I finished an update today for NRG beams that allows you to turn each individual beam 90 degrees, in the free version you can just set this statically, the pay version allows this setting to be randomized. just a little tweak to how you customize this effect !

Get it Now!

Joy of Being Indie - I love marketing.

That last statement may have been more than a little sarcastic.

I realize I have to promote what I make to the masses, that much is obvious. I have read a great many articles where it seems as if the developer expected a "Field Of Dreams" sort of mechanic to discovery. If they build it people will come.

Unfortunately the reality is google play has over 1 million apps with more being added all the time, so an equally real fact is some of your time will be spent marketing what you do.

I will be the first to admit I hate this prospect, I always feel like its a bit of a begging sort of nag to do so. I know people who have downloaded and used my apps often grow to like them and your support is greatly appreciated.

If you enjoy what I do please tell some friends, share it on your social media and help me get the name out there. I am a one man show, and honestly I much prefer making stuff to selling/promoting it. With that in mind anything you the people who use my apps can do to grow my brand, it comes with the upmost respect and appreciation. More Users = more drive to do what I do and create interesting things for you lot to use.

Thanks for listening

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Fun With Arctangent.

So I am working away on a new live wallpaper today, this one is going to be a sprite plotter I can top it out at 4000 plots with no slowdown. I am basing it off a simple math function many of you may recall from school. Its an arctangent operation. each time a sprite spawns at a random x/y it is run through an arctangent operation comparing it to the screen center, determining an angle. so its a bit of a take on an oldschool starfield, but instead of stars it is stuff. It will be fun to draw all sorts of funky little icons for it. Feel free to comment and suggest a name as the best 2 that have popped into my head are "Icon Blaster" or "Emoji Blaster" and neither of those are very good.

-Munkee

Not bad. Thank you people

After a little bit of time on the store with my apps it has become apparent that a bigger challenge than making a great app will always be making that app visible. from looking at the stats this morning, I have now crossed 1000 installs of NRG Beams Live Wallpaper I am very happy with this result.

As a new developer I wasn't sure when I started out if people would care at all about what I was doing. If you haven't yet give it a try

I will be adding more features to this and the other apps soon!

-Munkee

Thank You for your support so far

This post goes out to those that have tried my apps so far, and those who continue to use them. Thank you. As a new developer its sometimes difficult to be seen amongs the immense pile of applications in the app store.

The response so far has been pretty nice. I am becoming more inspired and encouraged by the day. Thanks for the support.

There is more to come I have 3 more effects near completion and plenty of ideas so stay tuned the best is yet to come!

-Munkee

Go Ahead and give them a try!

Get them on google play!

MunkeeBonez - The Backstory, how we got here.

I thought I'd tell a little story today, about how I came to become a computer programming sort of guy.

In a time long long ago, I was a boy with a computer. My first computer was a commodore c64, and I loved it to death. I played games for hours on it, wrote little basic programs that printed that "Dave Rules!" over and over again on the screen and fell in love. It was a deep fascination that deepened further when I got my hands on this badboy depicted to your left. It was a cartridge that allowed me to freeze a running program and look at the memory, seeing all the beautiful machine language that made it go.

This opened up a rather large can of worms, one that began a life long journey of learning that led me to now. I became enamored with something called the "Demo Scene" amateur programmers artists and musicians would get together and release small programs that showcased what they could do with the computer. On a commodore c64, not surprisingly it wasn't all that much it was far too slow a machine. However it was pretty amazing what you could make that thing do.

If you fast forward to the present day, a much older version of myself has kept up his curiousity learning along the way much more modern programming, better music production and better art tools.

What has been released so far on android is just an extension of that original "genesis moment" way back when I was a young 11 year old computer enthusiast.

Mapping The Fractal - An update

 Working away at the next release, I am heavily mapping the julia fractal much like I did with the mandelbrot, it should look amazing and offer a great deal of flexability for the end user.

So definitely there is more to come, it just takes some time to explore such a rich fractal equation. There are quite literally infinite possibilities.




The effect will allow for full control over color, targets, zoom depth, and whether it is a morph effect or zoom effect. It is definitely going well but it takes time to figure out exactly how I want it to be.

- Munkee

p.s. thank you for the support thusfar glad to see some are enjoying what I have done.

Feature Updates - NRG Beams & Warp Rings

 Today I added new features to both NRG Beams & Warp Rings Live wallpaper

For NRG Beams I added individual control over the beam speed, for the free version 0% - 100%, and 0% - 200% for the pay version. It allows you to slow things right down, or in the case of the pay version speed them up. Adds some nice visual options, a sort of parallax type effect is possible now. In the pay version this setting was also added to the randomizer.

Free Version | Pay Version

 

For Warp Rings, I added magnification to each of the ring sets individually. The Free version has magnification from 1x - 5x. The pay version has 1x - 11x. This allows for some really interesting optical effects and gives the user more control. In future the pay version will probably allow for the magnification to be cycled, making the effect even more customizable. The pay version also allows this setting to be randomized.

Free Version | Pay Version



Whats Next: I am working on another effect of course, so far the response to M-Fractal has been pretty great for the short time it existed, so I am going down that road with another fractal set, the Julia.. stay tuned.

-Munkee

Plasmatic - v1.10 New Feature

Added a new feature to plasmatic live wallpaper today.

I wanted to give the user a way to control the flow speed of the plasma itself, there are some out there that might prefer extremely slow speeds for this, and some who want more hyperactive liquid motion. I am happy to say you can now do both.

The Pay version has more range in this regard (400% of normal as compared to 150% for the free Lite Version) as well as the ability to randomize this along with all other settings.

Free Version | Pay Version

M-Fractal Live Wallpaper Preview Video

Got The Promo Video for m-fractal live wallpaper done, I still have to find a better capture solution that I am using, the idea of getting decent video & livewallpaper performance both at once on the same device can be dicey. gets the point accross and the real thing is always better.

Munkee

5th Release - M-Fractal Live Wallpaper

Released October 2nd, 2015:

M-Fractal Live Wallpaper is a very customize happy exploration of the Mandelbrot Fractal Set.

Configure the color, zoom depth/speed, rotation, and target (from 40 positions in the free version, and 80 in the pay version). You can even set the targets to cycle, and how long you stay at each destination.

Its a very hypnotic effect. At several points during testing I realized I had sunk an hour or two of my time staring at my screen keeping the phone screen from sleeping.

Free Version | Pay Version

ColorPuddle V1.10 - New Features

New Features were added to color puddle live wallpaper today.

I added the ability to define a custom center point.

In the free version you can do that. The pay version is much more flexable. You can not only define a center point you can decide whether it moves independently in either axis, and how quickly.  As well you can, as with all other settings set it to random mode and it will choose everything for you.

Free Version | Pay Version

Hard At Work - Watch Out!

The past bunch of days I have been working on a bunch of things, new features are coming for all of the currently released wallpapers. I have thought of a few things to add, and that will be headed to an android device near you very shortly.

That is, after the release (which should be tomorrow) of M-Fractal, a very cool new wallpaper featuring the mandelbrot fractal.  When I first got my android device, I remember looking up fractal apps being one of the first things I did, and none of what I found satisfied what I was looking for in a fractal effect.

That all changes tomorrow. - stay tuned.

-MunkeeBonez

Live Wallpaper Battery Drain.

From doing reading on the web the topic of battery drain from live wallpapers on android devices is quite heavily discussed. Many will disagree with me but I am of the opinion (a well researched one due to development of live wallpapers) that they really don't affect battery life in any significant way. Allow me to explain in detail.

The android live wallpaper service extends an engine when the wallpaper is visible, think of it like a cannon who's only function is to fire off a live wallpaper when requested (visible). unless some serious mistakes were made in development (almost too difficult to replicate without effort). when a live wallpaper loses visibility the service itself tears down. In effect the cannon sits waiting to fire a wallpaper. So if you open messenger, or your screen sleeps, or anything covers the homescreen it will wait until you bring it into focus to 'fire' another instance of the engine.

I am not saying a developer couldn't make a grievous error that would cause the wallpaper to continue running even when hidden, but it would take a rather concerted effort to do so.

As for the actual wallpaper content that varies, very complex rendering could indeed consume more battery than a static black screen, this is true. BUT! unless you stare at the wallpaper and keep your screen awake watching it, it won't be a continuous drain, your screen sleeps or you do something else with your phone, the drain ceases.

Overall with regular typical phone use the impact of using a live wallpaper shouldn't be of much significance to be of concern, unless you are really into micromanaging for battery life.

If you are here is something you may not be aware of. This is the real battery consumer for your phone/tablet whether you choose to believe it or not.

wifi, radio signal, and bluetooth <-- although these aren't specifically metered the very technology used for connectivity provides a more constant strain on your battery than anything on your screen ever could, with the exception of heavy duty 3d gaming (and the hot phones they create).

so if you have an android, why not use a live wallpaper if you like. Enjoy the exclusive feature afforded to you. If you drain the battery staring at a wallpaper, it has entertained you, and you can recharge your device.

-Munkee

NRG Beams Live Wallpaper Preview Video

Finished The Preview Video for NRG Beams Live Wallpaper

Warp Rings Live Wallpaper Preview Video

Finished The Preview Video for Warp Rings

Color Puddle Live Wallpaper Promotional Video

Finished The preview video for color puddle live wallpaper, 2 down and 2 to go

Plasmatic Live Wallpaper Preview Video

 

After Some Fussing About I got the first preview video for the live wallpapers done. my video editing can only improve!

First Week Down - Reflections, Observations etc.

Well I have officially passed my first week of existence as a android app developer publicly. So far it has gone well, I have plenty of things I am preparing to release but at the moment I am spending some time in non-linear editing software trying to get promotional videos in the existing application's store listings.

I have also done some extensive research on app promotion. I have discovered it is quite a lot like trying to be a model. (Not that I have ever tried to do that, don't have the cheekbones). There are many many services out there that will "promote your app for $$". I think I am being smart here, but I am not buying into any of it. It would seem there is a great proportion of grey area marketing, if not blacker than black when it comes to app stores.

I am realistic, I don't expect to ever make a tonne of money doing apps, its too big of an ocean and I am one of many tiny fish. My focus is making quality things that are interesting to me, and perhaps to others. If an app takes off and becomes successful, sure that will be great but I want to obtain such a victory honestly.

It doesn't take much time researching the store to realize that many don't share my point of view, and are perfectly happy with hollow and fake victories. You quickly see fake positive reviews, fake negative reviews from compeditors and all manner of things done in an attempt to play with the numbers.

Call me a purist (which is why I likely will never be super rich) I would much rather the progress come naturally, and through positive word of mouth, than trickery or purchasing influence. At the end of the day even if no-one knew, I would. My plan is to make quality things, hopefully that is enticement enough.

MunkeeBonez

4th Release - NRG Beams Live Wallpaper

Released Today - September 16th, 2015

NRG Beams Live wallpaper is 3glowing, bending, stretching and spinning beams of light moving across your homescreen. This effect is aimed at higher end / newer smartphone GPU's I will likely do a blog specifically about the math involved in this one. 2 techniques Perlin Noise, and Fractional Brownian Motion were used to get the look I wanted. Enjoy!

Get it from Google Play
Free Version | Paid Version

3rd Release - Warp Rings Live Wallpaper

Released Today - September 15th, 2015

Warp Rings Live wallpaper is 2 sets of rings flying, stretching and spinning all over your homescreen. It is based on an older effect called "moire interference" For those who were fans of the amiga & pc demoscene of the early 1990's you may recognize this effect. Future Crew's "Panic" comes to mind as one demo that used it to great effect. Enjoy!

Get it from Google Play
Free | Paid

2nd Release - Color Puddle Live Wallpaper

Today I released Color Puddle Live Wallpaer. This one is a ripple effect with color undulating through a radial water ripple. I have always liked effects like this, so I knew this was something that I would make given half the chance.

So far the experience of releasing on Google Play has been outstanding, I love their systems, very easy and intuitive to use. Enjoy

Free Version  | Paid Version