Manta 1.0.1 in the App Store
It actually appeared on 9/22. Sorry for the slow post, been busy with other stuff. Manta 1.1 is in the works, but slightly delayed because of a couple of odd bugs in the current Unity 3 final candidates.
(Source: mantagame.com)
And I’ve reduced the “regular price” to $1.99 permanently.
Manta 1.0.1 in the queue
So, with a bit of luck it will be available for download in a week or so.
(Source: mantagame.com)
We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.
In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.
In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.
–Good news for those of us developing apps with tools like Unity (or Flash for that matter!)
Some of my thoughts on the App Store approval process while I was in purgatory.
Actual 1.0 gameplay video (although from the dev environment, not the iPhone itself, because it’s easier to capture). The main differences from the iPhone are the lack of indicators for the touch controls (because there are no touch controls when running it on the desktop) and the lack of (brief) cut scenes (because video playback on iOS devices is handled very differently from on the desktop version).
And yes, a desktop version will be released down the line.
Note: I’m not sure what the vertical lines are… they seem to be an artifact created by tumblr when it processed the video.
Here’s a screenshot from Manta running on the iPhone. (It’s an iPhone 4, and Manta currently runs pixel-doubled on the iPhone 4. Looks perfectly nice, but obviously it will be better when it’s running at full resolution.)
About me
This is Loewald New Media's game development blog. Tonio Loewald designed and developed the ForeSight role-playing system, Prince of Destruction (along with Andrew Barry of Realbasic fame), and helped develop a bunch of children's games (Bananas in Pyjamas et al).
His latest published game is MANTA 2010 and, as ever, he is hard at work on Project Weasel.
