Bytesize Adventures

With 2009 wrapped up, I thought it would be nice to take a look at the most popular posts of 2009 as well as some site statistics. I launched bytesizeadventures.com at the end of June 2009 to act as a journal for my iPhone development as well as to help promote my games.

In the space of 6 months the site has had 2,239 unique visitors and served 9,985 pageviews. Average time spent on the site is 2:10 minutes. Of those 2,239 unique visits, 48.94% were from returning visitors. I’m pretty pleased with these stats, especially the number of returning visitors, and I hope to continue to build on this in 2010.

Moving on from stats, here are my 10 most popular blog posts of 2009…

1) iPhone game development toolkit – 1,982 pageviews
2) The harsh reality of Indie iPhone game development – 285 pageviews
3) Star Fusion goes Free: An App store experiment – 194 pageviews
4) A review of the iPhone Tech Talk World Tour 2009 – 80 pageviews
5) Project management for iPhone game development – 71 pageviews
6) week 1 sales and promotion – 71 pageviews
7) iPhone Tech Talke World Tour 2009 – 46 pageviews
8) On Sounds Effects and Music – 41 pageviews
9) 5 tools to encourage creativity – 39 pageviews
10) Star Fusion approved by Apple – 35 pageviews

By far the most commented on post was “The harsh reality of Indie iPhone game development”. I think that the post came across as a sob story, which wasn’t the intention. I wanted to point out that money shouldn’t be the main driving factor for developing games, you need to be passionate about it and be prepared to face the fact that money won’t necessarily follow.

By Chris | Posted in: News, Tangents | Tags: 2009, popular posts, site statistics
2 Comments »

Retro Dreamer are running their second annual App baking contest, The Great App Bake Off 2009. There are a huge list of prizes including various iTunes gift certificates and loads of promo codes. The closing date for entries is 4th January so you still have plenty of time to bake something.

In addition to being a sponsor for the competition, providing some promo codes for Star Fusion and Rocket Santa, I thought i’d also bake a Rocket Santa cake. Here are some photos of my entry.

The basic sponge cake base before being decorated

Unfortunately I had no blue food colouring so had to mix this grey instead

The final cake after decorating

By Chris | Posted in: Tangents | Tags: app cake, cake, rocket santa
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After submitting Rocket Santa and subsequently removing it due to a show stopping bug, as detailed in this post, it was looking unlikely that the game would be out in time for Christmas.

Good news today though, Rocket Santa 1.1 has been approved by Apple and is available now. This is the patched version of the game and fixes the present dropping bug that rendered the game unplayable. I’ve also fixed some other minor bugs, improved the performance slightly, and increased the rocket pack boost speed.

I submitted the patch on 6th December and it was approved by Apple last night (10th December). That makes for an incredible 4 day approval time. I sent an email to Apple to see if they could speed up approval of the patch (since the bug meant taking the game down). Apple obliged, providing an expedited review of the Rocket Santa patch… very kind of them. Perhaps we’re turning a corner with the App store approval process. Apple certainly seem more willing to make exceptions.

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary, News | Tags: App approved, patch, rocket santa 1.1
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Rocket Santa was approved by Apple on Thursday 3rd December at 11pm just 1 week after submission. However, this good news quickly turned sour as we found a major bug rendering the game unplayable. I removed the game from sale as soon as we found the bug so as to prevent people from paying for a broken game.

Oddly, the bug wasn’t present in my development build of the game and if I couldn’t replicate it then it would be very hard to fix. A suggestion from @frederictessier to create an Ad hoc build proved fruitful and allowed me to recreate the bug.

Solving the issue was relatively easy but I decided to rewrite a portion of the code to make it more robust anyway. I also fixed a number of minor bugs in the process to take advantage of the forced patch.

I submitted Rocket Santa 1.1 just moments ago (4.30pm on Sunday 6th December). Hopefully Apple are still taking submissions and will approve this within a week or two (in time for the Christmas period). Rocket Santa will be back on the App store once the patch is approved.

I don’t feel that we’ve lost too much since we plan on adding an interesting twist, as well as new features, to Rocket Santa to extend its life beyond Christmas.

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary, News | Tags: patch, rocket santa, rocket santa 1.1
2 Comments »

I’m please to announce that my next iPhone game has been submitted to Apple. It was submitted on Wednesday 25th November at 3.30am (UK time), just in time to make the rumoured 24th November cut-off.

Rocket Santa is a collaboration with designer ClintonMc. We’ll be releasing some more details on the official Rocket Santa website very soon and I’m hoping that Apple will approve the game within a week or two.

In the mean time, here’s the synopsis and some pixel art of the game’s protagonist.

“On Christmas Eve, your reindeer fall ill without warning. Faced with the prospect of a Christmas without presents, and with hope all but lost, you turn to operation Santa Soars.”

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary | Tags: app store submission, christmas, new game, rocket santa
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Star Fusion has had another professional review, this time from App Girl Reviews who scored the game 7/10. Its always nice to see your game reviewed, especially on a site such as App Girl Reviews which seems to be growing in popularity.

You can read the full review here. Here are some excerpts…

“Star Fusion is deceptively simple looking, but it’s not the average casual game you’d expect.”

“…behind these lie a fun and absorbing game accomplished with easy controls and a unique concept.”

“The help function, far from being the standard read-then-press-the-next-button-type, is delightfully creative.”

“Once you get playing, it’s hard to stop! This game is a lot harder than it looks; you’ll play over and over trying to beat your own score.”

A big thanks to App Girl Reviews.

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary, News | Tags: professional review, star fusion review
1 Comment »

Here’s some early artwork for my next game due this Christmas. All of this art is by ClintonMc. We’ll continue to release more pieces of art right up until the game’s release in early December. If you want to keep up on the latest then follow me on twitter here and ClintonMc here.

keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary | Tags: art, christmas, pixel art
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On Wednesday 11th November 2009 I attended the iPhone Tech Talk World Tour. Hosted by Apple in London’s Congress Centre, this is my review of the event.
keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: News, Tangents | Tags: apple, audio, coffee, iphone tech talk, OpenGL ES, performance, static analysis, testing
3 Comments »

Apple are hosting an iPhone Tech Talk World Tour this year…

“Apple technology evangelists are coming to a city near you with expert advice on how you can maximize the innovative technologies of iPhone OS within your apps. Don’t miss this unique opportunity only available to developers in the iPhone Developer Program. The event is free, but space is limited. Register for an iPhone Tech Talk today.”

I’ve just received confirmation that i’ll be attending the London event on 11th November. I’ll aim to tweet about the event as much as possible and i’ll be sure to post a write-up on this blog shortly after.

By Chris | Posted in: News | Tags: apple, iphone tech talk, world tour 2009
1 Comment »

Its been a while since I last wrote an update and in that time things have changed somewhat. What was to be my second game has been temporarily put on the back burner to work on a brand new game.

The brand new game is a collaboration with graphic designer Clinton McMaster. It’s already well underway and has a firm release date of Christmas 2009. Since the schedule is very tight, we’re working to firm milestones and i’m happy to report that we are already ahead of schedule. Its pretty exciting and i’m sure that people will really enjoy this one. Stay tuned for more information shortly.

I plan to return to my second game in the new year. Its a challenge because i’m attempting to create all of the elements myself (Idea, code, graphics, sound effects, and music).

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary | Tags: christmas, new game
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