Monthly Archives: June 2010

Mini Game Review – Grow Island (flash browser game)

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via eyezmaze.com

I discovered Grow Island a few days ago and was intrigued by the simple play mechanism and the degree of “Omoshiroi“ness. (aka interestingness). The player is presented on screen an island and a few buttons that represent different technologies. The player’s mission is to find out the optimal order in which to click these buttons in order to maximize all the technological advancement and see the “special ending”. Think of it as Civilization in the simplest form (with only the technology tree gameplay left).

What do I like most about the game?
1. Instant gratification. Something interesting and different always happens right after when you click on a button.
2. Fun animation sequences. The designer has a wacky sense of humor and it’s captured in his animations.
3. Easy to pick up and play, and has enough depth and different endings for players to come back for more.

Each session is short and it’s quite perfect for a little break in the middle of the day. Try it and let me know if you like it! ;)

Grow Island

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

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

FWD: “Extra Lives”: Are video games the next great art form? – Nonfiction #gaming

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via salon.com

Is video game art? Can it ever be art? I’d say yes to both of these questions, what do you think?
Good article on Salon on gaming as art.

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

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

FWD: M2HCulling: Fancy culling system for #Unity3D

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via forum.unity3d.com

Too good to pass on. If you want your Unity game to run faster and perform better, Occlusion culling is a must! I haven’t tried this yet but will definitely give it a try when my game gets bigger.

Read more about it here at Unity Forum

Posted via web from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

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

#iPhone SDK: 8 Valuable Developer Tools and Services #Unity3D

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via mobile.tutsplus.com

Good list of tools for iPhone developers. Full article at mobile.tuts.

iPhone SDK: 8 Valuable Developer Tools and Services

SimpleGeo: If you’re creating a location based service or an app that requires advanced location data, SimpleGeo may be the solution for you. Originally a location-based gaming company, SimpleGeo now provides developers with the means to create location-aware apps that can scale. Own valuable, proprietary geodata? You can put it on the SimpleGeo marketplace and charge other developers for using your data.

iLime: iLime is a tool for quickly integrating Push Notification and In App Purchase into your iPhone application. It is a scalable, affordable, pay-as-you-go tool that can be implemented very quickly

Urban Airship: Urban Airship is a Push Notification system for both the iPhone and Blackberry devices. The service also allows developers to integrate In App Purchase into their iPhone application. Integration with the Urban Airship storefront (i.e. In-App Purchase) gives developers the ability to deliver both free and paid content to their users.

Unity 3D: If you play games on your iPhone or iPodTouch device, you’ve likely used Unity 3D. Unity 3D is a game engine that is at the top of its class. Features like the iPhone enabled live preview demonstrate Unity’s commitment to helping developers quickly produce stunning content, making writing and testing code easier than ever.
Ansca is a tool that allows developers to make applications for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.

Ansca: Ansca is great for those with a background in Flash development, and future versions will include a game edition that incorporates physics, sprite sheets, and social features.

TapJoy: If you’re a developer looking to make money from your iPhone apps, TapJoy has created the perfect service for you. With a little work on your part, TapJoy will advertise your app across both mobile devices and the web by using promotions. When a user downloads the application to enter the promotion, you pay TapJoy for the install. This model is very similiar to affiliate sales. If you’re tired of traditional marketing methods, TapJoy may be the solution for you.

Pinch Analytics: Pinch Analytics is a service that is provided by Pinch Media. If you’re interested in who is using your application, how they are using it, and for how long, Pinch Analytics may be the tool for you. Developers can easily implement Pinch Analytics and create event tracking within their application.
appFigures is an online tool that allows iPhone developers to view data on their sales in beautiful charts. With a long list of features, appFigures is the most comprehensive tool for iPhone developers looking to get a grasp on their App Store data.

Posted via web from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

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

One Pro of Being an Indie Game Dev – Freedom to Switch Tasks #indie #game #dev

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I am the artist, the programmer, the designer, the musician, and the tester. One of the best things about being a solo game developer is the freedom to switch jobs instantly without going through a headhunter or asking your boss. Depending on the location of the moon in the sky (or my mood), I could be drawing level concept and character design on paper, creating 3D assets in Blender/Silo, toying with vector graphics in Inkscape, or putting it all together in Unity. Sometimes one activity would last much longer than others. I spent a month when first started learning Unity, a few weeks when exploring the world of 3D modeling.


And for the past few days, I’ve been struggling with pathfinding – the art of going from point A to point B. It seems like a trivial task. After all, it doesn’t take a genius to know how to go around a wall to get to the next room. Unfortunately my little characters in the game don’t agree with me, and teaching them how to find a way around obstacles has been frustrating.


Fortunately I have the freedom to take off my programmer hat for a while and put on my artist hat today so that I can try to get some work done before pathfinding drives me insane. Being creative stopped me from getting too stressed about the programming problems and allowed me to still see progress being made towards finishing the game. Seeing improvements everyday is crucial to keep the morale of the team, or rather, to keep me happy.


I know I’ll eventually have to go back to the programming problem and solve it. But for today, I am putting colors together and nothing more.

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be


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

FWD: #Unity Turns 5, Happy Birthday! Rock On!

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In 2003 three talented and creative individuals came together in Copenhagen, Denmark based on a shared vision about making their own game engine, one that they felt would quite literally change the game. They began to make that vision a reality while living the life of starving up-and-coming developers, working long hours and late nights with the hope that they would one day be able to share their dream with the world. Roughly two years later they did that and Unity was officially born. The first step came when Unity 1.0 was unveiled on stage at Apple’s WWDC conference on June 6, 2005. The second step came a day later when the first ever Unity license purchase was recorded on June 7, 2005, exactly five years ago today.

To help capture a bit of the feeling and emotion from those earliest of days I’d like to share some thoughts from David Helgason, our CEO. The following is taken from a blog post he made late at night on June 6th, the eve of Unity’s official release upon the world, titled “Last Day In This Life” (permalink):

I sincerely love my life.

It’s late again now, I’m listening to Xploding Plastix’ Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents of the hateful genre nu-jazz… however it’s completely lovable like anything which is insanely too much.

… yeah… last day of what life? We’re wrapping up the last stuff for Unity, due to be released tomorrow, probably 2pm Pacific Standard Time (utc-8 if I recall correctly)… it’ll be out for the world to enjoy.

Keli is finishing off the webshop so people can actually buy Unity, I’m wrapping up the new Conception designed website, and Joe? He’s fixing bugs at what seems to be an average speed of 0.42 bugs per minute.

Most of the guys have gone home now – they know it’ll be a long day.

I need coffee. Now.

Happy Birthday Unity!

via blogs.unity3d.com


I spend the majority of my day with Unity (http://unity3d.com/) nowadays. It has enabled me to pursue life as a game developer. Great tools like this is what’s driving the growth of independent developers and we can only dream of what all these creativity will do to the game industry. Rock on Unity Team!

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

#Facebook Social Games Bleeding Players #socialgames

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“FarmVille is now down to around 69 million monthly active users, a sharp drop from its peak of around 85 million gamers in March.” –

Gamasutra – News – Farmville, Top Facebook Games Continue To Shed Users

Ouch, an 18% drop in two months because Facebook changed the rules of how Facebook Apps/Games can notify (aka spam) users. Makes you wonder how much people actually enjoy the game. I understand how Facebook notification is important for marketing and making your game go “viral” and “social”, and that would explain if the growth of the popularity of the game decreased due to the changes. The drop in active players however means without actively being marketed to, the existing players are not interested in playing the game!


“The problem with FarmVille, in short, is that the business logic dictates the game design too much. The revenue incentives of Zynga make the game experience worse for the players, who are looking for more than killing time.” – Kari Silvennoinen from Tech It Easy: Farmville is An RPG Game (great read!)


I don’t think social games is a fad, but obviously we are still a long way to go to figure out how to make proper use of this new platform. How to create actual sustainable value instead of milking whatever is left before the next thing comes along.


Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be


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

As long as people will accept crap…

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it will be financially profitable to dispense it. – Dick Carett.

(photo taken from Klatch Coffee in San Dimas)

We complain about things, especially products and services. Rude waiters, bad sales rep, useless customer service, crashing software, rotten apples, food served cold. No wonder we keep returning things. And the reason why we keep returning things is because, well, we keep buying crap in the first place! As long as we keep buying crap, we will continue to be served crap.

One of the first things I noticed when returning to the US from Japan was, as many expected, the drop in quality of “things”. I am not talking about “fancy”, because you can definitely find fancy if you want to in the US. There are plenty of world-class blingy restaurants, cars, beaches, and houses here. I am talking about the quality of everyday things, like t-shirts, vending machines, parks, restrooms, coffee shops, clothing stores, diners, buses, friendliness of staff, toilet papers, packaging…etc. I just want them to be a little nicer, a bit more well thought-out. Smaller quantity and better quality would be great. Gotta start saying no to crap from now on!

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

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

iTween for #Unity – Awesome Tool for Animating Objects in #Unity3D

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via itween.pixelplacement.com

Although a bit intimidating with all the syntax on the website, iTween is a great tool for moving stuff around and shaking things up in Unity. After reading about it many times, I’ve finally given it a try and wow what a great add-on! Especially useful for Unity iPhone as the Animation Editor is not available.

Posted via web from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

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