Pocket Blog: February 2009

Friday, February 27, 2009

Jump the Shark is Live

Jump the Shark is Live. Download the 1.07 update from the App Store or iTunes. Post any problems or bugs you have with the newest update here.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Rocky + Pocket God = Very Funny

Awesome work ipodTouchChris! Thanks!

P.S. Episode 8: Jump the Shark is NOT yet out, but should be up tonight or tomorrow!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

1.07: Memory Saving and Jailbreakers

"Hey Everyone, we submitted our newest update on Sunday again, this one will be all about sharks! You can feed the pygmies to the sharks by dangling them over the water, or you can drop a shark on the pygmies head and watch him run around in a panic before being swallowed!"

With 1.07 being submitted, a new thread has been created at TouchArcade:
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?threadid=5816

In this thread Dave discusses how they accomplised saving space with this new update, and how someone with a jailbroken iPod asked for technical support!!

"I ended up helping him (and the others) anyway because I feel it gives us a good reputation and helps to spread the word. Most devs would just say "We dont support jailbroken phones" but when one of these guys complains on a board, the rest of the users don't understand that our game normally doesnt crash so we have to address it."

How they accomplished cutting the game down from 21 MB to 15 MB:

"I finally added all the textures to our new texture atlas technique and was able to save a bunch of memory by cropping each image to its smallest area of visible pixels. It actually looks really cool."

Check out the thread at Touch Arcade and stay tuned to our links for new info!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Another Awesome Review

This is probably rated pG-13, so if you are under 13, don't watch! Thanks Sbluebolt777!!! You rock!

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

Good work lilbrody727!

Howard Stern's Jackie Martling mentions Pocket God on Sirius Radio!

One of the things Dave and I bond over is that we both are Howard Stern fans. Dave has been listening to him forever, while I caught on around 2002. Anyway, Dave happens to be connected through a friend to Jackie Martling, a comedian who was on Howard Stern for many years and recently has his own show on Sirus Radio called "Jackie's Joke Hunt". Dave is in the process of finishing up an iPhone application for Jackie that will feature Jackie's voice, jokes and humor called "the Jackie Button". The big news tonight is that he plugged Pocket God on Sirius Radio! It was a very cool plug where he mentioned Dave, Pocket God and how the game works! We will include an audio file for you to check out when we get it done.

The Blog Suggestion Box

With the flood of suggestions on other posts, it seems necessary to have a "suggestion box". Any suggestions or problems you have, feel free to comment on them in this post. Thanks again for your support, and spread the word!

P.S. #2 in US App Store and #1 in Entertainment!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

New Release...

Tonight we've submitted our new update! Will probably take about 4 days to go through. I'm sure its not much of a secret what's going to be in it. And remember, in case you weren't aware, updates are always FREE!

Oh, and by the way, we're at number 3 of Top Paid Apps and number 1 in Entertainment! Hopefully we can keep it up!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Interview with Dave

Dave will be interviewed at www.youtube.com/user/th3appstorereviewer this week. Subscribe to the channel or look at any of your Pocket God sources for more information when it is available.

Articles & Reviews

Review

Woohoo! We're in the top ten which is awesome! Also, the latest release 1.06 (Ep 7, just give us 5 minutes) is out also. Don't forget the title gives you the hint on how to find the secret unlockable :) Here's an awesome review from the iTipster:

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Cracked the top 25!

Yay! Looks like the latest update, along with community support has helped us push Pocket God up in the ratings. I have no idea if this is a continuing trend, or if we've had a temporary jump, but it definitely motivates us to keep pushing the updates. Thanks everyone! A little off the subject, but I was going through my laptop bag and I found the original "napkin sketch" when Dave and I were first brainstorming and thought I'd share. Notice the sea monster!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Get Our Face on the Book Contest

Hey everyone! Bolt Creative is holding a contest to see how many members we can add to our Group on Facebook. Tell your friends to become a member and then go to the Discussion Board Topic "I was sent by...." and merely have them enter YOUR facebook handle. The deadline is March 1, and we will tally up the entries. The top 5 will win a Pocket God T-Shirt (three designs to choose from) and the top name will be displayed on the following Pocket God release.

Facebook Group

Check out the T-shirt designs here*

* all designs are available for male/female/adult/youth

1.06 Details!

There is a thread on the TouchArcade forums discussing the "secrets" of the 1.06 update. Here is a link: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=5368. Here is a quote detailing some of the happenings in this build and what Dave and Allan went through to get it out:

"Hey Everyone, I submitted the new update last night right after 1.05 got approved. This one is our secret update and as an added bonus, we are including a Boulder that you can throw on top of the pigmies to squish them or throw at a bunch of them to bowl them all off the island.

So, for this update we didn't really get to any new technology, I started investigating some low level sound routines (AudioUnit) that are not really documented well by Apple, our sound is about 7 megs right now, so I want to figure out how we can apply compression and also, there is an issue with playing the same sound twice in a row without cutting off the original sound. Our default sound engine uses openAl which is good for 3d sound in a 3d engine, but since our game is mainly 2d we don’t really need what it offers, I just want something that lets us play sounds with no lag. Hopefully I can finish it for next weeks update.

This was also the second week in a row were we were up to 3:00 AM trying to get the update out, it's weird, no matter how hard we try to get parts done early, we always end up staying up too late, Allan is usually a morning person and I have a late day at the world golf tour offices on Mondays so this schedule isn't that maintainable for us. Hopefully this week we figure out how to make it easier on ourselves."

Monday, February 16, 2009

Update Delays!

Okay, 1.05 is finally approved (as of tonight). Be sure to update it when it comes in. Changing day to night and vice versa is surprisingly satisfying. Not to mention we've finally started giving you a way to FEED the islanders! And we've already completed 1.06 (episode 7, sorry for the number mismatch) and submitted it....We apologize for waiting! But here's some screenshots for 1.06 (to be out Friday or Monday hopefully) titled "Just Give Us 5 Minutes!". I'll leave it to you to discover the meaning of the title. Here's a few screenshots of a new feature.

Something new is on the island. This can't be good for the unsuspecting islanders.

Ouch! Pinned under a rock! What else can go wrong?

The rock being used as a bowling ball and the islanders as pins....that's what!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Simple iPhone Guide Review!

We will post reviews as they come in. Here's the first one from a site called Simple iPhone Guide:

"Ever felt like being a god? Well now you can. With this surprisingly fun and addictive game you can be the god of a small island populated by little islanders. You are able to bring life to the helpless people and you are able to take it away with a swipe of your finger. You're in control, and what you do is up to you."