OttoJotts and other stuff

Been working on the back-end pieces of OttoJotts over the past few weeks. It's been slower than I'd hoped, both because I'd run into a small issue that was keeping me from moving forward with the game views and because I was finding other things I wanted to do instead (like catch up on Reddit and watch some videos). I've been a bit demotivated the past few weeks. Lots of stuff happening personally and financially that have added more stress than I needed right now.
On the OttoJotts front, though, things have been progressing reasonably well given the time I've spent on them. Right now I've got the account information and the main game list showing up. I still have to get the game details (the guesses and such) showing up and the ability to start games. Still a lot of work left but once I get these things sorted out it's a lot of playtesting and hooking it up to the iPhone.
iPad is still something of a question. I don't own one so I'll need to rely on people who do to test it out. I'd like to make sure that it works and that I have a good set of graphics for it so it looks reasonable. Just hoping that at least one of my friends is willing to help out. *wink wink*
The other issue I've been running across has been my ADHD kicking in wanting me to work on another small project and get it out. That's kind of what OttoJotts was supposed to be, so I hesitate to jump through the hoops to get something started only to end up on month 15 with nothing yet to show for it. I need to take a Kanban approach and just finish the work in progress and then work on the next thing. It's something I've struggled with for years and is once again rearing its ugly head. I wish I were more motivated to finish OttoJotts and get it done. Maybe I'm unable to complete things. Maybe I'm afraid of what happens if I do complete it (total flop). I don't know - it's just frustrating and adds to my stress level.
Anyway, lots to do at the "real job" (for now). I have tons to do still but I can actually pull this out if I can just get some focus on it. Send happy, supportive thoughts!

More updates

I don't want to sound like a broken record, so thankfully this post avoids that. I've been working on cleaning up the back-end PHP code for OttoJotts so I can create a basic web interface that will exercise the two-player game. One of the concerns at this stage is that I'm going to spend too much time on the iOS front end and less on the actual game play. By working on the back-end I'm focusing my attention on the actual play. This also has the benefit of being the basis for a web interface for other things.
I've almost completed moving all of the actual working code into functions that can be called from either the iOS-supporting PHP code or from an HTML page directly. Given my (relatively) intermediate skills in web development, I'm hoping I can get something written up without killing myself to provide access. Some things, like creating an account and such, I'll pass on as that will require some effort. Rather, I'll just do that manually for now and then later work on getting something coded up that's pretty and usable.
Overall I'm pretty happy with how things have been going. I know that there's an added security benefit to what I'm doing, which is definitely a good thing. PHP has had a reputation for being somewhat "security lax" but there are things that you can do to harden it. Part of this work is doing that hardening.
So, things are progressing even if not visibly. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get this hammered out in the next few days and then I can work on the web interface. Then I'll be able to test the two player game code and, if everything's working well, be good to go. This does make me wonder, though, whether I should just do a web interface iOS app for the two player game and get the single player game out there. So do an OttoJotts solitaire version now-ish, get the web version working and then write a web UI wrapper app for the two-player game since I'm finding the two versions are radically different. Need to think this one over a little bit...
Until next time...

2012 Updates and Such

So I totally suck at updating this thing in any reasonable sense. It was a very busy period since February of last year through the end of the year. My son, Andrew, was born in April and a lot cascaded from that event, as you'd expect. Summer vacation was then upon us and a lot of things cropped up meaning that nothing happened with OttoJotts. Then the new school year was upon us and then Halloween and then Turkey Day and then Christmas (holy crap where did December go?!) and then New Year's. Wow.
So now it's 2012. The end of the world will be upon us in 352 days so I better get cracking on this game. What's on tap for right now is finishing up the two-player games which are started (mostly it's just friend management right now) and getting out Alpha 4 with those and then getting the rest of the functionality into Alpha 5 so I can get Beta 1 polished and out the door. The goal for Alpha 4 is to be out to testers by the end of February, Alpha 5 by Memorial Day, and the final game by Independence Day. What? You don't measure your year by holidays?
So that's the plan. It looks good on paper and may actually be do-able. We'll have to see. I just feel that there's an awful lot left to do and this really, sadly, isn't my full-time job. It's not even really a part-time job what with playing dad with the kiddos and stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to devote some more time to getting this project done. I've only got like 5 other ideas I want to get working on before the world ends in, *checking* yup, 352 days.

New OttoJotts UI Ideas

I was in the shower today getting ready to pick up Cathy from a birthday party (no, not that one - we unfortunately missed that one *headdesk*). This was not her cousin Zavi's party in Laramie but my best friend Dan's son Matthew's 6th birthday. It was at Chuck E Cheese's and now that I've wasted far too much time with off-topic over-explanation, let me get back to the point of this post - user interface ideas for OttoJotts.
So while I was in the shower I began thinking back to the days when I used to play Jotto and what usually had to suffice for Jotto sheets when we'd exhausted our supply. We opted for legal pads, a ruler, and a pen. So this made me wonder - what if I made the UI look like a legal pad (or at least just lined paper) and then had all of the buttons and letters be handwritten? I think it might be "retro", but I think retro is hip these days (it's so hard to tell sometimes). PLUS, it's something that I, with my limited graphic artist skills could likely pull off. That was a definite benefit.
I think it would be very cool to have a slick UI like, say, Words with Friends, but I'm just NOT a graphic artist. Been there, done that, got my wrist slapped. I may just need to accept my limitations on this particular point (not that I ever thought I was a graphic artist). What does this mean for Alpha 4? Absolutely nothing. I'm sure I'll find ways to try to derail myself from actually working on code and work on the cool new UI, but it needs to wait until Beta 1. The alphas are all about functionality; betas are about polish. So that's kind of the thinking for, say, April. And I've got a cool idea for the badges, but that's later as well.
I guess we'll see how well I can keep this "shiny new toy" on the back burner. I've actually managed to get most of the friend and game creation code done and in, which was surprisingly smooth. There's still a lot of hardening that needs to happen, but I think that once I get into that mode it will be straightforward to do pretty much the same thing to every file. Plus, I need to make the code a little harder to exploit, which I hope I can get done with a minimum of fuss. Let's just hope I can keep up some of the focus here to make this project FINALLY successful.

Decisions, decisions

So after sleeping on it last night, I have a plan. Scary, I know. I've always planned on integrating OttoJotts into Facebook as well and, since I'm going to do that, I think I need to release the game with 2 player games. First, as I mentioned in my previous post, I don't think there's really enough solitaire content to make the game compelling for 1 player. The 2 player game is really where it's at and, when I honestly think about why I did the 1 player game version, it was mostly to vet the concept and test the subsystems. Now that the 1 player game is mostly complete (sans hardening) it's time to really get into the 2 player game. I need to remind myself about the success that Words with Friends had and it's only a 2 player game - there is no solitaire game available.
So, with that said, I've recommitted myself to finishing the bloody thing with 2 player games available. I've been a bit down about the lack of progress and I'm sure that's what's going on (plus it's been a bit tight financially at Chez DeVoe). I think the need to make a bigger, better splash with OttoJotts is far more important than trying to get just something out the door. If I put out a piece of crap (fart apps, anyone?) then people are less likely to trust that my follow-up games are going to be any good. As the first app from the "studio", I need to make sure that it's a good one that people will think is good quality and good value for the money (if not excellent). Then, as my other apps come online, they'll be more inclined to get something else from me.
What this all means, I guess, is that I'm back on the initial track. After a reasonable night's sleep, I actually have some ideas for handling the game creation. Yes, it will take a little time to get it sorted, but I think it will be cleaner in the end, re-use some code (which is always good), and still meet the needs that the 2 player games require. So, back to the salt mines.

What to do?

So I've been having a bit of crisis of faith on OttoJotts. I think the game is pretty fun and should be enjoyable for total word geeks like me. The concern I'm having, though, is that as I get further and further into the two player games, the more things crop up that need to be addressed. For example, most recently I realized that in order to do two player games I need to revamp how the games are set up - and that they'll be different for 2 player than for solitaire. This, in and of itself, isn't what's causing the crisis, but rather it's the whole process. I've been working on 2 player games all this year. I haven't been doing it full time, but I've spent upwards of 2 weeks of actual time (80 hrs) working on it and I keep finding whole new sets of things I need to do before I can move forward. So now the question is - should I keep moving forward with the 2 player games and have them available at launch or should I launch the single player (solitaire) games and then, in an update, add the 2 player games?
I'd say that a fair portion of the games in the App Store are single player. You might be able to challenge someone to beat your score or something, but in general the two player/multiplayer market isn't quite as prevalent. So having 2 player, competitive gaming would be a differentiator for my game, but the time it's taking (or at least seems to be taking) is making me wonder if it will EVER get out.
Currently I'm still torn on what to do. I'm not sure that the single player/solitaire game is going to be compelling enough to keep someone playing. There's not enough there yet (achievements, etc) to make it something that a player would come back to over and over again. The graphics need to be redone to make it look a bit more professional (any graphic artists willing to work on a royalty basis out there?) and the game play needs to be cleaned up and the app hardened overall (error handling, etc). So I've still got at least 2 weeks of work left to do all of that, even if I dump 2 player games for now.
So, what to do?

Been WAAAAAY Too Long

Well, it's been a LONG time since I've posted, but we've had a LOT going on here. To give a quick run-down:

• The 9-5 got interesting at the end of the year as my contract may have ended abruptly. Thankfully it didn't, but it was still quite a bit of shock that it might have happened.
• The spousal unit got REALLY sick. Sick to the point where she's still on short-term disability from HER job trying to recover. And when she does recover, she likely won't have said job. *sigh* She's been overly prone to illness lately because...
• The spousal unit is PREGNANT! Yeah, trust me - it was a surprise. A wonderful one, no doubt, but a surprise nonetheless. SO much to do and so little time. Due date is May 2nd and his name is going to be Andrew Ximun William. Yeah, we're sort of into two middle names. His big sister is just thrilled that she's going to be a big sister. :)

Other than that, the work I've decided to tackle for Alpha 4 is the meat of the project - two player, server-based games. That's requiring a lot of doing both PHP and Objective-C, but things are progressing. I've gotten a lot accomplished over the past few days, getting friends lists into the database and retrievable. I just finished creating accounts/logging into an existing account code. Took longer than I'd hoped but it came together nicely at the end. I'm storing hashed passwords (obviously) in the DB, but when I looked at the size of the hash I calculated half the size it really was, so I couldn't log in (because the two hashes didn't match - I wonder why?). I finally got that sorted out and things have progressed wonderfully since then.
Today has been a day about friends and creating games. I've got code in there to randomly find an opponent who's similarly rated (I'm using a modified Elo system for rankings). The idea is that you'll play someone who won't completely blow you away - unless you choose a friend who so far-outclasses you that it's ridiculous. Good thing is that Elo takes that into account and more than 400 point ratings differences tend to result in no change (as the result is practically guaranteed).
Searching for an opponent by their email is almost there as well. I just need to hook up the iOS code to do the query, but the PHP is solid on the back-end. One thing that I haven't done yet and I really need to make sure happens before release is to bullet-proof the PHP back-end. PHP is generally derided for being not-as-security-rich as some other technologies. If you've got pretty confined entry/exit points, though, I think it can be pretty solid. Regardless, in the interest of getting Alpha 4 done and out to testers I've neglected that, but it will need to happen for Alpha 5/Beta 1.
Also thrown into the mix is a new website design. I think I'm getting a lot closer to actually finishing this bloody project and I thought the old design (while state of the art in 2001) has not aged well and was in sore need of replacement. I've gone with a Wordpress front end, but I need to tweak the hell out of it to make it more aligned with my ideas. There are some things that I'm not grokking from the posting/pages side of things with WP, but I'll beat up on it once I'm done with Alpha 3.
So, that's it from here for now. LOTS happening, but hopefully this will be done by May and I can take my paternity leave in the knowledge that I've got my game in the App Store paying for at least some of the diapers we'll need to get.

Alpha 3 Release

The announcement on Facebook!

It's official - I just sent out Alpha 3 tonight. I wish it were a little more solid, but I've been testing it for a while and it seems stable. I've had a couple of bugs that I haven't been able to reproduce, so I'm going to spend a little time this next build working on using the Build and Analyze functionality. The next version is going to be HUGE, so it's important to get it all working solidly.
As I posted previously, the UI and game play changes for Alpha 3 are pretty good. I've added difficulty levels (making the game a lot easier to actually play), and the UI is cleaner. I've also captured some things and sent it over to a designer friend I'm hoping will be able to help with the graphics and the layout. I feel like there are places where it's pretty good but that there are far more places where it's just clunky and not working at all.
Of course the big thing is that this should let people play a little more frequently as the game won't be quite as impossible as the original. Jotto was a pretty niche product (and my mom and I were firmly centered in that niche), but I think it just couldn't really excel as a game because of it's difficulty. I expect that the game will be much more approachable now and to a wider variety of people.
There is still one thing I need to sort out with the word list, though, which is creating a simple word evaluation page so that people can rate words as Easy, Medium, or Hard. That should help segment some of the much harder words from casual players. I'm hoping that some of my Facebook friends will be able to help parse the list (it's pretty extensive) and provide a basic clumping of words by difficulty. It should be a quick change to the code to enable that in the code.
The next big step (and the next Alpha) will be to have two player games, which entails a TON. I need to get user accounts set up, figure out how to deal with people who change phones but want to keep their information, creating friend lists, getting multiple games working, and, of course, manage the basics of having a server-based game as opposed to a device-based one. Definitely a big challenge, especially the back-end piece. Still, I'm hoping that I'll be able to get it done in time for Christmas - that's my big goal. Hopefully before Thanksgiving - that would be awesome.
So, now that Alpha 3 is out the door, I guess I better get working on Alpha 4!

More UI updates and Alpha 3 status

I've been working on the UI layouts for the Easy and Medium difficulty levels. So far it's been going pretty well with the change in direction, so I've got some ideas I need to get feedback on, so if you have an opinion, please share!

The latest version is showing the green and blue boxes around correct answers (green is correct placement). I'm trying to see whether the colors/placement/layout/style seem usable or if it's somewhat unpleasant. I'd like it to be a little more stylized eventually - probably rounded corners and they wouldn't necessarily abut one another - but for Alpha 3 it may be "good enough" to get feedback about the difficulty level game play. The good thing is that things have gone really well with this update. The only thing remaining for functionality is saving/loading and loading old games. The upgrade path has to be supported. I've also considered allowing games of more and less than 5 letters as that's all hooked up on the back-end already. And I'm considering allowing multiple games now, just no more than one game with a particular word length (no more than one 5 letter word game, for instance). Those would be some small updates but might make Alpha 3 a little bigger release.
I was just checking on my list of things that I wanted to do for Alpha 3 and I do have a little bit of work left. What I had on my list to accomplish was the following:

• Online Leaderboard
• Player data tracking for game play

Interestingly, I didn't do either of those, but the need to get difficulty levels was more compelling this time around. I may dump those for Alpha 3 just to finish this up and get it out to testers. I'm really curious how the game play works with the easy and medium difficulty levels. It may be cleaner as well because I'm going to be doing a LOT of back-end work with Alpha 4. That next big thing is two-player gaming, so that should be interesting. A LOT of things to do there; could easily take a couple of months to get everything working. It will be a huge amount of work to get all of the different elements integrated, but I do hope that I'll be finished with it by around November. I'd like to get it submitted to Apple around Halloween if possible so I can try to get it out to reviewers before Thanksgiving and out in time for the Christmas season. I don't think sales would be heavily impacted by the holidays, but folks who get a gift card for Christmas might drop $0.99 on my game.
So, if you have any feedback on the UI, please let me know. I think I like it "enough" for the time being to not really worry about it. I'm trying to get this all wrapped up by the weekend so I can get it released and then out to testers. Then it's all two-player games. Wowser!

Potential change for Alpha 3 UI

Original Jotto (tm)
sheet

I've been considering the conundrum I've made for myself with this text coloring issue. I've not be able to get the text to display as I wanted without having to almost completely draw it by hand (and make using the Cocoa Touch classes worthless). I did, however, have something of an epiphany while deciding what to do. What I considered is this - what if the word the player picked was EERIE. Would a blue "I" be that terribly visible to a player? It would like very much like this: EERIE (the I is bolded in that word). In other words, yes, the word EERIE looks good when it's laid out in regular text, but for the game, it might make more sense to instead display the letters independently in boxes/labels, rather than try to just change the colors of individual letters. Stumbling upon this epiphany was kind of interesting. I had been, just to get the bloody thing done, considering doing some "lights" under the letters to show which were correct/right position, etc. But then it dawned on me that it's not a fixed font - it's proportional. Which meant that some letters, like W, would be very obviously green or blue, but that others, like I and J, would be much harder to see with colors.

Detail of the Jotto (tm) sheet

I had been thinking of NOT doing this but in retrospect it's what the original game does as well (as shown to the left). And yes, that was lifted from Wiki. Using the boxes (which will need to be dynamic, based on the number of letters in the game) will change the look of the game a little bit, but I think it will make it a lot cleaner in terms of what the player is viewing and should help simplify the display issues I was seeing. I just kind of wish that I had thought of this sooner.
On an amusing aside, before the advent of real word processors, my mom and I used to play this game a lot. Unfortunately, we ended up going through a lot of sheets and had an issue where we couldn't play without making sheets of our own. The places where we would normally buy the game didn't carry it anymore (it had sort of petered out in popularity by then), so we were kind of out of luck. There's only so much time you want to spend making tally sheets versus actually playing the game. My grandmother lives in New York (on Long Island) and there was actually a distributor of Jotto there on Long Island.

The notice at the bottom of the sheet

I recall the two of us driving there to get what felt like boxes and boxes of sheets. I then took those back with me to Laramie where we probably played a full box in the first two weeks I was home. Ahhh, good times.
I'm hoping this new direction will make things a lot easier moving forward. It should simplify the work that needs to be done and only slightly complicates the code (need to figure out which labels I'll be using for the different length words). Beyond that, though, I'm actually thinking I might be able to get this puppy done by Wednesday if things continue going as well as they have. Which they won't, so we're likely looking at Halloween. Here's hoping!

*headdesk*

I've been working on OttoJotts all night and now I'm starting to get a headache from something I'm trying to do. The plan I had was to change the color of the letters in the word a person guessed to show them which letters were correct (blue) and which were correct and in the correct position (green). The problem is that there doesn't appear to be an easy way to change the color of a single letter without making a single UILabel object (which I don't want to do) - it would separate the letter and make it look pretty funky.
There is a type called NSAttributedString and NSMutableAttributedString which seem to satisfy my needs, but what I need (apparently) isn't available on iOS 4. And while I can create these objects, I can't seem to modify them easily. Or even difficultly. The problem seems to lie in a constant called NSForegroundColorAttributeName (jeez, Apple) that's not declared anywhere but AppKit. Unfortunately, AppKit is not an iPhone/iOS framework - just Mac OS X. So while I can create these things, I can't seem to manipulate them and change colors like I want. *headdesk*
I've got the code working for the new game play for the difficulty levels - that came together surprisingly quickly. I still need to do a little work on serializing (saving/restoring) the data, but for now, within the bounds of a single instantiation of the game, it seems to be working beautifully. I've got a lot more testing on it to make sure it's solid, but so far it's looking good.
Now all I need is to get it to display properly. *headdesk*

I keep distracting myself...

I've found that when I'm working on things that occasionally I'll focus on things that aren't terribly important rather than getting something working. For instance, I've been working on Alpha 3 and making some good progress - got the entire create new game system reworked and it's acting well. Now I need to start looking at changing the game logic and display to work with the Easy, Medium, and Nightmare modes. And what I did I most recently find myself doing? Taking a snapshot and working on the background for the main game screen.
I mean, the background does need to be completed, but honestly - it can wait until I'm closer to being completed with the game play. It's hard, though, because I know that it needs to be done, it's something I can work on in my mental background, and I'm playing with the colors and layout anyway due to the Easy and Medium play. Still, though - like reading quickly - I sometimes have to remind myself to re-focus on what's important.

The clunky main game
interface screen

It's a little harder with independent projects because I'm not tracking it as closely as I would a project at work. The background IS ugly as compared to the rest of the app now because it's all clunky (as shown to the right). I did ask if the interface seemed non-intuitive and such and got back (from one person) that it seemed fine. I'm hoping that if I can make it a little prettier, use some better images, etc., that I can make it clearer what's being used for what. I need to just make sure that it's not becoming a "high priority" item for me, but rather staying in the background. I know that I'll get it done before I put out Alpha 3 and I'm actually making faster progress than I expected. Still have a couple of changes to make to the data flow to support the additional checks for letters - which ones are right and which ones are in the right position. Sort of brings in some skills I haven't done with Xcode and objective-C, so it'll be a good learning experience. I just hope that I can get it sorted out quickly and back to doing what doesn't matter.
What kinds of things do you do when you're developing to keep yourself focused on the major tasks and not get sidetracked by the "cool" things you still have to do?

Alpha 3 Update (redux)

Things are progressing well on the Alpha 3 front. I've redesigned the create game logic now, so it's a little cleaner in terms of creating single player games (the two player games are targeted for next release). Overall I'm pretty happy - spent about 3 hours and redesigned how games are created, including difficulty level. I've got a weird bug where it's not cleaning up completed games, but in retrospect I need to think about whether I should even do that as I plan on having those available after you finish. At the same time, that might be all server-based, so I'll punt for now and worry about it later.
I've got the levels sorted out for the game (the screen shot to the right shows the difficulty levels available). I still need to get the UI changes in place for the new difficulty levels, but I don't think it will take too long to get that sorted out. Nightmare is easy as it's just a simplification of what I've already got. It's Medium and Easy that are going to require the most revision. I did find out how to do what I want to do with them, which is good. I'm planning on having Easy show you the correctly placed matching letters in green and correct letters but in the wrong position in blue. Everything else will be black. Medium will just show you which letters are correct (in blue), not whether they're placed correctly. Hard will be the game the way it is now and Nightmare will be hella-hard (pun intended).
I'm hoping to make some good progress this week and maybe even have the new version available by next week. That would be just awesome if I can pull it off. Then, perhaps, it's time to spend a couple of months making Alpha 4 with two player games. OooOOooo. Ahhhhhh. Ohhhhhh. (For those of you who went to the Colorado Renaissance Festival when Dextre Tripp was there, it all makes sense; for everyone else, just nod your head.)

Alpha 3 Update

It's been over a month since I sent out Alpha 2 and the main comment back from testers was: this game is really hard! I've decided I need to focus for Alpha 3 on adding in game difficulty. It's something I wasn't really planning on doing quite yet (it was going to be after this next release), but I think that in order to get the most feedback and to make the game approachable I need to get difficulty levels sorted out.
There are two main changes I need to make to get it working. The first is that I need to redesign the "create new game" functionality. It's kind of clunky right now design-wise, so I'm going to delve into that and get it cleaned up and segmented a little better than it is. The second is that I need to change the main game screen UI to support the easier levels.
The current UI looks like the image on the right. It's obviously very basic (and not terribly helpful), but the idea is that you find out how many letters from your word are in the computer's word. For TOMBS, none of those letters are in the computer's word. FIRED and GLYPH both share one letter, but that letter may or may not be in the right place. (In case you're wondering, the "Debug" button in the corner will show you the word in case you get stuck - but just in the Alpha games.)
I'm envisioning 4 different levels of game play. The first - Easy - will show you which letters are correct and in the right place and also which letters are correct but not in the correct position. Medium will display which letters are correct, just not whether they're in the right position. Hard will be the standard game - you only see how many letters in your word are correct, but not which ones. And Nightmare (because I do love me some Quake and Doom) will only let you know when you place the right letter in the right position (but won't show which letter). Yeah - nightmare indeed.
This is going to require quite a bit of redesign to the UITableViewCell to display this additional information. Plus, the whole background for the game board is very bland and uninteresting right now - just white with controls on it. I think it makes sense to beautify it a bit so it's not so jarringly different from the rest of the screens. So Alpha 3 will be a significant release. I just hope that I can get it working in relatively short order. I guess I better get cracking on it...

Alpha 2 Love

It's official. On Thursday evening I sent out OttoJotts Alpha 2 to testers. I've picked up 3 more testers since Alpha 1, which I'm hoping will help when I start getting into needing to test multiplayer. The Alpha 2 has a LOT of stuff in it, including:

• Statistics for game play, including games played, won, and average guesses per game
• New help file - this is a huge improvement and MUCH better than Alpha 1's
• New background images - basic changes, but look pretty good; not final, though
• Server-based word lists (the entire word list is on the server now)
• Persistence between launches. Less of an issue with multitasking in iOS 4, but a major pain in anything previously
• Automatically scrolls to the bottom of the guesses list on load - something that should have been done for Alpha 1
• Upgrade to iOS 4 support - this was far more involved than I expected it to be
• Numerous UI improvements and tweaks - just a lot of pet peeves and usability tweaks to make it easier to use and understand (I hope)

So quite a lot, but the lion's share of the time was spent in migrating from iOS 3.1.3 support to iOS 4, primarily because some things just didn't work as expected in iOS 4. Part of that arose from needing to refactor a bunch of stuff and reworking some of the child/parent messaging, but overall things seem pretty stable with Alpha 2 (on my devices), so I'm happy for the nonce. I'm hoping to get some feedback on the build while I start work on Alpha 3 (almost completely multiplayer stuff). It's coming together - slower than I expected, but I think it's going to end up being pretty good when I'm done.
Back to the salt mines.

Continuing Hurdles

As I've posted previously, there are some things I really appreciate about Microsoft's approach to supporting its developers (at least back in the day when I was writing Windows code). Primary among them is that Microsoft gives you the source code to their framework, the Foundation Classes. You get to see everything that the framework does, all the way down to the Win32 calls. And even then you can see the disassembly if need be. Apple has taken the opposite approach - they hide everything. I was talking with my mom tonight and I likened it to a server in a restaurant. You tell her your order - "I'd like to put a button in this location with this text" - and then she runs off, makes your order, and delivers it to you, but you never get to see how the secret sauce is made or if the cook spit in your food. Well, right now I'm feeling like Apple's spitting in my food.
I had been working diligently on getting my Alpha 2 completed. iOS 4 had just been released and I figured I'd get A2 out and then upgrade to the new Xcode version that supported iOS4. Then I got my new phone - iPhone 4, yay! (except for the antenna problem - boo!) - but it had iOS4. *sigh* So while I could install my iOS 3.1.3 version of software on my iOS4 phone, I couldn't debug it. And wouldn't you know, I experienced a crash. So I figured - well, maybe I'll just upgrade, recompile for iOS 4 and things will magically work! Okay, I didn't really think that, but I figured I was really close and this upgrade was: a) ultimately necessary, and b) worth the investment. So I bit the bullet and upgraded. And compiled. And fixed some problems.
But then I tried to run it. And found that now it crashes, but in a very unusual way - the stack is getting blown somewhere. Not that I changed anything that would cause that - it's just the combination of the code I had written for 3.1.3 apparently had a bug or there was a feature of the compiler that made it play nice. And this is where the first paragraph comes into play. The crash is happening deep inside Apple's code and I can't figure out where it's crashing.
Because of the crash, I've been unable to actually locate the place where the stack goes "kaboom". I've run into this a couple of times in the past on Windows - unallocated memory in release mode that overwrote the call stack pointers - but this is in debug mode, which should be a lot nicer and friendlier. But because I can't quite figure out where in the framework code it's crashing (because I don't have the source code), I'm stuck now doing another task that I'd postponed until after Alpha 2 and redesigning part of the code to help identify the general area that's causing the problem.
So, while I'm actually pretty close on having everything complete, I'm spending more time refactoring something that I'd planned to do later and am being forced to do now. I guess I should be looking at the glass as half-full as I now don't have to do this in the future, but at the same time my general timeline for Alpha 2 has gone out the window.
So because of a bug that I couldn't track down on the new OS I had to do two additional tasks that I'd planned on doing later. This has actually been the general story of my experience with iPhone development. Of course, Apple does tend to schedule all of their upgrades around the June timeframe (because of WWDC), so maybe I should just stop starting apps in April. And then maybe I'll feel like Apple's not spitting in my food.

Surprising Progress

So I got some sleep Friday night after posting up about how crappy I felt. Saturday wasn't bad - I could breathe (mostly) and I had some level of mental alertness. We had an errand to run involving a road trip to Laramie (about 2.5 hours away "by way of the regular highway" (article here and lyrics here). We saw a flyer at Cathy's gymnastics for a dog looking for a new forever home. We called up Susie's mom who agreed to take the dog provided Susie thought it would be a good match. We met the dog (his name is Tank) on Wednesday, thought it would work, and picked him up Friday. Saturday was the hand-off to the mother-in-law in Laramie, so we packed everything up and headed off north. Had a pretty relaxing trip back Saturday night and I crashed pretty hard that night.
By Sunday I was feeling a LOT better, despite being awakened way too early by Cathy (she doesn't quite understand the whole "daddy gets to do what he wants to on Father's Day"). Still, I felt much better Sunday and decided to finish up Dragon Age: Origins (which I did). It was a somewhat hollow victory, though, so I went back a few saves to play a different path through the game. I'll be curious to see what's different about the two paths.
The good thing was by not working on OttoJotts at all on Sunday I was that much more excited about doing it today. I went home for lunch and got some good work in on the game. Makes me wish I didn't need to go back because things were working well. I've got a few screens added at the beginning of the game to allow players to create games. I've done a little bit with the multiplayer stuff, but that's actually not an Alpha 2 item but more like Alpha 4. Still, the basics are there for it. The single player selection is coming together pretty well.
I also touched base with a UI designer to see if she'd be interested and what she'll charge for doing the UI for it. Right now it's pretty cheesy, but it's functional. I'd like this to actually be good (maybe even compete with Words with Friends kind of good) and I know enough about my limitations to know that won't happen if I do it. :)
I've also touched based with Greystripe, a in-game advertiser that does the ads for Words with Friends, and will be looking at incorporating that into the game. That's a later addition as well. Maybe Alpha 3 as Alpha 4 is looking pretty full with the multiplayer games being added.
So, I'm pretty happy with things despite losing an entire weekend (well, one day by choice). I think Alpha 2 release might be this weekend if things keep going well, even if I run into a few bumps on the road. I did realize this weekend that I've been working on this (very) part-time since 29 April. That's kind of scary, actually, but things are progressing. It's just an important personal milestone to get this done and out in the wild. Once that happens, I feel like I can really claim to be an independent game developer. :)

Illness = No Work

So since my production of Patience I've been feeling "not too well". I had some kind of bronchitis thing going on the first week of production, but got on antibiotics and felt awesomely better by the end of the run. Then it came back. Right now I'm finding it hard to breathe while I sit at the computer. And that's after taking Mucinex DM.
One of things I try to avoid doing while ill is coding. I found pretty early on that my thought processes don't operate at peak efficiency and that I end up having to refactor some of the code I write while under the weather. It's not as bad as a CUI (coding under the influence), but it's a close second.
This illness has delayed my work on OttoJotts, but things are progressing. I've got scrolling working properly and added some information about which guess has been posted. I still have several things to finish for this alpha - primarily statistics tracking. I'm doing it locally for alpha 2 and will store it in the DB for alpha 3+. Alpha 3 may incorporate multiplayer or I may punt on that until Alpha 4 - still deciding how much work needs to be done for the current tasks associated with 3.
Overall, I'm just hoping that I'll be getting better and then able to focus on getting the alpha work done. And then get it out to my testers. Or so I hope.

Alpha 1 Released!

I went home over lunch (the spousal unit is "not well") and decided to take another stab at the installation. I cleaned everything, rebuilt, and sent it back to her email address. When I unzipped everything and dragged it onto her iTunes it seemed MUCH happier - my icon showed up in her Apps list, which was nice. When I click "Sync" it all installed happily and life was looking much brighter. When I ran it on her iPhone and it actually WORKED, that was great (and it connected to the website to get the word list), life was FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!
I've packaged everything up and sent it out to my alpha testers who will hopefully be able to install it and test it. And I hope they'll be able to read the help screen. In the interest of just getting the alpha out the door I opted to punt on the scrolling help image. It's a placeholder anyway and I couldn't see continuing to hold up the alpha to make it work when it wasn't going to be in the final project anyway. The existing solution is less-than-optimal, but it's also temporary.
In the meantime, my game is now out in the wild. A momentous day for Otto Von. W00t indeed.

Alpha 1 Updates

Well, it was a busy weekend for the Empire Lyric Players, which meant it was a busy weekend for me (because I'm president of the group). Rehearsal Friday til 10:something-way-too-late, Saturday off (I played a TON of Dragon Age: Origins - definitely needed the break to stave off the pending mental collapse), then move-in on Sunday, which went much faster than I expected. We arrived at noon to help unload and they were finishing getting everything off the trailer into the theatre. WOW. I don't think move-in has ever gone that smoothly or had as many participants (practically the entire cast was there). Then errands on Memorial Day and first rehearsal in the theatre. Hard to believe our show goes up in 2 more days!
But wait - wasn't this a post about Alpha 1 Updates? Why yes, you're right - it is! Thanks for the reminder. So where IS Alpha 1? The short answer is "coming soon". The longer answer is a bit more complicated. I was having any number of problems getting my app debugged. It was working fine in the simulator, but as soon as I installed it on my iPhone it would crash on launch. No warning - just "no longer running". I couldn't attach a debug process, the console log (thank you Xcode Organizer!) showed nothing untoward, NSLog messages showed nothing... I was at a complete loss. I restored my phone to just 3.1.3 and then re-synched with iTunes. Still no love. Then, magically, it started working.
For anyone who's been a developer for any period of time, the "magically disappearing bug" is a frightening thing. Why did it go away? When will it resurface (because without fail it will)? I still can't find anything wrong, though, so it's hard to say it wasn't not some kind of configuration problem, but I'm not happy. I thought I would try to install it on Susie's phone as well to see if it surfaced there (I turned mine into a development device so I could see what was happening, but it didn't help). When trying to install on Susie's phone I got the strangest error:
The application "OttoJotts" was not installed on the iPhone "Susie's iPhone" because an unknown error occurred (0xE8008001).
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Why would iTunes not know what the error is? Oh, au contraire, mon frere, but iTunes DOES know what it is. What error 0xE8008001 is telling you is that you have an unsigned application that iTunes won't let you install on an iPhone. In other words, iTunes thinks the application is not a valid App Store or Ad Hoc distribution. Of course the question now is why doesn't iTunes think it's a valid ad hoc distribution? As to that, I'm uncertain at present. I need to dig into why it doesn't seem to think that I'm building an application with the right provisioning certificates. The error I was getting before from her iTunes was that there weren't any valid provisioning profiles for the application, which seemed odd as it was the exact one I was including in the build settings. She's running her iTunes on Windows and I'm on Mac, so that's always a joy, but still I've done it previously without too much trouble. Definitely more digging necessary, but here's the kicker - this is HELL WEEK.
What is Hell Week? In performance parlance, it's the week before a show opens. Every night is a rehearsal and generally you're still working a regular 9-5 (-ish) schedule that week, so you're up at the butt-crack of dawn to get to work, work a full day, then go to the theatre and spend another 5-6 hours at rehearsal. Then back home to bed all to do it again the next day. Good thing the show opens on Thursday. We have a JDBC movie night on Friday and I might end up crashed on the field at Invesco/Mile High. :)
Over the next couple of days I need to figure out what's up with the provisioning profiles and see why this isn't working as I thought. Maybe in a couple of days I'll actually have the Alpha done and out to testers. When I do, I'll make sure to let everyone know via this blog.