Hooptie Milestone II Released

[Pazolli]

I have just released Hooptie Milestone II (v0.2.1) at our SourceForge web site.

The new version includes DaFalcon's updated Pause Screen (done fairly much the way he wanted it to be done).

You are encouraged to download this new release from the SourceForge website at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkubator/

If you encounter a major bug/mishap in either running the binary or compiling the code please report it to this thread, otherwise if everything runs smoothly please state that too.

Now that the new milestone release is public, we must decide how and where to promote the new release. Currently I plan on posting announcements to:


iDevGames.com (http://www.idevgames.com/) (Published announcement)
Ambrosia's Just Games Message Board (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/)
Apple Slashdot (http://apple.slashdot.org/) (Notified of release)
MacSlash (http://www.macslash.com/) (Notified of release)
CocoaDevCentral (http://www.cocoadevcentral.com/) (Notified of release)
comp.sys.mac.programmer.games (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=comp.sys.mac.programmer.games) (Published announcement)
All Inkubator members on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkubator/) (Published announcement)
The Macintosh News Network (http://www.macnn.com/) (Notified of release)
Macuarium (http://www.macuarium.com/) (Published announcement?)


Once I have confirmation that everything in the release is okay.

We must also make sure that the project is attractive to those who might be interested and I invite any feedback to assist in achieving that result.

I will also post a thread to welcome new members.

Well done to everyone who contributed making this release possible including Alan (guy who does all those cool graphics), Ben (our web admin), Karel (the guy who did our icon), Ben (the other one who completed all those tasks a while back), Mike (for the game concept and his, albeit skeptical :D, feedback) and Robert, Brendan, Will, Erick, Mathieu, Carlos and Chris for their support.

Also thanks to our promising newcomers Kjurtyl and John for their enthusiasm and to anyone I forgot to mention.

Thanks all, you are the people that make Hooptie cool,
Mark Pazolli

This thread has been trimmed of some internal correspondence regarding difficulties downloading the project from SourceForge early on in the release to allow for better readability. I hope you don't mind DaFalcon.

[Chris Burkhardt]

I just got it off of CVS and it works great... seems very bug free. The pause screen is the way I found I liked it best, too (just the "Game Frozen" text displayed over the game at 80% opacity). It looks very cool.

[DaFalcon]

I am at school, but I'll download the release when I get home and put it through its rounds :-)

[Pazolli]

Originally posted by DaFalcon
I am at school, but I'll download the release when I get home and put it through its rounds :-)

I just want to know it downloads okay. :)

[DaFalcon]

It is in fact downloaded and running :-) Though Hooptie looks like he's gotta go the way he hops up and down like that so much when you open the app :-) [I count about 12 hops in my iMac 600 when I have iTunes, AOL, IE, Photoshop [in classic] all running.... Probably wouldn't take so long otherwise!]

Everything is looking/working great! Good job :-)

[Pazolli]

Originally posted by DaFalcon
It is in fact downloaded and running :-) Though Hooptie looks like he's gotta go the way he hops up and down like that so much when you open the app :-) [I count about 12 hops in my iMac 600 when I have iTunes, AOL, IE, Photoshop [in classic] all running.... Probably wouldn't take so long otherwise!]

The answer to why Hooptie takes so long to launch is in your question. iTunes, AOL, IE all employ the Carbon Framework. Photoshop runs in Classic. It's not Hooptie that's taking so long to launch, it's the Cocoa Framework.

How's that for an impressive explanation? :D

Mark

[Pazolli]

I was just wanting to seek feedback on the news item I posted here. It is probably similiar to the one I will post to the groups mentioned above if they don't scoop it up beforehand. It is titled "The Inkubator Project hatches Hooptie 0.2.1" and reads:

The second milestone release of Hooptie, an arcade game in which you play a penguin trying to save his homeland from an invading alien race, has been released under the MIT open source license. Though still in development, the game features full animation, high scores and significant design improvements from earlier releases. The game is designed to run under Mac OS X using Apple's Cocoa framework and the game's latest source and binary can be downloaded from our SourceForge site (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/inkubator/). We are still seeking project members to work on the project, so if the game does spark your interest please consider dropping by our message board (http://64.246.17.165/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=17) and introducing yourself. No experience is required and project members are fully empowered to nominate what work they do for the project. We are especially eager to speak to anyone who might be able to collect or compose some music or sound effects for the game and finally give Hooptie some vocal chords.

If you think it needs improvements then please post your suggestions/rewrite to this thread (but keep in mind nobody likes a long product announcement). If you think it's fine as is, please post that opinion too (as I won't post it until get confirmation that it's okay).

Mark.

[Chris Burkhardt]

I think it is very good the way it is, post it all over the place.

Is there anyway to see how many times Hooptie is downloaded... so we can check on how much attention the releases bring?

[Pazolli]

Yes SourceForge should count the number of downloads, but the results are either delayed or not working. These statistics can be viewed by clicking the "Statistics" button on our SourceForge page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkubator) or going direct to the download package page and reading the "D/L" column.

Mark

[DaFalcon]

The announcement looks great! Even at 2 in the morning (I just got home from a midnight showing of Spider Man, which was also great, BTW... very inspirational)

[Kjurtyl]

I think the announcement is fine, but perhaps we could have a link to a website explaining what the MIT license is? That is, if there is such a website..

[DaFalcon]

Has the announcement been sent out to all of the listed websites? If not, did you want help in spreading the word? Should we run around telling everyone who might be interested about Hooptie, or just stick to the list? :-)

[Chris Burkhardt]

Originally posted by DaFalcon
Should we run around telling everyone who might be interested about Hooptie, or just stick to the list? :-) I posted a news item on my home page... which has an audience of almost 5 (close friends and family) :) Most of whom couldn't care less about computer games or open-source projects... but now they know it exists :cool:

But seriously, if you need help spreading the word just let us know... I don't want to double submit it everywhere, though.

[Pazolli]

Yes, I'd be delighted if you could help spread the word, so far I've only notified iDevGames.com and Apple Slashdot. If you could attach to this thread who you're going to notify before you do so. We can avoid sending multiple notifications.

Thank you in advance,
Mark Pazolli

The text for the above message (including HTML tags) is:


The second milestone release of Hooptie, an arcade game in which you play a penguin trying to save his homeland from an invading alien race, has been released under the MIT open source license. Though still in development, the game features full animation, high scores and significant design improvements from earlier releases. The game is designed to run under Mac OS X using Apple's Cocoa framework and the game's latest source and binary can be downloaded from our <A HREF="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/inkubator/">SourceForge site</a>. We are still seeking project members to work on the project, so if the game does spark your interest please consider dropping by our <A HREF="http://64.246.17.165/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=17">message board</a> and introducing yourself. No experience is required and project members are fully empowered to nominate what work they do for the project. We are especially eager to speak to anyone who might be able to collect or compose some music or sound effects for the game and finally give Hooptie some vocal chords.


P.S. I'm not going to link to the MIT License because it's not directly part of the project and too many links could detract from the more important links.

[Miguel]

Just wanted to ask you to put Macuarium.com on your announcement list :-). miguel@macuarium.com will get it exposure in Spanish.

Best regards,

Miguel

[DaFalcon]

I've notified the Macintosh News Network (MacNN & OSX.macnn.com)

I've also notified Cocoa Dev Central.

And I've notified comp.sys.mac.programmer.games, though I'm not sure how they'll feel about a newbie coming on there with what is kind of just an advertisement :)

[Pazolli]

Excellent, that means everyone's notified (except Ambrosia's Just Games but they can wait). If none of the news sites publish the story by Wednesday of next week I'll try submitting a less formal, more casual announcement.

Thanks for your help in spreading the word DaFalcon,
Mark.