Three weeks ago I launched the beta version of my new online games arcade, SmileyGamer.com. While the site is still in beta, I already made some changes to the design and color scheme. I went to dark text on a light background, to make it easier on the eyes.

Since the launch, the site has received almost 16000 visitors, and more than 45000 pageviews. This is definitely more than I expected! According to Google Analytics, almost 60% are direct visitors, i.e. not referred by another site. Most of these are people who click on the links in my flash game Enigmatica, which I released not long after the site went live.

In the past few weeks I’ve been spreading the freeware version of Enigmatica to several online game websites. It is surprising to see how many people visit the site thanks to the game. So the free version of Enigmatica is not only giving me a small residual income with the included MochiAds advertisement, but also through the advertising on my website.

Making money with a games arcade is rather hard though, the revenue from Google Adsense ads is very very low. Most visitors visit the site to play games, not to click on ads! But fortunately I was accepted with ValueClickMedia last week! They are an ad network that also pays for pageviews of the ad, so I make money even if people don’t actually click on the ads.

The rest of the traffic was mostly obtained thanks to banner exchanges, like MoreGamers and ArcadeBanners, social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, and link exchanges with other arcades.

I still have several features planned for the website, before I can call it final. But even more important is to continue work on Smiley Memory, which will be my next Flash game! Already mentioned before, Smiley Memory will be the first game from the Smiley Puzzle Project. This game will feature the 3D smiley’s also used on the Smiley Gamer site. I expect it to become a lot more popular than Enigmatica, so it will be a great promotion for the site! It’s great to see the Smiley Puzzle Project, originally started more than a year ago, finally come to life!

The freeware version of my Flash game Enigmatica has been released on my new arcade SmileyGamer.com! If you are a webmaster, you can put this version for free on your own website or games arcade. Download the full package here.

Contrary to the version that is available for licensing, the freeware version contains advertising from MochiAds, an ad network for Flash games. It also contains logo’s from, and links to the Smiley Gamer website, and it’s integrated with the highscore system of that same site.

Check out the games for your site page at Smiley Gamer to see all our games that are available for free and for licensing.

Yesterday, I uploaded the game to Newgrounds, and it has already received some nice reviews over there!

In case you were wondering, yes, the Smiley Puzzle Project is still alive! While the actual games are still under development, the project has gotten a new scope.

As discussed before, the SmileyPuzzleGames.com site was intended to become a small games arcade featuring my smiley related games. But instead of developing this site, it seemed like a better idea to take it a few steps further, and actually build a full-blown online games arcade.

So I registered the SmileyGamer.com domain, and started building my arcade based on PHPArcadeScript. It’s now in a reasonable state, which I just declared the beta stage, so have a look for yourself:

Some of the reasons for dropping my original plans:

• A full-blown arcade can be used to showcase my own games to a wide audience.
• If I can let my arcade grow and start getting serious traffic, the site can start generating some decent advertising income.
• I will spread freeware versions of my own Flash games to other arcade sites, with links to my arcade, as a way to get more traffic.
• Since I wont be focusing on smiley related games alone, a general games arcade is a better home for my first Flash game, Enigmatica, and my java game Bubblomania.
• Also, I will not only make puzzle games, but other genres as well. So the SmileyGamer.com domain is better suited than SmileyPuzzleGames.com.

This change of plans also means I will be focusing my attention to webgames made with Flash, rather than downloadable games made with Java. I wrote previously about why to make this switch. I might still decide to make a downloadable version if any of my webgames becomes wildly popular, but for now, sticking to webgames makes more business sense.

If you visit the site, and find any problems or have feedback, please let me know by using the contact page on the Smiley Gamer site, or leave a comment here on this blog.

It’s been a while since my last blog post… I’ve been sick for a couple of days (which is not good when you don’t get paid!), and working hard on the other days.

So, what have I been up to recently? I’ve been doing the (mostly digital) paperwork to become officially independent. So I’ll soon have my own company, which is the Belgian equivalent of a US sole proprietorship company (i think). And I also spoke to an accountant about a couple of issues. The internet business thing is still relatively new, and even for an accountant it’s not always clear

Game production-wise, I’m working on 2 prototypes for new games. One of them, codenamed Smiley Memory, will be part of the Smiley Puzzle Project. It’s based on the classic Memory game, in this case matching smileys, with some action added. I designed it together with my girlfriend, and she’s helping with the level design!

The other one is a very early prototype of a secret action game, codenamed Quantum Chaser. The thing’s gotta have a name, right?

It’s been very quiet around the Smiley Puzzle Project on this blog. So it’s time for a sneak peek at my current plans, which I hope to realise during this year. Quite a while ago, I registered 2 domains to be used for this project: www.SmileyPuzzleGames.com and www.SmileyPuzzle.com.

The first one is intended to become a small online games arcade, with multiple puzzle games, all featuring 3D animated smileys. I have several ideas for puzzle games, for which I will first make a webgame version. The most popular games will get a deluxe downloadable version. Today I made a logo which should give a first impression of the concept. A larger version can be seen at the Smiley Puzzle Games website itself.

The second domain, just named Smiley Puzzle, is a short and nice sounding name that currently forwards to the Smiley Puzzle Project category on this blog. But it will be the main site for the first downloadable Smiley Puzzle game.

Why create puzzle games with smileys? Well, the obvious reason is that I like both smileys and puzzle games! The smiley is one of the icons of the internet age, and the cool 3D looking ones are very popular with kids (thank you, MSN). So it is my hope that smiley themed games will attract people.

My goal is to make mentally challenging puzzle games, not the mind-numbing variant. But they also have to be accessible to a large demographic, and kids in particular. The games should be easy to learn and play, and entertaining enough that it’s not seen as a heavy mental activity. At the same time, using your brain will be rewarded and necessary when progressing in the game. This, of course, is easier said then done…

A few days ago, I resumed development on the Smiley Puzzle Project. I am using LWJGL (Lightweight Java Game Library) for this game, an OpenGL and OpenAL binding for Java.

I was excited to learn that in the mean time, beta 3 of version 1.0 of LWJGL has been released, featuring some cool improvements:

• The DevIL library works again on MacOS X, making it possible to use it for my cross-platform projects. DevIL is an image library, that allows to load and convert images to OpenGL format natively. I changed my texture loading code to make use of DevIL, which made it 5 to 8 times faster! This code used to take about 26 seconds on my 4 year old PowerBook, and now it executes in about 4 seconds!
• But perhaps the coolest feature of all, is that LWJGL can now be used in a Java Applet! It can temporarily install the necessary native libraries in the users temp dir, giving you the power of OpenGL, OpenAL and DevIL in your applet! Converting an existing game to a webgame can thus be done with minimal effort, as you can see in the LWJGL tutorial.

After finding out about these, I’m confident I made the right choice by using Java and LWJGL for my game development. Maybe I’ll make a free online version of Bubblomania with this API. It could be a nice project to get up to speed with LWJGL, and start off my life as an independent game producer next week!

It’s official now! Last week, I agreed with my boss I would leave the company, and today I handed in my letter of resignation. My last day at the job will be the 6th of october, so that means only 37 days left until I’m a full time indie!

These are exciting times! Can’t wait to get started!

My first project will be the Smiley Puzzle Project. I’ve been working sporadically on the prototype of this game, and I think this one will be a good learning experience. The game is not very complex, so I’m sure I can actually finish it.

And I have several other game ideas, including one I invented in a dream!

As promised a few weeks ago, here’s a new screenshot of the current Smiley Puzzle prototype!

As you can see, I’ve been mainly working on the graphics and animations of the smileys. The biggest difference with the previous screenshots, is that each type of smiley has a different color. This makes it a lot easier to line them up! I also improved the rendering to make them look more reflective, for a glossy plastic feel.

The current background of the prototype is temporary. It will probably change to better fit the smiley theme.

I’ve rendered the smileys with DAZ Studio, a powerful 3D posing and animation tool. And best of all, it’s completely free! The DAZ Productions website also offers a lot of 3D models for very democratic prices. I think it’s a great tool and resource for game producers on a budget! The only drawback of the DAZ Studio application, is that it currently crashes on MacOS X 10.4. Under 10.3.9 it works fine, but I hope they can fix this issue.

There’s still a lot of work to do on the game of course, but the important thing is that I’m making progress!