Today I am celebrating the 1,000,000 download of Car Crashers. Thank you to everyone who has enjoyed playing this game over the last 15 months. I am happy that a game I made to stop my son from crashing toy cars in real life, turned into so much virtual crashing fun for him and so many other players. Stay tuned for future updates to Car Crashers, starting with an update to the Windows 10 version.
Last week I was fortunate to attend Microsoft Build 2016 conference. It was a great learning opportunity on any Microsoft related technologies. Admittedly Microsoft platforms represent a small % of my players, however with Windows 10 ever increasing popularity I view it as a potentially growing market.
However to my present surprise this year’s focus seemed to be around multi platform app development, i.e. develop on Windows publish anywhere. In fact Microsoft’s recent purchase of Xamarin and its integration into Visual Studio it is actually possible to use Windows 10 & Visual Studio to make Android & iOS apps & games. Your Visual Studio can even connect to a remote Mac for Build & Debugging. Add to this the fact that Xamarin is now free for Small Teams on both Mac & Windows and I am sold. This is a huge change from just 3 years ago when all Microsoft could talk about was Windows 8 & Windows Phone. I am really excited in this new direction and I hope they continue it.
Another announcement I was excited about was the ability to developer unlock any Xbox One. This would potentially allow indie gamers like me to develop for and test on just a regular Xbox One device. Can anyone say Train Sim for Xbox One?
There was lots more around conversational intelligence, Sky Bots & a slew of Azure announcements. For a good recap on the whole conference visit: news.microsoft.com/build2016/
Last week I posted a new version of Train Sim for Android, and Amazon. This update features Double Engines which is one of the features most requested by Train Sim users I also took the opportunity to add Game Controller Support. This is not a popular request but it does open Train Sim to devices that support Game Controllers such as Amazon TV or Xbox One. Please let me know how the controller works on Android game controllers. Lastly I fixed the direction of steam when trains go backwards.
As always the iOS and Windows 10 update will come slightly after the Android releases.
Car Crashers Update is now live on Google Play Store. This new update features an new “Car Bowling” scene as well as an improved user interface.
Ok so I have spent the last week porting the new versions of my games to various platforms. Here is my list of accomplishments:
I still have to build the new version of Train Sim for Windows Store & Windows Phone.
Need More Coffee!
Train Sim update for Android is now Live, this update includes:
iOS, Amazon & Windows Update Coming Soon.
Flight Sim for Android has been updated with 2 new airplanes and many improvements and bug fixes. This update brings the total number of airplanes to 16. My goal for this year is to bring the number of airplanes to 20 so I think I am right on track. As always these new airplanes are available for free and there are no in-app purchases in Flight Sim.
WHAT’S NEW
After months of work I am happy to release Dinosaur Sim for Android.
Dinosaur Sim allows you to play as one of the 12 popular Dinosaurs. Fight your way to the top of the food chain or play as a peaceful herbivore in a realistic 3D environment. Each Dinosaur is beatify animated and has realistic sounds. Dinosaur Sim is action packed but also has educational modes in a perfect mix to keep you playing and learning for hours
Dinosaur Sim also contains 3 additional game modes including;
– Dino Safari mode, learn about each of the Dinosaurs in the game,
– Dino Paint mode, colour your favourite Dinosaurs
– Dino Museum mode, learn about fossils and Dinosaur Bones
Features
– 12 Realistic Playable Dinosaurs
– 4 Game Modes
– Realistic 3D Graphics & Animations
– Educational
– No In Game Purchases
My graphic artist send me an in progress preview of the WAP-7 Indian Railways Engine for an upcoming release of Train Sim. There is still allot of work he has to do on the interior of the Train, but as you can see its looking great already.
Indian trains are frequently requested by Train Sim users, often with a daily reminder. I am happy o be able to add this train to Train Sim in the near future
At this point I am guessing I am about 4 weeks a
way from having this train published as I
am also working on a new game (more information coming soon) so please don’t email me every day asking when its ready 🙂
The reason that I always publish to Google Play/Android first, is that the updates are almost instant and always available the same day. All the other platforms take longer, between 1-7 days. Even longer if the update gets rejected for something silly.
This last update to Train Sim was especially important because of the major improvement to sound effects, so I wanted to publish these changes ASAP. I am happy to announce that this new version of Train Sim with improved sounds is now available for iOS, Amazon Store & Windows Store. The only remaining platform I still have to update is Windows Phone. However Windows Phone affects a very small % of the player base so at this point over 99% of Train Sim fans have access to the newest version.