Added For Review
It’s 12:43 am as I sit down to write this. I’ve just spent the last 5ish hours preparing my app build to publish Space Cats to the App Store. If there’s one thing I've learned from the game development process it’s that I really really hate the publishing aspect. It’s just so…annoying. There’s a lot of extra work that just is exhausting to put together when you’re just ready to hit publish. I suddenly know why game publishers are a thing and why game devs would happily hand the reins over to them 😂
You have to make all the different assets for the different sizes that’ll show up in the store’s various marketing locations. And they range in size from a tiny 16x16 px icon to a full blown 1920 x 1080 px game poster/banner/hero image.
Then you have to make sure that you have all the necessary disclosures and protections etc. etc. to comply with laws and regulations. And that’s not even including testing the build to make sure that it’s compatible with all the devices you’re targeting.
Today I was having a hard time getting the various screen shot images Apple requires for you to publish to the App Store. The main problem is that I only have one type of iPhone and while that works for 2 of the 3 different required sizes, I needed to get a screen shot from a smaller device. Now before you say, “just use the Xcode Simulator”, I did. And tried. For like 4 hours trying to get it to work. I couldn’t figure it out.
Luckily I was able to find a workaround. Apparently Unity has a screen capture feature so all I had to do was just write a short little script, attach it to my game scenes, and then trigger it while I played the game at the desired resolution. Perfect. I just wish I had moved on to that solution before spending 4 hours on the stupid simulator lol. Oh well. Lessons learned for next time. (Ps, if any of you know how to get Unity builds to work on Xcode Simulator, PLEASE WRITE ME AN EMAIL AND/OR MESSAGE ME AND TELL ME BECAUSE I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW!)
Anyway, even though the process was taking longer than I had hoped, I just decided that I wasn’t going to quit tonight until it was done. If I quit tonight, I might not have the drive to continue, if I’m being totally honest. I’ve been struggling with the motivation to publish to mobile because emotionally, I’ve already moved on to my new project. (I’m so excited to share it with you guys soon!) But I believe in finishing projects all the way, so here you guys are! Space Cats Mobile is officially under review in the App Store! I fully expect it to get rejected the first time and then I’ll resubmit and yada yada yada…it’ll eventually make it to the App Store. And before you ask, no, I’m not going to make an Android version…
Oh by the way, I received an email from Valve today that Space Cats is officially verified Compatible on Deck! Yay! Turns out, all that work to get full controller support was worth it. So if you have a Steam Deck, go check out Space Cats.
PS—I’ve added a new page to my blog. You can now see my published titles under the Games tab 😊
