The Monster is Unleashed

It's been over a month since we released King of the Kaiju on Google Play, and it is doing pretty well, by my typical standards. It is getting a nice number of downloads and ratings and it is also our best game to date as far as average AdMob earnings.

Eric and I are continuing to work on it a little. Nothing that really changes functionality or game play, but some cool additions. I made the title bar on the menu a tiny bit animated and I better optimized how the buildings in the background spawn. I added a couple achievements and cleaned up the awarding of a couple existing ones. Additionally, Eric has been making some little "flair" items that will show up in game around holidays. I added a new class to the code that checks the current date against that of holidays that I've set up in the class, so, for example, around the 27th of October (tomorrow) some Halloween cosmetic items should start showing up for anybody who has the current version of the game. Its a purely aesthetic addition, but its kind of cool and every month or so a new one will show up within 5 days trailing or leading a holiday.

On another note, Eric and I are thinking about moving forward with the Icarus game that I've already started. This is yet another very simple, one-click type game, but like King of the Kaiju it is a simple little time sink for when you are on the bus or waiting in a line or what have you. The Icarus project is something we'll be looking at as we think about our next new game.

Flappy Clones and the King of the Monsters

I've been continuing with my little "flappy clone" games. Our near ripoff of Flappy Bird (the fish one) is almost done. Eric just needs to finish one more image and Andrew is making us a few sounds. The Icarus game is pretty much done as well, and I'm really happy with it. I need to work in some animations, but gameplay-wise it is solid. I made one other game where you are a lizard running through the desert, dodging rocks and cacti, but I'm not a huge fan. It's for down in our queue for games to work on, so maybe I can think of an interesting tweak before we really get to it.

I've also started working on a new game, one that we will really start going on after the fish flappy bird clone, but before the Icarus game. It is a game based on Godzilla, so we want to get it out before May 16th, which is the release date of the new Godzilla movie (the trailers look awesome). Like the last two tappy style games I've made (Icarus and the lizard one), this game isn't a Flappy Bird clone, but is in the same spirit of the super simple single touch timing type gameplay. I've barely even gotten into it, and I'm already pretty excited about the potential with this one. I'm going to keep working on this one for the next week or so and push to get it out in early May. I'm hoping that the Fish game will be out sometime soon. Hopefully by this weekend so we can switch our focus entirely to the monster game. Here is a very early screenshot:

Simple Games

I've been continuing my work on Flappy Bird clone lately. It's actually done functionally and working pretty well. As fun and frustrating as the game it is based on. Eric is finishing up some graphics for it and we're going to be trying to get it up on Google Play soon.

We've also wanted to get some more original games out that are in the same type of demographic as Flappy Bird, that being the simple, fast, time-waster type games that are basically controlled with a single tap and are mostly about timing. I've started working on another little game in this area with a Greek Icarus theme.

I have an idea for yet another game after that. I like having some tiny side projects to be working on in addition to my larger, more time and effort intensive games. It's always a bit of a thrill for me to get a new game or app out on the market. Even when its something dumb and pointless like my Lucky Roulette Picker app.

Here are a couple screenshots from our Flappy Bird clone so far. Most of the art is Eric's original stuff, but the Jellyfish swarms that make up the obstacles in the game are recycled from our Deep Sea Trapper game until Eric finishes up his own Jellyfish. There are only a few art assets left and then we are good.