GPSM and new beginnings in monkey

I made another small game to get to know monkey and see if it's right for GPSM (my Formula 1 management Game), and I really like it, it's certainly helped my code to be more organised and more modular based.

so, now I'm back to making GPSM,
One change is that I've separated the garage screen into two, so as seen in the screenshot below, there is a garage screen , where you will be able to see the condition of each of your cars, make repairs and decide whether to use a different engine or gear box.

The R&D will be for the pure development of this and next years car.

Screenshot (please excuse the terrible font and the location of the 'continue' button, I'm still not sure where to put it)

2012: Review of the Year Part 1: My Android Games

This year I finished my first games and published them on the Google Play Store for android mobiles.  Although, I don't actually rate any of them as being any good (except for hangman for educational purposes), they have given me a useful introduction into the commercial side of game making and have allowed me to feel more confident for the future (as before 2012, I had NEVER finished a game).  They've also allowed me to pay the rent and buy a few beers.

Below, I have given the games that are available in the Android store my personal rating and then I'll show their total downloads for 2012.

My Scores
Hangman 6/10
Zombie Hell 4/10
Pixeloids   3/10
Zombie Infection Defender  2/10
PixelStrip 2/10
Don't Cry Ronaldo 1/10
Abramovich's Job 1/10
Stop Santa 1/10

The Penalty of Ramos  0/10
The Penalty of Messi 0/10


Free Downloads  (Total = 484,632)
The Penalty of Ramos:    238,965  :  (Released May 2012)

The Penalty of Messi 85,252  :  (Released May 2012)

Don't Cry Ronaldo:    59,980  :  (Released June 2012)

Zombie Infection Defender:    31,186  :  (Released March 2012)

Hangman:    27,636 :   (Released February 2012)

PixelStrip:    21,105  :  (Released February 2012)

Zombie Hell:    13,214 :  :  (Released May 2012)
Abramovich's Job:    3,804  :  (Released May 2012)
Stop Santa:    1,863  :  (Released December 2012)
Pixeloids:    1,627  :  (Released March 2012)

Obviously from the free downloads stats, you could probably imagine that the ones at the top made the most money from adverts and the ones at the bottom made only a little. Also, Santa was released on the 7th of December and was downloaded more times in December than Pixeloids was in 9 months, which shows that if your game doesn't look attractive, get any exposure or isn't relevant to any current subject it will probably die.



Total Downloads (Each Month of 2012)
February.  Downloads = 11,251
March.  Downloads = 19,889
April.  Downloads = 28,599
May.  Downloads = 225,884
June.   Downloads = 118,233
July.  Downloads = 60,420
August.  Downloads = 14,416
September.  Downloads = 15083
October.  Downloads = 14,350
November.  Downloads = 12,501
December.  Downloads = 23,745

Conclusion
From these stats, we can see that my worst apps made the most money by far.  So, even if you (like me with The Penalty of Ramos) make the worst game imaginable and only spend an hour on it, if you aim it at the right audience (in this case Spain) or target a popular subject at the right time, you can be relatively successful for a short period of time, such as The two 'Penalty of..' games where very successful for two months, and they quietened down.

Rocket Croc - There are Piranhas! (and giant squid!)

I've nearly finished Rocket Croc, here are some images of the new animals I added today, as well as the current Level Select Screen.

Rocket Croc - Casual Game

As mentioned before, I've decided to switch over to using the Monkey programming language, and to get used to it. So, before I continue to work on Grand Prix Super Manager in Monkey, I've decided to make a small casual mobile game.

That game is Rocket Croc.  

It's taken me two afternoons and is nearly finished.  The idea is that you control a rocket propelled Crocodile in its search to eat.    Their are many technologically improved animals flying, such as fish, turtles and whales, and not all of them are good for the crocodile to eat.

Hopefully, (although I haven't bought the full version of monkey yet) the game will be available for Android, Flash and Windows.

An image of my F1 management game coming in 2013

Grand Prix Super Manager, my ultimate goal as a bedroom coder to create an F1 management game.  Hopefully, I can finish it in the before March and want to set myself a visible deadline.

So I've made this image of my Formula one game, which I've set as my desktop to motivate myself:

I created the whole image myself (well except for the Windows, Linux and Android logos)

Grand Prix Super Manager: Transfering to Monkey Language

 I've decided to continue experimenting this week using the Monkey programming language in making GPSM (Grand Prix Super Manager) so I'm trying to transfer all the progress I had made in Processing to Monkey.

If the transfer is a success, Monkey will hopefull allow it to be easier to include more graphics in the game, such as flags and images of the cars and their parts.  It will also allow me to hopefully port the game to more systems (I'm currently aiming for Android / Windows / Linux and maybe flash).

I'm also changing the style of the buttons and interface, while they are still created programmatically, I prefer them over the older buttons

New v Old

Inspirational Indie Success

I've been inspired by the amount of money Grey Alien Games has made, being an indie developer, $145,000 from 3 games in 6 months.  You can read about the success here:

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/143000-from-3-casual-download-games-made-in-6-months/

I find very interesting that most of the money is from the downloadable casual PC and mac games market as opposed to the mobile market.  Which as improved my belief of trying to target both pc and mobile targets with my game.

I'm currently trying out monkey, which is a nice games programming language from the inventors of blitz3D and blitzmax which I love. It makes porting the game to different targets, such as (windows, mac, mobile targets) very easy.
So, I'll be testing it out in the next few days and consider whether to continue the development of GPSM (Grand Prix Super Manager) in that or to stick with Processing.

Now, I've got a lot of free time, so will really get back into developing GPSM and hopefully try and finish it in the next couple of months. Fingers Crossed and Start your engines....

Twitter or blog for tiny Updates?

I'm not sure whether I should continue to post on my blog for tiny updates to the Grand Prix Super Manager game or just on my twitter account:

https://twitter.com/sionco

My theory is that in a time like this, when I haven't had time to do major work on the game, I'd still like to keep the blog looking active, as this helps to attract new people and also to show anyone who is kind enough to follow the blog that I am still continuing the game.  However, I don't want to release too many blog posts which only reveal a tiny update.  Any opinions are welcome...

Anyway, I've only had 2 hours to work on the game, so I've fixed a couple of small issues today, and also added a value for the teams public reputation (as shown by the green bar on the team select screen below):

This statistic will affect things such as which sponsors and drivers are willing to talk to your team.    Your teams reputation rating will be affected by things such as your race results and championship position, breaking contracts, sponsor and marketing days, the drivers you sign and any fines. 

In the future I'd also like to introduce a media/journalism section, where the player can release stories to the press about the team, drivers, other teams, which could affect the teams reputation either way.