Quick IwGame Update

We’ve been a little quiet of late so I thought that I would put a quick blog post together to let you all know that the Pocketeers wheels are still turning. We were aiming to have the IwGame Engine update and a complete game using the engine ready for last week, but unfortunately a few Pocketeers related tasks as well as losing time to being ill with the flu has knocked the schedule out a little.

I’m working on a quick cute game that uses 100% IwGame code and XOML. I’m also doing this as a one man band exercise to show how quickly, easily a game can be put together using the engine (as well as the fact that we have no additional spare resources at the moment); I’ve even done much of the art work myself lol.

The next release of the IwGame engine will be next week sometime, even if the sample game is not 100% complete (I will continue to finish off the game in my spare time so that it can be used as a complete reference). The next release has a mass of additional features along with a number of bug fixes.

We believe that v0.3 will be the stable version of IwGame that we have been waiting for (I would even go as far as calling it a release candidate)

Just want to say a quick thanks to Da Voodoochief over at Sorcery Games for his recent blog on IwGameAds integration and wish him much luck with CTR and fill rates.

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.