Sneak Peek on Version 1.5 Premium

The future is finally here. We've finally completed development on multi-textured avatars and room furniture. This means that you can change the shirt, pants, shoes, hair, and even skin color of your avatar. We've also included the following in the next premium release:

• furniture store with additional furniture that unlocks once you get a high score on a mini-game
• golf game with 9-hole course

Here are some screen captures:

Limited Time Offer! Ver 1.2 Premium 2 B Free

Great News!! We have submitted the a bug fix to Apple and as a thanks to all of you, we are making the premium version free for a limited time. It should be available in the next few days. That means you will get the frisbee game, disco game, and target practice game all for free! Stay tuned for what's coming next in the soon-to-be-released paid version (which will be a free upgrade to all of you who bought the premium version already).

possible launch bug

Fellow Motropolans,

Heads up -- we found a bug that happens sometimes when you're trying to launch the app. We are working on a fix. In the meantime, we found that if you try launching the app a second time, it should work. We think the bug is related to compiling the app in the 3.1 SDK, but we're still trying to confirm this.

We'll update this blog as we find out more information.

Versions 1.2 Free and Premium On iTunes!

New leader boards in Premium version. See who's the top scorer in Basketball, Hammer Toss, Disco, Target Practice, and Frisbee Throw! Also, See how you match up against your buddies.

check out the new profile screen

Who's Got Game? Send us your best scores

Do you have what it takes to get to the top of the leader board? How do you compare to your friends? Send us a screen shot of your best B-ball and Hammer Toss scores and we'll post the results

Who's that?

The fortune teller is coming to Motropolis. Stay posted!

Coming soon to the iPhone....Version 1.2

Motropolis server maintenance

Hello Motropolans,

In preparation for our upcoming submission to apple, we are upgrading our servers. As a result, Motropolis will not be available during short time intervals from 5 pm – 7 pm Monday August 31st. The server upgrade enables more people per island, as well as island chat and individual avatar clothing items. Thank you for your understanding.

Team Motropolis

日本の「Second　Times」に載っていました。
http://www.secondtimes.net/news/world/20090817_metropolis.html。ご覧ください。

Here's the skinny on the next update

Three new games (dog frisbee throw, disco game, target practice), New avatar clothes, and Group chat on every island!

Motrpolis profiled in Virtual Worlds News

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/08/motropolis-update-in-the-works.html#more

All together now

Fellow Motropolans, Version 1.2 is almost ready for submission to Apple.

Updates for this version include General Chat as well as more visible players per island.

One of the challenges of running virtual worlds on iPhone and other mobile devices has always been seeing other users. Even though there are plenty of people on an island, you can't see or contact them because they aren't visible to you. Until now, we've divided users into 5 per island (viewable) based on iPhone's capabilities.

The engineers figured out a way to speed up the app to show up to 8 or more avatars per island (vs. just the 4 or 5 that you see now)...

Also, on a per island basis users will be able to chat with all other members of Motropolis who are also on that island regardless if they are in your group shard or not... Should make for some interesting conversations!

Lastly, A quick shout out to Psycho-Mantis for a really well thought-out review on the app-store. We are taking everyone's comments to heart and will do our best to answer all emails and communicate via the blog , twitter, Facebook etc.

Keep the mini-games coming!

Based on the overwhelming number of downloads of our new update, we're working on a full-featured version with even more mini-games. Tell a friend!

Here's the new notification before you click out to Safari

Ver 1.1 Update Now on iTunes (took a lot longer than we'd hoped...)

We're happy to say that the version 1.1 update is now available on iTunes.

Here's what's new in this version:

• Shootin' hoops basketball game on Home island
• Strongman game - test your strength at the Carnival in Downtown

There are also numerous bug fixes that we mentioned already (see earlier blog)

The back story:
We submitted this update a few days before OS 3.0 came out. This delayed review by a few weeks, and then we had to make some minor corrections based on Apple guidelines. Bottom line is approval took a lot longer than we had hoped. Thank you for your patience.

We've got a whole lineup of additional stuff to come. Stay tuned!

More on the next update (ver 1.1)

The next update (version 1.1), contains a fix to the problem with chat crashing the app. We have also added the following improvements:

• Cancel during chat invitation
• Dialog check before Safari clickout

On the server side, we also in the process now of fixing a login bug with the following language inputs on the iPhone. We expect to have it implemented by the end of tomorrow or earlier.

• French
• Spanish
• French
• Italy
• Portuguese
• Korean
• Japanese

Status on the next update...

Fellow Motropolans, we've been going back and forth with Apple on the next update and we hope to have it to you very soon. Thank you for your very helpful comments on iTunes (yes, we do read them, Uber-baron), and thank you for your patience.

So many people using Motropolis!

Motropolis has been downloaded in 53 countries now. Brazil has picked up momentum recently, now ranked #5 in our list of users.

Mini games coming this week

Motropolites we're adding two new mini games this week.

On Downtown Island you can test your strength with the Strongman game. You'll have a chance to throw down the hammer three times to see your best score. Look for me swinging the mallet under the Big Top. Please for your own safety, don't stand too close.

Basketball season may be over for now, but it's not on Home Island. Let's see how many shots you can make in 30 seconds with the Shootin' Hoops game. Pocketninja claims to have the highest score at 42 points, I know someone can beat that, it's just not going to be me.

Levitating

How the heck did I get these superpowers? Call it the levitation feature. Great idea.

We're having lots of fun with our release of Motropolis on iPhone. I spent the morning chatting with someone from Greece. How cool is that. Mama Mia!

Live on iPhone App Store

We're live on the App Store! You can go to our website: www.mymotropolis.com to link directly to our app. We've been up less than 12 hours and we got lots of people in the world chatting and checking things out.

We'll be live in 24 hours!

NEWS ALERT! Motropolis was just approved by Apple and will be ready for download from iTunes in 24 hours. Share the awesome.

I wish I had a water balloon

This picture gave us a couple of new ideas for a mini game. Wouldn't it be fun to throw a water balloon over the edge onto one of the other islands below. Fun as long as one doesn't hit me. If it's a water balloon toss not a boomerang toss, I should be OK.

Seeing Double

I hope this isn't going to be in one of those "Who wore it best" articles.

Ever go to a party and someone is wearing the same outfit? Bummer when that happens. In Motropolis we have a variety of avatars to choose from. 

School Uniform?

Not to worry, we don't have a "School Island", this was just another bug we found when testing over the weekend. We got it resolved. We can assure you that we will have a variety of avatars and clothes to choose from.

Memorial Day Sale

Is that a line outside the clothing store? Must be a sale?

Yesterday during testing we tried to see what happens when everyone wants to do same thing -- in this case change avatars.

We're getting close! Should be ready to launch shortly.

Musical Chairs

This is what happens when you're the last one in the room to test....you get the floor seat.

The good news is our testing sessions have been going really well. We're doing multiple sessions each day with teams all over the world from Europe to China to Japan and of course our U.S. team. If our users have half the fun we're having in Motropolis, they're gonna love it!

Seeing ghosts!

OMG. It's the twins from "The Shining!" REDRUM. This is why we're testing.

Who knew product testing could be so much fun...

We had a party on Home Island last night during product testing. Fire up the barbie!

We've added billboards

Now we're trying to decide where to put them. The cool thing is that you can click on the billboard and it will take you to a WAP site. 

final countdown mode

We're in countdown mode this week. Finishing up testing and shooting to submit to Apple next week. Pictures of our US team testing out Motropolis on iPhone. Developers in our China office test with us live every evening on the West Coast. Video of Ian, a.k.a. "pocketninja," (center, right) doing a walk-through coming soon! You'll be seeing a lot more of him.