Identify real archaic words from the list of made up words.
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Protect your world by gathering the colourful falling stars.
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Avoid bugs that bounce around the screen as long as you can.
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Clear the black skulls from the levels in the graveyard.
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Help out in the pastry shop by solving puzzles.
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Clear the most black marbles from the garden within 60 seconds.
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This is where we'll post current news items about what we're up to at the moment, links to games, and how our next game titles are coming along in development. If you want to follow along with Koko Tap news via your snazzy RSS reader, rather than visiting the website all the time, feel free to subscribe to this link.
— October 29, 2009
After almost seven weeks of trying to work with Apple to get our revised apps posted to the Store, we have had no success. No reply to any of our emails, in fact. Despite being assured that the changes that Apple requested would receive some form of accelerated approval and posting once we did what we had been asked to do. (OK, honestly, we weren't really expecting that to happen ... we're a bit of a small fish ... but a single email reply within seven weeks would've been nice.) For example, changing the bundle identifiers in our apps as requested from com.cocoatouchgames.game-name to com.kokotap.game-name now means that the developer interface will not even recognize the new versions as being the same app. That's kinda frustrating, as a developer.
In addition, when we first began developing our simple, fun and joyful games it was just that ... fun. It has become apparent to us that we are no longer to compete well with the myriad of new games that appear on the store every day (over 120 every day) and that the development of our games is taking too much time away from other things that are much more important in our lives (family, kids, books, boardgames, playtime and relaxation, and our cats). Time we could be spending elsewhere, much happier.
As of today, we have removed all of our games from sale. We wish everyone developing small indie games for the platform all the very best, and we will continue to purchase and play those occasional brilliant gems that still manage to appear in Apple's little walled garden, especially the hidden ones off the top 10 list that deserve to be played.
— October 1, 2009
It's been a busy summer here at Koko Tap. We have finally completed updating our games to comply with Apple's requests regarding our original brand and company name. We've done new artwork and some coding for our apps to make them fully Koko Tap, they've all been tested now and are ready for our users. We even managed to fix a few small bugs that had been reported to us so the apps are fully ready for uploading to the App Store.
That said, things aren't so smooth at the Apple end. One of the things we've had to do for Apple is change the application bundle identifiers from com.cocoatouch.gamename to com.kokotap.gamename. Fair enough. But now these new versions are not being recognized as our own apps and we can not, as yet, get the new versions uploaded to the store to update the previous versions. We've emailed Apple's Developer Relations people (almost two weeks ago!) and have yet to hear back to get this issue resolved. So, new versions are coming ... whenever Apple gets around to helping us do what they asked us to do.
Dr. Bongo's continues to be a slow work in progress. We're working on some of the game's basic coding and physics and things are looking very nice, but there have been some setbacks to the schedule and we're simply moving it along at a slow pace ... that is, developing it as we have the time. What is that phrase that other game developers use? "It'll be done when it's done."
Finally, we have removed the OpenFeint social networking code from our games. We love the OpenFeint guys and their work, don't misunderstand, but didn't see the sales increase and extra exposure that we had hoped with their product. And since we're a smaller, indie developer it's hard for us to ensure we have their code up to date and make sure it all works properly. Our own online high score servers are still included in our games as they always have been, however. Expect to see this change as soon as we can get the apps updated (see above).
— July 19, 2009
On July 16, 2009, Cocoa Touch Games received an email from Apple in which they requested that our company stop using the trademarked words "cocoa touch" for our website. Apple also immediately changed our company name on the iTunes App Store for all our games back to our own personal name, even though we operate as a registered business in the Province of Ontario. We are, naturally though, going to comply with their request (it is Apple, after all).
When we established the company and website on May 13, 2008, we were unable to locate any trademark related the those terms. There was, however, an application for trademark made by Apple in March of that year that we missed in our search ... made at the trademark offices in Trinidad, where online searching is not available. Much like the order for Earth's destruction in Douglas Adam's brilliant Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, we simply could not afford to fly down to Trinidad to review all of the trademark applications in person. So it naturally slipped under the radar of our business advisors.
As of today, therefore, we are changing our name and branding to Koko Tap. We are in the process of changing and resubmitting all of our games to the App Store, and hope that Apple will be able to expedite the approval process for our updated apps. Everything else about Koko Tap remains the same, especially our desire to bring fun, simple, joyful games and apps to the iPhone and iPod touch.
A press release is available online, as a downloadable PDF, by clicking here.
— May 13, 2009
Development work on our next game, Dr. Bongo's Bouncing Steel Spheroid Emporium, is progressing nicely and the game still on schedule for a late June release. We've been working on the gameplay physics and graphics, as well as the basic sound and music coding, and are pleased with our progress. It's best described as a cross between pachinko, Peggle, and the HBO series Carnivale in atmosphere. The game compiles fine using the latest beta version of Xcode and onto both 3.0 and earlier devices. We've posted a second screen shot showing a simple physics and scoring test on the Upcoming Games page. In addition this month we have also submitted updated version of all six games to the App Store for approval by Apple. The updates added the latest versions of OpenFeint and Flurry mobile analytics where needed.
— April 29, 2009
Cocoa Touch Games is working on the brand new Dr. Bongo's Bouncing Steel Spheroid Emporium! Enter the long-forgotten carnival world of Dr. Bongo and play through twelve levels of decidedly dastardly steel ball mayhem. Drop the steel balls down to the bottom of the screen and make sure to have the fewest bounces off the pegs and walls. Extra features after you've finished all twelve levels include the ability to play any of the twelve levels in practice mode or even a level with the pegs placed randomly! Add a fun carnival soundtrack, visual effects, the Unity3D engine for full 3D physics, and delightful atmosphere, and you've got another hit game from Cocoa Touch Games. Planned for release in summer 2009. Work in progress screen shots of Dr. Bongo's Bouncing Steel Spheroid Emporium can be found on the Upcoming Games page.
— April 7, 2009
Graveyard Marbles, our sixth game, has now been submitted to the App Store. Graveyard Marbles is based on our popular Garden Marbles game, and has all the features you've come to expect from our newest games (OpenFeint social API, Flurry analytics, updated coding etc) we've added a bunch of new features including: all new graphics and artwork, new haunting background music, new sounds, new scoring formula and online server, and many more improvements. It is available now on the iPhone App Store for only $1.99. There are screen shots and more infomation on the Graveyard Marbles page.
— April 2, 2009
We've starting development on our next full game title, due out after Dr. Bongo's Bouncing Steel Spheroid Emporium, CocoaBot. In CocoaBot you must help the little robot escape through the dangerous spaceship he is trapped in. The player programs CocoaBot on each turn and then runs the programmed sequence of moves to try to navigate the robot sequentially and successfully through the rooms of a vast spaceship looking for the exit with only limited energy at their disposal. Along the way he must learn how to avoid dangerous machines, broken-down areas of the ship, electrical obstacles, and other frightening pitfalls that could destroy CocoaBot. This is one of the four original game titles we announced when we first set up Cocoa Touch Games and we are very excited about the direction the game is developing in. Our planned release date is summer 2009. A concept art screen shot for CocoaBot can be found on the Upcoming Games page.
— April 1, 2009
Yes, we've had a busy month updating our games to make them more fun for our players! Our latest update is to our popular Garden Marbles title and we've updated it to version 1.1 by adding a bunch of new features. What's new? First off, we're lowering the price by a dollar to $1.99! We've added OpenFeint's very cool social networking features have been added to the game. We created a new online high score server for the new version and added Flurry mobile analytics to better keep track of how the game is being used so we can decide what features we should include in the next update. We have tweaked some of the physics and movement code for the marbles, and we've spent some time updating many of the game graphics and cleaned up some of game's programming code. And yes, we also added a simple check to see if the application is a cracked version. The free update on the iPhone App Store appeared April 20, 2009.
— March 31, 2009
We've had time to go back and review Dessert Dilemma and we've updated it to version 1.1 by adding a bunch of new features. What's new? OpenFeint's social networking features have been added to the game (but without the usual leaderboards). We created a new online high score server for the new version and added Flurry mobile analytics to better keep track of how the game is being used. We simplified two of the puzzles based on player feedback. Finally, we updated many of the game graphics and cleaned up some of game's programming code. And yes, we also added a simple check to see if the application is a cracked version. The free update on the iPhone App Store appeared April 6, 2009.
