Recent Events 2011 07 30

The Android Awesome Cube game is a Rubik's Cube implementation for the Android phone. I've programmed the app up until now using an Android emulator. I actually published the program on the Android Market without doing enough tests. I found out that another company has published a version of my game without my consent or cooperation. I have blogged about this in the past. It made me pretty angry.

Testing the app from a real device is important. Since getting a hold of a real device I've found two errors, both of wich are very big. The first one was such that the game could not be played. It affected the display of colors on the screen, in the form of what open-gl programmers refer to as textures. The textures weren't displaying properly. I've blogged about this error. The second error affected the game such that a certain move could not be performed in the game without making the cube unsolvable. It is as if someone swapped pieces on you without your knowing it. People familiar with trying to solve the Rubik's Cube would understand. These are both bad errors. Both are corrected now. The first error has been corrected on the downloadable version of the game, and the second correction will go to the Android Market on Sunday or Monday.

What does this mean and why should I be pleased? When I first found out that the game I'd been working on was copied I was mad, but so far the company hasn't updated their version with bug fixes. I downloaded their version yesterday and it was unusable. This pleased me. They added some aspects to their version, like adds, and a fancy start-up screen, but it's not usable at all.

I don't know if they'll be able to follow what I'm doing to the code, now that the package name is different, but if they don't then their version is junk. They copied something unusable. And if they remedy their version in the future, how would I feel then? We'll see then. For now I'm happy with the way things have turned out.

And what if you're thinking of downloading the game? I suggest waiting for an announcement from me or download my version of the game with the automatic update feature.