Busy With Games and Busy With Work

So I've been back from my vacation for a little while now and I've been quite busy ever since.

I'm still working on porting over Jungle Jumper to a libGDX version and I'm quite far along. At the moment it is mostly just a lot of boring copy paste work that is necessary to set up all the different screens. When that is done there is some more complicated work of getting Ads and Play Games Services back in there, but hopefully it is not too far away. I don't have a huge amount of time at the moment so it is not going as quickly as I would like.

At the same time I'm doing a complete re-factoring of the code for Space Sheep and fixing some bugs. I really wanted to rewrite Space Sheep so the code was better and it has become a bit of an involved project, but it is moving forward, at the same time I would like to implement a couple of new sheep for the next update.

Meanwhile I'm quite busy at work. This week I'm during training in VMware, which prepares you to do a quite comprehensive certification, VMware Certified Professional 5 – Data Center Virtualization (VCP5-DCV). So that is really exciting and I'm learning a lot.
I've finally gotten serious about taking advantage of the free certification program at Dell. Two months ago I took my first certification ,Comptia Network+, which was a lot of fun.
I'm now scheduled to take, Oracle Certified Associate in Java, next month. And I've requested the first certification in the Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for Windows Server 2012. So I'll be busy studying for the foreseeable future.

Well that is all for now. Hopefully it wont be too long until I have either the Space Sheep or the Jungle Jumper update ready and when both those are out the door I can turn my attention back on Jorvis and the Sea Rats.

Jungle Jumper Progress and Vacation

It's going really well with the conversion of Jungle Jumper to libGDX:

As you can see the game is now able to run as a desktop application. I'm running into several issues, but I'm handling them quite easily. It won't take me long before I have all screens and strings displaying correctly. It will probably take a bit more time to figure out all the implementations (Admob, Google Play Game Services ...).

So everything is looking good for a soonish update to libGDX. But I am going on vacation, back in Denmark, for a week tomorrow. I will be bringing my laptop and might do a bit of work, but we'll see.

That is all for now.

Space Sheep Reviewed

Playandoid's review of Space Sheep is up and it is very nice. There is a nice 10 minute video of them showing off the whole game and they generally have very favorable comments about Space Sheep.

Read and watch the review here.

Meanwhile I've gotten started on porting Jungle Jumper over to libGDX and it is going way easier than I had feared. I think in a day or two I will have the gamescreen running with all game interactions and graphics. As soon as I reach that point I might export a browser version and put up on lonelygiantgames.com.

That is all for now.

Post Space Sheep Update

So I released Space Sheep two weeks ago and it has been great to release another game, even if it is not doing very well at the moment.

The game has only been downloaded 21 times at the moment. But there are several reasons for this.

Since I released Jungle Jumper it seems it has become way more difficult to get visibility in the Google Play Store when you launch a new app. I thought there was a lot of spammy games filling it up back then, but it has become way worse.

I have not been able to display house ads in Jungle Jumper about Space Sheep like I had hoped to. The reason being that Admob has been updated and I need to implement the new SDK before this can happen. The problem with that is, that I have still not gotten around to updating Jungle Jumper to libGDX like I had planned and it will just be a lot of unnecessary work if I updated the Admob SDK, that I would have to do again after the update to libGDX.

I've also not been able to get much free PR. When I released Jungle Jumper, there were quite a few places that were willing to show off the game on their homepage / blog, but a lot of these places have closed or changed their policies. However www.playandroid.com is still doing reviews for free and are doing a review of Space Sheep that will hopefully be out soon.

It's a bit sad that I've gotten so few downloads, but I'm still really happy that I managed to get a second game finished and published, even if it is just a little silly game and I feel way more motivated to finish more games and get more serious with the PR.

So with all that in mind here is my plan for the near future:

• Quickly update Jungle Jumper to libGDX. No real improvements or new features, just running on the new engine and new Admob SDK.
• Do an Amazon version of Space Sheep with Amazon IAB and leaderboards rather than Google Play.
• Finish the sailing game. I've shown this game of earlier, it is quite far along and I should be able to finish it in the near future, at the moment the working title is "Jorvis and the Sea Rats"
• Acquire an iOS test device and start working on iOS versions of my games.
• Start working on my new game which I plan to be a 2D platformer.

In other news I've updated Space Sheep, fixing a few bugs and improving the graphics and there is now a web version available on my homepage. Try it here: www.lonelygiantgames.com/space

That is all for now. Hopefully there will be lot of updates in the near future.

Space Sheep

Tadaaa! I finally managed to finish and publish a game. Its not really all that great a game, but atleast I finished it.

Download it on Google Play! 

Just a little update

The Pirate Game

It's been a bit over a month since I announced the new game and it's been going really well since. There is still a lot left to do, but it is really shaping up. Expect an update with a new video soonish.

New Frontiers Program

I mentioned I was applying for a business grant, I have since heard back and I unfortunately did got go forward in the process. I'm not too surprised about this, but still a little sad. For now it just means that I'm putting all my energy into getting the Pirate Game finished. I can of course always apply again next time they are open for applications.

Oculus Rift

Since I posted about buying the Oculus Rift a lot has happened. Oculus VR announced the second development kit and were then bought by Facebook. I like many had a negative first reaction to this. I didn't really think that Facebook would require you to log on to use the headset or anything that drastic, but it was a company that I really like and admire being bought up by a giant corporation that I really dislike. It was more a feeling of loss over having lost a good friend to a bad crowd, than a real worry about the future of virtual reality. It seems now that the future of virtual reality is more certain than ever, within a years time we will probably see the consumer product and at the same time Sony has entered the race.

I haven't used my own Rift as much as I would have liked. I really have enjoyed playing around with it, the experience truly is unlike anything else, but using it is a bit off a hassle. I end up getting the lenses fogged up very easily and using the rift together with my 2 other screens means constantly changing my screen setup as my Nvidia card cannot handle 3 outputs simultaneous. It's silly things I know, especially when the experience is as cool as it is and this is of course still a development kit and I think they will have done a lot to improve these things by the time the consumer product arrives.

I don't think I'll end up buying the second development kit, not for any lack of wanting, but it seems the final product is not too far away and I don't really have the time to try and develop anything for it at the moment. And I do believe I'll need to upgrade my hardware for when the consumer edition comes and I do not have unlimited resources.

That's all for now. I'll try to get back to posting a bit more consistently here. And after the release of the Pirate game I plan to start doing revenue reports again.

Jorvis Goes to Sea

Presenting my new game, which still doesn't have a title, for now I will just call it the Pirate Game.

I've been working on this game since the beginning of the year more or less and it is starting to shape up. There is still a lot to do and the game is full of temporary graphics at the moment. But the core of the game is beginning to settle in.

Here is a little video of how it looks so far:

I hope to have game finished within a month or two. But it all depends on how much time I will be able to put into it.

Back on the Horse

It's been a while since my last update and I'm happy to say that there are lots of news.

New Game

I've been working a lot on a new game and it's really beginning to shape up. I'll make another post presenting the game with some images and a video later tonight or tomorrow.

New Frontiers Program

I've applied for the New Frontiers program here in Dublin. New Frontiers is a program to help technology oriented start-ups. Next month I will know whether I get into phase 1 of the program which will last around two months and include evening classes where you learn more about managing your start-up. After phase 1 there is a chance to be accepted into phase 2 which includes a 6 month grant to help you spend your full time on your start-up. I don't know how difficult it is to get accepted in to either phase, but I'm extremely excited about having applied.

Oculus Rift

Yesterday I ordered an Oculus Rift development kit. I'm super excited for this to arrive so I can play around with it. I have to admit that I bought it mostly because I wanted to play around with it, but I hope to also try and develop a bit for it.

New Job

I ended up changing jobs again very quickly and this time I'm very happy where I've ended up. I'm now working at Dell as a Server Supporter. The job has good pay and benefits and I work together with two good friends from my IBM time. The job is also technically challenging and gives a lot of opportunity for bettering myself.

That's all for now. but a big update on the new game will be coming up very soon.