Happy Halloween!

This is Lumpy's first Halloween here on Earth. On his home planet, Zgrunturos, they have holidays. But none like Halloween. He's tickled blue at the concept of dressing up and going out trick or treating. No one here at the office had the courage to tell him that trick or treating is only for the 'lil ones. Although Lumpy, by Zgrunturian standards, is still a young adult, he's acting very much like a little kid!

We took a few pictures of him earlier today, trying on his outfit for later tonight. And what did Lumpy want to do after a few hours of trying on costumes? You guessed it. The boy wanted to eat some pho. I will find a way to cure him of his pho habit!

Every Day is a Good Day When It's Cinco de Molar!

The poll results are in! With a pretty strong finish, Cinco de Molar took the winning spot. Cinco de Molar was submitted by Bronson15. The two runners up were My Sweet Tooth (Mohammedrules) and Drill, baby, drill (Devilishly Good).

So the next time you have to go to the dentist ... remember. It's not so bad. Cuz when it's Cinco de Molar ... it at least sounds like you're gonna have some fun!

Lumpy's Halloween Wallpaper!

For EP3, Lumpy has been zombie-fied quite a few times. And he's getting quite used to it. When he heard about our Earthling holiday called Halloween and realized it had a relationship to zombies, he suggested we make a wallpaper for you guys to enjoy. We have 3 different varieties for you enjoyment!

You should be able to download these images. If you're not sure how, ask! Lumpy and the 2n team wishes everyone a Happy Halloween! Okay, it's early ... but it's fun!

Name the "Dentist Day" Polls are Open!

Yesterday, we started a contest in celebration of us getting into the top 100 Entertainment apps and being featured as What's Hot in the US iTunes App Store. We had over 190 entries and narrowed it down to 10 choices!

• Cinco de Molar (Bronson15)
• Dia de los Molars (Kalel39)
• Drill, baby, drill (Devilishly Good)
• I See Numb People (evilhomer)
• Molar Madness Day (Touchgamer3g)
• Mouth Mangling Numbday (drelbs)
• My Sweet Tooth (Mohammedrules)
• My Toof Hurz (Devilishly Good)
• QuitIt Cavities Day (Rachel)
• Twice a ... Day (Will090)

So let the voting begin! If you want to cast your vote, poke on over to our thread in Touch Arcade here!

Lumpy wants to thank everyone that submitted their entries!

On another note, we're bordering on breaking into the top 50 in Entertainment apps! For those that have been helping spread the word thanks!

If you haven't please do! Only through your support can we continue to bring you more updates!

Help Us Name the "Dentist Day" Holiday Contest!

Lumpy is pleased as punch that we're in the top 100 Entertainment apps. He suggested that we have a little contest to celebrate!

EP3 has a bunch of new Holiday themes to purchase. One of them is what we are simply calling Dentist Day. Lumpy Agent told us the other day "My client thinks the name Dentist Day is too straightforward and does not represent the depth and complexity my client is portraying in the QuitIt! experience."

After receiving a few blank stares his Agent said "He wants it to have a new name." Options such as "Tooth Day" and "My Toothy Ouchy Day" surfaced. None of which pleased his royal blueness. So Lumpy thought, why not ask my fans to help out?

Help us rename Dentist Day! Leave suggestions here or on our thread at Touch Arcade here. We'll give away 3 promocodes to the best names!

If you already have a copy of QuitIt!, you can still participate. Lumpy says "Sharing is caring." ... so give that promocode to a friend and help us let even more people know about QuitIt!

QuitIt! Back in the top 100 Entertainment Apps!

QuitIt! is back in the top 100 Entertainment Apps in the US iTunes App Store! Lumpy is excited to be back there. EP1 also got into that top 100 list. Last time, we made it to 19, but then fell shortly thereafter. We're hoping with all the improvements that we have made with EP2 that we can work our way to the top of the list ... and stay on it for the next weeks to come!

If you have QuitIt! but haven't reviewed it, or haven't updated your review for EP2, Lumpy would be ecstatic if you could! And of course spreading the word to others is always a good thing. The more we can get people buying Lumpy and QuitIt! the longer we can continue doing the FREE updates!

Meet Zynx!

A couple of weeks ago, we had a contest to pick the name of Lumpy's toy dog. Internally, we named the dog Barky. The fine folks over at Touch Arcade had some different ideas! We had a poll, and the top 3 name choices were Zynx, Lil' Bit, and Byter, with Zynx being the winning name! Mr. Crazy came up with that one!

The look of Zynx has changed a bit to read better on the screen. As everyone knows, Lumpy loves cute animals and things. As it turns out, Zynx is pretty dang cute. So as you can imagine, Lumpy really likes Zynx. Lumpy  likes him so much that he wanted to post a picture of the little guy...

Zynx will be able to do some tricks too! I wonder what they'll be!?

What's Hot? Why QuitIt! is ... again!

Lumpy has been working pretty hard in preparation for EP3. He's allowed himself to have spells cast upon him, he's allowed himself to be zombie-fied, and he's played homage to MJ. He even has been practicing a few more sweet moves no one has seen quite yet.

This evening, he was relaxing a bit at the office, poking around the interweb, while I was trying to finish up my work for the day. Suddenly, I heard a big thud. When I looked around I saw that Lumpy had fallen out of his chair. When I asked him what happened he kept saying "What's Hot ... What's Hot". He then hopped up and then nudged me towards his computer screen. 

I saw he was on Oprah's website reading about Wednesday's episode where Oprah  will hear from MJ's fans talk about his new movie: Michael Jackson's This Is It. As I was rolling my eyes, I realized something else. Next to that window was iTunes. And on the iTunes page, QuitIt! was listed as What's Hot!

Lumpy was overjoyed because this is the second time we've been listed as What's Hot! since we first came out!

Lumpy and the 2n team would like to express our gratitude to all the fans that have supported QuitIt! and we ask for your continued support in helping to spread the word about QuitIt! By spreading the word and giving us good reviews on iTunes, you'll allow us to continue building new Episodes for your enjoyment!

Lumpy's Hungry Pho Sure!

All of the recent cleaning has apparently caused Lumpy to build up quite the appetite. The boy eats a lot. Every day, he probably woofs down a good 7-10 meals. He claims his weight is the exact same compared to when he first hopped on Earth. Especially since he's been practicing some new moves for EP3. But I swear he's put on a few.

On top of the increased appetite, San Francisco has also gotten a little chillier. This has set off the Perfect Storm for increasing Lumpy's cravings for his favorite food here on Earth ... pho. Lumpy is insatiable when it comes to pho. Before, he would demand it daily. Now, he is asking for it nearly every meal. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. Except everyone in the office has left it up to me to be the go guy when it comes to pho. Today, after lunch, I demanded people at the office step up and either find a replacement food that will spark Lumpy's attentions or find something that will sate his penchant for pho. To help drive the point across, I locked everyone in a conference room for 1 hour ... while Lumpy incessantly chirped "Lumpi ha pho tabetai."

When I unlocked the door, I was suddenly greeted by a much more understanding look from everyone. I'm thinking someone will have a solution soon!

Seriously, what the pho!?

Monday's EP3 Update

A little late in the day for this update, but I wanted to get some news out. We're close to starting our Beta test. Project time right now is being divided amongst debugging of some of our data from the tool update, getting our new minigame, Lumpy Hoops, balanced, adding in support for Lumpy's toy dog, Zynx, and of course a slew of other things!

Ideally, we want to submit EP3 at the end of this week. We are then going to try and crank through a really quick EP4 for another release before Thanksgiving.

Our goal for these back to back releases is not only to get out new content, but also to hit Thanksgiving with some fun Thanksgiving themed items!

At the same time, we don't want to compromise the level of polish that is currently in the game!

I'll post the next EP3 update once we start Beta testing!

EP3 Update - Lumpy's Got Some New Moves!

We've started the transition of giving Lumpy new poked/tickled reactions to the Pokers. This first started with the JOY BUZZER and recently was followed up by WHO'S BAD?. This week, we were putting the finishing touches on two newer Lumpy animation sets: ALKAZAM! and BRAIN FOOD.

We thought now would be a good time to give everyone a peek into what these are looking like. It also shows you the craziness we can get into the QuitIt!


All newer Lumpy animation sets to Pokers have a hidden finality. These ones are pretty funny. Let's just say they involve Moon Walking, a unicorn, and a graveyard!

Since we decided to forgo hitting Halloween due to our Perfect Storm of issues, we're going to pimp out EP3 more than we wanted to by trying to get a couple of more animation sets in the game. We'll keep you posted!

Each episode will give you newer Lumpy animation reaction sets to Pokers.

Thursday's EP3 Update!

Building a game is all about data management. Sure, you have your AI, engines, game play elements, etc. But at the very end it is all about the data. Moving data X to point Y by time Z. And while QuitIt! is really an Entertainment app with some game elements, it relies heavily on data management. For those that have played QuitIt!, you may notice the smoothness in animation. QuitIt! is pure 2D, but if you watch the anims, it really doesn't look like we're using a flip book of animation, like so many 2D apps use. And that's because we're not! There is a complex web of data that is used to properly animate everything in the game. Which translates to ... a lot of data!

Over the past few days, we've upgraded our tool chains. What this will allow us to do is have better control (hopefully) over how Accessories are placed on Lumpy. But in doing this, it basically required that we reprocess all of our animations. Once reprocessed, we then had to process the data to generate the runtime data.

In QuitIt!, there are roughly 1000+ asset files. Around 185 of those are sound files, about 350 of those are textures, and the rest are data. During an average snapshot at runtime, we have loaded into memory around 128 sound effects and roughly 53-60 textures. All these assets are juggled around on the fly when you switch Pokers and get new Gifts, providing a seamless play experience.

Now that's a lot of data! Which means that it took quite a bit of time to make all those changes. As we're a small company, and I'm the only tech guy, I was the one doing all that reprocessing of the data. I finished all the data processing yesterday and am validating everything. While it's awesome we got all that behind it, it's not so awesome that it chewed up so much time. The upside is that this should allow for a better Accessories (eg. hats, beards, etc) experience as well as continued expandability for QuitIt!

Lumpy Even Does Laundry!

Color me impressed, because Lumpy is still chipping in at the apartment!

At first I thought it would be a passing fad. But he really seems committed to a career in cleaning. Lumpy told me that his new buddies have been very encouraging. Claiming he's a natural. And that it's the perfect side job to have when you're an actor, because you can get cleaning gigs between your acting ones. They also added that if he gets acting roles in other cities or countries, they may have cleaning jobs at those locales that they could hook him up with.

So this morning, I found Lumpy doing my laundry. Which I found extra impressive. Since, as you probably could tell, Lumpy really doesn't have clothes. So I figured he'd draw the boundary at laundry. But I was wrong.

When I asked my blue pal why the sudden urge to do laundry, he curtly replied "I was told I needed to branch out and launder things." Apparently he is expecting to being doing a lot of laundry in the near future ... because he was also asking me where all the 24 hour Laundromats are in San Francisco.

Monday's EP3 Update ... The Perfect Storm

Welcome to this Monday's EP3 Update! The things that happen during a dev cycle never fail to amaze me. Sometimes you get by with little or no issues. Other times you get a few bumps and bruises along the way. But just like eating airline food, you mostly walk away just fine.

This time, however, we've seem to have hit the perfect storm of issues. Our artists, for various good reasons, have all gotten sidelined during this production cycle. While the timing of these events is unfortunate, these are, as they say, the breaks of the game.

What this means is that art is coming out a bit slower than expected. And rather than rush job things solely for the sake of speed, we'd rather make sure the stuff comes out well. For a game like ours, artwork is pretty important. The smoothness of animation and maintenance the consistency of the look requires some damn good artists and time.

We're also taking this time to do a bit of technical housecleaning. I've rewritten part of our tool chain to better encode some more information into the game to improve our handling of Accessories (eg. hats, beards, etc). The unfortunate side effect of this is it means all our assets need to be reprocessed.

Yes, the Perfect Storm indeed. But as Lumpy often says around the office, "The Show must go on!"

And it will!