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iOS Editions... Blog
17th February 2013
You're probably wondering, by now, with all this wonderful "Monkey" stuff that I've been banging on about for the past month, where the heck my iOS offerings are.
Well, while it's true that Monkey does indeed make the coding a heck of a lot easier, there's still another matter to attend to.
The dreaded "iTunes Connect" area! ARGH!!!!

You've probably read enough of my rants to know that iDev isn't easy.
There are licenses to deal with. "Provision" codes, Certificates, all manner of stupid fiddly things that all need to be "Just right" before XCode will let you do anything useful.
Then there's a whole separate batch of alternative certificates and codes, when you finally want to create an uploadable edition of your app.
It's absolutely MENTAL, the amount of crap you have to deal with, just to get your project up and running.

Today, I've decided that C3ntipong should be my first Monkey->iOS game, and took the time to prepare its iTunes page.
..
well, I say that.. I actually decided on this yesterday, but then realised I'd need screenshots and great big icons and shit, so kinda put it off until today.

Today, I did it all..
-=-=-

To start with, you need to get your app running on your devices, so you can get screenshots.
Ideally, you could grab the screenshots from the emulator, but the emulator doesn't fit on your smegging monitor, in full size, because the iOS devices have such ginormous resolutions, and I'm "only" running on a HD 1080p monitor.. Hmmm.. :
So that options out, right from the get-go. It's Device or Nothing.

Get the games running, take screenshots, email screenshots to yourself because it's quicker than waiting for Photo Stream to pick them up from all the different devices, and then shove them into a folder.

Next, you need the icon.
Aaah, the icon.
For some stupid inexplicable reason, Apple want your tiny little icon at 1024x1024 pixels.
That's more than half of your HD 1080p monitor's resolution!
.. that's a pretty fucking big icon, there, Apple!!

But whatever, you follow the rules, you make the icon, whatever..

That gets plopped into the "upload" folder along with the screenshots, and then.. well, then you need to deal with the Badges.
Ah, yeah.. Badges. *sigh* GameCenter is SUCH a lovely environment, isn't it?

C3ntipong contains 20 badges. The first 8 are "Bounce x Coloured Pod off your bat", the next 8 are "Bounce y Coloured Pod off your bat until it bursts" and then there's three Ball Bonus ones, and lastly a Skill Shot.
Nothing amazing. Nothing unique. Just bog-standard achievements.

Ingame, the icons for these are as big as 128x128 pixels, on a Retina iPad.
So, what size does Apple want them in? Ah, of course.. 1024x1024..
...
It would be nice if I could cram all these icons into a folder, have a text file with all the descriptions, and upload the whole kit'n'kaboodle in one go.
.. yes, that would be very nice.
But no.
Not in Apple-World.

Here's what I have to do..
1) Click "Add Achievement"
2) Enter a title for the achievement (Name of Badge goes here!)
3) Enter a Unique Identifier for the achievement (Used ingame by your code)
4) Give the achievement a score
5) Click "No" to disable hiding it. (Neither yes or no is auto-selected, so you HAVE to click one..)
6) "Add Language"
7) Select "English"
8 ) Enter a title for the achievement (yes.. ... this is the same as #2!)
9) Add a description for the achievement which appears BEFORE the player has earned it.
10) Add the exact same description, but make it past-tense, because the player has now earned it.
11) Upload the 1024x1024 pixel image that it'll draw at about 1/8th that size.
12) Save
13) Save again#

13 steps. Unlucky for some.
Slightly repetitive, too, especially steps 9 and 10.
Your computer's clipboard has only one copy/paste thing, and you're going to need that for the awkward "Unique Identifier" in step 3, so that's that.. Everything else, as stupidly repetitive as it is, needs to be typed manually.
Oh, goody!!!
Because, that's not annoying..

Keep in mind, this is only ONE badge..
And there's 20 of the smegging things to do.
It's super-repetitive-typing time! Yippeeeee!!!

This took me about an hour, this morning.
If I could've simply uploaded a file with everything in, it would've been a crapload quicker, and easier.. and MUCH less repetitive!!!
I've already typed all of these out. They're already in my smegging game engine!
I did NOT need to sit here, and spend a whole frickin' morning retyping the whole bloody lot.

*ugh*

Then I had to add the three scoreboards, which is pretty much the same deal, but with more clicking to set things like "High to Low" and "Numbers, please!"
...
Job done.
For now.

Except it's not quite done, because my iOS Monkey games are still blocking background music. Can't have that.. Must be fixed!!!
If all goes well, I should be uploading C3ntipong at some point in the next few days.
After that, I'll get to work uploading and typing and typing and typing and typing and typing and typing and typing to add all of SpikeDislike2's badges. .. oh boy, am I glad I came up with so many badges for that.. :

-=-=-

Long story short

The reason you're seeing Android games pop up instantly, and iOS games waiting, is because of all of this shit. I can happily just plop an Android game into my archive, and have done with it, whereas EVERY SINGLE GAME for iOS needs this much care and attention. iDev isn't exactly AGameAWeek friendly!
Once I start using GooglePlay properly, I might find Android Dev is just as bloody awkward, but for now we'll stick to just cramming 'em onto my archive!
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