Prepare for GAME.minder 2.6

The next major version of GAME.minder has been approved by Apple and we expect to release it sometime this week. We figured this was a good time to share with you what we’ve been working on for the last 6 months or so and what it means for GAME.minder moving forward.

Back that end up

We’ve fielded tons of really great requests in the 2 years that GAME.minder has existed. Chief among them has been the ability to track dates in different regions around the world. The majority of big titles are released worldwide on the same day (or close to it) but smaller games and region-specific games weren’t very well supported on the original GAME.minder. This was an architectural limitation, baked into the lowest levels of the backend system.

For a “next-generation” GAME.minder, we felt that we needed to go back to the beginning and rethink how we were going to track video game releases. Video games, and their release cycles, are very different from other media like movies or books. How do we classify a game release? What are its defining characteristics? What makes something a “platform” or “console” vs a “store” or “distribution channel”?

The culmination of our answers to these questions and more is the brand spanking new backend that is going to power GAME.minder in the years to come. We realized we could rebuild it, we had the technology! The new system is powerful, smart, robust and expandable. But our most important goal was to keep GAME.minder’s core feature as simple to use as ever. You want to track when games are coming out, first and foremost, and that isn’t going anywhere.

So what can the new backend do that the old one can’t? It starts with how games are stored. The most important item in GAME.minder until now has been “the release”. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on Xbox 360 was a different thing than Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on PS3 and both were one and only one thing. This meant each one could have its own release date (good!) but only one release date (bad!). To remedy this in the best way possible, we’ve made the most important thing “The Game”.

The GAME is the thing

Let’s look at a theoretical example, and let’s call it “Ringworld”. Ringworld is coming out for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii as well as PC. It will be released in the US and EU but the EU release is delayed by 2 weeks. It will be available on disc for the consoles but boxed or via steam on the PC.

Under the old system, you would have to find “The Release” that you are looking for. Each possible combination above would be its own release for a total of 10 (4 boxed US, 4 boxed EU versions plus 2 digital versions). That may not seem all that bad but imagine something like FIFA. The FIFA series is yearly, released on just about everything with a screen (10 different platforms tracked in GAME.minder), and in just about every region. Scrolling through 40-60 releases would be pretty annoying.

As you may have gathered from the examples, once GAME.minder 2.6 for iOS, GAME.minder for Android and GAMEminder.com are released to the public, you will no longer be tracking releases, but games. Just find the game you want and set a RE.minder - no need to search for the right release. 

“BUT WAIT!” You may be thinking. “I’m only ever going to play PS3 games in North America, why on earth would I want to set a reminder for all those other platforms, and regions?" In the immortal words of Douglas Adams - DON’T PANIC. If you’re the kind of gamer that is very specific, you can set your preferences to only show you what you want, just like the current system. But what is NOT like the current system (and this is the bit we’re really proud of), you can override these prefs on a per game basis.

Maybe you typically play PS3 and Xbox games in Europe but for some reason, you want to see what’s going on with the Wii U version of one specific game. Just tap “Edit RE.minder” and turn Wii U back on. Are you moving from London to Ohio? Just change your region. Have you shifted all your buying from discs to Steam? We can now track those separately as different distribution methods. It’s pretty slick.

This is only the beginning 

Is it starting to become clear why it took us more than 6 months to put this together? It’s not a small thing. And yet, you might have noticed that despite all my yammering about the backend, the app is only called 2.6. “But Jeremy” you say, “Surely this qualifies as version 3?”

Not even close.

We’re planning to take GAME.minder to some pretty cool places over the next year, but before we could even start on that, we needed a good foundation. The new Apps represent almost literally the bare minimum we needed to change on the front end to work with the major changes in how things are working behind the scenes. But I’m only scratching the surface of what is going to be possible now. You might have noticed I used the word “expandable” up the page a bit (more than a bit I guess). Well I’m not going to spill the beans just yet, but know that when we do get to 3.0, we think you’re gonna love it as much as we do.

GAME.minder is dead. Long live GAME.minder! 

Watch GAMEminderReport.com and the GAME.minder Twitter and Facebook pages over the next two weeks to see when the switchover is gonna happen. Unfortunately, given this massive change, it’s gonna be an abrupt changeover (we tried to avoid it, but the changes are just too extensive).

When we’re ready to launch, we’ll let everyone know. We will then take the old system down, bring the new system up and you’ll need to get the updated client for iOS or Android. If you are already using the most up to date client (more than 90% of you are!), and you have created your GAMEminder.com account, you should be right as rain. The next morning, you will wake up in the glorious future of GAME.minder.

Thank you for using GAME.minder and for all your feedback. Our growth in 2012 has been truly amazing and we just know that 2013 is going to be even better! Have a happy Thanksgiving (if you are in the US) and as always -

DON'T FORGET TO PLAY

RE.minder 2.1.2 brings iOS 6 and iPhone 5 support

We're happy to announce that versions 2.1.2 of both RE.minder and RE.minder PRO+ are through approval and available now.

This is a small update which:

  1. Brings support for the taller screen on iPhone 5 (and the new iPod touch).
  2. Has been built for iOS 6.

In addition to these updates to the apps themselves, we've also translated the RE.minder iTunes store pages into all the languages the apps support:

  • English
  • Dutch
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Italian
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish

So click RE.minder or RE.minder PRO+ and get your to-do list in check. Already using RE.minder or RE.minder PRO+? Tell us what you think by posting a review on the App Store.

GAME.minder finds the Droids you were looking for.

"That's a cool idea, can I get it for Android?"At PAX East 2011, PAX Prime 2011 and PAX East 2012, we fielded that question innumerable times and the answer was always the same - stay tuned. Well for those of you who have dutifully stayed tuned-in, we're happy to announce that the wait is over! GAME.minder is now available for over 1366 Android devices (according to Google Play).

If you've been waiting with bated breath for GAME.minder to be available on your platform of choice, fire up your tapping fingers and head over to Google Play. One quick, free download later you'll be remembering games to your heart's content! For every game you track, you'll get nice friendly push notifications when it's time to pre-order or play.

If you like to get your apps from Amazon vs Google, fear not. GAME.minder will also be available over there in short order (but not yet for Kindle unfortunately).

Whether you have a Droid X or an HTC Sensation (although not a Marvin unfortunately), we encourage you to Share and Enjoy the brand new Android version of GAME.minder.

Sentinels Sidekick now Available!

Sometimes it helps to have a sidekick. When you're battling supervillains in Sentinels of the Multiverse, there's a lot going on to keep track of. That's where Sentinels Sidekick comes in!Sentinels Sidekick keeps track of the hitpoints of all targets in the game, including Heroes, Villains, Minions, Environment cards, and more. You can even have it generate random games for you, for unexpected challenges!

The app is available right now for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch on the App Store for 99 cents. And here are some promo codes for the first lucky readers:

NAH3L333JAJY RLMHHA476NLP RRL4JHA3LPFN 3A7MMHHAWK4N

We came across Sentinels of the Multiverse at PAX Prime 2011, when our Uncle Slam booth was next door to Greater Than Games. After the first demo we were hooked! This spring they came out with the Rook City expansion, and we took it upon ourselves to build something cool related to the game. Sentinels Sidekick is the result, and only the beginning we hope!

The GAME.minder Report has arrived

Have you ever been using GAME.minder and thought to yourself, "you know what this experience needs - more audio content!"No?

Just us?

Well anyway, if you like your upcoming gaming news through your earholes vs your eyeholes, we've now got you covered. The GAME.minder Report is a quick weekly wrap up of upcoming gaming news. We'll highlight any important developments in terms of delays and new dates as well as highlight a couple notable games that have just been added to GAME.minder.

If this sounds at all interesting to you, head over to iTunes and check out the inaugural episode and if you have any thoughts, comments, concerns, hopes or dreams, drop us a line.

What a difference a year makes - PAX East 2011-2012

A year ago, a smaller Handelabra team dipped it's first tentative toe into that whirling current known as PAX East. GAME.minder was just hitting 2.0 and to get the word out, we bought some ad space at the show. Most of the team had never been to a PAX before and, not knowing what to expect, we showed up with a stack of GAME.minder info sheets and a very rough playable prototype of Uncle Slam (née Presidential Pugilism).More than anything we learned one thing - THIS PLACE ROCKS!

Seriously, if you like games at all, and you've never been to PAX, you owe it to yourself to attend. It is such a great atmosphere to celebrate what we all love about playing.

So when PAX Prime rolled around in August, we knew we wanted to make a splash. Uncle Slam was under heavy development and what better way to see what was working and what wasn't than to get it in front of actual players. In addition, GAME.minder was chugging right along so why not keep it going?

I won't rehash the numbers or what we learned about Uncle Slam, but one major lesson learned was this - GAME.minder is much bigger than just an iOS app.

After what felt like the 90th "can I use it on Android" we realized we needed to reach outside our comfort zone to bring the GAME.minder concept to the world outside the walled garden. Enter - GAMEminder.com. We are iterating like crazy right now to bring it as close in functionality to the iOS app as possible and expect to have lots of great stuff to show off at PAX in just a week and a half. If you saw us in Seattle and wished you could use GAME.minder on your Android or Windows phone, the wait is over. Come see us at booth #254, we can't wait to show it to you.

As for Uncle Slam, what started life as a simple, iPad-only, playable prototype with only 2 presidents to choose from and very rough mechanics is now universal and on the app store with more than 15 playable presidents! If you've been enjoying Uncle Slam, come see us at booth #254 to check out some swag and maybe even pose for a photo with Uncle Slam himself.

It's been just over a year and we're packing our bags for PAX again. We hope you're doing the same, and we'll see you there!

Couplett 3 of 3: From the ashes (Approval at last)

(read part 1 and part 2)Rejection.

In our experience, it doesn't happen often but when it does, it's always unexpected. There are lots of developers out there who are riding the edge, whether on the technical end (pushing the edges of what iOS can do) or on the business end (like selling "borderline" things via IAP). We thought there was a possibility we might fall into the first category with Couplett. After all, we started off trying to do something with the camera system that Apple confirmed to us couldn't really be done. We found out that we actually fell into the second category.

The system we devised for rewarding users who spread the word about our app seemed like a pretty good one. You use our app, we give you content to keep using the app. If this was the end of it, we would have been fine. Where the trouble arose was when we also said "but if you want to skip all that, you can just buy tokens and reward yourself". You've done this in games. Lots of games allow you to purchase some sort of intermediate currency that you use in game. You may not spend 99¢ to buy a great sword outright, but you might spend 99¢ to buy 1000 gold and then turn around and spend 500 gold to unlock the sword. As with many things, Apple's guidelines here can be open to interpretation.

By our interpretation, we weren't doing anything different than these myriad games save one - we were not a game.

The concept of "gamification" is floating around a lot these days and the idea of rewarding desired behaviors is seen, for example, at Fitocracy (where you "level up" by completing exercises). We've applied some of these same concepts in GAME.minder. When you are "playing" something, it can add an element of fun that you don't get from simply "using" something.

After carefully considering the situation, we came to two conclusions:

  • Apple is wrong
  • but that doesn't actually matter

For those not intimately familiar with the App Review process, you do have the option to appeal. While we have never taken this option (our only other rejections were for simple things like mishandled screenshots), we have heard that it can drag on for months. As Couplett was now coming up on 1 year since inception, we decided to simply rework the model of Couplett into a more traditional freemium app where you get to try it out for free, and you buy add ons in-app. While the model of rewards was, in our opinion, an innovative model, the true innovation of Couplett is the 2 camera functionality and it seemed a shame to hold up getting that out there just to quibble over how people could pay.

We spent the month of January pulling apart the token reward system and rebuilding the app to allow for downloadable theme packs. One positive that came out of this change is that the app itself is now under 20 megabytes, allowing it to be downloaded over 3G. This extra time also allowed us to use the app "in the wild" so to speak over the holiday period which led us to another discovery.

As we have covered, it's not possible to have both cameras active at once. This means you only get to frame up the "main" picture, the front facing picture is shot "blind". Now at first, we considered this an ok trade-off but in my personal use over the holiday, I discovered that the front facing cameras aren't aimed exactly how you might think, especially on iPad. This lead to either a lot of "top heavy" front facing photos, or a lot of retakes to make sure things were framed up correctly.

Since we had the time, we took this opportunity to add a brief "check your hair" moment before taking the front facing picture. If you make sure your face is framed in the square, you should be golden to use any theme available without worrying about getting cut off.

We wrapped up the changes, reorganized our in app purchases, submitted and settled in again to wait.

Approved!

On February 8th, Couplett was released to world and we had a bang up first day, peaking at #9 free photo app for both iPhone and iPad!