Bytesize Adventures

Star Fusion was the first game I created for the iPhone. It has been in the App store since June 2009 and has been downloaded a total of 1,619 times. It’s had some positive feedback and I’ve used it for experimenting with marketing and pricing as well as getting to know the ropes of the App store.

Rocket Santa was my second game. It had a troubled, slightly rushed development in order to make its release date of Christmas 2009. It’s been downloaded 768 times in total. I created it, with the help of a fantastic pixel artist, to test the Christmas market.

Today, both Star Fusion and Rocket Santa are going Free… forever. I’m also putting them live in all countries worldwide.

Why? – I’m still very much on a learning curve when it comes to creating games and, at this stage, it’s pointless for me to have paid games sitting in the App store with very few downloads. This decision does not affect the pricing of my future games (which may still be paid downloads).

You can grab both Star Fusion and Rocket Santa here.

By Chris | Posted in: News | Tags: free, rocket santa, Star Fusion
17 Comments »

I’ve been toying with the idea of a new version of Star Fusion for quite some time. It was the first iPhone game I created (over a year ago) and, despite its simplicity, I still really like it (A slightly biased opinion I know). I always felt that its core mechanics were solid but that it didn’t quite hit the rights notes with its overall polish and depth. keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary, News | Tags: iDevBlogADay, iPad, Star Fusion, star fusion hd
1 Comment »

So, as predicted, Apple’s big announcement yesterday was the introduction of their new tablet computer – the iPad. Like most developers, I feel the desire to share my thoughts on the device and how it will impact my direction as a games developer. One caveat to bear in mind is that all of this is just conjecture at the moment since I haven’t actually used the device. keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: News, Tangents | Tags: apple, iPad, Tablet
2 Comments »

The idea behind Rocket Santa was to rapidly develop a fun Christmas game, partly to gauge interest in holiday themed games and partly because I was keen to create a second game before the end of 2009. The game had its fair share of teething issues and feedback i’ve received for Rocket Santa has varied wildly. A few people have stated that its too easy and lacks depth, others have said that it’s really enjoyable and has a good pickup-and-play factor.

Rocket Santa has been in the App store for nearly 1 month now so I thought it would be nice to share the sales figures with you. Rocket Santa is listed in the UK and US stores only and i’ve converted all values to dollars to make it easier to digest. keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary, News | Tags: app bake off, iphone app sales, mundue holiday promotion, notcot, promotion
No Comments »

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 »

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
1 Comment »

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 »

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 »

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 »