I just heard from Calvin, a reader of my iOS Game Programming with Xcode and Cocos2d book that after cracking the whip on himself to read the entire thing, he developed the Cupcake Kid which is now in the App Store. Click the pic to visit it in the store now. Good job Calvin, and thanks for sharing!
I’ve got a couple new CartoonSmart-inspired apps to show off. The first by Charles Brands, called Cyclops Shoot. I love his description: “A simple game. Shoot the cyclops.”
Next up, is Meerkatapult by S. Cox. And I love this description even more, “ Launch your Meerkat from the catapult to grab a tasty bite, while others stand guard. Progress from Meerkat Pup to Meerkat Master and see if you can find the hidden golden eggs, but watch out for the rival meerkat gangs who will try to invade your territory and will need chasing away.”… Uhh, rival meerkat gangs. Count me in.
Luke Carelsen just sent me a link to his newly approved FREE app. Here’s some features pasted in from his metadata in the App Store…
• 50 books from the bible have been selected to teach your child the word of God.
• 131 pages that are beautifully illustrated to each specific story.
• An animated voice reads every page with much enthusiasm
• There are interactive features in this app and we will have regular updates adding more features and more animations
Looks great Luke!! Congrats on the bounty of first-day In-App sales!
Hey all, just got an email from a buy of our Angry Ninjas Kit that modified it (quite a lot) to make a Spin Jump Game with a Lego theme. Check out the game right here, and if you’re interested, here are 15 promo codes. Since these will get snatched up eventually, feel free to comment as to which code you use, or at least write a comment when these are all used up and I’ll update the article to tell people they are all gone. Let this game of musical chairs begin….
My friend Nathanael at iPhoneGameKit.com is close to releasing a new starter kit and has asked for some pre-release feedback on what people want out of a Kit, and perhaps even out of life itself. You can give him some open-ended feedback if you want. Its only about 20 short questions, and for people who like surveys LIKE ME, its not long enough. CLICK HERE for more.
And Dallas has released his first app! Ahh, that first approval is so sweet. And this game looks great! Check it out in the App Store…
Congrats to Marcel at Proba Studios, his first kid’s game looks terrific (and it’s in HD)! The goal is to help Henry (the cool red fish) not get eaten by the lesser-cool baddies. Marcel emailed me with something I didn’t realize (although probably could have assumed), which is that to support HD graphics on the new iPad you have to target the project to iOS 5.1 . And his question was, whether to downgrade the project on the next update. In my opinion, heck no! Keep the awesome graphics, and in time most people will have updated their devices to the new iOS and this problem solves itself. The game looks great as is, so I say keep it that way. =)
Keep at it!
Alright seers, CartoonSmart student Gabriel has gotten a great looking new app into the store! Congrats. Hopefully he used his own app to foresee a future where this sells well. Good work!
I just noticed this in Flash, and maybe its not new to anyone but me, but if you adjust the stage size by typing in a number in the Properties window, then hit Enter, and do NOTHING else, but starting hitting SHIFT and the UP or DOWN key, you’ll bump the stage size plus or minus 10 pixels. Whats nice is you can see that be adjusted after each key tap.
Anyway bigger news, another student makes the grade. Michael Franco took my iOS development course and told me after Session 1 he was able to get this into the Store. Released just yesterday, BlackJack Arcade (I’m surprised that app name wasn’t taken already too) Good work Michael!
Longtime student Elliot did the programming on this great book below, and if you listen close you can you hear me patting myself on the back… my humble Cocos2D tutorials helped him out. Obviously the virtual ebook part gave him some useful code. Speaking of which, I’m planning to record an overview tutorial of that Ebook template, and package it back up as a separate Starter Kit like I did with the Wave Attack Game. And like that, if you’ve already bought the full course, you don’t need to buy both. A zip with the Starter Kit Ebook template will be added to your download link page.
Oh and more about this awesome book, the monster can be different every time. Read the app description……
Create your own monster character in just a few taps and see it appear throughout the story. With up to 10,000 customized monsters to choose from, there’s sure to be a monster for every child. Best of all, you can read it again and again, choosing a different monster each time.
And long time student Tyler Herring has built a really impressive library of Flash artwork. He’s got Elves, Orcs, Wizards, Camelot, Lovely Girls, Undead, Angels & Demons, Monsters, and Many more. And as you can see from the image below, they are all broken up for easy animation. Excellent stuff! 
