Monday, November 14, 2011
Bugsy gets its 1st Review
I'm very excited to announce that Bugsy has received its 1st review from the guys at PlayAndroid.Com. We received a very respectable 21 points which compares very favourably with other games in our category. Go check out the review now - the video is awesome!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
HTC Hero running Android 2.3.7 (Briefly)
I've finally rooted my trusty HTC Hero!
I'd like to say it was a straight forward process but frankly it wasn't. The main problem is that most of the guides seem to forget that when you have 2.1 you cannot run install apk files (eg backup, root & flashing apps) onto your sd card! A good work around is to have HTC Sync running with your phone connected and then double-click the apk on your PC and then it is installed on the phone via htc sync.
I Initially flashed to cyanogen 7 and whilst I initially loved the new features it came at a cost. The base android install seemed to take all my memory so I was constantly getting freezes and reboots. I also made the mistake of setting a mp3 ringtone using the music player - every time my phone lost signal it played the track through the speaker at full volume - the only way to stop it was to remove the battery! To add insult to injury there is no way in to change the network notification tones or unset the mp3 ringtone!
I spent several weeks persevering and tweaking settings and flashing the nightlies with no real improvement. I eventually gave in and went down a level to cyanogen 6. What an improvement!! It's so much faster and stable over cyanogen 7 I've got heaps more memory for apps and its been running for 2 weeks with only 1 crash. I'm pretty happy It's like getting a new phone! If you have a HTC Hero GPRS I would advise against upgrading beyond Cyanogen 6
I'm not going to risk setting a mp3 ringtone.
I'd like to say it was a straight forward process but frankly it wasn't. The main problem is that most of the guides seem to forget that when you have 2.1 you cannot run install apk files (eg backup, root & flashing apps) onto your sd card! A good work around is to have HTC Sync running with your phone connected and then double-click the apk on your PC and then it is installed on the phone via htc sync.
I Initially flashed to cyanogen 7 and whilst I initially loved the new features it came at a cost. The base android install seemed to take all my memory so I was constantly getting freezes and reboots. I also made the mistake of setting a mp3 ringtone using the music player - every time my phone lost signal it played the track through the speaker at full volume - the only way to stop it was to remove the battery! To add insult to injury there is no way in to change the network notification tones or unset the mp3 ringtone!
I spent several weeks persevering and tweaking settings and flashing the nightlies with no real improvement. I eventually gave in and went down a level to cyanogen 6. What an improvement!! It's so much faster and stable over cyanogen 7 I've got heaps more memory for apps and its been running for 2 weeks with only 1 crash. I'm pretty happy It's like getting a new phone! If you have a HTC Hero GPRS I would advise against upgrading beyond Cyanogen 6
I'm not going to risk setting a mp3 ringtone.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Interview at playandroid.com
Monday, October 3, 2011
Challenges faced by a Paid App Developer
Bugsy has been available on the Android Market for three weeks now. Its a cheap Paid App at only 99c or 60p in the UK. So far, despite my initial word of mouth marketing, downloads are disappointing. Of course its a brand new app and nobody has heard of it or me yet and I have to keep on spreading the word but so far this hasn't been the barrier. The barrier has been with Google's payment system.
Bugsy is a great app! People who have it love it. Its Simple to play and appeals to everyone, even folks who don't normally play games. I have several friends with Android who played beta versions and gave great positive feedback so you would think that they would be the first to buy the app right? I did too.
Challenge 1 - Promotional Copies
Android market offers no way to offer people a free copy of my paid game. I would like to give free copies to the folks who helped test it, game ideas and, of course, to reviewers sites as part of my marketing.
I've followed widespread advice to implement Google Market Licensing (LVL). With this is place the The only options you have are to make a "special build" without LVL or ask someone to buy and then refund the credit card.
Special Build without Licensing
I have a few issues Using this approach the recipient would:
This is far from ideal if I give someone a free version of my game I would like to have them receive updates! Also distributing a version without licensing is fine amongst my friends but sending them on spec to review sites seems a bit risky to me.
Buy Then Refund
This seemed like the best approach to me however when I tried it I found 2 major flaws
The only option you have for distributing a free version of a paid game that has LVL protection is to make a special build with LVL taken out! The checkout process really needs to add support for promo codes. The lack of such a basic feature really hurts small developers trying to make their mark.
Challenge 2 - Do you trust Google with your Credit Card?
It turns out that most people I have spoken to do not trust the payment mechanism. Android Users do not want to link their credit cards to their phones. Even when I have offered to refund the card! The main reasons I am hearing are:
These are valid concerns and they are all things that could be easily addressed but are sadly lacking in the Android Market.This is clearly hurting my sales and is something that Google needs to address.
Challenge 3 - Purchase for Other People
Android Market also has no concept of buying an app for someone else. A friend wanted to buy the app for their son who has his own android phone. Obviously he didn't want his son to then be able to buy anything he liked from the market!
Bugsy is a great app! People who have it love it. Its Simple to play and appeals to everyone, even folks who don't normally play games. I have several friends with Android who played beta versions and gave great positive feedback so you would think that they would be the first to buy the app right? I did too.
Challenge 1 - Promotional Copies
Android market offers no way to offer people a free copy of my paid game. I would like to give free copies to the folks who helped test it, game ideas and, of course, to reviewers sites as part of my marketing.
I've followed widespread advice to implement Google Market Licensing (LVL). With this is place the The only options you have are to make a "special build" without LVL or ask someone to buy and then refund the credit card.
Special Build without Licensing
I have a few issues Using this approach the recipient would:
- Install via USB
- Trust that I've not added anything malicious
- Repeat for each update
- Have an version of my app that they could be easily redistribute
This is far from ideal if I give someone a free version of my game I would like to have them receive updates! Also distributing a version without licensing is fine amongst my friends but sending them on spec to review sites seems a bit risky to me.
Buy Then Refund
This seemed like the best approach to me however when I tried it I found 2 major flaws
- Once you refund a user LVL no longer reports them as licensed!
- Review sites do not seem to entertain this idea at all.
The only option you have for distributing a free version of a paid game that has LVL protection is to make a special build with LVL taken out! The checkout process really needs to add support for promo codes. The lack of such a basic feature really hurts small developers trying to make their mark.
Challenge 2 - Do you trust Google with your Credit Card?
- "My kids play with my phone and I don't want them buying things"
- "I don't want to 'accidentally' buy *stuff* when drunk!!! "
- "If my phone is stolen my credit card might be cleaned out"
- "Google Checkout is new and I don't trust it yet"
These are valid concerns and they are all things that could be easily addressed but are sadly lacking in the Android Market.This is clearly hurting my sales and is something that Google needs to address.
Challenge 3 - Purchase for Other People
In order to do this He had to associate his own card with his son's google account, buy and download the app. And then spend a considerable amount of time working out how to remove the card details from the account. It's great that he took the time to support me but I couldn't expect that from a regular consumer.
Apple users have the iTunes Cards. A prepayment system so which allows the recipient to buy things without needing a credit card. It's perfect for a gifts and buying apps for someone else. Why don't we an Android Card? Its such an obvious thing to do I'm surprised it hasn't been done already.
Conclusion - Challenge Accepted!
Selling paid games is not easy for a small indie developer. I've followed blogs by other developers who have tested the ad supported model and whilst my downloads are much lower my earnings so far are pretty much the same. I've got to admit that I didn't think the market checkout process would be such a hindrance but hey, that's part of the learning process! This is blog is all about concept to cash and finding the best way to get my app on to users phones is definitely a challenge I accept!
Bugsy is a simple and addictive game available now on the Android Market!
Apple users have the iTunes Cards. A prepayment system so which allows the recipient to buy things without needing a credit card. It's perfect for a gifts and buying apps for someone else. Why don't we an Android Card? Its such an obvious thing to do I'm surprised it hasn't been done already.
Conclusion - Challenge Accepted!
Selling paid games is not easy for a small indie developer. I've followed blogs by other developers who have tested the ad supported model and whilst my downloads are much lower my earnings so far are pretty much the same. I've got to admit that I didn't think the market checkout process would be such a hindrance but hey, that's part of the learning process! This is blog is all about concept to cash and finding the best way to get my app on to users phones is definitely a challenge I accept!
Bugsy is a simple and addictive game available now on the Android Market!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Android Sdk Revision 13: Unknown option: --output
I'm just preparing a new release of Bugsy and I see that there is a new version of the android SDK. I really wish I had resisted the urge to upgrade!
When I try to do my release build with "ant release" I now get a build failure when proguard tries to write Its dump file. "Unknown option: --output". A Quick search on google turns up .... nothing ... Again why did I upgrade???
Here's the output of the build.
After an evening of hacking and hair-pulling I've finally gotten to the bottom of this. SDK Revision 13 Requires Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 7. For me the key news is that "Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 7" is not an older version of "Android SDK Tools, revision 13". Surely it would be easy to name these more clearly?
To get the latest platform tools look in the Android SDK & AVD Manager. In eclipse this on the Window menu. Click Available Packages, Expand Android repository, Check "Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 7" and hit Install.
When I try to do my release build with "ant release" I now get a build failure when proguard tries to write Its dump file. "Unknown option: --output". A Quick search on google turns up .... nothing ... Again why did I upgrade???
Here's the output of the build.
[proguard] Printing classes to [C:\Work\bugsy_workspace\bugsy\bin\proguard\dump.txt]...
-dex:
[echo] Converting compiled files and external libraries into C:\Work\bugsy_workspace\bugsy\bin\classes.dex...
[apply] unknown option: --output
[apply] usage:
[apply] dx --dex [--debug] [--verbose] [--positions=<style>] [--no-locals]
[apply] [--no-optimize] [--statistics] [--[no-]optimize-list=<file>] [--no-strict]
.... snip .....
BUILD FAILED
C:\PROGRA~2\Android\android-sdk\tools\ant\main_rules.xml:487: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\PROGRA~2\Android\android-sdk\tools\ant\main_rules.xml:203: apply returned: 1
Total time: 12 seconds
-dex:
[echo] Converting compiled files and external libraries into C:\Work\bugsy_workspace\bugsy\bin\classes.dex...
[apply] unknown option: --output
[apply] usage:
[apply] dx --dex [--debug] [--verbose] [--positions=<style>] [--no-locals]
[apply] [--no-optimize] [--statistics] [--[no-]optimize-list=<file>] [--no-strict]
.... snip .....
BUILD FAILED
C:\PROGRA~2\Android\android-sdk\tools\ant\main_rules.xml:487: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\PROGRA~2\Android\android-sdk\tools\ant\main_rules.xml:203: apply returned: 1
Total time: 12 seconds
After an evening of hacking and hair-pulling I've finally gotten to the bottom of this. SDK Revision 13 Requires Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 7. For me the key news is that "Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 7" is not an older version of "Android SDK Tools, revision 13". Surely it would be easy to name these more clearly?
To get the latest platform tools look in the Android SDK & AVD Manager. In eclipse this on the Window menu. Click Available Packages, Expand Android repository, Check "Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 7" and hit Install.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Bugsy Released to the Android Market
Its a simple and fun game that anyone can play. Help rescue Bugsy by squashing the evil paint bugs.
Bugsy is available from the android market here :
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.basl
I've also set up a game support site. It's still pretty light but you can find it here:
http://bugsygame.blogspot.com
Sunday, July 31, 2011
How to reference a .jar file in an intelij project.
I've been using IntelliJ to develop my Android game Bugsy. It's been excellent but when I started trying out Flurry I found referencing external .jar files to be a bit of a pain. It's really not obvious how to do this basic task.
I've tried a few different ways which seems to work but once my laptop was rebooted the compiler no longer finds the jar. After a few rounds of trial and error here is a procedure that has stuck!
Rebuild the project and get on with doing something much more fun!!
I've tried a few different ways which seems to work but once my laptop was rebooted the compiler no longer finds the jar. After a few rounds of trial and error here is a procedure that has stuck!
- Create a folder in your project ('jars' for example and drop the .jar file in there).
- Open Project structure dialog (you can tooltip-hunt the button but ctrl+alt+shift+s is easier).
- Click "Modules" on the left.
- Click the "Dependencies" Tabs
- Click the Add... button
- Choose 1. Single-Entry Module Library
- Browse your project for the file .jar file and select it
- Click OK then OK again to close the project structure.
Rebuild the project and get on with doing something much more fun!!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
A Bug Is Born!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
IOS vs Android vs Blackberry
The first big decision to take is which platform to target for my whizzy new game! If this was an entirely commercial decision then the iPhone would be the obvious choice. Here's what I like about the iPhone:
- Quality. Apple really seem to care about what gets released onto their platform. Having to get your code reviewed before you can release it is a bit of a hurdle but its a great way to make sure that battery and memory management aren't bodged. Sure android is a lot more accessible but the market is rife with crapware.
- Low Fragmentation - there's a very limited (but growing) range of devices to design and test for.
- Its got the biggest market.
- Apple users are more prepared to pay for apps than on other platforms.
- Apple is innovating the other platforms are chasing.
Despite this, I'm developing for android. Here's why:
- I already have all the hardware I need. I have an android phone and a windows laptop and I know how to use them. I really don't need another computer and I don't want to get distracted buying more stuff!
- I already know how to program in Java. I also know C / C++ and C# so I'm sure objective-c wouldn't be a problem but I really want to focus on writing this game and not learning a new language.
It's a sad fact that I didn't really give blackberry much consideration at all. There doesn't seem to be the same buzz about blackberry that there is on the other platforms.
So there it is, I'm an android developer now. I'd be a fool to ignore IOS so if my app does well on android I'll be looking to make an IOS version, either myself or perhaps I will find a partner. I might even take a more serious look at blackberry
Monday, July 4, 2011
The Flurry Blog - Mobile Application Analytics | iPhone Analytics | Android Analytics
This is a great market research site for mobile development. Essential reading if you ask me.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Concept
My goal for this process is to get an mobile application into the market place. I am aiming for 10,000 downloads with an average user rating of 3stars or above. I'm a .net consultant by day so whilst I am keen to hit the code I'm more interested in experiencing the publishing marketing and support aspects of taking this kind of product to market. I've also read lots of contradictory articles proclaiming there is no money in app development and other articles swear that there is. I will be looking at the various options to monetise the app and I will find out for myself if there is money to be made. Either way I'm pretty sure the days of the iFart millionaires are long gone.
So to achieve my goals I have 2 main requirements:
If you have read any articles on app usage or are into apps yourself you will know that most of the buzz is around games. They account for more that 50% of app usage. Game play seems to be causal with most gaming sessions lasting only a few minutes and the most popular games have some kind of novelty factor.
So I'm developing a game. I'm not planning on revolutionising the mobile gaming industry here, not with my first release at least, so I'm going to follow the Kiss Principle and keep it simple.
My initial thoughts turned to the infamous bubble wrap app. You get a screen of bubble wrap, you press a bubble and get a satisfying pop sound. Its a nice simple concept, uses graphics, sound and the touch interface. It has simple gameplay logic and high novelty factor but has been done to death and not exactly original, right?
So I'm going to take that simple concept and add a twist. Instead of static bubbles I'm going to move them around a bit. Instead of bubbles I'm going to use bugs. I have ideas for scoring and gameplay and surprises but I'm keeping the nice simple touch interaction and novelty graphics and sounds.
So to achieve my goals I have 2 main requirements:
- To get 10,000 downloads It must be something that users want to have on their phones.
- It needs to be something I can develop fairly quickly as I'm interested in the bigger process.
If you have read any articles on app usage or are into apps yourself you will know that most of the buzz is around games. They account for more that 50% of app usage. Game play seems to be causal with most gaming sessions lasting only a few minutes and the most popular games have some kind of novelty factor.
So I'm developing a game. I'm not planning on revolutionising the mobile gaming industry here, not with my first release at least, so I'm going to follow the Kiss Principle and keep it simple.
My initial thoughts turned to the infamous bubble wrap app. You get a screen of bubble wrap, you press a bubble and get a satisfying pop sound. Its a nice simple concept, uses graphics, sound and the touch interface. It has simple gameplay logic and high novelty factor but has been done to death and not exactly original, right?
So I'm going to take that simple concept and add a twist. Instead of static bubbles I'm going to move them around a bit. Instead of bubbles I'm going to use bugs. I have ideas for scoring and gameplay and surprises but I'm keeping the nice simple touch interaction and novelty graphics and sounds.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Getting Started
The hardest part to blogging is getting started, so here it is my first post!
I've set up this blog to document my foray into the world of mobile app development. I'm starting out with a simple game for Android. How will I apply my development skills? What will the pitfalls be? Will I be able to get it in the Market? Will it Make any money?
I've set up this blog to document my foray into the world of mobile app development. I'm starting out with a simple game for Android. How will I apply my development skills? What will the pitfalls be? Will I be able to get it in the Market? Will it Make any money?
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