Finally! The first public beta of the free online Bubblomania webgame is now available, at www.bubblomania.com!

To play it, you must have java 1.4 or better installed. For the moment, it’s signed with a self-signed certificate, so you should click the Trust button when asked to do so…

If you experience any problems, or have any feedback about the gameplay, graphics, etc, please don’t hesitate to let me know! You can either email me, or leave a comment here on this blog.

And now, go check it out!

Yes, I know this is the most boring blog post title of the year. No comments please

It’s been another week since my last blog post, and even longer since the last progress update! Shame on me! I just had a very lazy weekend, which started on friday and ended this noon…

Hmm, nothing to be proud of actually. I worked really hard last week, especially wednesday and thursday. But by friday my energy was completely drained I should try to spread my work more evenly over the week!

The good news: I’ve been able to deploy Bubblomania as an applet last week. There were some nasty issues to work out, but it’s really nice to see the game running in all it’s glory in a browser window! Now I can finally call it a webgame

The gameplay has also been further tweaked and improved. I decided to drop the mouse support, because it was mostly confusing and annoying for users. It really is a good idea to watch how users actually play the game! I was reminded to do this after reading the article An approximate guide to selling Indie games, which is a really interesting article btw!

OK, major issues left to do: Instructions screen, sound and a basic website. When these are done, I can start the public beta. I hope this will be by the end of this week!

Another week has passed since the last progress update. Time flies when you’re having fun! I had a creative week, and was able to remake most of the graphics (except backgrounds). I’m very happy about the result, it can be best described as the middle between cute and psychedelic!

Besides making new graphics, and learning to work with Photoshop a bit better, I also added online topscores this week and mouse control. Personally I think the game plays a lot better with the keyboard, but with today’s casual audience, mouse control is absolutely required!

Pictures say a lot more than words, but the actual game says a whole lot more than these screenshots! So if you would like to give the current alpha version a test drive, let me know. You can contact me by email, or just post a comment to this post. All feedback is welcome!

Today, the first test version of Bubblomania Online was released to a selected group of testers! So that means the first milestone has been reached!

I spent a lot of time this week coding the gameplay, and improving/finetuning it. But it will still evolve following the feedback I receive. Also, I was able to improve the graphics somewhat, but I’m going to redo some of the graphics coming from Bubblomania X, to fit more with the new look of the game.

There’s still quite some work left though, but by this time next week I hope to have a much more complete game! Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until the release of the final LWJGL 1.0, before I can deploy it as an applet…

It’s been a couple of days again since I last posted on this blog… The reason is that I’ve been working very hard on my upcoming webgame Bubblomania Online!

The game is already playable and all game elements are on screen, including text. I’ve been adding some cool effects which were not present in Bubblomania X, because they’re a lot easier to code using OpenGL.

There’s still quite some work left though: finish coding the gameplay, maybe make better graphics, adding online topscores, adding some sound, … But I fully expect to be able to put an early alpha version online next week! This release will not be available to the public, so contact me if you’re interested in testing it.

I was sitting outside on my terrace this afternoon, enjoying the sun, and coding on my old Powerbook It sure has advantages to work from home, I haven’t regretted it for a single moment!

Sitting there, I had to think about the song Wonderful Days by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo, which was one of my favorite happy hardcore tracks about 10 years ago

Something else which happened about 10 years ago, was the very first release of Bubblomania! By doing so, I discovered the fun of creating and releasing games. And even back then, I knew I wanted to do this for a living one day! I’m planning to write some more about Bubblomania’s history later this month.

Since I started work on Bubblomania Online last week, I have made some good progress! It’s going a bit slower then expected, because I’ve written a lot of useful utility classes along the way. But I will save that time again for my next projects, so I don’t mind. It’s not like I have a deadline anyway

Expect to hear more about this soon!

Yesterday was the first day in my new career as an independent game producer. It was a very productive day actually! I organized my existing code, from the prototype of the Smiley Puzzle, and started a new mini project. Furthermore, I did some organizational tasks.

The new mini project I started is called Bubblomania Online. As the name suggests, it will be an online version of a part of Bubblomania X, my MacOS X arcade game. The reason I start with this project, is to get up to speed with the LWJGL API, and create some reusable components in the process.

Since I will reuse part of the artwork, I can concentrate on the development, and get a feel for how fast I can work in this new environment. The online version will be limited to only 1 game mode, compared to the 8 modes in the downloadable version.

From a marketing point of view, having a webgame online will increase traffic, maybe even enough to monetize it with ads.

Another Text-Link-Ads sponsor appeared on my blog: Get Latest Game News & Review. The site, called SyncGaming, features game news, reviews and previews, and has a community forum.

This is my third sponsor already, and it brings my Text Link Ads revenue for september to more than $33! So this seems to be a better than expected extra revenue source, which will come in very handy when I will be a full time indie, in a month!

The months before my first product release will be very tough, with zero income. So, if you want to help me out, you can do so by becoming a sponsor too! You will not only get a link under the Sponsors header on the left, but also a permanent link and a little site description in this blog!

How to become a sponsor?

1. Sign up with Text Link Ads, if you haven’t done so already.
2. Once successfully signed up, search for my blog, by typing “Dark Moon Blog” in the search box, or go directly to my blog details.
3. Click the Add To Cart button.
4. Enter the necessary info to buy the link. A link will cost $25 per month. If you’re new to Text Link Ads, they will give you $100 for free to spend on ads! So it’s a great opportunity either way.

This blog is slowly growing, and will continue doing so when I’m independent, and have more time available to post. So it’s a good investment!

Alternatively, if you own a mac, you can also sponsor me by buying my game Bubblomania X, for only $9.95.