Pixel Station

Having laid work on Simples to rest, I've begun work on a new project. Originally project SG7, Pixel Station is a  2D space adventure of sorts. It contains elements from various genres but would most likely be compared to "Roguelikes".

I've drawn inspiration from a number of games, old and new:

• Pixel Dungeon
• Dungeonmans
• Corporation (Amiga)
• Hired Guns (Amiga)
• Rebelstar (8-bit)

And likely more than that.

Things are at an early stage at the moment. I've only spent a couple of days on graphics and code so far. I expect development to take considerably longer than with Simples. The scope and depth of the game is much greater so everything is going to take more work.

So far I've added frameworks for drawing a 2D level, moving a player around and colliding with walls etc., the beginnings of enemy handling and some of the on-screen-display stuff. It feels like more than that but that's it so far.

I've settled for 16x16 tiles at 160x240 resolution - so quite chunky looking, even on a phone screen. Any less and the detail becomes too, any higher and I'm just using up more memory - my artistic skill doesn't warrant anything even approaching HD.

Not so Simples

My adventure into Android game development is well into it's release phase. I've been learning loads of stuff about the process and wanted to get a few points down, mainly for reference in the future.

Firstly, the actual development process was a doddle. After a few false starts, I found a good framework that I could jump straight into using. As with most systems, simply setting up the screen and such is fiddly and esoteric so having a pre-made "shell" is advantageous.

The first major hurdle was implementing ad-banners. Perhaps ironically, this really makes the game a bit worse but is a way of being able to still offer the game for free. I'm inclined to use a different model for my next project - perhaps a free demo level then a paid-for pro version containing the bulk of the game. The Silent Age did this really well, offering a substantial playing experience for free but leaving the plot open for more episodes if you wanted to pay a modest fee and continue.

The release process was fairly straight forward, though did involve a bit of waiting - there is a gap of several hours from you updating to the game actually appearing on Google Play.

The largest new area for me, was promotion. I've no experience of getting in people's faces to try and persuade the to do something. I don't like it and find the whole area foggy and full of dead-ends. Most websites that pertain to be willing to help ended up trying to sell me something instead. I don't have any sort of marketing budget this time but will likely need to consider this carefully next time when I have a good product to sell. There is also a waiting game to be played here, sites don't pick up your submission right away so it may be days or weeks before you see results.

Understanding statistics. All week I've been checking my Google Play Developer Console and wondering why my downloads have been static. It appeared no one whatsoever was downloading the game. I thought this improbable but disappointing nonetheless as I've shared the game in a number of places. However, this morning, the stats have all jumped so it seems they may be updated weekly rather than live or nearly live. This is a pain as it's hard to gauge what prompted the bulk of the downloads.

I'm winding down work on Simples now as I've learned as much as I reasonably can from the process of developing it.

One other thing - "Simples" is not a good name for an app. There are thousands of titles with the word "simple" in the name so it gets lost in a sea of similarly named titles.

It's been a brilliant three weeks and I'm pleased to have learned so much in that time. I feel in good standing to continue and develop my next project.

Simples

Simples is out on general release. I've got one or two things to improve but felt the game was good enough and stable for release.

BETA

After a pleasingly short amount of time, Simples is ready for beta testing!

Although I've played the game a lot myself, it needs other people to try it on different devices to make sure it's all working as it should. This is also useful for seeing what people think of the game and if the difficulty levels are about right. I've always been rubbish at my own games so tend to make them quite hard (from my point of view).

If you'd like to join in with the beta testing, you can. Google have a recommended procedure for managing test versions and testers themselves. You'll need an Android device and access to it's associated Google account.

First of all, send me a request to join this Google+ Community: OneSevenOne BETA Testers

Once you have access, follow the link within the community page to access the beta through Google's Play Store.

What would be most helpful at this point:

• Whether the game runs properly on your device
• Which device you're using
• Which version of Android you have

You can give your feedback via the community page, Facebook or email.

That's all there is to it. Simples!