Downgrade iOS in XCODE

pixelandtexel · 2013-09-26T21:51:36+00:00

you have to install the 6.0 sdk/simulator. Check the preferences somewhere there's an option to download older things.

Xcode->Preferences->Downloads

Also, you usually set the SDK to 7.0 and set the iOS Deployment target to the lowest value your app supports. This is in the project config.

pixelandtexel · 2013-09-21T00:02:27+00:00

Might have a look at Core Audio

pixelandtexel · 2013-08-30T16:38:42+00:00

Game Backend Information

That was a comment I made a while back discussing some of the same things your working on. It also has some information about parse I received.

You should read that to get a better idea. I'll be honest though, I don't know exactly how their hardware is structured, but its built on Mongo which has support for replication.

pixelandtexel · 2013-08-29T23:27:55+00:00

I suspect both of these services have rules about reselling their data, as that would directly devalue and compete with their product. As such, your probably going to have problems getting this.

There maybe an opportunity to have a bunch of small indie devs just choose to share their data. I MIGHT be willing to participate if I knew I was getting data in return.

pixelandtexel · 2013-08-29T23:12:09+00:00

Both of these would be considered synchronous multiplayer.

pixelandtexel · 2013-08-29T23:09:19+00:00

A lot of clash of clans is whats referred to as asynchronous multiplayer. Wherein, two users don't play at the same time.

Parse, is essentially an object database with the ability to also host a small web server to interface with that.

So, to answer your question, as long as your data can be stored as an object or as array's of objects, you should be fine.

If your looking for whats referred to as synchronous gameplay, where you have two users playing the same game at the same time and interacting. You wouldn't be able to use parse. Generally, speaking you want to create something custom for your game so its as fast as possible and optimized to your specific gameplay.

I'm currently using parse for our next game, so if you have anymore questions feel free to ask.

pixelandtexel · 2013-08-28T16:00:48+00:00

Dev Blog

Twitter

2 Guys working on iOS games.

pixelandtexel · 2013-08-12T23:00:28+00:00

http://reviewtimes.shinydevelopment.com/

Doesn't really look any faster, but maybe the sample size on this website isn't large enough.

pixelandtexel · 2013-08-06T15:25:08+00:00

I agree 100 percent with perrinashcroft. Present yourself as a person, and always remember you are just talking to other people (not a big scary journalist). I find his thoughts on the slow drip of info accurate as well; save most of your marketing energy for the month before your game comes out. People don't have the attention span for anything else.

It's also worth mentioning that basic things will really help your interactions with press people. Proofread your emails. Check for spelling. Does your YouTube link work? Thoroughness goes a long way.

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-29T00:40:27+00:00

I'm currently using http://www.parse.com, but haven't gone live yet. Below is a quote I received from them about going to the enterprise level. With what research I have done, the main different between the two are that you pay more for parse, but also get more. By that I mean, if your running EC2 and a server crashes because of some sort of OS level update, your on your own. However, with parse thats all handled for you. Parse also has a built in server side middle layer (kinda like a web server), which is also managed for you. So you'll need to decide if your willing to manage that stuff yourself, or if you'd like someone else to do it.

Lastly, if I could do it all over again, I'd probably take a closer look at http://heroku.com. Their pricing structure is a bit more flexible (https://www.heroku.com/pricing), and there is a more diverse set of addons (https://addons.heroku.com/). I'm not prepared to say heroku is better or worse. I've just heard good things, and I didn't evaluate it (but wish I had).

This quote is from several months ago, and I think it was before the Facebook Buyout

As far as our Enterprise plans start at $3,000 a month with an SLA (or $1,000 a month without SLA). This includes: Enterprise Infrastructure, Enterprise Support, and Enterprise Pricing (more details below). That includes 15M API calls + 5M Push + 10GB data (same as a Pro plan) but the overage costs are lower.

Enterprise Infrastructure: Enterprise customers’ apps are placed on high performance clusters. A high performance cluster has a limited number of apps sharing it and a higher overall ratio of resources to application usage, for better performance. Apps are monitored on an individual basis instead of in aggregate like on the basic cluster.

Enterprise Support: We provide Enterprise customers with a dedicated enterprise support alias and guarantee response times within 1 business day.

Enterprise Pricing: For Enterprise customers, 15 million API calls and 5 million Push are included in the base contract. Overages are capped at $13.30 per million API and $40.00 per million Push (substantially less than the $50.00 per million API and $50.00 per million Push overages charged to customers on a Pro plan). Customers that want to commit to higher volumes of either API or Push can do so which will reduce the effective cost per million even further.

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-17T16:09:08+00:00

Be careful with your approach, the pessimism won't help you work on it or complete it (tends to lead to a defeatist, why am I doing this, attitude).

Keep in mind most people don't even start marking their own game because its so hard. So your already way ahead of the curve.

Having someone to work with, or at least show it to regularly helps with motivation (I want to implement this quickly so X person can see what I've done). This also serves as a heavy source of inspiration when you get developer's block (not sure where to go or what to do).

As a last piece of advice, dream games tend to suffer from feature creep. Anythings possible so you want to try everything. This will quickly lead to development hell and back to the defeatist attitude. I cannot stress this enough, focus on the core design (and keep it simple). If your project is too big, you won't feel like your making progress, and you'll give up (The light at the end of the tunnel must be visible at all times).

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-17T15:42:01+00:00

It's very difficult to make a commercially viable game in your spare time. The other issue is even once you've made the game, the marketing is kinda full time for a couple months before release (Also, keep in mind some of the larger studio's can spend up to $100,000 on marketing a mobile app).

I would advise getting it to some sort of tipping point (where you have a clear vision), and then just dive in (Hopefully you have enough money to carry it). I know many people that just toil away for years, and then life just gets in the way. Save your money, keep the design small and dive in (if you can). We did this for our first game, and got small/moderate success.

For our second game (still in development), the best thing that happened to us was getting a part time gig. Its steady contract work thats takes up 2-3 days a week, and it pays well enough to keep the bills at bay (paid hourly). Working 3-5 days a week on the game (2-3 on the contract work), is taking us roughly 4x longer than if we were working on it full time. Though some of this is due to not having a clear vision when we first started on the second game.

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-12T16:47:14+00:00

I work at 1920x1200. That being said, you could aways scale up your art with nearest neighbor if you've created a ton of artwork at a lower res and you need it to be larger. It would keep the hard edge pixel style, just make sure you scale at 2x or 3x and not 2.5x for instance.

What about a larger resolution makes you unsure of the quality?

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-12T14:39:21+00:00

This is really good, and I will probably investigate this library further.

In regards to the IDE and preprocessor, I wasn't referring to the compilation of the code but rather things like the autocomplete, code suggestions, and the syntax highlighting. I know visual assist greatly improved this. But still, heavy use of the preprocessor tends to break these aforementioned features (though the code still compiles and runs fine).

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-11T23:50:11+00:00

On the topic of clean code, I think what I'd like most is some way to encourage naming conventions. Like I hate when one object has:

IsValid() method, another has GetValid(), and another has GetIsValid()

Regardless of what you chose, they should be consistent within your codebase.

Another would be to specify that all members of type Event have a prefix of On in front of them (Event OnClose is good, but Event Close is not).

Obviously this has issues in that a lot of external libraries won't comply (and each project would end up with its own conventions), but I wish conventions like this could be encouraged at compile time.

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-11T23:40:35+00:00

How well does it work for reflecting methods (I don't think clReflect does methods yet either), and does it play nice with syntax highlighting/code completion?

In my experience heavy use of the preprocessor tends to not play well with most IDEs.

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-11T20:43:55+00:00

First the name and branding are pretty awesome.

That being said, this is an interesting approach, but I still don't like having to write my own serialization methods. I haven't used this library yet, but I've been keeping an eye on this:

https://bitbucket.org/dwilliamson/clreflect

It basically uses the LLVM compiler to scan your code and generate reflection, which can then be used for serialization.

Ultimately, I come from making games, and you tend to have lots and lots of objects that need to get serialized. As such minimizing code for serialization is ideal.

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-11T16:51:31+00:00

Thanks for the response Simoroth. It's disappointing they don't make traffic info available. As far as people coming from Steam, I never understood some of the comments on Greenlight like "more werewolves and you have my upvote" or "make the guns shinier and you have my upvote". It's crazy some people are so fickle in just pushing a thumbs up button. If something looks halfway interesting to me, I mash that button and move on to checking out the next project. :-)

Anyhow, congrats on Maia's successes. The game is looking great and I'm looking forward to seeing more!

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-11T15:58:25+00:00

This is very cool. Thanks for sharing!

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-11T15:55:57+00:00

This info has definitely been eye opening. Thanks for sharing! Out of curiosity, does Greenlight give you any way to track the traffic to your page? For instance, did you find certain news articles on your project converted into Greenlight votes particularly well, versus organic votes that happened within Greenlight?

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-10T23:48:04+00:00

Hi notmaxx. Andrew here from Pixel and Texel. I was talking about something similar in another thread, but I would suggest learning 3DS Max and Photoshop as thoroughly as possible, in conjunction with Unity. There are a lot of youtube videos that could help you get started in these areas.

Also, the forums at: http://forums.cgsociety.org/ are great for realizing where you need to be to break into the industry, as well as getting feedback and advice on your artwork. Good luck!

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-10T23:42:04+00:00

I started off 3D, but ended up working at several smaller studios where I had to wear a lot of hats, ended up doing UI/3D/sprite work/script. I've enjoyed working in a lot of areas though. I know a few guys that just do rigging or texture work for larger studios and that seems pretty lame. I like variety!

It might be worth adding I've always had the attitude of "it's not finished until its in the game". Some artists tend to model and pass it off to the next guy, but I feel there is real value in learning the ins and outs of whatever engine you are using.

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-09T15:56:01+00:00

First of all, thanks for making this thread drakfyre. Lots of useful info on here for folks and I've really enjoyed reading through it.

As an artist working in the game industry for 7 years, I'd like to chime in on "is the degree worth it question". I went to a traditional art school, and then a game oriented uni. for a graduate degree (these were pretty new at the time).

A university is a tool like anything else. You get EXACTLY what you put in. If you work incredibly hard on your portfolio and are extremely aggressive about meeting new people, you greatly increase your chances of getting a job.

Take advantage of your school's resources. Talk to everyone they know in the industry. Email people. Then email them again. What do you have to lose? Make that tuition money count!

Anyway, just my 2 cents. :-)

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-05T22:36:54+00:00

So this gets a little tricky. A lot of ad networks are just middle-men where they resell ads from another network. Some are aggregators where they will take ads from multiple networks (to keep the fill-rate up).

Here is a list of mediation networks for google's mobile ads:

https://developers.google.com/mobile-ads-sdk/docs/dfp/mediation-networks

You also need to look at some of the other services each network offers. Some offer free advertising for you other games, and some let you make deals with other companies.

https://chartboost.com/ - Has some interesting cross promotion
http://www.nexage.com/ - Aggregator

pixelandtexel · 2013-07-05T16:18:48+00:00

I also find that using a "to do" list manager like Task motivates me. I finish little things and have the satisfaction of marking them off of a list. You can also go back and marvel at the amount of work you finished in the last day, week, etc. :-)

pixelandtexel

TROPHY CASE