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Bloblocks on Kongregate got a relatively great score of 3.58 yesterday and has gone back to 3.48 this morning.

I imagine the game encountered some haters. May be it's a cultural question because yesterday morning it climbed relatively fast too. Anyway it's fine for me, I just want the game to find more players since I know some of them will really love it.

The good news is that it is officially a "Good game" on Kongregate:

I really hope more players will be able to play the game and that Kongregate will promote it a little bit but that's really hard to know.

Like announced on twitter, if Kongregate do not want to create badges for Bloblocks I will activate in-game achievements. It's not that great but I feel like they are missing :P

Yesterday I finally published Bloblocks on Kongregate.

Kongregate is a huge gaming platform. Developers from all over the world publish their creations on it. It's not the only portal of its kind but I often played on it.

I decided to publish Bloblocks free and complete on Kongregate. It even includes the level editor and lets you share levels on Kongregate. I will get a percentage from ad revenues. About 2$ for 1000 plays. An unsuccessful game on Kongregate earns nothing.

Putting an entire game for free on this site seems to be a ostensibly nut..

When you look closer you see that gamers are not exactly the same on Kongregate and on mobile platforms. There's some crossing but this may be an opportunity and not something to be afraid of.

At best, the game will please Kongregate players, indie blogs will be inclined to talk about it a little bringing some sales and attention in the mobile world.

The worse would be that the game could just be ignored on Kongregate…

The worse seemed to happen after the game was released on Kongregate. No comment, a start note of 2.86 stars over 5, it looked bad.

It's such a terrifying moment to live for a creator!

I said to myself "Well, OK, you made an 'average' game. It is not lame it's just average." and then "Courage! The next one will be better!".

But the little depression is quick to come...

The most difficult is the lack of feedback. Just the note, no comment. The fear of been ignored.

There are a lot of games on Kongregate… a game with a bad score do not exists.

If the game is "average" why would I talk about it or even contact the press and blogs, maybe I should just forget it and work on the next one.

This morning I went out to take some fresh air, I has things to do outside anyway.

Back to home a few hours later the score had climbed to 3 stars… "Hum?" was my reaction.

And then, just fallen from the sky, I also noticed this comment from a player:

"Very brilliant and innovative version of that old classic! Excellent level design in the puzzle mode. And it has a level editor and shared levels. In other words: 5/5 and favorited! :D"

I doubted a few times during this production.

It's not a big game and I mainly created it to test new grounds, opportunities and technologies (tablets, mobile, Kongregate, starling, etc.).

But during the development I really enjoyed the game and I put bits of myself in it. I want to create quality games and I think Bloblocks is a cool little casual game. I had fun with it and I often had difficulty stopping the game while testing it.

The worse experience for a game (for its creator since the game has no feeling, has it?) is to not be played.

Thanks God, each time, my doubts and little anxieties where blasted away by some nice review. Friends help but I just can't listen nice comments from them, I am always afraid they are too protective with me. :)

On iPad, on Android and now on Kongregate. I received comments from players who really liked Bloblocks.

I know this game is not for all players. But now I am convinced that the game can really be enjoyed by some of them.

I just hope that more players will discover it on Kongregate and on other platforms and that the ratings will continue to progress.

Help yourself don't just hope… In the following days I will contact a few gaming blogs, with a bit of luck they will accept to talk about my little creation… who knows.

May it be on Kongregate, App Store or Google play store, players' reviews really help games and their developers. So if you enjoy Bloblocks, please take the time to rate it! :P

My little game has been improved to play well on phone screens (not too small please).

A mate told me it works well on his Galaxy S1 so it should be OK with most recent phones.

iPhone/iPod version should be accepted soon by Apple.

Bloblocks on Google Play

I almost forgot to talk about Bloblocks' underpants :)

Bloblocks:

• is programmed using the Haxe programming language,
• uses the Starling Framework (remember this post?),
• embeds some assets with NME to produce an SWF,
• is packaged for iOS and Android using AIR SDK

Bloblocks also:

• uses SickSports's GameCenter ANE to support iOS Game Center
• uses Lancelotmobile.com's ANE to handle AdMob on Android (Bloblocks lite)
• used Gree's ANE to communicate with the Gree platform an Android but I don't like this platform and decided to remove it and wait for Google to create some GameCenter equivalent

Except for the ANE part (which stinks) the development was a breeze, SWF is solid, looks the same everywhere, just work.

Starling's API is really easy to get and the stage3d GPU acceleration do a lot. Even if the game is simple I am pretty happy with its FPS. Plus the acceleration works on the web too.

I was a real novice in the mobile field and this project was a great experiment for me. Here are a few things I learned the hard way, may be useful to someone someday, may be not :)

On resources:

• use bitmap fonts,
• use sprite sheets (really),
• don't make your sheets too big,
• use Apple Instruments to check memory usage

On screen size:

• phones have really small screens,
• think dpi not pixels,
• poor man simulator is great,
• don't hesitate to create different controls for different sizes,
• layout for a resolution then scale and center is an easy solution :)

On feedback:

• target your friends' platforms first

On ANE:

• they stink but they usually work

• learn how to create SWC from project sources, sometimes it is as easy as running ant, sometimes you have to fight and acompc -source-path src -output Gree.swc -swf-version 17 -external-library-path+=/Users/lbedubourg/local/lib/flex/frameworks/libs/air/airglobal.swc -compiler.define BUILD_CONFIG::stub false -include-classes find src -name "*.as" | sed "s/src\\///" | sed "s/\\.as\\$$//" | sed "s/\\//./g"

• unzip the SWC to get the library.swf and use that as a -swf-lib for Haxe
• concerning the .ane file… well read adobe doc, I don't have the time to explain there :)

On Air SDK:

• it works out of the box, but the documentation is bloated,
• the iOS packaging is really slow, for quick tests not requiring iOS, using an android device is faster,

On Starling-Framework:

• peace of cake
• excellent community and doc
• use sprite sheets!

Before contacting the press, the indie game developer start to talk about his game around him.

Family, friends, contacts… Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

Tip: your circle must be able to play your game.

I obtained an iPad 3rd generation in april and I bought a Nexus 7 recently to work on Android. Bloblocks has been developed in priority for tablets. The number of people in my entourage who own a tablet (Apple or Android) is extremely low (may be 4 or 5).

If I made a priority of targeting iPhones and recent Android phones I would certainly have reached more people.

If my game have been launched on Internet browsers, nearly everybody would have tried to play it.

Of course Bloblocks will soon be available on Kongregate for everyone (before Christmass I hope) but it is really frustrating not being able to have this friendly feedback when your game is officially released!

My next game will thus be accessible from the beginning to all the people I love, PC/Mac/Linux download or right on the Web.

If it is a mobile game, I'll make sure it works on priority on phones people have around me.

Next step for Bloblocks: simultaneous iPhone and Kongregate release.

A huge thanks to all the people who encouraged me without even been able to test the game!