Before I move on

Before I post the update announcements. I'd like to share something with everyone that visits this blog. I guess I've been working so hard on getting this game uploaded, it was my dream. I switched platforms at the end of the Xbox 360 version and began porting it for the android, then the end looked even further down the road but I felt this was a good choice. It was difficult porting it for this platform. Keeping an eye on memory usage, or the heap size was very critical and a new challenge for me to face. The end looked so far because I had to learn Java and understand the different libraries to get this game running like the Xbox counterpart. I've had to make some cuts from that version to the android due to memory and asset management however I hope to have that resolved soon.

But that's not the point of this post. It's finally starting to sink in that I accomplished what I set out to do, finally. It took me a while longer because it's just myself working on it. And I really wished I had someone here to help me with it. Twenty hours or more some days seems like forever when you're by yourself. But don't get me wrong, I enjoy it.

I know it's not, how do you say this, it's not a big budget title with a big team of people churning out code and assets with spectacular effects. But it's still a title I will see grow and one that I'm proud of. I wanted to create a story people could relate to.

There are some good points to being indie and bad points. The good points is when someone suggests something or ask for a change it can usually be done since there is no approval process. Provided it doesn't break game play and it's a good suggestion then I'm usually all for it. And I love hearing what people have to say, if I didn't I would be in the wrong line of work. The bad point is working by yourself. It would be nice to find someone passionate about game design that lived near me, that wanted to help me out and work with me, not for me.

I remember this line from The Lord of the Rings, in The Two Towers, King Theoden is freed from a spell and says, "Dark have been my dreams of late.". I guess I couldn't see the end in sight, it always seemed so far away and made me feel like I was in a dream. Each day I would plan out my work and on paper it seemed like I was making excellent progress. However it never was.

Now it's finally starting to sink in. After a month, it has taken me a month to wake up from this dream. Ironic isn't it.

Thanks for reading this and the update announcement is coming right up.

How to, continued

Well I'm finally going to add more to this category like I've been wanting to. If you've read my post below then you'll know what has been keeping me busy.

In the continuation of this, "How To", section I'm going to point out some good places to go for help, tips and more links than you can shake a stick at. I'll share with you my experiences with installing it all and just hoping this all works, so here goes.

One critical thing I forgot to mention in the last, How To, was to please have a testing device to debug on. The emulator is very slow and it might make you think something is wrong with your app or game when there really is nothing wrong with it. If you have an android phone then you're set. If not I'll try and find some links to affordable unlocked phones you can use for testing and share that here as well.

For windows users please go to:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

And download the .zip file, don't bother with the executable file even though it's recommended because it will install it in your program files folder if you don't watch it and cause all kinds of issues. Issues that I couldn't find a work around and this, How To, is supposed to make things easier for you. From wherever your downloads go unzip it to your C:\ drive, the folder should be called android-sdk-windows and the path should look like this: C:\android-sdk-windows. If you use the installer version you will when updating the API's you'll have to run it as administrator if it's in your program files folder and when it comes to pointing to it inside of Eclipse this causes problems too due to the space between Program Files, that small thing caused me some trouble. So please just download the .zip file and you'll be good to go.

For people using Linux the android dev site has excellent documentation on how to set things up on the many different flavors of Linux, especially if you are using Ubuntu. I found this awesome link on setting it up on Fedora 15 and above:

http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2010/android-sdk-and-eclipse-adt-on-fedora-centos-red-hat-rhel/

This guy JR is great so be sure to check out his How To if you are running Fedora 15 or 16.

If you are using Arch Linux then you better strap yourself down. It's a lengthly process of getting it all to work, but exciting, only if it works.

Arch of course is the best documented Linux distro out there. Visiting their wiki and you'll see what I'm talking about. If you already have Arch installed on your system then you're halfway there. If not please visit the Arch Linux site if you want to give this distro a try, the install process is hard and the initial install is fast but leaves you wondering what to do next. If you need help with this process let me know. I'd do my best to help you as much as I can.

Starting here if you have Arch installed they have a wiki page setup just for how to install the android development tools. Most of these packages come from the AUR, which is the Arch User Repository.

Here's a good link to look at if you're not familiar with installing packages community based:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository

Great instructions there, try following them with a few packages until you get the hang of it and again I'll be here to help if you encounter any problems. So once you get comfortable with installing packages this way we can move onto installing the android sdk by going here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Android

Follow the directions there with the exception of the package, eclipse-android, you will want to download this anyways even though this package has been flagged as out of date. When getting to the point of using makepkg -s it wouldn't except my password and not let me install it with the -s option so I had to download one dependency, the android-sdk package first then go back and install eclipse-android without the -s option when issuing the makepkg command. All worked fine after that.

I recommend after installing the four packages listed there to install the package android-udev for easy device recognition. Trust me you do not want to use the emulator to test your games or apps. It might be good in some instances but please don't freak out if the emulator is running your app so slow, it's just the emulator.

Then further down the page please follow the instructions that give your full access to the android-sdk folder. Log in as root and as stated there enter this command:

chown -R YOURUSERNAMEHERE /opt/android-sdk

So when you go to install the different components it works and doesn't halt and force you to update those components as root, that's just not good. I don't feel so anyways.

When you go into your tools folder located in /opt/android-dev/tools you bring up the android sdk manager by typing ./android. It will most likely give you an error and you'll have to go into the options and force it to download, so from the same window click on tools, select options and check the box force https, restart and it should let you download everything if you want, which i recommend.

Whether you set up with Windows or Linux you don't have to worry, there are much better guides out there to help you through the process. I will continue it next time and we can move onto installing and updating the Eclipse IDE and which version I recommend. I hope this has helped someone in moving one step closer to getting it all running. There's no better feeling than to finally get it all working. That right there is 80% of the battle.

Thank you again and I'll add more to this soon.

Things are back up, finally

I've got the system all back up and running and updates will be coming late next week. It's been some trying times getting everything back to the way it was and it's not completely there since I can't get Windows set up on to dual boot my workstation. Had Fedora 16 on it and it ran great for a while however it would occasionally lock up and not due to overheating this time.

I really wanted a Linux distro I wouldn't be force to upgrade every six months to a year and a little more control over what gets installed. So now I have Arch installed with only the packages I use and nothing more.

Here soon I will post a continuation to the "How To" section and this update will contain tips and links on how to install and get Eclipse IDE up and running, Android SDK properly setup and how to install the plug in so it all works together. From all of my experiences I hope I can save someone the trouble or at least all of the problems I encountered when setting up a workstation for android development.

Some other good news that I failed to mention was Amazon picked up Ninjay as well as ESDN, an app store that works in conjunction with Facebook to sell apps and games for both the android market and blackberry. And SlideMe picked it up as well and I'm very grateful to all of them for treating me so good and giving me the opportunity to display this game on their service. So I will remove the QR Codes from this blog and add the link to those markets in their place.

I'll also post an update announcement soon of what's coming next week. Thank you so much for your continued support. Between my laptop not working, Thanksgiving and coping with my father who passed away last year on the day after Thanksgiving it's just been rough. But I have to keep moving forward, it's what he would want.

It is fixed

It's been a few days now that I've been trying everything I can to get the workstation back up. The problem was it would shut down, without warning, just shut off. Sometimes hours would pass by and sometimes it would only take minutes before it would shut down again. No crash reports, no crash logs, so it would make it very hard to get any work done.

With that last update posted and live I figured I  would take this time to do a clean install on the system and just wipe it clean. Did that and it still shuts off on its own. Tried different Linux distros and some seemed to have fixed it but then, no, it still did it. Looked online for suggestions and found some topics similar to the problems I was having, they suggested updating the BIOS. And as you know if you screw that up you might as well pack it up and get a new machine. And another thing was I didn't have Windows installed on the system and needed that for this BIOS update. So trying to re-install Windows 7 first, then my serial numbers for it wouldn't work. It was an upgrade version of Windows 7 and I found out I would have to install XP first. So, I started doing that however in the process of trying to get XP back on it, it would shut off. Finally I knew it had to stay cool to run, the heat was kicking it off and some reports online said it was due to the BIOS I had installed already, that it had poor fan control support. Placed it in the freezer while it installed XP and then installed the updated BIOS. Hoping that would fix it I sat and waited and all seemed well for a while then it did it again. Back to the drawing board. Tried everything. I've had this workstation for a very long time, I've pushed it as hard as I push myself to perform when I need it to and I know, like myself was just tired and needed a break. Push came to shove however as I finally started looking at opening it up and seeing if the problem was on the inside. This is a laptop and I've never taken apart one before. 

I searched for videos online on how to begin this process, found a good one, and then began. After all if this didn't work, what did I have to lose? I only have one other desktop that I could get working but its system specs are a little too low to do what I need it to do. Got it apart, took the fan and heat sink apart and what I found was shocking. Dust covered the outlets and it couldn't breathe. I cleaned it up and put it all back together. Plugged it in and hit the power button. It turned on! I ran it hard, all night, and it has yet to shut off again. I think I bought this laptop back in late 2008 and this is the first time it ever did this. And I take special care of my things to keep it dust free and clean but no matter how many precautions you take in time dust will accumulate inside causing problems. 

So things are back up and running and tomorrow I'll get back to work. Just want to keep you all posted as much as I can.

This day one year ago is when my father passed away so I'm going to take today off.

System restore

I've been putting it off for far too long now. After last nights update to Ninjay I really wanted to get back here tonight to post more in the "How To" section to keep it going. However I really have been faced with the problem of my workstation acting up, either working slow, shutting off on its own, dropping connection to the internet all of the time and several other things. So tonight I'm in my final stages of backing everything important up and getting ready to wipe the system clean and do a fresh install of everything.

I can still be reach via email on my mobile device or just the same on Google+.

Updates are live

Well I've come to expect now with big changes to the game, that last one was a big update with some major changes in the interface and a slew of other things under the hood. That these things could and would cause some problems in other areas.

So here is a list of the latest version updates:

• Fixed a bug that prevented the player from progressing past stage two.
• Optimization in asset management to increase performance.
• Changed the item and special move select button to just right and down and enlarged it for easier access when selecting items and special moves.
• Some interface controls were overlapping, this has been fixed as well.
• Updated the "How To" to reflect the change with the direction button.

Most of these updates have been applied to both versions of Ninjay, except for the first one. Version numbers in the android market should reflect:

Ninjay version 1.46

Ninjay Demo Ver 1.36

Optimization in asset handling was a major accomplishment for me in that I was able to lower how much memory was being used at any given time by a large margin. Now I can focus on the sequel and other goodies I want to include in the next big update. And though I wish I could say that it will be bug free, I've come to realize that no matter how much testing I do, I'm just human and I am going to make mistakes.

So again thank you to whomever sent me that crash report. It helped me in fixing a few things I hope. And thank you everyone again for your support and feedback.

Update, update again

I'm aware now that there is a bug that prevents the player from progressing the story past stage two and have fixed this. I will test it more today and have that uploaded tonight. Thank you for your patience and support. I really do appreciate it! Once this is fixed this should be the last update until the scheduled one for next week. This update will only affect of course the full game and not the demo.

With all android apps or games there is a manifest file that helps tell the market which device this is compatible with. I've set this to not be displayed in the market for devices with large or extra large displays however this didn't again prevent it from being seen by these devices when browsing the android market. The attributes have been set to false to help ensure this but Ninjay still shows up. It is my belief that with these attributes set to false that on those devices will run in screen compatibility mode so the game doesn't look so terrible on those devices. I do not have a tablet to test this on and encourage anyone who wants to try the game always get the demo first, please to ensure compatibility with your device.

With that uploaded tonight the new version number will be, version 1.46. Current versions on the android market are, Ninjay Demo version 1.33 and Ninjay version 1.44.

After that I plan to add onto the "How To" section to push that part of this blog along so keep checking back please.

Minor Update

Coming to both the demo and full game:

• Corrected the manifest file to not display this game to anyone with a large or extra large display. I was wondering why it would allow anyone with tablet devices to download it.
• Intended to refill HP and GP when leveling up, this is now working as well.
• Set level cap to 99 at the moment. This will be increased with the sequel.

Provided I get everything setup tonight and tested some more this update should be available soon.

Plans for tonight

Well I have several plans for tonight lined up. And right now they've have to be reorganized due to some things not working anymore. My workstations wireless adapter is on the fritz and nothing I can do about that right now. I don't really get it because I have my workstation setup to dual boot Windows 7 and Fedora 15. On the linux side of things my wireless adapter works fine, never drops. However on the Windows side it connects for about five minutes then shuts off. I'm very careful what gets installed on this machine. So tonight I'm moving all of the development of Ninjay over to Fedora and I'm going to stress test it to ensure it can handle it. I have no doubt that it will.

Ninjay Demo update version 1.31 and Ninjay update version 1.42

I was very pleased with the way testing went yesterday and today and finished up cleaning most of the code that was no longer needed to perhaps increase performance.

With this version update comes some big fixes with how this title handles or handled frame rates. This was a big oversight on my part and something that I've learned a lot from. Now instead of the frame rates being based on how calls to the update method this is now based on how much time has elapsed. And allows any device, fast or slow to run at the same speed. This was causing unforeseen problems in animating the character when he walked and how fast the fights went.

Stream lined the interface to help with the reduction in assets that had to be loaded. And made some improvements to the battle system to help balance out melee attacks and specials used in fights.

Upcoming updates

A few people have brought it to my attention that the game runs too fast or doesn't control properly on their devices. This was due to how I coded the game to handle frame rates. At the heart of every game is the update method. And basing the animation and frame rates on how often the update method was called generated problems with not just controlling the character but also the speed of battle. This has been fixed to throttle it down so all devices are running at the same speed based time elapsed instead. I have corrected this issue and will have the updates uploaded soon and would just like to thank everyone for your support and help in spotting some of these issues. I have a new device now to test on and that will help me catch these type of things a lot easier.

In the meanwhile here is a few screen shots of the new interface that I'd like to share. Less assets will have to be loaded and has this has helped lower the file size of the game as well.

As always thank you for visiting.

Skyrim

This post is a little off topic for this blog so just a heads up. I was able to attend the midnight launch of Skyrim. Which I'm sure if you don't know about this new title that breathes more life into the Elder Scrolls series you will soon. Gamestop was kind enough to help me with promoting my title and for that I'm very grateful they handed out my fliers and let me talk to anyone who had questions. I stood in line with the rest of them who had it reserved and about two hundred people it looked like showed up for this event.

We had to wait outside the store until midnight and it was cold however the enthusiasm of these people were enough to keep everyone excited enough for the few hours I was there. A lot of people were excited to meet a game developer but to me I'm just another guy trying to do what he loves and get by. I was happy to speak with anyone about game development. It's not an easy job as I always point out. Some days are longer than others while some days you can get a lot accomplished. There are days where I work twenty plus hours and get less done in doing that and I see it as a mixed bag of things. So I made a few more friends, I hope, and maybe inspired someone to go into this field or look into it, after all if you enjoy playing games you might enjoy making them. And there are so many different fields in the gaming industry and you never have to limit yourself to just the one.

Well it's back to work and thank you for stopping by.

Updates - Demo and Full version

I'm working tirelessly to have some big updates for both the demo and full version of the game and it should be ready Monday or Tuesday. I'm very excited to get these things implemented and I'm taking special care that it will all work flawlessly. So stay tuned and I hope you like the enhances that I'm working on.

Thank you.

Update Announcements

Upcoming updates that are scheduled to be pushed live next week:

1. Better graphical, sound and music asset management - Though the way I have implemented asset management seems to be working good. I plan to streamline this and make it more efficient to help with loading times and utilizing every resource that the android platform has to offer. The android is a different beast and memory management is at the core with anyone who develops for this platform.
2. Display fixes - Some stats are displayed incorrectly or not shifting to the proper position when needed. I've tracked down this bug and though it isn't game breaking it will be in the next update as well to correct this.

With better handling of assets whether it's graphical or sound related comes better performance and easier integration for the sequel. The sequel which originally was going to be distributed as a stand alone title was changed to be implemented as a add on to the main title. So if you purchased the original title you will have access to all future sequels, free. The android market currently has a limit of 50 MB for the max size allowed for any app or game and I will always take this into consideration when it comes to design. With that out of the way comes the first sequel release date or target release date. This can change to sooner depending on how everything works. Extensive testing will be done to ensure the sequel does not break the game and that it all integrates together smoothly. So target release date for the sequel is January 20th, 2012. Below is a list of things you will see in this add on:

1. Continuation of the story line. This part of the sequel will catch you off guard.
2. Pet companion that travels with you and helps you in combat.
3. Item and money drops from the monsters you fight.
4. Three more stages with new monsters to fight in all stages.
5. Rare monsters that drop rare items.

Here in the next few days and weeks until near launch of the sequel I will share or give you a sneak peak of what to expect. Check the Update Announcements category to stay up to date and thank you.

About the company, myself and this blog

Well I just got home not too long ago from Winston Salem, NC to hand out flyers to help with the promotion of this game to the local Gamestops and other video game related stores. To my surprise they were very supportive and I can't thank anyone enough for that kind of response and support. Being indie, which is what I would call myself is tough, especially now. Yes, the first title is finished and work has already begun on the sequel and plans for another title that will be announced soon. Then there is marketing or just letting people know about it. So finding a balance between working on the game, whether it's updates, optimization to code, more assets and so forth and trying to promote it and then balance this out with my personal life, friends, family, girlfriend is just a lot to take on some days. But that's not what this post is about. I want to share with you something about the company, myself and how this blog is helping me keep it all organized.

Blogging, I never really understood it completely until recently. Labeling your post? Nope, didn't really understand that either and not as much as I wanted or had time for. Most of my time was buried in coding, creating and fixing graphical assets and coding some more. So after learning how this all works and fits together it seemed like a perfect way to help keep everything organized being right now I'm just a one man team. So this blog will be divided up into different categories listed to the right and more will be added as needed to help you find the information you are looking for faster. I'm even adding a how to section for anyone looking into making apps or games for the android platform. If I can make it easier for someone then I'm glad to help. I guess when I spoke with someone at Google that helped me with creating adwords I told them I wanted it to point to this blog. He was kind of surprised that I didn't have my own website. I explained, that as much as I would want one I just don't have the time to maintain it and learn how to keep it organized and easy to navigate. He then understood where I was coming from. Anything that helps me by making my task easier then I'm all for it. And I really enjoy this blog and watching it grow at the same time keeping it organized with very little effort.

About the company and myself. Well, I left my previous employer, working in a logistics warehouse to set out and chase my dreams last year in October. Here I was working and going to college, working hard at both and taking on a big load. Keeping my grades very high was something that I was very proud of and showed me that if I applied myself I could accomplish anything and that's true for anyone. Never limit yourself and you will be surprised at just what you can accomplish when you want something bad enough. I had this all planned out and I knew when it was time to go and I did without hesitation. I thought this is such a small portion of my life that if I don't go for this now, chase my dreams, then it will haunt me for the rest of my life, that and it would always be in the back of my head the what ifs. To get technical the company wasn't founded until later next year on February 2, 2011 with the register of deeds in Yadkin county. When trying to explain what this company was, a video game development studio the clerk just gave me a funny look, shrugged it off and continued to process my request.  I really wanted to make sure everything was legit and legal. And so it was on that day that 18 Day Studios was officially created with just myself at the helm. When I talk about the company, I'm talking about myself. We are one and the same. I would love to be able to one day find more people that have a passion to help me out with these projects and I'll get to that soon, perhaps in a new post. The name 18 Day Studios came from a launch date of January 18, 2011. Originally this title was developed with the intentions of it appearing on Xbox Live in the indie section. There were several events prior to this that really pushed me back and I wasn't able to meet this deadline. And began porting it for the android platform not long thereafter.

So there is a brief summary of the company, myself and this blog and you can find it for future reference in the category, The BIG about. Thank you again.

How To - Getting started making android games

Do you want to make android apps or games? All the tools are within your reach to do it! In the next few days I'll go over some key things you will need.  Maybe in doing this it will help you get one step closer to making that happen.

If you're not familiar with JAVA here is a good place to start, there's no reason to purchase a book especially if you already have programming experience with other languages such as C++ or C#:

Learning the JAVA language

If JAVA is already in your arsenal of programming languages then we can move onto other things. I found this book in android game development to be very helpful and the author is very clear and concise with explaining the different facets of game development for the android. The book is very recent and I only encountered a few mistakes in print. With this tool you'll be ready to take on the world of android development:

Beginning Android Games by Mario Zechner on Amazon

Are you an artist? Do you want to create the assets that the player will see? There are several nice tools out there, some free that can help you with this. I can not recommend this enough that if you are wanting to do the artwork for your game to invest in a tablet. There are several good tablets out there, manufactured by different companies however I have really pushed my Wacom tablet and it has pushed back. Look into their line of products and check into the Intuos4.

Intuos4 Small

For artwork you see in Ninjay all of it was drawn freehand using Sketchbook Pro 2010. It's relatively inexpensive however very powerful and you can produce some very good artwork with it, just check YouTube and see some of the drawings these people create, don't base it on what I'm capable of. There is also MyPaint, similar with Sketchbook and free. It can be installed in Windows, Mac and Linux if that's your flavor and though I haven't had much time to work with this software it is very capable of producing great artwork. If you don't have Photoshop, GIMP is a very free tool that I feel ranks right up there with CS4, the last version of Photoshop I was able to work with in college.

Sketchbook Pro 2011
MyPaint
GIMP

Well my girlfriend is here and I'm going to spend some time with her. But check back here for more on this how to and maybe I hope to help someone else out. Thank you.

Working tired

Seems that working exhausted can cause more problems then they are worth. I've made more mistakes since release that I'm not afraid to admit and this is probably due to just lack of R&R. There's nothing more to do than to keep moving forward and learn from the mistakes.

The settings in the demo were not set back to their default values and this caused the game to allow the player to fight once and then abruptly and prematurely end. This has been corrected and in the version 1.01 of the Ninjay Demo. I apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused.

Ninjay Charts

This was a very good surprise to wake up to today. And it wouldn't have been possible without everyone's support. It has been steadily climbing its way to the top of both Top New Paid and Top New Paid in the Arcade & Action category. Now that the demo is out I really hope to get more feedback.

Thank you again, this all means so much to me.

This last weekend

Was my first good break from working on the game in a while now. I actually was a lot less stressed out or this is what I'm told anyways from friends and my girlfriend. I took some time to just relax and not think about the game which is very hard for me to do. When your mind is constantly racing for new better things to do, better ways to implement things, better optimization in code. Better features that can be released in the sequel.

I'm very grateful to everyone and I just can't stress that enough. I'm very grateful for all the support, feedback, regardless of good or bad from everyone. And I'm very grateful to Google who has really pushed the android and given me a platform to work on and the tools to work with.

Well it is Monday and that means back to work. Thank you again everyone!

Ninjay Demo

The demo version of  Ninjay is now uploaded and ready to be played, free. This version allows the player access to the first stage of the game and allows the player to progress to level three in status before ending. This was something I did want to do as the full game was released to help promote it. However I wasn't really sure how to do this when it comes to signing the APK file with either a new keystore or use the same one I used for the full version of the game. I really wanted to get some solid answers before doing this as not to cause any conflict between both games.

All seems well though right now and I think I pulled it off. A free, demo version is listed along with the full paid version of the game.

Yesterday and some of today

Most of last night I spent fixing the code and trying to improve the game. However yesterday it really hit me hard when I went out and started speaking with other local business owners in trying to market the game. Had several flyers made out and ready to be stuck up at places I visited the previous day and even went as far as Mocksville, the next town over to drop by a Gamestop where they gladly said they would accept it.

Marketing isn't in my blood. I watched my father run his business. I understood that in order to get peoples attention you have to look them straight in the eye with confidence in yourself, your product, just be honest and don't talk down to them. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well it would be if that's all you had to do. Being indie or independent  meaning I do all of my own work, well not the music or sound effects but the programming and artwork takes a lot of my time. Then I have to shift gears and I mean really shift gears and get my business muscles pumping and market, market, market. Cause the game isn't going to move itself as a friend told me. He also said the hard part has just started and I'm beginning to see what he was talking about. It's all about finding a balance a happy medium and then you have to take into account other things too such as friends and family, can't neglect them. Because they're mostly what helped me get to where I am now. And I'd be lost without them.

So next week, Monday I'm planning a trip to go on campus to visit and speak. Chart out which businesses will allow me to place flyers in Elkin so as to be more efficient and less costly with other expenses then at the same time work on the game as well.

Today before I go to bed I want to get the lite version of Ninjay published and up on the marketplace. This will help promote the game and allow people to demo it out first. The lite version will only be playable until the player reaches level three in status. And that should be more than enough to let them see what it's about.

Well back to work despite me being exhausted. And as always, thank you for stopping by!

Sales

As I promised earlier I would take a portion of the profits and pay it forward to Hospice Care. These people really took care of my father in his last days. This game is in memory of him and I just want to make him proud.

Currently it's been decided to start at 5% towards charity. And my plan is to bump it up every 5,000 by 5% with a max of 15%. So check this label out every once in awhile for sales updates and lets see what we can do.

Ninjay Version update 1.11

I wasn't expecting the update to show up that fast on the marketplace. However it was brought to my attention today that the monsters didn't scale well when the player got higher in levels. I'm very grateful for that feedback. I found the bug, fixed it and added a short how to play the game for anyone new to the RPG genre.

Ninjay Version update 1.01

It was brought to my attention today that the first level was too hard and I sort of thought this too. I've made some changes to the amount of damage an enemy deals out as well as extend the amount of time it takes for the enemy to attack. I also reviewed the other stages and made the appropriate changes to those enemies as well to help with game balance and scaling.

Journey into the unknown

I've quickly learned and thanks to a few friends that the game isn't going to sell on its own. I not only have to have the mindset of a programmer and artist and whatever else to make a game, on the other end I have to carry a business mindset to get my game or product noticed then hopefully moving. So the better part of the evening I went out to speak with other local business owners to see how, if they did promote other local businesses by allowing flyers to be posted up. And to my surprise every place I visited said sure, no problem.

So that's what I'll be doing tomorrow is filling that gap that needs to be filled in order to market it. Strange part is I really didn't see this coming. To be honest, I'm a programmer, a game developer and I try to be social. So tomorrow is a big day for me. I'm sure it will be a fun filled one.

About Ninjay

The game was one of my first projects while attending college and majoring in Simulation and Game Development. It was a concept my instructors loved and wanted to see turn into a full game one day. So here it is. The original game was put together too fast due to the time you have to finish projects for submission in college, sometimes two weeks or less. Now I've had this time to brush up on the art style I really wanted this game to take shape as and polish it up to the best of my artistic abilities.

The original game featured a pet as well that followed the main character around. It was my intentions that the dog would help attack when in battle. I have left this out, however intend to include it in a future update. Along with a slew of other features that I will introduce as time goes on.

This title originally was designed for a different platform that I'm sure you can see in the interface. It was ported for the android. I really love this platform and intend to always support and develop for it.

This is my first title released for the android market. Originally the next part of the game was going to be a standalone title that progressed the story. However I have changed my mind to introduce these as episode updates towards the original.

Updates will then be divided up into two classes. Updates to fix certain unforeseen bugs, which happens unfortunately and optimization updates, will be listed separate from episode updates. So hopefully this comes as good news to everyone looking forward to giving the game a whirl.

Please check here for future episode release dates. Feel free to contact me anytime if you have any questions, concerns, just want to say hello or need support with this title. I appreciate any and all feedback. And I really want to hear what you think and get your input on something you might like to see in a future update. I will always respond as quickly as possible.

A long day, finished

Some of this is unrelated to the game though I'd still like to share with you my experiences with this launch. I'm still so wound up from all of this that I still have yet to sleep any.

So my plan was to launch it right at midnight and have it on the marketplace at that time. Wishful thinking on my part and I promise you I won't do that again. I knew I had to remove the debug attribute from the manifest file before anything else then create a key and sign the APK before I could upload it and thought this shouldn't be that hard. Well I encounter a few errors that prevent me from signing the package. If I can't get past this, there is no launch or not one at midnight. So I frantically searched online for a solution. Finally I hit pay dirt and my search efforts paid off. I got past this hurdle, now onto the next.

I go to my developers dashboard for android developers and begin the process of uploading the file, it's not uploading. What's going on? What else can go wrong? I reboot and my internet connection if a lot better, try it again and it works, it's uploading. Now to upload the graphic assets and fill in a description for the app. I get ready to click on the publish button and nothing, it's not showing up like it should in the main panel as it's status as published. By now I've lost a few more strands of hair and my face is turning a dark red. In doing this all the assets that I uploaded disappeared, so I took a deep breath said okay let's try this again. And, it did the same thing. All my assets were gone, again. Take another deep breath. I didn't come this far to be halted by this obstacle, I must keep pushing forward! Finally I see that you need to activate the APK file associated with the assets you're uploading. So I do this and presto it is uploading!

So I'm thinking I'm in the clear by now and try to find it in the android marketplace. Searching for it brings up thousands of results on the desktop version of the marketplace. I don't see it anywhere. I'm combing through what looks like an endless sea of games with names similar to my game. Hours pass and I finally find it on page nine! My heart stops for a brief moment. I keep wondering if my eyes are playing tricks on me and sure enough, no it is really there.

Today I had jury duty and had to be there at 8:45 AM. So I didn't sleep and went to it hoping it wouldn't take that long. Well we get there, watch a video on what takes place in the courtroom then they send us all out into another courtroom and asked us to wait there. Waited, waited, waited....

From about 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM they kept us in this spare courtroom. One of the clerks came in and told us that they did not need us anymore. And thanked us for coming. How nice. So here I am now it's 4:54 PM and I still haven't slept yet. Not sure what I'm running on. I know I'm exhausted out of my mind. I'm going to lay down soon to get some rest. I thought I would share that with you all. Thank you for reading this long post and pleasant dreams. Thank you.

Well it's finally on the market

After an hour wresting with the developers dashboard for android and getting past signing the package it is up there for the world to play.

I want to thank everyone for your continued support in seeing this come to fruition and not giving up on me! It means so much to me that this got finished. I will in the next few days go over the process of what it took me to get this done and off the ground. In the meanwhile I'd like to let you know that a portion of the profits will be going to Hospice care. They helped me take care of my father when he was getting ready to pass and done so much for me. This game is in memory of him. I just want to make him proud and show him I never give up.

This game is also in memory of Mary Ann Curry, a mother I never had the chance to meet however hope to one day. Your children love and miss you.

So I'll keep you all posted here and once again, thank you!