This blog has been going for well over 2 years now. Its purpose is to chronicle my game development efforts and hopefully to share some insights with you. 2009 and 2010 were both productive years. Now, with 2011 officially over, its time to take a look at what I achieved in 2011 and what I plan to achieve in 2012. keep reading…
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.
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…
As detailed in my previous post, downloads of Star Fusion have been fewer than I would have liked (as low as a few sales each month). I really want to get the game into the hands of as many people as possible to get some feedback for updates and gain experience for future games. Priced at 59p ($0.99), this couldn’t possibly be the barrier preventing people from trying it, could it? keep reading…
Star Fusion has just been approved by Apple and is available to buy now from the iPhone App Store. Its great to finally see my first game available for sale and I can’t wait to see the reaction from people who play it. I’ll write a more in depth post over the coming days. I’ll also share with you some of the statistics, as well as my experiences, as I attempt to promote the game.
Whilst i’m anxiously waiting for Star Fusion to be approved by Apple, I thought i’d write a post about all of the hardware and software that I used to create my iPhone game.
Obviously the software you use will depend on your own requirements and tastes but for me this list represents my iPhone game development toolkit.
Star Fusion App Store Submission
Some great news today. Star Fusion has been submitted to the iPhone App Store for approval. Providing Apple do not find any glaring errors, it should be available to buy within the next week or so.
I’ll get a trailer up as soon as I can and i’ll also put some promotional material on the official Star Fusion page which can be found here.
It’s certainly been a journey to get this far. I started learning iPhone development a little under 4 months ago with no knowledge of the platform, armed with just a book! (Beginning iPhone Development by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche). I came up with the idea for Star Fusion 1 month ago so development on this game has been pretty fast. Obviously the journey doesn’t end here and i’m looking forward to the next stages (Promotion, Game updates, and new ideas).
The release date for my first iPhone game is drawing ever closer. All of the mechanics are in place and i’m currently tweaking the graphics, sounds, and game difficulty. Within the next day or so I expect to move onto the final round of bug testing and code refactoring. keep reading…