When you become trapped under a pile of items in The Incident, it is possible to shake the device to activate an escape bubble. The escape bubble floats you to the top of the pile and releases you.

We came up with the idea of the escape bubble when we discovered how frustrating it can be to become stuck under the pile. It’s just not fun. We did consider the possibility that people might try to deliberately trap themselves and use the escape bubble to get a free ride to the top but we thought that we could counteract this behavior by releasing a curse balloon whenever the player became trapped. This would force them to escape are soon as possible. It helped, but it wasn’t perfect. It was still possible to play chicken with the balloon; waiting until the last possible second and then shaking the device to escape.

So for The Incident 1.2, we’re making it that the escape bubble needs to be recharged after usage.

View it at Vimeo

We’re still fine tuning details like how long the recharge should take, where the gauge should be positioned on the screen and so on, but this is the basic idea.

So The Incident 1.1 was recently released. Like 1.0, it was supposed to be listed in the Action games and Arcade games categories but at the moment, it is only appearing in the Action category. This is caused by a bug in iTunes Connect and it’s exacerbated by the inability to adjust an application’s category without submitting a new version. Here’s what’s going on.

When a developer clicks the “Add Version” button, the metadata for the application is pre-populated based on the existing metadata. Take Pocketball as an example:

The only new information on that screen that wasn’t transferred from 1.1 is the compulsory “What’s New in this Version”. Everything else is unchanged. Except for the Primary Category. That’s broken.

When “Games” is selected as the Primary Category, the developer may specify two Game subcategories. In the case of The Incident, that should have been Action and Arcade. In the case of Pocketball, it should be Puzzle and Simulation. Instead, take a closer look at what it’s gone and done:

One of the Games subcategories, “Simulation” has become the secondary category. This is the bug. This is what it looks like when you try to edit the metadata:

Notice that the secondary category looks empty here and that only one games subcategory is specified. The developer can fix the issue by specifying the two games subcategory manually but changes can’t be made here once the application is Ready for Sale.

I’ve submitted a Bug Report with Apple and I’ve been trying to get this fixed for The Incident 1.1. It’s impossible to know whether it is affecting sales but it certainly can’t help.

Now available for sale. Snap it up! Super exciting release notes:

• Tweet your trophies! Send a photo of your trophy to Twitter.
• Support for both landscape orientations on iPad.
• Lots of tweaks and bug fixes.

Or, if you’re so inclined, you can check out my crazy detailed list of changes.

And here is a very detailed list of changes.

iPad now supports both landscape orientations

For performance reasons, the iPhone still only supports the one landscape orientation.

Twitter Integration

This got its own post.

You can now upload your trophies to Twitter.

Fixed a trophy screen lock-up issue

When Frank dies, user interaction is disabled while the screen fades from the stage to the trophy screen. If the screen was locked during the fade, the fading would pause. When you returned the game, the fading wouldn’t resume. The upshot is that the game would ignore user interaction until it was exited.

Fixed the shake on options screen crash

I found this one quite amusing. If you shake on the options screen, the Frank that’s walking on top of the sensitivity slider would attempt to bubble. There is no code for verifying whether or not he can he can bubble on the option screen so, of course, it would crash.

Fixed the default sensitivity on iPad

This was very disappointing oversight and probably gave a bad first impression to iPad users. The sensitivity slider on iPads was set very low by default. It is now set to a sensible default.

Fixed an issue that could cause progress to be lost if the device is locked during launch

Yeah. This was a lot of fun. Here’s how it worked, or rather, didn’t work: When the game starts up, it loads up the game state. Game state includes the number of unlocked levels, which gems were collected, how many coins were collected, etc. When the game shuts down, the game state is saved. Consider what might happen if the game is shutdown before it has finished starting up; it will save a game state that hasn’t been loaded in yet. The result: loss of progress.

Now, as it turns out, I actually caught this bug before releasing 1.0. The shutdown process ensures that the game finished starting up before saving game state. What I didn’t do was make the equivalent check when locking the screen. Game state is also saved when the screen is locked so if the screen was locked while the game was starting, boom! It would lose your progress.

Added many more save points (in case I missed any crashers)

Just in case I missed any crashers, progress is now saved when a level is completed and when a checkpoint is crossed.

Fixed an issue where Frank could lose invincibility while inside the bubble

I tracked this one down by accident. Frank becomes invincible and starts flashing when he’s hit on the head. He remains invincible for a few seconds. If you activate the bubble while he’s still flashing, then he will continue to flash inside the bubble. If he stopped flashing inside the bubble, he could be hurt.

Added 2 new items

But I’m not going to spoil it.

Buttons flipped on the confirm dialogs (cancel on the left)

It now matches the OS X convention of cancel being on the left.

Added the clock hands to the bank tower in City

Neven originally put the clock hands on a separate layer with the expectation that I would animate them. For performance reasons, I never ended up doing this. I also forgot to put the clock hands back onto the clock. Whoops.

That’s how it looks now.

Added a confirm dialog when opening the website URL from the about screen

The about screen includes a link to http://theincidentapp.com.

I’ve noticed that’s it’s quite easy to accidentally tap it. It now waits for confirmation before firing up Safari.

Fixed the height of the mountains (starts at 1,000m)

Whoops. The level selection screen used to say 500m when the level actually started at 1,000m.

Main Menu fades away if not touched for 20 seconds

Like so:

I think that’s pretty cool.

So tonight, I’m tracking down a bug in The Incident that’s related to getting hit by a curse balloon and having an item drop on your head simultaneously.

Tracking down bugs isn’t supposed to be this much fun.

My partner in crime, Neven Mrgan was recently interviewed by Tim Van Damme for his new show, The Box. Have a listen, it’s really great.

It’s been 13 days since The Incident first hit the App Store and so far, it’s been awesome. And now it’s time for an update.

We will be submitting a new version to the App Store very soon. As well as some bug fixes, that I will discuss at a later date, this version will have a neat new feature. Here it is:

See it? There’s a new “Tweet It!” button. It tweets your trophy and sends an image to TwitPic. Here’s what you get when you tap the button:

There it is, your trophy, gorgeously presented and ready to be tweeted. I can’t resist showing off the 8-bit dialog box we’ve put together for entering account details:

No UIKit here, no sir. Well, except for the on-screen keyboard. Sometimes you just have to know where to draw the line.

Here’s the tweet:

And finally, the image as it appears on TwitPic:

So that is “Tweet This Trophy”. Expect to see it soon!

Average star rating in the US App Store:

I’m sure I’ve jinxed it now.

13 hours after The Incident landed in the App Store:

Just incredible. Such an amazing launch day. Thank you all so much for your support.

Hey guys:

We did it. We actually shipped it. It’s been a long ride but we got there. You can grab it in App Store now for $1.99.