A Screenshot is easy right?

Every game needs screen shots. In fact Apple and Google and all game portals require them. they want them to conform to certain ideals, namely resolution and factual depictions of the gameplay etc.

Every time I need to create these screen sots I have to decide what I am going to show in them, as I BELIEVE that the screenshot is the single most important marketing item, it has to be right. Though what makes a screenshot right? well there are many opinions about this, but for me I try to make them honest and as exciting as I can. Screenshots full of action etc, though sometimes too much action can make a screenshot too complicated for a prospective buyer to know what the game is doing. Still I rather like action over boring....

This brings me to Heroic Patterns and grabbing screenshots for the iTunes store. It wasn't as easy as one expects.. haha.. Here is my story.

I wanted to grab my iPad screenshots, and they are 768 x 1024 resolution, only my desktop on my laptop is only 960 high. Gah.. how can I do a screenshot grab when part of the screen is off the bottom of my desktop. Well I cannot obviously. Traditionally I have simply used a scaled down image and grabbed that, then scaled it back up to size. This produces a blurry image and does not do real graphics justice to any degree at all.

To solve this I figured I would create a windows version of my game and put it onto my network at home so I could use my desktop to do the screen grabs. This idea was upended in a rather startling fashion to me. It seems Marmalade altered their license at some point in the recent past and now I am not allowed to create a windows version. This makes me so sad as it has always been great for me to get people to test the game for me. Of course I can still use the PC simulation, but that is not the same as being able to create a stand alone PC version. This new turn for the Marmalade License has made me very sad, and I cannot say I understand their move at all. Now I would have to spend 1500 bucks to be able to create a PC version, WTF!!!! is all I can say....They say the PC license is for established companies.. I have no understanding of what they are thinking at www.Marmalade.com.

Anyway, back to my screenshots... what am I to do? Well I came up with what I think was a really clever idea :)

My idea was to change my desktop to sideways. This was easy enough to rotate the display 90 degrees in the settings. Then I turned my laptop 90 degrees on my lap. I have to say it is really hard to use a keyboard from the side like that. In fact it feels completely alien to have the keyboard at the angle. Still I run the simulation in this mode and grab my full scale screenshots. To work on them I rotate my desktop back to normal, and eventually after doing this over like 3 times I end up with my screenshots. Phew.. what a pain eh!

But I got them through determination and ingenuity, both words I love, and here is an example...

 

 

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Promo video for Heroic Patterns

I have been really busy tonight, but didn't do a lick of programming haha!

Instead I have delved into the creative side of what my next promotional video will have in it. I tend to like to keep these videos short, and as amusing as I can. I am not great at this, but the creative side of me loves to do it.

So tonight I have written down what I hope will turn out to be my video. I have the layout the locations and what the people will say etc. Like a real script in fact (well in my imagine of one).

My manpower is low and I really want to get it done asap, so I have come up with places to film that I am likely to be in the next several days. such as the park, or the street or my living room, haha! Brilliant isn't it.

The actors will all be my family of course and maybe even a cameo appearance of my cat... though that depends on her cooperation of course.. hmm, so not too likely haha!

I will hopefully start filming it this week, or weekend.. depending on rain.

Tomorrow it will be time to go over my Heroic Patterns Lite version of the game and get it ready for uploading to Apple test... oooh, excited!

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Been a while

Yup, been a while since my last post. I know you are all aware of this.

I have been ill with the Flu which got better, or mostly did. Then I still had a cough. I wasn't too worried about the cough of course until it turned into something the Dr is calling Asthmatic Bronchitis. Which I can tell ya really took it out of me this last week.

I am now on some steroid drugs and an inhaler.. And I think I am getting better.

Still it has mean't I have done nothing on my games development. work was hard enough, and I couldn't manage all my days there either.

I am back.. sort of getting back anyway. This means I am now trying hard to get Heroic Partterns done and dusted and sent to Apple for approval. This is way later than I intended, but better late than never eh!

So I am close, the Heroic Patterns Lite version is very very close, and though my full version is crashing at this time, I should be able to fix it once I focus on that, rather than the lite version.

My aim is to release both the Heroic Patterns games at the same time, the only difference between them being that the Full version does NOT have ads in it. So a much cleaner interface of course.

Ok, I am done for tonight.. I will hopefully be able to get stuff done once more and post again about it all.

Good night,
Da Voodoochief

Whats in a name?

Most importantly I want the name to reflect the gameplay inside it. Especially for Distilled games, as that is part of being distilled after all.

However with my new game Heroic Simon there is definitely a thought or two that this will be bad for me from a copyright standpoint. From what I can discern 'Simon' by itself is a registered trademark for the game/device. So I think I am safe.

A trick I tend to use to find out if I can get away with a game name is to research what games are currently out there with a similar name. There are several examples of simon this or this Simon etc on the App store, so once again this helps me not worry too much.

I also believe in a backup plan though. Mine is going to be that if I get a cease and desist order and it looks legit, then I will argue my case, and if in the end I must change my games name, then I will get the logo altered to include the small word of 'says' inside it, and rename the game to Heroic Simon Says. Pretty simple really. But I always like a plan.

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Heroic Simon will be distilled game #3

Although I have to bring my current games up to the 7.0 apple SDK standard (which means the Marmalade 7.1 SDK), I have decided after much designing which game will complete my series of three distilled games. It was a tough choice and I had 7 designs going into this last phase, only one could be chosen.

Here below is my mockup of the screen. this is what I gave to the artist who will be working on this game.

As you can see, this is my mockup, and the one that the artist will use to create something spectacular, something I am not capable of. We did discuss some ideas of how we could make this look not only interesting, but also make it alive, something I did in both the other distilled games.

But first I need to upgrade Heroic Buttons and Heroic Patterns, and then get Heroic Patterns through Apple testing.

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Heroic Buttons Post Release Thoughts

My first thought is that the game did not do as well as I had hoped. I really think my facebook friends helped me out a bunch and downloaded the game. Which I think is fantastic. However anyone can easily see from the number downloaded that apart from my direct connections I never managed to get many people to download the game.

That is a disappointment. It means several things.
1. Not enough awareness/advertising.
2. No anticipation of release.
3. Marketing copy/Game description is not working.

Now I think that number 1 and 2 are fairly obvious, and simply need more time and effort by me to make them better. But lets look at number 3 in a bit more detail. This is a very important one, as it will impact both of the other two reasons.

My copy was a straight forward push to attract attention in a non sensational way. OK, so I tried for sensational and came up way short of that. I really think the copy should be challenging and confrontational.. Only I was not able to write that and get those ideas to come across. I tried a few times and it was always wishy washy. Now if only me mate Paul had written it, I would bet it would be sensational and confrontational etc.. When I release the next update I will try hard to get a better copy and I will look forward to seeing how that will effect my downloads. I still believe that a lot of people will have seen my game and simply passed it up as it didn't come across as interesting enough to download.

Ok, that's it for tonight. I need to finish up some more work on my Heroic Simon design.
Da Voodoochief

Heroic Buttons Indicators and Sales data

I figured that today was time. Time to show and tell about the indicators for the sales of the game.

1. Silly promotional video on youtube. Viewed 19 times in 9 days.
2. Silly promotional video on vimeo. Viewed 24 times in 10 days.
3. GameCenter Leaerboards. 44 people on the leaderboard after 9 days.

You know I was really disappointed with the 44 people in the leaderboard. I dreamed of a hundred after the first day. I had visions of a thousand after a week. The reality is much more humble. This is after all a game made for Leaderboards, virtually wholly made for them.

As for the video views, I am of a mixed mind. If there had been more video views than downloads, then I would be upset that the video did not attract people to download the game. In this instance though I feel that people who viewed the video probably checked out the game.

I have been watching these indicators all week, and I did not go near the real download data on iTunes.Connect until today.

116 downloads, and 90 of them in the first 2 days. No longevity of advertisement, of notifying the downloading public that my game is now live and out there.

I will follow this post up another time with thoughts on this, only I wanted to keep this more informative than theoretical.

Laters
Da Voodoochief