Busting Mines

Behold: Bust A Mine. My first iOS development project.

Not a bad run!

Inspiration

When I set out to (once again) try my hand at iOS development, I didn't know what the future would hold. It was around the time that a former game that I worked on, Clone Wars Adventures, had announced that it would be ending on 31 March 2014. One of my favorite mini-games in CWA was called Mine Buster, a simple game that involved creating a chain reaction for points. It was also a mini-game that would soon cease to exist. And a good mini-game that could use a Spiritual Successor.

Beginnings

I started working on my own rendition in early March while professionally employed as the Director of Technology at Molten Games. Within two weeks of late-night spare time I had a working prototype that functioned similarly to its inspiration. I had heard good things about using Cocos2D 3.0 and it seemed to fit the bill. My prototype was still very rough and could only run on the iOS Simulator that comes with Xcode 5. However, I was happy enough with the progress that I decided to spring for the iOS Developer Program so that I could actually run and debug on my iPhone and iPad. There was a little learning curve to overcome as running code on the device requires creating App Identifiers, Certificates for code signing and Provisioning Profiles for signed code to be allowed to run on the device. Being able to run and debug on my devices was instantly gratifying, but also revealed another issue: the need to deal with different screen sizes (iPad vs. iPhone) and aspect ratios.

Artist Wanted

It was time to start finalizing the art--getting real assets at the necessary sizes and building out the art style. For this, I'd actually need an artist. Fortunately, Molten's UI artist was on-board with the project after seeing the prototype running on my phone. He had free reign with the art style and created a look inspired by the likes of Geometry Wars yet unique in its own right. We worked together to integrate the art into the game and iterate on the style. Unfortunately, Molten Games collapsed around this time, towards the end of March. Priorities shifted to finding a new day job since this project was a journey of Experience and less of Business.

To Test or not to Test

Working with an artist brought to light another need that I'd have to figure out: distributing test builds of my app to other people. For this I began using Test Flight. This provided a great way to bring testers on board and get feedback. The only issue was minor: when a new device was registered, I would have to add the device's unique identifier to the provisioning profile and upload another build of the app. I started acquiring testers with a broad spectrum of devices. I also acquired a few devices of my own: non-Retina iPad and older iPhone. I was also blessed with winning an iPad Mini in a contest! I made sure to also test on the newer 64-bit devices. Through this I actually discovered some 64-bit compatibility issues with Cocos2D 3.0 (in beta at the time) and worked with the developers to solve them.

Sprechen Sie Deutsche?

I can understand exactly one of these.

Having visited Moscow and Shanghai for assisting Planetside 2 localization (and working on games for the past decade or so), I'm constantly reminded of the worldwide gaming community. The English-speaking community might be easier for me to market, but it's a small part of the world. Therefore, I wanted to make sure that my app could be distributed and popular in other locales. I had a very small number of strings (less than 100), so professional localization would be fairly easy. I originally started working with Rev.com but found them difficult and obtuse. I ended up going with e2f and found them slightly more expensive, but very easy to work with. They appreciated all of my contextual notes and turned around six languages (French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian and Simplified Chinese) in less than 24 hours. In hindsight, I should have included a few more items in the translations, such as future (generic) update notes and anything that I would potentially need in the next few months.

Finishing Touches

This game, since it was an exploration of experience, was going to be free and advertisement-supported. However, given the ease of doing in-app purchases, I would offer an in-app purchase to remove the ads. I also wanted GameKit integration to essentially have free Leaderboards. Fortunately many kind developers have written simple APIs around these pieces of functionality and have shared them for free. Integrating the likes of ABGameKitHelper and MKStoreKit was very easily done. My testers also suggesting graphical features such as using UIMotionEffect to simulate a parallax display on iOS 7+.

A Different Beat

Having some manner of background music was important to me. However, I'm not a composer. I don't really know many composers. So I started looking for free music. Interestingly, though, "free" isn't always free. Some companies let you use their music for free for certain purposes, and an app is not generally one of those free uses. I originally wanted to use some songs from Freeplay Music, but after seeing their licensing requirements and reading about their litigation processes, I decided against it. I ended up using music by Chris Zabriskie who offers his music for free with a Creative Commons Attribution license. I feel that his music meshes well with the peaceful, soothing nature of Bust A Mine's laid-back gameplay.

Pre-Launch Checklist

I've heard of using a test market to pre-launch, so I figured I'd give that a try. I have some friends with family in the Philippines and it seems to be a fairly popular test market. Launching in the Philippines also revealed an interesting fact: iAd isn't available in all parts of the world. Therefore, my advertisement strategy would have to change for a worldwide launch.

3... 2... 1... Liftoff!

Bust A Mine officially launched in a limited capacity on 9 May 2014, about 9 weeks after development started. Considering that it was my first foray into iOS development and Objective-C programming in general, I'm calling that a success. Not a business success, but an experiential success. For the full worldwide launch, I'm waiting for Apple to approve the next version that will integrate Google AdMob as a backup to iAd.

To Infinity and Beyond

The background reverberates with explosive force

I really enjoy iOS development. The Objective-C language allows for easy checking to see if features are available on the device it's running on. Furthermore, the Xcode integration with Apple back-end services is very well done and easy to use. Want GameKit integration? Flip a switch and you've got it.

Several people have asked about an Android port as well. Interestingly, no one has asked about a Windows phone version. In any case, I'm considering a port to Cocos2D-X, a C++ library that supports all major mobile platforms.

I've got plenty of ideas for Bust A Mine for the future. And a few of my game designer friends have offered some feedback and ideas of their own. Plus, I have more ideas for future games as well. Mobile development has become a fun little hobby for me.

Download Bust A Mine and give it a try. Leave a review or rating if you feel so inclined. And let me know what you think in the comments!

Tsk, tsk, Microsoft

This is awesome.

Thousands of Zune portable media players made by Microsoft Corp. suddenly froze up early Wednesday, Dec. 31, labeling Internet wits to label the phenomenon "Z2K."

It goes without saying that I'm quite happy with my iPod Touch and iPhone, neither of which locked up at 12:01am yesterday.

New MP3 player (part deux)!

Last August I found myself in the possession of a Zune after my iPod caused me great suffering. This post should alternatively be called "Don't buy a Zune." Any glee that I had about replacing my old iPod quickly melted away the first time I tried to buy songs online for the Zune. Is it just me or does Microsoft actually want to prevent you from buying songs online? I never did figure out how to do it through their unintelligible software. But of course, I did give up pretty easily. This article has a pretty decent shortlist of things wrong with the Zune and Microsoft's campaign (i.e. marketing hari kari).

My loving wife sensed my frustration (either that or got sick of looking at the ugly thing) and gave me a 16GB iPod Touch for our anniversary. Like with the original iPod and the iPhone, Apple continues to innovate and blow the socks off of the competition. Whatever issues were present in my older iPod that caused songs to cut off seems to have been fixed with the brand new software in the Touch. The screen is brilliant and the touch sensitive UI is so amazingly intuitive. The video playback quality is quite nice as well. There's no FM tuner, but that was never a feature that I found myself using on the Zune.

The downsides that I have encountered have been few, but important. First, the lack of memory due to using flash rather than a miniature hard disk. Even my old iPod had 30GB, whereas now I'm trying to make do with 16GB. Furthermore, the iPod no longer functions as a USB storage device. Third party utilities can be installed on a jailbroken iPod Touch, but it's much more difficult for the average user. Also, there's no firewire support for the Touch. That, combined with inefficiencies in iTunes (change the name of a video and you have to download the whole video) make for some long sync times. Oh, and in full Apple fashion, it's not cheap.

My opinion is that if you have the cash, go for it. Stay away from the Zune and grab an iPod Touch.

New MP3 Players!

A while back I expressed my personal experience and hatred of the iPod. I mentioned that I wouldn't be getting another iPod and today I confirmed that.

My wife's ipod mini is to the point where it won't even hold enough of a charge to turn on when plugged in. My 3rd gen ipod has been dropped too many times and the last time (not by me) broke the connector to the point where it doesn't detect that it's connected to a charger or the computer.

A few days back my sister-in-law purchased a Creative Zen V Plus 4GB and then decided that she didn't want it. My wife loved the thing and took it as her own. Goodbye, ipod mini. Hello, tiny Zen. It holds the same 4GB that her ipod mini did, but adds a color screen, can show pictures and play video (albeit tiny), has a built-in FM tuner, and a mic for recording anything. Quite a steal for only about $110.

I'm a little more geeky and require something higher than 4GB. My 3rd generation ipod held 10GB. I was looking heavily at the 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M, but after reading some reviews and great user feedback of the 30GB Microsoft Zune, I decided to pick one up. Both the 30GB Zune and Vision:M run the same price as the 30GB video ipod: $250.

The Zune has the immensely desired FM tuner as well as a much bigger [wide]screen. It also has a wireless device so that you can share music with other Zunes. On the downside, it's a little bulkier than even my old 3rd generation ipod, and doesn't look as sexy. The buttons are simple and clicky (which I prefer over the touch activated ipod), but I'll probably miss the ipod's thumbwheel. I also lament the lack of FireWire support for the Zune.

I'm currently trying to get all my music organized and put on the Zune. The software that comes with it is a breeze to install, but finds every picture, music file and video on your computer and adds them to the library. I have a ton of games installed and don't necessarily want all of the games' MP3s on my Zune. I still have to burn and rip all of my iTunes purchases (only about 85) so that I can put them on the Zune.

I'll probably be posting more about this subject in the future...

Don't buy an iPod

For a while now I've been having a consistent problem with my 3rd generation iPod: the last 15-20% of some songs get cut off. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing that Apple is doing to address the problem (or even acknowledge what it is). Several people have reported this problem in various forms. Now, I only use iTunes to import my songs, and as others mention, they play fine in iTunes. And the kicker: this is even happening with songs that I purchased from the iTunes store!

It's definitely a problem with the iPod: the progress bar gets within 15-20% of the end of the song, and all of a sudden, the iPod switches to the next song. If I manually set the progress bar into the part that gets cut off, it immediately skips to the next song without playing anything. It's not every song, but it's always the same songs. It seems like every so often a new song starts exhibiting this problem.

If Apple would address the problem, that would be great. Any hope of getting that to happen? Probably not.

My wife's 1st generation iPod mini also has a problem: In less than 3 years (it's newer than my 3rd generation iPod) the battery won't hold a charge for even 30 minutes. Is it in warranty? Not anymore! Is the battery user-serviceable? Never! Last time I checked, Apple wants $100 to swap out the battery.

By now you should know what I'm going to say: my next MP3 player selection will NOT be of the Apple variety.

Update, August 2007: I decided to go with a Zune; read the whole post