Hordes of Enemies was featured on the AppStore as the Game of the Day in many countries today, thank you Apple!
After two puzzle games kubic & noded, we’re back with an pixel art action/arcade game called Hordes of Enemies.
The game is now available to pre-order on the App Store for FREE and Ii’s due to launch next week on October 3rd.
Hordes of Enemies is a fun pickup and play brawler with 3 main themes/scenes. It supports MFi controllers & iCade, iCloud, ReplayKit, Game Center, Haptic Feedback, 3D Quick Actions, animated iMessage stickers, localized into 12 languages and also available on Apple TV.
This is a truly free-to-play game that comes with two scenes locked, both can be unlocked simply by playing to reach required total scores. Players can also choose to unlock with In-app purchase.
Gorgeous pixel art graphics & animations created by Gustavo Viselner who is best known for his movie based artwork. You can read more about his work in this Kotaku article
We wanted to create a simple and fun game that we would want to play ourselves and we hope that you’ll feel the same, enjoy!
The minimalist puzzle game based on a unique line folding & shape matching mechanism, noded, will launch next week at August 2nd on iOS and Android platforms simultaneously.
The launch trailer can be seen on YouTube.
noded is a relaxing puzzle game with a simple goal: fold the geometric shape to solve the various challenges. With a clean UI and simple rule-set, noded challenges players to complete 80 uniquely crafted puzzles with the fewest moves possible. Featuring the beautiful ambient music of Kyle Preston (known for “Prune”) and without any time restrictions, noded offers a unique calming experience. noded is a premium ($0.99) game with no ads or in-app purchases.
kubic has been added to New Games We Love in the United States! It’s currenty featured in 73 countries and ranked as #1 puzzle or board game in most of them. Download your copy here or check our app page for details.
Thrilled to announce that kubic has been featured in New Games We Love on the App Store and already hits top 5 paid puzzle games in the UK!
It’s been a while since my first post on the subject. Currently, many things changed (even the design) & fixed on iTunes Connect. We still have “Availability Date” but the “Release Date” is now replaced with “Version Release”. I wanted to share how those two options working together to achieve different results.
First, let’s take a look at the options.
Availability Date
That option is still working as before. By default, it’s set to the date of your app record creation. If the current date is greater than this date, then your app will be available on the App Store considering your version is “released” and approved, standing in “Ready for Sale” state. If not, it won’t be available on the store. Btw, you may also use that option to remove the app from sale, if you ever need to do that simply change the date in sometime in future as an alternative to removing the app from regions to do that.
Version Release
This option is mostly used for app updates but currently you can also use that for the new apps. For app updates, you can have an app released & available on the store but might want to withhold the release of an update until a certain event. In that case, that’s the option you’ll want to use.
Current state based on our recent experience.
- “New Releases” list problem seems to be fixed. As long as the app is released & available, and that’s happening for the first time (for the region) your app will be featured in the new releases list of that region.
- If you have a fixed release date in the future just set the availability date to match it and make sure the app will be automatically released after review.
- If you want to release manually, just make sure the availability date is set to a date in the past and manually release the app when it’s time.
- Version release might take few hours to make it to the store while availability date works faster. So, if you want to release an app at 00:00 local time of each region, use the availability date. If you release it manually at 00:00 at some local time, it’ll will be available on the store at different times for each region after the app store process complete (which might take some time as noted above).
If you have any suggestions/corrections, please share in comments so I can update the article as needed.
iOS 6 is out, with major changes to App Store on devices. Most of which gave a big concerns to indie developers. But there is one new feature that you should utilise for a bit more exposure, Smart App Banners.
That is basically a meta tag added to your web pages. When that page visited by an iOS 6 device it’ll show up a banner of your app with a direct link to the it’s App Store page.
If you add a small piece of code you may also use it to launch your app (if installed) with a specific page or content…
If you are visiting us on a iOS6 mobile device just go to one of our game pages to see it in action. Such as, http://www.pixelenvision.com/animal-puzzle-for-toddlers/
I would write a full tutorial but there are plenty of resources about that and there is no need to re-invent the wheel. So, I’ve decided to post some links for you…
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This article is now outdated. Please see this post for most up-to-date information regarding the subject.
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When we submit our first app to the iTunes Connect, one of the most confusing things was understanding the difference between Availability Date and Release Date. There are many discussions about that topic and some of them thinks that as a “BUG” but in reality there is no bug, that’s just how it works. To get listed on top of the “New Releases” there is no need to set Availability Date in the future and change it back to same as the Release Date once it’s released. Once you understand the connection between two, all should be clear.
Availability Date
You may initially set that date while creating your app record in iTunes Connect for the first time, it’s also editable after that even if your app is live… By default, it’s set to the date of your app record creation. Or you may set it to a different date in future.
Release Date
Simply, you have no control over this. When your app passes the review and it’s status becomes “Ready for Sale” your app is “released” by Apple at that date.
So, how those really works?
First rule is, only when the current date (today) is greater than the both, your app becomes visible on the AppStore. in other words, your app must be both “released” by Apple and “made available” by you. Otherwise, it won’t be listed anywhere.
You can use Availability Date to make your app appear on the store on a specific date. For example, if you are planning a marketing campaign and want your app to be available on a specific date but not before that, you can use that to make that happen. Only if your app is released by Apple prior to that date of course…
But there is one downside of doing that, you’ll miss the opportunity to getting listed on top of the “New Releases” section of your app categories.
If you want to be listed on top of the “New Releases’ simply do not change the Availability Date when setting up your app.
Some Examples
Let’s say the App is created on January 1st, you didn’t change the Availability Date so it is also January 1st. And let’s suppose your app waited a week for the review and released by apple at January 8th, which is also the Release Date. Outcome: Your app will be available on the App Store at January 8th and will be listed on top of the New Releases list…
Let’s say the App is created on January 1st, but you DID change the Availability Date to match your marketing release, so let’s say it is January 15th. And let’s suppose your app waited a week for the review and released by apple at January 8th, which is also the Release Date. Outcome: Your app will be available on the App Store at January 15th but it won’t be listed on top of the “New Releases”. It will be still listed, but among the apps released about a week ago, few pages back…
So there is no “BUG”, no need for hacks or fixes…
In Short
If you do not need a synchronised release with your marketing, do not change the “Availability Date” or if you do, make sure to set it to a date before Apple’s “Release Date”. You’ll get full possible exposure on “New Releases” list of your app categories.
As you might know while creating Game Center Leaderboards & Achievements in iTunes Connect, you are required to upload an 512×512 image file to be used as icon to represent those.
But when those are displayed in Game Center, icons are shown in a clipped circle with a border. So, it’s hard to tell which parts will be visible when the image is cropped and it might take few updates to get it right…
When working on our first app, we have decided to make a photoshop template to make things easier by taking out the guess work. Here is the masking template we ended up, ZIP file contains a Photoshop PSD file & a PNG file.
To use it simply place your image below the preview mask, after adjusting it’s position & scale, disable/remove that mask and use the result as your leaderboard / achievement icon image.
Just in time for halloween, our first game is approved by Apple and released for iPhone & iPad. Android version is also approved by Amazon.com and currently available at Amazon Appstore for Android!
It took a bit more longer than expected, but it’s finally here… Witches’ Brew HD is submitted to the Apple AppStore and should be available very soon!
For us, adventure started with Flash but ultimately ended with CoronaSDK.
Using packager for IPhone (now AIR) was fun at the beginning, but after bumping too many roadblocks with it, we have decided to look for other solutions and finally (thank god) found CoronaSDK…
Flash is still the best solution for the desktops or interactive CD’s, but if your plan is developing apps & games to mobile devices, look no further…
It took us few months to get here but that’s mostly because of the other freelance works we had. If I could combine the time I spent with CoronaSDK, it should be around 2-3 weeks range… And that includes learning Lua from scratch, studying Corona’s own API, developing (for our own needs) and sharing two libs @ Ansca’s code exchange and everything else…
Without CoronaSDK, I cannot even imagine doing all that in such short time…
Btw, I would also like to thank/mention following people for their great tools & contribution…
J. A. Whye for Corona Project Manager
X-pressive for Particle Candy & Text Candy
Andreas Löw for Physics Editor & Texture Packer
Ricardo Rauber for Director Class