I’m back home from the worst trip of my life, still not feeling well. The last few months have been a roller-coaster, with changing jobs, getting approved for the new home purchase and then turned down for a loan, and getting sick.

The new job is great. I really like the company and the product (which I can’t mention due to NDA). All I can say is it’s fitness-related. I’ll be able to continue working from Florida and only go to the office when we have a big push.

My moving plans are on hold indefinitely. Although I love San Francisco, I don’t want to leave my friends here, who are almost like family. At this point I have too much here to pack up and start fresh in a different city.

I have submitted Removr 1.0.3, which adds one new feature: it now shows level completion time as well as number of moves.

 

As an experiment with 1.0.2, I changed the category to kids games, since kids love Removr. However, that change was disastrous – I had no sales since the change. With 1.0.3 I changed back to the original category of puzzle games. Since I can only change the category with a new version, I submitted this one with only one new feature, otherwise I would have waited until I had a few more levels.

Removr 1.0.2 has been approved and is now ready for sale. This is a very minor update that improves the responsiveness to taps, adds more information to the level complete screen, and improves the appearance of the icon.

 

I flew in to San Francisco this week to work on site with my new job.

I wasn’t feeling too well Monday before I left, which I attributed to just nerves. On the flight I started getting stomach cramps & I could barely sleep that night. I made it into the office as scheduled on Tuesday, and after 2 hours I was doubled over in pain from not being able to pee, so I had to be rushed to the hospital, where I remained until today.

I had an e. coli infection in my bladder, so they put me on intravenous antibiotics until my fever was down and no sign of infection remained. I also needed a catheter, which I still have until next week. Getting it was one of the most uncomfortable & embarrassing experiences ever.

On the plus side, my room at UCSF Medical Center had a beautiful panoramic view of the city, the staff was very nice, and the food wasn’t terrible. The chicken curry I had last night was actually good.

The CEO of my new company has medical training & knows people at UCSF, so he was very understanding about the whole mess. Unfortunately this set the project back a week, so I have to scramble to catch up.

In other news, I wasn’t able to get a loan for my new condo despite having excellent credit, thanks to changing jobs & taking my new job as a contractor, so I won’t be moving to San Leandro. Instead I plan to keep my place in Florida (which is nearly impossible to sell due to all of the foreclosed units selling very cheap) as my primary residence, find a roommate, and rent a place in San Francisco for when I need to be here.

I have the greatest friends in Florida who are almost like family, so I’m glad that I won’t have to leave them. My best friend, whose watching my cats while I’m gone, called me every day at the hospital. I do the same for her when she’s away. She became friends with my late mother because they shared the same birthday & she was the last person along with me to see my mother alive.

I just submitted Removr 1.0.2, which has a few bug fixes, most notably improved responsiveness to taps. It now shows the level number and extra praise if you don’t remove any blue pieces when you complete a level. I also removed the gloss from the icon to clean up the appearance.

I couldn’t leave without a post about Arcade Fire’s new album, The Suburbs. I’ve been looking forward to this album all year, and it lived up to my expectations. The album is closer to Funeral than Neon Bible, with most of the songs following a common theme of living in the suburbs. It feels a lot more intimate than their earlier albums, and there are no big, powerful songs like “Wake Up” or “No Cars Go”, although “Month of May” is becoming one of my favorite songs. I’ve listened to the full album at least once a day since it was released, and I really love it.

I’m thrilled that this album reached #1 on Billboard’s album charts, for the first time. Usually I hate most of the top albums on the charts.

I haven’t posted too much recently because I have a lot going on.

I can’t say anything about it, but I started a new job involving iPhone development this week. I have a lot of work and I’ve been pretty much working on that project from the time I get up until I go to sleep. Next week I’ll be in San Francisco to work onsite.

My purchase of the condo in San Leandro was approved last week, but I ran into problems with the financing due to me starting the new job as a contractor. There’s a very real chance I might not be able to move because of that.

With all of this, the next month or so will be very hectic & stressful, so I probably won’t be posting or tweeting very much.

PicSlide free has been approved and is ready for sale. This version has most features of the paid version except:

  • PicSlide Free uses iAds
  • PicSlide Free doesn’t let you save pictures from Magic Panda.
  • PicSlide Free doesn’t support the iPad.
  • PicSlide Free supports the Retina Display.

Removr 1.0.1 has been approved and is now available. This update adds 20 new levels for a total of 80 levels, as well as a few bug fixes. We plan to release regular updates with new levels.

Removr 1.0.1 has been submitted. It adds 20 new levels and several bug fixes. Among the changes, I’ve slightly adjusted the physics so the balls are a bit more bouncy and there’s less friction, so it’s less likely to stick on certain screens. I’ve also added a slight delay after removing all of the red pieces until most movement stops before displaying the win screen (during which time you can still lose).

I plan to release frequent updates with new levels as we design them.

Aug 022010

One thing I learned from writing Removr is that designing level maps is a lot more challenging than writing code. There are tools like debuggers & unit tests to verify code, but the only way to test a game level is by playing it repeatedly.

You can’t verify that a level map is ‘correct’ – it’s largely subjective and involves more art than science. A game level needs to be visually appealing and needs to be challenging enough to maintain interest while still being possible to win.

Aug 012010

For two weeks from today through Aug. 15, Removr is on sale for only $1 – that’s 50% off. Buy it now!

 

Jul 312010

Jul 292010

Removr 1.0 was just approved, but we’re not resting. We’re already planning for the first update. Here are some of the things we’re working on now:

  • More levels, of course
  • A Removr community site for sharing levels
  • Loading levels directly from the web instead of using the level editor & syncing
  • Improvements to the level editor for easier sharing.
  • Improvements to the physics – make the balls more bouncy & reduce friction.
  • Various refinements.

 

Jul 292010

Jul 282010

I got an email from Apple informing me that Removr is now Ready For Sale. I originally set the availability date to Aug. 3 so I could prepare press releases, but I’ve pushed up the availability date to tomorrow (Thursday July 29). You will be able to download it here.

Jul 272010

After a week waiting for review, Removr changed to ‘In Review’.

Screen shot 2010-07-27 at 8.32.56 PM.png

A big change

Personal Comments Off
Jul 272010

As of Aug. 6, I will no longer be working for Absolute Software. I’m now looking for iPhone & iPad related contract work.

Jul 262010
  • Anyone remember Color cycling from the 90s? This was a technology often used in 8-bit video games of the era, to achieve interesting visual effects by cycling (shifting) the color palette. Back then video cards could only render 256 colors at a time, so a palette of selected colors was used. But the programmer could change this palette at will, and all the onscreen colors would instantly change to match. It was fast, and took virtually no memory. Thus began the era of color cycling.

    This demo is an implementation of a full 8-bit color cycling engine, rendered into an HTML5 Canvas in real-time. I am using 35 of Mark's original 640×480 pixel masterpieces which you can explore, and I added some ambient environmental soundtracks to match. Please enjoy, and the source code is free for you to use in your own projects (download links at the bottom of the article).

  • Useful utility to create htaccess redirect rules interactively.

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