By a coincidence, two very similar games were submitted for review before Christmas - almost at the same time. Both are 3D parking games: Kings of Parking 3D by Tiltgames and Total Parking by TeaPOT Games.

They are free to play and offer similar cars and experience and both use the Unity 3D engine. So which one is better and which one should you get? I played both and here are my thoughts.

Kings of Parking starts by giving you a bus. It has two modes of camera, but both of them can make it hard to see where you are sometimes. The controls here are a tad easier because you have a "reverse gas" pedal instead of a gear stick. In most of the levels you have a couple of checkpoints to reach before you can park your vehicle. The game is lenient to scratches here and there and you should have no problems reaching your destination in one piece. After the bus you get to drive a limo and a sports car. There's also a bonus car - an Android truck. That one feels most like an arcade car and is quite fun to drive around.

Christmas. It's an economic phenomenon more than anything else now. A bookstore near my home used to make about 10 times more money during December than it did any other month. The owner said that it's the only reason he keeps the store. 

The game industry is definitely influenced by Christmas as well. Just think how many people are going to find a new Android phone under the Christmas tree.

And here we are. Game developers who can make a use of it. As I have announced on Facebook, Google+ and both AndEngine and Libgdx forums, I was offering a Christmas promotion for all games that feature at least something Christmasy to see the Christmas effect. It even included a free 125x125 button ad on this page.

But nobody wanted to use this promo so I had to update my own game for Christmas. Mr. Dandelion is actually ideal for this, because it has flatlined. The installs and uninstalls are the same. Let's see how Christmas in Google Play Store change it.

Stay tuned for the results and Merry Christmas to you all from Mr. Dandelion!

Warning: You won't actually find a list of fun, challenging, quality, addictive, unique and nice games here. This article is about the games submitted to me for review. And about how they fail to make a good first impression. Which is important to get the attention of potential gamers.

It's been three months since the first game submission for review. 28 games were submitted through the form and many other were submitted through email. I've asked everyone to answer these two questions:

• What makes your game special?   
• Why should people play it?

I look at the answers and if something gets my attention, I download and play the game. But more often then not, the answers are dull and not interesting at all. Especially those answers that can fit both questions. Few examples:

• It's fun and interesting.
• Challenging and unique gameplay.
• Fun and challenging. 

I've picked six most frequently used adjectives in the answers and compared them to reality. The adjectives are: Fun, Challenging, Quality, Addictive, Unique and Nice.

Many good games never get a chance to shine because nobody finds them. There are simply too many games in the Google Play store already. So how do you make your game visible?

I can recommend you thousands of links of mobile marketing companies and all of them will have some important information and interesting tips. But in fact it's not that hard. The most important way of discovery of games is searching the Play store.

First start by asking yourself a question: 

How would I search for my game if I'd like to play it?

So let's say you created a tower defense game with a fantasy theme. Obviously you are targeting tower defense games fans and people who like fantasy genre. So if I was searching for this game, I'd type: "Fantasy Tower Defense" or "Tower Defense Fantasy". And because people with Android phones prefer free games, I might also add "Free". Go ahead and do the search. Do you see any pattern?

First I have to warn you, the articles in the Advanced AndEngine Examples series are not step-by-step tutorials for beginners. These articles are meant for more advanced AndEngine users who already know how to use AndEngine.

AndEngine has a lot of advanced features. The more advanced something gets, the less tutorials there are and even less practical examples. Today I am going to show you two features that not many people know about and even less people use: rendering to a texture and fragment shaders.