Libgdx and StartApp integration. Exit wall.

Hi! Couldnt find an understandable guide of how to integrate StartApp ads into an libgdx project, so i will share what i found.

First of all you need to register at their website  and download their sdk. The StartAppInApp-2.4.6.jar. And add it to the android project of your game - just drag or copy/paste the file in the "libs" folder. Also register your app.

Then just follow this guide StartApp github

1)Add permissions and two activities to androidmanifest
2)Add code to your androidlauncher:

• declare private StartAppAd startAppAd = new StartAppAd(this);
• in onCreate method StartAppSDK.init(this, "your id", "app id", true); 
• and add onResume, onPause, onBackPressed methods as in the guide. 

Now your app will show app wall on exit. 

Groovy/Grails - future of web development

If you are a Java developer, like me, you should learn about Groovy/Grails. Grails is a web framework for the Groovy language, that is based on Java. Its like Ruby on Rails, but much easier for Java developers to get into.

I foresee that it will overtake Java. It should.

Super motivated. Who is Elon Musk?

If you havent read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" i insist you do. Who is John Galt? This week i understood who is John Galt in real life - its Elon Musk.

Amazing person, yet so straightforward.

He wants to change the world and he does it. Redefine an industry, competing with huge corporations? Easy game.

Actually two industries. Actually three industries.

Actually the whole future of humanity, with his visionary SpaceX company, that will turn humanity in to an interplanetary species. Oh, he will. If he cant do it, than nobody can.

Very inspiring!

First game published!

I learned and understood a lot during the development time. Mostly that i wont be making games for profit, just for fun time from time. That i dont like to polish the game too much. The most enjoyable part for me is the creation of a new gameplay. I really suck at drawing graphics (as you will see from the game :P ) and have no intention to learn to draw.

Hobby mobile game development surely can be profitable, but profit caps are around 1-2k eur/month (If talking about 2 hrs per day development after work).

Among developers who shared experience with me there were some who made 10+ apps per several years and were making ~500 per month, and a few those made 1-2 apps per several years and were making at least twice as much than the first group. Just an observation.

Biggest insight was that developing a game i am not solving any problems, thus not creating so much value as i would by solving an problem. I mean like real world problems, that yet lack a solution, or simply lack a better solution.

I really liked the framework i was working with - libgdx, very intuitive and simple.

I have just published the game to Google Play, and it said that it will take some time to be indexed and available through search.

Story of my first game in a picture

Just draw this;

Back to initial plan, WebDev, Grails.

I understood that i wandered off my initially set course. The idea was to make lost of games and have fun doing so. Not more that 1-2 month per game.

When there is a huge todo list of things im not excited about, like redrawing graphics, adding features that should be there, but i am not actually interested in them - it saps my motivation! And, remembering the initial plan, i've decided to publish the current game asap. I will remove all unimplemented to the end features, and publish the game to GP. I even stopped caring about not being able to get money from GooglePlay because my country is not supported by Google Checkout. Flappy Bird didnt have IAP.

This also is a result of a little motivation and goal shift after reading some books on setting goals and overthinking some of my personal goals and motivations.

I still will make games, but i will divide my dedication between fast-prototyping interesting games, not polishing them until the end, and some startup stuff. Currently it consists of learning Grails web framework (my last months research shows that its the best, and should overtake the market in the future).

GameDev is fun, but i dont see GameDev making any impact on the world, in terms of making it a better place.

Simple pixel art animations using Graphics Gale

Hi! One of the recent problems - complete lack of digital drawing experience. I decided to stick with simple pixel art graphics. Research showed that Graphics Gale is one of the best software to use. So far this is what i made:

Country not supported by Google Checkout or Google Wallet

Hi! So, some time ago, I've learned that my country is not supported by these two services. I am serious about developing software for android, i want to use in-app purchases, i need those services.

What I learned from researching this topic is that the easiest way to deal with this is to get a bank account in a supported country and register your Google Merchant with that account.

Other option was using somebody's else account, but if your intentions are serious, that is not an option.

I haven't looked into this further, but with a quick search i didn't find an easy way to open such an account. The cheapest way i encountered was making sure that at least £500 go through your account monthly. If you are planning to use it only for your in-app purchases, there is no guarantee of that.

Should investigate further. Perhaps it is possible to use a Skrill account instead of a bank account?