I took part in Hacktoberfest 2021. I created Customizable OkHttp Logging Interceptor - an OkHttp interceptor which logs HTTP request and response data and allows output customization. I decided to do it because the library authors rejected my feature request some time ago saying that people can write their own interceptors or use a more sophisticated library that already exists.
It was a valuable experience for me. I learned how to use JitPack to publish your library in a public repository. I also learned how to create a good readme page.
I suggest you try contributing to open source as well if you haven't already. It's a bit like having a new job. You work on a new project and with new people so you learn the fastest. Hacktoberfest is a great occasion to start your open source adventure. They help you with the technical stuff and give you prizes (T-shirts and stickers) for completing the challenge.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Hacktoberfest 2021 and open source
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Learning Jetpack Compose
I'm learning Jetpack Compose. If you're a serious Android developer you probably should too. There's a great series of codelabs and other materials created by Google. You can find it here.
As an exercise, I'll rewrite my Blogger Stats app to use Compose. I've already started. It's good to have your own small project that you can try new things on. If you don't have one yet, why not start something from scratch?
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
Sandmade and Hidden Paws
I was a bit tired of my regular work, so I took some time off and decided to port two of my friend's games from Steam to Android.
The first one is Sandmade - a puzzle game that challenges you spatial skills.
The second one is Hidden Paws - a game in which you have to find cats hidden on beautiful snowy islands.
The main challenges when porting the games were:
- switching to the Universal Render Pipeline (for performance reasons)
- other performance issues related to lightmapping, shaders and postprocessing
- adjusting the UI so it's big enough (and thus clickable) on mobile devices
- adjusting the controls to work with touch only (Hidden Paws required a virtual joystick)
- removing Steam-related code
- switching to the Universal Render Pipeline (for performance reasons)
- other performance issues related to lightmapping, shaders and postprocessing
- adjusting the UI so it's big enough (and thus clickable) on mobile devices
- adjusting the controls to work with touch only (Hidden Paws required a virtual joystick)
- removing Steam-related code
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Blogger Stats remake
Remember my Blogger Stats app from 2014? It's very old and deserves an update. It stopped working on the latest Android versions as well. I'm in the process of rewriting it from scratch. It's going really slow, because I don't have much free time, but I already have a functional prototype using the newest Google APIs. I'll let you know when I'm finished.
Other than that, I'm planning a very long vacation and I'm hoping to start a new project in that time. I really miss working on my own ideas. I'll share more details with you later.
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Break
I haven't done anything significant for the last couple of months due to work, children and COVID. Hopefully, I'll be back working on apps and games later this year. I have some new ideas and I can't wait to try them out. However, what I need right now is relax and sleep, so that's what I'm going to prioritize. Other things will have to wait.
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
June Updates
Just a quick update on what's been happening during the last two months.
I took on a new side gig, which deprived me of virtually any free time. I've been polishing Coins: an app in which you can explore various cryptocurrencies and keep your wallets. I thought it was going to be an interesting experience that would teach me new skills, that I wouldn't be able to learn in my day job. I did learn a couple of things, but overall, I'm becoming more and more miserable because of the lack of free time. I'm going to cut down on the number of hours I spend working on Coins starting this week, which should give me some relief.
Other than Coins, I haven't done much. I finished a nice Flutter course on Udemy. I liked it very much, except the fact that some of the lessons were targeted at absolute beginners (e.g. explaining how for loops work or what OOP is).
I will start working on a simple Flutter app displaying a list of events for children. My wife has been running a newsletter putting those events there, but I think that an app could be much easier to use, since you'd be able to filter only those events that interest you instead of trying to pick them from a very long list. I want to use Flutter, because I can easily make an iOS version as well, and perhaps a Web version too.
I took on a new side gig, which deprived me of virtually any free time. I've been polishing Coins: an app in which you can explore various cryptocurrencies and keep your wallets. I thought it was going to be an interesting experience that would teach me new skills, that I wouldn't be able to learn in my day job. I did learn a couple of things, but overall, I'm becoming more and more miserable because of the lack of free time. I'm going to cut down on the number of hours I spend working on Coins starting this week, which should give me some relief.
Other than Coins, I haven't done much. I finished a nice Flutter course on Udemy. I liked it very much, except the fact that some of the lessons were targeted at absolute beginners (e.g. explaining how for loops work or what OOP is).
I will start working on a simple Flutter app displaying a list of events for children. My wife has been running a newsletter putting those events there, but I think that an app could be much easier to use, since you'd be able to filter only those events that interest you instead of trying to pick them from a very long list. I want to use Flutter, because I can easily make an iOS version as well, and perhaps a Web version too.
Wish me luck with my future endeavors.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Quarantine updates
I've been sitting at home with my kids for a several weeks now and it's been a difficult time for me, but a couple of interesting things happened that I want to share with you.
First of all, Blobby Volley got featured in an article on GamesKeys as an underrated arcade game to play. I never contacted them, so it was a nice surprise to find out that people liked my game. I recommended Find a Way to them as well and they might write about it in the future.
I bought Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo when they were 50% off. They should help me make better icons and graphic resources for my apps.
People have been writing to me regarding my apps. I made a couple of bug fixes in Unity Ads Stats because the numbers were incorrect in some rare cases, as one of my users pointed out and helped me track the issue. Also, a couple of months ago I made a small app for my brother-in-law, who is a forester. It was supposed to help him count trees and estimate their volume. I made a simple prototype and published it on Google Play as a beta, so that it was easier for him to install. As it turned out, someone else found the app, started using it and came back to me with feedback. I couldn't help myself and I implemented some of the suggestions. Perhaps it's a sign that I should polish it a bit and publish a final version?
When it comes to the promotion of Find a Way, I didn't do anything new. I'm still considering paying a small amount for ads on Google and Facebook, just to see how they work and how many users I can get with them. It's hard for me to start though, because I don't even know where to begin.
I also forgot to mention that I started working on a new app for my wife. She has a Facebook group and a newsletter with events for children and parents. I was thinking that the app might be useful, because browsing and filtering Facebook events or emails is very inconvenient. I already made a small prototype using Firebase Realtime Database. It looks promising but I'm not sure how to add events to the database in a user friendly way, so that non-technical people can do it.
To sum up, I had a rough start into the quarantine, but I've managed to organize myself well enough now to be able to put in some hours into my apps. I still get very excited about them, to the point where I can't sleep. I might be spreading myself thin though, with all those little changes and improvements that I do to all of them. And I'd like to improve controls in Blobby Volley too. We'll see what I'm actually capable of soon...
First of all, Blobby Volley got featured in an article on GamesKeys as an underrated arcade game to play. I never contacted them, so it was a nice surprise to find out that people liked my game. I recommended Find a Way to them as well and they might write about it in the future.
I bought Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo when they were 50% off. They should help me make better icons and graphic resources for my apps.
People have been writing to me regarding my apps. I made a couple of bug fixes in Unity Ads Stats because the numbers were incorrect in some rare cases, as one of my users pointed out and helped me track the issue. Also, a couple of months ago I made a small app for my brother-in-law, who is a forester. It was supposed to help him count trees and estimate their volume. I made a simple prototype and published it on Google Play as a beta, so that it was easier for him to install. As it turned out, someone else found the app, started using it and came back to me with feedback. I couldn't help myself and I implemented some of the suggestions. Perhaps it's a sign that I should polish it a bit and publish a final version?
When it comes to the promotion of Find a Way, I didn't do anything new. I'm still considering paying a small amount for ads on Google and Facebook, just to see how they work and how many users I can get with them. It's hard for me to start though, because I don't even know where to begin.
I also forgot to mention that I started working on a new app for my wife. She has a Facebook group and a newsletter with events for children and parents. I was thinking that the app might be useful, because browsing and filtering Facebook events or emails is very inconvenient. I already made a small prototype using Firebase Realtime Database. It looks promising but I'm not sure how to add events to the database in a user friendly way, so that non-technical people can do it.
To sum up, I had a rough start into the quarantine, but I've managed to organize myself well enough now to be able to put in some hours into my apps. I still get very excited about them, to the point where I can't sleep. I might be spreading myself thin though, with all those little changes and improvements that I do to all of them. And I'd like to improve controls in Blobby Volley too. We'll see what I'm actually capable of soon...
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Find a Way: Promotion (part 2)
Here's what I did so far to promote Find a Way:
- I published a post in three Facebook groups:
- I created a post on Reddit in AndroidGaming
- I wrote to several review sites such as:
- Android Games Review
- Pocket Gamer
- AppsPirate
- Android Apps
- AppSpy
- Droid Gamers
- possibly some more that didn't answer me
The cost of getting a game reviewed was ranging from $89 to $3000, so I decided that I wasn't ready to spend such a high amount of money. Especially that I wasn't sure if it would get me any results. Facebook and Reddit posts brought me around 10 new downloads. Perhaps if my game was more graphics heavy, then it would be easier to showcase it... however creating such a game would take me years.
I'm slowly running out of ideas as to where I could still promote Find a Way. I'm considering investing a small amount of money in Google and/or Facebook ads, just to see how they work and what kind of returns I could get from them.
If you have any other suggestions of what I could still do to get more downloads, please let me know.
I'm slowly running out of ideas as to where I could still promote Find a Way. I'm considering investing a small amount of money in Google and/or Facebook ads, just to see how they work and what kind of returns I could get from them.
If you have any other suggestions of what I could still do to get more downloads, please let me know.
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Find a Way: Promotion (part 1)
Since my new game Find a Way is not doing well on Google Play, I decided to take action and try to promote it in various ways, letting you know about my results. Here's what I've done so far.
I published the game on itch.io. I'd been publishing early prototype versions there even before the game got published. I did get up to 8 visits during the first week of the game's presence there and then it dropped to around 1-2 visits per day. Also, a large part of the visits seem to come from the blog anyway...
I submitted the game to the Indie Games Festival from Google Play. I don't think that I could ever win it but I thought that it might be a way to get more eyes on the game. So far, I'm not seeing any significant results from it, but the submission phase is still in progress, so perhaps some traffic will come later.
I submitted the game to Unity Connect. You don't know what it is? Well, I didn't either. It's a portal created by Unity to showcase projects and look for gigs. There aren't any analytics there but I don't think it brings many people to the game.
I didn't take any more serious steps to promote Find a Way yet because I've been trying to improve it a little bit by making the ads less intrusive, fixing some minor bugs, and building it with Unity 2019.3, which has some tweaks. I'm almost done with all the changes I wanted to make and I'll start reaching out to various online groups and review sites to see if it helps in any way. Stay tuned for more updates.
I published the game on itch.io. I'd been publishing early prototype versions there even before the game got published. I did get up to 8 visits during the first week of the game's presence there and then it dropped to around 1-2 visits per day. Also, a large part of the visits seem to come from the blog anyway...
I submitted the game to the Indie Games Festival from Google Play. I don't think that I could ever win it but I thought that it might be a way to get more eyes on the game. So far, I'm not seeing any significant results from it, but the submission phase is still in progress, so perhaps some traffic will come later.
I submitted the game to Unity Connect. You don't know what it is? Well, I didn't either. It's a portal created by Unity to showcase projects and look for gigs. There aren't any analytics there but I don't think it brings many people to the game.
I didn't take any more serious steps to promote Find a Way yet because I've been trying to improve it a little bit by making the ads less intrusive, fixing some minor bugs, and building it with Unity 2019.3, which has some tweaks. I'm almost done with all the changes I wanted to make and I'll start reaching out to various online groups and review sites to see if it helps in any way. Stay tuned for more updates.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Find a Way: Results so far
It's been more than a month since my game Find a Way was published on Google Play and itch.io. So far it has less than 100 downloads and it doesn't seem that it's getting any traction. I wasn't expecting it to be super popular but I was definitely hoping for more than this.
The game itself turned out quite well and I'm proud of making it. It has some good ratings on Google Play (most of them are from my friends and family though). I'm frankly not sure why it's not getting at least a couple of downloads a day. It's not that people play it and don't like it - there's just nobody even discovering its existence.
I'm not getting depressed about the results though. I think that I might still be able to make it work somehow. My thinking is that I just didn't spend enough time for marketing.
So the plan now is to try a bunch of techniques to promote the game. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of ideas that I could use, e.g. contacting review sites, posting it on game-related Facebook pages, posting it on Reddit, perhaps even paying for some traffic.
I'm going to perform a series of experiments trying to see which techniques work and which do not. I hope it can be interesting to you as well. If you have an idea you think I should try, please let me know.
I'll keep you up to date on my actions and their results. Come back in a couple of weeks to see how I'm doing. Wish me luck!
The game itself turned out quite well and I'm proud of making it. It has some good ratings on Google Play (most of them are from my friends and family though). I'm frankly not sure why it's not getting at least a couple of downloads a day. It's not that people play it and don't like it - there's just nobody even discovering its existence.
I'm not getting depressed about the results though. I think that I might still be able to make it work somehow. My thinking is that I just didn't spend enough time for marketing.
So the plan now is to try a bunch of techniques to promote the game. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of ideas that I could use, e.g. contacting review sites, posting it on game-related Facebook pages, posting it on Reddit, perhaps even paying for some traffic.
I'm going to perform a series of experiments trying to see which techniques work and which do not. I hope it can be interesting to you as well. If you have an idea you think I should try, please let me know.
I'll keep you up to date on my actions and their results. Come back in a couple of weeks to see how I'm doing. Wish me luck!
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Find a Way is out
After being more than one year in production, Find a Way is already out on Goole Play. You can also play the demo version (the first 8 levels) on Itch. The game turned out quite well: it's pretty, has nice music (thanks to Kevin McLeod from incompetech), and is fun to play. Here's a quick promo video that I made:
Go give it a try!
I'm not going to start any new projects for now because I've just had a second baby and my free time is severely limited. Instead, I'm going to focus on my existing apps and games, and experiment with smaller changes in them and/or in their promotion strategy. I'm curious if I can get any results.
I'm going to take a quick nap right now. Wish me luck with Find a Way and come back in a while for more updates.
... and a couple of screenshots:
Go give it a try!
I'm not going to start any new projects for now because I've just had a second baby and my free time is severely limited. Instead, I'm going to focus on my existing apps and games, and experiment with smaller changes in them and/or in their promotion strategy. I'm curious if I can get any results.
I'm going to take a quick nap right now. Wish me luck with Find a Way and come back in a while for more updates.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Unity Ads and "Designed for Families" program
I was trying to join "Designed for Families" program on Google Play with my Blobby Volley game. The game itself is perfectly suitable for children and I only use Unity Ads in it, which is listed as a certified ad network. Unfortunately, I got rejected twice and I got a more detailed explanation the second time. It turns out that, although being a certified ad network, Unity Ads are not automatically
suitable for children. Here's what the email said:
The ad content in your app does not comply with Families Policy Requirements.
suitable for children. Here's what the email said:
The ad content in your app does not comply with Families Policy Requirements.
- For example, your app contains an ad for dating
- For example, your app contains an ad for gambling
- For example, your app contains an ad for contests or sweepstakes promotions
- For example, your app contains an ad for sexual content
- For example, your app contains an ad for alcohol
- For example, your app contains an ad for drugs/tobacco or uncontrolled substances
It had also a couple of screenshots attached showing those illegal ads.
It turns out that Unity Ads, by default, serve adult ads, unless you specify otherwise in you Dashboard (Monetization > Ad filters).
Be careful when you add restrictions though, because your fill-rate and CPM will certainly drop.
To read more about the topic, see this thread on Unit forums and the official guide for creating games for children and families.
As to Blobby Volley, I'm not going to apply for the program for now.
Be careful when you add restrictions though, because your fill-rate and CPM will certainly drop.
To read more about the topic, see this thread on Unit forums and the official guide for creating games for children and families.
As to Blobby Volley, I'm not going to apply for the program for now.
Sunday, September 8, 2019
Find a Way: Progress report 10
I finally got some graphic designs from my friend! It means that I'll be able to move on with the game a step further. Still, some details are missing or need to be changed but there's a chance that I can finish the project before the end of the year. Here, take a look.
Friday, August 2, 2019
Unity Ads Stats on CodeCanyon
And since I'm already writing this post, I might as well share with you what I'm doing now...
I started working on a very small project that I'm hoping to finish in a month or two. It's supposed to help foresters measure the volume of trees that gets cut down. I know it sounds very specialistic but my brother-in-law asked me to do it and I'm curious if writing something for this particular niche might actually be a good idea. It's supposed to be a one-screen app, so it shouldn't be difficult to code. I'll let you know how it does when it's done.
As to my new game: Find a Way, I'm still waiting for the graphics to be done... I know it's been half a year and I made an ultimatum to my friend who's supposed to create them that if she doesn't finish until the end of August, I'm going to find someone else. I'm keeping my fingers crossed so that she sits down to do it soon.
In the meantime my Blobby Volley started gaining more users and it has more than 6k active ones now. I'm thinking about improving it a little bit, since I'm getting lots of bad reviews because of inconvenient controls and multiplayer errors. I need to finish the other projects first though.
That's pretty much what's going on right now. I'm hoping to close up all the started projects until the end of November, because then I'm going to have another baby and it'll probably get extremely hard to get anything done for a while.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Your app has been removed from Google Play due to a policy violation...
That's the content of an email from Google I found in my inbox the other day. It also contained the following paragraphs:
Issue: Violation of Usage of Android Advertising ID policy and section 4.8 of the Developer Distribution Agreement
Google Play requires developers to provide a valid privacy policy when the app requests or handles sensitive user or device information. We’ve identified that your app collects and transmits the Android advertising identifier, which is subject to a privacy policy requirement. If your app collects the Android advertising ID, you must provide a valid privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Console, and from within the app.
I was scared at first, but then I used a free App Privacy Policy Generator to create a Google Docs document with the policy. After that I added it to the Google Play listing and to the app's menu. After publishing a new version of the app, it has become visible again. I'm still waiting for Admob to start serving me ads though...
Anyway, I hope this helps if you have a similar problem.
Issue: Violation of Usage of Android Advertising ID policy and section 4.8 of the Developer Distribution Agreement
Google Play requires developers to provide a valid privacy policy when the app requests or handles sensitive user or device information. We’ve identified that your app collects and transmits the Android advertising identifier, which is subject to a privacy policy requirement. If your app collects the Android advertising ID, you must provide a valid privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Console, and from within the app.
I was scared at first, but then I used a free App Privacy Policy Generator to create a Google Docs document with the policy. After that I added it to the Google Play listing and to the app's menu. After publishing a new version of the app, it has become visible again. I'm still waiting for Admob to start serving me ads though...
Anyway, I hope this helps if you have a similar problem.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Find a Way: Progress report 9
I finally got some designs from my friend and they look very promising. Take a look and let me know what you think. I like the paper version better and I'll probably be using those.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
February Updates
Find a Way is slowly coming to a close... At least I'm hoping so. I talked to a friend (another one) who should help me with the design. There's just some polishing left and the game will be ready to be released. You can play an early version here:
https://bwdesign.itch.io/find-a-way?password=findaway2019
BTW, itch.io seems to be a great place for publishing your indie games. I'll post my game there as soon as I finish it. I wonder if anyone else has any experience with this site. I'll be happy to hear your thoughts.
When I was not working on Find a Way, I was helping my wife launch a newsletter with kids' events in my area. It's been moderately successful so far with a couple hundred people in the Facebook group and signed up for the email list. Hopefully, it will grow even more so she (or perhaps we) can start treating it as something more serious.
https://bwdesign.itch.io/find-a-way?password=findaway2019
BTW, itch.io seems to be a great place for publishing your indie games. I'll post my game there as soon as I finish it. I wonder if anyone else has any experience with this site. I'll be happy to hear your thoughts.
When I was not working on Find a Way, I was helping my wife launch a newsletter with kids' events in my area. It's been moderately successful so far with a couple hundred people in the Facebook group and signed up for the email list. Hopefully, it will grow even more so she (or perhaps we) can start treating it as something more serious.
Monday, November 26, 2018
November Updates
Just a quick status update on what I've been up to lately.
I went to Mobilization, which is a conference on mobile development. It was ok but I'm not sure if I would have gone there had it not been for the free ticket that I got...
I watched the majority of videos from KotlinConf 2018 and I suggest you do the same if you're at least remotely interested in Kotlin or Android development.
I watched all videos from Android Dev Summit 2018 and they were great as well.
I watched all videos from Indie Developer Day (Seattle) 2018 to learn some cool stuff about Unity, monetization and game publishers.
BTW, watching YouTube on 1,5x or 2x speed saves you sooo much time.
I met with a graphics designer about my game (Find a Way) but it's been more than two weeks now since then and he hasn't answered me, so I guess he's too busy to help me and I'll have to look somewhere else.
I started updating my Facebook Photo Gallery app to learn some of the new Architecture Components. I'll try to use some of the cool new Android features and post an updated version to CodeCanyon when I'm done.
In the next couple of months I'd like to focus on the game and on updating the gallery app. I'll be posting more updates when I manage to reach some milestone but, as you can see, there hasn't been much progress for a good couple of weeks when it comes to coding. I managed to catch up on some development knowledge though, which might come in handy both at my work and with my side projects.
That's it for the quick update. I'll try to have something more tangible next time. Stay tuned.
I went to Mobilization, which is a conference on mobile development. It was ok but I'm not sure if I would have gone there had it not been for the free ticket that I got...
I watched the majority of videos from KotlinConf 2018 and I suggest you do the same if you're at least remotely interested in Kotlin or Android development.
I watched all videos from Android Dev Summit 2018 and they were great as well.
I watched all videos from Indie Developer Day (Seattle) 2018 to learn some cool stuff about Unity, monetization and game publishers.
BTW, watching YouTube on 1,5x or 2x speed saves you sooo much time.
I met with a graphics designer about my game (Find a Way) but it's been more than two weeks now since then and he hasn't answered me, so I guess he's too busy to help me and I'll have to look somewhere else.
I started updating my Facebook Photo Gallery app to learn some of the new Architecture Components. I'll try to use some of the cool new Android features and post an updated version to CodeCanyon when I'm done.
In the next couple of months I'd like to focus on the game and on updating the gallery app. I'll be posting more updates when I manage to reach some milestone but, as you can see, there hasn't been much progress for a good couple of weeks when it comes to coding. I managed to catch up on some development knowledge though, which might come in handy both at my work and with my side projects.
That's it for the quick update. I'll try to have something more tangible next time. Stay tuned.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Find a Way: Progress report 8
Last week there was no progress update because I was in Spain and Andora on a short vacation, but I'm back now, so here's what I did. I added buttons for enabling/disabling music and sound. I added a reset button to restart the current level. The board state gets saved now, so when you close the game and come back to it, you see the tiles as you left them. There's also a win sound when you solve a level and then the board gets locked until you move to another level or reset the current one.
You can play the game here:
https://gamebucket.io/game/b1bd3e0f-3173-4e6a-976b-99535f4a5e16
The link will be active for 30 days.
Next, I'll be thinking of how to make the game more pretty.
You can play the game here:
https://gamebucket.io/game/b1bd3e0f-3173-4e6a-976b-99535f4a5e16
The link will be active for 30 days.
Next, I'll be thinking of how to make the game more pretty.
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Find a Way: Progress report 7
This week I added sounds, music and more levels (25-36). The audio files aren't final by any means.
Check out the new changes here:
https://gamebucket.io/game/f3c76bc4-5174-4441-93c3-9f777a3ec760
The link will be available for 30 days.
Next, I'll be adding more levels and tweaks to the game.
Check out the new changes here:
https://gamebucket.io/game/f3c76bc4-5174-4441-93c3-9f777a3ec760
The link will be available for 30 days.
Next, I'll be adding more levels and tweaks to the game.
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