Hello from Woodbridge, VA

[s0ftimage]

Hello everyone,

I'd say I am your regular guy with a full time job and trying to do development on the side to make some money (lottery tickets havent been working). A year ago I was still coding in Visual Basic 6, because Visual Basic .NET was too hard. Since then, I attended a Windows Phone Camp and decided to jump in the bandwagon. I am now coding C# and I just finished a simple cards game in XNA (El Cagao); based on the BlackJack cards game available for free at create.msdn.com.

I am now trying to market my game while I also start a new project.

Sadly, I have only sold 15 copies of my game and made about .45 cents of Ad revenue in a month's time . In short, I haven't seen a penny, and probably wont, unless I do something about it. So, I am totally focused on marketing and advertising right now.

I learned a lot from working on the game, and I wouldn't say that I have mastered everything that OOP and C# has to offer.

I have always had faith in Microsoft and I think they are onto something with the Kinect, Xbox, Windows 8, Windows Azure, and the Windows Phone. I am also hoping for the best with Nokia. I hope they both come around.

Cheers

 

[Judge_Daniel]

Hello! You've just taken another step closer to becoming a successful developer--relaying with your consumers. Because of this post, I have already downloaded the (free version of the) app (well, it is still downloading) and will soon give you some feedback. One question I already have; why does your app need my location? Ads?

I also have a developer-unlocked phone if you ever need me to beta test anything. Since I can't program (besides an app that shows static shapes and words, lol), I'd like to use my free dev unlock for something useful, lol.

Edit: I played a while (and clicked a few ads for you ) and I would suggest adding an as-you-play tutorial. I quickly caught on, but I was a pretty confused initially. Also, when I clicked on an ad mid-game and then tried to return, the game messed up. It was still the same AI's turn, but all of the cards were invisible and the AI never did anything.

 

[s0ftimage]

Hello! You've just taken another step closer to becoming a successful developer--relaying with your consumers. Because of this post, I have already downloaded the (free version of the) app (well, it is still downloading) and will soon give you some feedback. One question I already have; why does your app need my location? Ads?

I also have a developer-unlocked phone if you ever need me to beta test anything. Since I can't program (besides an app that shows static shapes and words, lol), I'd like to use my free dev unlock for something useful, lol.

Edit: I played a while (and clicked a few ads for you ) and I would suggest adding an as-you-play tutorial. I quickly caught on, but I was a pretty confused initially. Also, when I clicked on an ad mid-game and then tried to return, the game messed up. It was still the same AI's turn, but all of the cards were invisible and the AI never did anything.

wow, thanks Judge_Daniel! I appreciate the feedback.

In regards to clicking on an ad and not being able to return, I noticed the problem after I had released the game. On Dec 30th, I uploaded the fix, but Microsoft takes two days to certify the update, and they dont work over the holidays, so I dont expect the fix to be available to consumers until Wednesday January 4th.

The retail version also has a bug, that the card the player receives is face down. That bug fix should also be available on January 4th. Since you played the free version, here is a link to a video of the retail version. You will notice its a bit different. El Cagao for the Windows Phone 7 - YouTube

On the tutorial, it makes sense to add it. Due to your feedback, I will go ahead and add it. I didn't do it before because I was lazy. I dont have a "system" or "method" to show these "tips", so I have to build it, and I have been regretting doing that.

I sense that you would like to be able to program your own game or application. All the tools you need to build it are free, so it wont cost you a penny to build it. Once its ready, you would pay the $99 to join create.msdn.com so that you can deploy your game to the MarketPlace. I dont think the price is bad, considering all the work I give that poor people, certifying and recertifying my game over and over again (lol).

I learned c# by reading a book (Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Step by Step by John Sharp) from beginning to end, and then building the game. No, I didn't start the game from scratch, I downloaded an already built game from create.msdn.com and customized it (ok, rewrote it, since I didn't like or understand they way they did things).

Lastly, the videos on channel 9 were extremely useful:

C# Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners | Channel 9
The Mango Videos | Channel 9
Get to Mango | Channel 9
Windows Phone Camps Online | Channel 9
Mango Jump Start | Channel 9

You can download all the free tools (Visual Studio Express and the Windows Phone Toolkit) from create.msdn.com

Thanks again for the feedback, and for volunteering to help out the community.

 

[Judge_Daniel]

Wow. Thanks for the help. Since I am a college student, I get to develop for free. I have already downloaded Visual Studio for Windows Phone, but I've only ever messed with Java (in high school) and a little C++ (freshman year of college). I've only messed around with VS once (which is when I made an app that had a red rectangle and words on it, lol), but I may look into it more if I feel as though I have some free time.