In November last year the Australian government announced that they were providing $20 million in funding to support the local game development industry over the next 3 years. Screen Australia (which traditionally supports the Australian film industry) was appointed to administer the fund, and they spent the next few months consulting with the games industry on how the fund should be distributed. In March this year Screen Australia released the final guidelines, announcing a Games Production Fund which will provide approx $4 to $5 million across two rounds per year. Applications for the first round close in July.

The question for me is should I apply for funding, to help further Class 3 Outbreak and Zombie Outbreak Simulator? It’s “free” money, so if it could help, I might as well? :)

Binary Space was started by Jay Weston and I a bit over 4 years ago in February 2009. Here’s a timeline of everything that’s happened since then:

So to summarize, C3O began on the web, and then partway during development we released ZOS on the web as a kind of ‘teaser’ for C3O. After the initial “classic” C3O was released, we expanded into a new C3O based on user-generated maps all over the world built using an editor. Building on the original ZOS we then created a version for iOS. In December last year Jay left Binary Space, and I’ve been continuing development on both the web version of C3O and the iOS version of ZOS.

Over those four years, the web versions of C3O and ZOS have been played over 4 million times, and the iOS version of ZOS has been downloaded by over 160,000 people.

Here’s the strategy that I’m planning for the future:

So in the short-to-medium term there are three main things I have planned:

1. Add more features to the web version of C3O.
2. Expand ZOS for iOS to allow it to play all 2000+ user-generated maps from the web version of C3O.
3. Release ZOS on Android.

In the longer term the combination of all three of the above will result in releasing C3O on both iOS and Android. Then after that I will continue developing on all 4 of those streams until Class 3 Outbreak and Zombie Outbreak Simulator ultimately take over the world! ;)

There are of course a lot of risks and unknowns with this strategy. But could some funding from Screen Australia’s games fund help?

My plan is to apply for funding to develop ZOS for Android. This seems like a good candidate for funding because it’s a small and well-defined piece of the future strategy.

According to App Annie’s research, in the first quarter of 2013 total revenue on the iOS App Store was about 2.6 times total revenue on Google Play. ZOS has earned about $29k on iOS, so that means it will earn exactly $29k / 2.6 = $11k on Android, right? :)

Of course it’s more complicated than that. While both the iOS App Store and Google Play have about 800,000 apps each, and while many apps are available on both platforms, in general each store has different apps with different monetization strategies. The only real way to know what ZOS on Android might earn is to release it and find out.

Still, it seems like an Android version of ZOS has a pretty good chance of making at least some fraction of the sales from ZOS on iOS. So if I can put in an application to Screen Australia for some amount of funding less than that, it should be a fairly strong business case.

Besides the potential financial return from an Android version of ZOS, I know there is plenty of demand for it. Almost every time I make an announcement about the web version of C3O or the iOS version of ZOS, I get comments asking when it will be available for Android! :)

The only problem with making an Android version of ZOS is that I don’t have the skills required to make it happen! So I’m putting out a call to see if anyone out there would like to partner with me to help me build it?

This will be paid work, but riskier than a ‘normal’ job application. For a regular job, if I like you I’ll hire you straight away and pay you as the work is done. This time it’s a bit different. You don’t have to do any work up front – just be willing to let me include your name on the funding application that I submit to Screen Australia. But if the application is successful then as soon as I get the funds from them, you’ll get hired and get paid :)

I’m looking for three people to help me build ZOS for Android:

1. An Android developer
   I did a little bit of Android development a year or two ago, but that was for a business application, not a game. Although I could learn Android game development myself, I’d prefer to hire someone who already has experience. Most of ZOS for iOS is built using standard C++ and OpenGL ES 2.0, with Objective-C used for just the user interface. So I’m assuming that most of the code will be usable as-is, and so it will mostly be UI and integration code which you will need to write.
2. An artist
   Most of the in-game artwork (like zombie and civ sprites) already exists. However the user interface will most likely need to be adjusted to make it work with Android (eg to support different screen sizes). Some of the user interface elements could be re-used (eg buttons), but I’m willing to consider redesigning the whole interface if you’d rather start with a clean slate.
3. A marketer
   I’m looking for someone to help with the ‘obvious’ marketing aspects like helping to promote the game on Android after launch. However this also includes the equally-important role of providing advice before and during development on how the game should be developed and monetized to make it marketable.

The amount of user interface code and art required shouldn’t be huge. There are pretty much only three screens that need to be developed: map selection, the game itself, and the options screen.

What will I be doing? I’ll do general coordination / project management type stuff, as well as helping the developer work with my existing code. I won’t be including anything for me in the funding application though – I’ll only make a return once it starts selling.

The deadline for funding applications is mid-July. From there Screen Australia have said they’ll take about 10 weeks to process the applications. Assuming an extra month or so to finalize a contract with Screen Australia, it will probably be around November or so before work could start. I’m happy for you to work full time, part time or in your spare time – whatever works around whatever else you’re doing is fine. And if November comes and you’re suddenly busy with your dream project, it’s fine if we need to delay or if I need to find someone else.

If you’re interested, send me an email at jobs@binaryspacegames.com with some info on why you’d be suitable (eg some details of projects you’ve worked on before, etc).

Since the funding is provided by the Australian government to support the Australian game development industry, you will need to be living in Australia. However if you live overseas, are awesome at what you do, and would love to work on this project, then please still get in touch with me and we’ll see what we can work out.

Finally, if you’d like to see ZOS released on Android, you can help the cause by letting me know! Post a comment below, like or comment on the Facebook page, send me a message on Twitter, send me an email, or share this post with your friends. The greater the response, the stronger the reason to develop an Android version of ZOS in the first place, and so the more likely it will happen!

Thanks,
Saxon

Back in January I wrote up a post on how sales for Zombie Outbreak Simulator on iOS had gone since it was first released in April last year. Since I’ve just released a new update to ZOS, I thought now would be a good time to post an update of sales since January.

To summarize the last post: In the approx 9.5 months from release until January, ZOS for iOS had earned a total of approx $24,600, made up of approx $21,300 in sales from the original paid version of iZOS, and approx $3,300 in sales from the free version of iZOS. Approx $5,100 of the total was from selling bombs as an in-app purchase in both versions.

Here’s how weekly sales have tracked up until now (going back to August last year to provide some context):

The no-Google-maps update of September last year brought sales up to around $350 per week, and other than a peak over Christmas it stayed at approx that level up until mid-January. From there the general direction has been down – around $300 per week up to the end of February, and since early March it’s mostly been in the $200 to $250 a week range.

Has anything in particular caused the downtrend?

Back at the beginning of January I released an update which added support for the iPhone 5. As part of that update I decided to add some extra free bombs. ZOS for iOS has two types of bombs – the standard Mk81 and the more powerful Mk82. When we first added bombs we provided 100 Mk81 bombs for free (initially every day, but a later update increased that to every hour), but Mk82 bombs could only be purchased.

In the January update I added ten Mk82 bombs for free every hour. I thought it would be interesting to see what effect that might have. Maybe it would give people a taste for the Mk82 bombs, and they’d want to buy more. Or maybe having a few Mk82 bombs would be enough for most people, and so sales would go down.

Here’s the weekly sales of the Mk82 bombs:

So it looks like there was definitely a drop when the January update came out, from around $100 a week to $50 a week, with further declines since then. For comparison here’s weekly sales of the Mk81 bombs:

The Mk81 bombs have been more consistent – although there still seems to be a gradual decline this year. Also to compare here’s purchases of the paid version of iZOS:

And full version upgrades of the free version of iZOS:

So both of these seem to have been declining this year. It’s a similar trend for the number of active users of iZOS and iZOS Free:

So although providing some free Mk82 bombs had an obvious negative effect, this is just one factor against a general negative trend for the game. This is not too surprising given that there have been no real new features added since the bombs were released in June last year.

Not content with losing $50 a week from adding some free Mk82 bombs in the January update, in the update released this week I’ve decided to remove the bomb in-app purchases completely! So now you can rain fire from above with unlimited free bombs :)

This is the total bomb revenue that I’m giving up with this change:

So in recent weeks this has hovered around the $50 a week range – around a quarter of the $200 a week total revenue.

Why give up one quarter of the revenue? Last year Jay and I added the bombs as an experiment. Although it earned some revenue, ultimately what I’ve learned from the experiment is that this type of in-app purchase just doesn’t suit the type of game that iZOS is. Although I think some types of in-app purchases can work well in some types of games, bombs in iZOS is not it – they just made the game worse. So this is the reason why I’ve decided to make bombs free. A while ago I read this article which argues that optimizing short-term returns at the expense of player churn is counter-productive in the long term. This helped reinforce the idea I’d been having for a while that it was time to make the bombs free.

Besides feeling like the right thing to do, $50 a week is not much! I don’t think it’s worth “squeezing” $50 a week out of some players while making the game less fun for everybody, so I’m willing to risk that $50 a week and see what effect it has. The game is definitely better with free bombs (and 15 extra maps). Will it make a difference to sales of the game itself? Only time will tell :)

While looking at the charts above you might have noticed the spike in April – what caused that? On the 13th of April my original sales report that I wrote in January was posted on Hacker News by someone (thanks mikek!). In the three months up to that point the sales report had been seen by about 1000 people, but in just one day the Hacker News post brought an extra 5000 visitors to the site! This caused a brief spike in sales for a few days. Thanks everyone from Hacker News who bought a copy! :)

So, here’s the summary of total sales to date:

Zombie Outbreak Simulator

• 86,000 downloads (22,000 paid and 64,000 from last year’s free promos)
• $19,400 in sales of the app
• $4,500 in sales of bomb in-app purchases

Zombie Outbreak Simulator Free

• 72,000 downloads
• 5,700 upgrades to the full version (approx 8%), for sales of $3,200
• $1,900 in sales of bomb in-app purchases

Total

• 158,000 downloads
• $29,000 in sales, including $6,400 on bombs

So since the last sales report iZOS has earned an extra $4,400. At the time of the last report Binary Space had about $1,000 in the bank, and was expecting about $900 of bills in the near future. The whole last 4 years of development of Binary Space was pretty much at break-even for me. So have the extra sales improved the bank balance?

Since January Binary Space has received about $5,400 from Apple into its bank account (different to the raw sales figure due to the timing of payments). I paid Jay about $3,600, since I’m paying him a share of revenue over the next several years to buy out his share of the company. After I offered to give refunds for our 2011 crowdfunding campaign, I paid out about $500 to people who asked for their money back. And I’ve spent about $1,700 on general operating expenses. So Binary Space’s bank account is now around the $600 mark.

I still haven’t drawn any actual profit out of Binary Space. But it’s still ticking along, bringing in around $800 or so a month, which is enough to cover its expenses. As I said in the last report, although Binary Space might turn into more one day, for now I’m happy that it’s a fun hobby which pays for itself! :)

cya,
Saxon

Hi everyone,

After 5 months of development, the new update for Zombie Outbreak Simulator for iOS is now available!

The main change in this update is that I’ve finally brought back Google Maps! The very first version of iZOS released in April last year had one Google map, and the first update released a few weeks later expanded that to 10 Google maps. Then in June Apple announced that they were removing Google Maps with iOS 6, so in September we released an update which removed the 10 Google Maps and replaced them with 5 embedded maps using aerial photos.

In December last year Google released a new maps SDK for iOS. My initial experiments didn’t work out, but I kept trying different approaches to get it to work, and eventually figured something out. It’s taken me a few months to go from proof-of-concept to finished app, but it’s finally here!

So now you can choose from the 5 offline maps included in the last version, or 15 online Google maps. The Google maps include 8 of the maps in the update from last year (two of them had to be removed), and 7 new maps.

The 15 Google maps include one map by me and one by Jay (the one from the original release of iZOS). Many thanks to Bruul, Bryan Earhart, Budace, Carlos Miguel Ambrosio, Coinsruledude, Fernando Bevilaqua Vianna, Jas358, PullMull, Rob Bekkers, Rodrigo Casarini and Tyrud for creating the other 13 maps!

Also thanks to Shath Maguire who did the graphic design for the new map selection screens.

The other most obvious change in this version is that I’ve decided to provide infinite bombs for free! We added the bombs as an experiment back in June last year, and as of the last update you would receive 100 Mk81 and 10 Mk82 bombs for free every hour, with more bombs available via in-app purchases. It was an interesting experiment, but from now on you can rain fire on the unsuspecting zombie horde without worrying about your bank account :)

The final major change in this version is that it now also includes a translation into Brazilian Portuguese! Many thanks to Fernando Bevilaqua Vianna for offering to translate it for me :)

The new Google Maps SDK for iOS which this version of ZOS uses doesn’t support iOS 4.x. Previous versions of iZOS supported back to iOS 4.0, but due to Google Maps I’ve had to increase the minimum supported version to iOS 5.0. According to my Flurry analytics, in the last month about 4% of players of iZOS and about 3% of players of iZOS Free were using iOS 4.x. If this is you – sorry! You should be able to keep using the old version of iZOS, if you don’t want to upgrade your version of iOS.

A few months ago I mentioned that I wasn’t able to get iZOS to work with the new Google Maps SDK on the iPad 1 – it would keep running out of memory and crashing. However, I’ve managed to keep iZOS alive on the iPad 1 by using Apple’s version of Google maps, instead of Google’s new SDK. This works because the iPad 1 can’t be upgraded to iOS 6, so the in-built maps are still Google Maps. According to Flurry, about 3% to 4% of players of iZOS and iZOS Free are playing on an iPad 1 – I hope you like the update :)

Finally, thanks to the approx 30 people who beta tested this update for me over the last month or so. Thanks in particular to Chris, Max, Ryan and Clayton who helped me track down some bugs!

cya!
Saxon

Hi everyone,

Just thought I’d put up a quick post – I’ve just submitted the next ZOS for iOS update to Apple for their approval!

The main change in this version is that it will finally bring back support for Google Maps! You will be able to choose from 15 online Google maps, or the current 5 offline maps.

Apple usually take about a week to approve updates – so the new version will hopefully be available very soon!

Now that this iZOS update is done, I’ll be switching back to some more development on the web version of C3O. The next feature I have planned is adding the ability to chain together multiple objectives.

cya,
Saxon

UPDATE: I have enough beta testers now – thanks to everyone who applied!

Hey everyone,

I’m getting close to finishing up the next update for Zombie Outbreak Simulator on iOS!

The major feature which this new update will include is to finally bring back Google Maps, which we had to remove when Apple removed Google Maps from iOS 6.

This new version will offer the choice between the 5 offline maps in the current version, and 15 online maps using Google Maps.

I’ve had to make quite a lot of changes to support Google Maps, and so there’s a good chance that I’ve added some bugs :)

So I’m looking for people who would like to help me beta test the new version, to help catch any issues before I submit the next update to Apple (hopefully in the next few weeks).

If you’re interested, please fill in this form! I’ll then get in contact with you when I’m ready to start testing.

Thanks,
Saxon

UPDATE: This position has now been filled. Thanks to everyone who applied!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to hire an artist / graphic designer / UI / UX person, to help me with some artwork for Zombie Outbreak Simulator for iOS. To be explicit: this is paid work.

Back when we released the first update for iZOS we increased the number of maps to 10, all of which were using Google Maps. So we added this screen to choose the map to play:

Then when Apple removed Google Maps with iOS 6, we switched to having a choice of 5 locations using embedded aerial photos:

Now that I’ve figured out a way to bring back Google Maps, my plan for the next update is to offer the choice of all 15 maps – 5 which can be played offline, and 10 ‘online maps’ which use Google Maps and so require an Internet connection.

So, the question then is: How to combine these two map selection screens into one?

Since I have zero artistic skills, I’m looking to hire someone to make the artwork for the new map selection screen.

Maybe something with tabs could work?

Or maybe something with buttons?

Or maybe you have some other awesome idea for how it could work?

I will need the image(s) in four resolutions:

• 480 x 320 – for iPhone 3GS, 3rd gen iPod
• 960 x 640 – for iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, 4th gen iPod
• 1136 x 640 – for iPhone 5, 5th gen iPod
• 1024 x 768 – for iPad

I will supply you with all of the Photoshop files for the existing online and offline map selection screens. It’s up to you whether you do something using elements of the existing images, or you’re welcome to create your own new style – as long as it fits with the rest of the app.

Besides the money, you’ll also be famous! ;) ZOS for iOS has been downloaded 145,000 times. The last two updates I released were downloaded by over 12,000 people within the first week after their release. Around 18,000 people play the app every month. So your work will be seen by thousands of people. And of course, I’ll put you in the credits.

If you’re interested, please send me an email to jobs@binaryspacegames.com with the following details:

• One or more links to webpages containing some examples of your work (this would be better than sending me attachments).
• How much you would like to be paid.

Thanks! :)

cya,
Saxon

Hey everyone,

About 6 months ago I quit my job, to take an extended holiday and spend some more time with my wife and two kids. This has been great! :)

Although I focused mostly on spending time with my family, I’ve also had a bit of extra spare time to work on Class 3 Outbreak. So since I started working on C3O again in December last year, the updates have come a bit faster than they used to.

However, it is time for my holiday to come to an end. Tomorrow I’m starting some consulting work, where I’ll be working full time again.

This is good news for me because it means I’ll be able to afford to eat :) But it’s bad news for C3O because it means the updates will come a bit slower from now on.

cya!
Saxon

Hi everyone,

I’ve just released an update to Class 3 Outbreak to add the ‘rescue a person’ objective. This is a third option in addition to the default objective of killing all the zombies, or the ‘get to a building’ objective.

To choose the ‘rescue a person’ objective for your map, click the Objective button at the top right of the editor:

Then, switch to the ‘rescue a person’ objective:

The person to rescue will be locked in a building at the start of the game. Click the Choose Building button to select the building:

Then close the dialog, and save and publish your map.

For now the person who you need to rescue will be randomly selected from the named civs. When you start playing the map, the last sentence of the intro text says who you need to rescue:

The building which the person is locked inside is shown with a red X on the minimap. When you get close enough to clear the fog of war you’ll also be able to see the person inside the building:

The doors of the building will initially be locked, so the person to rescue can’t wander out, and zombies can’t get in. The locked doors are drawn a lighter blue than normal doors, and they act like windows (ie, you can shoot through them, and zombies will be able to see inside). As soon as one of your survivors walks close to one of the locked doors, all of the building’s doors will be unlocked and behave like normal doors again.

To rescue the person you need to recruit them like any regular named civ – so just walk up close to them with one of your survivors. If the person to be rescued dies or turns into a zombie, then you lose the game.

Besides the main feature of the ‘rescue a person’ objective, in this update I made a few other changes which were requested in the forums:

• The fat guy’s accuracy has increased from 30% to 45%, to offset his slower walking speed.
• When you start the game all three of your survivors are automatically selected. So if you wanted to move all of them together, you can just click once to move them instead of having to ctrl+click them all to group them together first. If you only wanted to move one of them, then just click that person to select only them, so it’s the same number of clicks as before.
• Brought back double-click-to-run, from the original Class 3 Outbreak. So if you click to move your survivors, they will walk to the destination. If they see a zombie along the way, they will stop and shoot at it, then continue towards their destination. If you double-click to move your survivors, they will run towards the destination, and not stop for anything. The walk speed is now a bit slower than it used to be, but the run speed is a bit faster than the walk speed was.

The next update I have planned for C3O is to allow the map author to create a chain of multiple objectives – so rescue person A, then rescue person B, then get to building C, etc. However since I have been alternating between web and mobile, before that I will be doing some more work on bringing Google Maps back to Zombie Outbreak Simulator for iOS.

cya!
Saxon

Way back in April 2011, Jay and I were lucky enough to be accepted into the Perth 2011 X|Media|Lab with Class 3 Outbreak. XML is an awesome conference / workshop, where the organizers bring in 16 digital media / cross-media / transmedia experts from around the world. On the Friday there is a conference open to the public, where each of the mentors speak on their area of expertise. Then over the weekend XML runs a workshop with 16 selected projects – we were selected for the Perth XML out of around 90 applicants. During the workshop you get to have one-on-one sessions with twelve of the mentors, for about 45 minutes each. It was an awesome experience – we got to meet some really great people, and do a lot of thinking about Class 3 Outbreak.

During one of the sessions with one of the mentors, we were brainstorming ways to promote C3O a bit, by coming up with some novelty games which players might find amusing – like making maps of famous locations, and/or putting in famous people. I had the idea of making a map of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which was coming up soon and was all over the news at the time.

There were only 12 days between XML and the wedding, but Jay and I figured we could hack something together in time. So right after XML Jay got to work editing a map of Westminster Abbey where the wedding would be taking place, and I got to work hacking in some special named civs, a crowd of onlookers, and a few other bits and pieces.

While Jay and I were working on this we thought it was pretty amusing, and so we thought there was a chance that it might “go viral”, like the original Zombie Outbreak Simulator did when we released it in November 2009.

We had ads on the website, but typical ad rates are about $1 per 1000 visitors, so even if the map became wildly popular with a million hits, we’d earn about $1000. Nothing to sneeze at, but not enough to make a huge difference to C3O. Up until that point we had worked on C3O in our spare time, and so we wanted to try to get enough funds to support us to work full-time on the game, and grow Binary Space into a serious business.

After some discussion Jay and I decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign. We announced a number of features that we were planning to build, along with our plans to make C3O into a freemium game. The crowdfunding would therefore give players a chance to pre-order the premium features and future virtual currency at a discount. Our thinking was that if the royal wedding map was hugely popular, some (small) percentage of those visitors might decide to pre-order, and so we’d make a better return than from ads alone.

A couple of days after XML, when we’d just started working on the wedding map, we received word that we’d been awarded a grant of approx $10k from South Australia’s Creative Industries Program. This was mostly for covering development equipment, as well as hosting costs, legal advice, music, software, advertising, etc.

We had also been awarded a grant of $50k from the South Australian Film Corporation back in December of 2010. However we hadn’t announced that publicly, because we were still negotiating terms with SAFC.

By the time of XML it seemed like we were close to arranging a deal with SAFC. The plan for their funding was to hire a couple of third-party consultants, and the rest would be spent on salaries for Jay and myself. I had booked about two months time off from my day job, starting from mid-June. So we were planning to ramp up development on C3O in a big way.

So the angle we went for with our crowdfunding campaign was to announce that we’d received $60k in funding, which would last us a certain amount of time. The purpose of the crowdfunding was to extend that time as much as possible. There was no specific target amount that we needed to raise – the more we raised, the longer we’d be able to work full-time, and the closer we’d get to turning C3O and Binary Space into a sustainable business.

We chose IndieGoGo as our crowdfunding platform, because we’re in Australia and Kickstarter required a US bank account. On Kickstarter the project only receives the funding if the target amount is reached, but IndieGoGo used a flexible model where the project would receive all funds regardless of whether the target was reached. (Back then this was IndieGoGo’s only option – now IndieGoGo also offer a fixed funding option like Kickstarter). So we chose an arbitrary funding target of $50k. IndieGoGo’s fees are higher if you don’t reach your target – so there’s an incentive to have a lower, more realistic target. However we didn’t want to be in the situation where the campaign was crazily successful but people stopped pledging because we’d reached some arbitrary target amount.

On the 27th of April – two days before the royal wedding – we launched the crowdfunding campaign, along with releasing the royal wedding map.

The royal wedding map was mildly successful. It built a small amount of buzz, seeing about 40,000 hits over the next week (spiking on the day of the wedding). It got featured on Gizmodo (and Kotaku) and even the Wall Street Journal! However it wasn’t the runaway success that we had thought it might be. Although, it is still the most played map in C3O – having been played a total of 70,000 times, compared with about 20,000 times for the next closest map.

It’s impossible to tell, but it didn’t seem like the wedding map had any obvious effect on the crowdfunding campaign. We received some pledges during that time, but there was no obvious spike. It didn’t seem to draw any new players to the game – the number of visitors to the website was roughly the same before and after the wedding. In hindsight there was probably no point in trying to rush out our crowdfunding campaign along with the wedding map.

We ran the crowdfunding campaign for about 2 months, up to the beginning of July. In total we raised $1,325 from 44 people – including 6 people who put in $100 each! This seems like not much compared with the $50k target we’d set, but that had been an arbitrary number. We were actually really pleased with the amount we’d raised – it proved that there were people out there who really liked our game, and were even willing to pay for it! :)

By mid-June 2011, everything seemed to be going great. We had started working full-time on C3O, and Jay and I decided to pitch in some of our own money to hire a couple of extra developers. But then everything fell apart when the funding from SAFC fell through. We had to let the extra developers go to keep costs down.

Of the $1,325 pledged in the crowdfunding campaign, after IndieGoGo’s fees, PayPal fees, and currency conversion fees, we received $1,006. This helped keep us afloat – we used it to pay our developer Luke, who had developed some cool features in his short time with us – like building barricades, the show buildings button, and improving the map moderation system. But Jay and I also had to put in quite a bit of our own cash, to cover the rest of Luke’s salary, to pay our other developer David, and to cover boring business expenses like accounting. Plus I had to dip into my mortgage to cover the salary I’d lost from taking time off my day job.

At this point C3O wasn’t earning anything, but we still had the $10k grant. However the bulk of that grant had been to cover the cost of hardware so we could produce a mobile version of the game (Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc). We had hired the second developer David to work on porting the game to iOS, while I worked on C3O with Luke. So after we had to let David go, I took over development of the iOS port. This is why in September 2011 we announced that we were putting the web version of C3O on hold for a while, to focus on bringing Zombie Outbreak Simulator to iOS.

At this stage I felt guilty for taking people’s money to develop C3O, and then shelving the project while we worked on ZOS. But we hoped that we’d be able to earn a decent income from ZOS, to be able to afford to get back onto development of C3O after ZOS was released.

Finally in April 2012 we released Zombie Outbreak Simulator for iOS!

During the first week on the App Store we made a profit of $3,900. On the one hand this was awesome – it was more profit than we’d made in 2.5 years of developing the web versions of C3O and ZOS. But on the other hand it wasn’t much – sales were already heading down after their peak on the second day, it didn’t cover the debts Jay and I had gotten into, and it wasn’t enough to jump back into development of C3O. As well as that, Google had announced that in September 2014 they would close down their Flash Maps API (which C3O uses), and so we would need to rewrite the whole game in JavaScript. So later in April 2012 we announced that we were going to keep working on ZOS, keeping the web version of C3O on hold more-or-less indefinitely.

Once again I felt bad for not delivering on the promises from our crowdfunding campaign. I wondered if we should offer people a refund – but we couldn’t really afford it. Plus we still hoped that one day we’d be able to get back onto the web version of C3O.

After a few updates to ZOS on iOS we went quiet for a while. Then in December last year I announced that Jay and I had decided to part ways – Jay had left Binary Space, and so I had taken over. I will be gradually buying out Jay’s share of Binary Space over the next several years.

My current strategy is to keep developing both the web version of C3O and the iOS version of ZOS in parallel. So far I’ve released about 4 updates to C3O, released an iPhone 5 update for iZOS, and I’m about halfway there on bringing Google Maps back to iZOS. I’m making progress, but it’s quite slow as there is only one of me, and I’m only able to work on it part-time. The general area I’ve been focusing on for C3O so far is giving map authors more ability to choose how their maps are played (such as infection settings, start position, objectives, etc).

Anyway, to finally get to the point of this blog post :), I’ve now decided to offer a refund to everyone who supported us during the crowdfunding campaign.

When we launched the campaign we thought we’d be able to deliver many of the planned features within a few months, with the funding from SAFC. The remainder would be covered by the crowdfunding funds, and then we’d finish up the rest in our spare time. However it’s now been nearly two years since we ran the campaign, and virtually none of those features have been developed. At this stage I don’t know if or when any of them will ever be developed. Although I am working on C3O again, the direction it takes may change based on player feedback over time. Plus there’s the looming deadline of September 2014, which raises two issues – will I be able to rewrite the game in time, and even if I do, how much longer will that take.

Due to all of the above, I don’t think it’s fair for me to keep holding onto your money. I’m very thankful for the support you showed us, and it really helped us through a tough time. I would have liked to offer you a refund back when we put C3O on hold those couple of times, but we couldn’t afford it then. I would have offered this refund when I took over Binary Space in December, but it was still underwater. In January of this year Binary Space finally broke even. So after receiving another payment from Apple for sales of ZOS in February, I can now finally afford to offer you a refund!

After I publish this blog post I’ll send an email to everyone who made a pledge to the crowdfunding campaign, to ask if you’d like a refund. If you don’t receive an email (maybe you’ve changed your email address since then), get in contact with me and we’ll work out a way to prove that you are who you say you are.

If you’re in Australia I’ll be able to send your refund directly to your bank account. Otherwise I can send you a refund via PayPal – which you can then use to buy stuff on other sites (or maybe withdraw to your bank account).

As an alternative option if you’d prefer, I can make a donation to the World Wildlife Fund (the Australian branch) “in your honour”, for the amount you pledged.

Finally, if you’d still like to support Binary Space, then you are of course very welcome to just make your pledge a general donation. The class3outbreak.com website has a donate link hidden away at the bottom of every page, and over the years we’ve received a few small donations. If you’d like to do this, just let me know and I will make sure I spend the money on something worthwhile to keep Binary Space going. And I’ll be eternally grateful to you as well! :)

Of the 44 people who pledged to our campaign, six of them pledged $100. These six people are the only ones to have received some of the promised perks from the campaign. They are listed on the credits page of C3O, and also in the credits screen of ZOS for iOS, as well as appearing as named civs which you can recruit within the game. If you are one of these six people, even if you ask for a refund or donation to WWF, I won’t remove you from the credits or the named survivors. So you don’t have to worry about losing out on anything, or anybody else knowing that you asked for a refund.

Also, for everybody who pledged, if or when I do ever add some kind of premium features to C3O in the future, I will try to give you some kind of free perk if I can. This will be given to you regardless of whether you ask for a refund or donation to WWF now, as a way of saying thanks for the support you gave us during the campaign :)

Now, back to developing the next update for C3O – the ‘rescue a person’ objective!

cya,
Saxon

Hey everyone,

Since getting back into development of Class 3 Outbreak and Zombie Outbreak Simulator a few months ago, my goal has been to alternate my time between C3O on the web and ZOS on iOS. So after releasing the ‘get to a building’ objective for C3O a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been working on ZOS for iOS.

In my last dev post for ZOS for iOS a couple of months ago I had just tried out the new Google Maps SDK for iOS. Although I was able to get the zombies/civs to draw over the map okay, I couldn’t get them to synchronize properly. While panning/zooming, the map would lag behind the people, and so it would look like the people were sliding around on the ground.

Well, after trying numerous approaches I have now figured out a way to get the people and the map to synchronize properly! Here’s a quick video showing it in action:

This Google Maps version of iZOS is currently a bit of a hack, so there’s still a bit of work involved in getting this ready to release. But now that I’ve gotten it to work, bringing Google Maps back to iZOS is just a matter of when not if! :)

My plan for the next update of iZOS is to offer a choice of 15 maps – the 5 offline maps which are in the current version, plus the 10 Google Maps which were in there before iOS 6 was released. Then in the next update after that, I’ll expand the Google Maps further to support all 2000+ maps available on www.class3outbreak.com.

Unfortunately the Google Maps SDK for iOS doesn’t support iOS version 4.x. So in the next update I’ll have to change the minimum supported iOS version to 5.0 (iZOS currently supports back to 4.0). According to my Flurry analytics, around 6% of ZOS players in the last month were running iOS 4.x:

The stats for ZOS Free are similar: most players are using iOS 6.x or 5.x, with only about 2.5% of players in the last month using iOS 4.x. So if you’re one of these people who are still running 4.x, you’ll need to upgrade if you want to download the next version of ZOS. However if you don’t want to upgrade your version of iOS you should still be able to play the old version of ZOS. The App Store app on the device should ignore the update, although the app may get deleted if you sync with iTunes.

Also, it looks like I probably won’t be able to get Google Maps to work on the original iPad 1. Although the Google Maps SDK for iOS does work on an iPad 1, and although ZOS itself uses as little memory as possible, when they are combined it’s still too much – and so ZOS crashes too often. According to the Flurry analytics, around 4% of ZOS players in the last month were using an iPad 1.

And similarly, around 3% of ZOS Free players in the last month were using an iPad 1.

The reason we originally removed Google Maps from ZOS was because Apple replaced Google Maps with their own Apple Maps in iOS 6. However, the iPad 1 doesn’t support iOS 6 – the highest version of iOS available on an iPad 1 is iOS 5.1.1. Therefore in theory it might be possible for me to bring Google Maps back to the iPad 1 by using the method ZOS originally used – avoiding the use of the new Google Maps SDK for iOS. In practise though, supporting multiple different methods of displaying maps may just be too complicated. However, I’ll keep it in mind as I’m finishing up the Google Maps update for ZOS. So if you have an iPad 1, I might be able to bring back Google Maps in the future – but only if you’re not still running iOS 4.x!

Now that I’ve reached this milestone with ZOS for iOS, I’m going to swap back to developing the web version of C3O. The feature I’ll be working on for C3O is to add a new objective type which map authors can choose. This objective type will require the player to rescue a named civ who starts the game locked in a building chosen by the map author. After that update, I’ll come back and finish off the Google Maps update for ZOS on iOS.

cya,
Saxon