And while I was at it:-

The contest will remain open until the 18th January, and is open to anyone. If you’d like to use these banners in any way to spread the word about the contest for the final couple of weeks, that would be awesome. There’s $40 of iTunes credit and a gaggle of other prizes for the winner, not to mention the joy of eating your entry afterwards, so it’s well worth the effort.

The Great Indie Bake Off

Sneezies got a couple of new reviews that I haven’t posted yet. One from My World Of Handhelds, and another from iPhone Apps and Games. Sneezies is also a finalist in 4 categories of the 2008 Best App Ever awards, if you like it please vote, it only takes a few seconds, and you don’t need to register or anything.

The prize pool for the Great Indie Bake Off rose to $40 of iTunes credit, plus all the free games and apps and extras. The contest is still open, we’ll probably accept the final submissions the weekend of the 18th, and run the poll to pick the winner the following week.

Lesson learned from running a contest: make the entry conditions as clear as possible, this time around it might not have been clear that it’s open to everyone, including non-developers.

I started using FriendFeed to organize all my info. I also pruned my twitter list a little, removing a few non-followers, it’s amazing how much difference it makes to the feel of the stream when you lose people… like a disturbance in the force (probably not).

A couple of links I enjoyed around the web this week: Market Yourself An iParadigm, discusses the realities of marketing and it’s impact in App Store. Also, The indie game developer’s start-up cost, which takes a fun look at the potential costs of making independent games.

I wasn’t going to bother with the obligatory reflection/projection blog post, but I’m just settling down to focus on our next project, and I thought I’d take a quick look back (and forward) before I get too stuck in.

This blog wasn’t here this time last year, but I did post 3 resolutions on my old blog. Two quick and easy ones - I wanted to exercise more (I lasted until about march, a new record), and I wanted to figure out how to reverse my aging thumb syndrome and get good at games again (nope, I still suck).

The main resolution last year was the suitably vague and flexible in scope “Focus on the good stuff”. I meant stick to projects I really want to do, make things I’ll feel good about, and focus on the positive things that come out of them, instead of worrying or dwelling on negatives.

I’m generally happy with the way that one turned out.

I cut off all my other commitments over the course of this year to focus on Antair Games full time. That wasn’t exactly easy, but it was an important step and it felt good. We also finished and released 2 games over the course of the year. The first was DoubleTake for PC/Mac, the second was Sneezies for the iPhone.

That whole positive mental attitude nonsense doesn’t come totally naturally to me if things go badly, but I usually manage to work my way around to it eventually.

My 2008 in Sound Bites

Highlight of the year for me: the great response to Sneezies.

Surprise of the year for me: I really didn’t expect to be running a baking contest.

I got my first Mac this year - I wouldn’t go back unless I had to.

I’m using Twitter (and Facebook and FriendFeed). And starting to “get it”.

My iPod Touch is the first MP3 player I’ve ever owned. Yep.

2009

No new resolution for ‘09, I’m happy with what I’m doing and where things are headed. Craig and I are just going to keep trying to make the best games we can, hopefully they’ll each find an audience that loves them. We’re sticking with the iPhone for our games development. We love the platform, we love the distribution channel (the App Store may have it’s issues, but it’s still miles better than anything we’ve experienced on any other platform), and the scope of a good iPhone game is perfect for a team of our size.

The next game feels like it’ll be a good one, we’re excited about it. This time around we’re hoping to share a lot more info and artwork here as we go.

And that’s that, thanks for reading so far, I hope you’ll stick around to see what 2009 has in store for us.

Calling all Sneezies fans! Sneezies is a finalist in 4 categories of the Best App Ever Awards.

If you’d like to vote for Sneezies, each of the following links will place a direct vote in one of the 4 categories. No registration is necessary, it’s just a one-click thing. You only get one vote per category, but you can change it later if you find something else you’d rather vote for.

Best Casual Game : http://bestappever.com/v/gcas/298155609/vote

Best 99c Game : http://bestappever.com/v/g99c/298155609/vote

Best Kids Game : http://bestappever.com/v/gkid/298155609/vote

Best Kid Distraction App : http://bestappever.com/v/kidd/298155609/vote

The winners will be announced at MacWorld on the 7th January.

Our thanks go out to anyone who nominated us for the awards, we were surprised and delighted to be shortlisted for so many categories.

Another iTunes gift card has been added to the The Great Indie Bake Off prize pool. The total iTunes credit for a lucky winner is now $40, on top of all the free copies of Apps and games on offer already. See the contest page for full prize details and conditions.

The latest prize, the $25 iTunes card, is courtesy of AppBeacon.

Tim started a forum thread for the bake off over on Touch Arcade too, hopefully we’ll see some more cakes coming in.

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In other news, Sneezies got a good mention in Touch Arcade’s 99c games worth a look article, a review from RazorianFly, and a great feature in 148apps Diversions for the trip home article.

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I signed up for FriendFeed, you can check out my page here, I need to live with it for a few days in a full work schedule to know for sure, but I think I like it. Mostly I like that it feels organized. I only have a few people on my main page but I can see more in a different list when I have time to browse, and I turned on IM notifications so I get notified of comments or anything interesting right away. I thought it would be too much information, but it feels more like a filter and set of rules for everything I was seeing already.

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Finally, Andy over at Howling Wolf Software started The New Year App Blowout promotion. This is a group of apps and games that are available at reduced prices. It’s a great idea, yet more creative marketing from the indie community. If you already have Sneezies, you could try BurnBall, it’s a great little game that deserves to do well, a bargain at that price. And it’s just been updated.

It was great taking Sneezies along to the family gatherings and passing it around. Everyone loved it, I never got the iPod back until I was on my way out of the door, it’s definitely a good way to distract kids.

Speaking of Sneezies, we got a some great new reviews this week. On top of the two I’ve already mentioned, Appletell gave it 4/5, and 148Apps gave it a “Highly recommended” 4.5/5.

Over the course of the week, we added 3 cakes to the Great Indie Bake Off, which brought the cake counter up to 10… and there were a couple of links helping spread the word. Tim Haines was doing his bit to push the contest on Twitter too.

I don’t know how Scoble copes with that 5000+ friendfeed friends thing, you can actually go and look at the feed, it’s total insanity. Thanks to MrTweet, I must have followed a couple of noisy tweeters because I find myself missing out on important stuff from the people I’m trying to pay attention to. I think my first twitter “non-follow” pruning session might be in order.

I was excited earlier in the week because our page became the top result for “Sneezies” on Google… but it didn’t stick. The top link is still about our game though, so it almost still counts :).

Veiled Games and Byteclub were both talking about the value of lite versions in the App Store. I agree with both of them a bit (Evan thinks you become your own competition, Peter thinks it works better when you can offer more depth in the full version), and I also think pricing has a lot to do with it. 99c can surely only exist as an impulse buy, it’s not a sustainable price point in most cases anyway, but it has to be doomed if you make it a considered decision and add trial conversion rates into the mix. If the common price point creeps up towards 4.99+, we’ll probably start to see more calls for effective trial mechanisms from developers. Even though that’s still impulse buy territory on other platforms, the volume and the streamlined distribution on the iPhone might help carry it.

I think I’m going to pick up an Invisible Shield in the Zagg sale, I’ve been eying them since I got my iPod Touch, the demonstration is awesome.

That’s it, we’re out of here(*) for the holidays, wishing you all the best, and hoping you all have a great time.

* I’m sure I’m not not fooling anyone. I’ll still be here, and we all know I’ll be checking my email on Christmas morning anyway. But still, the sentiment is genuine.

A couple of quick updates before I pretend to go:-

Sneezies got a couple of extra good reviews. One from AppBeacon, and one from iPhoneAppAttack (you have to read the whole thing, the review is in there!).

The Great Indie Bake Off got another cake today, from the creator of SlingShot. That brings the total up to 10. We’ll post any updates as they come in over the holidays, so keep them coming. Oh, and if you’re a little worse for wear, don’t forget to take the picture ;).

The Great Indie Bake Off

Also, the prize list is getting pretty crowded. The best cake now stands to win 4 free iPhone games, 4 free iPhone utility apps, an acoustic stand for an iPhone worth $20, and now a $15 iTunes Gift Card. (Unfortunately, many of these prizes are only available in the US, check the contest page for details).

Remember, the contest is open to everyone, and will remain open until around mid-January, so there’s plenty of time to get an entry in. I’m sure I speak for all the developers involved when I say that we’d love to see some entries from non developers, just pick a relevant theme for your cake, it’ll be welcome in the contest. So, an indie game you love, the mascot of your favorite games news site, maybe the icon of your favorite iPhone App… it’s all good. That might not be specific enough for some tastes, but we just want everyone to have fun (and cake).

The first update to Sneezies has hit the App Store. I guess Apple are working every hour to clear their massive pre-christmas submission queue.

Sneezies now has more levels, and will allow you to keep listening to your own tunes when the game starts.

We had 2 new excellent video reviews for Sneezies, one from AppVee, and one from AppSelection. We also submitted a Sneezies update to the App Store queue.

We started a cooking contest, The Great Indie Bake Off… I didn’t really see that coming myself, last weekend I was toying with the idea of baking a Sneezies cake, now a few days later I’m trying to encourage other indies to wear aprons and post pictures of tasty treats. Funny how things happen.

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Fresh call for cake submissions: The weekend is coming up, you know you want to bake a cake and enter the contest. Go on… it’ll be fun and delicious. We have 6 entries already and some great prizes.

The contest will stay open until some time in January, if it takes a drunken afternoon or a boring party over the holidays for you to decide to try to scrawl your icon on a cupcake or something, then I’m all for it. I’ll keep posting updates as I get them, and once the holidays are all over and the new year is up and running we’ll run a poll to pick the winner.

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I’ve been looking at mockups for our next project (and probably the one after that) all week, and I’m still very happy, that’s a good sign. I’m still not back firing on all cylinders in coding terms, though.

Since I’ve managed to figure out how to welcome Twitter into my life and started making some good contacts, I decided to see if I could figure out Facebook. I don’t know though, I signed in, I updated my profile, joined a few game development groups, but I still don’t think I get how I should be using it. We’ll see.

I usually have a few cool links to share from around the web, but I’m drawing a blank this week. I’ll just fall back on the obvious and include the Macworld/Steve Jobs thing, and this Daring Fireball post on the subject. Not because I was in any danger of actually going to Macworld, just because I’ve always been a sucker for Dylan lyrics in post titles.