I decided I needed to avoid losing momentum on GrandMasterPixel … so I’ve pushed through to ‘beta’ and made it available on the Android Market. I hope the server backend doesn’t melt (actually it’s hosted on Google App Engine, so I think it will be just fine .. but some optimization wouldn’t hurt ). Thanks to the small number of users who played the game during the alpha phase – you’ve drawn some cool little pics !

Download GrandMasterPixel (beta) from the Android Market

So after making some mockups, I decided to go ahead with the idea of making a title screen for GrandMasterPixel. I’m not a big fan of superfluous title screens, but this one contains some useful information and navigation buttons so it earns it’s pixels.

Also, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, to the people who have been play testing. I really appreciate that you’ve taken the time to try out the game, even though it is still evolving and a little unpolished at this stage. While I’ve only been given a little bit of feedback so far (nods to @kelseyhigham), I’ve seen (and judged *mwahhahaha*) the pics that a few of you have submitted when I’ve been playing the game myself. It’s been a great encouragement to keeping banging away at making GrandMasterPixel more playable as a social game. I’ve released a new version (1.0.6), and if everything is working as planned. existing users should get an update notification on their mobile device.

Next on the list is implementing ‘notifications’, so you can easily see when one of your pics has been defeated, or if you have levelled up. And then some optimization of the Arena judging interface, which I don’t think is quite snappy enough. And then more types of Rankings lists (daily, weekly, all time etc). And then … and then … and then. Lots more to do !

(… including part of December 2009)

• Wii Sport Resort (a family Christmas game)
• House of the Dead II & III Returns (Wii) (Worst. Voice acting. Ever. And I love it !)
• Left4Dead (I took the plunge and bought two copies when it was on special on Stream – been playing with a friend)
• GrandMasterPixel (Android) … yeh, yeh, I know, shameless plug … it’s my own game. Well, you’ve got to actually play it to alpha test it, right ?

With the help of Kyle Stewart’s post over at Binary Sheep, I’ve put together a package that contains the Android emulator along with a copy of GrandMasterPixel. This means that if you aren’t one of the lucky people to own an Android device, you can still help test the game by running it in the Android emulator on your Linux, OS X or Windows desktop computer. Keep in mind the download is a little hefty (~ 65 Mb and ~ 200 Mb unzipped).

It’s not quite the same as holding the game in the palm of your hand … but if you don’t want to wrestle with Eclipse and the Android SDK to setup your own development environment, or shell out for one of the snazzy new Android phones hitting the market, it’s the next best thing.

Download GrandMasterPixel + emulator [http://bit.ly/5DrYMr - 65 Mb zipped]

To run the emulator, unzip the archive, run the run_emulator.* script appropriate to your platform (eg, run_emulator.linux.sh, run_emulator.osx.sh or run_emulator.bat. You may need to make the script executable first on OS X and Linux).

If you give it a try, please give me some feedback on FriendFeed, tweet me @OMGWTFGAMES or send a good ol’ email to perry at omgwtfgames.com.

With the design of GrandMasterPixel, I’ve generally worked on the principle that features should have to fight to be included (ala 37signals), and worked to create the bare minimum required to play the game. No more, no less.

Part of that philosophy lead me to forgo the customary title screen found in many games. At most, I planned to have the title text “GrandMasterPixel” overlayed on the Drawing screen upon first load, then elegantly fade away. This way the user is thrown straight into one of the two key mechanics – drawing (other being judging). They can immediately poke the screen an start creating some simple pixelart. There isn’t any dire need for a ‘navigation screen’ on the Android version, since all navigation can be accessed in the popup menu, by pressing the Menu button on the device. This is the convention for pretty much every Android app (and is the suggested style in the Android Menu Design Guidelines published by Google).

Recently, however, I’ve have a change of heart on the front page navigation screen idea. Maybe it is required, to better lead new players into the game. Additionally, I’ve also noticed that Android games conventionally seem to have a front page navigation screen, unlike other non-game apps.

Here’s a mockup of one possible front page screen for GrandMasterPixel, made with Mockingbird:

GrandMasterPixel, possible new front page mockup

At the moment, I’m still looking for more people to play test what I have so far, before going crazy  on implementing more features. There are certainly lots of parts that need work, but I’d like to direct my efforts toward areas where players feel they are more required. You can download the alpha version of GrandMasterPixel for Android with this link. I’d appreciate any feedback you have, on FriendFeed, or via Twitter @OMGWTFGAMES or right here in the comments !