Hi all. We updated to version 1.1, adding support for all 2.2 and newer OS, fixed some bugs and improved the controls... this is going to be the last free update.

Enjoy!

@Questor thanks for the comments. I thought that leaving the pin red and the others grey would be enough for a user to realize that he has to touch that pin... Maybe I'll add an effect or something else to let the user know that he can push the pin...

About the Level Complete, it's the same thing: "Level Complete" is grey when you have not completed the level and in colours when it's completed.

Again, thanks a lot for your feedback!

Rolando,

Just got done playing the first four levels... It had been a while since I played, but I figured out what the issue actually is regarding the 1st level. When the map comes up for at the very beginning (where you scroll to end and back again in the video), I had thought that scrolling to the end of the map and back again was the requirement for starting the game.

However, now that I played it again, I see that the you need to press the pushpin on the screen. If you have not already done so, you may want to point out that to start the game you need to touch the pin as I spent about 5 minutes (again) scrolling back and forth trying to start the game. I think previously I had accidentally pressed the pin when doing the scrolling and therefore thought the scrolling was what triggered the "Level Complete/PLAY" window to come up.

Also, it seems a little strange that when you start the game by pressing the pin, it shows "Level Complete" since the user has not actually completed a level as they just started the game. But of course that's just my humble opinion.

Best Regards,
Q

@Questor: Yeah, controls were a bit hard on that build... if you PM your device identifier I can send you the dev build to see if it's working better for you.
We have planned to send the next update this Wednesday, so I'm just making finishing touches.

About the post mortem... I'm finding myself with few time to write, although I will post it here as soon as I find time! hopefully after sending the first update.

I'm not sure I understand the problem you had... anyway, we also fixed a few bugs in the map section... so maybe that fixed some problems.

@MrMojo: you have to click on a pin to choose that level... I'll see if we can place bigger pins... And you also have to clear one level to go to the next one. Maybe there's a bug there I'm not seeing?

hey rolando... Was Awkward's Quest built using ShinyCocos?

And for what it's worth, I too found that the initial way you have to choose a level was very unintuitive. I actually just read Questors post, thought I'd check it out, went and got Awkwards Quest, and I actually had to come back here to the forum and watch the video (which I'd never done before) to see how to get past the first part.

Rolando,

Glad to hear you tweaked the controls. I had a tough time controlling Awkward, though I must admit I find most games to hard to control on the iPhone. ( I have yet to get rid of a single chick, lol!)

BTW, Any additional info on the post mortem that you care to share? Always nice to know what works and what to avoid, even in general terms.

Also, I was wondering what the timeline is looking like for the new version.

Regards,
Q
PS (Not sure if anyone mentioned it already, but I found the first "level complete" requirement of having to scroll/drag to the end of the notebook and back again not very intuitive. Had I not seen the video, I would have had no idea that that was the only way to *finish* the level and move forward. I fear you might be losing a few users before the game even really begins. IMHO.)

hey @plasticpower, thanks for the report :-)
yes, that's a bug. We already fixed in the upcoming update: I fine tuned Box2D and the control scheme. Did you complete the 4 levels? if so, that's all it is for now. The update will bring 6 new levels (2 1/2 new worlds :-P)

thanks again!
r

I found a bug, it doesn't happen all the time, but it got me several times now, enough to post it. When you get near a chick, and you try to get rid of it by jumping, sometimes you get stuck in this particular position

After you get stuck, you can't jump or move fast anymore, even if you manage to get rid of the chick.

Also, I completed a level but it didn't unlock any more levels? Is that because I didn't collect the yellow pin?

@plasticpower thanks! We have almost ready an update, we fixed a bit the controls and the physics, so it should be a lot more responsive now :-)
We're trying to create more levels before sending the update.

I honestly think it's a great game. I played for about half an hour (got the first three pins and almost got the fourth one) and I think it's awesome. The controls are nice, took a bit of time to get used to, but I think they are good. The only thing I would like to suggest is if you could make Mr Awkward accelerate a tiny bit faster. But overall I think the game is very balanced with great graphics. Left a 5-star review.

about the versioning, is basically what SDK you compile against... I wrongly had sticked to OS 3.1.2 (don't know why, actually...)

about the dev time... it took us (it's taking, actually :-P) something like a year, but really working I think about two months. We hired a small design team (external to us), they did the drawing/animation and helped with the level design (it was a bad, bad idea!). Games For Food is a two men operation: a friend of mine and me. I take care of the programming and my friend of the marketing/running the numbers.

best,
r

Rolando,

Game looks great. Just out of curiosity, how does the whole versioning thing work? Is that a direct reflection of the device you tested it on ? I mean, is it required to test and deploy to every generation of device that you want to target? I would think that with Apple's whole approval process they would verify the compatibility for a submission in any regard.

I am not planning on releasing anything soon, but I would really like to understand this issue to avoid making a similar mistake.

Great job on the game!. If you don't mind my asking....How long did it take to develop? Also, how many people worked on it?

Best Regards,
Q

I test for the position of the player on each tick and I have "borders" defined... So, if the player gets inside the border, I move the camera, something like this:

// check x window
	float32 delta;
	if (sp.x > 480.0f - BORDER_RIGHT) {
		delta = 480.0f - BORDER_RIGHT - sp.x;
		mp.x = mp.x + delta;
	} else if (sp.x < BORDER_LEFT) {
		delta = BORDER_LEFT - sp.x;
		mp.x = mp.x + delta;
	}
	// check y window
	if (sp.y > 320.0f - BORDER_TOP) {
		delta = 320.0f - BORDER_TOP - sp.y;
		mp.y = mp.y + delta;
	} else if (sp.y < BORDER_BOTTOM) {
		delta = BORDER_BOTTOM - sp.y;
		mp.y = mp.y + delta;
	}
	map.position = mp;

sp is the sprite position, relative to the map (i.e. the bottom left is [0,0] the top right is [480,320])

hth

how you did camera movement?? can you share

Nice fun looking game, and original too! I've downloaded it and will leave a (positive) comment for you :-)

I also made the 3.1.2 mistake on my first release. Fortunately I have a 1st Gen iPod so releasing for 2.2.1 wasn't a problem as an update.

I have a big iPhone/iPod development document that I keep updating. One of my sections in it is 'Pre-release Checklist' and on that is 'Is 3.0 necessary for this release?' as well as 'remove NSLog debugging code' etc. I see it becoming even bigger the more I read about other peoples' experiences...

it was hard... but we hired a small team of designers to do the graphics (more of that in the postmortem, which I'm writing right now).

What we have decided for future games is to do most of the design ourselves and just ask the designers for guides and specific stuff, like icon, Default.png, specific assets, that kind of stuff.

It is hard though to have something good quality and after a while, nothing is like what you had in mind. Although I do like what we got, I still think that we could've done much better.

hth

Congrats on the game! Did you find the UI design hard to do? Since I'm not an artist, I'm finding that part hard to do right now :P

No, I'm still working on Leopard (10.5)... I don't want to upgrade (yet). Did you try to choose SDK 2.2.1 as the Base SDK on the target properties?

Thanks GOOD! @rolando tell me something, you work over snow leopard? If you do, how you can support 2.2.1? I think doing that with my game, but i don't know if this is possible!

@badawe... yes... that was really stupid... I mean, there's nothing in the game that works only on OS 3.1.2... I just leaved that when testing... :'(

Anyway... the update should be ready sometime before the 28th, but we'll wait until itunes connect is back in business to send the update (which includes the second world and support for OS 2.2.1)

O Love the trailer! Its simple amazing!

i really want to try this game, but make then work only on the last iphone OS its a big mistake =/

and here's the official trailer, hope you like it. As usual, all comments are more than welcome.

http://www.vimeo.com/8315692

Yeah... that's one of mistakes we made and I'm taking notes for the post mortem :-P

Looks really cool. I like the style of it a lot. I tried to download it but it requires 3.1.2 You might wanna consider making it work for 2.2.1 or at least 3.0 or else I think you're gonna miss a large amount of your potential audience.

so... it's live on the AppStore (it only took 7 days!!), here's the link:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/awkwards-quest/id344697750?mt=8

It will be free until the first update, which we hope to release really soon!

thanks @badawe for the tips for the video!
we're hoping on today+14 days for the relase date :-P

@rolando WOW! I love the LIttle Big Planner + Doodle style of art, i really dont get if the game is fun or not, watch the video! sometime looks to easy and sometimes looks to hard, but all of this is supposition, but keep us informed and congratulations for this game! Any release date?

Finally, we are really, really happy to announce our first "big" game: Awkward's Quest, made (of course) with Cocos2d-iPhone. Here's a short in-game video, a small trailer coming soon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21E8uPUb93o

(I'll also post a small post-mortem during the next days)
Hopefully, it'll be released soon (we'll be sending the binary to apple in a few hours)

Thanks a lot to @riq and the whole cocos2d-iphone community!
best,

Rolando.

[EDIT] we updated to version 1.1, adding support for all 2.2 and newer OS, fixed some bugs and improved the controls... this is going to be the last free update. Enjoy!