app :)

No landscape support!? Instant fail. Loading blogger's "draft" page in mobile safari worked fine, though it's a little slow. At least I could type comfortably there. And why is this app SO ORANGE?

Testing posting from iPhone

I brought my laptop with me on vacation (one week in Tahoe for my brother's wedding), but I haven't had any urge to code. I just want to sit, and veg, and relax. I'm a little bummed because I was hoping a week away from my real job would give me some time to program, but all I want to do is rest by the pool. :)