Android App: Blocks Away!

Our second game app has been published today!  A game similar to Tetris with our own twist, and maddeningly difficult in the higher levels, Blocks Away! will help stave off some boredom while making you sweat as your fingers fidget around.  Be sure to hold your phone or tablet still!

Posting a new app in the Android Market

Eon Edge Studios posted a new app today at 11:15AM PST.  Now, with all weekends, the Android marketplace is usually *packed* with app submissions and updates.  We're going to see exactly how long this new release will take to propagate in the marketplace and report back here when it happens.

When we posted our first app, Simple Match, it took seriously like 6 or 7 hours for it to even show up in the marketplace.

When we posted our flashlight app, it took about an hour to show up, but this app was submitted during the week, as opposed to the weekend.

Of course, FINDING the apps themselves, once they hit the market is another story -- something I'll probably blog about here when I get a chance.

UPDATE: I guess it would help if I actually clicked the PUBLISH button as opposed to only the SAVE button in the marketplace.  Once I actually hit the right button, it took about half an hour for our new app to get published!

Lady CEO in the Blog-House

Welcome to the eondev.net blog!

Oh wait, some of you have already been here - so welcome back! XD

As this blog is primarily about what we are doing with our indie game company, tech posts, and other business ramblings and updates, I think it is a good idea to explore personal thoughts, experiences, and feelings about going into business.

Most businesses - especially independent game companies - fail within the first few years. On top of those odds, add the fact that it's a husband/wife adventure (hehe - a HW-RPG & RTS if you will), and you raise the stakes even higher.

The risks are high, and so too are the consequences - the 'awesome' to the 'not-so-awesome'.

Not sure how I plan to share my thoughts yet, so hopefully this suffices as my introduction to blogging.

I am very interested in finding other domestic partnerships that are starting indie game companies as well, and encourage you to share your thoughts and experiences too!

Thanks!

Challenge or Opportunity?

Competing in the mobile app market, especially in the Android market alone seems quite challenging, but more importantly --- seems very difficult to be able to make enough money per month to pay the bills!  We'll be tweaking our products and strategy over the next couple of months to see what does and doesn't work.  We'll probably post here also with what we find.

Inkscape

All the graphics stuff I've learned over the years was self-taught.  I'm definitely no expert, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I grew up with Paint, like many other people.  Then various other tools, eventually to Gimp, and now Inkscape.  At first, I really disliked it.  As I use it more and more, I'm realizing that I absolutely love working with vector graphics.

Basically, I can create 2d art with objects that I can deform, like in 3d art programs, and then do all sorts of nifty things to them.  The best part, when it comes time to export the art to something like games, the SVG format allows me to save at any zoom/detail level.  This magic comes from the idea that vector art is generated again and again based on objects and math... as opposed to something as basic as "pixel space".  Of course, during the translation from vector-awesomeness to pixels, it gets blocky and pixelated as expected.  If I export to a large art file (high def for instance) the vector art will look amazing all while giving me almost no work overhead of screwing with zoom algorithms and stuff like that.

Again, I'm no master at Inkscape, but I'm definitely loving it more and more as I use it more.  Maybe I'll post up some more about this later.  I hope the Inkscape team fixes up some of these dangling bugs, because I'm using this primarily for mobile app development!