The More You Know Who You Are,

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[image] For relaxing times, make it Santory time
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I didn’t know this would happen, but the journey of starting my own business has taught me more about myself than about business.

“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” – Bob. Lost in Translation.

And that was not in the plan. The plan was to outsource development, sell millions of copies, and get acquired by Google/Apple/Facebook/EA/Disney in a year. Fortunately, none of that happened. Instead of hiring out the development, I put my head down and learned to do it myself. Instead of selling millions of games and getting acquired, I assembled a small team and made great like-minded friends.

The MBA in me keeps wanting to go big and run fast, but the me in me keeps wanting to stay small, stay creative, and have fun. (Hey we are in the game business after all ) I would spend weeks and weeks drafting and perfecting business documents – executive summary, pitch deck, financial forecast, income / cash-flow statements, valuation, product proposal, cap table, surveys, market research…etc. I had a lot of experience in these before going on my own, and I don’t mind doing the work at all. But I always come to a point where I look back and think to myself, WHY? Didn’t I leave the corporate world to be more creative, and to work on things I love?

Maybe it’s the fact that spending time with spreadsheet gives me a (false) sense of security, a rare luxury for people outside the career track. Maybe I was addicted to talking to big names in the industry and feeling like being part of the circle. Maybe I was too used to dealing with numbers in millions, that dealing with numbers in thousands or even hundreds scared me. Going back to the old corporate tasks and habits was a way of protecting myself from all the uncertainties in starting and running a business.

And reading all the news about everyone raising millions of dollars everyday certainly didn’t help. I love TechMeme / HackerNews / VentureHacks as much as everyone else in tech, but the constant noises from the all-mighty Startup Universe was overwhelming. It made me feel like I wasn’t doing it right if I didn’t do it the way that everyone else was doing it. It made me anxious, stressed, and fearful.

Yeah. Not exactly what I had in mind. I didn’t start a business to make a shit load of money, so why should I care if Zynga is going IPO for an insane amount of money? (real money, not virtual coins) I wasn’t inspired by the noise, and couldn’t think of anyone that I’d rather be from all the startup stuff I was reading about.

I realized the people I draw inspirations from are great designers and artists, and not great businessmen. I put away the MBA hat and started looking inside. Who is Brandon Wu? What do I want? And most importantly, what do I believe in and what do I want to be?

Questions like these help me find a direction that I am happy with. A direction I can devote myself into, one that I can continue going forward even when things get tough, as they always do from time to time.

So what do I believe in? I believe in art, design, music, helping others, sharing good things in life, honesty, honesty in business, open communication, genuineness, creativity, fun, work / life balance, independence. And I believe if we are true to ourselves, good things will happen. I am going to make sure these beliefs are held at Studio Pepwuper and 30 Day Books. Why? Because “fake it until you make it” doesn’t work for me. Business is personal again, and the business needs to be a reflection of me, otherwise we lack authenticity, and we lose sight of what we set out to accomplish.

So before you make your next business decision, think about what you believe in. It might just change the way you see a deal, an opportunity, or a future.

 

p.s.

A video shot in the hospital from Lost in Translation in Tokyo. I went to this hospital to get my wisdom teeth removed (which cost me less than $10, but that’s a story for another day), and found myself surprisingly familiar with the building. When these little document transporting robots showed up, I realized I had found the hospital in the movie by chance. :)

Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

The Gap between Core and Casual – the Premium Casual

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Video Game Timeline

If you spend enough time observing the game industry, you know there are primarily two markets – the traditional Core market, and the red-hot new Casual market of today. The traditional Core market has been in existence since the days of Atari decades ago. It has evolved from simple games with ASCII art to complex games with close to real-life graphics. Step into any GameStopand most games you see in the shop would fit into this category. They are complex, deep, visually stunning, and often focus on serving the Core gamer market – male from 18 to 35. You see a lot of shooting, fighting, sports, racing, fantasy/sci-fi, military/war, action/adventure games in this market today.

The new Casual games provide socially connected solo experiences on platforms everyone has access to – mobile and social networks. They often offer bite-sized gameplay, cute graphics, simple control mechanism, and hooks to keep players addicted. They are also low cost, often free, with the ability for players to purchase in-game virtual goods. You see a lot of city/farm/shop building games, along with plenty of puzzle, wedding, restaurants, word games. They appeal to the mass, and have done a great job introducing people who previous wouldn’t play games to the gaming world. 

However, I believe there’s a third market in-between these two that’s hasn’t been discussed enough – mainly, people who enjoy the easy-to-start, none-violent nature from Casual games, but desire the complex and engaging experience from traditional Core games. I call this the Premium Casual market. It’s the middle ground between Core and Casual. These are older gamers who grew up with core games but no longer find kill-everything-that-moves fun, recently converted casual gamers who want more than clicking and waiting for something to happen on a farm, a city, or a tower, or anyone who’s discovering the joy of interactive entertainment but haven’t quite found something for them.
 
And this is the market we’d like to serve. We want to combine elements from core games and causal games to create an experience that these people will enjoy. Are there games serving this market? I think games such as Flower, Worms, The Sims, Kart Riderare great examples of Premium Casual games. And as casual gamers continue to grow their appreciation for games and their appetite for better deeper games, I expect the Premium Casual market to grow and more developers to make games for this market.

Eventually the lines will blur as the industry continues to grow. I can’t wait for the day when the size of the game market equals the size of human population (minus the infants). Everyone will be able to find games that appeal to them. And I hope what we are making at Studio Pepwuper can contribute to this goal.

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Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

Touch to Mouse Input Converter for PlayMaker on Unity 3D #unity3d #gamedev

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via hutonggames.com

If you are using PlayMaker plugin for Unity3D and are struggling with touch input in your game built with mouse events, I made a FSM to convert touch input into mouse input in my project so that it will work on my Mac and iPhone at the same time. Just drop the prefab into your scene, or create a GameObject, add FSM, and paste the template in the .asset file.

Download link: http://ge.tt/57U7eII

Basically, when a user touches the screen (Touch Began), this FSM will send a MOUSE DOWN event to the object touched, and send a MOUSE UP event to the object touched when the user lifts his/her finger (Touch Ended).

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Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

FWD: Brandon Wu Interview – From EA, To Sony, To Indie And Beyond! – Game Rant

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“In an exclusive interview, Brandon Wu discusses changing his professional career from working at big-wig AAA companies to founding an indie studio that caters to a starving market niche.” – Game Rant

My interview on Game Rant.

Brandon Wu Interview – From EA, To Sony, To Indie And Beyond!

 

 

 

Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

FWD: Making My First iPhone Game From Scratch Part. 1 | Gamesauce: Global Inspiration for Game Developers

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“A little more than a year ago, I was working in the strategy division at the Sony headquarters in Tokyo, busy making financial forecasts for new ventures and evaluating business deals. I had a typical MBA job, working with spreadsheets, writing feasibility studies and business plans, and meeting with executives to discuss high level strategies for one of the largest consumer electronics company in the world. My job couldn’t be further away from what I am doing today.
Armed with an education only in Economics and Business, I had no experience with programming a game, creating 2D and 3D art assets, or making sound effects and music for games. Not to mention my lack of proper game design experience. In the beginning of 2010, when I quit my corporate job, I had nothing but a desire to make games, and an idea for the first title. Insane? Maybe, but at that point, I had already decided that, no matter what it took, that game had to be made. Here is the series of events that led to the birth of “Megan and the Giant.” “

Part one of my article on Gamesauce on getting started with the development of Megan and the Giant from scratch. The rest of the article here.

 

 

Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

FWD: Indie Game News Interviews Brandon Wu of Studio Pepwuper

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1/ What first made you start thinking about becoming an indie developer?

It was a result of two trends in the gaming industry:

First, in 2009, I noticed that the rise of social and mobile platforms (Facebook, iPhone) enabled games to reach an audience that didn’t have an interest in games before. I’ve always believed that video games can be a medium capable of appealing to everyone, and I was excited to see these new platforms drawing more people into the game industry. 

 

Secondly, it was the growth and availability of development tools such as Unity, Shiva, Torque…etc. These tools lowered the barrier to entry for game development, especially for people who aren’t seasoned programmers. I started playing with these tools in 2009 and was really excited whenever I saw something I made moving on screen. It was all very basic at this point, but it led me to think that maybe I can make games myself. 

 

I grew up with video games, and even after I stopped playing games, I still found the creative game industry fascinating with ever evolving technology and ideas. My passion for the game industry, my desire to make games for the non-gamers, combined with the tools and platforms available, were the major reasons why I started thinking about becoming an indie game developer. Or simply, I just wanted to make games that my non-gaming wife would play. :) 
Interviewed by Indie Game News. For the rest of the interview go here.

 

Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

Megan and the Giant for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

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Megan and the Giant

 

View In iTunes

  • $0.99
  • Category: Games
  • Released: Feb 01, 2011
  • Version: 1.0
  • 1.0 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
  • Size: 46.4 MB
  • Language: English
  • Seller: Studio Pepwuper, Inc
  • © 2010 Studio Pepwuper, Inc

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later

via itunes.apple.com

Megan and the Giant is finally out of the door! Woot!

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Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

FWD: Spent the last year learning to make games, and it’s finally here! (pic) : IndieGaming

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My post to Reddit IndieGaming (http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/) to summarize how Megan and the Giant came about. :)

http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/comments/f766y/spent_the_last_year_learning_to_make_games_and/

 

Dear Reddit, Here’s the story: After a lifetime of listening to what others told me to do, I got my MBA degree, went to work for one of the largest electronic companies in the world in Tokyo, had a great salary, lots of employee benefits, job security, and countless meetings with top executives in fancy meeting rooms in this gorgeous building (http://img577.imageshack.us/i/sonycity.jpg/). I worked/played with the latest gadgets during the day, and spent the nights exploring the extraordinary city of Tokyo. Life was great.

And then I realized I was turning 30.

I panicked. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life sitting at a desk, analyzing, researching, strategizing, and juggling spreadsheets and powerpoints? I would look out the window and thought to myself, why was I sitting inside this office building when there’s so much life outside? I also realized how much I love design and the creative industry, and I needed to be creating instead of analyzing if I want to really enjoy working.

So I quit my secure high-paying job in 2010. Moved back to my parents house with my wife, and started a video game studio to create narrative casual games.

I didn’t have enough savings to hire people to make the game for me. So I picked up a few books and started learning how to program, how to make 3D models, how to create sound effects. Lack of funding means I had to do everything myself. The first few months were hard, really hard. I was used to talking financial figures, and getting my head around programming just … well it was messy. But day after day, I got a little bit better, and the game started to look a bit better as well. But it was a long process. I wanted the game to be done in August. It was pushed back to October. Then December… Finally after countless delays, I submitted it to Apple App Store and it was approved two days ago. And in about ten days it will be available on iPhone App Store on Feb 1st! It has been a long journey, and not having income for a whole year was brutal. But it’s finally here and I can’t wait to tell the world about it. “Megan and the Giant” is a stealth adventure game for the whole family. I’d like to think of it as Pac-Man + Metal Gear Solid. You can find out more about the game here http://pepwuper.com/MeganAndTheGiant . I’ve also created a trailer here

.

You can say this game, “Megan and the Giant”, is the product of my quarter-life crisis. I’d like to think it’s a beginning of something big. :) Just thought to share with the Reddit community (especially /r/pics, which has kept me sane during the hardest times). Thanks!

tl:dr – quit corporate job, moved back to parents’ house, jumped into indie game development, made this thing ( http://pepwuper.com/MeganAndTheGiant )

 

 

 

 

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Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

FWD: One Chance. A game where you only have one shot at saving the world.

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via newgrounds.com

 

I discovered “One Chance” a few weeks ago and was amazed by how simple and effective it is at making players “experience” a story. In this game, you are a scientist who discovered cure for cancer, but as it turned out, the cure also led to a new virus that could wipe out the entire population on the planet. You have 7 days to save the world.

What makes the game different is that you can only play the game once. There is no restart, no save, and no reload. Once you finished the game, even if you reload the page, you won’t be able to replay it. So every decision you make is final, and this forces you to think hard before making your decisions.

Interestingly, this also makes you feel more responsible for the outcomes of your decisions in the game. Even thought fancy 3D graphics and sophisticated controls, the game really puts the players into the story and has a way of creating emotions.

This is yet another good example of story-telling in games. Give it a try!

Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.

Reference: How to fix “Base SDK missing” after updating to Xcode 3.2.3/3.2.5

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Overview

I’m going to explain why this is going on, and then how fix the specific “Base SDK Missing” problem. You can skip to the bottom for just the fix, though I recommend reading all of this. I also recommend John Muchow’s excellent take on this issue.

If you are specifically interested in the Xcode 3.2.4 upgrade, which has a strongly related problem, you might want to confer here.

One SDK to rule them all

Here’s the deal: 4.0 is now the only SDK version allowed for submitting new or updated iPhone-only apps. This is direct from Apple’s iOS 4 Readiness Checklist (reg reqd):

All new applications and updates to existing applications must be built with iPhone SDK 4. Please note, the App Store will no longer support applications that target iOS 2.x.

Presumably — I’m guessing here — iPad-only and universal apps should use the 3.2 SDK. That is why 4.0 & 3.2 are your only choices for SDKs.

That is also why your project is now broken, since the SDK it was previously mapped to is deprecated, gones-ville.

(But) 3 is a magic number

Relax. You can still target devices running iPhone OS 3.0 (but not lower). The SDK you use to compile does not limit — downward — what iOS version you can program to or support. Once you’ve patched things up in your project etc. (cf. next section) you can set “iPhone OS Deployment Target” to a lower iOS version. For a quick shot of how to do this, cf. step 7 in the next section.

Note that you are now entering some tricky terrain. Your usual Xcode 3.2.3 compiler will no longer be enforcing your compliance to 3.0-only calls, nor does it have a simulator for these. And if you want to support 4.0 features, you’ll have to do some conditional code to prevent crashes on 3.0 devices. Fun.

You can still download (from Apple!) and install a previous Xcode version or SDK (cf. here). Yes, you can install multiple Xcode versions, in different directories, i.e. put only one version in /Developer. You can use the old Xcode to test your app’s compliance vs. a 3.x SDK, moving the hard work to a fancy compiler, and simulator. But you can no longer use the products of the previous SDKs to submit to the app store.

FWIW, I plan on doing just this check before I ship.

What condition my condition is in

Matt Gallagher has a Cocoa with Love post on version conditional code entitled “Tips & Tricks for conditional iOS3, iOS3.2 and iOS4 code”. If you are planning on conditionally using 4.0 features, this is a strong recommendation to check it out.

Fixing “Base SDK Missing”

  1. Load your project
  2. From the menu, select Project > Edit Project Settings…
  3. Under Architecture > Base SDK, choose one of the available device options: iPhone 3.2 or iPhone 4.0. If you are iPhone-only, 4.0 is the way to go.
  4. Close that window.
  5. From the menu, select Project > Edit Active Target “YourTarget”
  6. Under Architecture > Base SDK, choose one of the available device or simulator options: iPhone 3.2 or iPhone 4.0.
  7. If you want to target previous iOS versions, then in that same window, under Deployment > iPhone OS Deployment Target, select the lowest version you want to support. Note that support for 2.x versions through the app store is deprecated. See the “Readiness Checklist” quote above.

Addendum

More detailed information on this topic can also be found in the first answer to this question. There’s also some useful info here.

via stackoverflow.com

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Got an amazing game idea? See how we can build it for you at Studio Pepwuper.