Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Meet Paul Vasquez a.k.a. Yosemite Bear, the Double Rainbow Guy!


In the Fall of 2010, we decided to pay homage to famous "Double Rainbow" video that became a sensation on the internet with phrases like:
"Double rainbow, oh my god! It's a double rainbow all the way!"
"Oh my god, it's full on double-rainbow all the way across the sky!"
"Whoa, so intense"
"It's starting to look like a triple rainbow!"

Naturally, it fit into our app nicely and was a big hit. But we were surprised to learn that a few people who thought WE originated double rainbow phrases on Pocket God and and made comments on his YouTube video saying so. Well, we want to give credit where credit is due!

Meet Paul "Yosemite Bear" Vasquez. One day, he was out taking video and came across a huge double rainbow in the forest and uttered the words soon to be known by all. He posted the video on YouTube and quickly became an overnight viral hit, racking up almost 30 million views and has made him a celebrity. He is a lover of nature and now a public personality. He's up to all sorts of things, including: traveling the world, visiting Jimmy Kimmel, shooting commercials, selling t-shirts, and even running for president!

>>Check out his site, Yosemitebear.net to learn more! <<

Moreover, he may be part of an ancient Cree Indian prophecy involving rainbow warriors. Read more about The Cree Rainbow Indian Prophecy on Wikipedia!

We thank him for lending his voice (yes, that's his voice, but digitally doctored) and words of inspiration to Pocket God!



Keep up the good work, Yosemite Bear!


Thursday, May 26, 2011

Pocket God Facebook Wins Best Social Game at Canadian Game Awards


Last week, Pocket God Facebook was awarded "Best Social/Casual Game' at the Canadian Video Game Awards! Frima Studio, the team behind the growing game, has done an awesome job of taking Pocket God and making it a fun social version that keeps getting better with each new episode. We thank them for their titanic efforts! The artists, game-designers, and team-leaders are fantastic to work with. We are working hard to keep improving the game!

>> CHECK OUT POCKET GOD FACEBOOK TODAY! <<





And in other news, we've submitted the latest update for Pocket God Journey To Uranus last night! Woohoo! What was THIS update about? Well, we took a major step based on popular request...but it might not be what you think.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Challenge of the Gods is out!


This is the big update we've been working on. We've decided to celebrate the fact that we're nearing Episode 40 by encouraging players to go back and refind, or find for the first time, the various god powers, interactive situations, mini-games, creatures, islands, traps, etc. that we've added over the last two years!

A new Startup screen appears (and you can turn it off, if you prefer to ignore it) that has a button "View Challenges". There you can see the familiar list of icons we've created for each episode (except we had to add two from the beginning). Tap the icon and you view the episode challenge screen. This will be where you monitor your progress for that episode. Click "Activate Challenge" and then try to complete the Challenge Tasks for that episode. They are hidden for those who don't want the hint, but it's there if you need it. For instance, activate the episode "A Storm is Coming" and then go practice your lightning powers! The active episode icon appears on the corner, that you can tap to go back and view your progress. Complete all the tasks for that episode, and you will acquire a God Idol for that episode. There are 39 to collect...but once you have at least four, you can go to God Island and place them on the pedestals to open up the ancient tomb. What happens inside the tomb? Well, there's a hint there, but you'll have to wait for Episode 40 to find out! And anyone who reads the comic might recognize the ruins on God Island.

While we want to maintain the sand box free for all of Pocket God, we wanted to figure out a way to encourage people to go find all the stuff we've added, and this seemed like a fun way to do it! Plus, the God Idols add a new dimension to PG and will be useful in the future. Much of this plays off of issues we are planning for the Pocket God comic series as well as the Facebook game.

Another thing we've wanted to do for a while is to offer a Custom Pack for shark! We also have customizations for the laser attachment for the underwater area! As always, the update is free, but the optional custom packs are 99¢. Thanks to everyone who has been purchasing them and helping us continue to evolve PG.

>> Check out Dave's State of the Island on Touch Arcade for more on this episode! <<

Check out this video created by a behind-the-scenes Bolter, Pepijn Gooiker to see this episode demoed!




And the awesome marketing poster above was created by Junko Mizuno.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Oog Island is Infested with Zombies!


Hey guys, thanks to Ape Entertainment and IDW publishing, the Pygmies are participating in IDW's Infestation Comic Series.

"INFESTATION is IDW’s hugely successful comic series that infects the TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE, Ghostbusters, and Star Trek universes with legions of undead. This unparalleled, never-before-seen event is now available digitally through the Apple App Store in the INFESTATION Comics app, made specially for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Readers can view full size pages, or read panel-by-panel simply by turning the iPhone or iPod touch horizontally. The app includes all the issues of the IDW event, as well as special features, such as a cover gallery and character designs."

In the Pocket God issue, Britt, a vampire/zombie soldier set on spreading the undead virus across universes, crosses over to the Pocket God universe. She sees the power of the Gem of Life (which allows the Pygmies to die and regenerate) and wants to steal it for herself. In the comic we learn of Nooby's shameful secret, met the zombie t-rex and zombie monkey, fight an army of undead pygmies, and more!

We WILL be releasing it on the Pocket God Comic app, but not until after the Tale of Two Pygmies 3-issue arc (that's when these events occur), but you can get it early on the Infestation Comic App (the app itself is free)...

>> Check out the Infestation App Today! <<



Friday, May 13, 2011

Busy Month! Much Needed Blog Post!


Hey guys. Sorry for neglecting the blog. We still run pretty lean and mean here, so if I'm not blogging it's because I work day and night on designing and animating the next update! So let's do a check-in one by one...


Pocket God- Episode 39 (sneak peak of new island above) was submitted last weekend and we are awaiting approval. This episode adds a new twist to all the Pocket God functions and pays homage to all 39 episodes. It also sets PG up for a great new mini-game that will require -gasp- strategy! That should be out by next week at the latest.


Facebook Ep. 7 - Supersize PygME is now live! You can now buy magic mushrooms which the Pygmies can eat...causing them to enlarge! We couldn't do this on the iPhone because of graphic size constraints, but it works great on Facebook! And we have tons of new features planned...as well as optimizations (for game play and faster loading) so stay tuned...If you haven't already, join today! It just gets better and better!

>> Check out Pocket God Facebook, Episode 7: Supersize Pygmy <<



Pocket God the Comic - Part 2 of Tale of Two Pygmies is just about finished in the coloring process. Our artist was down sick, so it is a bit delayed, but we have hired more artists to help speed up the issue release...and this is thanks to awesome sales! We were on a phone call with Ape Entertainment and not only is the next story AFTER ToTP nearly written, with art already in progress, but we are mapping out THREE more 4 issue story arcs after that. And we group them into 4 -issue sagas, but there is an over-arching story that expands and explains the Pygmies' world. Can't wait to see how it comes out! Hopefully we will get the system in place where they come out faster!

But in the meanwhile, the Pygmy Peril #6 has arrived (Pygmy Perils are all free with purchase of app)! Ape's new editor, Matt Anderson, gets his first taste of the Pygmy World...and Dave writes about how to program games, as well as the usual letters to the editor.

>> Check out Pocket God the Comic <<

Journey To Uranus - We're currently working on the next update which should be done by next week....but the central focus of this update is NOT what you think! More on this later.

Also, we have a few other irons in the fire but I do want to address something I've seen mentioned. There has been grumbling we never quite got our plushes off the ground. We had some major problems lining up a competent manufacturer, and it just turned out to be too difficult and time-consuming for us to do on our own. But the solution is on it's way! More on THAT later as well.