DragCore is Finally Done...

      I finally managed to finish DragCore, but not without a bunch of scars. In short, a lot of things were cut. Nothing gameplay wise but things that required plugins (purchasing, ads, game center, etc.) don't work at all on iOS and Game Services don't work at all on Android. To top it all off my old Macbook is officially too old. It's unable to run OSX 10.8 or higher and thus can't publish apps to iTunes anymore. That means my games are Android exclusive until I can afford a new Mac. So not for a very long time. I'm also debating if I should let my developer license disappear on that platform. My games are not selling well enough to pick up the $100 a year.

     All these things should spell crushing defeat for me, but they don't. It's a new day for me. It's time I finally be true to myself. It's time I make something for me. I've been trying too hard. Chasing the idea of what a successful app should be instead of making the best game possible. That's what I'm going to do now. No more features and gimmicks that I don't believe in. No more outside advice. My next game is coming from the heart and I'll see how that goes for me.

Status Report #25

     My last weekend with DragCore. Seriously this time. Part of me is willing to forget about getting Game Services to work on the android version just so I can move on. The other part wants to figure this out so my next games can have it. The promotion opportunities are really useful too. I haven't tried using the iOS version yet and I'll be doing that this afternoon. If anything else, I can at least submit that to Apple and start their review process. With Google Play DragCore can be put up any day I want.

     Yesterday was Valentine's day so I took the day off for obvious reasons. Today it's back to work. Check out what got done last week below.

Preparing Achievements and Leaderboards

     My last hurdle with DragCore is getting the Game Center / Google Play Game Services functionality working. Every time I try to activate achievements o leaderboards the game crashes. A very annoying type of roadblock. Today I'll be re-watching setup tutorials and tracing my steps to make sure I'm not overlooking something. 

     Something I can talk about here though is how I prepared achievements and leaderboards for the first time. It was an interesting experience and I hope to better take advantage of these tools in the future. Details are below the page break.

Make 8-Bit Sounds on Bfxr.net!

     This is on the top 20 list of most awesome things I have ever discovered. For those like me who didn't know, there is a website where you can create unique/randomized chiptune sound effects for free and download them to your computer. Perfect for 8-bit / Atari style games like this. This is an excellent tool for making audio in my next project. Just yesterday I decided to make it have stylized 8-Bit graphics and now I know about this thanks to Versimer on deviantART!

     One of my favorite things about it is the preset list on the side that randomly produces a sound that always resembles what the button says. Really, click the Pickup/Coin button 100 times and it will always sound different. You can then tweak whatever sound you have until it sounds pitch-perfect. There's even a chaotic Randomize button that you'll need to experience for yourself. I can't wait to play around with it more when I start my next project. So back to work on my current one for now!