Jackie Button finally approved!

Bolt Creative's other project, the Jackie Button, will be released this Tuesday. This app is a collaborative effort with Jackie Martling, ex-head writer of the Howard Stern show. The Jackie Button will showcase Jackie's trademark brand of humor, and boy, was tough getting it through the Apple approval system! Many rewrites were necessary and Apple made us tame it down so its safe for teenagers! We're trying for a blockbuster release this Tuesday so we're asking for your support!

By the way, no word on Surf's up from Apple yet. We'll blog when its approved.

EasyToStart strikes again

This is the second piece we've come across (the first was the b/w animation with the riverboat)....I'm guessing Easy really wants two things in an update...a boat, and a sea monster! I admit, I couldn't quite figure out how to play the game but it sure looks neat.

>> Check out this cool flash fame <<

Meffies, Moonclog and a Million Downloads

I am the KING of alliteration! So, two things are happening. Pocket God has been downloaded over 1 MILLION times!

Inconceivable! <--in the voice of Wallace Shawn

We are really thankful for everyone's support in getting the word out! Also, we've been nominated for a Meffy...mobile entertainment award for game excellence. MEF is an organization based in England. You can check out their blog HERE.

When they let us know we were nominated, MEF asked us for a 2 minute video about Pocket God. We got this crazy idea for the video. Instead of sending them a normal marketing video, we asked the infamous Moonclog13 (Helium-kid and pocket god theme-song writer, Daniel) to record a video where he plays our overlord demanding we use our time to make more updates rather than go to a dumb-ol' awards ceremony. This accomplished two things in our mind: we'd create an impression by submitting a totally unexpected, if slightly weird, video AND we'd get out of doing any work.

Well, then we received an email a bit later saying that they were only going to cut in 10 seconds of whatever video we sent (so why ask us for a 2 minute video?) so we had to ditch the idea. But here's the video Dan made. Thanks anyway, Dan!


P.S. We don't know when it will be approved but Surf's Up is in the Apple Approval system!

Dave Reports in: Surf's Up!

Yes, yes it was submitted. Dave's posts his recap on Touch Arcade, discussing the latest update and other stuff...one interesting decision on our part....out of overwhelming demand, we are abandoning the term "Oogs" and sticking with the preferred term "Pygmies". After some research, we discovered that the term Pygmies is not necessarily referring to a tribe in Africa. Nobody goes around saying "I'm a Pygmy"....but rather its just a generic term for a "short person". Thanks to everyone for trying to adopt the term, but it turns out it just wasn't that well received. We are, however, sticking with the name "Island of Oog" as a tribute to the temporary name change!

>> Read Dave's State of the Island on Touch Arcade <<

148 Apps Reviews PG

Kevin Stout of 148 Apps explains the current version of Pocket God, and what he likes about it!

"Listen…you simply can’t own an iPhone without Pocket God. Even if you’re the weirdest person alive and hate the game, show your friends and you’ll be a god of humor."

He talks about his favorite features discusses our baby steps to game play.

>> Read 148 Apps Review Here <<

Thanks Kevin!

SaintsAlive, Pocket God and teh Marshmallow Song

Not sure where SaintsAlive (Liam) lives, but someone should check the metal levels in the water there! Just kidding :) This is so awesome. Thanks SaintsAlive! (...Can you please comment with the lyrics?)



P.S. I noticed SaintsAlive tried embed this image of his original cartoon:

Doodle Jump receives a visitor from the Island of Oog!

This is super cool...Igor Pusenjak of app store hit, Doodle Jump, asked us to send over one of the pygmies to attempt the Jump.If you haven't already bought this addicting game, now you gotta! Be sure to go to the youtube account and comment! Or if you're too lazy, here's the screenshot...



Note that the instructions how to unlock this is IN the video and ON the youtube description :).
Check it out!

Fun Animation by Easytostart and a quick response to common concerns

This is one way to present your suggestions! Really creative with a river boat no-less! Thanks for the awesome work Easytostart! and interesting youtube name!



About some of the comments, which I will try to go through and address. A big one is that we went back to 2.2.1 and some people can't get the latest update. Dave just sighed and said he would try to go back, but folks! This kind of thinking will keep the programmers in the dark ages. The firmware updates give programmers new and better tools to use and makes them happy. i would like to encourage you all to update when you can. We know 3.0 is gonna cost, so we are definitely NOT doing that right away....we're hoping it will eventually be free for ipod users.

A reminder: The god-stats is NOT saving. :( our bad. We spent a bunch of time optimizing the animation engine and it slipped through the cracks.

Another reminder: if you had problems with crashing at "A New Home" or lagging at "The T-Rex Strikes Back"....try the latest, we've addressed both issues big time.

Also, I feel the frustration of some people who are presenting really awesome ideas but I haven't gotten to them! Forgive me! Keeping up with this is really a challenge..especially when I'm in the middle of designing the latest update.

One last note: i held off on approving the easter egg spoilers but probably tomorrow, i'll blanketly approve them. just wanted to give the people following the blog a chance to find it first!

Surprise! Return of the Pygmy Out

Okay...this is weird! We were just told the update was rejected because the app icon didn't match the store icon. Dave went in and changed the icon for the store (we usually just wait until the update goes out)....and then we expected it to either take another week to go through, or just be put back in the queue...But to our surprise, they immediately approved it.

So this update basically has a new feature..which is the ability to attack the T-Rex with a spear. When the T-Rex appears, you can pick up the spear and drop it into the islander's hands A damage bar will also appear to indicate how close you are to conquest.

Also in this update is a secret easter-egg for you to find!

New note: The god-stat screen isn't saving! We were so focused on animation engine optimization that it must have been broken in the process and we missed it. Sorry about that guys!

Hopefully we will be forgiven once you see that Dave put a huge amount of effort into was engine optimization. Let us know if you notice the difference!

P.S. because we were taken by surprise, its taking me a bit to update the App Store...I'm on it tho.

P.P.S. If you comment about finding the easter egg I will hold off on approving it until we think most people found it!

Shark Hat!

I googled Pocket God and someone dugg this image thinking of Pocket God. Its funny because that's exactly what we call it in our game. I want a shark hat and I want it now!

More PG on Little Big Planet

Hey...i guess we missed this other level on Little Big Planet. So awesome! thanks, JMH1 (James). you rock!



P.S. Lots of questions when Return of the Pygmy is coming out....I am hopeful it will be approved by Friday. But its hard to guarantee!

Sunday Comix

Fan art and comics continued!

By A.J. Winter


By SaintsAlive


By ???


By MB1229


By Combzz


I still have a backlog, so if you haven't seen yours, I'll get to it. I'll mention when I'm out!

The Dave Report!

Return of the Pygmy is in and Dave pokes his head out to tell us what's going on in his world, revealing the next update (and one after that), our thoughts on the future of Pocket God, and many other things. Of course he dumbs it down for us lay-people, avoiding any technical talk...which I think is completely unnecessary. Don't do it, Dave. Get techie on us!

>> Read the rest of his post here <<

Pocket God on Little Big Planet, courtesy of Pyro-hem

KNDRules01 posted this rad video of a PG inspired Little Big Planet made by Pyro-hem!!!!I was just updated on the person's handle...is there a name?



Which reminds me, i never blogged a Spore version of Pocket God by "rupertofly" made ages ago, which was very cool.



P.S. We are about to submit Return of the Pygmy. Dave Cazz just busted his butt retooling the engine to work faster and did an amazing job. It works GREAT on my 2g phone. Yes I have a 2G phone. Dave is truly the Pocket God GOD. Hopefully this makes it worth the wait.

Mini-update and Fan Art Series

So, yes. In case you didn't already know. We're delaying our update to make some more optimizations to our game engine. The game engine needs some attention. Some people...especially ones with older iphones and ipods are experiencing lag. And Return of the Pygmy just made it worse....a lot worse. So we made a hard decision to stop and optimize. Of course people are going to notice it coinciding with a sinkage in the charts. But folks, it was bound to happen. Obviously, we want to stay top 25. but nearly 3 months in the top ten was an awesome feat! I mean, Pocket God has financed the rest of our year to continue iphone game development!

We have a bunch more updates in us, so the goal will to be get them in before sales completely go away and we go full force on our next project, which, of course we are already getting excited about, but i'm not tellin' what it is.

So, while Dave has his nose to the optimization grindstone...I (Allan) am working on graphics for future updates...the next one being based on the volume of fan requests. But to keep the blog alive I think I will catchup on all the fan art that was sent. I am WAY behind so instead of posting them all at once, i think I will release them in spurts. And by the way, if you are inspired by any of the art/cartoons... and want to make your own...send 'em to boltcreative@gmail.com

by Palfince


by Paul Kolvenbach and Marcus Venghaus


by King of the Penguins


Whoops. it just came to my attention that the top graphic was NOT by Saintsalive...take credit in the comments if you see this :)

G4 includes Pocket God in Great Games For Your iPhone!

I watch G4 TV all the time, so I was psyched when I heard Adam Sessler's voice talking about Pocket God! I would have been slightly more psyched if it had been Morgan Webb tho.

Video Games - E3 2009 - X-Play

Wow...just wow! Rob Lapthorn and friends really KNOW they like Pocket God!

So awesome. Go favorite, comment, subscribe and all that. Thanks Rob!

Update: i just noticed the video requests video responses with the "catchphrase". Add yours to it today!

The Tyrannosaurus Strikes Back is out!

Woohoo! I was afraid it wouldn't make the weekend. And sorry if putting a spoiler in the promo video was a bad idea. It was a strategy to leak out the images to increase new sales. Not sure if it worked, but as time goes on, it will be difficult to maintain our place in the charts so we are trying new things. Including this new splash page for the itunes store...


The problem with leaking updates, is we start getting criticized even before the release has gone through! Also...keep us posted if people are still having crashing problems. I hope our fix will alleviate the majority of them!

We are submitting the latest update tonight. The features are starting to tax the ipod processor even more...so Dave worked on optimizations today to get into "Return of the Pygmy" so it runs smoother. Hopefully people see the difference!

IGN Alert

Hey guys. Lots of people asking about the next update. It was submitted late last week, and in the past that would have meant the update would have gone through by now. But as we all know, the turn-around isn't what it used to be. We can't submit "Return of the Pygmy" until "The Tyrannosaurus Strikes Back" goes through.

In the mean time, IGN picked up an article about our current updates:

>> Read it here <<

Act of Pocket God

I just saw this interesting preview for documentary about people who were struck by lightning...and how they wonder if there was an unseen hand behind it. Too bad the people who made this documentary never played Pocket God or they would have known its an unseen FINGER!

>> ACT OF GOD TRAILER <<

Pocket God Youtube Mashup and Sneak Preview of the T-Rex!

Originally this began as a longer demo for mobile game competitions, but then we shortened it up for your enjoyment. While we couldn't include every video ever made, this is a thanks to everyone for posting Pocket God vidoes on YouTube. Plus there is a sneak preview of the next release! Warning: if you won't want a spoiler, don't watch the epilogue after the ending bolt logo.

Erictric interviews Dave

Dave talks about Pocket God (what else?) and recalls the its beginning and then contemplates its future.

>> Read the Interview Here <<

Ace Ventura Jr. (Josh Flitter) fan of Pocket God!

The star of the Cartoon Network movie Ace Ventura, Pet Detective Jr. posted a cool shout out to PG!

So, as the animator of PG, I hope people aren't too disturbed that I am very aware of Cartoon Network Programming...which this movie was on. And while I missed the movie itself, I saw the ad campaign..so I was pretty stoked!

Thanks Josh!



P.S. Be sure to leave him a nice comment! :)

Saturday Morning Cartoons

I was scrolling through the Touch Arcade thread to find out the damage on our latest changes. But it looks like entropy took over in the forums. Me love randomness!

by SaintsAlive


by Pocket Kyle



by SaintsAlive


by Shocked



Thanks Pocket Kyle, Shocked and SaintsAlive!

Crashing, Controversy and other Conundrums

This turned out to be a crazy week when I thought we'd be chilling a little. There are several things going on...let's break it down, why don't we?

Dave goes to NY, Pocket God update is delayed, We hire a PR firm
So Dave took a small vacation and also got the opportunity to visit the Howard Stern show (we are both fans, so I was super jealous). In the mean time, we needed to create a new demo video for Pocket God in order to enter a mobile game competition. Now I HATE video taping me playing the game because I am a fumble fingers and if I'm taping it, it gets even worse. Dave and I then brainstormed the idea of borrowing clips from miscellaneous fan/review videos on YouTube. I spent last weekend and this week creating it while Dave was gone. Then, we decided to hire a PR firm, Triple Point, because we felt we were doing a really bad job of getting mainstream media attention. It was then decided to take the demo and shorten it down for a media release. More details on that later....

Apple Surprises us with Approval then the Crash reports
Once Apple told us that it was a simple fix on our app description that was holding up our approval, instead of taking their time, they approve it right away. Soon after, we are bombarded with reports of our app crashing! Oh, the humanity! Dave is in NY with no way to look into the issue so we are forced to hold tight. Dave returns on Thursday and busts his butt trying to reproduce the crash. He jailbreaks it, adds random stuff to it, microwaves it, throws it in a mud puddle, puts a voodoo hex on it and still it won't crash. He then does some coder thingy and is able to reproduce it and then solve it. The update was submitted this morning. And yes...the T-Rex is coming!

>> Read Dave's State of the Island here <<

And finally, the Controversy!
Then, we start reading on the internet about how Pocket God is being called degrading and racist. Read iPhone Savior's article about it here. Now we have a slightly evil sense humor and watch too much South Park, but this accusation did not thrill us. This is so far from our reality and all we were trying to do was set up a funny fantasy scenario in a tropical environment and didn't think people would read any more into it than that. But we were probably being naive since we live in San Francisco, one of the most tolerant multi-cultural cities there is...other places, not so much. It turns out we made two really big blunders...first was the stone statue, also known as Moai. This is sacred to certain Pacific Island cultures. The second was calling them "Islanders" which we thought was generic enough, but was too similar to "Pacific Islanders".

Dave engaged Elaine Howard, one of the people that wrote up the controversy and discussed some fixes. They asked to to implement some pretty major (and costly) changes that Dave discusses in the thread above. However, together, we came up with some easier alternatives. First, we stop calling them Islanders or Pygmies and use a new fictional name: Oogs with the addition of a backstory. Then we remove the Moai and replace it with a fictional octopus (or qudrapus) god statue to be used in a future story. I eagerly await the stream of comments by people who hate these ideas...but I think we ended up creating new and interesting concepts to explore! We welcome an open discussion.