Waiting for Review and an Easter treat.

So last weekend was busy...

It was Easter, so therefore in the UK, we had Friday and Monday as national holidays. So we used this time to launch ROO on the OUYA and to prepare for the iOS release.

ROO is currently (as of the 9th of April) waiting for Review. This apparently could take a little time so we all have to be patient. It will be really nice though when it's released as we've done a load of work to make it look nice on the iPad and iPhone with that lovely Retina screen.

Preparation is key

Of all the stores we've released on, the App store is probably the most difficult to get going with. There are many aspects of the store which take some research in order to get right. Luckily for us, Dean knew what he was doing and was able to steer our wayward ship through any potential rocks to get us out to sea. It's also the 3rd time I've had to fill out a Tax form. As Songbird Creations is a Limited UK company, we don't pay US taxes (instead we pay UK taxes) but Uncle Sam needs to be reassured that we're not trying to get away with his money, so we fill in a W-8BEN form and sign it.

For the OUYA I had to print it, physically sign it, scan it and send it back to them. Amazon had a version online and a handy helper, which while was handy could have used a "We're a UK company, just fill it in for me" button like Google does. 

Confirmation is key

While Preparation was certainly important, I've never had to confirm as many things in my life as I did getting the more legal aspects of the store running. Phew, glad that part is over is all I can say.

Customization is key

Phones typically have a slimline aspect ratio some are 1080p others a variation of, however for a landscape game, you're typically looking at most of the action being towards the bottom of the screen, certainly for ROO this was the case. Pretty clouds, blue skies and mountains cover the top to middle and give the illusion of distance and speed while the foreground and character reside towards the bottom to ground the action. 

For the OUYA, we needed to move things up a little otherwise the player is bombarded with a TV image made entirely of sky, for iPad it was worse as the aspect ratio is different again.

So we had to work out how much space was required to keep ROO in pretty much the optimal place while filling the rest of the screen with interesting but not too distracting detail. We had to make some more graphics to place at the bottom of the level.

Once we we done however, it looked and played really nicely. We also had to add an Achievement Toast system to complement the Game Center achievements which you can see in this video.

Feedback is key

On Friday evening, I went out around Cambridge and introduced a few people to ROO, one of the bits of feedback was to do with the Perfect Landing / Resurrection system. It waited for 2 seconds after ROOs failure and used a perfect landing token to burst back into the game (basically a lives system) however it turned out that people were becoming frustrated with the way it was implemented. Often they would reappear only to hit a cactus, a rock or worse - fall directly into a ravine. So something had to be done because while funny, I don't want unhappy players. So now there's a system where you're prompted to tap the screen to reappear when you want to or wait the full 2 seconds. Play testing this feature made it obvious that it was the correct solution. It makes failure your own fault as opposed to the game punishing you randomly.

A Happy Easter

It was really nice to see ROO on the OUYA store so I documented it with a little video. So you can see me install ROO for the first time on the OUYA as well as see how to get those pesky perfect landings. Stick around to the end for a little discussion in difficulty, game dev principles and a personal message from me.



So there you have it. ROO is on the OUYA market as well as Google Play store and the Amazon App store and we're awaiting  our entry to the App store.

If you'd like to know more, why not follow me on twitter @thecacktus

Have fun.

Roo is on the loose.

Watch out everyone, there's a Roo on the loose.

So late last night, Dean and I released our endless runner game "ROO" to an unsuspecting Google Play store. The world held it's breath as the app went from pending to published and then continued to breath normally, as it had done previously - oblivious to the event which had occurred. Apparently it wasn't the world holding it's breath, it was us.

The next morning with the world much in the same state as it was the night before, I worked on a patch to correct some defects in the achievement award system and to fix a scenario where Roo could fall into a ravine and not die. I uploaded the patch, went to my phone to get the update and...  no update!

Eek! Google informed me on the screen that the update is pending and could take several hours; Which got me wondering.. what happens if the update is urgent? I'm guessing that this delay is partly down to whatever CDN system they have to support the world's app demands and partly as a measure to ensure that developers go through the alpha, beta and prod development cycles - only promoting to the next level when the testing merits it - which is fair enough.

Eventually, the update became available and I felt confident enough to tell people about the game. The last thing I wanted was that people downloaded the game to their device only to find that it didn't work for them. Thankfully it works well on everything it's come across so far.

After making the public announcement, the installs began to trickle in. Hopefully, this will enable us to put more time into the game later on because nothing tells a developer that their time is well spent updating something than happy customers telling them so.

We've had some feedback too about the game and the gameplay, all of it useful.

However I'm going to hold off implementing any feedback for the time being though, it's far too tempting to dive right in and make changes quickly without first considering how it will impact the game. It carries a massive risk of changing something which alters the fun. I could end up making it a less fun experience while trying to improve something.

So far the word is that the game is fun and addictive, I'm going to leave it there.. and in any case, someone's getting close to beating my score - I can't have that now can I? :-D

Good old Roo! Click his little face to get the game :-)

And We're up! Roo is Live... the world goes crazy

Roo is on the play store.

It's been a lot of work, and I wager that there'll be more work ahead once the public get their hands on the game; but it's live on the Google Play store.

From that Friday evening where we didn't even have a concept to finished and published game has been a journey of surprises. Some good, some less so - but all of them part of the learning experience.

You can check out ROO on the Google play store go buy it for £1 and support us :-)

So what's next? 

Well, we're going to see how ROO! is received and if it gets any traction, ROO may get some more love - if it gets a lot of interest, we may even make a sequel. One thing is for sure though, we'll be making more games this year.

We have another game jam coming up this month. Just like last time, we have no idea what the concept will be; Only this time around, we have another programmer and a graphical designer.

The other programmer is also a certified pilot and the artist works in fashion - so it should be an interesting mixture.



My best score is around 1700 meters. If you can get further than that, I'd love to hear about it.
I'll be putting a video up on Youtube soon, stay tuned.