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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Status Report #35


     Tough week. Lots of school, but a new opportunity for attention has risen. That capstone presentation on Thursday really rocked my socks off and got me excited about my later few semesters at school. I actually got some Unicorn Quest work done (despite my doubt) too! There's also some surprising news on how Feed The Plant is doing on Samsung apps.

 Check out this week in review under the page break!









   Completed:
  • Finished Sprites for Level 1 Spells
  • Learned About Upcoming Mobile Game Design and Gaming Capstone Projects
  • Ideas For My Mobile & Capstone Games
  • Revised Class Schedule (Taking More Finance Electives)
  • Finished Importing All Ace Attorney Character Sprites (And Desk Sprites in Front of Them)
  • Submitted Unicorn Quest to Equestria Daily's Gaming Feature
  • Found My Samsung App Statistics
     College Game Project:
  • Combined Game Files
  • Ship Texture
  • Boost Meter Animates
  • Animated Main Menu
  • Project Spreadsheet Rewritten (To Reflect the State of the Current Build)
       I might get some attention for Unicorn Quest earlier than predicted. The Equestria Daily website is planning regular gaming features to post on their site. This is an opportunity to share my pony game related stuff on a site more popular/active than SlideDB, My IGN, etc. where I normally repost things.

       It kind of throws my milestone rush plan aside but I think it's better in the long run. A guaranteed occasional feature spot alongside others is better than the unlikely chance of getting featured alone. This way, if I ever do submit something worthy of its own feature it'll be a really big deal. It feels like setting up a stand at a convention to show what I've got and these extra eyes will help get me to a point where I have something that stands out from the crowd.

   Downloads:






       I'm glad to see Fish Feaster Free reach 600 downloads before being taken down. It's my most popular game by far and has been out the longest (aside from the original Fish Feaster) so I'm happy to reach a cool milestone to beat. I can measure success against myself now by trying to get another game past 600 downloads in the same amount of time Fish Feaster Free got there.

     Something interesting though, is how App Annie doesn't have data for Samsung apps. Since it hasn't been available, silly me never bothered to check how my one and only Samsung app was doing. Well, just an hour ago I did and I found this.


           Now, I may be reading this wrong. But looks like Feed The Plant was downloaded 500 times on the app store I expected to do the worst in. Samsung has officially reached a high priority position for me despite my frustrating experiences with them. In just 20 days Feed The Plant skyrocketed past all my other apps! It took Fish Feaster Free a year to reach this number.

      It could have happened because it's like Flappy Bird, maybe clones are scarce because Samsung is strict about originality. Maybe it was a "New Releases" promotion or the market just being less crowded than other app stores. Maybe people just like it because it does something new with the mechanics they love.

      Whatever it is, I'm happy about it. I had a taste of surprising success for the first time, just minutes after typing how I hope one game eventually passes 600 downloads over the next year! I can't wait to earn this feeling again with my upcoming RPGs. All games where I'll be sure Samsung apps gets a build.

If you want to try Feed The Plant on a Samsung device, you can get it here!
I also updates the Games page with a new button linking to the Samsung app. (Updated YouTube too.)
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       The 8th graders visiting my school the day of the capstone presentation has only confirmed my belief that I get a thrill out of seeing people interested in learning how to make games. It's just so exciting to see new generations getting into this new field with me. It makes me strive to do better for their sake. I want to show people how you can go from a kid with no idea where to start to adult with the world's coolest career.

      Getting all the spell pixel art done was a pretty cool accomplishment. I'll give that it's own post tomorrow. It's pretty hard coming up with stuff this week because school is seriously sucking all my life force out this semester. Past semesters were never this bad and I hope future ones aren't either.

(Reminder:  My iOS Certifications are starting to expire one-by-one so if you only have an Apple device or want to try Fish Feaster you better get it now before it's gone next week.)

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