Tuesday, June 29, 2010

HTC Evo vs. iPhone 4

This video is pretty funny, though the language is not safe for work:

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Interviewed by Tim Bray

There's an interview with me by Tim Bray, a developer advocate at Google.

Check it out.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

WordWise Pro #3 in its Category, #14 Overall

I had only really been monitoring the progress of WordWise Pro within its category, ignoring it's overall ranking among paid games. But checking it this morning, I see that it has vaulted into the top 20 of all paid games on the Android Market, to #14!

Unfortunately, we continue to be plagued with memory issues, and the new notification system still isn't working quite right. Also, we get bombarded daily with new feature requests. At the top of our list is making a page for player stats, global stats for all players and individual stats for each player, indicating top game scores, top words, win/loss records, etc. Once that gets implemented, we'll focus on a ranking system so that people near the same skill level can find each other easily. There have also been lots of requests for pass-and-play and also solo play. We'll see about that, but right now it's not our highest priority.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who as supported the game. It's already shot up near the top...here's hoping it stays there and gets just a little higher.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

WordWise Free Released!

We've just released a free version of WordWise, for those who don't want to shell out any money to try the app (although apps on Android do come with a 24-hour, no-questions-asked return policy). The free version limits you to 3 active games and includes ads. The pro version allows up to 100 active games, with no ads.

Meanwhile, WordWise Pro has climbed yet again to the #3 spot in Games>Brains&Puzzle>Paid. Thanks to everyone who keeps buying it!

Also, today we released an update that includes:

1) A new notification system. Please bear with us while the iron out the kinks.
2) A rematch feature that lets you invite your current opponent to another game.
3) Additional fixes for out of memory errors.
4) A refresh feature for the title/login screen (Menu>Refresh).

And lots of other little things. We're working hard to improve the experience by adding and optimizing features. If you've already downloaded a version of WordWise, thanks!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

WordWise Pro Climbs

It's difficult to track the rankings of apps in the Android Market. There used to be a website called AndroidStats that would show the rankings and movements of apps in the market, but they went down a while back, supposedly because Google either restricted or changed how market data can be accessed.

Anyway, since it's release, WordWise Pro has been vaulting up the rankings in Games>Brain&Puzzle>Paid. A few days after it was released, it wasn't anywhere near the top. About a week ago, I took the time to count the ranking manually, and saw that we were at #50. Yesterday when I checked, we clocked in at #15, which was pretty nice movement. I figured we'd be in the top 10 by next week.

Checking this morning, I see that WordWise Pro is now #7 in its category. Not bad, huh? I figured it would be a popular app, since there's not another multiplayer crossword game on the market. But the launch has been a little shaky, and we've had a number of issues with both the client and the server that we've had to work through, so we're sitting at a 3.5-star rating, while other apps in the top 10 all have 4.5-5 star ratings. Hopefully our rating will go up as we continue to improve the app and the experience for users stabilizes.

I'm particularly happy because even though I've been able to get top-ranking apps in the Games>Cards&Casino category, that is the smallest subcategory in Games. I figured maybe those apps were just doing well because there wasn't a lot of competition. According to AndroLib, though, Brain&Puzzle is the biggest game category. As of this writing, these are AndroLib's stats:

Games (All): 8164 applications in this category

Arcade & Action: 2069 applications in this category
Brain & Puzzle: 3350 applications in this category
Cards & Casino: 763 applications in this category
Casual: 1982 applications in this category

Since WordWise's rating is lower compared to other apps, we must really be outselling other apps in the category to jump that high in the ratings. Hopefully we'll make it into the top 5 this coming week.

We're also working hard to get the free version out, and that should only help boost sales of the paid version. Thanks to everyone who's buying and supporting the app!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Android Figurines Now on Sale!

We had some Android figurines custom made for our promotion last month, and now we're putting them on sale. They're $9.99 + $2.99 shipping (only available in the continental US). Order one today!