Crack is Wack approved!

Should be live some time today. So I won't re-explain the update, but here are a few screen shots




And a couple of the ice monster skin in the ice monster skin pack!



Oh, and don't forget the Story Mode! We've added the story "Crack is Wack" and added a few new states including the ability to have a pygmy fall down a crack in the Earth.

Dave's State of the Island

Dave discusses the latest update, talks about sources of inspiration, and all the goings on that is currently complicating our lives!

"So, I guess I ran out of excuses, another update that took a long time. The only thing I can say is that we are super busy. It's pretty exciting but also pretty stressful because there are so many things happening at the same time. The Comic Book is coming along really well and should be in iVerse’s hands next week, not sure how long it will take them to make it available but it should be available by the end of this month or early June by the latest."

>> Read Dave's Touch Arcade Post Here <<

You can see yet another comic page form the Pocket God comic along with our latest icon!

Crack is Wack submitted

For various reasons, this one kept getting delayed, but we've submitted it and we hope everyone likes it. We kind of went to town on it...Dave's touch arcade post should be coming soon! I'll let him explain it.

Pocket God Comic Sneak Preview

So, I've been dying to blog an image from the upcoming Pocket God Comic, so I decided to do it today! Did I do it to distract you from the fact that the next update has taken longer than we expected? No way.

I was tempted to post a more action-packed spoilerish image, but Dave and I decided the first page was appropriate since it reveals the comic-ized look and feel of the Pygmies, with their customized features. In order on the top page we see Klak (just barely), Booga, Klik, Dooby, Nooby and Ooga paying reverence to the gods with a pile of stinky fish. Ew! And of course, danger is coming from above, and only Ooga seems to have taken notice.

Ape Entertainment has been flooding us with scripts, designs and comic pages like crazy and we totally love everything they're doing. The created a 4-issue story of the Pygmies and an adventure that takes them off the island and into great (surprise surprise!) danger! Also included will be mini-stories in each comic that will cover various aspects of life with the Pygmies, including an origin story! Well, I better not give it all away, but we are very excited.

I want to thank the guys at Ape , David Hedgecock, Brent Erwin, Jason Burns as well as the amazing artist Rolando Mallada for all the fantastic work they've done. We are really honored to work with them.

And okay, I won't ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room (no, not Ape!). The next episode "Crack is Wack" is taking longer than expected. But it is VERY cool. The mini game, the runs, even gets its own theme music, and extra creatures and of course brutal deaths. The god power referenced in the title isn't too shabby. I keep seeing speculation that this episode has DRUGS in it. No, we haven't put drugs in Pocket God! Not yet anyway :) So... thanks for your continuing patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

Delay on Update

Hey guys! I have to update the reason for our current delay. There are several business issues that have culminated at once...PLUS we have a feature phone version of Pocket God (for Verizon Phones) that we are working on getting debugged!

Its causing me anxiety because I know its going to be a great update....but we just need good block of time to finish it up.

The awesome illustration above is by Ricardo Gimenes, on his blog "Behind the Website". He's an illustrator after my own heart! Go check it out!

PG Fan Trailer = Awesome

Love this. The music is hilariously epic! Not to mention the tag lines. See for yourself. Great job thesledbub!

Sneak Peak: Crack is Wack

Well, Dave is mid-vacation and news is slow, so I thought I'd go ahead and give a sneak peak of the next update. How does the title go with the scene? I'm sure people can guess!

Along with the free update, there will also be a new custom pack. Stay tuned!

Pocket God at Wondercon...and on iPad!

Dave and I dropped by Wondercon (the San Francisco Comicon) to hang out with David Hedgecock of Ape Entertainment, and he even set up an impromptu signing...and I fully expected that nobody would come up to us. But we ended up having lots of people coming up and saying "you guys did Pocket God?"...although many were aspiring app-developers, there were normal kids and adults too. We signed as many posters as people would take. We even signed the back of a kid's iPod! It was really fun. We even had people who knew the "Summer Squash" keyword and we immediately gave them a Pygmy figure. I also had my spanking new iPad (so cool) and we brought up Pocket God on it and was surprised how cool it looks blown up twice the size! Dave Hedgecock put it up as part of our display and it worked well in getting people's attention.

So we have already planned to attend San Diego Comicon, partly for fun, but also to hang with the Ape guys again and promote the Pocket God comic. By that time, the actual comic should have been produced and possibly new toys.

In the mean time, Dave and I working to finish the next update before he goes on vacation. Back to work!



Ape's Booth Display and they made a Pocket God Banner!


David Hedgecock and Dave Castelnuovo


Free posters! Get your free posters! We mean it! Take 'em!


Dave sidetracked by iPad. Come on, Dave, pay attention.

Sorry I'm not in the pictures. That happens on vacation also, the camera-holder-syndrome. Tons of pictures in an exotic location, and it doesn't even appear I was there.

Oh, and one more thing...regarding the iPad... If you are wondering if Pocket God is fun on it..check this video out!



Someone likes fish-slapping!

P.S. Apple is sitting on our update, we know. It probably has to do with the iPad flurry. Thanks for your patience!

Teaser Graphic

Waiting for the latest update to go through, we've decided to release the first teaser glimpse of one of our upcoming projects. Further details forthcoming...

Philrox Strikes Again

I am not really sure what to say about this, except thanks, Philrox!

Dave's State of the Island

Again, its just a mini-update but Dave gave us his latest update!

>> Read Dave's Touch Arcade Post Here <<

Mini-update submitted!

We're currently working on the next bigger update, but we've sent in a mini-update that includes a News feature as well as some fixes and enhancements to story mode. Now you will be able to blank out dialogue for Pygmy actions (so no word balloon appears) and we've added a new popup window to make it easier to select things like pygmy and island states. We've also added "Events" to story mode. This will grow, but for now it includes earthquake, tribal dance (everyone dances) and shark snaps.

Dave will probably explain better, but just wanted to get the update out! We are now going to hurry to get the next full update out before Dave takes a vacation!

In the mean time, here is a demo of Episode 31 by PocketGodVideos on YouTube..



And no, the maker of this video isn't us, but we appreciate what they've put up! Check out the rest of the channel!

The amazing image agove was created by PygKid104 and posted in the Pocket God Forums! (you might have to wait a bit for the full animated GIF to come in)

Happy Birthday Doodle Jump!!

Our good friends at Lima Sky just reminded us its the first birthday of Doodle Jump! Doodle Jump is still my own personal go to game whenever I need to kill a little time. If you are one of the only people who haven't gotten this awesome game, go get it! Like us, they release free content constantly. Help them get to number one again!

>> CLICK HERE To Download <<

Dave and Allan at Wondercon!

Hey, dave has been taking over our facebook fan page and posted this:

"Pocket God So, we will be hanging out at Wonder Con 2010 with Ape Entertainment (the company that's making the Pocket God comic book). We will be there most of the day on Saturday the 3rd and giving away some Pocket God figures. Can't promise you will get one but if you come up to me at the convention and say "Summer Squash" I might give you one. At least you'll get a poster."

Not sure what is up with the summer squash part but ....what he said! We're going to go walk around on Saturday, talk to the guys at Ape and bring some swag. I'll be wearing the shameless pocket god t-shirt!

Dave on Forbes.com Video Network

Another interview with Dave about the pocket god success story. When Dave says our updates are "averaging" 2-3 weeks", he is strategically ignoring the last couple of updates which took longer. But we are getting back to the faster pace! And sorry for the Forbes advertising on this embed. Sneaky!



Oh, and we are working on pushing out a half-update which should be submitted very soon. It seems that the ability to make a blank reaction (an idle without word balloon) in story mode isn't working. Normally you only have to leave the dialogue blank, but the editor is graying out the "Done" button when the text field is cleared out. Also, with the half update, we are adding a news box.

Episode 31 Is OUT!

So, it took a few more days than we expected to be approved, but Episode 31 is out! And it has a ton of new stuff.

Per the title, this update was geared to start Pocket God story mode. As mentioned earlier, this will serve various purposes. And probably a story will be pushed to you whenever we update Pocket God, to set up that update. But we also hope the story creator will encourage everyone to exercise a new and fun godly duty...creating your own Pygmy stories! To find it, go to the community menu and click the storybook icon (below the store icon).

The pain drain is in the underwater area. It is a new minigame where you tilt your iphone/ipod to guide the pygmy down a subterranean booby trap. Keep the pygmy away from the spikes and see how far down you can go!

We've also created a new Alien World custom pack! And like the Halloween and Holiday, it enables you to sub out weird alien versions of common Pocket God elements. The moon becomes a ringed planet. The dodo becomes a weird alien bird. The Octopus Statue is replaced by the 2001 Space Odyssey monolith!

On Touch Arcade, Dave explains what has been going on the past couple of months. We have heard people loud and clear about wanting MORE smaller updates and we are obliging:

"We've been really busy and have been struggling to get focused time to work on the game. However, we are going to try and change that in the near future. For the last few updates, Allan and I have been adding more and more stuff into them where each update is like 3-4 of our old ones. We're going to start releasing more frequent, but smaller updates in the near future. Pocket God is not done yet. We are still going to be working on more updates and hope to get the excitement that we used to have at the beginning."

>> Read The Rest of Dave's Touch Arcade Post Here <<

PG Highlighted on Shelly Palmer

A friend of mine sent me a heads up that he saw this on his TiVO so I thought I'd blog it!

Missed Suggestion Video

Sorry so late Joeldeak but, despite the fact that pencil sketches don't video tape too well, looks like your idea eventually made it in to Pocket God in the last update after all! He was one of several that really wanted some sort of tentacle action in Pocket God. And even though we just added an ice squid, there probably isn't enough tentacles just yet.

But I find it funny, that I missed the video at the time, probably because I was on vacation. And because Joel obviously read the blog (or a touch arcade post), he KNEW I was on vacation. Kids all over the world know if Dave or I are slacking off. LOL.

Thanks for the suggestion, Joel! Looks like you are a budding designer! Very talented! Keep it up!