Monday, October 5, 2009

Slow News Day...what ever happened to the "weekly" updates?

It probably doesn't seem like it, but again, we are really busy. Good Will Haunting has been in review for a week and I'm in the middle of probably one of the most complicated animations I've created thus far. Why is it complicated you might wonder...well let's just say there's a new creature, and it has a LOT of appendages.

Dave is optimizing while he's waiting for my art...so he's taking more steps in that direction.

Somewhere in the comments, somebody complained that our updates aren't weekly anymore and that we are "breaking our promise"...which I can understand a little. It might not have been clear that we never intended to update weekly forever. I just want to defend ourselves a little. When we embarked on the updates, we had NO idea we would be doing it all year long! Pocket God was a big experiment and it could have gone either way. To our surprise, it paid off BIG, and so we kept it up!

When we slowed down, around episode 15, it was partly due to Apple's update process was slowing down. But also we wanted to take the time and start thinking about ways to make every update a unique addition to the app, and not just quickly slap something together over and over.

The reality is that, even if Apple's review process did only take a week, we would be dead by now if we kept it up on a weekly basis for the last 9 months. We weren't going outside, seeing friends...we were missing our favorite TV shows and I missed most of the early summer movies. Just to make the deadline we created for ourselves. If we were still doing that (and alive), we wouldn't have been able to up the complexity the way we did. The original updates were much more simple than the ones we create now. The app is more complex and not only are we creating more content, but are having to fit it into an increasingly busy matrix of interactivity ( and get some really interesting glitches) But come on, somebody point out another developer that gave their 99 cent app over 25 updates!

Not to say that we didn't have good reason. Many people probably noticed that an update meant a bump in sales and ranking even as we drifted downward.

We're taking steps to try to push sales up, so we can continue updating pocket god into the new year...which is also taking time and effort. More on that later. And there are other things running in the background, that i never get to talk about. Hopefully something new and interesting will be announced soon!

In the mean time, here's a cool video by TheDingaderen we came across on YouTube. It has a particularly interesting intro.

11 comments:

  1. Hey Allan. Are you planning on continuing the fansite of the other day? I know you're really busy, but just estimating would make me happy. 3 months? 2 months? Never?

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  2. WOOOOOO!
    spider idea-coined by me king of the penguins... look in t rex thread i have proof!

    well anyway im done being pompous about my idea...
    ive never minded updates going slower... cause they get better and bigger... i mean literally just the amount of new stuff in each uptade... so good job guys!

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  3. Hey you said "video" twice in that last part! I don't think it's worth going back to correct though.

    Anyways about the appendages hint... I'm thinking this most likely has to do with a spider, but it reminded me of that octopus idea I sent to you a few months ago. You said that you would consider it for a future update, and I just wanted to know if you were still considering using it.

    Oh yeah and if it's not to late to tell you this, I think it would be awesome if you could trigger the spider coming out of the tree by flicking a pygmy into its web on the tree.
    Honestly, I think that there should be more collaboration with the background items on the islands. Such as when you flick a Pygmy while it is in front of a tree trunk, it should get knocked back down onto the island. I hope you agree with my suggestions. :)

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  4. Keep up the hard work! Some people are just impatient. I appreciate all you guys do and give up just to work on PG.

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  5. mm, it has been a long time since I've commented at this blog now.. first of all, I still love PocketGod, it's the one app that I still haven't deleted to make space on my iPod:)

    about the video, if I had not bought PocketGod before, I'd buy it after viewing that vid:) he really covers everything you need to know:)

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  6. I think u are right you shouldent have to have weekly updates becuse then you wouldent have a live so i complety agree with you

    P.S i love pocket god

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  7. I still appreciate everything you have done, Dave and Allan. You guys had a great idea and you kept making it better... and better... and better. For that I am very grateful. You work very hard and it is the reason Pocket God is so great.

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  8. pocketgod just got approved, waiting for update lawl

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  9. A sad day for us Pocket God fans...

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