PyGameZine has been launched. For more details see the http://www.pygame.org/ website.

I’ve written a little blog post about our Vintage in Paris app here.

What game websites can we announce on?

How about blogs?  Are there any game blogs that take submissions?

Are there any forums that like to hear about new games being released?

How about PAD file distribution?  I remember this was something useful to do years ago(2003 or so), but is it still worth doing?

Are press releases worth doing?

Places to announce games in the comments.  <– Please leave places to announce in the comments.

Also… beta testing intel app up apps.

Well, I clicked the publish button, and it seems the ‘Halloween Juggling Pumpkin‘ app has been published to the chrome web store.  I’m quite happy that it is up!

Here is a screen shot of the menu screen.

Well, that wasn’t too hard to do after all.

Here is a screenshot of some game play.

Here is the lovely store URL it gave me for the store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ndnpdjgfifincamlnbidkagoljbiagcb

This was way less work compared to the intel appup store, which I’m still having issues publishing it. To be fair, their store is still in beta for html5 apps.

It took at bit of messing around, converting certificates, and installing lots of microsoft software, but eventually got my msi signed, and submitted to the store.

That made me happy.  Now I’m off to drink wine!

I finally managed to get my certificate, so I should be able to now sign my apps to upload.  Unfortunately I used firefox to download the certificate, which means that I need to convert files in order to get into the microsoft fomat needed for code signing.  So I’d recommend anyone else use IE8 to save that hassle.

As well, I’ve been reporting my problems with the webkit they use in their forums.  They just gotten back to me, and say they hope to use the latest webkit (which should include a year of webkit bug fixes and feature additions).

So now, I’m going back to trying to submit my app again.  I hope that it gets through!

I’ve signed up for a developer account, and started reading the documentation on how to publish apps.  So far it has been easy.  All of their forms have worked, and so far the documentation is easy.  This time I’m trying to do as much of the administration up front.  Things like validating my account and setting up payments.  Only after that works will I actually attempt to publish my app.

Let’s hope it’s easier than the intel appup program, which I’m still not able to publish my app through.

I probably should have realised I needed this certificate before, and applied earlier.  Oh well.  For some reason I didn’t remember this was needed.

Next I’ll begin packaging it up for the google web chrome store, so maybe we can sell some on there too.  I don’t think that will take all that long to do.

Finishing the iOS port might be hard since I’ve noticed the performance of JavaScript and canvas on old iOS devices is terrible.  I could just make it available for iOS 5, and the latest iphone 4 phones though… they might be fast enough.  I’ve been exploring possible optimizations for it too.  So I’ll see how that goes.

I’m in the same situation with the android port.  The current web browsers on there are fairly garbage for canvas performance, so I’d need to do some performance work before it would work on there.  Making it available on the latest versions of Android is also one possibility.  I know an android application is likely to be accepted faster than an iOS one, so that might sway me to release there first.

A Mac application is also possible I guess.  For that I’d need to figure out if there is a UIWebKit wrapper that is easy to use, and quick to integrate.

The other option is to finish the other intel appup app I have in development.  But porting this game to other platforms seems easier I think.  Once the whole process is done I’ll have an idea of how long the other app would take to do for the appup platform.

I first had to figure out bugs: Sound doesn’t work. Also fonts don’t work. This was very disappointing considering that I’ve been working with a musician on sound effects and music. So we’re not able to use any of that work we did until they fix sound. I even tried to use a flash based sound player, and use the embed tag. None of it worked.

Also the lovely font we selected does not work. Trying to use a font-face crashed the browser completely. So instead I had to use ‘Arial’. arg.

I’m not sure what sort of html5 games and apps they expect if fonts and sounds aren’t working?

It seems they are using a 1 year old webkit implementation, so I hope they will upgrade their encapsulator soon. One year in web browser years is about 70 human years.

Anyway, we decided to submit the app anyway. The font makes it look a bit ugly, and without sounds it looses a lot – but at least the game play works.

Then I filled out a few pages of forms, prepared images, wrote copy, and did all sorts of guff so that I could upload the app. For some reason they required silverlight or google gears to upload the file (weird). Not sure why they couldn’t use a normal html upload form, or even a flash upload form.

Anyway… all that got done until I had to apply for a security certificate to sign the files. I fill out another form of my personal details, press submit and I’m greeted with a great error message: “An error has occurred. -1″

Oh well. Sent off an email for support, and now I wait.

Finally blocked after a couple of long days and nights – stopped by the error “-1″.

got my app up to the packaging stage now…

Does anyone know of a decent (End User License Agreement) EULA we can use for our games?  If you know of ones we can use please leave a comment.

cheers,

It’s javascript/canvas based, instead of my usual pygame. But, I’m using gamejs which uses the pygame API, so I feel pretty much at home.

We got most of our new graphics and sound into the game today, and all of the game play is done.

It’s not running fast enough on my ipod touch 2g, but I think with some work it could be playable. So we’re aiming to release on the various web stores first. Then perhaps improve things for the mobile platforms.

I had to work on improving a sound engine I call jquery.shitsound, or just shitsound for short. Which uses various web browser sound APIs to work. I’ll have to get it using the phonegap framework to play audio too, since html5 Audio on mobile platforms is simply broken.

We’re in, I should say. Since I’m doing a collaboration with Spencer Sternberg ( http://www.spencersternberg.com/ ) video game audio and music productions.

The second app I’m working on next after this one is released I’m doing as a Powered By Bees production ( http://www.poweredbybees.com ). It’s less game related, and more content related, but I still think it will count for this October Challenge.

Thanks Ludumdare!  This October competition has really given me a big kick up the backside.

So there.

It’s going to be a spectacular LD48.

Had thoughts of inventing a paper computer from scratch to make my entry in.  But making a computer from scratch is a little too hardcore non?  Instead I’ll do a python+pygame or javascript+canvas thingy.

#Fail is not an option.  This time I’m going to #win.  Well, maybe not win in the traditional understanding of the term… but win by at least submitting my entry this time.

There are three keys, and three sections of the screen to touch.  The characters will all be drawn with lines, and geometry made of lines: beziers, rectangles, triangles as well as circles.

Two pads, and my two laptops.  Paper, android, mac OSX, ubuntu 2010.10.

Below is the intro text for my game…

The grit of sand in your teeth is the first thing you feel when you wake up. For a moment you lie, eyes closed, trying to figure out why your head hurts and why there is a terrible taste in your mouth. You spit. Out comes some sand, but also a little bit of blood. Eyes open. ‘What the?’ you mutter.

You are not in Melbourne anymore Dorathy.

Panic strikes. ‘Help!’ you scream as you try to stand up. You stumble. Looking around there is no one. Turning around, and around. Turning around.

Looking around, there is no one as far as you can see. You get dizzy from the turning. You hang your head to catch your breath a little. Looking down something catches your eye. There is a piece of paper held under a small rock. Picking up the paper, you also see a whistle. Like in the aeroplanes, how they tell you “and a whistle for attracting attention”. You brush off the sand and put it in your pocket.
The note reads “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone! Take this!”

“A Whistle? Someone left me here in the desert with just a whistle?”

Your head pounds. “I think I’m coming down”. The last thing you remember dancing in a trendy nightclub in Prahran at 7am. Handbag house, your favourite. Memories of dancing on couches, and your head inside a lamp shade hanging from the roof. Your hair was getting hot, and the light was bright in your eyes. You felt the love.

Sticking your head in a lamp shade was probably not the best idea you ever had.

Your head is pounding with a beasty inside your head bashing drums from the inside of your skull, and it feels like a budgey died in your mouth. Despite this you put the whistle to your dry lips. Your lips taste of strawberry lip gloss and sand.

You brace yourself for the loud whistle sound.

WHISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTLE

A force pushes all around you outwards. It blows small shrubs and sand away from you. Yes, magic. A magic fucking whistle. Collosal.

You consider the note again: “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone! Take this!” This whistle might just come in handy after all. You wonder what is dangerous out there?

Determined to make it out of here, you set off into the desert to make your way home.