Monthly Mewsfeed – May 2024

Welcome to May’s Monthly Mewsfeed! Accidental alliterations? I THINK NOT! Sorry, could not resist 😆️

Mood Meter

😮‍💨️ Felix: Less meds are nice, but I am still a tired old man with an obnoxious greedy sister…
🧐️ Sneaky: Is that a crisp you are eating? Without giving me any? How dare you!
🙃️ Maryla: Distracted!

😬️ Count Dartula: Nervous – am I presentable yet?

0️⃣️ New Project Ideas!

Only a potential small easter egg for the Count! This is the best month with the least distracting bullshit ideas yet, but that doesn’t mean I am not distracted by a bunch of other things…

Top 5 To Dos

Last Month

May was not bad at all! Not only did everything get done and even released on the PlayStore, but I managed to do a bit more than planned.

✅️ Fix ad layout on phone

The top banner should now have more room on different phone sizes, without covering any part of the game area. It may lead to a large empty space at the top on very long phones, but I hope that looks less silly than a half covered title.

✅️ Around the World: rules and options

Around The World now features a rules and options screen where you can select singles, doubles and triples to count – or not, to make life more difficult 🙂

✅️ Around The World: better board highlighting

Depending on what numbers have already been hit, or which number is now the target, the board will go dark or light up to make the number easier to spot. Darkened segments can still be clicked and will count! The effect is visual only.

✅️ Player stats

Some stats for the game will now be displayed on the win screen:

• dart count and 3 dart averages for 501
• count of attempts for each number for Around The World

If there is something else you are interested in, please let me know! I will probably not bother with complex stats and tracking systems over multiple games – this is not what the app is for. Anything simple can certainly be added, though!

✅️ Update store entry

A new feature graphic, updated colours on the app icon and current screenshots are now live! The website also has gotten a little update to reflect the current state.

🙂 Some unannounced things!

• Re-designed some GUI elements to fit better with the overall theme
• Re-worked the dart board to make triples easier to tap, at the cost of it looking less like a dart board – feedback welcome!
• Surprise game mode!

While reviewing the remaining game modes, I spotted one that looked easy enough to implement, so I did that! “Call Three” is now playable. Let me know what you think!

Next Month

As we are heading into a (cold, wet, thank you Wales) summer, there is a lot of unrelated stuff that is going to take up time – travels, family visits, organisation, work trips… and I expect the year to continue like this for a while. That is why I am going to send the top 5 to do’s on an extended summer vacation to avoid stressing myself out. There will still be Monthly Mewsfeeds, even though they may be shorter than usual.

Still, I have some rough ideas that I hope to chase when there is time. There are multiple game modes left to implement, specifically the 2 player ones. Cricket looks like the most popular one, and to be honest, I still don’t fully understand it and need some more research before even thinking about implementation.

Then there is playtesting! I hope that Count Dartula is now ready to be shown to more people. Once I found willing guinea pigs with dart boards, I might get some ideas, feedback, and absolutely no bug reports because my apps never had bugs, ever… 😶️ Fingers crossed that I can reach some friendly, interested people, since advertising is not my strong suit. If you still made it here, welcome! I appreciate your time. Please bring some friends 😅️

With more people looking at Count Dartula, unexpected stuff may come up. Constructive criticism is precious, and addressing any issues, user pain points, or good ideas would take precedence over new features anyway. I will try my best to make time for that or at least give a reasonable excuse and communicate the priorities.

Until next month, enjoy whatever nice weather the planet feels like giving you!