Episode 3: Love is in the void submitted to the App Store

I have submitted Episode 3: Love is in the void to the App Store.

This episode will feature a new star: The Girl Star.

All of the other stars will go ga-ga for he when they get close. You will see they will have hearts over thier heads and will follow the girl star around. You can circle the girl and any color star that are in love and get the points and bonus for those stars.

Expect to see this update in the next two weeks given Apples current approval process.

Star Catch Episode 2: Anger Management now out!

Anger Management is out now and should offer a little more challenge. Circling stars that are not the same color will make them mad and if they get mad enough they will implode into a black hole.

Let me know what you think and if anyone has any suggestions for future episodes I am open to hear them!

Star Catch Promotion Ended

Well, it has been fun but Star Catch is now back to it's low price of $0.99. Thanks to everyone who got a chance to try it and further gave me feedback. My update, Episode 2: Anger Management is still in the approval process and should hopefully be coming by the end of the week.

Star Catch Free for a limited time

As part of an effort to get the word out and get feed back for future episodes I am promoting Star Catch by making it free for five days. Thursday August 27th until Monday August 31st Star Catch will be FREE in the App Store. This means that any future updates will be free. After August 31st the price will return to $0.99.

Now there is a link on the right for suggestions. Please post your comments and feel free to offer any crazy ideas you would like. Here are some ideas that are currently floating around in my noodle.

• Girl Stars
• UFO's
• Comets
• Worker and Warrior Stars (This would really expand the gameplay)
• Stars eyes move the direction they are going

What are your ideas? Post a comment here

Episode suggestions and improvements

Do you have an idea for an update to Star Catch or would like to suggest improvements? Please post a comment here.

Episode 2: Anger Management Submitted to the App Store

My first update to my first game has been submitted to the App Store for approval. Star Catch: Episode 2 Anger Management puts a spin on the game play by making the circling of two different colored stars a penalty when they get so mad they have steam coming out of their ears (do they have ears?) until they implode in anger and become a black hole. They will suck in any stars that are nearby. The red star has the biggest anger problem out of all of them. From there green will lose it next, blue and then finally purple. The purple star seems to have a better outlook on life and does not get overworked over much.

Though I just submitted this I was able to get the next update after this; Episode 3: (Name withheld) done for the most part. I will let you know what it will be called after Episode 2 get approved. I would like to add some more achievements and some other scores related to the game that will be posted on OpenFeint. So when this update is approved I will be submitting the next one right away. My kids have been playing it and they say they love it. Unlike Anger Management this update will be giving you a little help with getting those pesky stars. I am unsure about how this might affect the score because it is going to be easier to rake up a little bit better.

Star Catch: Ep2 Anger Management Details

Star Catch is a line drawing game that requires you to match as many similarly colored stars as you can by drawing a line around them. The more stars you circle the more points and bonus points you can get. There are four main colored stars; Blue, Red, Green and Purple. Each star is worth the same points but they are worth different amounts depending on the mood they are in.
For example, these stars will express emotions like Happiness (their normal mode), Awe (when you circle a lot of stars it impresses them), Shock and Angry. Each of these emotional states comes with different point values. If you circle a Happy star you get 10 points for example. Here is how it breaks down.

Happy = 10 Points
Awe = 20 Points
Shock = 10 Points
Mad = 5 Points
Steaming Mad = 1 Point

Stars will get mad if you circle just one of them or circle them with a different colored star. This adds to the challenge as more stars are introduced and they move around making it more difficult to circle greater numbers of stars without making any of them mad. As you may have noticed if you get them in Awe and then circle stars you will get the most points.

You also get bonus for the number of stars you circle.

3 stars – Normal Points (The emotion points) x 3
4 stars x 4
5 stars x 5

… and so on. I think you get the picture.

Episode 2: Anger Management adds another layer of challenge by trying to force you to not circle different colored stars. When you circle different stars together too many times one of the stars will implode and become a black hole sucking in stars in the area. You are losing valuable points for that level and each level increases in difficulty so you want to avoid these black holes. If you really like them you can make them come as many times as you want.

Only one black hole can exist on the board at a time. This is a good thing as multiple black holes could suck in the whole board. I suppose you could use black holes as a strategy to reduce the number of stars if you are running out of time and can’t clear them fast enough. The Steaming Mad emotion is a new one to Episode 2: Anger Management. This is the state that stars will go into right before they implode on themselves and become a black hole.

With the Episode 2 update I am including OpenFeint, the Online scoring, achievement and challenge system that will allow you to post your scores and achievements for the world to see. OpenFeint allows you to find Friends and see what they are playing. There will also be challenges introduced into the game in a later update. If you choose to not use OpenFeint you will still be able to save up to 10 scores locally for bragging rights.