…. it’s just that the GF dropped on me two days ago that she wanted to go up to f’ing Sacramento on Saturday for a birthday (I live in San Francisco). Besides this last minute annoyance, I’m excited about LD #21, but still haven’t quite figured out my plan. =)

I’m developing for iOS in Xcode 4. I’ll be using the terminal screenshot script that was posted today. I actually used it in the last Mini LD; and it works reasonably well, especially considering you don’t need to install any extra software, which is nice.

I have my own small library for iOS games, which is the accumulation of what I’ve learned until now. There are still some glaring holes, like that fact that I have no idea how to build/import any kind of map haha! But I’m sure I’ll figure something out. Last Mini LD, I figured out collision detection on my own.

Hmmm, since a lot of entries include photos and stuff, maybe I should do the same. I’m at work, so I won’t be taking pictures of my messy house, however, I started dicking around on some music last night, warming up for this weekend’s challenge (don’t worry! I won’t actually use it. And my “song” really sucks anyway, haha). So I included a few screenshots of that.

Wee!

I finished Five-O on October 21st and submitted it to the App Store for approval that night. As the days went by, I started to get worried that it wouldn’t be approved in time, but on Friday, October 29th, I received confirmation that the game was approved for sale. I got my first sales on October 30th! Woohoo!

View Five-O in the App Store

Five-O is a board game I’ve been developing in my spare time over the last few years. It started as a side project during college. I was taking a course in artificial intelligence, and I wanted to create a game with an AI component. Growing up, I had played one of the many “Scrabble-but-with-numbers” games and had fond memories of it. Searching the internet revealed not a single good implementation of this idea for the computer, so that’s what I set out to make.

The basic rules are as follows. Players take turns placing intersecting sequences of numbers on a board. Each sequence must total to five or a multiple of five, and no sequences may be more than five tiles in length. For example, 7-3-8-7 would be a valid sequence because it adds up to 25. The sequence 3-9-5 is not valid because it adds up to 17 which is not a multiple of five. You can read more on the game’s webpage.

With the release of the iPad, I put the desktop version of Five-O on hold and started focusing on getting an iPad version done. The device is just too perfect for board games like Five-O. The October Challenge was the push I needed to finally finish version 1.0 and publish it in the App Store.