Walkabout or What I learned from Crocodile Dundee

    Yes, the family watched this movie over the weekend and it was still very entertaining.  One of those times when you need to not think, but just enjoy the moment.  I especially liked the notion of the "Walkabout" which Dundee used to clear his head and find his path, I suppose.  Thanks to being a dog owner, I too get mini walkabouts every day to clear my head and get away from the computer.    

    At least once a day the dog and I walk for about 1 - 1 1/2 miles on a nice trail near our house.  The dog gets time to explore nature and I get to work on design decisions or dream up new concepts.   We both need the exercise, so it is a win-win situation.

    Todays walk was pretty chilly, but gave me time to put together a schedule for putting the latest updates into Letter Rain and Letter Rain Free, our spelling game.  Along with some code and achievement fixes, I also need to clean up the interface a bit.  The app is not showing everything correctly in iOS 7.  It is a fairly small set of tasks, but would be nice to have this submitted before the 15th.

Geek Side Note

    The really major changes to Letter Rain will be replacing the core graphics with the Sprite Kit framework. I need to run some more tests, including how the sound effects will perform, but the prototype is looking good.  Since this is fun code to play with, I will confirm the whole Sprite Kit revamp decision during the later part of December.  Should I enhance the existing custom graphics and sound framework, or replace it with the 'Kit'?  Either way, I will be releasing an iPhone version of the game.

    It will probably be an easy decision at this time next year, due to the extra year of Kit testing and feedback by developers like me.  Apple seems pretty committed to the game space, so I assume an update to the Kit will be at WWDC 2014.  Also, the iOS 7 requirement will be more acceptable to people who have upgraded their phone.  It seem to be a safe bet for us to release a Universal version of the game using this framework.  I am just not sure if it will be in early or late 2014.