News

traders vs. Trinars update

2012-04-18T12:47:02Z

This week we are finally having our first full fledged development meeting. With new team members and the realities of everything going on, it's exciting to finally get here. Our goal is to start dividing up the work load and understand how we can work to one code base for both android and apple devices. We have chosen Cocos2d as the development platform, since it is supposed to be supported on both, but we shall see what that really means. Having worked cross platform many years ago, you always find that things don't work out as expected. Hopefully it has gotten a bit easier and more reliable.

The other thought that is going thru my mind is, do we only support handsets for android or is now the time to support tablets too. And if so, then what form factor do we support on android? So many things to think about!

Wasted Time 2.0.3 Released

2012-04-13T18:24:20Z

Today we have released Wasted Time 2.0.3. Available on the app store to address the retina display on all iOS devices.

Wasted Time Update 2.0.3 submitted today

2012-04-07T20:48:52Z

Well after fighting with a problem in my provisioning profile, i.e. it would let me provision to my development iPhone...but everything compiles and tests out okay... I have submitted version 2.0.3 to the App Store today. There are no bug fixes in this version, but I have updated the graphics to take advantage of the new retina display on the iPhone and the iPad. I've also added a new splash screen (first time I've tried this, so let's see how it goes!).

Thank you for all the feedback that people provide!

New Team Members

2012-03-29T14:49:33Z

The development of a game is a lot more complex than a simple utility. Obviously that makes sense, since the basics of a utility is best defined to a single function; while a game is driven on a complex relationship between many different parts, including the player. This realization has come to us over time. This means that we've been working to expand our team to include more people in order to address this complexity. The good news is there are some great people out there who are willing to work on games (hey it beats working on boring code). We are hoping to have a few meetings in the next week or so, and really start moving this forward. Watch this space!

forward progress

2012-03-25T13:20:21Z

Since this is the first game we've started to develop, progress is slow, but are making progress. This morning our lead developer finished his training, by reading the book ... Hope to start soon on the scaffolding....

game design and achievements

2012-03-14T12:12:53Z

As we continue to work on the game design, I've started thinking about the popularity of achievements in gaming. Some games have so many achievements that I swear you get one for look at the screen. Then again, perhaps you should get one for crashing the game. Or how about if we use location services and you get an achievement for playing the game while going to the bathroom? There could be so many to choose from.

Actually, what I am discovering is that game development is much harder than traditional application development. The designs are much more complex, the UI design is obviously much more important, and now I am thinking about should we add achievements and leader boards? This last question is even more complex by the desire to launch on its iOS and Android at the same time.

icon on home screen

2012-03-12T12:13:12Z

Yesterday I started working on the code for our new game. Well working on the code is a bit strong, I worked on putting the framework together to address all of Apple's new requirements around icon sizes and default screens. So here it is, my phone's home screen with the new app icon.

Today's Game Test

2012-02-26T01:54:43Z

Today was our first test of the game play and concepts of our new game design - "Trinars vs. Traders", and it was a great success. We had two people playing the traders and two people playing the Trinar. We've been working on the balance and concepts of the game to make sure it was well balanced, and our testers put us thru the paces.

Net - Net, there were balance issues. The game started a bit too slow. And, we needed to work on some of the battle scenes. This is great feedback! We also spent time going thru some of the cards we developed to add more of a random element to the game.

Additionally, we were able to have different levels of testers to make sure that the story elements and playablity were appropriate. To that end, we are thinking of reducing some of the upfront story elements, and slowly expose them thru the use of a news ticker. This really makes sense. Thank you to all our testers, even those who couldn't make it to our first test... Your time will come.

Thank you especially to Reece, Samy, and Stuart.

Just a few Pics

2012-02-20T14:59:47Z

AS we get closer to our game test, we wanted to share some of our graphics that we've been working on. Would love your feedback and comments.

Game play test delayed

2012-02-19T14:09:17Z

Was very disappointed yesterday, our plan was to do our first game play test session, but was sick and had to delay a week. Really appreciate all of you have signed up and agreed to help us play test. We are back on schedule for next Saturday February 25th, at 4pm est. we will be on google hangout for the session. Our goal is to validate game balance and humor,

We are looking for a sound designer, so if you are interested please drop us a note at support@theapappp.com.