We are pleased to announced that Captain Skyro is available now for FREE on all platforms!
It has been a great learning experience for our first mobile game and it is now time for more people to enjoy it. No more excuses now, so you can grab Captain Skyro here:
iOS
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/captain-skyro/id509997417
Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.teampokpok.skyro
Stay tuned for our upcoming projects!
Happy SkyrOctober! (see what we did here? Skyro + October! duh! 
Some announcements coming soon to celebrate!
Phil over at gameviewpoint.com caught up with the Brian and myself a few weeks back to ask us about all things game development.
Check out the interview in full here: gameviewpoint.com/interview-with-team-pok-pok/
… and while you’re at it, check out the rest of the gameviewpoint site.
It’s all ramping up pretty quickly. The game has hit the app store and less than a day later people have picked it up and are playing.
No idea on numbers yet but the response is pretty good so far. A few people are asking about future Game Center support which we’ll definitely consider if the demand is there.
Our main focus has been to get the game out there and test the waters. If it takes off we have a few ideas up our sleeves.
In the meantime check out the updated trailer, or even better, check out the game! Now on iOS.
Here’s a few links and stats of our coverage for Captain Skyro for Android.
Definitely a slow start but maybe the iOS release will help both markets pick up a bit.
Lately we have been working on the iOS port of Skyro and it’s going pretty smoothly. It was amazing to have the exact same code from the Android version running on the iPhone within 2 hours. I’ll cover more on the porting process in another post.
So far there have been very few issues moving from Android to iOS. Most of the work is dealing with different screen resolutions until I came across a small sound issue. The in game sound controls work perfectly and the iPhone’s volume buttons work as expected. What doesn’t work is the phone ‘mute’ or ‘silence’ functionality.
As I understand, the mute switch on the iPhone is used to silence all system notifications such as ring tones, message sounds and other system alerts. However, most phone users have come to expect that same mute switch to silence the sounds made by applications too. With AIR, this doesn’t work. The mute switch has no effect on the game sound (at least with the version 3.2 of AIR I’m using).
I proceeded to do quick search and it seemed like Native Extensions for Adobe AIR was the answer, and someone had already created the extension for this exact mute functionality (http://www.enriquedavid.es/adobe-native-extensions-ios-mute-button.html). Sweet.
After hours of trying to include the .swc and .ane files in every which way, I could not get this thing to work. Everything I tried came up with some sort of error. 10 hours in and I finally got it working so I wanted to document how I got it running so I can save other people the same issues. Continue reading
After 48 hours we were really tired with the lack of sleep. At least we managed to create something according to the theme the organisers provided.
We created Maru (circle or round in Japanese), a very experimental interactive flash experience.
It is a game about life, death and self sacrifice. You’re alone in the dark trying to find your loved one…
Here is a video:
So our take on the theme was to make a game of self sacrifice. As you walk through the darkness you slowly die, but when you die your corpse leaves light which is safe for you to travel through when you re-incarnate. The earlier you die, the more light you leave behind.
The aim of the game is to strategically sacrifice yourself in order to explore, activate the hidden switches that release the gates that are blocking you from your love on the right on the map.
On completing the level we show you the number of moves you took so you can improve on it next time round.
Fresh after the release of skyro this week we’ve jumped right in to a new challenge or the 2012 Global Game Jam.
We’ve got 48 hours to create something amazing according to a theme the organisers provided.
As a nice little bonus, the participating teams were interviewed about the event and Team Pok Pok were first up.
Team Updates – Day 2, Update #1 from IGDA GameJam on Vimeo.
Meet four of our brilliant game development teams here at GameJam Sydney 2012.
They are:
POKPOK
LOBSTAR
WHITEWALL
RASPBERRY
Also revealed is this year’s Global GameJam Theme – the mysterious Ouroborous. More updates soon!
Shot by Ange Graf and David Molloy.
Produced, Directed & Edited by Ange Graf.
Music: ‘Pure Progression’ by Digimode. [Licenced under Creative Commons for commercial use.]
It’s taken some time but we’re proud to say that Captain Skyro is finally available on the Android market! Here is a video trailer for the launch:
The trailer uses a lot of in game footage and some of the cut scenes from the game itself. In the end it was a matter of nicely presenting and putting together all the rich assets that we had handy.
Captain Skyro has kept us busy during our spare time but it’s been a journey of discovery in the process of creating that first game from concept to the final push to the Android market.
We hope that you appreciate the time and effort we have spent on this special project and can spend less than a dollar to show some support. Thank you.
