We’re going to take a look at the new features of Propaganda Lander version 1.1. We’ve put quite a few new things into this version and upped the game size by several MB. It still sits nicely under the 20MB 3G download limit.

Gotta Have Tunes

One thing that you might have noticed while playing Propaganda Lander was that there was only one soundtrack for every level. We had always intended to have music for every planet but, was unable to get all the tracks on time before our initial launch. We do have them now!

The whole game is worth playing through again just to hear the planet specific tracks. We’ve also added some more polish to the game so there’s a tad more to see.

Loading Screen

For those of you with a speedy 3GS or iPhone 4, the loading screen probably wasn’t an issue for you. Propaganda Lander would have loaded in under 7 seconds. For those with older iDevices, it would have taken about 2x as long. We have now added an animated load screen in the beginning to help make those 14 seconds more enjoyable!

Settings

There isn’t anything that new in the settings screen except that Facebook features are no longer in this screen and you can turn the vibration feature on or off. The other options for muting Music or Sound Effects are still there and the ability to auto-skip movies once you’ve already seen them.

For those using iOS 4, the movies will now play nicely with your iPod or Pandora. It used to cut off whatever music you were listening to and play the movie. iOS 4 let’s us have the movie’s soundtrack and your music at the same time so we made it happen in version 1.1.

Remix Survival, Easy, Hard Modes

The biggest part of the update is the Remix Survival mode. This is an endless mode where the goal is to survive for as long as possible while virtually every obstacle and enemy you’ve encountered in the main game makes an appearance. We think it’s loads of fun.

For those who thought the game was too hard–and it was a hard game, we’ve implemented Easy mode. The original levels are now in the Hardcore mode. Your original saved game corresponds to the Hardcore mode.

Leaderboards, Achievements, and AGON

Achievements were in the original Propaganda Lander. We’ve moved all your achievements to the AGON system where the leaderboards also reside.

We’ve added the Remix Survival Mode as well as Easy/Hard modes. These modes also come with their own leaderboards for your competing pleasure.

iOS 4 Fast-App Switching

While we originally did not intend to have Fast-App Switching, we gave in. It was convenient to be able to reply to a text you get while playing Propaganda Lander or go to Pandora or check mail that you might have gotten or whatever. We thought it was a nice touch so we put it in. The game will pause when you switch out to another app and be ready to go once you come back.

PlayHaven

We have partnered with PlayHaven to cross-promote Propaganda Lander and other games on their network. You can access PlayHaven by touching the new “More Games” button on the lower left corner of the title screen. We like other developers.

Other Tidbits

There are smaller changes to Propaganda Lander as well. We probably couldn’t name them all even if we wanted to. There are little touches that we added that you’ll see throughout the game including generally improved performance across the board.

For those of you with older iDevices, the best way to get the best performance is to turn off the music and the sound effects. There will be a major improvement when you do that.

We’ve tried to eliminate as many memory issues as we can and we feel pretty confident that Propaganda Lander will run on all iPhone’s and iPod Touches without crashing often or needing you to reboot your phone–although it’s always good to do that just to clear out orphans in memory.

Good luck in Remix Survival and we are dying to compete with all of you on the leaderboards!

We’ve submitted Propaganda Lander 1.1 to Apple for approval! We’ve already talked about some of the new things in an older post. We will have a more in depth look at the new features soon. The update should hit your iPhone/iPod Touch in a week barring any rejections from Apple.

In more SDK 4.0 learnings, we came across a file size problem with Propaganda Lander in moving to SDK 4. The Unix Executable File became twice as big as it used to be under the 3.0 SDKs. There was no rhyme or reason for this that we could see.

If you are someone who cares about keeping your app’s file size under the 3G download limit, it is important to optimize as best as you can do get it under 20MB. A lot of games really don’t care which will be an annoyance to someone who wants to buy the game but has no WiFi service nearby. Other games just can’t be that small and then there’s nothing you can do about it.

We are pretty adamant about keeping Propaganda Lander under 20MB. Even with all our wondrous musical tunes, movies with voice overs, and pretty graphics we demand to have a game that can be downloaded from anywhere there is a 3G signal. After all, we are making a game for a mobile phone first and a portable music device second.

The reason why the executable file was twice as big under SDK 4 was because it defaults to compiling for iPad as well as iPhone. I see no reason to have both binaries when most games have specific versions for iPhone and iPad. You can fix this by checking Build Active Architecture Only in the project settings.

You should enable Dead Code Stripping as well–it usually is by default. There’s also Optimization Level which defaults to [-Os] for fastest, smallest and tends to be best.

In the quest to make Propaganda Lander run under iPhone SDK 4.0 and eventually utilize Game Center, I’ve run across some problems/solutions with multitasking. The most recent problem was with MPMoviePlayer. Propaganda Lander plays a movie on each planet plus a nice little video after you’ve beaten the game so movie playing had to work.

SDK 4.0 changes how the MPMoviePlayer works. I think it is now much better than it was before. You have more control over it. It will also, by default, mix with other audio as well. Right now, Propaganda Lander will kill your iPod if a movie plays. We didn’t particularly like that but, there was no choice in the matter. There is now! The iOS 4 version of Propaganda Lander will have this feature.

So, Apple has created an MPMoviePlayerViewController that you can use as a view to control the movie. MPMoviePlayerController still exists but is slightly different. In the past, creating an MPMoviePlayerController would just take over the device and play the movie. You now need to add your MPMoviePlayerController’s view to a UIView or UIWindow.

The MPMoviePlayerViewController will auto rotate if the device’s orientation changes. This was not ideal for Propaganda Lander as it only plays in one orientation: OrientationLandscapeRight. In order to get around that, we had to use the UIView from the MPMoviePlayerController and transform it accordingly.

Here is some code straight out of Propaganda Lander for movie player in iOS 4

You’ll need this for the degrees to radians conversion

#define degreesToRadian(x) (M_PI * (x) / 180.0)

This is the actual code:

MPMoviePlayerController * theMovie;
theMovie = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL: movieURL];
UIView * movieView = [theMovie view];

[movieView setFrame: CGRectMake(0, 0, 480, 320)];

CGAffineTransform landscapeTransform;
landscapeTransform = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(degreesToRadian(90));
landscapeTransform = CGAffineTransformTranslate(landscapeTransform, 80, 80);

[movieView setTransform: landscapeTransform];
theMovie.scalingMode = MPMovieScalingModeAspectFit;
theMovie.fullscreen = TRUE;
theMovie.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
theMovie.shouldAutoplay = TRUE;

[[[UIApplication sharedApplication] keyWindow] addSubview: movieView];

If you would like to use the MPMoviePlayerViewController that has all the auto rotation features, it would look like this:

MPMoviePlayerViewController * movieView;
movieView = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL: movieURL];

MPMoviePlayerController * theMovie = [movieView moviePlayer];
theMovie.scalingMode = MPMovieScalingModeAspectFit;
theMovie.fullscreen = TRUE;
theMovie.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
theMovie.shouldAutoplay = TRUE;

[[[UIApplication sharedApplication] keyWindow] addSubview: movieView.view]

When you the movie is done playing, you will want to remove it. You can do so by using the NSNotificationCenter to get a callback when the movie is done.

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver: self
	selector: @selector(movieFinishedCallback:)
	name: MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
	object: theMovie];

When the movie is finished, it will call the movieFinishedCallback method which would look something like this:

- (void)movieFinishedCallback: (NSNotification*) notification;
{
	[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver: self
		name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
		object: [notification object]];

	MPMoviePlayerController * theMovie = [notification object];

	[theMovie.view removeFromSuperview];
	[theMovie release];
}

This ONLY works in iOS 4 devices. If you also need to target iPhone OS 3.0 or 2.0, you will need to check for the OS and then have the former MPMoviePlayer code as well. Since Propaganda Lander still targets iPhone OS 3.0, we made this function to check for the OS.

std::string getOS()
{
	UIDevice * device = [UIDevice currentDevice];
	NSString * os = [device systemVersion];

	if([os isEqualToString:@"4.0"])
		return "4.0";
	if([os isEqualToString:@"3.0"])
		return "3.0";
	if([os isEqualToString:@"3.1"])
	        return "3.1";
	if([os isEqualToString:@"3.2"])
		return "3.2";
	if([os isEqualToString:@"3.1.2"])
		return "3.1.2";
	if([os isEqualToString:@"3.1.3"])
		return "3.1.3";

	return "";
}

There’s some C++ and Objective-C in there as you can see. I actually wanted to return numbers but, strings will do for now. You can just as well return NSString’s exclusively if you’d like. As you can also see, we don’t care about OS’s below 3.0. OS 3.2 is the iPad OS and should have no effect for iPhone development but, I left it in there anyway. I believe 3.2 uses the same MPMoviePlayer code as iOS 4.0.

So if your movie player suddenly stops working in iOS 4.0, this is why and this is how to fix it.

In celebration of the launch of iPhone 4, we are putting Propaganda Lander on SALE until 11:59pm Sunday, June 27th, 2010. It is 40% off at $2.99. Get it now if you haven’t already! It might make a nice gift for a friend who just got their shiny new iPhone 4.

Here’s our press release if you’re into that stuff.

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EXCITING SPACE ADVENTURE GAME PROPAGANDA LANDER CELEBRATES IPHONE 4 WITH LIMITED SALE!

NEW YORK, NY, June 24, 2010 – In celebration of the launch of iPhone 4, SMASHWORX is lowering the price of Propaganda Lander from $4.99 to $2.99 starting on Thursday, June 24th 2010 through Sunday, June 27th, 2010! No other game of it’s kind can compare with Propaganda Lander’s charm, style, and buttery-smooth space-flight controls. It’s the unforgettable iPhone experience you haven’t had yet. Experience it now by visiting the App Store and purchasing Propaganda Lander at 40% off before the sale ends!

Propaganda Lander fulfills the dream of piloting an alien spacecraft through hazardous exotic environments. Players will need to develop some serious skills to survive an onslaught of missiles, giant sea serpents, and molten lava pits. Players will also have to put up with the ultimate jerk of a boss that doesn’t seem to mind putting the lander in precarious situations but, that’s the price of admission. Propaganda Lander is an iPhone experience you won’t find anywhere else. This highly polished and innovative game is normally priced at $4.99 but with the excitement of the iPhone 4 launch we couldn’t help ourselves but offer a sale to the Apple community.

Propaganda Lander is scheduled for a massive update in the coming weeks with new planet-themed music, leaderboards with AGON, easy and hard modes, survival mode, and more! Get Propaganda Lander before it returns to it’s original price!

PRAISE:

“Propaganda Lander isn’t the only Lander style game available for the App Store, but almost none can claim as much charm and style as ‘The Rickster’ on his universal campaign of glory.”
-Andrew Nesvadba, AppSpy (4 out of 5)

“You will have to bring your A game in order to get through the 20 levels currently included… This $4.99 game is universal and looks beautiful on any sized screen.
-Michelle Lopez, The Portable Gamer iCasual Podcast

“Propaganda Lander: simple idea, unlikely hero, amazing game!”
-Emiliano Contarino, iPhoneItalia.com

FEATURES:

- The best motion-controlled flying in any game on the App Store.
- 20 levels that will kick your butt and that’s before the boss battle.
- Each planet features a short movie that’s more South Park and less Dora the Explorer.
- The baddest final boss you’ve faced on iPhone; so badass, he doesn’t fit on one screen.
- If you aren’t into dark humor, you won’t find any part of this game funny. Too bad for you.
- We have some hard to obtain achievements. We like achievers.
- Listen to your iPod while playing.
- Brag about your achievements on Facebook.
- Rule the galaxy!

Get Propaganda Lander Now!: http://www.smashworx.com/buypropaganda

About SMASHWORX
SMASHWORX is housed in NYC, the only city that could possibly withstand its chaotic force. SMASHWORX is here to to shake, not stir, the pot. We are made up of code breakers, delirium takers and the type of people your ma’ warned you about. Our intention is straight-forward: bash gamer’s heads in by ignoring the rules set by marketing cronies and corporate geezers. We take no prisoners. SMASHWORX has had enough with terms like “bleeding-edge.” We promise to produce addictive games that bring a little rock n’ roll into the gamer lifestyle. We are the folk that spent most of our time in detention. We are the stick in your spokes. We are SMASHWORX!

Visit Us: http://www.smashworx.com
Follow Us: http://www.twitter.com/smashworx
Like Us: http://facebook.smashworx.com
Our Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smashworx
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/smashworx

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