iOS Distribution Certificate Expires Tomorrow

     This is the last chance to get my iOS games for a while. My distribution certificate expires tomorrow and my apps will be removed from the app store. Until I get enough money for a new Mac they won't be coming back. Hopefully I can get one in 2016 and bring my newer apps to iTunes when I renew my developer license.

     Wow... My first game developer's license was for iTunes. I remember how awesome it felt to call my self a real game developer for the first time. I also remember how exciting it was working on my first app (a Friendship is Magic "Best Pony" Slideshow with random vectors) and Fish Feaster, a game I was actually going to finish. The moment I got a game running on my iPod where bunch of colorful rectangles with scribbled eyes to swim around a blue background and ate each other, I knew I was finally going to finish a game. Here I am about a year later taking baby steps to finishing games I always wanted to play.

Yotes Games is Leaving iOS (Temporarily) in One Month

     I got an email telling me the end of my iOS developer status is coming. My license expires a month from now I and won't be renewing it until I can afford a new Mac to develop iOS games on. Those things cost about $2000 and I don't plan to get one until Unicorn Quest is out and selling well. It has to be new because the reason my old one doesn't work is its inability to update the OSX past OSX 10. It's literally one year too old to update and the appstore will not allow apps to go to the store unless uploaded by a more recent computer. It's why DragCore never made it.

     The whole closed hardware/software and shopping cycle of Apple products are why I love Android and PC so much more. I'll be focusing on making the best Android games possible before porting to anything else in the near future.

This will be your last chance to get TriGrid and Fish Feaster on iOS for one or two years so download them now if you're an iPhone user and want to see what they're about.

Review Request Email Templates

     Getting reviews is endlessly important, but you need to contact people to get them to see your stuff. Even when you do there's only a 1% chance they'll even notice you unless you have something mind-blowing to show off. When requesting reviews it's important to provide all the info reviewers would need, along with some spare download codes if necessary. Instead of giving friends & family freebies, this is where your free copies should be given out.

     I follow a basic structure just barely under the character limit. I try to keep it polite, humble, and easy to read. I'm  no gaming giant so I assume my emails merit an eye-roll when someone first sees my request. I really am just some kid submitting one out of a thousand apps that day. Someone has to sift through all those emails and I want mine to leave a good impression. Take a look at what I send out to people. It might give you a starting point or something to compare with.

Shooting Particles

     For shooter mode in TriGrid, bullet sprites just didn't cut it. They were boring crystal sprites that shattered on impact. I needed something with more flare. More Geometry Wars like. I started messing with Unity's particle systems and discovered how to make a little fire ball. One color change and explosion effect later I had the shooting effect I wanted. Here is how I got those "pew pew" thingies to work.

Amazon App Submissions

     Amazon is really easy to upload to. I thought there was a development fee, but it's actually free. There's a simple and colorful interface that let's you put android, computer, or web apps on the Amazon market. Yesterday, I submitted my Android apps to the Amazon market so I could be more available during the holiday season. My android games were made with Unity and making them Amazon friendly was just a matter of changing the app store links in the main menus. I just hope my apps get up on time and don't get tossed back with errors. I don't have any Amazon devices to test on or money to get any so it's just wishful thinking for now.

TriGrid's Lost Features

     A few features got cut from TriGrid during development. There were going to be 100 challenges instead of 60, but I made the level select sprites 3x4 instead of 5x4 and didn't want to change them all. The purple triangles would originally cling to walls but that behavior led to constant errors so I reverted them to behaving like yellows that turn more frequently and never changed them back.

     Every time the player moved, the blue arrows where going to move one space in the opposite direction. That led to problems in the level design though. Sometimes it was just impossible to catch one from behind and it basically destroyed all hope of beating a level within a time limit.

     When I came up with shooter mode I debated making that the primary game and having Challenge mode be a bonus, but I decided that Shooter was simpler and felt like a worthy award for mastering all the challenges (it also made a compelling in-app purchase). I also had multiple pages of text in the tutorial menu but shortened them to one sentence when I noticed most test players skipping the instructions completely.

     Things don't always go as planned and problems arise during development sometimes. It's up to you as a developer to adapt and evolve the game to overcome these obstacles. I'm happy with the way TriGrid turned out.

TriGrid Collision

     Getting triangles to crash into each other was a bit trickier than I thought. I tried polygon collision boxes, turn-based movement, raycasts, and vision cones. In the end, simple boxes worked best but there was still the problem of objects colliding while facing certain directions. Here's how I used Unity's 2D Toolkit plugin to make sprites collide in my first Unity game: TriGrid.

TriGrid's Original Concept

     Back in May I was doodling in MS Paint and trying to think up a game that would be easier to make than Fish Feaster which proved to be too much for me. I needed an idea for a game that took place in single location with some sort of randomized layout. After considering multiple themes like spiders and zombies in the spirit of Halloween (the expected release date) I decided on making a game where you played as a ghost and went around spooking trespassers in your garden by avoiding their flashlight beams and touching them. After making placeholders, I forgot the idea and just went with neon shapes...

Game Trailers: Candy Shop Catch & TriGrid

     I finally got around to finishing those trailers for my Android games. I can't do one for Fish Feaster just yet, but I'm looking into it. See TriGrid and Candy Shop Catch in action beyond the break.

Game Design Document in Progress

     I'm wrapping up the game design document for my next game today. I'll announce the game here tomorrow and I'll post the design doc soon after. School seems to be dedicated to cutting of my development time because homework is stacking up as we approach Thanksgiving break. I've gotta keep chanting my short term goals to get through this.

• Finish tedious classes ASAP
• Make a game that looks great and plays great
• Earn a decent amount of money

     I've also seen an interesting trend with TriGrid on iOS, seeing that it's my first featured game. Seeing it bloom with so much potential really makes me wish I had the ads working properly. However, it also gives me hope for my next game's success.

     So today is about getting iOS reviews and getting the word out. In addition to that I'm working on trailers for my existing games today and hope to have those on YouTube soon.

TriGrid Available on iOS!

     Well this came as a surprise. After a bundle of patches and rejections, TriGrid was finally accepted and put on the app store. I had to strip out ads and in-app purchases to make it work, but it's out now for all to see. It's good to have an extra something alongside Fish Feaster in the market for people to play. Check it out here to see for yourself!

Stuck on Apple Error Status

     In case you're wondering why TriGrid is not on iOS yet, it's because I found a pair of annoying glitches with the AdMob banner and my In-App Purchase Unity plugin. The banner never disappears and the purchase recovery button crashes the game. Instead of fumbling with these problems until I stumble across a solution (the usual way I solve programming problems that stump me), I'll just finish up Candy Catch first and fix TriGrid before beginning my next game.

      Candy Shop Catch needs to be out by November so I can start making money, validating to my parents that this mobile games thing is profitable. As of today, the game is completed and I'm getting it ready for the Google Play store. Once I can get a comfortable income, I can try to produce games with greater scale and polish. I really want that by January. I need to start making bigger and better games to prepare for the giant RPG I'll be starting next year.

Never Really Done

  Even after it's release, there were a few bugs in TriGrid that needed to be shooed out. Thanks to feedback from friends, I ironed out just about everything possible. Every patch makes me prouder of the app and gives me a new thing to look out for in future projects. The frequent patches also gave me a chance to appreciate Google's efficiency. I can submit a patch and it's ready to go in about an hour or two. I'm still waiting for Apple to review the iOS version while I've updated the Android one about 8 times now. While that's going on, I'm drafting a Design Document for the next game in the Yotes Games pipeline and once it's out, I'll start submitting it to review sites to get the word out. This is the part where I wait and see what happens to my baby next...

TriGrid Now Available on Android

 It's finally done! TriGrid is now available on Android! The iOS version is coming soon too, once it's been reviewed. Just search for it in Google Play to see what I've spent all summer tinkering with. TriGrid is definitely my best game yet and I hope you have as much fun with it as I did. Actually, I hope everyone enjoys it more than that! Find it here! Play on! And tell me what you think! Feedback, positive or negative, will only make my future games better.

Android Only: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yotesgames.trigrid

Why Does This Happen?

   Just when I thought I was done... Errors. Errors everywhere. I fought off the horde as best I could. I narrowed them down to their leader, but there was no way to kill it. Yesterday, 3:00 am and drowsy, I gave up tangling with Unity's error messages when trying to save my project form the horrible mistake I made of attempting to delete the Facebook SDK. I had IAP up and ready for testing, I installed AdMob banners correctly too. I even got Facebook and Twiiter integration working smoothly with a simple line of OpenUrl() code without any use of plugins. But dummy me decided to do a bit of housekeeping and get rid of a useless Facebook plugin folder. That was a move in direct violation of my NEVER delete ANY scripts or assets rule (which is where most of my headaches come from). Now I have to figure out how to salvage TriGrid and get it out ASAP.

   Moral of the Story: Don't stay up coding if you're falling asleep.
   You'll make some colossal mistakes. 

Images, Icons, and Banners of All Sizes

   When your game is ready to release you'll need a metric Butt Ton of images, icons, and banners that go everywhere so people on devices of all shapes and sizes can have a chance to see a pretty little image and give your game a try. Here's a look at the ones I made and a few tips on making your own quickly and easily.

Reason for TriGrid Delays

   TriGrid should be out by now, but it isn't. I've been juggling school, a new girlfriend, and trying to get leaderboards & In-App Purchases to work. It turns out there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get them all working. There is also a lot of searching and shopping for the best Unity plugins to get the job done. As of now, I've almost gotten the IAP integrated and I dropped the leaderboard idea and will allow users to post hi-scores on Facebook and Twitter instead. I made this decision based on the idea that people will probably only care what their friends think of their score and social media is a better place to spread brand awareness than a leaderboard service. I think that after two more days of wrestling this, TriGrid will be ready for submission. I still want this submitted before Saturday.

Focus for Fish Feaster & TriGrid

   A few days ago I posted about writing a game focus. I can give a couple examples by posting the focuses of my first two mobile games: Fish Feaster and TriGrid.

Using Unity to Make 2D Games - The Interface

   An introduction to Unity and the 2D Toolkit interfaces. This is a great way for beginners to see what Unity is like and get an idea of what can be done with it. Sometimes getting a look at the tools you'd like to use helps you ease into them. Since I just made my first Unity game TriGrid recently, I want to share what things came in handy and what all those crazy menus do.

Making TriGrid - Part 2

   TriGrid is just weeks away from release and it's gameplay has been polished all summer. After getting relatives to playtest the game I had to make the game easier t play and understand. I also had to make players care and want to keep playing. I also needed a way to boost it's popularity so people can find it on the app store. How do I make money from a free app? That PlayStation 4 isn't going to buy itself. Read on to see how the project turned out.