Patrick McCarron's Piece O' Mind

Thanks to everyone for testing out the early versions of iBlackjack. Your insightful feedback, encouragement and generosity has helped me create a great game. Since all efforts are now focused on making iBlackjack a great commercial game developed under the official iPhone SDK, we had to deactivate the old unsupported versions.

By now I was hoping to know more about when the final version of the game would be available. We originally planned to get it out ASAP in March, but are at the mercy of Apple and their SDK timelines. Since we wont know details of that until late next week, I will have to provide updated details and a date at a later date.

For the past two months I have spent all my time working on improving iBlackjack. Lots of effort has gone into creating a great new polished game. A game that really reflects well of the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. I think it looks great now and I can't wait to get it into everyone's hands ASAP. Until then, here is a screenshots of the game as it stands today.




I can also tell you, the amount of flexibility of game options and variations has more than doubled since the last public version. You blackjack aficionados are in for a real treat! I'll save those option details for another update.

Feel free to send me feedback in the comments below, I'd like to know what you think and what you'd like to see in the final game. And thanks again for the great support, it's been much appreciated and will not be forgotten.

Patrick McCarron
iBlackjack Development Lead

My iPhone/iPod Touch game iBlackjack is listed as one of the "Great Apps To Check Out" by the Just Another iPhone Blog. They describe it as "gorgeous looking and smooth playing." So thanks goes to them for the great feedback, and I hope to continue to improve on those points in the final version of iBlackjack.

I also had just recently stumbled upon their blog, and have found it pretty interesting. It reads really great on Mobile Safari, which is a must. On that subject they wrote up a great piece about poor mobile sites that don't work right on Mobile Safari called Sucky iPhone Sites. In the first piece they discuss Yahoo's Mobile web service, and are considering doing more reviews.

I think I found the first iBlackjack review, beyond some forum comments here and there.

I randomly came across this blog posting while searching to see how far iBlackjack has spread across the Internet landscape. In this "review" by Josh Jones the CEO of a web hosting provider, who is also my host, Dreamhost talks about my iPhone/iPod Touch game iBlackjack.

Here is what he first had to say:

After jailbreaking it, I tried out a bunch of the underground 3rd-party applications, and my absolute favorite was iBlackJack.

Favorite for it being the worst blackjack game I’d ever played!

This iBlackJack was so awful it would always be the first thing I’d show to people who wanted to checkout my iPhone, just so I could sit back and watch the transition from excitement to confusion to utter disgust as it swept across the face of my victim.

This game served as a textbook example for Steve Jobs’ argument about why he claimed they wanted to lock out third parties from developing iPhone apps: playing it made me really hate Steve Jobs, personally.

I've seen some early critical responses to the game before, but this one took the cake. It really made me think, as I love to read what people think about the game so I can work on improving it in areas I haven't considered. So, I was anxious to see what else he had to say, so I kept reading. It became quickly clear that he was talking about the old version of the game, when I came across this drastic turnaround:

Sadly, this could not last forever. Updates of iBlackJack kept coming out, and within just a few weeks, all the glaring usability and logic errors were squashed. Now it’s a decent little app, and serves as a strong counter-example against a locked iPhone.

Yes, the game was a boiling pot of dog turd at first, but now my iPhone (oh yes, it’s MINE now) has a full-featured blackjack game in it; one with such features as how many decks in the shoe, when to re-shuffle, when the dealer hits, and even if it should bother asking if you want insurance.

It ended up being the best review I've heard anyone give about iBlackjack. Josh Jones first had me go from partially upset to almost blushing as I continued to read the words on the page.

In the article, iBlackjack offering insurance was just a segway for him to talk about finance and the need for insurance in life. It's a really good read, and I suggest everyone to read it as well. I just wont cover it here, well because I'm no expert in the manner.

And for those looking to see where iBlackjack is heading next, I'll leave you with this image of the next build which is hopefully coming later this week.

Labels: development, iblackjack, iphone