Launch Week!

It's finally come to that time. A time when our game is so excited to be released that we can no longer keep it hidden away, it's time for Early Access.

This week Title Tomorrow should be showing up in many major Android Gaming outlets including: Google Play, Amazon, SlideME, GetJar, AndroidPIT, Opera, Mobango, and mall.soc.io!

 

TTV0.1.2:

 

This is the first release of Title Tomorrow, so there is only one gamemode right now; bomb fight. There are achievements implemented, even leaderboards and a highscore system to get a little competition going between early adopters!

• First fight available
• Achievements
• Leaderboards and Highscores

 

 

Future Updates:

So what makes this Early Access? Title Tomorrow is planned to have a range of different minigames, bosses to fight, and even a storymode when it is finally released in full. This short look at the game will give us some immediate feedback on many important things for development such as the control scheme, the soundfx, music, and even the art style. We would otherwise not be able to get such feedback through a closed testing environment as easily and with such a broad spectrum for our audience.

There you go! Now that everythings been set in motion it's time to start getting feedback and making improvements! So go ahead, play some games. You deserve it!

We will be updating the site with links to the major markets once we have been published, so check back soon to be the first to play Title Tomorrow!

Period of Absence

Well, after a long absence from posting on this blog I have finally returned to update on our recent progress!

What Has Happened:

 

Let's see.. for starters Android Market is no longer known by that name. So if you look at past posts making reference to it, Google has now dubbed their mobile market "Google Play Store". I know, not nearly as catchy. All the same, we still love Android as a platform even with their questionable name change. 

Our first game TwoD_mentia has a grand total of ~2000 downloads now which is pretty significant for not even being finished! But now onto the big news...

We released our new game we've been working on! Kitten Vs. Zombie!

I've already updated the blog with a new page for it as well as added media on the media page. Currently I have it up on Google Play and it should be up on several other markets in the next few days. Consistent with our older posts, I plan to give an in depth look at our download statistics with these new markets as time passes.

There's also an exciting new feature to document as our new game starts getting noticed! I've implemented Tapjoy, an incentive based download system which should prove to be an interesting look at alternate methods than Ads or charging for apps. The downloads cost no money to users and it is completely optional if you want to take a look at the offers (they aren't imposed on you like other ad methods). So you can look foward to the results being documented in the near future.

Download Stats II

It's a new month and we've got some new numbers to share. We've got New Markets, Old Markets, and.. well I guess that's it in this post.

Downloads As of November 4th:

Android Market  :  285

Code.Google       :  53

SlideMe              :  136

Amazon Market  :  0

Indievania          :  0                                       Total  =  474 downloads

%Percentages of Total%

• Android Market - 60% we've been here longest but growth seems to be constant
• SlideMe - 28% it is very likely this market will surpass Android Market in the coming weeks
• Code.Google - 12% it might not be much, but it's a good starting point for beginning developers
• All others - 0%

**Some side notes*

• Android Market has been getting some updates recently in the developer console so hopefully the numbers of active installs are reflecting a little better this time around. We now have 84 active installs to stack alongside our 285 downloads. I think most of the people who uninstalled did so because the game is still in a demo state. Growth was 75 downloads since Oct. 19th thats a 26% increase in the Android market!
• Code.Google has still been pretty much abandoned as far as downloads are going since the release of the market download (probably because we put a huge button that said "Available in Android Market" on that page) We did however see a small amount of growth here since Oct. 19th accounting for 10 new downloads! thats a 20% growth!
• SlideMe still looks like the best alternative for developers trying to reach a wider audience, accounting for 136 downloads! Growth was 73 downloads since Oct. 19th for this market that's a 53% increase!!
• Indievania, Amazon Market, and ASC (AppStoreConnect) have all shown no signs of increase since their release. I was actually very surprised with Amazon Market, it took 2 weeks for them to review my app and allow it on the market, but it still has yet to get a single download since going live last week. So far I would have to say stick with Android Market and SlideMe for the best results.

Mid-October Update:

I know that not many people read this blog as of now, but I still think it's important to document my studio's work so far for future reference (like if we become popular later!).

So, Here's What's Been Going on This Month:

 

 

TwoD_mentia v0.1.2 was released bringing:

• New levels (and updates for old ones) to players  
• Minor bug fixes were made

 

 

Quite a bit of P.R. management has been going on:

• Initially I started the project on my DeviantArt profile, posting journals of my progress. I'm not sure I actually got anyone interested in my game here (my total page views are only 400), but I wanted to feel like I was marketing it somehow during development!
• Soon I moved over to code.google using our project page to market to other developers and the Replica Island coding community who were very helpful in giving feedback
• Eventually we forked over the $25 developer fee and uploaded our app to the Android Market! This officially gave us a label as an Android Development Studio
• In attempt to reach a larger audience, we have also uploaded the app to some third party distributors namely, Indievania and SlideMe. We have yet to see significant growth from these markets though
• Finally we created what you see here, our Studio Development Blog

We've reached 200+ downloads for the app in total and have a 5 star rating in the market!

TwoD_mentia Overview

This was a project that started out as just studying source code to get a little bit of understanding of how Android games work. After looking over and over at the open-sourced code of Replica Island it occurred to me.. wait I'm a graphic design major, as important as coding is, I need to show my artwork more than anything. So that's how it started out, rather than being as ambitious as I had planned in creating a completely unique game, I decided I would make a mod of Replica Island.

Now before you go Hey! That's basically just copying! I did use the open-source code provided by Replica Island's Chris Pruett, but I believe I have made it perfectly clear this game is an (extensive) mod from the original. The original creators of Replica Island were also attributed in the credits of the game. Anyone that has played both games can see that while it has similar mechanics used in the game, it is a completely new experience.

• The story has been completely rewritten 
• Characters have been modified to fit into my story structure (Yes, Shadowslime was starred as a guest appearance in tribute, however)
• New mechanics have been added to create additional challenges to overcome

Back to the development of the game, I knew that I wanted to create some sort of style which contrasted the differences between black and white (I will admit, Limbo the game was a huge influence). From here everything was built up to what your playing today.

STORY EXTENDED:

The story begins with a rescue cinematic performed by some mysterious Shadow character. It seems he has been tasked to retrieve at all costs this dying Shadow-blob creature he finds towards the end of the intro. (This is the character you become and will play throughout the game)

As a Shadow that was destroyed by the Light that seems to be taking over the world, you have been revived, but to a shocking surprise.. Not only have you retained all the powers that Shadows have been given, but it seems the extended expose from the Light has gifted you with unique abilities which fuse these mortal enemies; Light and Shadow.

You first come in contact with another Shadow creature (much like the first) that seems to be willing to teach you to control your abilities. In return, he wishes for you to join his resistance, to become the savior of the Shadow world, and for now this seems a righteous quest to be given.

In your first few levels you start to master your abilities as you are challenged both physically and mentally until you come into contact with a new, deceptive character. gRRm (as he calls himself) informs you of his plans for domination of the Shadow world and credits himself with the Light influx so far. He sees you as a valuable asset and presents to you a proposition: when you reach the source of the Light, rather than destroy it in favor of the Shadows, take a final stand and destroy the Shadow creatures instead. He asks this of you with promises of conversion, to make you 100% Light and more powerful than ever.

It will be up to you what you decide.. Will you protect those who have taken you as their own and defend the Shadows from the evil that is the Light, or will you succumb to your thirst for power and lead the transformation into this new world alongside gRRm?

Studio Description

You might already have some idea of who we are because well, you found our blog. For anyone who doesn't have any idea and somehow ended up here, we must be really interesting looking then!, here's our basic description:

• We are a game development studio created by Sean Kinnane when he developed his first game "TwoD_mentia". This page is going to be the main place we will be posting news on future releases, updates to our older games, and pretty much anything that relates to us that might be interesting to you, our audience. 
• While we aren't necessarily a "professional" studio by any means, we hope to release quite a few projects under this name in the near future. Really, we just needed a name to use as an identifier in the Android market and this seemed very fitting in relation to the name of our first project.
• If you have any feedback to what we're doing here let us know (things like suggestions to our older releases, what you would like to see next, etc.) We already have quite a few ideas for our next releases, but feel free to share what you would like to see us work on.
• Supporters and fans of TwoD_mentia: Don't worry, as ambitious as we are, we will be supporting all of our games until they are in a finished state and adding updates to fix problems / make changes as needed regularly.

• Ok, as of now I'm still the only one heading the studio, not sure why I keep saying we, but I do have some people that test my games consistently before each release, so I guess they could count as members, right?