Author: JEMoores

How much does it cost to self publish mobile games?

Post author By JEMoores
Post date January 23, 2020

After a year of subscribing to Buildbox, here is a run down of my up front expenses for being a solo indie game developer.

Private Mail Box – get this first, before you get a dot com. $120/year.
Dot Com – use your private mail box for the public contact info when you register a dot com. It is a good idea to not put your home address on domain registrations, so get a local PMB address. Domain registration is about $12/year.
Hosting – you need to host your game’s web site which should include game info, contact email & PMB address, and a privacy policy you can directly link to. Web hosting is about $100/year.
Game Engine Software – I am an artist, not a coder so I use Buildbox subscription software to help me design my games. There are free options out there, but Pro version is $500/year.
Apple App Store Developer Account – $100/year
Google Play Developer Account – $80/year
To self publish on Steam – $100/per game!
Making game art, and promotional videos require software. Photoshop is $10/month, Video editing software…???$$$
To publish Buildbox games on Apple App Store you need an iPhone and a Mac desktop or laptop with XCode to generate your final build for publishing. That’s about $3000!!!
To publish Buildbox games on Google Play you need an Android phone to test games on, and you must master Android Studio to generate your final build for publishing. If you want to publish for both iOS and Andoid, you would need both types of phones and gear to test games on. This adds up fast – $$$$$!!!!!!!
Don’t forget your computer gear, internet access to run cloud software, wireless routers… we take a lot of this for granted, but the bills come every month!
TIME – you will need 40-80 hours to make a very basic game from scratch. Your first year will be spent searching and watching YouTube game dev tutorial videos as you learn the new software.

So now I understand why game developers all seem so stressed out. I created 10 little mobile games my first year. I made $100 on the ads in that year. I invested over $1000 to do it.

I see the loss as the price for my education. Now I must take what I have learned my first year, and include a better business plan into my game design. I believe the games should at least pay for themselves.

So there you go. You can now easily see why a solid business plan is essential to succeed in the saturated mobile game market. Be kind to your local indie game developer. They are trying to balance a lot, all at once.

Tags android, buildbox, game design, game dev, google play, indie games, iOS games

Games

J.E.Moores Game Machine

Post author By JEMoores
Post date December 14, 2019

jemoores-game-machine

Indie Games by J.E.Moores

Tags android, arcade, arcade game, buildbox, casual games, game art, game design, game dev, google play, hypercasual games, indie games, iOS, iOS games, mobile games

Games Videos

Neoblast

Post author By JEMoores
Post date December 12, 2019

NEOBLAST – Shoot the Discs! – Are you the next Master Neoblaster?

You are controlling a Neoblast Drone and it’s your job to blast all the incoming invaders. Be sure to catch a burst of Indestructible Super Power when ever you can reach a pink fuse. Avoid the pink pointy bits on the end, they hurt.

Bright and colorful game play. Imagine sparking neon lights and fireworks exploding in outer space. Easy one thumb control. Drag to move left or right. Tap to shoot. Fast, frustrating and addicting!

Easy rules: Shoot the discs!

Goal: Get a score over 200 to become a Master Neoblaster and post your high score on the leader board for the entire universe to see!

Challenge your friends to see who can push the other off the board, and learn once and for all which one of you is the true Master Neoblaster!!! All must bow to the Master!

NEOBLAST ~ A Game by J.E.Moores

RULES:

Drag to move left or right
Tap to shoot
You must shoot discs 2 times
Get a Super Power when you touch a fuse
Avoid the pink pointy bits
Scores above 200 open up leader boards

ABOUT THOSE SUPER POWERS: The fuse gets its power from the pointy bits on each end, so if you shoot the pointy bits away, the fuse fades away with it. It is best to avoid the pointy bits for the benefit of reaching the fuse and getting the Super Power. The Super Power will make the Neoblast Drone temporarily glow and become indestructible for 1 – 3 seconds, which is a better way to get rid of those pointy bits.

Tags android, arcade, arcade game, buildbox, casual games, game design, game dev, google play, hypercasual games, indie games, iOS, iOS games, mobile games

Games Videos

That’s me in the latest Buildbox video

Post author By JEMoores
Post date December 4, 2019

I’d like to thank Buildbox for including me (and Wiggly Loaf’s butt) in your latest video intro. I’m the Brady kid, top middle of the grid at 00:23. That’s me! I’m at my computer updating the Wiggly Loaf video game using the game engine I adore, Buildbox.

Being a subscriber to Buildbox has allowed me to make so many fun games. I have self published 10+ games for iOS and Google Play my very first year. Each time I complete a game I have learned so much I get excited to apply it to the next project. I am loving the process, but I also need to focus more on the business side of things to gain ROI, because all the developer fees, yearly software fees, and web hosting fees, are getting more expensive than I ever thought.

Glad to hear Buildbox Free is coming out soon. It’s smart to let folk try before they buy. That way they can feel confident the software design is easy for them to use. Making games isn’t for everyone. So a free version of Buildbox allows anyone curious about game design to find out how involved it all really gets. All I know from just starting out is that making games eats up more time and money than you’d think.

Tags buildbox, game design, game dev, indie games

Games Videos

2 Player Snowball Battle

Post author By JEMoores
Post date December 2, 2019

Wiggly Loaf and a Snowman have a wild and crazy snowball battle. Mobile game for 1 or 2 players ~ 2 can play on one phone! Download the Wiggly Loaf Snowball Battle free at Apple App Store or for Android at Google Play. There’s also a mini game where you must feed The Beast or winter will never end.

Wiggly Loaf Snowball Battle — Click for full size

Happy Holidays! Don’t Get Weird ~ Get Wiggly!

Tags android, arcade, arcade game, buildbox, casual games, game art, ghost story, google play, hypercasual games, indie games, iOS, iOS games, mobile games

Games

Broom Hopping

Post author By JEMoores
Post date September 27, 2019

Broom Hopping

Free Download @ Amazon for Android

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it. Dressing up, fun spooky images, the leaves all turn beautiful colors, and lots and lots of candy! The Broom Hopping game is a celebration of classic Halloween paper cut out art. Remember your teacher giving you orange and black paper, and you had to cut out silhouettes of Jack-O-Lanterns, bats, and cats, and glue them all together into high contrast Halloween cards and decorations? You don’t? Well, that’s okay. You can play my new game anyway.

Broom Hopping

Free Download @ Amazon for Android

Mark Harvey and I are the band, Rain Station, and we recorded a bunch of Halloween songs. Our song, Broom Hopping inspired this game. We imagined a black cat hopping from broom stick to broom stick as witches fly to a Halloween party. I had animated a bunch of these songs for JackOLantern.ORG – but I thought Broom Hopping had to be a game, not just a cartoon.

Broom Hopping

So here it is. Broom Hopping is a classic Halloween video game perfect for all ages. Game play is simple. You just tap left or right and do your best to help the kitty hop from broom stick to broom stick. You can even hop on the bats to keep you going. If you need a little extra juice, the Jack-O-Lanterns give you a power up so you can survive the owls and spiders. Play against your friends to see who can hop the most broom sticks. If you love cats or Halloween, (or cats and Halloween), this game is for you.

Free Download @ Amazon for Android

Tags android, arcade, arcade game, buildbox, casual games, game design, game dev, ghost story, google play, hypercasual games, indie games, iOS, iOS games, magic, mobile games, witch, witchcraft

Games

Harriett Sawyer 1823

Post author By JEMoores
Post date September 23, 2019

Free Download at Amazon for Android

HARRIETT WAS HERE

Far far away in the middle of Nowhere Maine sits one of the world’s oldest summer camps for girls. Years before this spot was a girls camp, it was a farm. The farm had a family plot graveyard. The campers can walk to the graveyard and visit Harriett Sawyer if they dare. She is there to greet the bravest. Harriett’s grave has a porcelain photo mounted in place on the front of her stone. It’s the only grave marker like it in the whole graveyard. She must have been very special and her death very tragic for the family to be so grieved to have this done in her honor.

Harriett Sawyer

It is said that Harriett feared rabbits. It is camp tradition that any time we pass the graveyard the kids chant, “Bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, rabbit,” until they have safely passed. They say it’s the only way Harriett’s spirit will not follow them back to camp. Because of her gravestone photo and her mysterious tragic death at a young age, Harriett is the official camp ghost.

Free Download at Amazon for Android

In 1971 the Blue Team wrote a song for Harriett titled, Born in 1823, and Mr. Mike recorded it during Song Meet using a cassette tape recorder. The recording went down in history because just when the girls sing the lyric, “…or hear her eerie helpless cry…” the recording has strange distortion. An almost vocal high pitched squeal. It’s only a few seconds long before the tape returns to normal. The audio anomaly freaked out everyone when they received the tape in the mail in the winter. Everyone who was present at Song Meet knew there was no scream when the girls performed the song, but only the recording of the Harriett song had that strange scream in it. She had been there – and had let us know it!

Free Download at Amazon for Android

This spooky old recording is included in the new game I made called, Harriett Sawyer 1823. In addition, there are several different Halloween songs and spooky audio hauntscapes you can listen to while you play the game depending on whatever mood you’re in.

I’d like to thank the musical talents of Mark Harvey, Mitchell Vaillant, Rain Station, and the Blue and the Gray Girls for making it all happen. ~ Happy Halloween everyone!

Game play is simple. Move the skull to avoid the ghosts. If you can’t avoid the ghosts, click the Jack O’ Lantern at bottom of screen and you can hunt ghosts for 5 whole seconds. Harriett thanks you for visiting her grave. She really does. Come back when you can stay a bit longer.

Free Download at Amazon for Android

Tags android, buildbox, casual games, ghost story, hypercasual games, indie games, iOS, iOS games, mobile games

Crafts

Breaking The Rules

Post author By JEMoores
Post date May 27, 2019

Indie Video Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

During all my years in art school I learned a lot of rules. Color theory, proper primers and gesso for different types of paint. I learned chemistry so I could mix my own ceramic glazes, how to safely run the kilns. Ha! Calligraphy has never ending rules, raising metal chalices by hand on stakes and anvils is like calligraphy, you must always be holding your tool at the same angle be it pen or hammer. I like to grind my own sumi ink, I mastered mold making and ceramic casting, hand cast resin toys, lost wax metal casting, silver soldering, braising. Seriously art school was full of rules that directly apply to the physical world. You could see the rule work for you or against you, right before your eyes.

But following the rules is not what being an artist is all about. You have to learn all the rules so that you are full aware of the loop holes and edges you can take things to. Pushing limits comes from understanding the limits and seeing where you can go one step beyond. Expanding and redefining the limits is what art is all about.

Art is not the object, but the conversation. If people are not talking about it, it’s not art. How do you get them to talk and transform an object into art? You kinda have to hurt their brain. Make ’em think. If your art can haunt their mind and cause questions and wonder, you’re on the right path. Art needs to push buttons and trigger a reaction.

Indie Video Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

I have discovered that writers should not always write for a wide audience because it can get boring. Instead, if you are having a block, write something you hope no one will ever read because of the ugly truths it reveals. Use your deepest secrets. The more difficult it is to write about, the more you should write about it. Then let the smartest person you trust read it and edit it with their help. Let go of any voice inside you that would try to stop you. Publish it and let everyone read it.

So art seems to go against the grain a bit. There is decorative hobby art, folksy crafts, mediocre art and then there is actual life changing art that blows your mind. You know it when you experience it, and it can be any medium.

Indie Video Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

For a long time I have made toys at JEMTOY.com – but I noticed a trend the past few years. Everyone has a smart phone and they really don’t care that much about anything else these days. I must have elf blood coursing through my veins because for some unknown reason I want folk to play with my toys. Since everyone is poking their phone, I thought it would make sense to make a few video games to transform smart phones into JEMTOYs. I figure, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right?

When I wanted to learn how to create and publish games to iOS and Android I wanted to use my love for art history as inspiration. It’s what I know. The world’s greatest expressions of the human experience are indeed sweet fodder for classic arcade style video games. Players get to saturate into a fantasy world that never existed before. An interactive adventure inside some of the greatest works of art that ever made a mark on history. Each game is fun, exciting, or so spooky you’ll never notice you’re learning about boring old art history. Download your favorites today, just choose a platform below.

Indie Video Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

Games

Gods, Witches, and Demons

Post author By JEMoores
Post date May 4, 2019

Garden of Delights
A game inspired by Hieronymus Bosch

When you cavort with the likes of Gods, Witches, and Demons, you can get a little worn out. I’m tired. I need a break. I have completed another video game and I’m a wreck. I can see why most games are made by an entire team. To keep everything straight in my mind I need to work 18 hour days for about 4 weeks and then I have a game. If I take too long a break I lose track of so many little loose ends. There’s a lot going on when you are creating an entire universe. The Gods must be weary!

Now is time for me to relax. I wish I had enough energy to celebrate, but the celebration of completing such a huge task shall have to wait. I will sleep for 24 hours and see if I can get this mind to rest. I can still hear all the little repeated sprite sounds inside my head. I am haunted by the minions of Bosch’s Hell.

I take a long bath to take my mind off things. It’s like my brain is stuck in work mode. Even though I’m done, I tend to go over every detail and can’t stop the thoughts from coming. This is why I don’t take many breaks, because they are not breaks if I’m obsessing on work. I would be better off getting back to the job at hand and getting it over with. Nothing but completion will give me rest, and not even then. I must wind down first. Must wind down!

After working 400 hours without much of a break, it takes a couple days to come out of the trance. Rest, good food. The second the game is published and live on iOS and Android my body crashes. All the weight I put on myself hits me all at once. I don’t even feel it until I’m done, then bang, it hits me. Like a ton of bricks.

When you were a kid, did you ever get sick during school break? Once the body knows it can relax, sometimes it crashes. It takes a big break because you didn’t realize how tired you were, how stressed you were. Now that the responsibility is over, your body knows it has to grab this chance at rest before you get started on the next impossible task.

Thinking and learning are tiring. When we are learning the most, we are growing the most, but it also has its stress factor. The more we push ourselves the better we have to treat our body. Give it rest, healthy food, water. Learning how to make video games has been an amazing journey, but I’m learning so much I get really tired. I spend hours reading forums and watching youtube tutorials so I can figure out certain game mechanics along the way. Each time I have an idea of what I want a game to do, I have to figure out a way for it to do it.

I’ve been making games on a theme of magic. Egyptian Gods, Hindu Gods, Witches, Monsters, Demons… I love the fantastical imagery of ancient art. I love the images humans created before movies and TV. When demons and monsters came from nightmares and imagination. I find that old stuff so spooky. It’s like they had first hand knowledge from seeing a demon themselves. The older the art is, the more convincing it seems to me.

No matter how far back you go in time every culture has Gods, Witches, Ghosts, Demons, Elves, Fairies, and other Magical Little People. How can such universal characters not have some truth to them? They must be real. There could be no other explanation for these types to be represented by every culture on earth. By consensus alone, they all must be real. After all, isn’t truth as defined by consensus what the Common Core Curriculum teaches our kids these days? Ahhh there goes my over worked brain again. I really do need a rest.

Hey, even I don’t know what the point of this blog entry is. I made a game inspired by Hieronymus Bosch Garden of Delights. It’s awesome. I hope you like it too. I’m really tired so I’m gonna take a nap now. While I rest, please enjoy one of the games I’ve made. I have honestly put my all into making every one of them. These games beat me silly… but in a good way. Please leave me a game review to help me gain momentum. Tell a friend. I’m all alone in here. Thank you. Check it out:

Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

Games

Garden of Delights Video Game

Post author By JEMoores
Post date April 26, 2019

Hieronymus Bosch Video Game

My favorite artist of all time has got to be Hieronymus Bosch. He painted some of the freakiest stuff I’ve ever seen. I could stare at the Garden of Earthly Delights for ever and ever and never see all the details. There is always something insane going on in that painting that I have never noticed before.

garden of delights ios android

What amuses me the most is that this painting was completed around 1505 for the church. The triptych has Eden on left, Hell on right, and The Garden of Earthly Delights in the center. I believe the allegory is that you go to heaven or hell depending on what you do when you are in the center. But Hieronymus, why did you make all that crazy sinnin’ look so good? I don’t even know what most of them are doing, but I want to join in. In fact, The Garden of Earthly Delights looks so inviting I consider it my personal bucket list. I hope to do everything depicted in the Garden of Delights before my time is through. Won’t you join me?

In the Garden of Delights game you start out a lovely pair of citizens of The Garden, riding in a bubble pod doing your best to protect your pastoral existence from all the winged demons, beasts, imps, and evil minions who are infiltrating paradise. Shoot them with sweet ripe berries to end their wickedness so you can get back to your own debauchery.

If you can find Laughing Lilith, she will give you a burst of supreme alchemical Bosch power. Use it wisely. When you kill enough demons and collect enough forbidden fruit you can unlock all three panels of the triptych and unlock the special bonus characters that have all new super powers. You’re welcome.

This is another from my History Through Art series of indie video games. Download Garden of Delights for Android or iOS.

Tags android, arcade, arcade game, buildbox, casual games, game art, game design, game dev, google play, hypercasual games, indie games, iOS, iOS games, magic, mobile games, satan, witch, witchcraft