endloop blog

Get your game on today!

We’ve teamed up with OpenFeint to help launch are awesome new Solitaire game. Get your copy of Arcade Solitaire 2 today and get half off the Coin 2X Multiplier for just 99 cents. The Coin 2X Multiplier will allow you to earn double the coins while you play so you can unlock those backgrounds and decks faster as well as many other fun unlockable treats for your Buddy!

We are excited to announce that we will be releasing Arcade Solitaire 2, the sequel to our smash hit Arcade Solitaire: TriTowers on December 15th, 2011 – yes that is tomorrow!!

Today only! We are giving away 10 promo codes to our biggest fans!

Two ways you can participate:

1. Like our Facebook fan page and post this on your wall “I want to play @Arcade Solitaire 2 early!”

2. Follow @arcadesolitaire and tweet “I want to play @arcadesolitaire 2 early!”

Arcade Solitaire 2 has all new retina graphics, unlockable backgrounds, decks and power-ups you’re sure to be drooling over. We’ve enhanced the original gameplay with treats, power-ups and a Buddy to play along with you. Buddy loves treats and if you feed him, you’ll get extra bonuses to compete against friends and unlock items faster! Best of all, Arcade Solitaire 2 is completely FREE!!

Here is a sneak peek of what’s to come:

Here are some screenshot teasers:

If you would like to receive updates about this release, promotions, news, please follow us on twitter or like our Facebook fan page
Twitter: @arcadesolitaire

Lastly, I just want to thank all the Arcade Solitaire: TriTowers (ASTT) fans out there for helping us make ASTT such a smash hit on the App store. We hope you enjoy the sequel as much you enjoyed ASTT!

Best regards,
Linda

TORONTO, CANADA, Sept 8, 2011 —  Endloop Studios, the award winning app development studio, originally founded by Ken Seto and Garry Seto, relaunches today as Endloop Mobile Inc.

With a renewed focus on mobile application development for Apple’s iOS ( iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch ), Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7, Endloop Mobile aims to become Canada’s premiere application development agency.

“We’re refocusing our efforts on building Endloop Mobile into a bigger team, a stronger team and one that can take us to where we need to go.” says Ken Seto, Chairman of Endloop Mobile and CEO of sister company Massive Damage. “With the new hires, recent press attention and expanded client roster, we’re ready to make that leap.”

Alongside the relaunch, Endloop Mobile also announced the hiring of Kerry Morrison as CEO and has named Mark Pavlidis and Bretton MacLean to its new executive team. Pavlidis and MacLean having just come off the success of another of Toronto’s hot application startups, Guardly Inc., bring their expansive mobile development experience and skills to the Endloop Mobile team. Pavlidis joins as Director of Development and MacLean as Creative Director.

“What better way to kick off a new role, than with the hiring of two app development rock stars.” says Kerry Morrison, new Endloop Mobile CEO. “From the development of the Kobo e-Reader app, to Task Ave, TweetAgora, Guardly and numerous other projects, Brett and Mark have an unmatched level of experience in this space.”

Endloop Mobile has also been named one of the Digital Media companies to watch by Marketing Magazine, the bible of the Advertising, Media & PR agencies in Canada.

Alongside service work Endloop Mobile will continue work on its award winning products, iMockups and Chicken Balls both available now on the iTunes App Store.

Endloop Mobile is open for business and accepting new clients.

Endloop Mobile Website:

http://www.endloop.ca

iMockups iTunes link:

http://endlp.me/imockupsipad

Chicken Balls iTunes link:

http://endlp.me/getcballs

About Endloop Mobile Inc.

Endloop Mobile is focused on becoming Canada’s premiere mobile app development studio. iOS, Android, Windows Mobile 7. You should call us.

Visit www.endloop.ca for more details.

Press Contact:

Kerry Morrison, ceo

p: 604.767.3509

e: kerry@endloop.ca

@: kmore

Hello Everyone!

I am happy to announce iMockups v1.3 is now approved and available for download.

Here is a link to get your copy of iMockups: http://endlp.me/imockupsipad

Thank you again everyone for patiently waiting for this update!

Feel free to drop us a line at imockups@endloop.ca with your thoughts on how we should shape iMockups. Your feedback is extremely important to us and we appreciate every bit of it.

Lastly, if you like the new version of iMockups, please rate it on iTunes. This will give us the support we need to push through those features you’ve all been waiting for.

Hope you enjoy the new features!

Best regards,

Linda

Hey everyone,

I know it’s been a while since the last update and on behalf of the Endloop team I would like to thank you ALL for being so patient with us.

I just want to let everyone know that we are absolutely 100% dedicated to making iMockups the best rapid prototyping and wireframing app on the planet. We had ran into some rough patches where we just weren’t able to dedicate any time for updates. But now we are back on track and we’re thrilled to say that we are able to go at full speed with the updates now.

Also, a special thank you to those who have sent in their ideas, feedback and suggestions. You have really inspired us to take iMockups to another level.

Here is a peek of what’s to come:

New Features & Changes:

• New Export Capabilities – You can now export the entire Project in JPEG, BMML and PDF format
• Quick Project List view allows you to jump between projects quickly!
• Improved Presentation Mode page switching speed by removing sliding animation
• Added project title to toolbar
• Page Links will now automatically update when deleting or moving pages within a project
• Added social icons (Facebook and Twitter)

Bug Fixes:

• Email export stability improvements
• Fixed page controls (dots) now work in project view and presentation mode
• Fixed email to no longer delete your project if no email is setup

Stay Tuned for more features to come!!

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Chicken Balls for the iPhone and iPod touch! You can download the game here: http://endlp.me/getcballs and play it anywhere you happen to be.

Enjoy!

The Endloop Team

With our launch activities in full swing, I am very happy to announce that Chicken Balls HD is available right now on the iTunes app store worldwide. Here’s a link to the game: http://endlp.me/getcbhd.

We are absolutely thrilled that our hard work has been so well received. We launched on my birthday no less, and since we know you all love statistics, here are some numbers we think are cool:

• We launched 7 days ago
• In Canada, we became:
  • the #1 game
  • the #2 app (behind only Apple’s GarageBand)
• In the US, we are:
  • the #3 game
  • the #5 app in the whole store
• More than half of our users come back to the game multiple times a day

We also have just submitted to Apple another update increasing the stability of the game and adding more precision aiming, based on our terrific user response.

More to come, but we couldn’t be happier. Thanks for your support!!

As we approach our beta for Chicken Balls, I thought we could share a behind the scenes look at some of our techniques for tweaking the physics and the levels for the game. We had a few goals:

1. Make the game fun!

2. Make it easy to tweak the mechanics of the physics-based world

3. Make it easy to design the levels

and to make the above a reality for anyone interested in video game design,

4. Allow non-developers to do #2 and #3 so we can make #1 a reality.

So how did we allow non-developers to design levels and muck around with the game mechanics to make it fun? By baking some crazy design tools into the game!

Physics

The less exciting, but equally important, aspect of tweaking gameplay was done with a physics modifier. To access it, one would simply tap the in-game screen with four fingers, and up the console came.

As you can see, we could tweak the physics of the world, the hero, the platforms, and other objects. We kept changing these dimensions until we got that magical “fun” and “bouncy” game that you will get a chance to play very soon.

Levels

This is cool: we created a level designer – leveraging our experience in creating iMockups – that allowed anyone on our team to create levels and tweak them.

Take a look at how we did it!

We had this amazing level editor….

… that allowed us to place objects, animals, and eggs anywhere…

… we could set their properties, “destructability”, alignment, motion, etc.…

… and put winning conditions into the level…

…. we’d then test it to see if it was fun, tweak, and repeat!

What Did We Learn?

We found out a bunch of things:

1. We needed to update the editor early and often. Getting the game set up right was really tough until we added nudge and align features. Especially when you’re stacking objects so that they form structures. Precision was key.
2. Despite its ease, don’t create tons of new levels before you know the game is fun. We created a bunch of levels and then realized that the chicken was not bouncy enough / too bouncy, the launch mechanism wasn’t quite right, and the objects were too dense. We had to redo levels over and over again to get it just right. Then, when changing the basic physics, we had to go back and adjust again, which is really tough if you’ve created a bunch of levels already.
3. A name by any other name. This has nothing to do with level design, but during our market research we realized that chicken balls – a yummy Chinese food consisting of circular chicken bits, deep fried - only existed in Canada, Ireland, and the UK. Not in the US. Or China. We had an existential crisis: rename it to Farmageddon? Chicken Balls: Farmageddon? We decided to stick with the original name as it resonates, speaks to the hero character, and makes people laugh.
4. The super-cool level designer does not substitute for actually trying it with real users. The in-game engine is very visual, but nothing substitutes testing with real people and trying the level itself for the “feel”. Having a visual editor allowed us to see that we needed to use the eggs to guide users towards the solution for a given level.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned as we’re launching soon!

We’re wishing everyone and their families a fantastic holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Thanks for your support, feedback and suggestions this past year as we strive to make our apps and games as awesome as possible!

We’re still busy working away on our upcoming game Chicken Balls and a few more surprises for iMockups in the New Year.

Thanks to KTCHN for doing the awesome photo!!

Best,
Team Endloop

For iOS developers, two very important things happen during the holiday season. The first is the App Store freeze, a period of time (between Dec. 22 and Dec. 29) when the rankings and app listings are frozen. During this period, developers are unable to log-in to iTunes to submit or modify any of their apps, and are unable to get sales data until the end of the freeze. If a game or app is lucky enough to be in the top ranks of the charts, it basically gets stuck there until the freeze is over. While this is great news for apps at the top ranks, it also means apps on the rise lose the ability to move up the chart for over a week.

The second holiday occurrence is that App Store sales go through the roof during the holidays. For example, our studio’s first game, Arcade Solitaire: TriTowers, was selling an average of 30 copies a day. Through a combination of being featured by Apple and the holiday sales boom, we hit a high of over 1,000 sales during one day. That was a 3,300-percent increase in sales for a game that wasn’t even in the overall Top 100. This is consistent with this 2009 report from Flurry showing an overall 50-percent increase in app sales from November to December, and iPod touch app downloads spiking to a staggering 1,000-percent increase on Christmas day.

I caught up with some fellow iOS developers to get their take on their App Store strategy for the holidays.

Read my full post on The Apple Blog