Friday, March 6, 2015

What I've been up to lately

Hi! It's been a while since I posted something and I wanted to let you know what I've been doing throughout all this time and what my plans are for the near future.


First of all, the game I was working on, Fruit Worm Bubble, is already done and published on the Google Play Store. Although the idea wasn't mine and most of the code hasn't been written by me (I made it for an outside company - Mobartis), I'm still quite proud of it. It has great graphics, pleasant sounds and music, and some interesting gameplay mechanics. Make sure to check it out and if you're interested in more development details, take a look at my previous post about it.


I'm still cooperating on the game with Mobartis - fixing bugs and adding alternative ad networks and in-app payments. Later in the future I'm hoping to share with you some data concerning ad network efficiency and promotion techniques they used (of course if they let me do it...).


My second big project was Blinq. They hired me through TopTal to implement various animations, so now, when you open the app, the splash screen and the onboarding process have been brought to life by me. I was complaining earlier that TopTal wasn't really working that well since it was difficult to get a job there. Well, it turns out that it's possible, although I still claim that it isn't easy...


When it comes to the app itself, it provides users with information from social media about people they message with using Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Skype and SMS. Basically, whenever someone writes to you, you see a window showing what they've been posting on their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. This way you can stay in touch with the latest events concerning people you care about. Blinq has been featured by TechCrunch and Silicon Valley Business Journal and I suggest you give it a try as well.


Apart from the big projects, I've been working on smaller ones as well. I managed to get a couple of Elance jobs. I've done five of them so far and I have to say that I'm quite satisfied with the site overall. If you get some practice, it's not so hard to find there interesting work that pays relatively well.

To boast a little bit, here's my profile:
https://www.elance.com/s/bartekwesolowski/?rid=3I6PX
I've had three clients so far and they all gave me a five-star rating. I've earned $1,384 in total. Perhaps, if you have some Android work to do, you can consider hiring me as well, haha. I'm quite busy at the moment though.


If the above weren't enough, I moved to another city once again - Poznań - where I used to live before 2013. My girlfriend got a job here and after a long discussion we decided that we were ready to leave Cracow (after less than half a year of me living there). So I quit my job - Infusion - and found myself another one - STX Next - where I'm a full-time Android developer now. Time will tell how long we'll stay here...


Not to make this post unbearably long, I want to give you a sneak peak of what I'm planning to do next. First of all, I have another of my metro map apps almost ready to be published. It just needs some final corrections and Google Play Store graphics/screenshots. Other than that, I started using two new ad networks and I'm curious to find out how well they'll perform. I also want to experiment with CodeCanyon and see if I can make some money there. Finally, if I can find any more free time, I'd like to learn some Unity. Perhaps I could make a very simple game using it or rewrite my Blobby Volley.


Until next time. Don't forget to visit me again and see how I'm doing. Peace.