AppEasy 1.4.6.1 Now Available

AppEasy the cross platform mobile game and app development system using XOML and Lua has received a new major update. See http://www.appeasymobile.com for more details. AppEasy is currently in FREE open beta.

Core Engine:
* Scene property can now be retrieved from actors
* physics lib now has setJointBodyA and setJointBodyB
* Actor, scene, camera and user properties can now all be set via a string, number, boolean or vector types (Optimisation)
* Added new Ads example (inner-active and leadbolt, we will add more to the mix in the future and turn it into a first class API)
* BUG FIX: Crash when passing no table to template.from()
* BUG FIX: Incorrect web view size / position on Android

You should find that the new way to set properties is much faster than setting them with strings as the data does not need to be converted from string to the required format.

The Ads example is also directly usable, just edit the Lua code behind file and change the id’s to your own!

Funky Cam 3D goes FREE!

Recently we looked at ways of monetising apps and games by charging nothing for them. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous doesn’t it. Well, its not quite as ridiculous as it sounds. Its possible to make money from apps and games by either a) giving the game away for free and inserting ads in there (usually called ad-ware) and b) again, giving the game away for free but selling optional extras within the game (usually called freemium).

We recently implemented a platform agnostic API that uses the Marmalade SDK and Inner-actives M2M protocol to serve ads to all Marmalade SDK compatible phones and tablets. Currently supported platforms include iPhone, iPad, Android, Samsung Bada, Blackberry Playbook, Symbian, Windows Mobile, WebOS, PC and Mac.

The great thing about our ads is that they are different. Our ads don’t just sit at the top of the screen crying like babies for attention, instead they leap out at the user with animations and transitions, hypnotising the user into clicking on them. We like to see the process as bringing gaming to ads and not bringing ads to gaming.

We are opening up our API very soon for all Marmalade SDK developers. The ad engine will also become part of the IwGame engine with additional support for MobClix, AdWhirl and InMobi. Depending up on the API’s success we may also create bespoke versions for the iOS and Android SDK’s for those die hard developers that won’t convert to the Marmalade SDK. We will put a proper blog together  when the time comes.

Our animating ads work very well and our click rate (CTR) is proof that the pudding is cooked well. Here are a few figures:

  • Android – 3.23%
  • iPhone – 7.34%
  • iPad – 3.54%
  • Samsung Bada – 5%

Our average CTR with static AdMob ads is 1.76%

Ok, now onto the real subject, we have released Funky Cam 3D across iPhone, iPad, Android and Samsung Bada (Bada 2.0 coming soon).

Funky Cam 3D FREE can be downloaded from the following stores:

So please feel free to download Funky Cam 3D for free and check out what our animating ads look like.