Polish up your game

Fixed

2011-04-01T15:28:00.000-06:00

The latest update should clear up problems with the previous version. Thanks.

Whoops

2011-03-16T18:47:00.006-06:00

Great news! The ipad update is live! Cut out your own characters, use your own backdrops, export video files for sharing! Wait? What's that you say? It erased your saved shows and purchases?...crap.

We worked really hard on that too. Don't worry, once we realized what was going on we pulled the update from the app store so as to try and minimize the damage. That's right, puppet pals (iPad) is currently not available in the App Store as this was the only way to prevent others from being affected. But wait you say, won't that be detrimental to your sales and downloads? Well, possibly but we thought it was the right thing to do. Thanks so much for thinking of us customers you say? Well, you're welcome, I'm glad we had this little talk.

This bug did not show up in our testing as there is some difficulty in recreating in-app purchase situations in the development environment. We apologize for the inconvenience to those that were able to grab the unfortunate update.

The good news? Your stuff is still safe. We have already submitted a fix to Apple and await a hopefully expedited response. The new update should restore your saved shows and offer a button to restore your purchases.

Note: If you have the affected update installed (cutouts possible), the shows you are currently creating will not be saved in the next update. Old shows will however, be restored.

Whew. What a mess. Hopefully most users will not be affected and the new fix hits soon. It really is fantastic fun and the result of a lot of hard work. The exclamation marks in the first paragraph are indeed, justified. For now, we wait.

p.s. The iphone version will also gain these features soon.

iPhone and iPod Touch version is live!

2010-11-23T17:32:00.005-07:00

app store link

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

2010-11-10T22:57:00.001-07:00

puppet pals video demo

2010-11-08T22:55:00.001-07:00

Farm pack and updates coming soon

2010-09-22T18:31:00.004-06:00

Thank you all for your patience. Here's a look at a new pack coming soon and some details on an exciting update that we have been hard at work on.

Update sneak peek:

Puppet pals is coming to the other iOS devices!

Video export is coming! It works really great in our testing. There are a few caveats however. We rely on a hardware chip to do the encoding which makes it fast but it also means that anything older than a 3gs (or equivalent ipod touch) will not be able to render out videos. You can still use and enjoy the app on old hardware, with playback in the app and all, but no render for youtube etc... We also rely on iOS4 so note that ipad users will have to wait for Apple to release iOS 4 for ipad to support video export.

Use your own images for backdrops and even puppets! This will open up a whole world of possibilities for creation. We can't wait to see what people create.

zombies are here!

2010-06-05T14:35:00.003-06:00

Fairy tale actors coming soon (update: now available)

2010-05-22T14:33:00.006-06:00

Here's a preview of our new actor pack.

We are also exploring ways to share your videos and use your custom images as well. Thanks for the great ideas and support!

We are featured as a staff favorite app and made it up to #21 on the ipad app charts!

Puppet Pals (ipad only for now)

2010-05-11T21:46:00.005-06:00

We have always loved animation apps and empowering users to be a content creators and not just consumers. The problem has been, that in the app store, many frame by frame animation apps have been clunky and intimidating. Our goal with puppet pals was to present a familiar straightforward method to create your own "jib-jab© like" animations. All you have to do is select your actors and backdrops, press record, and drag them around. Everything you drag around is recorded in realtime (including your audio). You can even flip characters with a double tap or resize and rotate them using two fingers. The result is a simple and fun way to quickly create your own animated movies. There is something very satisfying about being able to see you animations come to life instantly without the painful frame by frame process.

We are planning on making an iphone version of the app as well. This will be coming in an update, along with many more character sets and additional features. It's free to try, so if you have an ipad give it a whirl and tell us what you think.

FYI: We have many more features planned with updates, but please feel free to leave suggestions here or in the itunes review board. Thanks for playing!

itunes link

OpenFeint support

2009-11-15T13:02:00.002-07:00

The next update has been submitted. Taking into account some feedback that the game is very difficult, we have made it easier to unlock the next levels. We have also included 9 new tutorial holes (found at Ned's desk) to help teach the game at a slower pace and also provide some advanced strategy ideas.

Also added is OpenFeint support. Now there are over 25 achievements, several leaderboards, and more so that you can see how you stack up against the rest of the world. I have had a little jump start testing it out, so good luck beating fletchlives (my openfeint username). Feel free to add me as a friend.

Halloween update is Live!

2009-10-10T09:31:00.002-06:00

Here is a new YouTube showing more gameplay and strategy, hope it helps.

New and Noteworthy!

2009-10-07T18:23:00.003-06:00

Apple has chosen to feature us on the games section of the app store!

Halloween update submitted!

2009-10-07T17:58:00.002-06:00

New levels are already on the way! You will have to find at least 10 hidden stars to unlock them, so start looking now to be ready to play em when this goes live. Enjoy this sneak peek.

Invisible Links is Live on the app store!

2009-10-01T11:55:00.004-06:00

We got the email from apple this morning. I don't know how well the search in iTunes is finding the app right now so here's the link to check out. Buy the game!:)

By the way, I rule at my own game

2009-09-25T00:12:00.010-06:00

yeah yeah. I know that I could have easily cheated on these scores but you'll just have to trust me, these were obtained legitimately. This is just the first set, and they get a lot harder, so I'll try and fill out the other score cards to my liking and post them here as well. I'm sure they will be many who can beat me, so say as much in the comments if you like.

Okay, the rest are posted. If you look close there are two B+(s) that I couldn't seem to improve on. Those two are probably your best bet on beating me :)

that's -3

here are the rest

submitted!

2009-09-24T23:51:00.001-06:00

At 2:40 am on September 22nd, our first app was submitted. Here is the first teaser trailer.

icon woes

2009-09-19T23:20:00.004-06:00

I have struggled to come up with an icon for the game that I really like. Here are a few that I have explored, I have a favorite of these but wanted to see what you think. Please vote on the poll on the side bar. I would really appreciate it.

At first I thought that the icon should describe the gameplay, and I still think that's true to a certain extent, however, I now think the icon should be first and foremost eyecatching and interesting. It is probably the sole basis that someone browsing through a sea of 70,ooo+ apps will decide to investigate the game at all. Keep that in mind when you vote, I am looking for the best icon that catches the attention and makes you want to click to find out more. Also it needs to translate to a very small size.

James icon

desk 1

desk 2

chalkboard

Red's disappearing act

Level themes

2009-09-02T21:34:00.008-06:00

Levels consist of a series of nine doodles found in each of your classmates sketchbooks. My math skills aren't great (which is why I am not the programmer) but I'm pretty sure that 45 hand drawn levels will provide many hours of varied gameplay. The great thing about golf, is that it is always fun to go back and try to improve your score, so hopefully we have provided a game with a lot of replayability.

In addition, there is a secret "gold star" hidden in every level, and we are planning on providing more levels through updates. If the game does well, we plan on providing a level editor for users to join in the fun. Any doodle can be a golf course in this game, and we would love to see a huge community of challenging and imaginative courses.

green cliffs

ice

fire

around the world

human anatomy

making the intro video

2009-07-02T15:10:00.000-06:00

I loved the idea of golfing out a divot in the perfect shape of a letter, so I took that idea and here is what I came up with after several iterations. I actually did cut up the grass in my backyard to photograph the grass letters, which made my wife happy I'm sure. Some letters are cleaned up and composited together a bit in photoshop to be fair.

Welcome to polished play's blog.

2009-06-21T20:10:00.002-06:00

My name is Lance. I am the graphic artist behind our games. I have always had an interest in game design, and with the ease of entry of the iphone/ipod touch platform, I couldn't resist. It so happens that I found out that an old high school buddy of mine, Heber, was also extremely interested in creating iphone games. I was lucky enough to partner with him to create polished play llc. I take care of the graphics and sound while he takes care of the coding (and does a fantastic job of it).

Our first game is called "invisible links". A spatial strategy, drawing, golfing, puzzle, memory, maze game. It's really simple, despite my previous sentence. The game was created from the ground up to take advantage of the iphone's unique capabilities. There is nothing currently like it on the app store that I am aware of, so I will hold off on further gameplay explanation, until we are closer to release. Call me paranoid but there are so many "clones" in the app store that you can't be too careful.

We decided to start with this game after discussing many possible ideas we thought we could produce. This was the most fun and innovative idea that just seemed to "fit" the multitouch controls. I can't imagine it existing on any other platform, which is really the kind of gaming experience we are interested in creating. We have been developing since January 2009 and we spend as much spare time as we can invested in the game. It will be in development for a few more months, because we want to provide a "polished" experience that we can be proud of. I realize we are shooting ourselves in the foot a little with a name like polished play. If it's not polished it will be all to easy to make a clever criticism in the reviews. Oh well. Hopefully, you'll give us a break, we are just two guys trying our best after all.

The game has undergone many revisions, and design changes all to try and arrive at a seamless experience. We have tried to critique ourselves often, and gather impressions from beta testers along the way to hopefully end up with the best possible product. I love how the gameplay mechanics have been honed so there are no messy buttons or toggle switches, once you know how to play everything is intuitive, but more on that later.

Here are a few of the title screens we have shuffled through to show some of that process. No gameplay images yet. I will be posting more samples of the game and our experiences developing it. More than likely no one will read or follow this blog till after the game is released, but that's okay. As long as my wife is proud of my work I'll be just fine :)

iphone game development

2009-03-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

details coming soon...