All right! I figured it was about time to update the world... (that and I fixed the broken user account database on the site... no account, no log in... not a bad security policy, but it meant I just couldn't post the simplest of updates. It took me several months to get the task prioritized enough to fix it! But here we are. I'm back... Did you miss me?

I have been very busy with my partners at Appsomniacs creating Crash Cart! A new physics based racing action puzzle game... What is that you say? Puzzle racing? for the latest explanation head on over to appsomniacs.com and check it out for the latest and greatest (caveat: there is little more than "Coming soon!" atm of penning.) The app is in review at Apple. Assuming we don't have to fix something major we are going launch it soon!

In general Crash Cart is inspired by the likes of various bike/hill climb games but littered with contraptions inspired by puzzle games like Incredible Machine (think Rube Goldberg machines that you drive/race through) and the along with crazy physics based crash antics very much inspired by Happy Wheels (the free version can be handed to to anyone in the family btw) should be a hoot to play. And as a bonus the game comes with a full featured track creator built in. We used the same creator to create the levels in the game and its open to verified users (via email) to post their creations to share and challenge others. It's the same tools we use to build tracks. I don't think we will ever make another game where the user can't influence content. If there is a way we will make it happen.

The first version is free to play, you can play community unrated tracks for free or support the game by buying in app purchases to speed up coin acquisition. There are ads in the initial version and we will offer some alternative ways to tailor the ad experience and earn free coins. We have a lot of plans for this game if it takes off. Consider them stretch goals. What started out as an exploration of infrastructure to advance our Doodle Army series has turned into a very special game to us and we hope everyone finds something about it to love, whether it's the rag doll crash antics, racing friends, or making new tracks to challenge the community. We can't wait to see what the Crash Cart Nation comes up with!

A totally thought filled review of Doodle Army. Doodle Army is not original, but it is meant to embody the best of the genre in its execution. Which is likely why it is popular enough.

http://commonection.com/doodle-army-reminds-us-that-simple-concepts-make-for-the-best-games/

For all the people having trouble with Doodle Army using a Samsung Galaxy S2, specificlly the I9100 version

We know there is an issue that typically manifests itself as a crash right around reaching the first checkpoint after the turtorial (for most people.) We have been pulling our hair as to why and someone finally responded with enough details for us to sort out a lead! And further digging turns out there is a known issue on this device that has a work around baked into our framework of choice (Cocos2d.)

http://www.cocos2d-x.org/projects/cocos2d-x/wiki/Use_OpenSL_ES_to_play_effect_on_Android

This gives us something to work with. Hopefully we get a fix soon, this has dogged us for a few weeks now.

"If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart."
--Socrates,
Greek philosopher

This quote got me thinking about how my misfortunes are much less than so many others and even if the day has me down, I am still way low on the amount of misfortune I bring to the heap. Just saying. I am grateful. Of course this quote could ALSO be a criticism about how generally selfish people are and not wanting to 'share the load' with those less fortunate... Something to think about.

I'll get back to code and tech posts soon enough. Still a ton of work to do on Android's Doodle Army Boot Camp, and ramping up on another round of server fixes for Doodle Army 2. Windows 8 is hovering in the back too. That was too much work to just abandon it... too much... but the cocos2d template needs a lot of work still too.

Why do we call it 'X'. Well because it is our cross platform version. We are heading into testing with Android this week? (I am small part of that project, so I am looking over my shoulder to get confirmation, yes... Chad is nodding that is what he *wants* to do. Ok that is properly caveated. We have the Windows 8 Win32 version working quite well and passing the WACK too! That leaves 64 bit and ARM to be worked out, it is rather non-trivial though. You Surface users will NOT be left behind. I am doing this for you. I really need to get off my desktop and get one I guess. The simulator only goes so far (i.e., Win32/x64)

We are using cocos2d-x to port the existing HD version of the original game over to  the new platforms. There is no reason we have to stop there. We have almost gotten over the tipping point effort wise.

For people looking for help, look me up. I simply have no time to put stuff out right now. I may change my mind if a lot of people want help. Let me throw some search terms out there:
Windows 8
Cocos2d-x
CC_PLATFORM_WIN8_METRO (which I have renamed CC_PLATFORM_WIN8_STORE for accuracy reasons. Metro is not a template type (anymore))
Chipmunk (yes I have gotten chipmunk to compile and run in windows store project. I know the settings. Seriously I will write and share about this, but don't wait. just ping me if you never found it. If anything it will force me to post once, and share if a lot of people are looking for it. There is no reason *everyone* should suffer. I make a good martyr eh! ;)

I have taken the last two weeks as vacation from my day job to just bunker down on this porting and Windows 8 problem for Appsomniacs. The cocos2d template was not v2 (API) so I bit the bullet and made it support that API for the calls we used. A complete update is a bridge to far and I don't trust my C++ 100% yet. It doesn't mean I won't share what I got, in a pinch I'll just send it to you, but eventually I will add it to the official project fork I made. 

Happy super duper holidays. Remember to hug your kids and loved ones. Enjoy the moments and let the less fun parts of life just sit in darkness for a while. The new year will be upon us and we can start to tackle all our open issues with renewed vigor once we take a moment to remember what we are fighting and striving to promote, protect, etc. Am I calling for a holiday cease fire? I guess I am. It has been a really hard week to work on violent games. Really hard. Especially with kids involved. Some of you guys may never get that, that's something you will get with time. An appreciation of life in general comes with time (on average I think that is true.)

For the few that actually read this. Thanks for watching, and see you next update.

Grind, Hustle, & Payoff. That is our mantra right now. And never forget the battle cry... "FFAP!" "For Fun And Profit!" what else! (This really is still a hobby job atm.) If something is truly fun, the profit part follows. I am always seeking balance, but don't get me started about mainstream marketing, that is a bridge too far right now without some serious help from a larger firm/platform. Can we even afford that? Can we even support growth. Questions we need to ask, be ready to scale. We know how to increase server capacity, that plan is in place.

Porting Doodle Army to Windows 8 and Android continues. Rapidly.

ALERT! We have a fix for Doodle Army 2 right on the heals of the 1.7 release. We introduced a bug in the Bluetooth code late in the game (and the fix is sitting waiting for review at Apple now.) [sorry about that!]

On the topic of Doodle Army 2 hacking. We do really care to solve this. We are trying to stop it. We are going to start a thread on reddit at some point to ask the dev community for thoughts on how to stop it as well as community ideas. So rest assured we are watching. We have names, game center accounts, we know who many of you are. And when we can can confidently say without a doubt, we are nailing these punks on a few vectors. You will see them drop off the scoreboards one of these days if they keep it up. We have spent too much time and money on these guys having their fun at the expense of the honest gaming community. It bugs us. It really does. There is not a planning meeting it does not come up. If it was easy it would be done. Period. Give us time, hang in there. We are going to roll out ways for the community to deal with it as well. We are catching many in game hacks as is possible, and when we do those folks are rendered inop as possible. BUT we have to be super careful, if an accidental detect occurs and we take action, to us that is just as bad if not worse as hacker deterrence, and if that is happening we need to know. We have to be super careful.

Damn hackers. Go away, bug another game. The real lame part is the code is optimized for minimal network involvement and that makes a lot of hacking vectors easy, but reduces lag. Any fix we put in puts load ont eh server (++$) and network load (++lag). The cost is in the wallet and network performance (WHICH really makes you stand up and say, oh hey we found a fix for this particular hack [there are many btw] but it doubles/triples our server costs. SUCKY huh, I am trying to figure out where on the doll I made the hackers touch to get them to do their thing... I know it is mostly script kiddies  but the hack devs gave them the hack capability, those guys can go frag themselves.) So we will have to try out new server side code and see what the game play is like (hopefully not bad!) So I see LOTS of testing in our future...  That is why this is TAKING forever to solve.

Well I a lot has happened since last update. Lets see if I can summarize.

Doodle Army 2 (DA2) has gotten a lot of attention this round. It was due. We have always had a serious hacker problem. It stems from an architecture choice made from its inception that makes hacking easy. At the inception it was easy to handle bluetooth near proximity networks, and community policed. You just walk over to the offender and knocked the device out of their hand and had words ;).  I could care less about the piracy of in app purchases. I give a lame kudo for keeping a buck or two out of my pocket per script kiddy using your hack. Its a game after all, and those purchases function within the normal expected bounds of the game experience, but what I can not abide by is people hacking to gain "1 shot" kills, infinite life, etc. That affects the positive multiplayer experience in a negative way, which effects the number of people who want to play, etc. So DA2 is getting some serious client and server tweaks as we take steps to make it annoying to hack, etc. The sad part is it ups the amount of work the servers have to do, so it actually costs us more. A downer, but that work has went well. We added some new weapons. Fixed some odd bugs (rocket launcher and map related. We had some issues integrating an ad framework into DA2, that slid us to the right several weeks.

In other great news we are still working on an Android for Doodle Army (the original) and now we are just starting a port to Windows 8. It is a matter of time before we are simply building games in an agnostic as possible fashion then porting to every platform. The days of use being a one platform pony show are coming to an end.

Zombie Road Rage is doing well enough. Not super amazing, but interesting to see how many people are still playing (about 1/15 the amount as DA2)

Flip the Bird... (Flop the Bird) Well the kids love him. We see him going free someday when we have a slow moment. Otherwise it is just underwhelming. We think we know part of the problem. It needs a tutorial, and a 

I am sure I am leaving out something interesting... In any case I better get back before someone realizes I have slipped out of my enclosure.

What I really want to do is fire up Dwarf Fortress and Tekkit (Minecraft)... But that will have to wait... There is much work to be done yet.