Well its been exactly [95 days since my last Alpha release](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/myprojects/mr-nibbles-forever/mr-nibbles-forever-alpha-7/) of my mobile game Mr Nibbles Forever which is far too long. I apologise to people who have been asking me for a new version. I took on a few paid freelance projects a few months ago and they took up a whole bunch of time then I decided to take a full time position up in Perth a month ago which [drastically cut down my Mr Nibbles development time](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/uncategorized/started-work-at-thebroth-in-perth/) sadly.



If you follow my [public Trello development board](https://trello.com/b/Ic11WQzF/mr-nibbles-forever) however you can see that I have been working in the intervening time, just not as fast as the earlier development:

[![2015-06-18_15-22-50](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-18_15-22-50-1024x525.png)](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-18_15-22-50.png)

In total there is something like 70 hours worth of my time that has gone into this release:

[![2015-06-18_15-21-12](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-18_15-21-12.png)](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-18_15-21-12.png)

Although 70 hours doesnt sound like all that much I think that this release contains more changes than any other. As hinted in the last release and other posts, I now have an artist on the project, [Woody Stables](https://twitter.com/woodystables) who has helped totally transform the in-game backgrounds, the outfits, the effects and many other aspects of the game:

[![2015-06-19_07-54-53](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-19_07-54-53-1024x575.png)](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-19_07-54-53.png)
[![2015-06-17_20-46-28](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-17_20-46-28-1024x766.jpg)](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-17_20-46-28.jpg)
[![2015-06-19_07-54-14](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-19_07-54-14-1024x576.jpg)](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-19_07-54-14.jpg)
[![2015-06-19_07-54-30](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-19_07-54-30-1024x576.jpg)](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-06-19_07-54-30.jpg)

So now there are 13 different outfits in the game which you can win by spinning the wheel. They all look different and awesome but still stick to the same cutesy Mr Nibbles art style. Some of them come with cool and interesting effects as the below video shows:

<iframe width="854" height="510" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aN5S0zMux30" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You will also notice (if you have your sound turned on) that the game also now has a whole bunch more sound effects. That's entirely thanks to [Joe Watkins](https://twitter.com/watkinsonic) who I recruited to help out with the audio on the game. I think the audio really lifts the game up and adds so much more value to the different outfits and is often an overlooked but valuable part of games making.

The game really has started to take its final shape in my opinion but there is the problem. At the moment it has mostly only been my opinion of the game which has shaped its development. I have had a few testers play the game throughout its development and im very grateful for that but now its getting to the point where I need to test in earnest.

I am also very aware of the fact that I need to concentrate on marketing the game much more. At the moment the game is only really visible to a small number of people, people who read this blog, people who are members of the facebook page and people who I have met and talked to about the game. If I want the game to succeed and not get swallowed on the App Store then I need to step up my game in that department.

I have been doing a lot of reading about indie game marketing and have discovered [some valuable resources](https://vgamemarketing.com/). Its a massive daunting task but I have spoken to some other people who have done it and they have given me some great advice which has helped immensely.

So the next few weeks for me will be less about development and more about testing the game and building the things to help promote the game (websites, trailers, presskit etc).

If you would like to try the game out then as usual just [send me an email](mailto:mike.cann@gmail.com) if you are on iOS or [send a request to join this google group](https://plus.google.com/communities/100690884724496136044?gclid=CJSZo8WqgsACFVZwvAodlo0AHQ&dclid=CODB18WqgsACFVQZvAodWV4ATQ) if you are on Android and ill hook you up!

Just before [leaving Playdemic](/posts/goodbye-playdemic/) we had a company-wide ship-it-day. If you haven't done one of these before they are great and work very similar to game jams like [Ludum Dare](https://www.ludumdare.com/). Basically you have 24 hours to create something related to the company then you have to present it.



I decided to team up with [Laura Whyte](https://www.voodoobeans.org/) a rather excellent artist colleague I have have worked with for years. I knew I wanted to make a quick mobile game using Adobe AIR and [Richard Lord's Ash framework](/posts/tinkering-with-ash/) but I didn't really have any idea of what game specifically I wanted to make. She had the brilliant idea of making a clone of the classic "[helicopter](https://www.helicoptergame.net/)" game that you control with your voice.

So that's what we made. Check out a video of my playing it below:

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zk4hdII35eM" height="366" width="650" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe>

You will have to excuse the fact I do sound a little like a drunk owl at some points in there.

By the end of the 8-hour day we pretty much had a working game. Since then I have spent a few more evenings here and there tidying up the source code and fixing a few bugs and submitting a build to Apple and Google. In total I would say that 24-hours is a fair time frame for the development of the game.

As previously mentioned we developed the game using Adobe AIR and Ash. The reason being was that I had previously experimented with cross-platform game development with [Mr Nibbles which was coded in Haxe and NME](/posts/mr-nibbles-the-post-mortem/) and I was keen to see how AIR would compare.

Im pleased to say it held up very well. Where I had a little difficulty was with the Ash Framework. Its a great framework however its still rather new and there aren't many examples out there for how to do certain parts of the game development such as menus and event handling. For this reason I have decided to open source the game so that others can have a look at how I went about constructing parts of the game in Ash.

Ectoplasm source: [https://github.com/mikecann/Ectoplasm](https://github.com/mikecann/Ectoplasm)

I plan on refining the source as I have discussions with others on the Ash Mailing List about how best to go about implementing some of the features, so I suspect that source code may change over the coming weeks.

Because the game is cross-platform that means that it will be accessible on the Apple App Store and Google Play store as soon as it gets approved, for now however you can play the web version over at: [/projects/ectoplasm/](/projects/ectoplasm/)[
](/projects/ectoplasm/current/)

You may want to toggle your microphone settings (or disable the microphone entirely ;))

[![](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/header.jpg "header")](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/header.jpg)

Well its been a couple of weeks since we launched on iOS and a few weeks since Android, so I have decided to write one more post on the Mr Nibbles project. A post mortem into what went right, what went not so right which should hopefully serve to solidify my learning from the process and perhaps help others who should embark on something similar.



Before I dive into that, first some statistics thus far..

## Statistics

**Android**

[![](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012-09-02_1250.png "2012-09-02_1250")](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012-09-02_1250.png)

We have had 2,867 User installs and 1,623 active device installs. Not bad :)

**iOS**

[![](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012-09-02_1252.png "2012-09-02_1252")](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012-09-02_1252.png)

3,789 iOS installs, making a grand total of 6,656 mobile installs, not bad :)

## The Process

So from [the beginning](/posts/lets-make-a-mobile-game-in-3-weeks-with-haxe-nme/) the this project was to be a quick turn around project. The idea was to try and complete the whole thing in three weeks. It actually ended up being more like 5 weeks for me and 4 weeks for Moh the artist (he was on holiday for one of those) but still not months of development which I wanted to stay clear of.

For me, short time-scale games are so much more fun to make than long games. In a short time you can iterate quickly over the core idea then get it out there quickly and see what people think. When time constrained you are are forced to only implement the core functionality and discard the rest. In all likelihood the other stuff is probably just fluff anyways and not really necessary to the game.

As for the time-overrun, there is no one main reason for it. Lots of small things such as; unfamiliarity with NME / iOS / Android development, windows / osx development workflow and testing taking longer than expected. Making and testing each of the 30 levels took alot more time that I had anticipated. Working around some small NME issues (more on that below) took some time. Writing these blog posts every week (sometimes more) took some time out of what could have been development time too (more on blogging below).

The hours we worked on the project were actually okay. Because this was a personal project and both of us have full time jobs at [Playdemic](https://www.playdemic.com/) we could only work on the game during our evenings and weekends. During week days we tended to start about 6-6:30pm then work until we were kicked out of the office by the security guard. 8:30-ish usually. Occasionally (mostly towards the end of the project) we stayed a little later to get stuff done before release.

![](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/testing.jpg "testing")

This sort of schedule and working pattern suited us both. Being able to see who you are working with and talking face to face I think really adds to the experience and fun of making an indie game. Its definitely more exiting to run over and show the other person some cool new level on your iPad rather than try to describe it over MSN from your bedroom. Working like this obviously wouldn't have been possible if the management at Playdemic weren't so awesome by allowing us to use the office after normal office hours so definitely a massive thanks there.

## Blogging

I strongly feel that blogging everything is one part of the process I definitely wouldn't change. Sometimes I choose to work in private on some projects however  this one I decided to be very public, announcing upfront the intent and regularly updating on progress. Blogging regularly and getting feedback on progress really encouraged me to stick with it every singe evening. It also served as a way to keep the project fun (absolutely critical for me) as the immediate feedback from people would serve as a basis for ideas and improvements.

Also writing things down has been proven to encourage stronger learning and memory retention, so hopefully in the future I wont make the same mistakes ;)

## Haxe + NME

I have been using [Haxe](https://haxe.org) for over a year now for various personal and professional projects so I was fairly familiar with the language going into this project. Haxe is a good language, similar to AS3 / ECMA based langues and so it shouldn't feel too alien to a seasoned flash developer. It does however come loaded with many improvements over AS3 such as proper generics, type inference, macros and many more awesome features.

[NME](https://haxenme.org) is a library built ontop of Haxe. It provides a familiar flash api but is able to many platforms natively. Using exactly the same Haxe code base I was able to compile Mr Nibbles to Flash, iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows and OSX thanks to NME. The library really is great for this sort of fast-turn-around game. Mr Nibbles certainty wouldn't have been possible without it (not in 5-weeks anyways).

![](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/testing2.jpg "testing2")The NME developers have put a lot of time into making the build and certification process as easy as possible for the various platforms. So with "nme setup android" from the command line for example you are able to download and setup the android SDKs and get your certs setup in the correct place for building. Its really great to see that sort of dedication to making the cross platform compilation process as smooth as possible.

The performance of NME is truly great. Thanks to its batched sprite rendering there are very few draw calls and expensive texture-switching. Mr Nibbles runs at solid frame rates on pretty much every smartphone you can think of from the Android G1to the Galaxy S III to the iPhone 3G to the iPad3\. After having worked with the[ nightmare that is J2ME mobile games](/posts/worms-2/) in the past, being able to run your game on so many devices without any code changes really is a pleasure.

NME isn't perfect however and does have a few issues such as slow and imperfect vector rendering from SWF files. It is however constantly constantly being worked on and im sure it wont be long before the issues are ironed out.

Because both NME, Haxe and most of the third-party libraries are open source you are always free to dive in and fix any issues yourself. For Mr Nibbles, the SWF rendering was "good enough", such that we were able to make nice looking menu screens that dynamically scaled to any device resolution and pixel density (a real time saver!). Most of the time when I ran into the issue I would post it on the NME mailing list. More often than not it would be answered (often by the NME-super-hero [Joshua Granick](https://www.joshuagranick.com)) within an hour or less!

## iOS

iOS was definitely the primary platform we were developing Mr Nibbles for. Mostly because it was the platform I owned a mobile and tablet device for ;) To develop for iOS you need to use osx and xcode, so I took my MBP into the office and hooked it up via Ethernet to the network. I setup a shared folder on my desktop machine and the pointed xcode on my MBP to that shared folder. That way whenever I made a change on my windows computer I would only have to hit one button in OSX to rebuild and test on my iOS device. It was a real time saver over the other approach I was previously using, syncing over Dropbox.

There were are few frustrating moments towards the end of the project when I was running into issues regarding ArmV6 and ArmV7 when NME was compiling. Fortunately I noticed in the [nmml spec](https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcode.google.com%2Fp%2Fnekonme%2Fsource%2Fbrowse%2Ftrunk%2Ftools%2Fcommand-line%2Fspec.nmml&ei=If9EUI7UN4ez0QWYkYHQCw&usg=AFQjCNEl3n-oz1tHz4ZPceTNYidpyTxolA) for NME there was an option to compile to "FAT" which seemed to make the issue to away ;)

## Android

Android was a lot easier to iterate and test because it could all be done from my desktop machine. In hindsight, and with the devices that only became available towards the end of the project, it would have been better if we had concentrated on the Android build first then ported to iOS later. Once we had some devices to test on however I was incredibly impressed with how easy it was to build and launch the game onto an Android device with NME. Literally just "nme test android" from the command line and it would compile and launch directly to the[![](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/522085_10151008075505740_663326715_n-300x224.jpeg "522085_10151008075505740_663326715_n")](/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/522085_10151008075505740_663326715_n.jpeg) device, no faffing about.

Since launch there have been a few issues with audio crashing on Android. However I believe some people have been working on this so I may do a new build of Android in the near future and push an update of the game to the Google Play store.

## Blackberry

The blackberry build has only been finished very recently, hence the lack of stats thus far. It was actually really easy to build for Blackberry, again just a matter of changing a single word on the command line "nme rebuild blackberry" and that was it.

The hardest part was testing it as I had no Blackberry device to test on. Joshua Granick was extremely kind and offered to test the game out on his device. Not only that, he put in a kind word and managed to get a Playbook shipped out to me so I could test too, thanks Joshua :)

## Conclusion

Overall I had an absolute blast working on this game. Sure it was hard work, alot of evenings and weekend spent in the office till 9pm and sure it went over budget by two week but it doesnt matter because I was having fun the entire time.

This is what making games is all about for me, if you want to have fun programming I cant think of a better way than to make than to develop short-project games. Haxe with NME were instrumental in making the process as fun as possible by taking out much of the bull sh\*t with cross-platform development, letting you get down to business of turning your ideas into reality. So massive thanks to everyone that has worked on developing Haxe and NME.

Finally I want to say a massive thanks to my colleague and artist partner on this project Moh who's time and hard work made Mr Nibbles come alive, nice one Moh!

Finally! Apple approved the iOS version of the game this morning, and this evening I finished off the site, so the holy trinity of game availability; iOS, Android and the browser is now complete!



Check it out:

[![app store](https://www.mr-nibbles.com/AppStoreBadgeFree.png)](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mr-nibbles/id552109003?mt=8)
[![google play](https://www.mr-nibbles.com/GooglePlayBadge.png)](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.mikecann.MrNibbles)

or at: [https://www.mr-nibbles.com](https://www.mr-nibbles.com)

[![](/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/insert.jpg "insert")](https://www.mr-nibbles.com)

For once I actually finished one of my projects :) Im really happy with how the whole thing went, sure it went a couple of weeks over my original three-week estimate but still im happy with the result. Of course there is so much that could be improved, but for a free game made in a very short time I think it has done

Checkout more mr-nibbles posts: [https://www.mikecann.co.uk/category/myprojects/mr-nibbles-myprojects/](https://www.mikecann.co.uk/category/myprojects/mr-nibbles-myprojects/)

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