Scramble Blog

Chapter 1 Comic Art

2011-07-08

It’s really exciting to see things come along, we had a big push this week and and explosion of awesomeness came out of both the game design and the art department. Check this out:

Darrell, our hero is starting out work in the super hero industry. He’s a bit inexperienced to plug a volcano or turn back time so he’s starting out small in the local neighborhood. One day as he’s walking home, he see’s a commotion gathered underneath one of the trees in the road, this could be the chance he’s been waiting for!

Rocket Man Art and Story

2011-06-01

It’s been real fun prototyping Rocket Man and sending it out to the players. It’s one of the best feelings i’ve experienced when people complete a level and shout YEAH! This gets even bigger in groups of people, which is awesome!

The guys that have joined the project to help have REALLY made a difference. Working with some real professional talent really works magic and the game is certainly on it’s way to the next level in terms of art and design.

I’ve always loved comic books and how they can provide such a rich landscape for imagination and creativity. I’m very proud to say that your role within the game will be very comic and your story will unfold as you step closer to filling the shoes of a well respected hero.

Steve

2011-05-06

Here is an email i sent to Steve Jobs during GDC 2011:

Hi Steve, I'd really love to be able to update my iOS firmware over the air direct on my iPhone. I understand the technical difficulties that one would face implementing thus kind of feature but it is still something great that I would love to see in the future. Nick Sent from my iPhone

Here is another email that I sent this morning:

Hi Steve, First of all i'd like to say thanks for implementing over the air iOS updates, I think it's a wonderful feature and will really make a difference. A feature such as this is a prime reason for my next request. Please launch or rebrand a cell carrier that offers unlimited data on a flat rate plan and abolish voice minutes and SMS tariffs. Again, the technical difficulties involved in such a task aren't small but conquering these kinds of interesting problems is your specialty. Nick Sent from my iPhone

Fingers crossed.

Artistic Style

2011-05-04

Here are some examples of the artistic style that we will be looking to integrate in our games.

Freelance 2D Artist London, UK

2011-05-03

We have some very up and coming mobile titles that are looking for some top freelance talent to help with creative direction. The role is for a Freelance 2D Game Artist to work out of our offices in London, UK.

Your daily duties in London might include:

Working very closely in a small team.
Collaborating to set the artistic style of games.
Creating concept art.
Creating in-game assets (menu’s, characters, environments).
Really getting involved, taking ownership and contributing to game designs.
Creating and helping prototype new ideas and mechanics.
Creating art outside of the game for websites, posters, adverts.
Helping direct any temporary staff in the style and feel of the game design.

I’ve jotted down some qualities that an ideal candidate might have:

Your a freelancer, so you’ve probably been round the block a few times or you know your awesome and are not afraid to prove it! You’ve got some really good stuff that relates to the task at hand and can show it off as a portfolio.
You’ve got no problem generalizing and you regularly leap into 3D software, Photoshop, Illustrator or can sketch concept art with pencil and paper, whatever gets the job done to your perfectionist standards.
You’re not afraid of trying new approaches but you also know when to call it quits and get the job done.
You’re super passionate, you're a perfectionist and your proud of your work. You love being awesome and work very hard to make sure your stuff is a cut above everything else.
You love working with other people, you inspire yourself and other’s around you and you can run with and improve other people’s ideas.
You’ve probably had a few game ideas, maybe even published a few, you understand how to critique and what ‘makes’ games and can demonstrate it.
Last but not least, you love games, creating and playing them. You’ve chocked up an unhealthy number of hours playing a particular game at some point in your life and you remember what inspired you to get into games in the first place.

If your reading this and thinking ‘wow thats me!’ send your portfolio to gamejobs@forward.co.uk.

Rocket Man Original Prototype

2011-05-02

Things are coming along with Rocket Man. I’ve shown it to quite a few people now and I utilised TestFlight (I even wrote a tutorial for it) and sent out the initial prototype to about 30 people. All of this has been a great exercise in listening to players and translating their reactions into usable game design.

Over the weekend I took the opportunity to test my skills with a new technology and now i’m proud to present the first few prototype levels of Rocket Man written using the HTML 5 version of Cocos 2d. I have to say i’m very impressed with the work that they have done on Cocos2d it really is avery good framework for getting things up and running FAST.

So without further ado, I present to you the original prototype of Rocket Man, good luck!

P.S. I’m trying to be open and honest as possible about our budget, development process and sales numbers so if your interested, keep checking Black Art Studios for updates!

Rocket Man

2011-05-01

I've been doing a big study into addictiveness recently and have created several game prototypes to understand what drives someone to nearly miss their stop on the bus! Those are the kinds of games that I want to make! The best prototype by far is game i've dubbed Rocket Man. It started as an experiment to find the most fun in the simplest interaction possible. Touch the screen, then release, thats it...! The objective is to hit the goal, here is a screenshot, love my graphics skills:

iPhone App Store Sales Data

2011-04-11

As a few of you know i’m attempting to start a micro games studio @ Forward. As part of that process I have to do lots of research on iPhone sales stats to show that it’s profitable. I thought i’d aggregate some of it here to make it easy for others to find. You can thank me when you’ve made it into the top 100 :)

Sales Data:

http://www.markj.net/iphone-hit-tennis-sales-stats-marketing/

http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/09/the-numbers-post-aka-brutal-honesty/

http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/11/the-slashdot-effect/

http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/04/27/the-numbers-post-part-2/

http://taptaptap.com/blog/donkeys-and-pickaxes/

http://firemint.com/2009/flight-control-sales-numbers/

http://www.mobilewebgo.com/apples-app-store-ranking-algorithm-7-day-average-says-rob-podcast411

http://joelcomm.com/app-store-ranktosales-revealed.html

http://sudokugrab.blogspot.com/2009/03/sales-stats-update-one-month-on-app.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/mar/14/pangea-enigmo-iphone-game-games-sxsw-sxswi

Other info

http://gigaom.com/2010/01/12/the-apple-app-store-economy/

http://www.slideshare.net/misteroo/how-to-market-your-app

Developer Articles

http://venturebeat.com/2009/07/10/pocket-god-is-a-case-study-of-a-hit-iphone-game/

iPhone Services

http://kiip.me/

https://www.tapjoy.com/

http://www.appannie.com

http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/?mpage=appprice

Mac App Store

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/developers_share_mac_app_store_sales_figures.php

http://www.triplepointpr.com/iphone-game-pr-a-case-study

This list is literally for the poor souls that have to collect this data from the internets so if you see something that you think should be on the list, then please leave a comment.

Create an IPA in XCode 4 for TestFlight

2011-04-04

It took me a very long time to get a usable IPA out of XCode 4 that works with TestFlight so I thought i’d share the info incase anyone else can’t get it to work!

This tutorial assumes you’ve generated your Ad Hoc distribution profile and have it installed on your machine. If you haven’t done that yet, do it first.

Here we go:

Entitlements

Right click on your Resources folder and select New File. Select the “Entitlements” file under “Code Signing” and on the next page call it “Entitlements.plist”, then hit Save.
There has been a lot of talk about what entries are needed in this file but I have found that I didn’t have to touch anything the entry “Can be debugged” is left in its default YES state.

Project Settings

Goto the project settings for your app
In the left hand column click on the entry under PROJECT and select the info tab, you should see a list of Configurations such as “Debug” and “Release”.
Click on the little plus sign under the configurations and select “Duplicate Release Configuration”, name the new configuration “Ad Hoc”.
In the left hand column again click on the entry under TARGETS which should flick you automatically to the build settings tab, if it doesnt just make sure you have selected it and goto the build settings tab.
Now find and expand the item “Code Signing Identity” and under the “Ad Hoc” name change the provisioning profile to your ad hoc distribution profile.
Look for and expand the “Code Signing Entitlements” item to find your new profile “Ad Hoc” again, set “Entitlements.plist” as the value.

Archive Scheme (this had me going for hours)

At the top of the toolbar where you normally select your build target (iOS Device, iPhone Simulator, iPad Simulator etc) drop that menu down and select “Edit Scheme…”.
On the left hand side select the “Archive” scheme and then select “Ad Hoc” in the “Build Configuration” drop down and hit ok.

Creating an IPA

You can now select “iOS Device” or your device name as your build target and select “Archive” from the main “Product” drop down which will in turn popup the organiser showing your new archive.
From here click the “Share…” button, select “iOS App Store Package (.ipa)”, make sure your Ad Hoc distribution provision is selected in the drop down list and hit next.
Now you just save the ipa somewhere and upload it as normal to Test Flight…

Good luck!