So I totally forgot to mention that Squishy Bugs is now available on the Android market. It’s free. It’s ad supported but not in an intrusive way. You actually only see the advertisement when you are *not* playing the game. Like when you are viewing the main menu or settings page. That kind of stuff.
It’s an early release. I’m calling it version 0.0.1. It’s going to change a lot by the time it’s done. There are at least 3 powerups I can think of that need to be added to the game. The sound effects will be tweaked. I want to have global high scores, and I’ve already written most of the server code for that.
So if you have an Android device, please check it out. It installs to the SD card by default and it only takes up 1.9MB of data.
Also, if you have any issues to report or want to discuss the game or ask questions then you can do so at the forums. Or reach me over Twitter.
Squishy Bugs is scheduled for release soon, barring any surprises/complications. I haven’t gone through the process of submitting to the Android market, yet, so I’m expecting something as simple as uploading and pressing a button marked “Publish”. I hope there’s no signing any packages or hoops to jump through, and if there are that the instructions are simple. I’ve already created and paid for my Android market account. I’m already set up to receive funds through the market. All systems should be “Go”.
I’m just polishing up the last little bits I can in the time permitted. Just last night I started working on the tutorial. I would like to believe the game is simple enough to figure out without instructions, but it can’t hurt to be prepared.
I hope to have the tutorial finished tonight or tomorrow. Then I can go back to fixing the last couple (low priority) known issues. And then adding sound effects. And hiding the advertisement when not on the menu. And then tweaking the scoring system. And then… there’s a whole list of things left to do. Oh yeah, I kind of still need to add squishy bugs to the game. You know, the things that give the game its name? Yeah, they’re still not in here. And finish building the web site…
I’m still on schedule for a December 24 release. Progress will be posted here, as usual.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately on how to price a game on the Android market. I’ve given myself a deadline for codename Squishy Bugs (by the way, that’s the new name for codename Frog Fly). I plan on having something, anything, but hopefully something playable and fun on the market by December 24. There’s no strategic plan for that date, I just told myself I’d have the game playable and on the market by Christmas. December 24 just happened to be the furthest date away that still fits the deadline.
Now that a date is set, what do I do about the price?
I’ve been considering the following plan. First, the game gets posted to the Android market December 24 essentially as a fully featured demo. All power-ups and game-play elements are in place but users are restricted to a limited level set. And the game would be ad-supported.
Then I continue to polish the game. The December 24 demo would be considered the “first 90%” of the game. When the game is at a semi-polished level, somewhere in the last 10% of the development cycle (for those not in the know, the last 10% of development is the longest part of development) then I put a new build of the game up on the market with the lowest possible price point. $0.99. And I remove advertisements from the new build.
Early adopters get in at the low low price of $0.99 and get to play and suggest features as the game reaches completion. This could be a month, it could be half a year, but they get in at $0.99. And when that last 10% is done then the price raises to $1.99 (but not without a nice sale price for the first week or two to transition new purchasers into the product).
At least, that’s the thought right now. I’ll be continuing development on the game. I’m trying to post new screenshots every Saturday but there’s really not much new to show. It’s the same sort of screenshot every time. And I suppose I should get WaggSoft and the forums operational some time soon, too. I’ll need those forums to get feedback on demo.
This is an initial screenshot of my current project. It’s a pretty rough “outline” of what the game will become.
I’m writing the game in libGDX so I can test the game natively on my workstation and compile it for Android at the same time.
Heyall. So it has been almost three months since I last posted here? Ouch… Here’s what’s new.
Though I started the game just about a year ago, “Space Fight” development is on a bit of a break. It’s an ambitious project and for a guy like me who has never made a big ambitious project, it’s a lot of work. And since a lot of work takes a lot of time, my wife suggested maybe I should get something smaller out quicker (insert that’s what she said joke here). So in the meantime I’m learning how to develop for the Android platform with the book Beginning Android Games. My wife and I brainstormed what we think may be a fun little game for touch screens so I’ll be making a small game for Android before moving on to the bigger more ambitious projects.
Kev Glass has started to flip my world upside down now with his HTML5 version of Legends of Yore! He has written the game in Java and compiled it into Javascript using GWT and the canvas widget. How cool is that? It’s significant for me as I was going to look into HTML5 game development but it appears that now you can just code your game using Java2D and have it compiled into Javascript and runnable on all manner of platforms (iPhone, Android, WebOS, PC, etc) right away.
I suppose the best course of action may be to finish Space Fight in it’s current framework and worry about porting it over to Java2D later. But first I learn Android development!
