Gelex is free!

Hello dears,
my game Gelex is free on AppStore now! My publisher decided to offer the game for free so you can download it if you did not do it yet. Hope you will like it! Go and grab one copy for yourself. Let me know how you like it...

Bye,

Marie

Buy Gelex now a get 66% discount!

Hello dears!
My game Gelex is on sale! Get it now and get 66% discout. So hurry up to get your copy of my game for your iPhone and iPod: http://itunes.com/app/gelex

Hope you will like it. Let me know...

By,

Granny Marie

Ready to go!

Hello kids,
Gelex is available on iTunes AppStore all around the world. I don't know what more to say. It's here, it's free, there is contest running and here is brand new trailer:



I love this video even if I am not the author. Handjoy did it to promote the game.

Yesterday was really nervous and busy day. And Gelex was already available in some countries! Firstly in New Zealand, then Japan, Australia and so on. It was really excited to watch. Now it's everywhere :)

Today's post is just short article, but I wanna mention one more thing. Gelex is free to download, we all know that, but if you like the game, having fun playing it and want to support me or think that I should get something for my effort? Then you could donate something through PayPal donation, which Handjoy created for this purpose. But it's completely up to you, if you don't like the game and think it's worthless, then nobody pushes you to do anything :)

Thank you for reading, I hope to see your Gelex highscores on Facebook.
Granny Marie

1 day to go! - Contests

Hello kids,
It's here. Tomorrow is the D Day. But before that, there are some things that need to be done and said. Well, you probably know what I am talking about. Firstly it's our already running price contest. And secondly it is brand new competition (which I mentioned yesterday) where you can win exclusive gifts!

But first things first. As you probably remember, 3 weeks ago I've announced on my blog new contest, where you will decide what will be the starting price for Gelex. It was also said, that if you really want Gelex for free, it's gonna happen. And I am happy to announce, that you've made a great job and the game will be for free! Here is the final result:



1 600 results is enough to make the game free for first two days after the release. But I've convinced Handjoy to make it free for whole weekend until Monday! That's awesome and I hope you won't miss this opportunity to get Gelex without any doubts.

Gelex competition on Facebook
In conjunction with Handjoy we have prepared another contest, which will start tomorrow, when you start playing Gelex :) This competition is very simple. You need to beat all other Gelex players, earn the highest score in the game and win great prizes!

If you wanna participate in this competition you need to do following steps:

 • Add me as your friend on Facebook
 • Download and start playing Gelex :)
 • Connect Gelex with your facebook account (In Gelex options menu click on Facebook icon and follow instructions. It's very simple.)
 • Play Gelex and try to reach best score you can :)
 • When you finish your game, boast about your score on Facebook (click on Boast button on “Game over screen”)

The first step is very important, because if you don't add me as your friend then I will not see your Facebook message and you won't be involved in this contest. So I advise you to do it now :)

This contest ends after this weekend. On Monday I will announce winners and Handjoy will send you your prize. And what are the prizes? Well here it is:

 • 1. Place – The Highest score: 40$ iTunes email gift certificate
 • 2. Place: 20$ iTunes email gift certificate
 • 3. Place: 10$ iTunes email gift certificate
 • 5 random contestants will receive promo code for Handjoy's iPhone game Jumboo (1,99$)

So what you think? I think you should try it, there is nothing to lose.

Bye bye and be prepared for tomorrow :)
Marie

2 days to go! – Facebook

Hello kids,
When I started this blog, it was just for one purpose> to let people know what I'm doing and maybe to help some of them start doing something similar. So obviously I wanted to inform people about my blog, that it exists and that they can find here some (maybe :) ) interesting information. But how to do that? All I've heard and read was -> you have to be on Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and maybe other social networks to be known and your blog to be known.

Well, I've listened to that advice and created my Twitter account and started writing there. I also created my YouTube account and with help of my grandsons I've created some videos and put them there. But no Myspace, no Facebook. You couldn’t find me there and I was not planning to change it in the future.

But I still felt, that if I wanna spread Gelex world wide as much as possible, I need to somehow connect at least one of these social networks with the game or this blog. It was shortly after that, when I found out, that many other iPhone games use Facebook integrated to them. You know the story already -> I started searching and learning more about it :) The result is Facebook Connect API for iPhone – small code and some libraries, which you can easily integrate into your application.

With Facebook Connect API you (as a programmer) have access into users' accounts (of course only if they agree with that) and use it for various purposes. The simplest one is to write some new status message (again, only if the owner of that account agrees with that). More complicated are things like take information about all your friends and compare your game score with theirs. In the game you can see all your facebook friends and compare with them.

So I've integrated Facebook API into Gelex, but for now only the simple way. That means -> if you finish your game, you can easily boast about your score in new facebook status message and ask your friends to beat it. You can see how it looks like on the picture below:



As you can see on the picture I’ve created my own facebook account. I did that yesterday and you can add me as your friend if you want :) I can reveal you little secret -> there's gonna be another new contest related to Facebook starting with the Gelex release! But I can't tell you more right now.

Back to Facebook connect topic :) I hope I will be able to improve it in future and add more Facebook related functions. Like achievements, this is good way to update your application and add new features.

Thank you for reading
Marie

3 days to go! - Achievements

Hello kids,
I wanna introduce you another Gelex feature which you could saw in one of my previous videos if you looked carefully. This new thing is -> Achievements!

I must admit, that it was not my idea to include achievements into the game. Because few months ago I didn’t even know that something like that exists! You know, I always wanna add some challenges which would be keeping players to play it over and over (apart from trying to beat their previous score), but I was unsure how to do that. And then my grandsons came and told me: “Yeah, you should add achievements into it. It’s well known thing on consoles and lots of games got it.” So I started searching and learning more things about it. Again :) And I’ve realized that this is the perfect thing I wanna add into my game.

Current version of Gelex, which you could download just in 3 days! (I know ,I know. I’m annoying, but it is so close, that I must repeat it to myself again and again :) ), has got 30 different achievements. Some of them are very easy and simple, some are extremely difficult (I can’t achieve them or even be close to achieve them. But I hope you will be better player than I am. :) ) and some are just for fun, like the one where you should lose in first level to achieve it or the one where you should fill/cover whole playing field with Gelex bricks (this is also extremely difficult).

Achievements are simply good feature you should add into your game. Another positive thing about them is that it is good for updates. I have idea about many other achievements that could be added in future updates. So instead of 30, there will be 40, then 50 or even more challenges to achieve.

Ok kids, that’s all for now. One last thing I wanna mention -> there are still few promo codes left, so if you wanna try it before release and write about it somewhere, don’t worry to contact me or Pavel.

Bye
Granny Marie

4 days to go! - Highscore

We have only 4 days till the release and I still have some arrears. For example: finishing these two articles (first, second) about online highscore system in Gelex.

Highscore in Gelex is very simple. There are 3 different tables. One for overall score, second for your best combo/chain (destroyed bricks in bonus time) and third table is handling number of destroyed bricks during whole game. Once you finish your game these data are stored into these tables and sorted. Information about date and time, when it was played, is also saved. There is nothing special about it. On the picture you can see how the result looks.

That’s the local part. More interesting is online part. First time you join Gelex online system, you will be asked if you really wanna submit your high score. That’s little bit annoying, but Apple wants it this way. Then you need to enter your nickname. But only once (first time) and you will be never asked again (only if you want to change it). And that means not just in this game, but in any other (future) game, which will be using this system. You are represented in database by unique ID and the system is able to recognize you. So no further questions, filling forms and anything. That’s it; whole registration is just about filling your nickname.

Right now you will see in online highscore your best score, your position in this global leader-board and few people with better score and few with worse. I’m planning to add some options to search these online leaderboards, but these will be implemented in some future update. Same thing applies to possibility compare your score with your friends.

I hope you have better idea about Gelex highscore system now. Maybe it is just little thing for the game, but it is really important thing. At least I think so :)

Bye
Granny Marie