Happy Holidays from 3583Bytes to Everyone!
Category Archives: News
Dinosaur Sim – New Scene & Dinosaur
I have been working hard on an awesome update to Dinosaur Sim, which includes a new Desert Scene & an awesome Troodon Dinosaur. This brings the total to 19 available Dinosaurs to play as with more coming soon. (I am hoping to have 20 by the end of the year)
The new update is available today on Google Play with Amazon & iOS coming soon.
Train Sim – Another Awesome Update
I am happy to report that Train Sim has received another awesome update. This time I focused on updating one of the existing older scenes.
I started by asking my twitter account, Which Scene I should focus on updating. The Farm Land scene was a clear winner. (I think I will be doing more of that in the future)
Initially I focused on making a larger more interesting track layout. In the old scene the track was arranged in a circle, and I received allot of complaints about that from users. As you will see from the top view of the track, the layout is much more interesting then before.
I also wanted to add some new assets to the scene, These included:
- Improved Track Textures
- Improved Horse Model
- New Cow Models
- New Large Grain Elevator/Silos
- New Farm Textures
- Improved Water Effects
However I wanted the scene to seem familiar as well, so allot of the old farm textures & small towns found in the old levels are still present in this new scene.
On top of the improved Farm Land scene I also added a new GE AC4400CW train with custom freight cars to go with it. This brings the total number of trains available in Train Sim to 47!
This new awesome new update is already available on Android & Amazon. And it is pending review in the Windows Store. I am still working on updating Train Sim on iOS.
Working on an Aquarium Game
Recently I started working on a new Aquarium Simulator game (at least while the next Train is being built by my 3D Artist for Train Sim).
As usual the game is going to be free and have no in-app purchases. It will feature both a freshwater aquarium as well as a marine (saltwater) one.
So far I have the Fish AI complete. They swim within the bounds of their aquarium along with avoidance of their environment. Currently you can also feed the fish, as well as tap the aquarium to watch them follow your finger.
Currently I am working on a screen that will allow you to setup the fish in the aquarium and provide you some information about each of the fish. This is actually a challenge to do, as my screen has too many buttons and is currently not intuitive. Maybe I have to divide it into 2 screens instead.
Follow me on Twitter to receive more in-progres screenshots.
Kids Car Racers
Train Sim New Trains and Menu
Although I had the Acela Express model ready for a while, I did not get a chance to ad it to Train Sim in the last update . Adding the Indian Scene was already a huge story and I wanted to make sure I limit the amount of changes in a single release.
So over the last 2 weeks I focused on adding the Acela Express & the Southern Pacific 4449. to Train Sim. I think you will agree that the quality of these Trains is really awesome!
I also spend some time improving the Main Menu for Train Sim. The important change here is that the scenes are now represented by text and picture, making it far more kid friendly. (This has been on my backlog for a long time.)
These changes are now live on Android & Amazon, and waiting for review on iOS. I should have the Windows Store & Phone version live within the next week or two.
Tasks the Indie Way
There are many frameworks for managing tasks for large teams, such as Kanban, Agile & Scrum and there are excellent tools managing these frameworks. However these tools can be overkill for developers like me, working alone.
In theory you don’t need allot, after all how much does a single developer need to remember. For a while I simply used a word processor on a 1985 Macintosh Plus. (Because I wanted a reason to turn it on)
This however had a disadvantage of not fitting in my pocket so I could not add things on the go. I needed an app.
Since I am a developer I could make that app, one that fits my exact requirements based on standards that I learned during my work on large software development teams, but tailored to the needs of a single Indie Developer.
The finished product is Indie Tasks, an app for recording and managing tasks for 1 Indie Game or App developer. Now available for iPhone & Android. An app made by and Indie Developer for Indie Developers. Tested & used daily by myself.
In Indie tasks you will find standard familiar terms & processes from Scrum & Agile such as:
– Assigning Effort by using Points to Stories using a Fibonacci Sequence
– Calculated Velocity based on last 30 days of Done Tasks
– Statuses such as Doing, Done
– Ability to distinguish between Tasks, Ideas & Bugs
– Backlog Reports and Views
– Twitter Share
I Indie Tasks daily in my workflow and will continue improving it based on user feedback as well as my own experiences.
Trains & Dinosaurs
Its been a busy few weeks. First I updated Train Sim with 2 (yes 2) new Trains; Class 91 & Bombardier Talent. If that was not enough I also added a new Train Selector and fixed a bunch of bugs.
I am proud to say that Train Sim now features 44 Trains. Thats 44 high quality realistic trains with full 3D cabins and custom sounds. This update is now available on Android, Amazon & iOS.
I have to say Train Sim came a long way in just over 2 years, I can only imagine where it will be in 2 more.
If that was not enough I also posted an Update to Dinosaur Sim. Although Dinosaur Sim is a fairly recent addition to my game lineup, it has proven to be very popular. So this week I added 2 new Dinosaurs (Styracosaurs & Kentrosaurus) to Dinosaur Sim. I am happy to say that this update is also already available on Android & iOS with Amazon coming soon.
I am also working on a Windows 10 version of Dinosaur Sim, I may be able to submit it next week.
To keep up to date on what is going on at 3583 Bytes please follow me on Twitter. I try to post every day so you should always know what I am working on.
Updates on Windows 10
Just thought I would post an update on what I have been up to lately.
Over the last few weeks I have been updating several of my games for Windows 10 to catch up to their Android/iOS versions. This is as always a painful process.
The good news is I have also adapted a new monetization strategy and made these games free with ads. Traditionally all my games on the Windows Store have been monetized with purchases $1-2 each. This is because that Google Admob does not serve Ads on Windows Store platforms.
However, recently I saw that Microsoft has partnered with Vungle to provide Video Ads on the Windows Store. I investigated further and found that they have a fairly easy Unity3D SDK. So my quest began.
So far I have managed to update Car Crashers & Ant Sim & both are now free on the Windows Store & I am working on Updating Kids Trains.
Over the next few months I will monitor closely if these games will become more more popular as free games. If it works out, I will continue integrating the Vungle SDK in to my Windows Store games and changing their price to free. Who knows maybe there is a free version of Train Sim in the future for Windows Store!
Car Crashers 1 Million Downloads
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.