I know everything has gone quiet on the vConqr front just lately. Unfortunately I had to take another job for a while which sapped all my time (and energy). I've finished there now (although I will be taking other contracts - not quite making a living off this yet) so development on v2.0 of vConqr is in progress once again.

In the meantime, it has emerged that there is an OS 3.0 related issue with the current version that's out there: rotation is not working. While I did check this during the beta period (it was broken in the first beta, but working later on), it seems it regressed again for the final release. Due to being off the radar for a while I've only just picked this up. Expect an update to fix that soon.

v2.0 development was going well, with the first part of a UI overhaul in place and multiple maps loading. Now I've fixed a nasty crashing bug that surfaced before I disappeared I hope to pick up the beta releases again. For an early view, see this earlier blog entry.

Update 1.3.1 just went live.

As hinted at previously, this version addresses some issues that were introduced in 1.3 - especially in the areas of performance and memory usage.

The result is a faster, smoother, more responsive game that is rock solid.

Enjoy!

v1.3 certainly seems to have polarised our users. Most have been very positive about the new graphics system, with it's colourised territories, and the additional of audio. However, some people have not liked these features. Oh well, you can't please everyone. Or can you?

Before we discuss that further, a more serious issue seems to have crept in. The new graphics and sound obviously have an extra memory overhead. Unfortunately a small number of users have reported crashes while playing the game - especially while using the iPod app at the same time. This is something we take very seriously! Although we do test for these things, evidently this has not been enough - so we have made some improvements there. With some more aggressive memory tests we have been reproducing the conditions that lead to a crash and I'm pleased to say that, as far as we can tell, we have eliminated them!

If you have experienced a crash while playing vConqr, we can only apologise and promise that this update should hit the app store as soon as possible. If you can't wait, or you just want to help out, consider joining our beta programme and get the updates early.

So, back to pleasing everybody. Obviously the way to do this is to make certain features optional or customisable - and this is something we have planned for a long time. The next major version, currently in development, has extensive options and settings for such things - including how territories are colourised. But, as we appreciate that the addition of audio may be more of an issue for some people, we have including settings to disable it in 1.3.1.

Finally, a couple of people reported that 1.3 introduced a bit of a lag when panning around (especially while also zoomed). While the majority of users have either not noticed this, or not been bothered by it, it is also something we take very seriously and a lot of work has gone into 1.3.1 to address this. Again, we'd appreciate additional beta testers to make sure it is perfect this time.

As we've mentioned in previous blog posts, we're always keen to include more people on our beta programme. The more feedback we get the better we can make the experience for everyone - and that's our number one priority!

As we get into the development of version 2 of vConqr, it becomes all the more important for us to get our releases tested by as wide an audience as possible.

If you'd like to join our programme all you need to do is send us your UDID (device ID). This can be obtained a couple of ways.

1. iTunes. When your device is connected to iTunes, go to the summary page. Where it says "Serial Number" if you click it once it will change to "Identifier (UDID):" and show you your UDID. It might look like you can't copy this string - but if you just hit Apple-C (or ctrl-C on Windows), it will copy the string anyway. You can then paste that into a mail and send it to us.

2. Using Erica Sadun's "Ad Hoc Helper" app. This is available as a free download from the app store. Just search for "Ad Hoc" and it should be the number one result. Once downloaded, opening the app presents you with an email composer screen. Simply enter our email address and hit send. Simplicity!

For a one time thing, the first option might be faster, but if you think you might join any other betas, or just want a one click solution, get the helper app.

So all that remains is for us to give you the email address to send to. For anti-spam reasons I'll spell it out:

betas [at] vconqr.com

Just replace the [at] with the usual symbol (and remove the spaces) and you're good to go!

v1.3 brought with it some major changes in how maps are loaded and displayed. While this has lead to better graphics, colourised territories, and will allow us to easily provide multiple maps, the initial cut has a slight performance hit as compared to previous versions. This is noticeable when scrolling around a map other than at the default level (there is a very slight lag). It appears to be more evident on older hardware. While this doesn't really affect game-play, we take such matters very seriously. We want your experience to be perfect! In addition the initial load time has increased as the app has more work to do to process the map data.

We've been hard at work optimising these issues away and have made some headway. According to current trials the lag has been cut to about 30% of current levels, and we believe we can improve further still. And we should be able to cut the initial load time to under two seconds (most of which is just loading the app itself anyway).

Once this work is finalised we'll be putting out a 1.3.1 release. We expect to submit this within the next week.

After months of hard work we're proud to announce the release of vConqr 1.3! This release, which was pushed to the App Store last week, contains two notable new features, sound effects and colorised territories, both of which we have discussed in previous blog posts.

For more information about what's new in this release check out the release notes and if you're curious as to what the new visuals are like then checkout the recently updated screenshots page.

We love getting feedback, so when the update appears let us know what you think of v1.3 in the comments or by leaving us feedback.

Over the weekend we released vConqr v1.3 Beta 3, bringing us even closer to the final version. Assuming we don't find anything major in this beta then we only have a few little things on our to do list and then we can push this live into the app store! We'll update the blog when the release goes live with a full set of changes, which should hopefully be this week.

One of the most highly requested features since our very first release has been the colorizing of territories by player color, so you can easily see which territories belong to which player - and who has control of the map at a glance.

We're pleased to announce that v1.3 has exactly this feature, which has been made possible by our new dynamic map technology. The ground up rewrite of our graphics layer has not only enabled us to colorize the map but also brings new pop out animations, smoother scrolling and better performance when zoomed out. Take a look at the screenshot and let us know what you think!

No longer do you have to sit in silence when playing vConqr as the game will soon feature a full range of sound effects to give you audible feedback when playing. Hopefully the explosions will make crushing your enemies that much more satisfying!

We originally planned to get sound effects into v1.2, but the aggressive timeline for that release meant that it didn't make the cut. Due to the extra incubation time we have sound effects for almost every action in the game, as well as some home grown jingles when you win or lose a match.

We've just dropped the first beta release for the next version of vConqr. As always we're looking for people to give us early user feedback and find any outstanding issues. If you'd be interested in participating in the beta please get in contact with us by submitting a support request, sending us an email or leaving a comment on this post.

If the beta goes as smoothly as we think it will then you can expect a release very soon. In the mean time check back this week for some updates with details of the new features in this release!