Age of Curling - Out now on the AppStore…
http://games.blackish.at/ageofcurling/
itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=299495746
This looks great. Well done.
It really looks great, good work! How much time did it took to develop it?
thanks, chad and simone!
The whole project took about 7 weeks of “relaxed full-time” work. So far… There will be more… 
Hmmm from my nooby point of view it seems a short time of work… isnt it? Maybe someone else can judge it better than me
Very cool and nice looking game… I’m a sucker for curling 
A couple suggestions:
Make the sweeping more obvious (with a sound or broom icon). I didn’t think it was even included until I read the guide. Sounds in general would help a little too, just some really simple collision sounds and ice sliding.
Try making the shadow decal a 32x32 RGBA 16bit (or RGB 16bit if using a multiply shader) . It’s a critical part of the illusion and the PVRTC artifacts on that texture is distracting relative to the overall visual quality.
Well done,
Ethan
thanks for the nice words and thanks for the suggestions, good stuff! (- Damn, why didn’t I think of making the shadow texture smaller to get some anti-aliasing going? It’s so obvious now that you told me :))
Sound and feedback while sweeping are high up on my todo-list
Purchased and I really like it… Shame theres no AI opposition at the moment, and I agree with the shadow comment, it is in a prominent position and does detract from otherwise great graphics, albeit a bit on the dark side.
I’d like to be honest and say at £2:99 (If I hadnt purchased it to support Unity iPhone games and out of interest in Unitys performance on the iPhone, not forgetting that your game does look great) I could have been a little disappointed that I can’t play it on my own, I do think this should be clearer in the description, and maybe currently offered at a lower introductory price.
I do see that a few apps get put on iTunes at one price then get significantly reduced to combat bad early sales which in turn seems to understandably annoy the early customers who got it at a higher price, which creates then negative reviews.
Having said that, I’m really just trying to second guess iTunes users and personally dont think £2:99 is alot of money in the real world to pay for any game, however i’m not sure that iTunes customers feel the same.
Well done and good luck with the game… I’ll look forward to the updates
Nice game - bought it on Friday … few things, though …
I didn’t feel happy at all about the $4.99 price tag, especially with no AI. I expected more from the game at that price.
I’m very surprised by your decisions on the controls (I would have expected either to flick the stones or to ‘bowl’ them like a Wiimote)
More than anything, though, why can’t you sweep? Sweeping is a HUGE part of the game and I kind of feel you may have missed a trick there. OH … just re-read the post above … so you CAN sweep, it’s just not apparent AT ALL that you’re doing it. Sound effects would be nice … sound effects and a visual would be even nicer!
Nice try, but you missed a few points that could have made this a really cool game rather than a two minute time waster. It feels like you may have rushed it - you had a great base, the environment looks awesome but the gameplay is totally unpolished.
Good luck!
i actually like the controls, accel controls are overly used, and flicking cant be very accurate for a game like this.
Age of Curling 1.2 is out! Since the initial release I’ve added collision sounds, an AI opponent, a new venue and lots of physics improvements.
And there’s a video now: http://games.blackish.at/ageofcurling/ - check it out!
PS: psychicparrot: I chose this control scheme over flick or ‘bowl’ because of how curling works. You don’t “throw” the stone, you push yourself forward, the stone accelerates with you and then you’re not pushing the stone, rather you are decelerating it before you just let go of the handle… Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: Curling is a very tactical game and I wanted the player to have more control than you can get from flicking or ‘bowling’.
I like the new “Castle” environment! Nicely done. What I still dislike it the low poly "cur, which would make it appear “rounder” would help the otherwise nice appearance.
Thomas
Ok I got to ask, how the heck did you make such a nice trailer.
If I may be brutally honest, a price of $7.99 is way too much for me to buy an iPhone game. Sorry but there’s just this mental switch for me that prevents buying anything over roughly $5 unless I get to try it first or am extremely compelled to buy it (Geocaching app being the only example in that category so far).
Looks fantastic though!
Edit: as my show of support for Unity developers I’ll likely suck it up and pay the price, but note that if this wasn’t a Unity authored game from a member of the community, that wouldn’t happen. I thought it worth sharing my thoughts on the price, whatever they’re worth ($0.02? less? 
)
Hey col000r,
Well done on Age of Curling! I don’t have an iPhone so can’t play it but from the screens, vid and comments I’m very impressed. As a solo effort it’s inspirational and has led me to sign up to the Unity Community (I love saying that!) and get involved now that there is a Windows version on it’s way!
If you ever need any help with art I’d be happy to contribute with whatever I can.
Hope you’re well.
Dan.
Curve: thanks for the compliment! Well, let’s just say that my girlfriend being a motion designer didn’t hurt.
HiggyB: thanks for the feedback - finding the right pricing for a game on the appstore is tough. (You know the story - everything seems expensive in comparison to the flood of $0.99 apps, yet I can’t sell a niche product for $1 if I want to be able to pay the rent, yada yada…) I’m confident that I’ve found about the right pricing for it (I see it as a niche game with fairly high production values), but only time will tell and I’m of course not opposed to adjusting the price if proven wrong. I agree that it seems expensive for an app that you can’t try first - I’ll do something about that. the video was a first step in the general direction, a “lite” version will follow at some point!
stupendoh: yay, dan! once the windows version is out: let’s rock and roll like it’s 2006!
It is an frankly I think I’ve fallen into being part of the problem. When you have a platform that suffers from a glut of ultra-cheap (low price, not low quality necessarily) pricing barrier gets forced low, and I’ve come to accept and abide by this lowered expectation somehow.
For a quality game, $5-10 just isn’t really a problem for me in general. I spent more than that for my Wii/X360, I’ll spend more than that on a crappy movie I end up regretting, but somehow when it comes to buying games for the iPhone I become a hard core miser. Why? (I don’t know )
FYI: I bought your game anyway, I need to support those that support us and so I’m buying everything Unity made that I come across just 'cause. I’ll let you know what my first-hand thoughts on the game are when I get a chance to kick back and play a bit.
Please do, feedback is always appreciated!
And thank you, I’ll feed it back to you in a short while by going Pro and possibly even Advanced…
In that case it’s the best $7.99 I’ve ever spent! 
Hey there Col000r,
Just purchasing ‘Age Of Curling’ now, loved the whole idea when you first talked about it, what a perfect game for the iPhone.
Now I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ve done on this little phenomenal device. The trailer and the game are superb quality and in my opinion raise the bar for Unity based iPhone games.
Well done, good luck and keep us informed on the price/sales effect. Like HiggyB I’m just supporting Unity developed games. Please look out for my game - “Slippy Feet” - being released sometime in February 2009.