First up, as is tradition (and by tradition I mean I’ve done it twice), a bit about the site.

One of my goals for 2011 was to revamp my website again (the fruits of which you are looking at now). Its important to me that the website reflects who I am and I’m fairly happy with it for the time being.

Stats-wise bytesizeadventures.com continues to go from strength to strength. Here are the visitor numbers for the whole of 2011…

28,604 visits from 18,669 unique visitors – both up 30% on last year.
48,773 pageviews – again, up 30% on last year.
368 visitors in a single day (at its highest point). This was 23rd September and coincided with my post “From Idea to App store in 6 months“.

Just to indulge myself and reflect upon that for a moment, over 18,000 individuals have visited this site in 2011. To me that’s incredible and acts as huge encouragement.

The 5 most popular posts of 2011 were as follows.

1. iPhone game development toolkit (An old post but still popular apparently)
2. 10 don’ts of iPhone game development
3. A beginners guide to iPhone game development
4. App development: The Testing
5. App development: The Wireframes

Honorable mention: From idea to App Store in 6 months (contains some of the most popular posts this year, bound to be favourites of 2012).

Moving on from website stats, I said I would do a lot of things in 2011. I anticipated more updates for Astro Noughts, 2 new games, and a new version of Brainwave. I’m not going to lie, you got none of that :)

Here’s what actually went down!

1) Coffee Cellar

My big project for 2011. Loads of words, loads of code, and loads of coffee!

Coffee Cellar was all about taking something I’m passionate about and producing a slick App from a simple idea. You can read about it in much more detail here.

Coffee Cellar has been my most successful iPhone App to date. Its hasn’t done amazingly well financially (I’m only about one sixth of the way towards that new espresso machine). However, Coffee Cellar has been mentioned in The Guardian’s App Rush feature, It’s been T3′s App of the day, Its also given me my first ever print magazine review in Tap! Magazine.

Not to mention some really nice coffee community coverage from the likes of coffee works, tasteologie, coffee-rock-thought, and mentions from coffee peeps on twitter.

I’ve already released 4 updates in 2011 (including the most recent Christmas update) and I have plans for further updates throughout 2012.

2) Rocket Santa Remix

In a last ditch attempt to produce something else in 2011, I totally re-wrote Rocket Santa from the ground up – adding game center integration, fancy particles effects, revamped gameplay, and totally new sound effects and music.

Rocket Santa Remix launched as free game on 5th December. It’s not intended to light the mobile games world on fire, its just a fun distraction that I like having around :)

Over Christmas its had a few hundred downloads.

3) Astro Noughts

Astro Noughts was my first iPad game and launched at the end of 2010. In 2011, I updated it with a new difficulty system as well as some improvements to the planetarium.

After playing around with a free promotion early in the year, I ultimately decided to make it permanently free late last year.

The Postmortem I wrote was featured on Gamasutra which was nice.

I don’t intend to keep updating Astro Noughts. It was a fun project and I’m happy with the game but it doesn’t hold any interest for me any more and its unlikely to ever be successful financially.

4) Attended a conference

In January I attended an indie game development conference called “World of Love 2″. Overall it was an interesting experience and one that I’d definitely repeat. Off the back of that conference I started One Eyed Cafe with a friend.

I take full responsibility for not producing anything worthwhile from that endeavour. Ultimately, I’m not quite ready for working on a joint game project – there are too many facets that I’m eager to learn for myself. One Eyed Cafe isn’t disbanded, it’s just parked for the time being.

5) Removed Rocket Santa and Star Fusion from sale

As I mentioned above, Rocket Santa was replaced with a revamped version. Star Fusion was my first attempt at iOS development. It was well past its prime, no longer worked correctly, and, at over 2 years old, I don’t want the upkeep.

Essentially I’m tweaking/housekeeping my iOS line-up. I now have 3 products – Coffee Cellar, Rocket Santa Remix, and Astro Noughts.

2012

2011 has taught me a lot. Its taught me about what I can achieve in a year. Its taught me even more about the App store and what its becoming. Its also made me re-evaluate what it is I want from this (this currently being a hobby). As a result, here are my plans for 2012.

1) Release one new game.

2) Continue updating Coffee Cellar.

That’s it!

That is my realistic, streamlined plan for 2012. I’m in this to write games because I like writing games. The time has come to produce something that’s a little more ambitious than my previous efforts. I’m putting aside the pressures of trying to turn a profit to instead focus on producing a game that I can be proud of. This means I need time. Joyfully, 2012 has popped up and looks like an ideal amount of time for such an endeavour.

Oh yeh, I’m getting married in 2012 too – its going to be an awesome year!

If you still need convincing, read this review from Tap! Magazine.

The sale will last over the Christmas period and then it will return to its original, although still reasonable $1.99 (£1.49) price point.

I hope you can take advantage of the offer. If not, perhaps you’ll consider buying a copy for a friend or loved one.

For those of you who don’t know, Rocket Santa is a game I created in collaboration with a talented pixel artist in 2009. The aim was to test the Christmas market and… well… it kinda failed.

Back to my riveting anecdote. I went ahead and released Coffee Cellar with its cool Rocket Santa mug icon. I also thought, I haven’t played Rocket Santa in a while, I’ll download it. Well, I did and it crashed upon opening.

So, I thought I’d just fix the bug and update it. Cutting an overly long story short, my code was a mess and really out of date. I had a go at fixing it but ultimately settled on a better idea. I’d re-write the game for scratch with zero code re-use.

It turned into a bit of a challenge. Trying to re-write the whole game with superior gameplay and no new graphics (whilst trying to keep the dev time short). A few weeks later and that’s what I’ve done. The same awesome graphics with a new engine. Here’s what’s changed…

+ Brand new sound effects and music across the board.
+ New gameplay based on delivering as many presents as you can.
+ Cool particle effects including… Snow!
+ A more dynamic landscape.
+ Dynamic difficulty.
+ Game Center leaderboards.
+ Better performance.
+ Re-worked controls for smoother gameplay.
+ A new icon.

Oh yeh, the best bit. Its Free too. No Advertising. No IAP’s. No virtual currency. Just plain ol’ Free. A gift from me to you. Happy Christmas.

Grab it here.

- Features 3 new festive icons
- Shake your phone for a random coffee
- Tap the name tag in your cupboard to view concise coffee details without leaving the cupboard
- Fixed the appearance of the name tags in the cupboard. No more names running off the end of the plaque!

Grab it now

Pivotal moment in my App development career :)

I had a nice review from Tap! Magazine which you can read here – They awarded Coffee Cellar 4/5 stars and called it “An easy and pretty way for coffee connoisseurs to keep track of their favourite blends.”

I’ve updated Coffee Cellar a few times since launch and it currently sits at version 1.1.1. Here’s what has been added since launch…

1.1.1

+ Added a new icon for Halloween. Just a bit of fun to spice up your coffee cupboard.
+ Added iOS5 twitter sharing (and a graceful fallback for users with older versions of iOS)
+ “Prep notes” renamed to “My Notes”.

1.1.0

+ Added a picture frame icon. This allows you to use your own photo as an icon in your coffee cupboard.
+ Added a cafetiere icon.
+ Improved the alignment of all icons in the cupboard.
+ Selecting an icon in the “Add Coffee” and “Edit Coffee” screen centers the icon making it more obvious that there are a number of icons to choose from.
+ Tapping the icon selection box in the “Edit Coffee” screen scrolls down to show the full view (including the delete coffee button).
- Removed icon highlighting from Cupboard view and “Edit Coffee” view.
- Removed the custom button on the Tasting notes screen. Tasting notes are now added when you tap done on the keyboard.

1.0.1

+ Added support for iOS 3.2 and above
+ Improvements to the App icon
+ Fixed email sharing to handle special characters
+ Fixed issue with incorrect spacing on some words entered in the tasting notes screen
+ Re-designed the mug icon

My next focus is on the Christmas update. I’ll be adding a number of new cupboard icons (to ensure you have a variety to select from). I also have an ever expanding backlog of features and improvements I want to make. I’ll be dipping into this to add some nice new features for the Christmas update.

Thats us all caught up I think. I plan on updating Coffee Cellar for the foreseeable future. Sales wise, its not really picking up. I’m currently selling about 1-2 copies a week. I’ve played with prices but I don’t have enough sales to draw any real conclusions.

As always, if you’d like to support me and buy Coffee Cellar, you can do so here. Alternatively consider gifting it to a coffee loving friend.

In the next few weeks I’ll write posts on sales figures and a postmortem. For now though, please support me and download Coffee Cellar here. If you feel particularly generous, rating or reviewing the App would also be very well received.

Press Release

Lifestyle app Coffee Cellar goes live

Coffee Cellar, the new lifestyle app created for budding coffee connoisseurs, launches in the app store today. Available for iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London, United Kingdom – Cultivate your passion for coffee. Coffee Cellar, the new lifestyle app created for budding coffee connoisseurs, launches in the app store today. Available for iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

Simple and fun to use, this high quality application enables coffee lovers to record, compare and share coffee with friends.

Whether you’re passionate about Peaberry or just useless without your morning cup of joe, make Coffee Cellar your personal coffee library.

Functions:

Create your own customisable coffee cellar with a variety of icons to choose from.
Add photos to capture the moment.
Choose your own tasting notes to compare coffee flavours.
Share your favourites with your friends by email or Twitter.
Search by flavour, region, rating, and more to recall the beans you’ve enjoyed.
Perfect for anyone looking to educate their palette and take their passion for coffee to the next level. An indispensable tool for budding baristas or first-time espresso machine owners.

Press enquiries:
contact@bytesizeadventures.com

Notes to editors
Coffee Cellar is available now for the iPhone priced at $2.99 (£1.99). Coffee Cellar was designed and created by independent game and app developer Christopher Waite of Bytesize Adventures. Christopher is available for interview or expert comment.

Bytesize Adventures: http://www.bytesizeadventures.com/
Coffee Cellar: http://www.bytesizeadventures.com/coffeecellar
Purchase: http://itunes.apple.com/app/coffee-cellar/id452521782
Screenshot: http://www.bytesizeadventures.com/media/images/promo/coffee_cellar_cupboard.png
App Icon: http://www.bytesizeadventures.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/mzm.nqdvdcsn-300×300.png

Christopher Waite is an independent game and app developer who blogs at Bytesize Adventures (www.bytesizeadventures.com).

This past week I’ve spent time thinking about this and looking at what I’ve achieved with Bytesize Adventures, as a single person operation. When I look at my ambitions for this year and beyond, its clear to me that I’ve hit a ceiling in what I can personally achieve alone. Game development is still very much my hobby (although I’d like it to be more) and splitting my spare time between development, graphics, sound, marketing, etc means that game production is very slow.

One Eyed Cafe

I’m fortunate that I know an excellent illustrator/designer, who I’ve worked with before, who was more than willing to share in the success and failures of a new venture.

We put our collective brains together and forged an independent game studio the likes of which has never been seen before… One Eyed Cafe.

One Eyed Cafe is our joint spare-time venture. A 50/50 partnership with a shared workload where we can pool together our talents. We’ll initially be focussing on iPhone and iPad but this may well expand in the future.

We’re currently in the process of setting a few things up (branding, website and the likes) and then we’ll be moving onto brainstorming ideas for our first game.

All of our new games will be launched under the One Eyed Cafe label. If you’d like to keep up with our progress, we’ll be blogging at the One Eyed Cafe blog. It would also be great if you’d follow us on twitter @OneEyedCafe.

What does this mean for Bytesize Adventures?

I’ll continue to blog at Bytesize Adventures but mostly focussed around a few projects. I’ll still be supporting and updating Astro Noughts under my own name and I’ll still be working on my Coffee App. So my blog will consist of posts about those along with BrainWave and some of the processes we use at One Eyed Cafe.

So its not the end of this site, its just taking a different path (focussing on my individual projects and experiences). All of the really cool new games will be happening at One Eyed Cafe so be sure to keep up with that blog too.

In other news

The first free Astro Noughts update is complete and i’ll be submitting it to Apple shortly. I took the decision to cut some things from it and save them for future releases. This ultimately means that there will be more updates, more often (which is a good thing I think).

With the update complete I can now move on to my new Coffee App. I’ve spent some time this week reading up on various aspects of App design and development. I’ll hopefully be able to share some posts related to this project beginning next week. It promises to be very interesting.

You can buy it here for just $0.99 (59p).

I’ll have some follow up blog posts soon but for now I’ll leave you with the official press release. Or you can pop along to Gamasutra to read it. You can also download the Press Pack containing some images which you are free to distribute.

– Astro Noughts Press Release –

Set in the depths of space, you’ll face wave after wave of planets hurtling towards you.

By calculating the correct mathematical expressions, you must obliterate as many planets as possible and avoid the space debris.

Fast paced, mental arithmetic is the order of the day.

Features:

• 24 Planets to destroy and unlock. Unlocked planets can be viewed through the in-game planetarium.
• 5 unique power-ups to collect. Mastering these will be crucial if you want to score big.
• Post your best score to the in-game leaderboards. Can you beat your friends?
• OpenFeint achievements.

Astro Noughts is available from the App Store now priced at just $0.99

iTunes Link: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/astro-noughts/id406791013?mt=8

Gameplay Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWsZ570plYw

Fore more details, please visit:

http://www.bytesizeadventures.com/astronoughts

You can learn more about the developer, Bytesize Adventures, at our official website: http://www.bytesizeadventures.com or you can follow us on twitter here: http://twitter.com/chrismwaite

To kick things off I have a slew of screenshots and even a gameplay video to share with you. I have a lot to learn when it comes to shooting gameplay videos and trailers. Its yet another facet of Independent game development that is normally a career in itself. You’ll also have to excuse the quality – Apparently my Ricoh R8 produces abysmal videos.

Gameplay Video

Screeshots