Screen Size Dilemma

Matt wrote an interesting write up on the potential screen size(s) on the iPhone 6. I just wanted to follow up on it with a few thoughts of my own.

The iPhone has always been a very accessible platform to develop for. The 'licensing' on it has always been very cheap ($100 annually) and the cut that Apple takes is very competitive, (30% per sale.) Other than monetary reasons, it is fairly easy to learn to program for. An entire application can be programmed with little to no actual coding, and the code is fairly easy to learn from a beginner stand point.

One of the most amazing features though, is only ever having to worry about one or two screen sizes at a time. We programmed ColorGuess and ColorGuess+ fairly poorly, and really only thought about the 4'' screen, and crammed all our stuff into the 3.5'' screen last minute. We've been more careful with Block'd, using content size references instead of static screen sizes, and so far it seems to morph into the 3.5'' screen pretty well. 

But these are easy, why? You may ask. The widths are the same. Let me share a Vine that's been circling my Twitter quite a bit recently: 

With the potential for multiple widths coming up with the iPhone 6, the barrier for new programmers to get into iPhone development is going to become even steeper, and the market for newbies that don't want to deal with 3-4 different screen sizes, is going to vastly shrink.

I'm okay with a larger screen, it's going to have to be a fact of life, I believe. I don't like it, but I'll deal. But please Apple, don't give us two different sizes to deal with. Especially if one of the sizes is essentially an iPad mini with a microphone.

Austin

Weekly Update, May 18

Oh boy, it's been a while since a weekly update, but hey, figured we might as well. While we don't have any new Block'd information to share, we are nearing having an official launch date. So make sure to check back for that. Other than that, this week we got in iAds as well as gating the levels based on completion of the previous (yay.)

On the website and blog side we got all the updates we had planned done to the website, and we've slowly started blogging again. Here's a list of all we wrote this week in case you missed any of it:

• 100 Balls, If I remade It -- May 16, 2014
  • Austin looks into a popular game on the App Store, and discusses what he thinks could make it better.
• The screen size debate -- May 12, 2014
  • Matt looks into some of the rumors surrounding the iPhone 6 and it's potentially larger screen size.
• Getting back into the swing of things -- May 7, 2014
  • Matt tells us (yet again) that he'll start posting more. Maybe Austin should make a similar promise.
• Smash Hit, Game Review -- April 27, 2014
  • A little bit out of the week, but it's worth posting here. Matt looks at a fresh game up on the App Store.

Alright, that's all for now. Check back this week for more on Block'd and anything else we may feel like doing. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Symbiotic Studios Devs

Block'd Is Coming Soon!

Inadvertently, we kept this under the radar much longer than we intended. As such, the launch of the newly redesigned website seemed like a perfect time to make this announcement.

Without further ado, we at Symbiotic Studios are happy to announce the upcoming release of Block’d. A fresh and new puzzle game by the people who brought you ColorGuess! and ColorGuess Plus.

Block’d combines a simple concept with complex mechanics and strategic planning to form a brain teaser that’ll keep you coming back for hours. Tap a start tile and watch as tile in all four directions are filled until something gets in their way. Take your time and plan your moves, running red tiles into a red start tile will cause that start tile to trigger! If you’re not careful, you’ll get Block’d!

Keep an eye on the website over the next month for exciting new details. In the next week or so, our Block’d game page should go up, with screenshots, and more gameplay details. We are expecting an early June release, so keep checking back for more!

Goodbye Flappy Bird

Well, I guess we had better hop on the bandwagon and say goodbye to Flappy Bird. 

I don't have all too much to say about it, we have plans to discuss further some of the things that made Flappy Bird great.

As developers though, I think that this teaches us all a great lesson. What happens when you become an overnight success? I think that we all sign up to the fact that becoming an overnight success is possible. 

Moving forward, I know that we need to start preparing for that to happen. To have a plan. To know how we will handle the press. To know how we will spend our first dollars.

Dong Nguyen strikes me as an individual who made games as a hobby, not as a potential profession. Much like us here at Symbiotic Studios think about ColorGuess! and ColorGuess Plus, Nguyen most likely did not expect Flappy Bird to become any sort of success. The App Store is a fickle thing, it's honestly impossible to know what will take off and what won't take off.

We will miss Flappy Bird as a game. But we must take what lessons we can from this experience. The developers at Symbiotic Studios will definitely be discussing our financial and press decisions before our next launches here in the next few months.

Thank you for your continued support.

A&M

ColorGuess Plus and iOS 6

It has been recently brought to my attention that ColorGuess Plus does not run on devices running iOS 6 or earlier. I wanted to take a second to touch on that.  

In the beginning this was by design, Matt and I had the oversight that everybody would be using iOS 7. What we didn't know was that older iPod Touches do not support iOS 7, but support iOS 6 and 6.1.  

Upon looking at the code to see if there was an easy fix to this, Matt found that the expanding cells used in many of the game screens do not seem to work properly on devices running iOS 6.

Expanding cells running on iOS 6

This is an error that sometime we would like to address, but probably won't come until we are ready to work on version 1.1 or whatever nomenclature we decide to go with. 

For now, if you can only use a decide with 6.0 or 6.1 please leave a comment here or get in touch with us on Twitter. If enough people are interested, we will consider putting this higher on the priority list! 

As always, thanks for your continued support.

A&M