Two year Game Development blog Post-Mortem.

Hello everyone! Two years ago I embarked in the journey of blog writing. My main hope was to try to return the favour to the Internet that so much tough me (also coinciding with the announcement of unity5). The truth is that keeping this activity for so long it hasn't been so easy... Being a game developer is my dream come true and if the lines on this site helped a simple person to become one as well then all the effort was well worth it!

I can happily say that I kept my promise of updating this page at least every 3 weeks for the last 2 years! This itself is a nice achievement for me, the best thing is that the numbers behind this post were one of the things that kept me going. That's why I will be sharing them with you. Last time I posted a review of the first year. Check it out if you want to compare the progress :)

I would like to somehow apologize because as time has passed I haven't been expending so much time here as I could. Many things has happened to me on the meantime and I have been mainly sharing my personal projects here instead of writing some tutorials or tips. During the previous year I founded a company, run a Kickstarter, got my first boardgame Roar published, wrote many posts in Merge the fun blog and found a new job as Unreal Engine Developer.

And this is getting us to the point I wanted to get... This time the post mortem is real... I will not be writing more on this blog (on a regular manner). There is stuff I would love to tell you about but from now on I will rather focus on the quality over quantity. Also my posts will be more about game development in general now that I will not be working with Unity for a while :)

I think that is enough of my thoughts! Let's show the numbers (In brackets we have numbers from previous year)^^

44 published posts (27)

+150 comments (82)

+125 Facebook likes (100)

+11€ Revenue (3€)

+125000 total visits (50000)

+200 daily visits (130)

Stream of visitors has become pretty stable since previous year.

Rombo Games. Update 7: MishMash Galaxy Progress!

Check the webpage!

It's been a while since I stopped, took a long breath and look at the path behind me... It's time to share some progress of Mishmash Galaxy! :D

The last time I shared this progress with you, the game was well defined but raw i the graphical part! Also we tested the game much and more since that post 3 months ago! This post will be mainly content, so there we go! :D

The first concept art for the game by Greg Bobrowski!

Layout for the Technology cards!

Layout for the Resource cards!

Testing Mishmash Galaxy!

How to Play Mishmash Galaxy on Tabletopia!

The game will be hitting Kickstarter later this year. On the meantime you can play the game online following the link above or print and play your own prototype copy with the link below! :D
RULES OF THE GAME + PRINT AND PLAY 

Don't forget to tell me what you think! ^^

3 Ways To Avoid App Rejected For Being Too Simple

If you developed an app for a Board Game or Augmented Reality Game you would he probably stuck into the App Rejected because it's too simple. The problem is that this is the users expect from this kind of apps... a point counter cannot be too complicated!

You cannot blame Apple because they get no direct revenue from your app. Probably your app is free if necessary for the game. Maybe the game requires to buy a physical game and they get no cut on it! Don't worry, I will explain you the problems I have found while uploading apps for our games like ROAR! and we will see how to solve the rejection! :)


Like always, you can read the original post from Rombo Games original Development Blog here!


Problem number 1:

2.12: Apps that are not very useful, are simply web sites bundled as apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected.

Problem number 2:

11.16: Apps may enable additional approved features or functionality when used in combination with specific approved physical products (such as a toy) as long as the additional features and functionality are either completely dependent on such hardware (for example an App that is used to control a telescope) or also available through the App without the physical products, such as by way of reward for achievement or by use of IAP

The list of reasons why your app may be rejected is HUGE! It's also very subjective, so you may be luckier with another reviewer ;)


Solution number 1:

Include the manual of your game inside the app!

This is a good idea that you should do even if Apple would not force you! It's a fantastic way of having easy correction of the rules and possibility of future localization!


Solution number 2:

Add a link to the Print and Play or Shop where to buy your game!

Again, this is pretty logical! People may find your app on the store and it would be great for them to give your game a try before buying it on the shop if possible! Also reviewers will be able to properly check the game.


Solution number 3:

Make sure don't make blockers inside the app!

This is the trickiest one... it means that if your app cannot work without physical components let the users (and reviewers) experience this necessity directly. For example they can see the camera waiting for scanning of the board. If you block access to this functionality via QR or other kind of codes Apple will require that you give the choice for the players to unlock this via In-App purchases. This doesn't make sense for Board or Augmented Reality Games and will just make things confusing!


Remember! It's all about treating your app more than a tool, but something really useful and enjoyable for your players! :)

5 Good Things About My Failed Kickstarter!

You failed your Kickstarter, are afraid of it or simply want to learn something? I can tell you about our example, Publish or Perish, and why it was not a totally negative experience!

I figured out that there are plenty of examples of blog posts on the internet explaining the WHY? but not many the FOR WHAT? This list shows just few things of the valuable assets you can get from our Kickstarter, even if you didn't manage to achieve your goal.

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This is a another re-post from Rombo Games development blog: Merge the Fun. I know, it's not related to video game development directly, (same like MishMash Galaxy) but I hope you will find it interesting :)

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1 - Feedback

First one and most obvious. At this point you already know why your game didn't succeed. Most of the times it will be related to your product or game. You may think that poor coverage ruined your campaign. Maybe you didn't put enough effort in marketing your game. But the truth is that if you would improve it based on the feedback people gave you along the way it would probably promote itself!

You should do a survey to collect feedback from your backers!

2 - Followers

Every product has it's fans (you should be the first one by the way :) ). Sometimes this fan group is too small or doesn't appeal the general public. In any case those people that backed your project are your first fans! They liked you and your project! They maybe even told their friends and family about you! Keep them close ;)

You should collect the emails of your backers!

3 - Contacts

If you did your public relations homework you should have contacted many bloggers and reviewers. Keep contact with them! Specially the ones that wrote about you! Make sure your relation makes sense for them, otherwise they will not care. Write comments on their posts, share they content... in general show them some love :)

You should keep alive your relations with influencers!

4 - A nice story


At this point, I am sure you have learn the reason number 1 why people doesn't want to talk about you. It's not your game, it's not your video, it's not your webpage. It's your story. People want to read good stories, not be advertised. Bloggers know this and that's why you should prepare a nice story for them (this is the hardest step :) )

You should create a good story around your failed Kickstarter!

5 - Know How

Setup up a Kickstarter and production chain for your game is not an easy task! There are many things you may have learnt without realizing! Setting up banners, facebook ads, fantastic webpages or groups where to share your content, production and distribution numbers even legal and tax details. In general you are now closer to know the real cost of designing a crowdfunded digital product!

You should write down your gained knowledge so you don't forget and hopefully help others!

And remember!

Failure is just a chance to make it better next time! :D

Would you like to share your story? I'm listening! :)

Happy New Year 2016 Survey!

Happy 2016! :D

Previous year has been incredible for me in many aspects! Starting my own company and projects has been one of the most exciting thing I have ever done. Because of this I didn't had so much time to put into this blog. I plan to change that!

During 2016 I want to continue delivering a new blog post every 3 weeks, like I have been doing for almost 2 years. However, I would like you to help me renovate the energy I put into this project of mine.

Maybe it's the first time you visit my blog, maybe you come here regularly to check for new posts. In any case I just need 2 things from you :)

1. Fill the survey you see on the top of the right column of the blog. This will help me to know where I should put my energy :)
 

 2. Write a comment for me! You cannot imagine how encouraging is to see you people taking a minute to communicate with me! :D

Thanks a million for your time and have the best of the years! :D

PS: Please don't be shy... I want your feedback! ;)

Rombo Games. Update 6: MishMash Galaxy!

After Publish or Perish Kickstarter ended we started working on a new game! Let me present you Mishmash!

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This is a re-post from Rombo Games development blog: Merge the Fun. I will post more stuff about this game there than here, since MishMash is a regular card game (with no app or AR technology behind). Still, I would like to inform you about the game design decisions here :)

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Mishmash Galaxy is a game of good planning and foresight, where players compete in creation of a plenty of utterly imaginary substances and mixtures! Mix Adamantium, Plasteel, Durasteel and many more, plan your moves ahead and contribute to the most experiments to win.

Just to make it clear, this is not a remake of Publish or Perish! It's a new game that shares few of the concepts with the previous one (yes, we love scientists... :D ), but Publish or Perish is something we want to come back later on!

Mish-Mash is not a hybrid game unlike our other games, this means that there will be no app necessary for playing the game... at least for now this will be a regular Board Game.

Players: 2-5 | Game Duration: 45-60 min | Complexity: Medium

Let's talk a little bit about the game! The rules are very simple. On the table there are a set of mixture cards (like blueprints) that need to be completed in a semi-collaborative way between all the players. Players turn themselves to place the necessary ingredient cards upside down that will help to "complete" the mixture cards. When a mixture is complete the player that contributed more ingredients will get more points! Sounds easy but... both ingredient and mixture cards have special effect that get activated at this point and can entirely change the outcome!

The most fantastic thing of the game is that all the cards that you use will have their effect activated later on! Planning is the key and of course, forgetting the effect of the cards you played before can be very bad for you! xD

A crazy game about outsmarting your friends and family, stealing their achievements and claiming all the fame and glory of the discoveries for yourself! :D

RULES OF THE GAME (Version 0.1)
SUBSTANCE and INGREDIENTS CARDS (Version 0.1)
MIXTURE CARDS (Version 0.1)

Are you interested in knowing more about the game? Visit our BGG thread and leave us a comment! :)

Rombo Games. Update 5: Publish or Perish... Cancelled!?

As you may know already, I have very sad news about the cancellation of Publish or Perish Kickstarter :,(

We did our best until the very end... A lot of things happened in the meantime. Also a lot of learning! You can read a little bit about what we know now here!

Here is the data about the Kickstarter campaign: pledges, daily info, comments... In the future I will write here or in MergeTheFun much more about it! Please let me know in the comments if you are interested :)

All in all, we managed to get more than 50% of the funding! and this is, after all, a chance to make it better next time! :D

See you!

Unity visit to Cracow Meetup October 2015!

Hey there! :D

I have been super busy recently, Kickstarter is surely an exhausting thing! :O

I'm very happy to share with you a couple of pictures from the Unity event that took part yesterday in Cracov! (29 Oct 2015) We had a very nice meeting from a couple of Unity3D guys, organized thanks to the Meetup community! Special thanks to Vincent Vergonjeanne for joining the gang together! :D

Great audience in the Techspace in Cracov! :)

Rombo Games. Update 4: Publish or Perish Kickstarter!

That's it. We are off!!! :D

Publish or Perish Kickstarter was launched one day ago (8th October 2015 for the record :) ). We are doing pretty well but it's pointless for me to share updates that will be outdates in a day! Better check it yourself :)

If you are reading this in the future, just sharing my excitement... regardeless of the sucess of the campaign! :D

As a reward for reading this post... here you have a gif about the Augmented Reality in this game :)

Augmented Reality Quark. Super cute! :D

Here is the progess:

I would love to be able to share with you more information about the project like I've done before. The truth is the campaign speaks by itself! I hope you like it! :D


Do you have any comment or feedback? Please share! ^^

Rombo Games. Update 3: Publish or Perish Thunderclap!

Clash FUN and SCIENCE in this Amazing Board Game, Publish or Perish! :D

Hello hello! :D

I am very happy to share with you the progress of my latest project Publish or Perish! It seems unbelievable that it was two months ago when you had the latest news about the game... truth is that I have been very busy :)

We are getting closer and closer to finish the game. The illustrator is finishing the art that you can already enjoy, the 3D artist is creating the first models, we are arranging all the details for the Kickstarter to run in 3 weeks...

There is something you can do to help me! We already started with the promotions for the game, you can visit this Tunderclap page and you will see that it is very easy to support my project via social crowd-funding! It's free! I will post it again in case you missed it here... maybe one more time? Please join my Tunderclap! :D

Super cute Particle Characters! Lovely all of them! ^^

Unity 5 WebGL vs Web Player. 12 Pros and Cons.

Unity Web Player is up to this date still the most popular way of making your game arrive to your audience. Very often you will want to put your game Online on your Landing Page even if your game is for mobile or desktop. The Web Player is then one of your options, but not the only one. WebGL new builds are the new alternative for publishing your games in your browser. I have to admit it's very impressive and promising... But is it really superior? I tried both and I can tell you my insights... hope it will help :)

If you think one of both is absolutely better than the other, then you are absolutely wrong :)

Web Player

The good old Web Player has been with us for many years. It started fighting flash for it's piece of cake... they said flash was dead (the same with the Web Player) but it is still quite commonly used despite the fact that many platforms stop to support it (the same with the Web Player).

A bad penny always turns up... This will not be the end of the Web Player :)

Unity 4.6 - Simple Tutorial, Unity Event Delegates Exposed in Editor Example

Exposing UnityEvent in the editor is much simpler than it looks! You will have the same fancy delegate event calls that the UI elements such as Buttons are having to drag and drop behaviour calls easily between your scripts! Unity Events were one of the fantastic additions to Unity 4.6, way before version 5 came to life. To my surprise, they passed very unnoticed! It's even hard to find an example that describe how to use them, not even on the official documentation!!! This is so sad that I decided to write an example myself  and try to spread the use of this fantastic feature!

UnityEvent in a custom script. Very easy and very useful! :)

So let's imagine that you have are creating a "system" for your Unity game. This "system" can be anything, from something simple like a simple timer to complicated path finding system or full featured combat engine.You want your system to be as independent as possible, that's why when important things happen you use delegates. However, delegates imply that the script that is listening for this events knows about your system at code level.

Sometimes you will want that the listener classes don't know about the notifying system neither. In the exact same way that Unity UI or NGUI work, the "links" between the classes are defined in the editor via drag and drop by the developer. Sometimes a game designer or an artist without programming skills will be doing it and then it's one of the best options.

Stop talking and let's see how it works. In this example we will have 2 simple classes.

Rombo Games. Update 2: Publish or Perish.

Publish or Perish, the Hybrid game for young scientists! :)

Hello once again! ^^

I'm publishing an update of the progress of our latest project at Rombo Games! In the last update I was talking you about HippoThesis. Well the project has evolved! It has now a new name: Publish or Perish.

Publish or Perish is a hybrid board game about being a scientist! We want to tackle the challenge of creating an educational game that not only teaches you the theory behind sub-atomic particles but also the practise of the scientific method! It's been designed as a family game simple enough for kids to grasp it but offers a competitive challenge for adults as well. And of course, it's super fun! :D

Prototype keeps steady progress! Soon more and more! :D

Rombo Games. Update 1: HippoThesis.

Rombo Games has been born! It's official! :D

Hello everyone!

Today I will be short. I have been working hard lately, but like always, work produces its results. I am now officially co-founder of a new company called Rombo Games! :D

Rombo Games will make hybrid games. Hybrid games are those that use physical board game components and mobile apps, just like Roar. Thanks to private investors the company is already live and I am ready to present you our first prototype, HippoThesis!

HippoThesis. Play and learn how to do real sciene!

Localization in Unity for free! Asset Store Review.

Learning how to localize your game in Unity is much easier than you think. I have to admit, that it was one of the things that "scare" me most of creating professional level video games. Fortunately, Unity is lucky enough to count with SmartLocalization on the Asset Store. Since it is one of my favourite assets on the store I will ignore the fact that it is more than two years old and it has already plenty of reviews and I will make my own :)

Localization, also called l10n, is a term that covers everything that will make your users from around the globe feel like they are at home whenever they turn on your game. This means that not only text should be localized, but also pictures or audio. Ideal localization should be also done on the fly depending of the user preferences without affecting the performance of the game. Before localizing, ROAR! I had very clear that this is what

The good news is that SmartLocalization is this and much more! :)

The better news? It's free! :D

12+1 Tips to Optimize your Unity 2D Mobile game. iOS and Android

Learning how to optimize a game for mobiles is something that is hard to teach. Whatever you will read here now will be meaningless unless you find yourself in similar situations. iOS and Android devices are unfortunately weak and this will force you be a stronger developer. While optimizing a program should not be done at the beginning of the development cycle, you will encounter easy to follow practises that will prevent you for doing the same mistakes again and again.

Optimizing a game is half experience half art. You have to learn the shortcuts and second ways of every Import option, Unity behaviour and Line of code you write. When you will find yourself in the situation were your game is too slow in that old iPhone or Android phone of yours, you will have this guide to give you some ideas of how to proceed. In my particular case, it has been ROAR! The first game I have had to optimize seriously due to Vuforia AR plugin already using a lot of the device resources. :)

• Tip #0: Choose your development device wisely

The slower, the better. However, don't overdo it. Having a too slow device will slow you down and will make you optimize too early, when is not necessary. I guess somewhere in the middle is where the virtue is.

There has never been so much hardware to choose from! :P

How to detect Collisions in Unity. Like a BOSS.

Any game developer beginner has asked himself at some point... how do I know if my character collided with the enemy? or reached the end of the level? or a little bit more specific, what part of the body of the character was hit with the enemy bullet? The answer to all this questions is in the Unity Physics Engine. Thanks to it you will have the most ridiculously easy way to integrate physics into your game (like a line of code? :D)

As I said in my previous post about Delegates and Lerp, this is the next in the family of "Like a BOSS" tutorials. They are simple and straight to the point. I focus on the best utilities I find for each of the components and my best practises with them. In the post you will find an example about Collisions in 2D and at the end you can enjoy the full git project :)

Collisions are of the first things you probably learnt while doing the unity official tutorials. Using collisions is probably one of the simplest things in Unity. Then why am I writing a post about it? Surprisingly, many people find problems while working with them, silly errors due to how they work most of the time. I will try to show you the way of efficiently working with them, avoid this errors and give a little bit more indepth utility like detecting the exact point of the collisions.

(Almost) All kind of colliders in  Unity. Some of them I didn't even knew xD

One year Game Development blog Post-Mortem.

Game development blogs, or heavy technical blogs in general, are not the best source of visits for your web page if what you are looking is for big numbers. However, you will get high quality in your visitors. People will read your long posts even if they don't have many pictures are just a bunch of lines of code. Attracting people to read your posts is not so hard neither, but making a living out of it is practically impossible :)

Although the name of the post suggest the dead of the blog, that's not going to happen, this is just a retrospective. Exactly one year ago I started to write this blog and I wanted to share with everyone the stats behind it. Curiously it is quite hard to find such stats from other blogs, so I hope this post will help someone to compare their own stats and maybe encourage to share their own :D

On the personal note I would like to share my feelings about this "milestone" ^^. It's been greatly gratifying to write this blog and I would totally recommend it if you are considering starting your own. I have the feeling that I get more than I give into this (not money nor time, obviously... but anyway xD). For example, every time I tutorial I learn new things I didn't know. It also helps you to put in order my ideas.

My tip to keep your blog alive this long? Plan ahead and set a regular time frame for your updates. It shouldn't be a tight period of time but it should be constant. For me is every 3 weeks. If you never miss any update it will become a routine. Guaranteed! :D

27 published posts

+82 comments

+100 Social Media Interactions

+3€ Revenue xD

+50000 total visits

+130 daily visits

The long term goal is to create a collection of good posts that attract visitors without promotion.

How to use Delegates in Unity. Like a BOSS.

Delegates are a programming language feature that allows to invert the dependencies in the classes of your program. Delegates are also referred as Events or Callbacks. The idea behind them is exactly the same as a subscription magazine. Anyone can subscribe to the service and they will receive the update at the right time automatically. This is a super powerful way of designing the architecture of your game to achieve the next level in code quality.

If you enjoyed my previous article about how to use Lerp, this is the second of many simple tutorials to learn how to use the full potential of Unity following what I found out are the best practises. Follow this easy examples you will have projects that are not a nightmare to maintain after a couple of weeks of development. :)

If you started to program in Unity as your first serious programming job, it may be even possible that you don't know what delegates, callbacks or observers are. Don't be scared, we will talk about everything in detail. Anyway I recommend you to take a look at the official tutorials here and here if you haven't done it already and come back here to answer the rest of your questions. :D

One call at the right time is better that 60 calls a second until they pick up.

What trackable type should I use in Vuforia project?

ROAR! The Augmented Reality family board game.

There are many different types of targets and markers you can use in your Vuforia project. Image targets or frame markers are a couple of the best examples of the possibilities of the Vuforia plugin for Unity. If you are developing an ambitious or commercial project you want to know what is your best shot in terms of performance, cost and reliability.

Making Augmented Reality apps is getting easier and easier. The future of the free version Vuforia 4.0 is not as clear as it should be and people is concerned about the price of it. Anyhow is a bright future for AR in general! Meta glasses and Microsoft Hololens prove that there will be hardware that will live up to the expectations of AR potential consumers and that in a matter of few years this gadgets will be in everyone life just like the smart phones today.


I this post I will go though the different types of markers I have used in my real work experience and I will explain which one works better in any situation. Deciding what is the best option is up to you :)