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I have been working with and around games of over ten years. My introduction into games was that of a Game Artist. During that time I focused my skills on learn Maya, 3D Studio Max, ZBrush and eventually Blender. By way of these friendly 3D programs I created high-poly 3D models which I painted in ZBrush and baked out to 2D illustrated digital paintings that I cleaned up in Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint.

It was during this time I also began using Unity 3D. I interacted with Unity by replacing grey box development levels or just adding by adding my own low-poly models to be published to Github for a future Unity 3D Games test build.

Today’s new frontier is the development of Mobile Games and Game Apps.

In the following blog I am listing important links I have discovered that I continually return to for the information they provide. With these links I hope to write out a discription and notes to why they are valuable and how each of them fit with in my current Mobile Games Development Process.

Z-Shell Commands

Firebase Console

Firebase installation for iOS and Xcode

Xcode Install

import UIKit
import FirebaseCore

@UIApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
var window: UIWindow?
  func application(_ application: UIApplication,
    didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions:
      [UIApplicationLaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
    FirebaseApp.configure()
    return true
  }
}

As I barely get across the threshold of releasing my first game I discover there are new challenges abroad.

When I began looking to develop my first mobile game, Unity became my choice for game development. Since that time however Unity has changed their advertisement structure 3 times.

Being an Game Artist first and foremost, and a programmer on the side made this a bit of an up hill challenge.

Today, Unity has settled on using Iron Source as their advertising center. So I am in the process of interrupting and implementing the new “Iron Source” system.

Yet as I cross this bridge I am also discovering the new “Data Safety” policies of Google. With each API that is in stalled, the developer must share how that information is used and shared.

Therefore in order to make this information both more accessible to me and the users I am going to list links to the APIs I use. My goal is that you can follow these links and know who is collecting and using any of your data and what it is used for. As well as opportunities to opt out and delete any information that was possibly shared.

Google Play Authentication

Iron Source’s Advertisement Usage

Firebase API Data Safety and Usage Form

Also in using FireBase I am learning new tools, hopefully to improve, our games. Below is a list of FireBase Tools I am actively using and researching.

Firebase App Check
Firebase App Check protects your API resources from abuse by preventing unauthorized clients from accessing your backend resources. It works with both Firebase services, Google Cloud services, and your own APIs to keep your resources safe.

Analyzing Color Values for Cockroach Character

Roachie is the best name I can come up with for this character. This roach is a lady and a very fine one at that.

In developing the artwork for the Candy Corn Critter Mobile Game I tend to be a stickler in every area. My current issue was not being able to separate the critter characters from the background artwork.

Did you know one of the biggest challenges to developing artwork for mobile games color profiles. In adevertising the artist always had to be aware of what color porfiles they would be developing the artwork in and where that art work would later be displayed.

With the growing power of Android and Apple devices as well as 4k, HD, OLED, and so on an artist is going to need a better understanding of the color spectrum for print, web, mobile games and console games and televisions. branding and marketing. Below are a few links to help learn more about the how the color spectrum is optimized by each color profile for each device.

Enhance graphics with wide color content for Android Color Profiles

Artwork has the power to communicate powerful emotions

If you are like me, images or artwork are more impactful than words. Through images even children can understand people’s emotions faster than long drawn out sentences and lengthy paragraphs. Art can be one of the funnest way to share ones feelings and emotions. No wonder, through the advent of technology, sharing emojis has become an exciting and humorous way to express your feelings and current state of being.

Today emoji’s are now as common as a handshake

Sending an emoji has become my most common way of responding to text messages. It is a fun way to find the perfect expression to response to someone’s comment with a wacky cartoon or image based on how their text made you feel. As an concept artist a great benefit to designing an emoji is having the same container shape for each individual expressions. The only challenge was deciding what that shape should be.

Exploring which Emoji Design possibilities turned into a daunting task

I didn’t want design emojis based on the already well known yellow emoji heads. As I considers all the options for my emojis I kept coming back to the thought of a candy as the subject matter. Candies are colorful and simple shapes and come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Still which candy to drive my emoji was still allusive to me. So, I considered and sketched alternatives, fruits, animals or a type of food sticker. Unfortunately, nothing clicked.

During the time when I was contemplating which the muse for my emoji’s stickers, my parents were in town for a visit. My father enjoys traveling with a container of salted nuts for snack. Dad likes to add a few hand fulls of candy corns to the nuts to create a sweet and salty combination. I was snacking on my Dad’s candy corn and salted nut concoction when I had my epiphany. Candy Corn was the unique candy to derive my candy emojis stickers from.

Candy corns and their magical connection into Halloween

The add benefit of using candy corns as my emoji sticker pack of choice was their natural connection to Halloween. Halloween is probably my favorite holiday along with Christmas. The magic of Halloween allows even adults to dress up and use their imagination. This connection of candy corn and Halloween would also help me to unlock the concept for my upcoming Kickstarter mobile game Candy Corn Critters.

Now I knew the subject for my stickers next step was to decide which platform to release my sticker pack to, the Google Play Store, Apple’s App Store, Facebook Messenger, Amazon or WhatsApp. At this point point in my life, the only App Store I had ever used was Apple’s. Also in considering all my family kids, wife, and extended family used iPhones. Also I wasn’t sure how many of them were using messenger or WhatsApp. So my final decision landed on Apple’s App Store.

You can follow the link here to take you to the final product, My Candy Corn Stickers.

To be honest the only online stores I had the most experience with was Apple’s App Store. As a start-up indie game developer I decided it would be a great benefit to become familiar with one of the online App Stores, either Google Play Store or Apple’s store. Since my family and I iPhones and I use a Mackbook and illustrate all my work on an iPad, I decide to start with Apple’s App store.

Now that the I identified where I was going go sell my stickers I wanted to keep the scope of our first project as an indie game developer low so I settled on just trying to publish a sticker pack. was to create a sticker pack for the app store. With meme stickers, emoji stickers and the success of Candy Crush and it’s candy stickers. Focusing on a food sticker seemed like a good idea for Apple’s

Landing Page – Game – Game Terms of Service – Games Privacy Policy – Stickers – Privacy Policy – About – Corner Stone Page – Contact – Blogs

Watch this TikTok of me enjoying a morning sketch of one of my favorite critters the Spidey. Also witness the development of Nibbles the friendly or not so friendly Venus flytrap from the Halloween world of Candy Corn Critters.

Prior to character designing the critters I had already started games background. Once I decided on the concept for the my mobile game I began researching artwork that inspired me as well as what I felt the look of the game should look like. Once I pulled together several pieces of artwork and other inspirations I narrowed down the samples to images that best conveyed my desired concept for the game. Drawing from these inspirations I started with loose sketch. Once I had a good batch of loose sketches I picked one to tighten up.

After tightening up the the sketch I dropped some color on it. Unfortunately once adding color and defining some shapes I wasn’t the happiest with the look of this critter. Once I was done I felt this critter looked a little too mean. My original intent for the critter to design characters that looked very alien, strange, and weird, but as I continued their illustration I felt making these character designs look more like actual bugs or varmint would be more benificial. Still I wanted each critter to be identifiable with the bug or varment it was to represent but in a unique style.

Great storytelling is the heart of all my endeavors. With any story my brain immediately goes to work imagining what is and what could be and where all the possibilities could lead. When delving into storytelling for me, the art is the easy part. It is what I have been doing since I was a kid. The hard part was get what my imagination could see out and on to a, a, a, Mobile Device that everyone in the world could interact with was mind blowing and a challenge I happily wanted to pursue.

Probably, as with any artist one is going to look for the easiest means to accomplish a task as possible. After years of experience I had already given into the fact that for what I wanted to create I was not going to find some magic app or software that simply put everything I dreamt directly into a mobile device. So, my first challenge was to decide which game engine I should choose to develop my game. I had already dabbled with several but the one I truly had the most experience with was Unity 3D. Unity has changed immensely since I first started using it, but in a good way.

By deciding to go with Unity 3D, this decision intuitively helped me decide which programing language I was going to learn as well, C-Shap, since it is native to the Unity Software.

I really enjoy many aspects of programming. Yet, the hardest part of learning the programing language is “learning the language!” A better way of saying it is learning the, “syntax.” Understanding the concepts for loops, arrays, dictionaries, namespaces, etc. is really easy, however knowing the syntax in order to call these concepts is like trying to find the holy grail.

Prior to choosing a language to learn for game development I had to Between all the

Today Unity has several game developer programs and tutorial paths that help introductory developers get started as well as help develop a for seeable path for ones game development dreams.

After many, many, tutorials and practice game applications I felt ready to start working on my own game. Unfortunately, one doesn’t really realize all the aspects of what goes in to making an indie game from sitting on the side lines. As I considered the scope of my personal game I needed to focus on one of my favorite parts of game design is developing an idea. The root, the source, the foundation, the canonized story from which all other ideas spring.

To help eliminate some aspects of over scoping I wanted to make the character and setting relativly simple yet tapping into what I enjoy, Halloween.

Everyone loves Christmas and I do as well but Halloween is probably one of my favorite times of year. Though I may enjoy the some of the aspects of horror the real joy derives from all them magical and fantastical creatures, monsters, and stories which surround this holiday.

Reviewing what resources I already had at my disposal along with a possible story and scope Kawaii Candy Corn Sticker and had success getting them into the App Store.

As I consider the possibilities for my game which now included Candy Corns, I finally arrived at the idea all humans are all to familiar with fear. And, uniquely some of the strangest fears derive from simple harmless bugs. So using the already used Candy Corn assets, which you really should go purchase now, here, I jumped into doing some character design sketches of creatures or bugs for this newly developed world.

My first course of action as it always is, is to develop something completely new but something you feel like you have always seen.

Please follow the Social media Links and Like, Follow, Subscribe and share and comment on what you think of this work, process and journey. I would love to hear from you!

I hope everyone enjoys this TikTok video. The purpose of this TikTok is to ask the public which icon they like the best for the Candy Corn Critters mobile game.

For the development of Candy Corn Critters I needed a variety of several new characters designed as opponents for my game. In the development of Candy Corn Critters I was needing some fun looking little bad guys. As I designed these characters I did not want to make these little Critters look mean, bad, evil, or nasty. These little critters are just as guilty as anyone, we like them love Candy Corn and will stop at nothing to get our hands on some.

When designing the Critters I wanted to use very vibrant colors with diverse amounts of colors coming together in harmony in one character. Also the values and colors must pop of the screen and not blend into an already busy background.

With so much concern in to these characters I began liking all of them the same. As the icon was being developed I used the spider as a place holder for game development however with each critter character I found something else that could contribute to a nice icon.

So I am now calling on the game loving public to help me decide which icon is the strongest. Remember this little icon with have to compete for your attention amongst all the other icons on your iPhone or Android phone.

Please leave your choice on one of the social media platforms:
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, BrianLindahl.com, Deviant Art, Art Station, Contact.

“So chose wisely…”