Stringy Things on 4.0

Anonymous said...
Is there something so technologically advanced about Stringy Things that allows it to run ONLY on iOS 4.1 or above? It would be great if it would run on the thousands (millions?) of devices that will never be able to run iOS 4.0 and newer.

Of course, the simple answer is No.
There's nothing technical stopping me from releasing this on 3.x, or probably even 2.x
It's a simple throw of a switch, a recompile, and a sending to the AppStore.

The problem though, for me, is that without any 3.x devices to test it on, I'll be doing it blind.

Coming soon to Stringy Things

I've STILL not started to work properly on Game 3 yet, but I've made a huge amount of progress today!
There's...
A few Memory Leak Fixes
A New Gameplay Type (Arcade)
A slightly rejigged menu system
2 Letter Word allowances in Strings
A slight profanity filter, for when I start adding "Pick a Random word" type games. Can't have it swearing at the kiddies!

And then I did this..

StringyThings

On Wed 20th October 2010, 00:30GMT, StringyThings was finally released in the App Store!

Available Now ($0.99/£0.59/equivilant)
Click here to find it at the App Store

A collection of word games for those "Need a quick word game" moments.



The first release is the test release, to ensure my somewhat old-school coding style can get past the Apple sensors! Now that I know it can, we can have some fun.

I'll be adding an extra word game with each and every release, and if I run out of word games, I'm sure I can pluck a few other thinking games out, from somewhere!

For now, there's two games, and each one is a nice and simple relaxing game.

You can pick from a bunch of play styles, too, so if you'd prefer a fast paced timed game, or a nice slow thinking game, you can go for either.


There's a whole lot more StringyThings to come.

For now, it's in the AppStore, nice and cheap!

3 days later...

It's been one heck of a productive week, this week.
Since moving the MacMini from the downstairs dining room, up to my bedroom, I guess I kinda spurred myself on a bit.
... Either that or I've not been sleeping, and instead coding away like a crazy maniac.
..
It's the latter!

So, what have I been working on?

Okeydoke.. Let's try this one..

The "Everyone says I should do it this way" method...

- (UIImage *)addImage:(UIImage *)top toImage:(UIImage *)bottom at:(CGRect)rect withBlend:(CGBlendMode)blend {  
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(bottom.size);  
    // Draw image1  
    [bottom drawInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, bottom.size.width, bottom.size.height)];  
 
    // Draw image2  
    [top drawInRect:rect blendMode:blend alpha:1];  
 
    UIImage *result = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();  
 
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();  
 
    return result;  
}  

Another day, Another Nnngh..

This morning I woke up with a plan in mind.
I don't have a whole lot of time on Saturdays, so I was slightly rushed.
With a short amount of time, I decided not to bother messing about with OpenAL just yet, and instead wondered what might happen if I try leaving the audio looping in silence.
Bit quirky, but it could work. .. maybe..

So, I opened up CoolEdit, and tried to set a loop.
and tried...
and tried...
and gave up.

Then I downloaded and installed Audacity.
and tried..
and tried..
and gave up.

Then I remembered something that CAN set up a loop.
I opened up ModPlugTracker (FFS) opened the wave, set the loop, saved the wave.
Piss easy! Once you try using a program with a build date of March 2002..


So, with the looping wave saved, I hopped over to the Mac, opened up XCode, and then immediately had to close it all up again while it did it's update.
..
tum-tee-tum...

Finally ready, I popped the audio file into the engine, finally got to test it, and found that it ignored the preset loop and just looped the whole thing, start to finish, over and over.

Bugger.

Aw well, I've more time tomorrow!
OpenAL it is.. (assuming OpenAL isn't about to bugger up all this Battery Saving work that I've been doing. If it does, I'm f'ked!)