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

5 days to go! - First review

I must little bit apologize for my last article. You know, this is my private place, my own personal diary, where I should write my thoughts and opinions. But last time I was asked to make a change a put here some official promotion/presentation text about Gelex. And I must admit that it was kind of reasonable request, because lots of people came here last days to find what Gelex is all about and instead of that, they’ve found what I think about price, social network systems and so on :) So I hope you understand that it was necessary, but I promise you, that this was one and only exception and will never happen again :) There are better places to advertise Gelex than my blog :)

Anyway, the important thing is that we have 5 days until the release day. I’m helping Handjoy with some promotion materials – some extra pictures and things like that. I’m slowly starting to plan and design some additions to Gelex for first update. Releasing updates and adding new and new things into the game is really important if you wanna keep the game alive.

But first update is distant future and I will write about it more sometimes later. What I wanna mention today is my very first review of Gelex. That’s so awesome! There have been some previews already – English ones or in different languages which I don’t understand, so I don’t know if it’s positive or negative critique :D (I hope for positive :) ) But this is full review and it is really great. So here it is: http://diygamer.com/2009/11/tetris-foolproofgelex/

I wanna thank DiyGamer for it. And that’s nice end for today’s post :)

Bye bye
Marie

Gelex – Granny Coder & Handjoy

Hello kids,
This article will be used as official introduction of my upcoming game Gelex. If you are regular reader of my blog, then you won't find here anything new except the video at the end. That’s something completely new :)

INTRODUCTION
Gelex is brand new iPhone/iPod Touch game for both casual and hardcore players. It combines physics elements with traditional match 3 concept. It is designed and fully optimized for the touch screen with easy to learn controls.

Help crazy physicist Alex and destroy his newly invented matter called Gelex. Gelex takes form of small, quite annoying, jelly bricks and the only way to destroy them is to match them by color in special vaporizing machine. The more matches you make, the higher your score. So what are you waiting for? Enter Alex's awesome laboratory and start your helping mission.

MAIN FEATURES:
• Jellylike physics
• Progressive difficulty
• Funny voices and animations
• Challenging achievements
• Online and offline leaderboards
• Facebook integration

If you like puzzle arcade games, then you will love this one!

Release date: 4th December 2009

PRESS INFORMATION-MATERIALS

PICTURES



VIDEO


Love,
Granny Marie

Approved!

Hello kids,
This is just a short post. Gelex has been approved by Apple and it is ready for sale. But don't look for it on iTunes AppStore right now, it isn't there yet. As I mentioned before, the release date is set on December 4th.

Ten more days and the game will be out. By the way there are more than 1200 results on that contest query on Google. I hope you know what that means :D Gelex will be for free the day when it hits the AppStore :) And maybe even the other days. It's up to you!

Bye bye
Marie

Submitted or not submitted?

Hello kids,
After my last blog post there is only one thing I can write today, because anything else would mean that something went horribly wrong. But don’t worry, everything went just fine and I’m proud to announce that the game was successfully submitted to Apple! and now it is in their hands.

If you look at the picture on the left side of this blog you can find that I’ve completed all tasks including the last one “submission to AppStore”. So the project is finished. What now? Well, I’m gonna take some rest :) But right after that there are tons of other things that need to be done. I will try to write all about it in future.

Last part of my today’s article will be some formalities which I must mention. Lots of people ask me about promo codes. I’m really happy about that, but I can’t send you them. Firstly the game is in approval procedure and it is not on AppStore yet. Because of that nobody has any promo codes yet. At least I don’t know how to receive promo codes from Apple before the game is on iTunes. And secondly my publisher is responsible for these activities so you should probably ask them.

I’ve told them about this promo codes problem and there is very simple solution. So if you are reviewer or blog writer or anyone else who wants to try Gelex before release and write something about it, they will be happy to send you AdHoc version of the game. AdHoc version is normal version of the game and certificate for your own iPhone which gives you permission to start this application. It’s needed to know your iPhone UDID to create this certificate.

Let’s sum it up. If you are journalist who wants to try Gelex, please contact Pavel Barak from Handjoy – his email address is barak@handjoy.cz Send him some lovely email :) and your iPhone ID and I can assure you, that he will be nice on you and give you Gelex game for review. Of course you can write me – email, comment under this article, or message on Twitter, but I will just resend it to him.

And please don’t forget -> I want Gelex for free! There are more than 100 results already, but I want more :) And you should probably too. :)

Bye
Granny Marie

… and what about price?

Hello kids,
I am very happy to announce that THE GAME is finished! Everything on Gelex is set and done and I will submit it tomorrow to Apple. I’m still asking myself – will people like it and enjoy it as much as I do? Is it good enough? Shouldn’t I add something more into it? But the main question in my head is: What about the price?! So here is an article about it :)

From very first day of my game development journey I was sure, that this is just my hobby, I’m doing it for fun and mainly to prove, that I can do it. So it is not surprising, that I planned the game to be for free and I still think that it should be for free, but the guys from Handjoy still trying to convince me, that the game is good enough to be commercial. They say that it is even better than most other commercial games on iPhone. Hehe :) I don’t believe them a word :)

But I know they are putting money into marketing. There is professional trailer in development and other things that can’t be done without money. So here we have little dilemma. And of course I was little bit arguing with Handjoy about the price. But in the end, we have found the conclusion -> Gelex will be for free!!!

But there are conditions... like always :) The game will be completely for free, but just for limited time after its release. And only if people will really want it for free :) And how to prove, that you really want it for free? It’s simple. Just write anywhere on the internet message> I want Gelex for free! You can write it into YouTube comments, various discussion forums, on your twitter/facebook page, on your blog, write article about it or into comments under some other article. Simply just anywhere :)

If the Apple approval procedure will go smooth, the game will be released on Friday the 4th of December. The day before (Thursday) I’m gonna search Google using the quoted query “I want Gelex for free!” (This whole sentence with quotes. link ) and the results will set the price. Right now, there are no results on Google. So, people have nearly 3 weeks to change it :)

And how many results there should be? Well, Handjoy wants the game for 2,99$. I want it for free. Together we’ve agreed that:

• 50 results on Google -> Starting price will be 1,99$
• 100 results on Google -> Starting price will be 0,99$
• 500 results on Google -> Gelex will be first day for free (Friday)
• 1000 results on Google -> Gelex will be for free on Friday and Saturday
• 2000 and more results on Google -> Gelex will be for free whole weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday and maybe Monday in the morning :) ).

So if you are waiting for Gelex and want it for free, then here is your chance. I hope you appreciate my effort in lowering the price as much as I could. Handjoy would make it for 2,99$ without comments – bad guys. Hehe. No no, they are great, but sometimes they must stop thinking only about business :)

Bye bye my dears
Granny Marie

Beta version in action (+video)

Hello kids,
This time I won’t write too much, because I wanna give you something better. It’s brand new video that my grandsons created last week. You can see there beta version of Gelex from start to finish. That means – short intro, menu with little sneak peek into help section, little bit of ingame play and menu again, but this time another section. Here it is:



So, what you think? I’m spending so much time with this game, but I still love to watch it :) I hope you enjoyed this short video preview as much as I do.

Love
Granny Marie

Silence before the storm

Hello kids,
After 3 weeks and something I have finally time and energy to write my new post. I don’t know how to apologize for such a long pause. But you know what? Maybe it is like silence before the storm :) Because storm is coming! It has a name and that name is Gelex! Even my Jasmina is excited about it :) I have so many great news for you that I can’t wait to write about them.

First of all Gelex is in final stage of development. It contains all elements I wanted to be there and right know we are just testing it. Yeah, I said “we” and that’s right, because of second great news -> I’ve got publisher! Can you believe that? Me, old lady, who just wanted to prove, that even in my age you can do something like that. And now, after few months, my game is nearly finished and there is someone who will publish it to the world! They just read my blog and after that decided to contact me. It was few weeks ago, but everything was so unsure that I didn’t want to write about it earlier. But now we have a deal and I hope it will help Gelex find a way to more people.

The publisher is Handjoy company. They are also from Czech Republic, so it was easier for me to communicate with them. They are such a nice people. This weekend they will be presenting the game on Game Developer Session. It’s amazing! They even helped me with some last parts of development - especially with sound effects and music. But I will write about it sometimes later.

I wanna write more but I must keep something for tomorrow :) I hope I will be able to write every other day like before. I also wanna thanks to all your support, it’s marvelous. Thank you

Granny Marie