As promised, this year starts the monthly round-ups of the submitted games. I will only consider games submitted through the form. Recently I am getting a lot of submissions in email, but most of the time those are not even games. I need an assistant to go through all of them :)

In January, 11 games were submitted through the form. Here are the three I consider the most interesting of them.

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Tsunami Run - Rory Adventure by ValkA

Rory is a little creature trying to escape a tsunami wave. The game looks very simple from the start, but the first sight is deceiving. You will find the gameplay very smart and not as easy as it seemed. Tsunami Run features cute cartoon graphics and a catchy soundtrack.

The best game submitted for review in January 2014 is definitely this arcade puzzle platformer. Overdroy is beautifully designed and polished and offers tons of fun. If you like games like Super Mario, you should not miss Overdroy!

Overdroy Puzzle Platform was published just a few days ago by Roberto T. Fauri. The author created the whole game himself (exluding couple of sound effects). The graphics, music, gameplay. Quoting his own words, he always wanted to create a game and after many years he finally succeeded. And it's a good one!

The game visuals will catch your eye immediately. Short loading times, modern interface, big play button - tap and play. The game explains everything at the beginning. The pace is great. You are taken through few very easy levels in a couple of minutes just to get stuck in level 5 with the first real puzzle. How to activate that exit?

If your precious Xperia ZR in standby mode doesn't turn on the screen immediately after your press the power button, don't panic. This happens to many people on all Xperia phones Z/ZL/ZR after the latest update to Android 4.3. If that is your case too, most likely it is not a hardware problem. It is a known bug on Xperia phones running official Sony Jelly Bean update.

In fact the phone works. The button press gets registered, but it takes some time to wake up. Maybe when you press it repeatedly, you turn it off again and then it seems it's not working at all. Or the first button press wakes up some process and only the second button press is registered as the real button press.

I suspect the delay is caused by something running in the background and in my case it was the stamina mode. It can also be something else. Maybe some other battery saving app or any other process running in the background. I have set up the stamina mode to keep most of my messaging apps running. When I turn off the stamina mode, tha lag is gone and the button works normally!

A lot has changed since I started this website in May 2013. From a humble blog it grew into a website with hundreds of readers daily. Kulíš Android now features blog entries, game reviews, Android game development tutorials and other resources for indie devs. I also created a Facebook page and Twitter account. Since Google+ was kind of forced on us (users in general), the blog has been partly migrated there as well.

I'd like to thank everyone for their support in 2013. Here is what you can expect in the year 2014.

Book reviews and giveaways

If I get my hands on any Android books that could help the game devs, I am going to review them. I  have also made a deal with Packt Publishing and you will see more of the e-book giveaways during this year (one is in progress right now). Packt published a range od Android books, including but not limited to these:

• Unity Android Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide
• Learning Android Canvas
• Voice Application Development for Android
• Mobile Game Design Essentials
• Practical Game Design with Unity and Playmaker 

If you are developing Android games in AndEngine and you already have some experience under your belt, this book can help you master your skill and create even better games. Thanks to the book's publisher Packt, I got my hands on three free e-books and one of the copies including the MagneTank source code can be yours. If you are interested, read on!

As I said, the cookbook would serve you better if you have already tried making a game in AndEngine. It can be used by beginners, too. However it expects you to grasp the basic concepts quickly without much explaining. On the other hand the book is packed with extremely useful recipes and patterns that you should be using in your games.

Sony rolled out the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update for Xperia ZR and other models. Especially the flagship and high-end ones. When you see the little icon in the notification bar letting you know that the new software version 10.4.B.0.569 (or something like that) is ready for your phone, you might not know what to expect. So here it is.

First you should note that this is not a huge upgrade from 4.1. Actually from user's perspective it's just cosmetic. Everything feels a little bit faster, camera app looks different and menus are white.

From a talented game developer Flavien who publishes under the name JUST4FUN comes another addition to the endless runner game genre. In this game you drive a little race kart that can fly as well, which makes A-Kart Paperboy a two-and-a-little-bit dimensional game.

The game purpose is quite simple - get as far as you can! The race track is endless and there are no other racers. Your enemies are different obstacles, rocks, cliffs and ... cats. While trying to avoid all of them, you are supposed to deliver newspaper to designated targets. To make the game more interesting, you can gather coins to buy upgrades that make you go further. There are also different missions to fulfill.

Every upgrade changes the visuals of the kart or the driver. Flavien is a real enthusiast who also makes his own graphics assets and publishes tutorials about AndEngine and drawing cartoon graphics. The graphics are very detailed and the game includes several different worlds with different themes.


The game also includes couple of clever new ideas. A system of warning stickers will help you on the way to avoid falling into the water, hitting a wall or running over a cat. You can use coins not only to buy upgrades, but also to buy boosters that will help you with missions or if you can't accomplish the mission but you were trying really hard, you can buy your way out and skip it. I wish I had this option in Temple Run 2!

The game is fun and has that "one more try" kind of effect. Even if you get frustrated, you will come back and try again, just to see what else the game has to offer. Controlling the game is very easy - it needs just a few swipe gestures. It feels more relaxing than other endless runners while keeping a good pace.

Conclusion

Flavien did a great job as usual and made a well polished game. It's hard to believe that he made the game and all the graphics himself. The game is free - supported with ads and exists in a no-add paid version, too.

Get the free version from Google Play store, or support the developer by purchasing the paid version.

If you are interested in how to draw cartoon graphics like this, check Flavien's tutorial Graphics Made Simple.

This might sound like an obvious thing to do but...

I have created a slightly modified production APK as hundreds time before. But this time I did not install the APK. I was happy enough with the debug version and the change was really small. However I have changed some libraries and it caused the DEX builder to mess up something. The production APK was crashing with java.lang.ClassNotFoundException in dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass. Awesome - I just wasted great opportunity to get some new players during Christmas and probably lost some of the regular players too.

Moral of the story: Always unistall the debug APK, clean your project, build it from scratch and install the production APK before uploading it to the play store using adb -install myapp.apk.