InterPhace Solutions Ltd Part 4

The business has stalled for the moment, as I await all the bureaucracy to catch up.

OVI, will not allow me to sign on as a developer until I have a VAT Number. The VAT Number will take a month (!) to process but for that I still waiting on my Business Bank Account. It’s very frustrating. I was under the impression that everything was going to be ready for yesterday but not much luck there.

I’ve come up with a new solution for the IMP project. That will need a little bit of work. Don’t know if I’ll get the time due to personal issues this weekend.

InterPhace needs some language checking. I’ll have to make sure that all the language entries are as well.

Pleanty left to do before release anyway.

The Bank

My hands are sore. I’m normally used to typing but I’ve had to fill out form after form to set up the bank account. I’ve decided to go with the RBS. Partly because the costs are so low (i.e. none for the first two years), partly because the terms were good but mostly because the Business Manager knew what I was talking about, as opposed to the others, who just looked as if I was talking gibberish.

I’ve dropped by the Nokia Store in Manchester. It looks as if the Manager there will let me come in from time to time and test my apps on the handsets I don’t have. Very nice of them, I reckon. But I will wait until I get my details fully validated with OVI before asking him.

I’m now looking through the other App stores. I do wonder if the Mac Mini needs a memory upgrade but I’ll have to wait and see. So the plan is;-

1.Register with OVI.
2.Register with Sony Erricson.
3.Register with Android.
4.Get the Thawte Certificate.
5.Look up HM’s tax man (grumble).
6.Investigate Grants.

InterPhace Solutions Part 3.

The Business is still being set up. I’ve still got to get the business bank account to get sorted but it’s nice that progress is still happening. I'll be visiting the Bank on Monday, with all the legal documents, and putting on my best smile. Hope it goes well.

The Mac Mini arrived yesterday. I had to buy a new keyboard for it but it seems to work fine with both the Mac and the PC. Now I’ve got to get it hooked up to the Net and get the iPhone Development set up. It’s got about 40GB of space left on it, so I think that should be enough.

I’ve got about £320 left, with that, I’ve got to get a Thawte certificate for the code signing and then register as a developer/publisher with OVI and Sony Erricson. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get all that under my buget.

In addition, I’ve got to create a new version of the firewall game, and contact admob and greystripe. I’m going to add adverts to the free version of the Interphace-Firewall game. However, players who play the add-enabled or the free version will be at a disadvantage against people who’ve paid for the proper version. I like to reward players for buying the game.

The next step is the Android version of InterPhace and then the iPhone version. That’s if they implement the l2cap protocol (That’s one for the Bluetooth Geeks).

InterPhace Solutions Ltd - Why now?

Interphace is ready for release but there is no way that I'll be able to get it Java Verified. For a small developer like myself, it's impossible to afford the £1000 it would cost to get the games I've got verified and on the app stores.

However, since the last post six months ago. Both Sony and Nokia have realized this is a problem and are now accepting Thawte security certificates, in order to sign your code, as part of the acceptance for their stores. These certificates are a lot cheaper, so it makes things viable again.

I'll be starting the process with both InterPhace Games next week.

I'm still waiting on the Mac to arrive, its been over two years since I had a new computer and so it will be interesting to look at it this weekend. I'm now up to Chapter Four in the Android book and I'm looking into constructing menus. I love the XML layout thing. it's like approach I use with ASP.NET and C#.

I've got a few things to do now.

1. Pay the accountant for the setup of the company. (I forgot about the VAT so I'll have pay that until I'm VAT registered).

2. Set up the Business Bank Account.

3. Register with OVI.

4. Register with Sony Erricson.

5. Register with Android App Store.

6. Get a New Domain Name and update the website with it.

7. Update my Linked in Profile.

I'll leave Apple until I've got my head round the dev kit at least (especially with all the problems being created with the changes Apple are implementing at the moment).

I've got a get in contact with a friend who can check the language translations, The last thing I want is to offend a French or German person because Babel Fish got the context wrong.

InterPhace Solutions Ltd

I'm quite excited at the moment about this (See the personal blog for the things I'm not excited about). I've bitten the bullet and created a company;-

InterPhace Solutions Ltd.

This is going to be used to sell the Interphace games over the OVI, Sony and any other app stores I can find.

In addition to that, I've got a Mac-mini on order and downloaded the Android SDK on my main development machine. I'm working my way through the Pro-Android Book and finding it a lot easier than when I was learning J2ME. So that's really all the mobile devices covered. I'm aiming to have InterPhace on J2ME, Android and iPhone and being able to play each other (that will be a first ;-)).

I've got plenty of other idea's for Apps as well.

I'm going to be very busy.

Millstone

Interphace is becoming like a millstone round my neck. I've got two versions, the free and the retail.

However, in order to get it on the Nokia or Sony app stores it has to be Java Verified. To be honest, it's too expensive, I don't have the time or the cash to put it though the process. I haven't found any other distritubuter to take it. Ironically, it's finished and works (which is a great achievement) but trying to sell it is more hard work that writing the blasted thing.

It took a little while because the of some of the timing issues with the Bluetooth search. I've updated the Website but I'm now working on a little U-tube video showing people how to play it.

I've now got two choices.

Start work on InterPhace 2.0

or

Draw a line under InterPhace and start work on the turn based hacking game I originally had an idea for.

Why the delay?

Well, to be honest, it wasn't done. About 12 hours before I was going to release it. I did a final test and the Bluetooth game wasn't working anymore. Talk about a dissapointment.

However, I have good news. After a lot of coding and retesting, I've got a working version of Firewall. Now I've got four things to do ;-

1. Find a distributer to sell the game. I was thinking about a £1 or 1 Euro.
2. Produce a new cut down version which is available free.
3. Update the Website to reflect the new version.
4. Press release - It will be interesting to see if I get any publicity.

I'm also doing a special edition version for the people who've played "The Matrix Online". My Favorite MMO is being closed at the end of July so it's a thank you to them.

I'm setting a release date for Monday the 13th of July, because I'm not superstitious.

Good Lord, How Long?

FIREWALL is done

How long has that taken, it's only six months sins the last update. There are going to be four versions of it, each with the option of either Slice or NDice as the main character! (so really is that eight versions !?!?)

1. The paid for version. This version will be available for sale, hopefully on OVI, Sony App store, click gamer etc. It will be interesting to see if these pay for models will work.

2. The free Add version. This will include the Interserve service which will dynamically download the latest advert to the phone and display it at certain intervals.

3. The Non Bluetooth version paid for versions. This will include Firewall and the classic game and should work on the Samsung and LGs which don't support Bluetooth.

4. The Non-Bluetooth version for adverts. Same as Version 3 but with the Dynamic Code.

I'm trying to find a publisher at the moment, so there's still a lot of work left to do.

NetBeans!

It's official, I've had enough of using JBuilder. I've moved the final release over to using the new NetBeans 6.1 IDE. It appears to have built ok and is running on the N95.

I've got Four outstanding tasks left on this.

1. Test the single player Firewall game with the new AI.
2. Test the New RumbleX code to make sure items are updated.
3. Include the new Firewall part of the logo.
4. Build the NDice version of Firewall.

The New website is being created as I speak, and I'll finish it off before the end of the month. I'm going to enter

Interphace into the IGMA awards and see if anything happens. I should just make the deadline as long as nothing untoward

happens

After that, there are a couple of refinements for the Firewall 1.1.

Inclusion of the advertising model.
Bluetooth Viral Distribution.
The Extra PU for use against other programs.

After that Interphace 2.0, with a new kind of Single Player game and the ability to risk you're online score to buy new

process units to use against other players.

Well, that's the plan anyway.

It's almost there...

InterPhace 2.0 - Firewall

It would have been ready last month but the hard drive crashed and I lost a lot of work. Thank god I take lots of backups.

The main problem has been my IDE. Normally, I use JBuilder X but when the system crashed, I found that the source disks had been put into storage. Thankfully, I've got an old version of JBuilder 9 which is at least able to complie and test the lastest version.

However, for the life of me, I can't get it working with proguard. So I'm having to wait until after the weekend to get JBuilder X out of storage. I've also got to reinstall photoshop, Office and a whole load of other tools just to get my system back to how it was.

I've integrated the latest Rumble X code which adds so much interactive functionality. The whole service only costs 10 Euro. Fantastic Value.

Once I have my JBuilder X back and working with Proguard, I'll build the two new release versions. I'll see if I can get people at work to help.


Things with InterServe have been mixed though.

I proposed the model to people at work and after ages, they rejected it. I'm a bit relieved about that because although I proposed the concept, I didn't supply them with the demo code. If I'd done that, then they'd own it. I'm a bit relieved.

However, I'm not going to put it in this version of Interphace. There's a little bit extra work to do in order to add encryption to the web service and the J2ME Library. However, The next version of Interphace will have some extra functions to 'Buy extra types of Playing Peices, in addition to the advertising links, provided by interserve.

It will be nice just to show it off.

On a roll....

Well, I've refined the Firewall AI but to be honest, it's not good enough to beat a human. I've got to look at ways to make it easier for the AI and harder for the Human. I've got a couple of ideas but they'll take time ( as always).

However, the new player score handling is in. It's nice to see something go in so quickly and without fuss. Now I've got to get the pause functionality working.Ironically, one of the things I've noticed with the most of the games I've been playing. When originally set up, the player is asked if they want sound on or not. Talk about missing the blindingly obvious.

And on more positive news. I put the old version of Interphace on the Nokia Mosh. Last week, the NDice version was rated at 4800+ downloads. In it's top ten..... Now if I could have had a £1 for every download. ;-)

Progress at Last.....

We have a working (if basic) AI working for Firewall.It was typical that I'd forgotten the difference between a zero based and One based array. Sometimes I'm so dumb, it scares me.
Anyway, There are a couple of smaller AI issues Left and once they're out of the way I can concentrate on the new code.

I've now got InterServe Coded, now it's the horrible deal with testing the Web Serive with the client code. Looks like another two weeks of hard coding (if the family gives me a chance).

One Down several to go.

It's slow work but there's another problem out of the way. It turns out that the AI was calculating values based on a zero based array when it should have been a 1 based array. Programming, it's the computer equivilent of the murderer, the victim and the dective being the same person.

There are Four outstanding issues with the Firewall Game.
1. The AI's pieces are dissapearing.
2. They're not going to the most logical places.
3. The difficulty is not ramping up the way I want it.
4. The compatibility between the old versions and the new.

It will either be a lot of work to resolve this or a quick ten minute job.

I've then got three things to do before it's ready for beta.
1. Pause Menu for the Single Player Game.
2. Handling of the Single Player Firewall score.
3. Integration of the new RumbleX.

Once it's in Beta, I've then got three things left;-
1. Integrate the InterServe App for the adverts and Dynamic Content.
2. The Manual OBEX for Bluetooth distribution.
3. New Website.

End of May if I'm very Lucky, and that's just the Beta!!!

AI - What a pain in the Arse!

For the last two months, I've been trying to get the new Firewall game to play intelligently. At the moment, it doesn't. In fact, players will be able to beat the game and rack up really high scores without a problem so there's no release this month. The problem is, it's that long since I've looked at the AI that I've forgotten the algorithm, and I'm having to re-learn it.

I'm sure that if there are any coder's out there, if you ever have to revisit your code after a long time, You're looking at your code and say to yourself 'why the f*** did I code it that way?'. What's worse is that I'm stepping through the code and it looks as if there are some horrendous bugs in there.

There are three major tasks that I'm trying to integrate into the new game;-
1. The New RumbleX Client.
2. InterServe.
3. The New Website.

The RumbleX Client is the new high score functionality from Pascal. It shouldn't be that much of a problem to integrate now that I've worked out how to make JBuilder Libraries to work properly.

InterServe is a new service I'm developing. Originally it was intended to be a advert delivery service. However, since Ad ware services are now quite common, Mine needs to be a little bit more flexible. Mine is now a Dynamic Content Distribution service. It doesn't just download and store adverts in the RMS. It will allow any binary object to be downloaded and stored in the RMS. This means that new levels, new graphics, in fact anything that can be stored as a binary array and is less that the 64K limit for a RMS record.

Finally, the Website. This is what I'm scared off. The website needs a whole new re-write. It's awful. The main problem I do have is that although I can code together all these fancy widgets, it looks crap.

Still tonnes of work to do before it's ready, and because I've been so sick lately, there's hardly any progress.