My latest game, Oppo-Citrus

Hey, in case you haven’t already seen it, my latest game, Oppo-Citrus is now available. It’s got procedurally generated puzzles that are unique every time you play, with 11 different game modes (levels) of varying difficulty and gameplay. Each level has it’s own GameCenter leaderboard, and there are some achievements in there as well (more coming soon). It’s a take-your-time-style puzzle game, where you can think about what move you want to make as long as you want. I’ve been told it’s an unforgiving game. It can be really hard. Some game modes rely more on luck, but there are definitely ways to optimize your strategy. The game also keeps track of a lot of statistics for each level. Please consider giving it a shot, especially if you like my first game, ActionChess. Thanks for playing!

Dream of Pixels

I have been remis on here not writing about a game I got to help beta test called Dream of Pixels. It’s been available on the app store for exactly a week today, and has received some amazing reviews and press, over at TouchArcade, as well as some other crazy prestigious places like Kotaku and IGN. The game’s designer, Žiga contacted me months ago to say he liked Go-Tetris, and would I like to test his latest Tetris-inspired game. Of course I said yes, and I was VERY pleasantly surprised at how great it is. We’ve exchanged more than a few game recommendations in the time since, and it’s clear we share very similar game tastes. I’ll admit to a bit of jealousy at how great it looks and feels to play. It’s a brilliant game that turns Tetris on its head and does something different with our friends the tetrominos.

Dream of Pixels is an absolutely fantastic game, and if you buy one tetris-inspired game this year, it should be Dream of Pixels. If you have room for two Tetris-inspired games, then I also recommend Oppo-Citrus.

Oppo-Citrus v.0.8

Oppo-Citrus is live today in the app store.

I sort of forgot it was going to be released today, and the app description, which I’d fully intended to replace with something more descriptive, was simply the following:

Oppo-Citrus is a puzzle game with a catchy name!

Drag the row of fruit from the bottom into the middle of the gameboard, and try to make shapes of 4 or more of the same fruit. It’s that easy!

Enjoy!

So what I’ve settled on (hopefully it’s beter) is the following:

Oppo-citrus is a puzzle game where you drag a row of fruit squares from the bottom of the screen onto a grid to make shapes of 4 or more of the same fruit. As the shapes are removed and points are scored, additional levels are unlocked. Each level introduces some new mechanic or combination of mechanics. See how high you can score on each level!

Play Oppo-Citrus and enjoy the following features:
– 11 unique levels of increasing difficulty and complexity
– hand-drawn pixel graphics for iPhone and iPhone 5
– stereo sound effects made entirely using the sounds of fruit
– GameCenter leaderboards and achievements
– Beat the 11th level to unlock the custom game mode, for unlimited replayablity!

Enjoy!

Anyway, please consider giving Oppo-Citrus a try. I spent about six months making it (part-time), so I hope it’s worth at least a buck. And let me know if you have any problems or find any bugs. Thanks!

ActionChess 1.5 Release Notes

I’m in the middle of the process of submitting ActionChess 1.5 to apple. There is a ridiculously long list of things this build adds from the last one, which was… oh back in October of 2010. That’s over two years ago, and that means I’m a slacker! Anyway, that list includes:

* GameCenter achievements and leaderboards for all game modes.
* Retina graphics for normal iPhones (iPhone 5 support in the next version… probably).
* New “tap-based” input method. (The old drag-based method still works also.)
* New AbstractPuzzle/ActionChess news feed.
* New help button on the home screen.
* New “wiggle” animations when pieces get near the top of the screen.

There are probably about 500 other minor changes. Unfortunately, that list doesn’t include fixing the one or two UI bugs I know about (that annoying flashing that happens *sometimes when the level changes is still there, I’ve seen it). Here’s a list of things I want to tackle for the next version:

* release the more or less completed static-Puzzle mode
* modernize the interface to support iPhone 5, and possibly (hopefully) the iPad
* fix those bugs I mention, and quite possibly give the graphics an overhaul

Thanks for playing!

Oppo-Citrus is waiting for review!

I have been pretty radio-silent around here about Oppo-Citrus as well as the hundred other projects I have going right now. It’s hard to find time to blog when you can’t even find time to do all the coding that you have planned or on your plate.

So yeah, today I sent out a few trusted beta-testers what I’m considering the first “final” version of Oppo-Citrus. Then I fixed a bunch of bugs I found in it. Then I uploaded it to Apple. Here are the screen-shots I settled on using for iTunes:

The game has leaderboards for each of its 11 levels, as well as 10 “starter” achievements. (I hope to add about the same number of new achievements in an update in a week or two.) It’s not universal (boo!), but it does support the iPhone 5 screen ratio for those who have one (yay!).

I’m hoping yet tonight to submit a new version of ActionChess for review also. I’ll write another post if I can finish that.