And then is it really building something if you are porting it?

tl;dr

Two games I wrote over 10 years ago for iOS, Android, Blackberry, HP Touchpad, Windows and Mac now run in a web browser. Norkal’s Space Maze of Doom runs here, and pX is available here. You can also look at www.phunsta.com if you are really bored.

*Sorry if this blog veers a little into the geeky/tech. I found the technology I was playing with was astounding. The fact that I was able to do what I did blows my mind.

The story begins September 2011 when I started to develop a game for mobile devices. I released my first “proper” game July 2012 almost a year later. Norkal’s Space Maze of Doom NSMOD) was a true labour of love, I poured my heart and soul into it. I thought about and cared about every little detail.  You may not agree with my choices (tbh I am not a designer) but I agonized over them and was very happy with how NSMOD came out. Unfortunately, the rest of the world did not agree, and the take up was underwhelming. I did not quit my day job.

pX was the second game. Whereas NSMOD was a labour of love where I agonized over every detail, pX was not. What was I thinking with those audio choices!! pX was an experiment, did the masses want a simple “arcade” game with no story but lots of replay value? They didn’t (well not from me). I am proud of how pX turned out, it is rough around the edges but is incredibly addictive.

One of the geeky things I was particularly proud of was that to implement both games I built a truly cross functional game engine. NSMOD and pX both ran on iOS, Android, Blackberry Playbook, HP Touchpad, Windows, and MAC. They worked at any resolution or orientation, and now they are lost to time. So being a geek I wondered how hard it would be to port it to WebAssembly, turns out not that hard (with caveats).

The game engine (and games) was written using C++ and OpenGL. For each platform I then had a light native shim which created a viewport and handled input. This approach allowed me to easily support the different platforms. I was able to get it running on Android and WebOS within a week each.

According to ChatGPT: WebAssembly, often abbreviated as WASM, is an open standard that defines a binary-code format and a corresponding textual assembly language for executable programs. It’s designed to be a portable compilation target for high-level languages like C, C++, and Rust, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications.

This meant that I could take my original C++ code, compile it and have it run on most modern-day web browsers, and I must say that was pretty much the case except for ironically phone and tablet browsers but more on that later. I started with pX since it was the simpler game and I was able to get it up and running in two weeks.

There were some challenges. The main one was that I was moving from synchronous file (asset) access to asynchronous. I went from loading assets such as images, fonts, audio files from the devices local file system to loading them over the web via web calls.  I could have embedded them in the WASM file but that seemed wrong.

I asked ChatGPT to write some codes to fetch file data from the web and access it in my c++ code. ChatGPT quickly returned 10 lines of code which looked like it should work, I implemented it and sure enough it did not work. I told ChatGPT that it did not work, it agreed and made some additional changes which still did not work. We went back and forth on this for a while. I then used Google to debug individual lines with no joy. Eventually I Googled from first principles and found a one-line emscripten (WASM compiler) command which did all I needed; problem solved.

Sidebar: I have mixed results with ChatGPT (or Codium). I find it useful for easy things like makefile syntax (don’t judge me) or simple c++ syntax (I am a bit rusty), but so is Google. For more rare use cases (like anything to do with WASM) it is useless, but is useless in a confident way that takes you down a garden path.

After getting the web fetch code working, restructuring pX to work asynchronously was a dawdle, NSMOD not so much but more on that later.

My next challenge was getting the audio to work. I saw that WASM supported OpenAL (open source audio library) so I was very optimistic that this would work out of the box (I mean MyPNG just worked). Alas, I could not get it to work, probably something I did and might have been related to the async change (who knows), or maybe just this version was different than what I had used and I was too lazy to fully understand what I was doing.

There was also an added twist that most modern browsers won’t play any audio until the user initiates an action. This is to prevent spam ads playing sounds without the user’s permissions.

Sidebar: I have mixed feelings about this, should Chrome be controlling how websites want to present their content? If random audio was annoying wouldn’t people just not visit that website? I guess I am naive.

In the end it was not a hard problem to solve since to play the game you need to click a mouse (a user-initiated action), but it did trip me up for a bit until I noticed the console log “clue”.

In the end I came up with a solution which leveraged the HTML/JavaScript audio support. I created an audio node on the DOM and then played it from the c++ code.  WASM allows you to create and call JavaScript straight from the c++ code which is kind of cool.

pX was now running, after about two weeks, boy was I chuffed. I figured NSMOD would be a dawdle, after all I had done all of the hard work. Turned out to be more challenging than expected, mostly due to issues of my own making. The first issue had to do with how I created pX. When I created pX I just forked the NSMOD code and made the appropriate changes. I did not bother supporting any shared libraries or code. I just wanted to get the experiment out as quickly as possible.

For NSMOD I thought it would be easier to use the same game engine and share as much code as possible with pX. This was relatively easy to compile but there were some very subtle differences in the way I handled fonts, dialogs, and various 3d planes between the two code bases. This was all very painful to debug, but I was impressed with the fact that I could use the Chrome debugger to step through c++ code and set breakpoints.

The next issue was around the fact that NSMOD had a more complicated memory/asset management model than pX. NSMOD had a lot of assets which it would load and then destroy depending on the level you were on. The async model I used for pX was causing me all kinds of grief, I had issues getting it working cleanly, and performance was also an issue when moving to a new level. I decided to totally change my strategy. I now copy the assets into the web’s local file storage and then access then with good old fashioned c++ synchronous fopen/fread/fclose commands. A far simpler solution which meant I did not have to change my startup code much for NSMOD.

The final issue I had was getting the mouse wheel to work. There are a couple of tile dialogs in NSMOD to choose the next level, or browse achievements.  Since NSMOD was designed for touch devices it basically used the touch and scroll paradigm, I just wanted to added a scroll wheel shortcut. This should have been pretty easy, after all I had the mouse move/up/down pattern working. Nope. I tried all kinds of approaches, then hacks, but no luck.  I eventually got it to work by changing a parameter from a true to a false. Still not sure what that parameter was supposed to do.

The last piece I wanted to do was to add a leaderboard to pX. I just think it is fun to see how others (all 3 of you) do, and add a sense of community and competition. I looked at a couple of public leaderboard APIs, but they all expected users to create accounts which did not feel right to me. AWS looked like it had a good system but I could not create an AWS account (see my other post). In the end I signed up for a Google Cloud account and wrote a simple leaderboard service. We have until April 2024 before my trial runs out to run up that leaderboard.

I still have one more problem to solve; pX and NSMOD do not run on iPhone or iPads (I have not tested on Android). How very disappointing, the console logs says that the browsers do not support certain OpenGL commands I am using. I think I will look at it further but not today.

I am glad this is all done, it has been a lot of fun, I learned a lot and got a chance to code something that can change the world. I would have been done sooner if it was not for some annoying distractions like a kitchen reno, trip to Vegas, and Baldur’s Gate 3.

I hope you enjoy

I am having the most asinine conversation with AWS support. They keep sending me the same email template without listening or thinking about what I am saying which means I can’t create an AWS account.

The story begins late last year (2023). I am porting my very old games to run on most web browsers (see related post). I thought it would be a good idea to add a global leaderboard to pX one of the games. I knew AWS had a leaderboard service which I thought might be a good fit (well maybe not a good fit, but AWS is a known quantity to me). First step: create an AWS account, simple right?

To create an AWS account you need to provide a phone number, also a phone number can only be associated with one account. So what happens when you have created an account on an email address you don’t control or don’t remember? That is my situation. I must have created an account at some point in the past. When I got to the point where I entered my phone number AWS said no.

I did some poking around and all the documentation says you should login with your email, or use the “forget password” process using your email and raise a ticket. But what if you don’t remember or control your email account anymore?

I was able to find a link where I could open a ticket without logging in, I explained my situation and eventually got this response. I wish I had saved my initial query, but for some reason when I created a ticket AWS did not acknowledge receipt or echo back my initial query. The request just goes into the ether, and in 2-7 days you get a response.

Greetings,

I understand that you are contacting us because you have tried to create a new AWS Account, however, you get an error indicating that the phone number is linked to an existing AWS Account.

For security and privacy reasons, AWS Customer Service can’t share or change the email address or password information on accounts.

Kindly note, I cannot confirm which of the emails provided is related to an AWS Account because of our security policies.

For your sign-in credentials, use the email address that’s associated with the AWS account that you’d like to discuss. Then contact us from the Support Center through the following link. Even if your account is suspended or has been closed for 90 days or less, you can still open a case.

https://support.console.aws.amazon.com/support/

If your sign-in information no longer exists, then your account was permanently closed after being suspended or closed for more than 90 days. You can create a new AWS account:

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/create-and-activate-aws-account/

Note that if your account was closed or terminated, you can’t use the same email address to create a new AWS account.

For information on signing in to your account, see the following documentation:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/console.html

If you are unable to sign in to your account, see the following troubleshooting documentation:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/signin/latest/userguide/troubleshooting-sign-in-issues.html#credentials-not-working

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/sign-in-account/

Kindly note, I will keep this request open in case you have any further questions. If you consider the case being resolved, feel free to manually close the case on your end.

Hope you have an amazing rest of your day!!

Best regards,

XXX

Amazon Web Services

=============================================================================

Need more help with AWS service, go to: https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center

=============================================================================

Amazon Web Services, Inc. and affiliates

Amazon Web Services, Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon.com is a registered trademark of Amazon.com.

This message was produced and distributed by Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates 410 Terry Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98109.

© [2023], Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Read our Privacy Notice.

I have now seen this email SEVEN times.

First time I responded with

Thanks for getting back to me.

The root problem is that I don’t know what email account was used to create my AWS account.  Without this I seem dead in the water.

I know you can’t give out email details over this channel, but can you send an email to the AWS email account (XXX-XXX-XXXX) and I will pick it up and know which account to use.

Thanks

And I got the same template as above, so I I responded with

I have tried every email I can think off and get

There was an error

An AWS account with that sign-in information does not exist. Try again or create a new account.

Can you please let me know what email address was used to register the account against XXX XXX XXXX

If you can not do that can you that at least send an email to the account registered to XXX XXX XXXX and I can take it from there

Guess what same template, so I tried

I don’t feel like you are listening to me. Can you please escalate to a manager.
All the links you shared assume I have access to my email account. I don’t know what the email account is, that is the root problem
The closest piece of advice on the links you shared is https:credentials-not-working

but even that concludes I should contact AWS support.

I appreciate you can’t share the email account via email, but if you send an email to the email associated with XXX XXX XXXX I will have the required information to proceed.

Thanks

No joy same template, so I responded with

You are still not listening to me. Can you please escalate to someone who can help.

All your advice assumes I know (or somebody) knows my email account. This information is lost, and it is not a corporate account.
You then suggest I create a new account, but I can’t because my phone number is already linked to an existing account.

If I could create a new account against XXX XXX XXXX I would have done so.

I get that you can’t share those details over email, but if you send an email to the email address linked to XXX XXX XXXX, that would not be a security issue and I will they know what email was used,.

And again

It looks like the email registered with the account XXX XXX XXXX is registered to is no longer active, (I assume email are bouncing)

How do I disconnect my phone number XXX XXX XXXX from this dead account?

Ok maybe not that professional

WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING, YOU KEEP SENDING ME THE SAME USELESS TEMPLATE
1. I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO MY EMAIL ACCOUNT.  I CAN’T USE IT TO COMMUNICATE, LOGIN, USE FORGOT MY PASSWORD FLOW
2. MY ACCOUNT HAS NOT BEEN CLOSED DOWN AS YOU SAY, OTHERWISE I WOULD BE ABLE TO CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT WITH THAT PHONE #

If it was closed that would solve my issues, can you close it?

WHAT ARE MY NEXT STEPS BEYOND POSTING THIS ENTIRE INANE THREAD ON THE INTERNET.

So there you are, looks like Amazon does not want me to create an AWS account. In the meantime Google also has a leaderboard API. Problem with Google’s is that it requires a user to login to Google to use (maybe AWS does as well, who knows I can’t play with their system without an account). This makes sense from a security perspective but not from the user experience I wanted. End result I wrote a simple leaderboard service and it is up and running on Google cloud.  My trial account is good until April so let’s see what happens.

Now that NSMOD is basically done and in the can.  I was thinking about starting on my next game, then I got this idea out of the blue.

This idea screams Write Me.

If you like Tetris like games you will love this new game, I think it is familiar and yet very unique.  The best part for me is that it will be so easy to write (no custom levels, it will just get harder).

So barring any major major projects with my day job I should have this game done before xmas.

Well Norkal’s Space Maze of DOOM!!! has not been selling gangbusters so I have not had any numbers to report.

We have not sold more than 20 for any platform, 0 on Amazon MarketPlace.

I have done a couple of things, lets see what works and what doesn’t

1. I have created a Free To Play version of Norkal for the iPad and iPhone.  This version is Ad supported and includes 90% of the functionality, there is a unlock feature to give you the other 10%.  I submitted this to the App Store last week.

1a. I have updated my artwork in the App Store

1b. I have updated my app description in the AppStore

1c. When this is available I am going to kick of a massive PR mailing.

2. I am having a back 2 school sale on the Playbook version (now $0.99) hopefully I will be featured again and we will see what happens.

2a. I have updated my Description in App World.

3. Marbles – Before the Playbook RIM had a promotion where they would give a free Playbook to anyone who submits an App, Marbles was my participation in this program and was released before I even had my Playbook.  Marbles is also a good example of why you have to test your application on the target platform.  Marbles works really well on the PC (with a mouse) but did not work that well with touch, the jack would go off in all different directions.

By the time I discovered these issues my Adobe development kit had expired and I was not interested in paying to update a free app.

Last week I noticed that Marbles has had almost 9,000 downloads, despite some really bad reviews.

I have fixed up the “Flick” mechanism and now the game play is actually rather fun.  I have not juiced up the graphics so it still lacks “Polish” but it is still free and now has a link to Norkal’s Space Maze of DOOM!!!

Marbles came out on Thursday and already has over 175 Downloads.  So I guess free works, I will see how my free iPad version goes before deciding what to do next.

Sorry I have not been posting as often as I said, but

1. I have been busier than I anticipated
2. Not much to report, sales have been very slow.

The current tally is:

I am definitely not going to quit my day job.

Currently I am very disappointed with the Playbook sales.  I was featured on a couple of web sites Playbook Daily and BestPBApps I admit they are not the Times, but I only sold 4 apps based on this coverage.

Norkal’s Space Maze of DOOM!!! is also a featured app in BlackBerry App World but over the weekend that only led to 4 sales. (damn you Olympics?)

On the iPad side I have been busy posting on forums and sending our press releases, nada on the forums, nada on the  press releases, but then there is a longer lead time.

So what do I do next?

Unlike coding I do not know how to find the correct answer?

1. Was my Press Release missing the target?
2. Does the “Cartoon” style turn of my target audience?
3. Is the app too expensive?
4. Does the description not work?
5. Do I need better icons?
6. Is there some other problem?
7. Do I just need more time?

More importantly when do I start panicking and/or give up?

My current plan of attack is:

1. Wait and see what happens with App World?  Will sales pick up?
2. Get the iPhone version ready
3. Create a free (ad) version for the iPhone/iPad, not keen on this since the ad does pollute the purity of the game.

I have also been working with apppromoter.com to improve my copy/press release/pr distribution, but I am currently leaning towards a more formal “re-release” when the free iPhone/iPad app is ready

My wife asked me how you make money on a free game, I replied volume.

Norkal’s Space Maze of DOOM!!! has now been live for almost a week, it went live on iPad and Playbook last Thursday and on Amazon (Android) and HP on Friday.

I am a little disappointed with the results at this time, I expect to have to work hard to “Market” NSMOD and did not expect it to sell triple figures in the first week, but I did “hope/expect” to have a release bump while NSMOD was in the “Recently Released”  zone.  Unfortunately that was a very short window.

I have planted a lot of “marketing seeds” this week, hopefully some of them will start to sprout over the next couple of weeks.

I also hope everybody is not 100% focused on Tiny Wings 2.

HP TouchPad  This was the biggest disappointment as I have only sold 3.  It was always going to be bang or bust.  My thinking went that there is over a million of them out there, and NSMOD is still high on the recently released list.  But obviously those million units are sitting in peoples desk drawers and not being used.  It was pretty easy to port to the HP TouchPad so the effort was not huge, so no big loss.

Kindle Fire (other Android) So far I have sold 0, I never expected to sell many, but I need to come up with a marketing plan.

iPad: 7 units, I think my Dad bought most of them   I have focused a lot of my effort on this over the last couple of days, so hopefully we will see an up tick next week, and in a couple of weeks I have some plans which should increase awareness.

Blackberry Playbook 10 (the winner   Like the iPad I have some things in the works which should bump these numbers over the next couple of weeks,

Total: 20 – still a little early too quit my day job.

Come back next week (Monday?) for another update

I thought I would record my predictions for the relative performance of the four tablets.

Blackberry Playbook

I actually think this will be my best performer.  The market place is not as saturated (so it is easier to get noticed) and RIM has been very approachable, and has said they would help me promote Norkal’s Space Maze of DOOM!!!

I have not been able to (or figure out) how to engage with Apple or Amazon.  Apple and Amazon both have “web forms” you can fill in, and then they respond with a standard email.  RIM has these JAM road shows which gave me an opportunity to meet with RIM directly.

The other nice thing is that RIM is more transparent about who you need to contact. It was relatively easy for me to find the email addresses of the appropriate Development contacts.

When we look at my call for Beta Testers I got a very strong response from Playbook users, and some very positive feedback (no bugs found).

I predict a very strong start, which will taper off very quickly and then hopefully provide steady (but low) unit sales.

Apple iPad

I need this to do well.  There are so many iPad’s out there that I only need a small percentage to purchase NSMOD, that is the theory, but the challenge is still how do I get noticed?

When we look at my call for Beta Testers I had no response, this despite posting on multiple forums.

I predict a slow start, which will steadily grow, and provide reasonable on going unit sales.

Amazon Kindle Fire

I would like to think that with around 2 million Kindle Fires (and other Android Tablets) out there, I should be able to do well, but the Marketplace is very crowded with Android apps.

And again I had no response to my call for Beta Testers.

I am also worried about the market fragmentation, I have tested NSMOD to death on the Kindle Fire, but with so many different tablets I am worried that it won’t work on some of them.

I have no sales predictions, it can do very well, or very poorly, not sure there is anything in between.

HP TouchPad

This is a complete wild card, there are about 1 million units out there, but how many are still being used?  On the plus side there is very little competition so NSMOD will be visible on the recent list for at least a couple of days.

With one post I got an amazing response to my call for Beta Testers, so hopefully my entire market has not already played the game.  Again the feedback was very positive and no bugs were found.

This could go two ways, one I make some decent sales in the first couple of weeks, or I make no sales.   I do not expect to make significant sales after the first couple of weeks.

Check back here next week to an update

That is the question I hope to answer over the next couple of months.

I plan on releasing Norkal’s Space Maze of DOOM!!! simultaneously for:

• Apple iPad
• Blackberry Playbook
• Amazon Kindle Fire
• HP Touchpad (really, yes really)

NSMOD has been submitted to the perspective app stores/worlds/marketplaces/catalogs and if all goes well it will be accepted later this week or early next week, or when hell freezes over.  (RIM has already approved it, yeah RIM)

For the first couple of weeks I plan on publishing my sales figures almost daily on my twitter feed, so you will be able to watch me become a multi-millionaire in real time.

I say almost daily as I actually have a big project and some travel in July (yes, a little foolish of me to release when I have other things to do, but who said life was easy).

After that I will update weekly and then monthly as needed, possibly with some fancy graphs and charts if I can figure out how to use Excel.

Well fingers crossed, and see you on the other side.

I know it has been awhile since I posted, and I still intend on writing that article about the different Development Environments.

Unfortunately real life (and job) keep taking up my time.

Norkal’s Space Maze of DOOM (it has a name now) it mostly done.  I am starting a quasi-public beta program to find any issues I might have missed.

After the beta program I hope to release this Summer (yeah).

The other thing I am thinking of is releasing all my sales figures (not just relative numbers) so we can get a true view of how much money one can make as an independent developer and which platform is truly the best one.

Now I just of to think about how to market this baby.

In my first posting I stated I would be posting every week.  That was about 3 months ago.  Unfortunately after kissing the children goodnight, and spending time with my wife, oh, and this day job thing.  I find I do not have much time left over for my fun job.  At least if I want to avoid a costly divorce.

Fortunately the world does not depend on my Blogs and my children do depend on my kisses  I do not think anybody even knows my blog exists, a fact I need to change, maybe you can help me with that, any ideas, seriously? I need to change that.

The reason I started this blog is that I am creating a game for the tablet/smart phone market.  I have read <sources> that just putting a game into the App store is not sufficient.  There are about 200-1000 new apps submitted to the various app stores / day, (the figure depends on the source, platform and the day).  So you need to spend some time marketing your app to actually make any sales.

I have also read that a Blog is a good way to build interest.  Trouble is it need to be entertaining and self deprecating enough for people to want to read it…..ahhh there’s the rub, especially when I’m a bit of a geek, no sh*t, I hear you cry….and language, at least the written in English type is not necessarily my strength.

The best way in my opinion is full disclosure.  Oh no, just putting in words like ‘full’ and ‘disclosure’ is bound to get me filtered.

That is why I am being honest about why I have created this blog in the first place.

I need to do more, so I hit upon this idea.  If I were to release my app on all the four (five?) main tablet platforms simultaneously and release the relative sales figures for these platforms would anybody be interested?  I suspect small dev’s like myself would be.

I am also willing to share my thoughts and experiences with those same readers.  I know a great deal about stuff, probably because

I am an old Fart and have been programming since I was 10, and I am now 44, in other words I started using computers before most of the world knew what computers were.  I have released some “free” software on the Commodore 64 and the Amiga, those were the days when an individual could write a meaningful game with out having to spend 100 million dollars <source>.  But then I entered the real world and a real job and my “hobby programming” took a back seat to life the universe and everything, or in my case wife, children.

Let me continue by sharing a little bit about my path to where I am now.  I currently have a half finished game running on 3 of the 4 target tablets, and the anticipation of the 4^th with in the matter of days (weeks?).

Diddly doo, diddle doo (wavy, music to indicate a step back in time)

Last November I heard about the RIM Playbook promotion, if you wrote a Playbook App RIM would give you a “free” playbook.  So I knocked together a couple of apps in Adobe ActionScript and submitted them to Playbook App Store.

“Free” in this context. Meant many  hours invested in creating my two apps So not very free, if you consider my current hourly rate, but that aside

I enjoyed creating the apps, but they were not that good (more on that in a later post) and they were not really the kind of thing you could charge for.

But the question, on everybodies lips was then was ‘what next?’, well maybe not everybody but certainly aforementioned wife.  I felt that maybe I should create a better app, one which I could take pride in.  So that was my plan to create a “quality” app for the Playbook.  One with “Polish” <sources> something I would feel was worthy of charging real money for.

I played around with a couple of ideas and finally hit on a concept which I felt would work well on a tablet.

I also wanted to do it in C++, and that required the Playbook NDK, so I waited for that to come out, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, then I got tired of waiting and decided to write the game for the iPAD, well that was my excuse for the technology investment, (and I stand buy it!).  So I took the C++/OpenGL game engine which I was developing while waiting, bought a Mac and an iPOD touch, and within a couple of days I had my game engine and current test levels running on iOS.  At this time my goal was to target iOS first, and the heck with Playbook.

And then a funny thing happened, I was accepted into the Playbook NDK Beta program.  There I was all set to send RIM an email saying how poorly we developers were treated by RIM. And thanks but no thanks.

(I may write a blog about my thoughts on this at some later date but possibly not)

But then I thought, what harm is there in downloading the NDK and taking it for a spin.  Less than a day later my game was running on the Playbook, it was that simple.  Well maybe not if you count all my previous experience but it felt simple.

That then brings us the 4 target epiphany I had a couple of weeks ago.  It started when I read on engadget <source> about the latest HP touchpad ebay sell-off.  I tried to get a Touchpad when they did their initial fire sale over the summer, not because I really wanted one, but for $100 why not look at it, this was also before I purchased an iPAD and I was curious to know how I would enjoy a larger tablet.  Unfortunately I was not able to buy a Touchpad at the fire sale price over the summer.

But this time I struck gold, and was able to get one.  My thinking is that there are 1 million of them out there, with out the same developer love as you can find in the Apple and Android market places.  On the surface it sounds like there might be a bit of a hunger for a decent game.

So armed with my new Touchpad I just now finished getting my game running on WebOS.  It ran the second time (the first time my y-input axis was inverted), which is blowing my mind.  I am scared sh*tless that I might have to debug it, since at this point of time I have not figured out how to get the visual (or any other version) debugger working, but for now I am rather chuffed.

I have also picked up a Kindle Fire so next target is Android, I started on this a bit but got  stumped by the piss poor debugging environment and documentation, but I think the approach I have taken with WebOS will work for Android so hopefully that will be up and running soon.

I think I will also do a Win8 version, but not concurrently.  The Main issue is that Win8 may not (probably does not) support opengl, so I need to convert it to Direct3D, not a big issue I have done Direct3D work in the past, but I do need on focusing on delivering something.

In my next post I am going to share my thoughts on the four different development platforms, and after that I may talk about the design/implementation process for my game.

So see you next week month year

p.s. wow that was a really long post, maybe I should break it up into parts and post it slowly over the next month