Announcements

First… Scratch N Score has finally moved into the beta process. What does that mean? A month of never-ending bug reports where people press the weirdest combinations of buttons known to man, that no user will ever actually do, all in an effort to break things. So now we sit back and wait for the reports to start coming in so we can work on fixing all the little things. I’m pretty sure the most common ones found have already been taken care of ahead of time, but there are those people… *ahem* that I know will find more. Hopefully it’s a quick process overall so this can get a scheduled release date. On another note, I also switch to a different video production software that’s much easier to work with than Corel’s and gives me a much better end result! Considering my level of expertise in video editing, I am quite impressed with Wondershare Filmora. Good price for the value, definitely worthwhile. A ton of projects in the works I have a ton of projects in the works, but a lot of them need more thought and fleshing out on paper (well digital paper) before I start work on them. A couple board games and the like. They should definitely be fun and great products for the table, but for now I decided… Dice games! Why? Because I just did one and enjoyed it, and thought WHY NOT? And having certain people kind of try to talk me out of it just made me want to do it more! Sorry J! lol We’re talking about your simpler dice, party type games like Over Under 7, Ship Captain Crew, etc. And since they are simple, we’re going to group them in packs, starting with 7 games in the first one. I started development on the first of the seven, and it’s the one that will take the longest. It’s not complex at all, as a matter of fact it will probably be the quickest of them all, but it’s all the other stuff that goes into a new project and choices that will carry through every single included game. Things like the user interface, sound effects, particles, the general programming structure and framework. That all takes time to develop, even when you’re using components designed from other stuff, and it all has to work and be reuseable. Once it’s done though, it’s a simple matter to adapt each piece to the next game, change the rules and write whatever specialized code is needed for that game. I’ll still have to do GUI’s for them, but the basis of what that looks like will already be done. Simpler games Another thing about simpler games is while they are fun on their own, you have to amp that up with your sound and effects to capture a player’s attention. If you’re just rolling dice and there’s nothing else going on, it’s going to get boring and guess what, you lost a sale but more importantly you lost a customer’s confidence in your past and future products. One thing I chose to do to help amp it up a little is to add some AI generated voice narrations. Playing it with and without those is almost 2 different worlds, even if it is just some simple words being spoken. Gameplay on the first game is nearly completed, it just needs a few more FX touches as well as a game over / play again option, and the in-game settings menu. After that we can move on to the next game. I’m hoping, with the market and audience the table has, that this will be a success, but that’s something only time will tell. I do have plans for at least one more volume if not two of these dice game packs. There’s a lot of cool simple fun ideas out there that wouldn’t work as a standalone game, at least not something you’d want to pay for by itself really. It also pays to listen to people, as one game I had been thinking about doing was just asked for by someone who just picked up a table. There’s a ton more going on in the background, but this will see light of day soon! Simple projects are fun, and it gives me something to work on and think about while working out the details on the bigger ones!     Well, time for bed.. for now…

Scratch N Score Another game ‘rolled’ out to the eval group (pardon the pun). Since the process was never truly explained, and because it’s pretty self-explanatory, that’s where a game goes to live or die.. Does it feel like it has a home on the table? And is it good enough. My biggest fear is that that same eval team is going to come back one day and say, nah, we don’t think this fits. Normally that would be fine and dandy, except for the fact that I don’t publish anywhere else now. It’s just not worth it.  One of my big things with all the major stores is the tremendous amount of shovelware and reskins, hundreds of thousands of identical games with different names, and at least 60-70% of it is trash. Sure, there are some gems out there, but you have to shovel through bad to find the good. One of the things I love about the platform I develop for is generally, most of the games are higher quality stuff that feels like it belongs there. Ok, there’s a couple that probably shouldn’t have made it, but hey… 😉 So I do my damndest to make sure my stuff is at least a couple notches above average. They may not be perfect, but I do my best to polish the hell out of them and I try to avoid using and of the thousands of prebuilt templates out there. This weekend I finally finished up and pushed out Scratch N Score to the eval group. Yes, it’s a clone, but it’s also one that doesn’t exist in their ecosystem, plus it’s one requested by many owners of the device on different facebook groups I have seen, so I am pretty confident it will be a success! Well, fingers crossed! I even added multiple gameplay variations and a lot of options for choosing your playstyle to give it that extra little boost. So once the eval team tries it out, makes their holy determination, then we go to the beta team. Those guys… MONSTERS!!! They can find bugs where bugs don’t exist. It’s my firm belief that they have a backdoor to my pc and are secretly coding the bugs in so that I have to go fix em. Honestly, they have an amazing team over there, and a ton of dedicated testers who really put a game through its paces. Every now and then something slips through the cracks, but wow! So that’s the next step, we wait, we let the testers get their hands on it and then we sit back and wait for the reports to roll in. I’m sure a certain tester will find something, probably some obscure combination of button presses on screen that no normal player would even try, and another one will find my spelling and grammar errors… But that’s what makes it a great team. Those guys deserve a lot of credit, because while I consider myself a great programmer, I readily admit as a one man team doing it all, I miss a lot sometimes. Just like this game, I originally wrote the gameplay routines, the scoring and then after a couple weeks realized I had completely screwed it up and had to rewrite 90% of the game play code. It’s better now, but that’s a big hit.

Opânico Released! Woohooo! Another game released after a long and arduous beta process; but in the end it was worth it and the game is definitely better for it! In what spare time I have been able to scrape up, I managed to get the vast majority of Scratch’n Score gameplay done, so now it’s mostly minor cosmetics, adding the splash and polish that a good game needs, along with all the boring mundane stuff like the player select and instructions.. the list goes on and on. I have some ideas on enhancements to make on this one before release, including a couple additional game modes I have been contemplating. Coming Up Next… I still have a multitude of ideas and projects in the works, but I’m going to be focusing on five main titles in the upcoming months, roughly in this order… Unless I come up with a different better idea that strikes my fancy at that particular moment, in which case everything below is out the window. Short attention span and all… 😉 As for timelines? With my schedule, who knows.. But I am aiming to have the first out the door to the beta testers in the next 30 days. After that there, I’ll get back to working on Rogues ‘n Riches since it’s mostly complete and send that over. It’s not a fast paced game, so hopefully it will still be well received. The others haven’t even been started yet, so I have no idea on any kind of schedule. Scratch’n Score Roll the dice and race against your friends to reach the target score first. With each turn, match combos to rack up points and strategize your way to victory. Roll as much as you like as long as you don’t scratch out! Rogues ‘n Riches A strategy board game where you’re dealt a hand of cards, some may unlock doors while others may blind your opponent. Can you make it to the vault and escape to the exit before getting caught? * * This one is mostly done. I’m hesitant to include an AI in this since you can play single player. I just need to do a little more testing before sending it out.  Frustration Remember that game you played as a kid where you had to fit the shapes into the holes on the board before the time ran out and everything exploded? We’re doing it! This one will be great for adults and kids alike with varying difficulties! Can you beat it or is it just going to frustrate you some more? SLOA It’s 9pm, your sitting there watching the intergalactic news like you always do, the only difference is your child just told you they have a science project due tomorrow morning… Great.. Another middle of the night abduction to take care of… When will they learn to let you know ahead of time that they need another human to probe? Pathways A strategy game on a grid where your goal is to make it to the other side of the board. The only problem is your opponents and they walls they can place up at their whim as they try to block you! Be the first one to make it across and be declared the winner! Not sure if or how I am going to theme this yet, but I’m leaning towards sci-fi / tech.

Welcome! It’s time to roll out the latest version of the website! Easier on the eyes, and definitely easier on me to maintain. I also stripped it down a little bit, removed some stuff like logins, ability to comment, etc. None of that was worth the moderation time since 99.9% of all the signups and comments left were all just spambots anyways. The site worked before, but I never really cared for the layout much. It was cobbled together and yes, it worked but it had issues. Now I love dark mode in most apps normally, but the site felt way to black if that makes sense. So now, we have a brand-new design that will make it much easier to update in the future! Today also marks the release of our latest title for the Infinity Game Table, Roll’n Bonez. This pirate themed dice game is fun for all ages and full of surprises! Roll your dice and let’s just hope the Kraken doesn’t come for your booty!     Click the image above to check it out!