Sound Design

Yesterday I became a sound designer.  Here is our “studio”.

In need of some serious wire management.

Friday, Friday!

Something about Friday–everyone’s in a great mood, most of all this little lady:

The DHG team is cooking up some BIG things for DVU, Chin Up, and Bummed Out.  We’re excited!  Here’s a sneak peek:

Sacrebleu!!!

Happy Friday everyone!

From the desk of our Animator

Chin Up Finds a New Home!

We’ve teamed up with Touch Village, a saavy mobile publisher in Canada, for our baby– Chin Up!

We couldn’t be more thrilled!  In preparation for the relaunch, Mr. Chin will be visiting some very exotic sites around the world.  Stay tuned!

Dogs of Digital Harmony – Mixy

Meet Mixy, a rambunctious little boxer who is as sweet as the valentines we used to receive in elementary school.

Happy Valentines Day/Single Awareness Day!

Dogs of Digital Harmony – Honker

Our prayers, good wishes, and high hopes go out to Honker, a fellow canine of the Digital Harmony Team; who was bit by a rattlesnake (possibly multiple times).

Hang in there Honker!

Thank goodness Honker’s parents administered the rattlesnake vaccine a month ago!  Get better soon Honker!!!

Chin Up – European Tour?

Mr. Chin has been itching to explore the heights of Europe…

HINT HINT

Dragons VS Unicorns – Single Player Mode Announced!

Dragons VS Unicorns.

Our flagship title.  Our shining star.  Our baby.

Today, our bad ass PR Reps @ Clever Communications released the announcement of DVU Single Player Mode.  Without repeating too much of the article, I’ll note some main features of the game:

Objective:

Protect the nests and allow bunnies to incubate the eggs to hatch as many Unicornlings as the level waves allow.  If you’re lucky, a Golden Egg will appear, hatching a equally Golden Unicornling for an extra surprise.

Heroes:

• Cutiepie Unicorn – Joyful master of all things cute.  Can cast up to 5 different abilities ranging from offensive spells to defensive enhancements.
• Happy Bunny – A lover, not a fighter.  Cheerfully hops over to Unicorn’s nests to incubate the eggs to hatch Unicornlings.
• Cuddly Hedgehog – Player’s Ball.  Draw a  path to set the hedgehog on a boomerang spree across the field, chopping down all villains in its path.

Villains:

• Evil Dragon.  Nasty king of all things awesome.  Commands its minions to do its bidding.
• Kamikaze Bat – The colony leader.  Flocks the skies with bombs.  Better add some air to your hedgehog ball to take ‘em out…
• Pepperjack Turtle – He does not like Fraggle Rock.  High defense calls for two hits from the hedgehog ball.
• Flava Turtle – Follows Pepperjack wherever he goes.
• Hermit Crabs – Digger of lies.  Look to the ground to see where the crabs may (or may not) scurry out.
• Eels – Spawned from a feisty magical toad, can coil upon other minions, sacrificing themselves for the greater evil.

Action Shot:

Can you see the Golden Egg?  When those happen to pop up, you definitely want to save them from being crushed.

Here’s another:

Here’s the action shot explained:

Development is moving along smashingly.  Stay tuned for more DVU updates.

Re: Download Bots in the App Store

My goodness.  Say goodbye to the good ol’ days when your game can lean on different metrics for a positive spin–

1) Ratings

2) Reviews

3) Download #’s

4) Revenue

What am I talking about?

With the flurry of articles regarding the bot farms that employ users with iOS devices and itunes accounts to download an app, it’s only a matter of time before Apple doesn’t something completely arbitrary to reverse this activity.  This is basically an evolved, B2B form of Gold farming; made ever so prevalent by this gentlemen it’ll be a race for rich developers to cover up their tracks.  Unfortunately for small, poor developers like us who would never be able to afford even the $5k cost to attain farmed download #’s, I fear we will get the butt end of this fiasco.

The Apple Way

I suspect Apple will react in the following way:

1) Put out a formal warning Done!

2) Devise a ratio that balances Downloads to Ratings/Reviews, only showing the stats when the numbers are balanced

3) Apply this ratio to balance Ratings/Reviews to Downloads (otherwise bot farms will turn into review/rating farms)

4) Kill the App Store as we know it today

Industry Reactions

If my suspicions prove true, this already fast paced industry will react overnight.

1) Deny any involvement in bot farms

2) Try to make an example out of a smaller developer who may have used Bot Farms

3) Find another way to exploit the App Store using millions of dollars

4) Continue copying games

Evil!  Bad!  /slaps wrist

Meet the Team – Jeff

Name: Jeff Lujan

Role: CEO & Co-Founder

Nickname: SALT (sad, angry, lonely, tired)

Song that reminds me of him:

Beatdowns: closing on the hundreds…all by Keren.

Man Crush: Tom Cruise, Ryan Gosling

*Disclaimer* Jeff refuses to be interviewed.  Therefore, I’m writing edition of “Meet the Team” from my perspective of Mr. Lujan.  Enjoy!

Humble beginnings

Jeff was born and raised somewhere in Arizona and is a diehard fan of all things Wildcat.  Whether it’s women’s volleyball, or men’s golf, here’s there, rooting them on from afar and loving every minute of it.  He got his bachelors somewhere in Arizona where he joined a fraternity and was eventually elected Social Chair.  He had his first entrepreneurial experience fairly young, making hand-painted dog collars and selling them for pennies.  He was a natural born artist, joining Fox animation where he drew for one of my favorite heroine animated movies – Anastasia.  He also worked on Iron Giant (or Titan A.E. i keep forgetting which).

Making it Big Time

At Fox animation, Jeff claims his company softball team was 2nd place in the league, and took it very seriously.  He pushed DHG to join a league (which I will get into later), and is constantly comparing the two.

After Fox, Jeff got into gaming (I think).  He worked at Midway, Namco, and K2.  He is always talking about the people he loved and of course, those who sucked.  Tells me of the ugly side of business and the shitty people involved…Tells me of the Rolex watches, and Louis Vuitton purses he used to have to provide as kick backs…it’s all very ugly.

A Dog Named Jesus

Startups are tough!  Jeff’s currently selling his Mark Ryden Artist Proof #4 to fund the company.  He has already sold his pristine Harley Davidson.  It was a very sad day for Mr. Lujan.

That’s dedication.

“20 Years of Experience…For Free!”

Jeff’s our token ‘old guy’ around the office.  Old not because of age, but because he’s been in the industry the longest–20 years.  There are certain things about business one learns after 20 years, and Jeff’s always adamant about pushing these learnings onto us.  Unfortunately, our generation is skeptical. We need to learn by experience, not by listening.  After refusing to believe him, he provides us with the same warning: “you’re getting 20 years of experience for free right now…Just sayin’”.

Needless to say, he is usually right.  Perhaps one day we will not take his ‘free 20 years of experience’ for granted.

Refer-a-friend

Jeff is always telling me that he’s been asking for a Refer-a-friend system for over 10 years but has never received it…Our goal is to push this to 11 years of asking but never receiving.

Wild Turkey

Jeff is banned from drinking Wild Turkey.

“Southbound and East”

This is Mr. Lujan’s way of referring to ‘Eastbound and Down’, one of the greatest comedies on TV lately.

Embras

Jeff has a love/hate relationship with Embras.  Based on stereotypes that are actually (and unfortunately) true, there never goes a day where I don’t hear this faux-word at least 3 times a day.

Badassery

Jeff’s the most modest person I know.  Despite all the ups and downs (more downs than ups), he is always our pillar of knowledge, our confidant, our fearless leader.  He always finds a way to make things work, and always in the way that works best for all of DHG.

We would not be here without him.