A while ago, I started a new game project. For the time being, I will name it the Smiley Puzzle Project. Why? Because it will be a puzzle game featuring smileys!

More precisely, the core game mechanic will be the same as my old mac game Enigmatic Movements. An extremely limited version can be played as a java applet at the Dark Moon Software website. But contrary to my other games, this one will be my first game coded in Java, using LWJGL (Lightweight Java Game Library), an OpenGL and OpenAL binding for java.

I have 3 good reasons for going the java route:

• I’ve been coding in java for more than 7 years now, so I have plenty of experience using both the language, and the necessary tools. I expect this will speed up the development of the game considerably!
• Cross platform!!! Since I’m a long-time mac user, and I don’t even have a Windows machine at home, using java will definitely be the easiest solution for going cross-platform. In the beginning, I will probably keep concentrating on the mac market. But expanding my audience with millions of windows users can’t hurt. And it will be necessary if I want to get this game on any portals!
• Ultratron and Titan Attacks! These fun and cool looking games by PuppyGames are also written in java and LWJGL, and are a great inspiration! This blog post about Titan Attacks is also an interesting read. Another full 3D game written in java and LWJGL is Tribal Trouble by Oddlabs. Check out the amazing screenshots! These games clearly show that java has become a valid alternative to C and C++ for game development.

Currently I’m working on a prototype of my game, and I already have a small part of the artwork done. I hope to have some screenshots and more details available in the near future, so check this blog on a regular basis. Or better yet, subscribe to the Dark Moon Newsletter!

I have added my latest Moonspider song, “Another Plane Of Existence (140bpm Refined Mix”, as background music to this blog. It’s an up-tempo melodic trance song, a refined remix of one of my first trance tracks. You are invited to leave your opinion about the song as a comment to this post!

You can also visit Moonspider’s music page, still heavily under development, to check out my other songs. I have added an easy playback function next to each song. All my tracks are made with Propellerheads Reason, a great piece of software!

This weekend, I released a minor update of my arcade game Bubblomania X, with 2 important changes.

The first change is actually a change to the price of the game. There has been some talk about micropricing recently among indie game developers. But this blog post on GameProducer, and the comments on that post, convinced me to change my price from 14.95$ to 9.95$.

I’m doing this mostly as an experiment to find out what the optimal price is for Bubblomania X. I think that 9.95$ is a price that will encourage impulse buyers, while 14.95$ is a bit of a weird price, that makes you think twice. Also, I changed the in-game price for European customers to 7.95 euro. After adding the VAT, around 20% in most countries, this becomes a price point of about 10 euro. Anyway, we’ll see how it turns out!

The other change I made was as a result of user feedback and a review: I made the small bubbles more transparent to make it clearer that they are decoration. Some people tried to pop them, and quickly got frustrated with the game. This is also mentioned in the Tips & Tricks I recently posted.

I plan to let this new version float for a while, and concentrate on my new game now…

This is the first part of a series of tips and tricks for both new and experienced Bubblomania X players. Click here to see all the posts in this series.

1. Only catch the big bubbles, the small bubbles are just decoration. I expected this to be obvious for most people, but from user feedback and even from a review, I learned that this isn’t the case. And in fact, the small bubbles do have a useful function! They always rise at the same speed, while the speed of the big bubbles varies. So they can be used to get a feel for the relative speed of the big bubbles. And this helps in deciding whether you can still reach a bubble, or you should use a laser or a bomb!
2. Tip #6: “When a bubble is already too high to pop it with your pin, you can still hit it by firing a laser!”. This is probably the most important trick of the game, and can be best explained with some screenshots.
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   In the first picture you can see that you will be too late to catch the bubble with the pin. In this situation, you can keep moving the pin towards the bubble, so the pin is underneath the bubble (picture 2). Then, before the bottom of the bubble is above the tip of the pin, shoot a laser! (picture 3) The bubble will still be hit by the laser, where it would otherwise be lost!

3. Popping 5 bubbles at once with a bomb gets you 1000 bonus points. Watch out for bubbles that are rising a bit faster than the other bubbles. When this happens, you can wait until you can see 5 bubbles on the screen at the same time. Catch them all with a bomb to get the bonus points, and advance faster through the early stages of the game. Every once and a while, there can even be 6 bubbles on screen at once. Catching them all will get you 10000 bonus points, and will increase the pin type progress bar.

I will try to post more tips & tricks on a regular basis, so check this blog regularly! You can also subscribe to the Dark Moon Newsletter, to be notified by email when new tips & tricks are posted, and to receive news about new games, updates and discounts.