Barking Mouse Studio

We're testing the waters with Google Play this week. We're live right now for tablets and in the process of beta testing a bunch of Android phones. So far it's going pretty well and we've got an average rating of 4.78 / 5 which is really great. THANKS ANDROID FOLKS!

We had a busy weekend talking about Barking Mouse studio with Autodesk.

It's not game related, but Jim's open source rdio hack day project is blowing up. It even got retweeted by Brendan Eich, creator of javascript. My favorite quote so far is by Charlie Robbins "jsfmt changes everything".

Working on an Android version this week. I've got a beta build up and running. I'm not quite ready for testers, but I'll send out the word once I am. Now on to do my taxes...

Jim and Mouse prototyping a new game.

Sometimes reviews just sucker punch you in the gut and leave you walking on air the rest of the day. I normally avoid reading reviews, but I'm glad Jim made me read this one. I don't remember talking to them at SXSW but I'm so happy we did. It's a mucky rainy day in SF and we've had walking colds for a couple weeks, but I feel fantastic right now.

Cords, cables, and laptops! Oh, my! All this SXSW prep is taking over my living room.

We're FEATURED in the App Store! They gave us both a Best New Games slot on the main page and And! AND!!! a mini banner on the games page!

We're live in New Zealand! My stomach hurts.

We passed! I'm so glad the wait is over. It was like waiting for my SAT scores all over again.

Still waiting for review.... The tension is getting to me. I have no fingernails left because I've bitten them all off.

Celebratory bottle of cheep red and a christmas cookie! Plus game. As a Christmas present, I spared you the duckface version.

Uploaded and waiting for review!

Here are the final screen shots (I hope) that are getting uploaded to Apple. English version.

Took a break from my normal stuff to go to a pixel art workshop today. I don't think I'll make a pixel art game, but the technique was interesting. Here's the coffee cup I made.

I've got all of our achievements setup in game center. You win a Skin Horse Award for completing chapter 5 without hints.

We're in QA! Jim and I sent off the build at 4am SF time. No matter what, it always comes down to the wire.

We got the our text back from the translation service today! We realized while in Japan that if we reached out, we'd have fans there.

We're down to the home stretch. This is what Jim and I have to get done before we send off the game for QA testing in the beginning of December. I fixed the last major bug on my list yesterday, so it's all polish left.

I've been working on a new poster this morning and took new screen shots for it. There's one from each of the first four chapters.

I've been fine tuning the lighting and UX all week while Jim has been focusing on the depth of field shader. I feel like we've jumped up another couple steps in how the game feels and looks. Here's what the scottie dog on level two looks like now.

tl;dr There are some lessons that I have to keep learning over and over again.

Jim and I got in our IGA application at 10:40 last night. A comfortable 80 minutes before the deadline. Here's one of the latest screenshots. It's of the raygun in chapter 3.

Saturday was a bit of a scare. We did performance testing on retina iPads Friday night and the we were getting rates of 24fps and maxing out the GPU. We finally got them resolved around 10 pm after starting at 7:30 am. Now the game runs at a super solid 30 fps on retina and has double percentages of unused GPU.

I'm sooo excited. After months of just having chapters one and two in the game, we put in chapters three and four in today! Thank you everyone that contributed! Especially the wonderful Laura Jolly.

Jim and I were in Tokyo last week for the Tokyo Game Show Sense of Wonder Night.

Jim spent the weekend updating our website. I spent the weekend staring at our updated website because it looks so great.

Got a little too happy in photoshop today and made this. It's a color pallet test for chapter 4 and a preview of the bird level.

tl;dr; Making a game is a huge roller coaster of emotions.

Jim on the plane to PAX.

Spent this morning looking for inspiration for the toy soldier level.

Sneak preview of our new lion level. Courtesy of the fantastic Laura Jolly.

Lost Toys won "Most Promising Game" in the Indie Prize Showcase, http://www.indieprize.org/games/index.html, at Casual Connect.

Getting some Lost Toys shirts made. Here's the design.

This is the poster I made. It took about 1/20th the time that the business cards took, and I'm way happier with it.

Finally ordered some business cards this week. I spent most of Saturday obsessing over the design and then finally giving up and calling this good enough.

Now with iPhone support. :)

I really really should have paid more attention in trig...

Bug smushing day! 17 changed files with 80 additions and 48 deletions.

Based on some excellent feedback, the toys return to their original position when undoing a turn. It's amazing what a difference it makes.

I spent the morning coding the ending sequence for the game and looking for someone that makes custom toys. Wouldn't the ambulance level be cool to play with irl? I think so, but I'm biased.

Added a new level to the game today.

More Spoilers! I've got up solution videos for chapter two. https://vimeo.com/album/2428411

Spoilers! I posted solutions to chapter one on vimeo. https://vimeo.com/album/2422555

Added a thumb print that shows up when I'm playing the game on my computer, so that the game play video makes a little more sense... Now I just have to update the game play video.