But like all adventures, there are bound to be obstacles. Unfortunately, a major obstacle has hit us right out of the gate: Device compatibility.

One of the great things about the Android ecosystem is all the different devices our game can run on; one of the bad things is all the different devices our device has to run on. Google provides tools which prevent customers from purchasing an app if it isn't going to work on their device. This is great, and protects everyone from heartache.

However, the actual mechanism for determining this compatibility is a bit, well, opaque.

Any app can list various hardware and software requirements, such as:

• Needs a camera
• Only supports high-resolution screens
• Accesses the SD card
• Uses features from Android 2.3 and higher
• etc.

The Play Store then takes this list and filters out devices which don't meet those requirements.

All good so far. But now, having launched the game, we're getting support emails from people saying they can't install the game on devices we know it runs on. What's happening here? I check out my developer tools to investigate:

Apparently Zombie Minesweeper is compatible with about half the S III's out there. A quick peek on Wikipedia shows that there are two major variants of this phone... But what's the difference, actually? 

Zombie Minesweeper's requirements are pretty simple: It requires a touchscreen (of any size), a 3D chip, and an internet connection for twitter integration. Surely all these phones fit that profile! But there's some subtle thing that Google is detecting that we're not aware of.

So now I'm looking into how we can determine exactly what the requirements of the game are (or what Google Play thinks they are) and broadening that as much as possible.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line, however, is that compatibility is a tricky issue, and because we are using an off-the-shelf game engine (Unity3D), we don't have a lot of control of the basic requirements of the game beyond what we've already released. We will definitely be working to improve the situation, but for a pair of part-time independent developers like ourselves, our options are quite limited by the resources that companies like Google and Unity make available to us.

If your Android device isn't showing as supported by Google Play, we apologize and sincerely hope that we can get the game into your hands in the future! But for the time being, we can't make any promises or estimates as to when that might be.

- Graham Jans

Starting on May 24th, you can grab Zombie Minesweeper: A Love Story for 75% off.  But don't stop there -- there are tons of great games going on sale.  Check them all out at BecauseWeMay.com.

This got us so fired up that we actually released 1.6 for all of our paying customers while we were fixing stuff up.  What's new? Well, we know you'll love our new icon… and as for the behind the scene changes: you'll have to take our word that they are great!  In all seriousness, we made sure the game you purchased gels well with iOS 5 which you all have by now.

If you haven't checked the game out in awhile, you really should.  Randomly generated levels kept it fresh while we were testing it.  It'll be fresh for you, too.

Signed,

The snail in level 3

Stability!

We've further reduced the memory usage of the game, and changed the way the initial launch works. This should drastically reduce the number of crashes encountered! As well, several specific crash bugs have been located and eliminated!

Score!

Game Center has been fully integrated thanks to the great tools in OpenFeint. But what's the point of having Game Center and OpenFeint without leaderboards!? We've improved the visibility of the scoring system within the game: now your top score for each level is saved, along with your cumulative score for the whole game. These numbers are pushed to leaderboards so it's easier to see how you are progressing in the game!

Touch!

We've addressed a number of interface issues as well! The tiles are now about 25% larger when playing on a small screen (iPhone or iTouch), which should greatly increase tapping accuracy. As well, there is now an option to put the interface on the right-hand side of the screen, if that's what you're in to.

There have also been a number of other small fixes and improvements behind the scenes, but I won't bore you with the details. Hop on over to the app store and update the game, or buy it if you haven't already; it's awesome and getting better!

Reviews

AppAdvice: "This is my kind of love story. Mainly because there are zombies. And explosions."

iFanzine: (4.5/5) "The threat of moving enemies really ups the ante on ye olde Minesweeperformula; stir in Frogtoss Games’ macabre sense of humor and you’ve got a product that’s ripe for a cult following among casual and hardcore gamers alike."

DaxGamer: "It brought back memories of playing the classic Minesweeper while managing to give to give players a really well done update."

Clearance Bin Review: (7.5/10) "Overall, Zombie minesweeper was lots of fun. It’s not the type of game you’ll find yourself staying up late playing, telling yourself “just one more level” but it is a game that will keep you entertained throughout the entire experience."

Gamezebo: (4.5/5) "Zombie Minesweeper is one of those games that sounds like it might be stupid but winds up being stupidly fun. It's adorable and strange and just violent enough to be goofily awesome."

Touch Arcade: "There's something special in the combination of zombies and minefields. This top-down action puzzler puts the two together to explosive effect."

Video Sightings

GameSideStory, GameTrailers.com, GameCola, Indie Games Blog

However, there was a fairly strong sentiment running through the comments:

"Bleh.... zombies." ~Briker Ed

Zombies are a funny theme: They've been going strong for a long time, and regardless of how much fatigue players express, developers keep making these games, and players keep buying them! But that's no excuse for us to jump on the bandwagon and pump out 'yet another zombie game'. No, in fact our choice of zombies was fairly carefully considered, and it's just our burden that we have to push past all the 'me too' zombie games out there.

So why zombies?

The first thing was that, making Minesweeper, we wanted some kind of slow, clueless enemy. This would allow us to keep it a puzzle game where the enemies are there to add pressure, rather than having fast, smart enemies, which would have turned it in to more of an action game. We thought of a few different kinds of enemies, and zombies just seemed the most 'right'.

The second was that land mines are kind of a touchy subject, so we wanted an enemy that would be 'okay' to blow to bits. Again, there were a lot of possibilities, but zombies seemed to strike the right balance between 'okay to destroy' and 'make a big mess when you destroy them'.

We did try to inject our own flavour in to it though by making the zombies cute animals, and even plants (cue zombie mushroom). Although there are probably other games that have done this (there are a LOT of zombie games. ;) ), we felt that at least that was an aspect of zombies that hadn't been done to death.

But here is, I think, the most important part: We decided that we wanted zombies, and we threw ourselves into it fully. We considered the ramifications and alternatives, put our own style on it, and ensure that it was made to the highest quality. It's important to never get caught in the flow and do something without intention. Make a choice! Even if it's the wrong choice, being conscious of the decision allows you to evaluate the outcome and make better choices in the future. This is the only way to improve and be happy with what you've created!

 - Graham Jans

 Here is a comparison of my initial idea (left) and what we ended up with (right)

Unity: we made a 2D game in a 3D environment.  I created the assets and characters in either Flash or Photosphop, then exported them into sprite sheets.  We created cast shadows from skewing a sprite, flattening it to the ground plane and setting a low opacity.  I think it worked out pretty nice.  At times the perspectives are a little off due to the hand drawen nature of the art, but I think it just adds it's own charm.

The Experience: I wanted players to feel a little creeped out and afraid for the cute girl who’s running through a minefield full of zombies. To achieve this I chose to make the environments feel dark and a little more realistic than the other elements.  You’ll notice shading, some spec lighting, and textures on the ground, trees, rocks, buildings, etc.

Simplicity: Unifying the zombies through the same monochromatic colour pallet really made them POP out from the environment and draw clear relationships between them and the Girl. It made it clear that it was GIRL vs ZOMBIES not Girl vs, dogs, cats, snails, etc.

Death: I wanted players to both cringe and laugh when they or a zombie steps on a landmine. After some ingame testing we decided we liked the cartoony characters coupled with more realistic sounds and particle explosions to give a very satisfyingly juicy explosion with out making you feel guilty for loving it.  At least not too much :)

Minesweeper: Explosions = Awesome so we toyed around with what type of explosion style we wanted and in the end were happy with the particle effects in Unity.  With the help of Graham we got the particles looking good on the first pass and had semi realistic looking explosions complete with giblets and blood particles.   Kaboom!!!  Loud, bright, juicy explosions in a minesweeper game was one of the reasons WHY we wanted to make this game in the first place!

Get it on iPhone & iPad! http://launch.zombieminesweeper.com

The three of us have been working together for five years at various companies creating a remarkably broad set of games. The minute we found ourselves moving on, we conspired to work together on the next project, damned be the need to find a company to hire us first. We sat in coffee shops that would have us, coming up with the project that would be our first indie collaboration.

Vancouver has its champions: it's a great city to be a game developer; it's a great city to be an entrepreneur. So we were living the life when we decided to make a game about landmine puzzles filled with zombies. Working out of our homes, we have been hammering away on Zombie Minesweeper for the better part of a year. (Our partners have been very patient and understanding.)

How far are you willing to go to see your creation find success? Would you write blog posts about it and talk about it with your friends? Probably. What about eschewing immediately gainful employment to spend the extra hours polishing it? Maybe... lots of talented people certainly have. How about turning game development into a performance art? Uh. Observe as Graham (design, programming) dresses up as the very zombies in the game for a promotional photoshoot:

- Michael Labbé