Pyrofer’s Projects

I am Pyrofer, author of Rockfall for the iPhone. It has been for sale on iTunes since early July.

I am not a professional developer, just a fan of Boulder Dash(r), who has a full time job and a family to support. I made a game in my spare time that is admittedly inspired by Boulder Dash(r), as I am a huge fan of that game. I had no idea that this would cause any problems, as I have used no code or graphics from Boulder Dash(r). but merely made a game of similar style. The video game industry is full of games that are quite similar in style and appearance. Also there are many imitations of Boulder Dash(r) freely available on almost every system. Most of them are much more similar to Boulder Dash(r) than my Rockfall game is.

First Star Software have demanded that I cease all distribution of Rockfall. They have not stated exactly how my game is infringing their copyrights, and what I would need to change to avoid infringement. They insist they are legally obliged to behave in this way. It seems an unreasonable request to remove the game totally without knowing which elements are at fault. However to avoid any costly legal action I will respect their request and remove the game from iTunes.

I heard that other Boulder Dash(r) inspired games have been removed from iTunes due to pressure from First Star. They mentioned that they are preparing an official Boulder Dash(r) game for the iPhone but it is not finished yet.

I wonder what other readers think of this situation. I am not aware of other video games companies that take such an extreme view of their copyrght. If they did, I think 99% of games in existence would be illegal. Do you think First Star are using their financial strength and legal resources to bully legitimate competitors into withdrawing from open market competition? Or do you think that they are legally justified to do this, and that other video game companies should do the same? Or perhaps you think current copyright law is in need of reform to enable legitimate competition? How can bedroom programmers know what is safe and what is not when writing games?

Note that Boulder Dash(r) is a registered trademark of First Star Software. Any other registered trademarks that may have been accidentally mentioned in this message are fully acknowlegded as beinging to their respective owners.

Apple, a global company have missed the point.
The Appstore, a unified single point of sale for all iPhone Apps isn’t global, or unified. Did you know that a review for an app is only visible in your own country?
Did you know that although all revenue goes direct to Apple in America, when paying developers they seperate every country into a seperate revenue stream and only pay out when its greater than $250 value?
Some devs may never see their sales even though they make $1000, because its spread accross the world.
I was unaware of bad reviews for my App, because they were in the American app store only. How does that help me improve the app to fix the issues raised when I never saw them.
Also, reviews can be nothing more than slander and the dev can do nothing about it. I have a bad review complaining that the accelerometer doesnt work and the user can’t play the game. The first line of my Instructions page says “Swipe the screen to move”. Its not an accelerometer game and Yet, People will see this bad review and think, “Hmm, I wont buy that if the controls dont work.”. So a single moron has ruined my sales because he is too stupid to read the instructions.
In essence, the Customers are being hurt because feedback via reviews is being missed 90% of the time as the Developer is native to another Country.
The Developers are being hurt by poor reviews they can’t see or do anything about. They may not even get paid for their sales in a region because its less than $250 equivelent.
Updates are taking weeks, two or three in cases. Bugs fixed in minutes can ruin sales as users complain for a month while the dev waits for Apple to approve an update. When the update goes through, the review complaining about the bugs sits there and the Developer can’t have it removed, so potential sales are lost because new customers think the bugs are still there.
Apple didnt even tell us how many we were selling for the first, and most crucial three weeks!
Apple, the AppStore is a total mess. Please fix it.

UPDATE -
Ok, Price is down, version is up! Now only £1.19 and up to version 1.9 already. Buy it here,
Rockfall
Yes, its here. Currently version 1.0 is showing, but ive already updated it with more levels and creatures to meet. Im going to be working on this a lot to polish it off and get it popular. Ill try and make as many updates as I can for free!(after initial purchase of the game of course)
The game costs ?2.99. Control is simple, swipe the direction you want to move. There is no quit button at the moment, just wait out that timer if you get trapped!

Discuss in the forum.

Yes, my very own Rockfall will soon be in the iPhone Appstore. If you have firmware 2.0, check it out.

Then I just saw his arm….

It was one of those moments, just like in the movie when they see the arm in a jar. Its quite amazing.

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Another great game, is Tempest. A classic vector arcade game. I love retro arcade cabs, but have no room for them.

I decided to build a mini arcade. Read the rest of this entry »

For reasons I won’t go into (future projects) I needed a PS/2 Mouse driver. That is, I didn’t want to make a mouse, but read input from a mouse. There didn’t seem to be much on the net about this. Lots of code for emulating a mouse, and links to the same PS/2 Protocol guide.

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I wanted a sideshow (esque) screen. I like the text LCDs that modders put on cases, but wanted more. Full video seemed pointless and overkill. I wanted just enough to show usefull info, and actualy add something over a second monitor or Text LCD.

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Ok, Inspired by many POV projects on the net I started to build one. Ive always loved them anyway. My first version was a simple 8 led wand. Just wave it and get writing. Nice, but very boring and very done before.

At this point I found the led Globes that were doing the rounds, Makerfair, wired nextfest etc all had them. They look amazing. Now i’m by no means a profesionaly, but I decided to build one.

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There have been lots of reports about the iPod touch not rotating correctly from landscape to portrait or back. I think I know why.

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