Som(a)niloquy

Time for rest: Flurry Friday Episode 13- January 27th 2012

Flurry Friday 12 – From a whisper to a scream

I try to make a semi-regular habit of getting away from any and all technology, usually in the wilderness somewhere, and spending a day alone with The Spirit. We call it a DAWG day – A Day Alone With God.

Two years ago I came back from that bonfire with a strong sense that the next season for Soma would be characterized by a kind of hiddeness or disguise for us.

When I wandered out of the woods a few weeks ago I was hearing something quite the opposite.

“All of that is over now.” is the best way to describe it. The veil was lifting, the lamps were being lit and the song was starting in earnest.

From a whisper to a scream.

Maranatha.

Flurry Friday 11 – WUR featured by Kotaku

No video today.  A few weeks have gone by since our last update. We took some much needed time away over Christmas and New Years. Wind Up Robots and Santa’s Giftship was featured for the third week in a row on iTunes as New and Noteworthy.  Today we were pleased to see that Wind Up Robots has been chosen as Gaming App of the Day alongside picks like Temple Run and Bejeweled on the front page of Kotaku! Go read the article, share it out and have a great weekend.

Flurry Friday Episode 10 – Double Feature…and rest

Today was just a great day to set us off on a long needed period of rest.

Wind Up Robots launched last week and today it was featured on Apple’s New and Noteworthy section of iTunes. On Tuesday we launched Santa’s Giftship (under our Code-Monkeys label) and it too was featured. That’s two featured apps in the store as we move into the busiest season of the store – what a fantastic opportunity…what a great blessing.

Look, we worked hard on these games, especially Wind Up Robots, but once they go out the door, the reality is that we have a pretty limited ability to effect what happens next. It’s hard to get a break with so much great stuff out there.

But Proverbs has this great line: The horses are prepared for battle..but the victory belongs to the Lord.

So we do a little Tebow, say thank you to our papa, and now we all settle down for time with family and hopefully stop wearing out the F5 keys and obsessing over ranks.

Keys To Your Calling

This Saturday I had the great honor of being the commencement speaker for the mid-year graduation at George Fox University (my alma mater BTW). It was very uncharacteristic of me but I wound up writing the whole thing out whee I always just go on outline notes. For some reason this one didn’t come out that way. Anyway, the text of what I wrote is below and we’ll post the video as soon as its available. (though you’ll see i drift from my own notes quite a bit…)

The Keys To Your Calling
For GFU commencement Dec 17, 2011

I remember this moment very clearly though I’m not certain how old I was – probably about ten.

I was lying on my stomach on the living room floor and the family was watching CHiPs.
At some point a commercial came on and I saw something that totally captured me – a computer generated 3D model of a corporate logo spinning in nothingness. It was as if I was a space ship grazing a massive chrome artifact in deep space – and I was so hooked. I made up my mind right there that I wanted to be a computer graphics animator. I told my folks, then and there, what I would be doing with my life and they smiled politely…but not exactly enthusiastically.

Through school plenty of interests flared up and receded, always fascinating in their time, but by graduation time I was still fixed on CG as a career. So I started junior college with that field in mind and I was very excited. One day I sat down for lunch and struck up a conversation with the guy next to me…”what’s your major?” he asked.
“I want to be a computer animator!” I beamed.
He looked me straight in the eye and said “why would you want to do that? That must be the most boring, tedious job I can imagine?”

…I was crushed.
I’d been going so far on pure enthusiasm. I really didn’t know anything about the actual work of CG. For all I knew he was right. And for lack of knowledge I believed him.
..and my spirit died. Or at least went off for a long winter’s nap.

Continue Reading…

Flurry Friday Episode 9- Dec 16th: WUR live on iTunes-Santa’s Giftship Update!

What a week! Wind Up Robots (WUR) went live on the iTunes yesterday and positive reviews are streaming in. Right now it is being featured in the New and Noteworthy section.

On the Code-Monkeys side we finished a crazy two week development of Santa’s Giftship. And that is from the initial concept idea to finish. For the video update today we decided to take the game to George Fox University and see what the first reactions were from student. On a side note Chris will be giving the Mid-Year Commencement address this Saturday at Fox. You can watch live by following the link on the commencement page. If you have bought WUR we would love your reviews on iTunes. Have a great weekend!

Flurry Friday Episode 8- Dec 9th: WUR Approved!

We are excited to announce that Wind Up Robots has been approved by Apple and will be available in iTunes for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch December 15th (next Thursday). We also are about to release our Christmas Game Santa’s Gun Ship through our sister company, Code-Monkeys. For more details on both, please watch the video.

Flurry Friday Episode 7- Dec 2nd WUR Submit & Christmas Game

So we did it. Wind Up Robots is submitted first to Apple and as of yesterday The Barnes and Nobles Store for the Nook and the Amazon Store for the Kindle Fire and the Intel AppUp store for PC’s. It will also be available for the the Android Marketplace soon. The game should be available very soon.

On another note our sister company Code-Monkeys has launched a new game that will be coming out Christmas week. The whole shop loves what Limbic Studios did with Zombie Gunship. In a tribute to them we are publishing our ode to thier mighty craft in a game called Santa’s Gift Ship. Now let your imagination go wild there for a minute and you will basically fall on what our team has come up with. We know you are going to love it.

Just Saw the Kindle Fire and I’m Impressed

So we’re all hard at work getting Wind Up Robots ready for the store and as we were doing that I was thinking we ought to look at the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablets as additional platforms. So I hurried on over to Best Buy and picked up the hardware so we could test it all out.

To cut to the chase, I am quite impressed with the Kindle. (I haven’t had the chance to really dig into the Nook yet but I’ll get to it). First off, the UI that Amazon rolled for the tool is very well done and it’s the first time I’ve been impressed by the design, images, and feel of a tablet UX that wasn’t the iPad. Other tablets have done reasonably well…but also fallen short of the experience that for many people is the default – Apple’s. But Amazon put good effort here and it shows.

Second – Wind Up Robots looks and plays great on the Kindle. The game was made using Unity3D and with the Android plug-in we just exported and run. It was simple and what’s more, the hardware kept up wonderfully with a game that’s designed to be pretty intense on the CPU. I was frankly expecting a noticeable drop in frame-rate but quite to the contrary, the Kindle even performed better in some ways than the iPad, specifically in touch response. You can see us testing the game on the Fire in in the video below.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the 7″ form factor, it’s too small for me, but other guys here like it and if my main activity is reading eBooks, then the smaller form makes for easier reading…so I may not be the target audience here.

But most importantly (to me) this is the first place I’ve been motivated to make the effort to put my product in an Android app store. Now that Amazon has taken a big step toward the moderated, managed and at-least-slightly-walled garden app store, suddenly they have my interest as a developer. For all the Android hardware that’s being sold the dirty little secret among developers is that Android customers simply don’t spend any money which makes for a lousy business model. (see more here) But I for one am very encouraged by the Amazon store and how it looks like a great step toward finding and training a body of customers who aren’t looking for everything to be free. (Not that free is always bad, but always free is bad). Of course time will tell if Kindle Fire customers act more like Amazon customers than Google customers  - but I for one am impressed and ready to roll the dice.

Flurry Friday Episode 6- Nov 18th: WUR Crunch Time

So I set out to shoot a video on game icon development and then tried the trial, tribulations and glory of game level design and balancing but when the team saw me coming they either ducked or just glared at me with that look of a bridezilla before the wedding day. Ok, I am overstating it a bit. The truth is we love this part of development. Everyone is functioning at their highest. Yes, it is a little tense at times but really we would not have it any other way. The game is almost ready to submit. The polish we have done in the last three weeks really shows.

This week we unveiled the game icon after taking your feedback on the poll both on Touch Arcade, FB and Google Plus. The results were a landslide for Laser. I guess you could call him the Ronald Reagan of wind up robots.

WUR has 28 levels that are now shiny, fun, exciting and balanced (at least as far as we can tell). Cross platform work has begun. We plan for you to be able to play it initially on iOS and then on all PC’s (tablets, desktops, netbooks such), general Android systems including the Amazon Fire.

So by next week we will have submitted the game to Apple and enjoying some turkey day festivities. Thanks again for joining us on the journey. We appreciated you help so much in choosing the icon. So with that we wish you a very good Thanksgiving. May your time with your friends and family be magical and enduring.

Part 2: Friday
by Chris Skaggs

So JB asked me to look this over and publish it when I thought it was ready… I thought I would add a bit. Today we’re all feeling a lot better, a lot more confident. Energy is high…aw heck, lets just shoot a second video…