New game Jingle Moose--all money raised donated to THON!

After spending 6 months working on New Fight on State almost nonstop, I wanted to relax by making a simple little Christmas-themed game. Unfortunately, Christmas was fast approaching, so I ended up spending my entire Thanksgiving break frantically writing code (when I wasn't stuffing my face, of course).

But it was all for the best of causes! Jingle Moose is now available for iOS and Android devices at a price of $0.99, and we're donating all the money we make from it to Blue Band THON to support the fight against pediatric cancer!

Here's the story: Santa and his reindeer all got food poisoning from eating 10-year old Christmas cookies, so it's up to Santa's pet moose to deliver the presents!

Along the way you'll bounce on the heads of snowmen (making a cameo appearance from the whiteout levels of Fight on State), collect candy canes, and throw presents down chimneys. The game keeps track of a bunch of your stats, and the iOS version of course lets you compete with your friends through Game Center.

So download a fun little Christmas game and help one of the best organizations in the world fight pediatric cancer! 'Tis the season!

First update for NFOS!

The first update for NFOS is available now! There are a number of adjustments made in it, but the most important part of it is the brand-new bonus round! You play as a Blue Band piccolo and tap notes as they appear on the screen in order to perform "NFOS" (the Penn State fight song, not the game)!

I've been working on this bonus round since before the original game was released, so I hope everyone enjoys it!

New Fight on State, the 3D sequel to FOS now available!

Surprise! For the past 6 months, I've been quietly working on a sequel to Fight on State. It's called New Fight on State, based on the version of "Fight On, State!" that the Blue Band plays during Pregame and parades, "NFOS".

New Fight on State was completely remade from the ground up in 3D using the Unity game engine. This is the first 3D game I've ever made, so I had a lot to learn about creating 3D models of everything as well as programming in another dimension. This game was quite an undertaking for me, so I hope you try it and enjoy it!

NFOS is available now on iOS and Android devices (on the same day this time)! Additionally, the iOS version is a universal app, so it runs on iPads without stretching--and might I say, it looks absolutely incredible on an iPad with Retina Display!

You can follow these links to download NFOS right now:

The Making of Uketility

Almost two years ago, I was casually browsing Amazon and saw that they had some ukuleles on sale. I wrote something about it on Facebook, and one of my friends encouraged me to get it--"It will change your life."

So I got one… and of course I was really bad at it, though I had a lot of fun passing it around with friends during a Blue Band bowl trip and a few other get-togethers.

About a year later, I got an iPad and, naturally, my first thought was, "So what kind of app am I going to make for it?" It didn't take me long to imagine holding the iPad like a ukulele and using its multi-touch gestures to play it; it made perfect sense! Plus, maybe I could use it to get better at playing the real instrument!

A screenshot from a week into development

Now at the time, I thought of this as just one of those dumb little ideas to tinker around with. But after getting it working, I showed it to the same friend who encouraged me to get a real ukulele--and she thought it was great! I knew if anyone liked it, it would be her, but I was inspired to turn this into a real "thing" all the same.

With her help, we even got one of the greatest ukulele player in the world (and also the nicest person you could ever meet) to try it out. After attending one of his concerts, he chatted with us and suggested ways we could improve the app.

I could have never predicted something that awesome would have ever happened when I started working on that "dumb little idea" months before!

It's been a few months since then, and lots of improvements have been made. It's a relief to finally release Uketility for everyone to try, and I can't wait to see what people think of it!

Uketility is now available!

Uketility is out now for iPad and Android tablets! Follow one of these links!

Uketility - Coming October 2nd to iPad and Android tablets!

Well, it certainly has been a long time since we released a new app, but I think you'll see it's been worth the wait!

Uketility transforms your iPad or Android tablet into a ukulele. You can hold it just like the actual instrument, using multi-touch gestures to press down frets and strum just like a real ukulele!. The frets are labeled and color-coded to distinguish between pitches, and the second ukulele on the screen shows exactly which frets are being held under your fingers.

There are also some built-in tools to teach you how to play a ukulele:

The Rhythms Tool lets you play through 15 rhythm-game-style patterns, each with 3 difficulty levels. You earn silver and gold stars based on how well you perform.

The Chords Tool shows you the fingerings for the major, major seventh, and minor chords.

The metronome helps you keep a steady tempo as you play your own music.

Uketility is a first for Cyclone Kick Studio in many ways, including being our first tablet-exclusive app and the first app we've made that isn't primarily a game (though the Rhythms tool helps make up for that). It's development was a real adventure, one that I'll write about soon.

In the meantime, if you have an iPad or Android tablet, mark your calendars for October 2nd! It will be available in the App Store and Google Play for $2.99, and we couldn't be more excited for you to try it!

Happy National Ice Cream Day (completely relevant)

Still working on a few projects, but since it's a national holiday, here's a peek at the next game.

Just released: Bugs and Bacon for Android and B&B Free for iOS

Bugs and Bacon is now available on both Android and iOS devices now for the delicious price of FREE! You can play through the first 5 unlockables for no charge, and you can optionally spend $0.99 to get access the 5 more unlockables and help support us so we can keep making games!

Bugs and Bacon Free, available April 24!

Just a quick heads-up: Bugs and Bacon for Android and the free iOS version will be available this Wednesday, April 24. I'll post the links to Google Play and the iTunes App Store when they launch.

Also, if you have an incredibly accurate memory, April 24 will be exactly half a year since Fight on State was released, so that's something, I guess. Boy, how the time flies...

We're still hard at work on at least a couple more apps that we plan to release in the next few months, so keep checking back for news on them. (Or follow our Facebook page, as it tends to get updated more frequently than this blog.)

Announcing Bugs and Bacon for Android (and a free iOS version)!

Last October, Cyclone Kick Studio launched not one, but two new games. Of course, the one almost everyone would remember is Fight on State. Unfortunately, FOS's success left the other game, Bugs and Bacon, in the dust.

I blame myself for this. I worked on Bugs and Bacon for about 3 months over the previous summer before starting Fight on State. Although it was nearly finished as development on FOS began, I couldn't be bothered to divert any focus away from FOS (other than, you know, for student teaching and Blue Band).

I still wanted Bugs and Bacon to be released before FOS, so I managed to put the rest of it together. Make no mistake, I did not release it until it met the level of quality I expected. The problem was that I basically did nothing to promote it at all. I'm willing to bet that, on the day Bugs and Bacon launched, I was more focused on putting the final touches on FOS.

Well, two weeks ago, I decided to make things right (hopefully) by porting the game to Android, where it would hopefully get the attention I thought deserved. From everything I read, I noticed that paid games–to be blunt–pretty much disappear amidst the free games in the Android marketplaces, so I took a different approach to this version.

The initial download of Bugs and Bacon for Android will be free. After you obtain 5 of the 10 unlockables, you will be asked to pay $0.99 for access to the other 5. While I'm still not very comfortable with using in-app purchases, this seems to be more of a benefit for the player; instead of paying $0.99 up front like on iOS, anyone can download the game and play this version for free, spending that same amount only if they are enjoying it (or just keep playing without the other unlockables).

Speaking of iOS, it wasn't too difficult to create a new version of it, which I'm calling Bugs and Bacon Free, that I just submitted for approval. It will work exactly the same way as the Android version and is not meant to replace the paid version, for those few of you who already bought that.

I made a few changes to this new version of Bugs and Bacon, such as adding two new backgrounds and 12 Game Center achievement on the iOS version, but the core gameplay is basically unchanged. Click here if you'd like to read about that.

Assuming everything goes smoothly, I'm planning to release the new version of Bugs and Bacon for both iOS and Android very soon, just waiting Apple's approval of the iOS version. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what more people think of it!

More news soon (I swear!)

I was hoping that, once I graduated from college, I'd blog more regularly about things I'm developing (and other things that randomly pass through my mind). Apparently, that hasn't been the case so far, but I promise I'll spill the beans soon on some new projects that I'm working on.

Yes, that is "projects" with an 's'. I had gotten so used to student teaching by day, marching in the Blue Band by evening, and developing games by night (as well as writing lesson plans sometime in between), that I'm still trying to run my brain into the ground. Being a substitute teacher is certainly tiring, but it doesn't require the caliber of dedication I've grown accustomed to, so I think I might be overcompensating just a little bit with this stuff.

I am well into the development of two projects. Neither are games (I know, weird) but I think you'll find both to be pretty unique and interesting in their own ways. I'm sure I'll be showing off at least one of them very soon, so keep checking once in a while.

I've also just started a third project, and this one really is a game (my first one since Fight on State). I've only been working on it for a few days, and I only have a general concept to work with so far, so that is likely to change quite a bit between now and whenever it's released. It's easily my most ambitious game yet, and I'm not sure how I'm going to do it all--but that's half the fun of game development!

And one last thing. I made a Facebook page for Cyclone Kick Studio. There aren't any posts on it yet because, you know, my nose is too far into whatever I'm programming to actually talk it about it. But I'll post some things to it soon. I swear I will.

10,000

We just hit a big milestone today. Thanks to everyone who has played Fight on State and shared it with others!