Christmas Video Potpourri

I don't know about Dave but I am getting my last minute shopping in for Christmas. My nephews (7 and 9) are easy....iTunes cards. The more room the better. Lately they're addicted to Epic Pet Wars. And WOW. We have GOT to get in on that racket. I think they've spent 20 bucks each for EPW alone. When the 7 year old asked me if it was ok if he buys a 10 dollar EPW add-on, I fell out of my chair. Because really? 10 bucks? Good job coming up with that Miraphonic!

Anyway, with production for the next update impeded by holiday family obligations, we've found some holiday videos inspired by Pocket God!

A 17 month old named Kaya can't speak yet, but can work an iPhone! And is clearly a Pocket God fan! Thanks Kaya!



5Jusername Wishes You a Pocket God Christmas! Thanks 5J!



And Now For Something Completely Different: "Dave, Allan and Friends", A fan from the Forums is creating a series of animations somehow inspired by Pocket God. If you ask me exactly how it is inspired by Pocket God, I'm not totally sure. Except that the two fuzzy main characters are supposed to be Dave and I. And I've never been a fuzzy cartoon character beforel, So hey, we're flattered and am intrigued to see where its going!



Part 2

Pocket God and Doodle Jump Team Up Again!

Firstly, in case you've forgotten, Pocket God and Doodle Jump collaborated a few months ago. There is an easter egg in Doodle Jump to change the Doodler to a pygmy and Pocket God has a Doodle Jump-like minigame with the Doodler making a cameo in the clouds. Secondly, I'm sure everyone knows about how big Christmas day was last year for app sales. Everyone receiving iPhones and iPods and iTunes cards for Christmas flooded the app store with new sales, so we're trying to gear up to take advantage of that.

We've decided to team up with the guys of Doodle Jump fame to run a campaign that will hopefully raise our ranking and position both our apps to take advantage of the rush. We're running an advertising article in Kotaku.com and Gizmodo.com, starting the 22 & 23 (respectively) of this month! This is the first time we've actually paid for advertisement (we went halvsies), so this is a new experiment for us!

So, thanks to everyone who has basically helped us advertise for free on their twitter accounts, blogs, YouTube and the forums over the last year! And why stop now? Be sure to tweet/blog/etc. when this article comes out, or whenever. Hopefully this will be our last push for 2009 so we can get on with creating new 2010 content!

Pocket god
http://bit.ly/4xmO6A

Doodle Jump
http://bit.ly/7ycdBp

Getting greedy!

NEW NOTE: Dave just let me know that I completely misinterpreted how the contest worked. I must have come across someone else's nomination! At bestappever.com, you can nominate pocket God for any category you want. So it looks like I've managed to lock us for a Kids app. But, if feel like it, you might as well nominate us for a little more prestigious category! How about Most Innovative?

>> Now Pick the Category Here! <<


I know, I know. Santa doesn't like greed. But we might as well grab for all the accolades we can as this year wraps up. 148 apps is sponsoring a "2009 Best App Ever Awards" and put us under "Best Just For Fun Kids App" category. I love this category title since they probably considered calling it "Best Not Really A Game and Makes People Mad When You Call It One" but reconsidered because it was too long. Regardless, we want in!

>> Nominate us here <<

Number 3 on XPlay Top 5 List!

I was working last night and had the G4 network in the background, and suddenly I think I hear "Pocket God" and turn around to see our game part of XPlay's list!

Video Game - E3 2010 - Tetris

Needless to say, I was very surprised! Thanks XPlay!

Tell us about you!

So, we're always getting asked, what's Pocket God's demographic? Who are the Pocket God fans? Well, we actually have a pretty good idea, but on the other hand...maybe we don't! So, we've put together this survey so we can start answering that question. And if you happen to frequent, or run a Pocket God fan site, pass this link on!

>> Take survey here <<

Quick Update

Hey guys, I (Allan) am back in SF. I had to run out of town for a family emergency and Dave has been holding the fort. But I am back and we're trying to get back to it.

While I was gone a few cool things happened! The first is we made it on the Apps Best Seller List on the 2009 Rewind Page on iTunes. And currently we are at 1.7 million downloads!

The other is that we are one of Wired.com's Reader's Favorite iPhone Apps of 2009! Thanks to everyone for voting.

My personal issues got in the way of us beginning our next update, tentatively titled "Great Job, Ice Hole!"....and I say tentatively because of the latest delays might get us to rethink our strategy. But i will leave you to ponder what the title means.

Vote for us on Wired best apps of 2009!

Hey Guys, just stopping in for a sec. Allan is out of commision for a bit and I wanted to get this announcement out there. I will let him share with everyone when the time is right but please send all your best wishes to him in the meantime.

About the annoucement, Wired is runnng a best app of 2009 poll and it would be awesome if you can help support us by going over there and voting. It seems like the Words with Friends people are playing games with the voting by submitting multiple copies of their app so that people can vote on it more than once but hopefully we can beat them anyway.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/best-iphone-apps-2009/

Pocket God World Overview

Hey guys, Allan here. The blog is in need of updating. I had to run out of town for family reason...the second time this year... and Dave is manning the fort while I am gone.

I just approved a bunch of comments and saw "update the blog!". So I did a quick google search and found this super cool overview of the Pocket God world by swigo8 on the PocketGodsBlog. Sometimes I get the originators of this stuff wrong, so please feel free to correct me!

>>You can see more info on it here <<

Thanks swigo8!

Tips for Bringing Down Ice Monster from PocketGodsBlog

I have received so much feedback that the monster is hard to bring down (wouldn't it be lame if it were too easy?), so I was considering posting tips. Luckily Malcom Judd (also a Twitter Yer Picture winner) at Pocket Gods Blog beat me to it. He has a lot of tips even I didn't think of. One I would like to add to his list is that the snowballs cause you to lose pygmies (every pygmy squashed gets added to the pygmy count). So be careful to not have the island overloaded when he goes into "offensive mode"...which usually involves him power walking back and forth across the screen, and stopping to throw snow balls. I like to keep one pygmy and protect him from snow balls in case the monster opens his mouth during these parts.

>> Read the PocketGodsBlog tips here!<<

My best score is 10...Dave's is 9.

Big holiday shout out to theAppera.com

James and his great site theAppera.com is always on top of the Pocket God updates, and I wanted to thank him for quickly writing the Pyg Chill up! We are always grateful for the publicity. Thanks James!

>> Visit the article here <<

The Pyg Chill Approved Early!

When it comes to the App Store I guess it pays to expect the unexpected. Turns out the 4-week approval time we were warned about didn't happen!

The Dave's state of the island linked in the last post went over the newest functionality so I won't go into a huge amount of detail here. But just in case you didn't know, the newest update has a new wintery location, the ice island. There, we will create several winter-based scenarios. The first major piece is the ice monster battle. All you need to do to kick it off is to flick a pygmy at the iceberg in the background. This game revamps the flicking function quite a bit and now you must figure out how to flick the pygmies in a controlled manner, and then beat the monster in as few flicks as possible. But watch out for falling snow balls!



There's a new structure for the pygmies to hang out in and it is the igloo. If a fish is dropped inside, a pygmy will enter (or you can just drop one in) and the pygmy will cook the fish inside. Only one pygmy can fit in at a time, but you can use it to your advantage in the battle as well! Try dropping a pygmy in when another pygmy is cooking a fish.



You'll also notice we've added a location map! Why? Well, there were a few reasons...but we think its a great way for you to get your bearings in the growing world. Also we were going to run out of room in the menu eventually anyway.



Finally, there's a new optional Christmas Pack for purchase. This will allow you to decorate the islands and change different things in the Pocket God world to a cheerful holiday version! The outhouse becomes the gingerbread outhouse...the dodo a toy bird, and the sand island statue, a nutcracker!

So, as usual, the update might take a while to show up on the app store, but it should be available tonight! Thanks for waiting everyone!

Dave's State of the Island

Even I was eagerly awaiting Dave's postmortem on the update. He talks about the new features/games, our mutual burn-out, and a bunch of the technical upgrades he had to to implement....

"We used to have a series of 6 1024x1024 texture atlases that contained all the graphics from the game, all mixed together in no particular order. I reorganized it so we have 4 main 1024x1024 atlases, 2 compressed, 2 16bit. Then assigned each island its own 512x512 atlas which I swap out when we load a new location. At first I wasn't sure how noticeable the load would be but it turns out that it only takes about a tenth of a second on a slow device to load it into memory."

What is he talking about? A whole lotta headache!

>> Check out Dave's in-depth post HERE <<

Dave probably wouldn't approve, but I want to point out how much ass-busting he did to make this next update happen. We were up against a wall and he had to tear things apart and reprogram a bunch of stuff to make this update happen in time. So, for all the people that want to pit us against other apps they happen to like, 29 versions in, with tons of intertwining interactivity, I don't know anyone else who could have pulled this off. Thanks Dave!

LOL

So we hope everyone had a great thanksgiving. We've taken a couple days off to recuperate, but Dave's State of the Island should be coming, as will the icon preview. So I went back to youtube and found these and cracked up. I swear we haven't put anybody up to this.

By Vdogamez


By GongMoviesProduction


Thanks guys, the videos are hilarious!

P.S. The cool illustration above is by Tehauin from Deviant Art, go check out his page!

P.P.S. I am sorry I didn't warn people about some strong language in the video below! We don't condone bad language! Okay, actually we might sometimes, but hey kids, bad language is bad!

Coming up for air from the Pyg Chill

Where did we go???? Ugh. Sorry guys. Sometimes we all need a break. So I took a little break from the blog. We have been racing against the clock (and working 12-15 hour days) to make sure we got this next update in to be on time for the Christmas rush. Between now and the 25th, there will be hundreds of updates and new apps flooding into the app store and we caught wind that it might take 4 weeks for an update.

The first thing that needed to happen was Dave had to redo the graphics engine to be able to handle more art. The iphone has a limit to how much graphics can be loaded into memory at once, so he had to create a smart-loading solution. This is WAY complicated when you have a crazy app like pocket god with all these intertwining functions. But he did it in record time. Then when that was out of the way, we actually had to change our plan a little. We decided to make a mega-update rather than try to fit two updates in before christmas. So, we created a new ice island, created a new giant monster, a new structure for the pygmies to hang out, a new map function AND of course we created a purchasable Christmas-based custom pack which is a lot like the halloween pack, but wintery and holiday-ee. Let's just say, its the start of a cold, yet cheerful, winter for the pygmies. And regarding the monster game, it has a whole new game-play. We submitted it yesterday and should be in the approval queue.

Dave will go into more detail in his update, but we appreciate everyone's patience. I am a little frustrated that I don't have anything else major to announce, like I thought I would, by now. But we are getting close to lining up new projects....this time around we have to sign contracts, etc. before we can really say its a "Go".

I just went on to youtube and found this hilarious video by Vdominus and I think it speaks for itself. And, just to be clear, this video doesn't necessarily express the opinion of Bolt Creative...NECESSARILY :) thanks Vdominus!



Also, the illustration above was provided by
Dylan Johnson <-- Click here to check out more!.

Overdue! Twitter Yer Picture Contest Entries

Okay, let's move on to something less touchy and more interesting! In our scramble to stay on top of the increasingly complex world of PG, I never got a chance to upload all the contest entries to Flickr. For some reason my computer doesn't like the uploading mechanism, but tonight I took a crack at it and it seems it got all the way through the list!

I was also hesitant because I just know it is going to create controversy and criticism, but then again, why should this be any different than anything else?

I tried to eliminate duplicates, or overly dark photos, but probably missed some offending ones. The list may evolve as we deem some to be redundant or hard to make out. It is also possible that Flickr didn't upload some. It's a little touchy.

To remind everyone, the objective was to send a creative photo of the person with Pocket God on their iPod (or iPhone). The winners were FernyTheBomb, Dylan Johnson and MalcomJudd (see their entries here) Some were good, some were great, some were downright WEIRD, and many others had us scratching our heads. Dave and I whittled down our favorites and focused on the favorites we had in common. There were some I felt really bad eliminating because I liked them so much, but we couldn't give EVERYONE the prize!

There....hopefully that helps everyone see we didn't take the contest lightly! So, thanks to everyone for sending....some people put a huge amount of effort into their photos. Check 'em out. They're awesome!



Or CLICK HERE to view them on the site.

P.S. About the last post....Yes we know Pee-Devil was a juvenile joke (and was a vague reference to P-Diddy, but sillier). We were only kidding.

P.P.S. Later this weekend, I'll drop some info about our next update!

Krapps Calls Out P-Devil!

Okay, so we're finally breaking the silence. We kept our mouths shut for a while, because we didn't want to create MORE buzz about the subject. But it seems that its too late for that. In the background, many ipod/iphone fans and pocket god fans alike, took notice of Pocket Devil Pee-Devil. For better or worse, it rocketed to the top of the rankings. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but we didn't really think it needed to be rewarded. It took us about 10 or so updates with an untested idea for PG to achieve the ranking they got on their first release. Why? Well, with all the really awesome games released lately, we don't think it was because it stood out for the right reasons. And Krapps doesn't think so either! Check out their article here:

>> Read Krapps article here <<

To add to their sentiments, we are most worried that people will take notice. Take an idea, change it a little but keep it close enough to create controversy, and watch the money roll in from the confused iTunes users. I don't think anybody likes THAT idea. Thanks Krapps!

P.S. The great cartoon above was provided by TheMagicalMidget.

P.P.S. Dave wrote me after reading this post and suggests that everyone start calling it Pee-Devil. This way, any mention won't exactly be positive publicity! haha

Slow News Week...what's going on?

Hey guys, sorry about the blackout. The last few weeks has been filled with distractions, but I thought I'd post an update as to what is going on.

Dave and I have been working on the newest update, but there are some things in the background that is taking up a lot of our time. However, Dave has made a bunch of progress updating the game engine to handle more graphics....We've maxed out the graphic memory of the iphone/ipod. To keep it simple. As it is, all the functionality is loaded in at once. If it exceeds 25-30 MB, you are risking crashing. In fact, I think maybe some devices are already experiencing this. When you play other games, do you notice that between levels, you see a loading screen? That is why. You can't load everything into memory at once. So we have to make some major adjustments to the game in addition to the update. Then we find out that there may only be time for ONE MORE update before Christmas, due to the avalanche of new apps and updates coming in at the end of the year.

So what is our solution? Well, we've decided to rearrange our plan a little and move a heftier update to the front so we have a new fun addition to PG for Christmas. We're sticking with the title "Pyg Chill" but it was ORIGINALLY going to be a somewhat light update, with a new area and a few god powers. Instead, we are also adding a new challenge which we think will be badass.

Among the other things happening in the background, we have been inundated with inquiries and opinions about a certain app in the app store. We really are loathe to blog too much about it, because its the controversy that's really caused the buzz. Instead, I think I will post this great video by Trevor of AppAdvice, going over EVERY feature of Pocket God! Thanks App Advice!


Oh, and the pic above his by Henry Wallis. Not sure if I've ever posted it before, but I thought we needed a funny graphic!

Dave and Allan join Touch Arcade's Podcast!

Hey! We joined Arn, Blake and Eli at Touch Arcade for their new Podcast (#3). We loved being included, it was a lot of fun, although its a little frustrating for ME to realize how in articulate I am and how, at one point, I laugh WAYYYYY too loud.There's nothing like hearing your voice recorded. Dave, by comparison, has a better radio voice. But it was fun. They gave us 10 bucks each to buy 6 games to review, Skull Pogo, Flickitty, Earth Dragon, Taxi Fight, Ignite and Doom (although, for some reason I missed this app). Plus we talk a bit about Pocket God. But thanks to the guys at Touch Arcade. Its a really great series, so check ours out and the first couple as well..

Download the Podcast HERE


Go check out the iTunes page here...Be sure to comment and give them a great rating!


Or comment on Touch Arcade.

Thanks guys!