80,000 downloads on Windows Mobile. Can Android top it?

[Mobiacs]

Hey!

I'm Dan one half of a games company called Mobiacs. We recently released Picranium, an awesome puzzler that smashes sudoku and minesweeper together! Check it out on our site

Picranium by Mobiacs

http://www.appbrain.com/app/picranium/mobiacs.picranium

If you like Nonograms, Griddlers, Japaneses Crosswords or puzzle games in general we hope you will love our game! It has been wildly successful on Windows Mobile and with our fans help we can make it even more awesome on Android

Lite version:

Full version:

ttfn
Dan

 

[No_u]

Not much of a puzzle fan but I'll try it out, glad to see another developer transitioning to Android

EDIT: There appears to be a sound glitch every time a sound is played.

 

[hood420]

Your website appears to be down.

 

[Mobiacs]

Hey,

Oops, we were doing a website update and must have messed it up. Will let you know as soon as that is sorted!

Oh no a sound glitch, that's not so good. Can you tell me what device you are using please?

Thanks
Dan

 

[Mobiacs]

Hey, the website should be back up and running now Sorry about that!

Dan

 

[kingvortex]

I purchased this quite a while back as I really like 'Picross' style games and would heartily recommend it to anyone!
Just a quick question to the dev - any chance of you allowing install to SD, as the 6MB it takes up is quite hefty?

 

[Mobiacs]

Hey Kingvortex,

Thanks for the recommendation! We hadn't considered installing to an SD card as no one had asked, but now we are aware it may be desirable for some we will look into good mechanisms for securing Picranium on an SD. If we find a good solution we will try to support an SD option in a future release.

Our main priority though is getting loads more puzzles added, which may mean we end up having to store our data on the SD

Just out of interest do many of the other games you play allow installing to SD?

Thanks
Dan

 

[kingvortex]

Yes, a good number of the apps I have installed ( games and others) allow you to move them to SD. With the limited amount of internal storage space on most Android handsets, this is an option that most developers with larger apps should be looking at IMO.
I'm not a developer, but I don't believe it takes much extra coding to allow it.

 

[Mobiacs]

Awesome! It's something we will look into then. Like you say there is not much code involved but it is doing it in a way that doesn't aid piracy, which has been a real problem so far

 

[Ozymandias88]

Awesome! It's something we will look into then. Like you say there is not much code involved but it is doing it in a way that doesn't aid piracy, which has been a real problem so far

Here you go:

App Install Location | Android Developers

I don't mean to scare you but as another developer I find piracy is frighteningly easy on Android. If you have root access you can just copy the app straight off the phone and share it about. I've basically stopped worrying (well I wish I had, but it's not that easy) about people pirating my apps and just gone for the if you make a good app people will pay to support you. It also helps to keep rollout out new and interesting updates. Its a good deterrent as every time a new version comes out pirated apps have to be manually updated by finding the apk for the new version and copying it to your phone to install.

Hope this helps and good luck

 

[Mobiacs]

Hey Ozymandias88

Thanks for the link! Yes unfortunately openness is a double edged sword. However we share your hope that a good app will always have people willing to pay for it!

How's your marketplace experience been so far?

Thanks
Dan

 

[pakiplayer421]

I don't mean to scare you but as another developer I find piracy is frighteningly easy on Android. If you have root access you can just copy the app straight off the phone and share it about.

Pirating is even easier on iOS. All my 10 year old cousin did was go to jailbreakme.com to jailbreak, then install Cydia, which is a hub of pirated games, for him to be an elementary pirate And I believe Cydia updates all the apps haha. IMO this is even easier then installing an apk because cydia is organized so well and feels just like the app store. Apks require a person to connect to a computer a lot of the times. Infact jailbreakme.com is so popular that the same cousin who pirated iOS apps doesnt know how to pirate Android apps(though im guessing he cares more about his itouch then his dads Evo).

 

[MJM128]

Or the better example of piracy of movies, and yet the movie studies are making record breaking sales for theater tickets year after year. That's insanely easy to pirate.

Just worry about creating a good app, someone will always try and pirate it. But there are also those out there that will pay and support the devs. Got to be careful who you are hindering, the pirates or your customers.

 

[RichSz]

This is absolutely the best Picross game for Android, period. The only problem is there aren't many puzzles. I thank you for adding a few more recently. Maybe if you had an editor or some other way for customers to make their own puzzles and share them. Perhaps without the pictures to simplify things.

I bought, I played, I finished all gold, I yearn for more.

 

[No_u]

I'm using a HTC Desire running froyo.

 

[wabbitt1970]

As Ozymandias88 says it is easy to add the tiny bit of code that allows you to move to sd card.

In Eclipse (if that's what you are using), right click your project, select properties at the bottom, Click Android.

Untick whatever version of API you coded in, and re-tick Android 2.2. You need to do this because earlier API libraries don't understand the next piece of code.

Then in your manifest, you add

android:installLocation="preferExternal"

just after your package declaration

Leave your minSdkVersion exactly as it is.

That's all you need to do to make your app main data live on the SD card as default. The user can move it back to the phone if they want.

 

[bigbadwulff]

$2.36 on the Market

 

[Mobiacs]

Hey

@RichSz - We are looking at ways to bring a load more puzzles, an editor is one route we are considering but our "in house" editor needs a fair bit of work before it is ready to be released to the unsuspecting public. There should be more puzzles being released over the next month or so, so keep an eye on those updates Thanks for your words of encouragement!!!

@No_u - Thanks for that! I haven't seen any problems on that device and OS version myself however a sound glitch could suggest the system has struggled to load the file into memory. Are the apps that are "sleeping" memory hungry? I know Android is meant to claim resources back from sleeping apps but this isn't always the case if the background apps have been poorly written. If you get a chance could you restart your phone and see if the sound is still giitchy?

@Everybody else - Thanks for your support and advice it is much appreciated!!!

Thanks
Dan