SLQ withdrawn from App store
Sorry for this, but I’ve taken SLQ off of the App Store. As you will see in the release post, a number of blog readers downloaded the game and found that they could either not move or there were no objects in the game. I did not want more and more people to download the game knowing that it doesn’t work.
I’ve done a ton of testing this morning to try and figure out the problem and to be honest I can’t even see the problem within my development environment. I can therefore only assume that something odd has happened between compiling, compressing and sending the app.
I have just created a new version of the app and tested it on the iPhone, iPod and iPad. I’ve compressed it up, uncompressed, run it again etc. etc. As far as I can now tell this new version works as it should so I’m submitting it up to Apple today for approval.
I’ll be setting the release date to be as soon as the app is approved which will hopefully just be a few days.
I’d like to apologise to all those people who have downloaded the game and found that it has these issues. This is not the launch I had hoped for and I hope that this new version means you get the game experience I was hoping for.
Thanks for the all the feedback and I’ll post as soon as I know its approved.
Thanks
Mike
19 Comments
Macthille on May 9th, 2010
[sorry about that, accidentally pressed publish before the message was finished]
[continued]
..happeing to anyone Else reading your blog :)
I understand it must feel very frustrating though.. ^^
Anyways, thanks for your dedication and keep up the good work!
Cheers
mike on May 9th, 2010
Thanks Macthille. I’m certainly going to do a post on this as it is frustrating as hell :o)
Mike
scepticalmonkey on May 9th, 2010
What happened during the apple approval process? Presumably it worked for the testers? Isn’t this kind of problem supposed to be spotted by them!? Sounds a bit strange … Good luck sorting it.
Simon on May 9th, 2010
Ah wondered where it was. I’d just gone on too the app store to find it. I thought it was odd that in the search bar it auto filled with the title but found nothing. But this post explains that.
I’d love to know if you managed to work out what went wrong. I also find it very strange that Apple approved an app that didn’t work. Does make you wonder about the approval process!
Paul at 2D sent an email request to speed up the approval when he encountered similar problems and he managed to get the update out in a day or 2.
I guess for now I’ll just wait patiently :)
Simon on May 9th, 2010
How many downloads had you had?
mike on May 9th, 2010
I have to agree guys, I am surprised that the fact the player can only stand in the middle of the room and fire their axe would have shown up. It’s pretty obvious. This is a time when I would have been happy for Apple to reject the app :o)
Fingers crossed the new version will be problem free.
Mike
nexus6 on May 9th, 2010
@Mike
I think I know what the problem is. I noticed in the SLQ code that this line was missing in the EagleView.m file in the gameLoop.
// Get the OS to process any events that are in the queue such
// as touch etc and then pass back control when done. This makes
// sure we get touch events registered correctly
while(CFRunLoopRunInMode(kCFRunLoopDefaultMode, 0, false) == kCFRunLoopRunHandledSource);
Anonomous on May 9th, 2010
I don’t mean to state the obvious, but have you included all of your textures and whatnot in your compiled app? I don’t know how this can happen, but could that be related to the issue?
(Please post what the issue was…)
Anonymous on May 9th, 2010
Did you test it on old gen phones? I have a 1G phone and I have found some stuff doesn’t run on it that runs fine on late phones. Might be why it works for some and not others.
mike on May 9th, 2010
Thanks for the comments guys.
The problem turned out to be a missing image file from the project. This was not failing within my development environment as the file was still included locally. During a clean and build this file was removed causing problems with the app sent to the App store.
Having a missing texture was causing the game initialization to fail. This in turn caused the app to take an expected route causing some elements not to be initialized and the problems that were seen in the app.
The problems were that on starting a new game the player could only fire their axe and not move. On resuming a game then player could move but there were no enemies or objects in the game.
I’ve since tested the new deployment and all seems fine so that has been sent to Apple for approval. I’m hoping this is done ASAP.
It goes beg the question of how much Apple actually used the app. Not being able to move at all is a fatal issue and something I thought may have got the app rejected. It could be that they simply run automated tests to make sure the app does not use private APIs and then just make sure the app starts up and things look ok and appropriate.
Either way it got through approval and only the reports on the blog brought it to my attention.
Thanks again to those who posted on the problems and I’m hoping that version 1.1 will provide a better experience.
Mike
RRdaS on May 9th, 2010
Mike,
I think if Apple approved, it means the game is OK for Apple. Maybe the problem is with jailbreak, did you have any information of this kind?
I have seen many odd problems that happen only with jailbreak.
Good luck.
RRdaS
nexus6 on May 9th, 2010
@Mike
I’m glad you got that sorted out. I agree with what you said, why didn’t apple catch it. That might be the reason why the approval process seems to take a lot less time now. Well you have to figure with the amount of apps they approve they probably just run it through there code checker to make sure there’s no illegal API calls and if it boots up they stamp it..
Just my 2 cents..
Simon on May 9th, 2010
I found that occurred far to easily. Files being missed. It’s now a fundemental part of my check list when creating and testing binaries.
Deffinitly worth checking before submitting any binaries, after all it can delay the release or as you found out ’cause bizzare issues and potentially negative feedback if not caught early.
Glad it wasn’t a code related problem :). I look forward to playing the final version. Do you have a new release date?
Anonomous on May 10th, 2010
Looking forward to the game.
Doug on May 12th, 2010
For those commenting that Apple should have notice this during their “testing”… in my experience Apple doesn’t test. I think the binary is scanned for private APIs and malicious code. The fact that I could have an App go into review and 2 hours later it is approved kind of tells me no extensive testing goes on (nor is it tested on all devices and OSes). I’ve downloaded plenty of Apps that didn’t run.
As far as the App Store build goes, I always run it on my device. When I say build and go my environment always tell me the certificate is not on my device, do I wish to install it. The app immediately quits (debugger can’t attach), but when I relaunch it, it IS the App Store build (I’ve tested this by changing assets). I also had a build once that had OLD graphics included and I had to hurry and put an update out. I think some weird caching goes on (even though I did a complete clean build).
Mike, looking forward to downloading the game.
HKPaul on May 13th, 2010
Hi,
Just thought I’d mention that Apple also did not spot a really horrible display issue that affected v1.2 of my game GravSpace – it only occurred on 3GS devices/3rd Gen iPod touches.
To me it was plainly obviously a bug that made the game un-usable but it was still approved by Apple – so it seems clear they do not test to that extent – you have to rely on your beta testing (a mistake I made in the v1.2 release).
Note that the approval for v1.2 was very very quick, and followed the release date of the iPad – I suspect Apple had a backlog of iPhone apps to approve, and just approved previously released apps without any significant (non-automated) checking.
After buying a 3GS device I found and fixed the display flicker issue in no time, and asked Apple for an expedited review – that only took 1 day.
I would suggest for all release you do an add-hoc build and install it to your own devices as a minimum (first deleting the app from your devices completely) – then you will soon find out if there are missing files… however you still need to do significant testing, if like me, you don’t load all your resources in one lump at the start of the app loading.
(btw.. I’ve not been active on 71 squared recently as just started a new job)
Paul.
mike on May 13th, 2010
Thanks for the input guys. I suppose i can understand that Apple don’t play all the games they get in detail. Given the number of apps they get it would be so hard.
The problems have certainly made me review the process I have when getting ready to publish so that is a good thing.
I think you have also made some good suggestions that I’m going to look to add to my process.
It’s good to have you back HKPaul and congratulations on the new job :0)
I’m hoping to get notice soon that the app is ready
Mike
Mike on May 14th, 2010
I think the valuable lesson to be learnt here is at least some sort of QA run on the final compressed file you generate.
Maybe use your adhoc build to generate a .app and drag it into iTunes to test it in a clean environment.
macthille on May 9th, 2010
No worries, öppning forward to the new release :)
Look at this as an extra Opportunity to learn and teach! If it hadn’t happen maybe you would have rum into the same problem another time.
This way you have a chance of preventing this from