Happy Valentine's Day and Other Important Announcements

Hey Everyone!

First I would like to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! Its a nice day to show and tell the ones you love how much you appreciate them. Upon writing this blog, Keyeske and I just received some chocolate from our neighbors. Aww I have to make something very nice for them! This post will be a long post, mainly because I have not made any other posts lately besides announcing our game releases on the Kindle Fire in the Amazon Appstore.

So on with it shall we?

In Handmade News......

Keyeske and Chykara's Handmade Winter Hats

I've added a few items on my Etsy shop, but truthfully, I really don't want to sell my items. Just a few days ago I took one of my listings down because I decided to give one of them to my neighbor. She was so thrilled to see the hat that I gave her, but it was a big thanks for being such an awesome nice neighbor.

Handmade Hat that was given to our Neighbor ^_^

I've also gave another hat away, I forgot to take a picture of it to show you guys, so I'll make a special post for that one. This concludes the Handmade News, stay tuned for more below :)

 In MagiSoft Developer News......

I honestly think this will be the bulk of the news, because I have so much to say. Nothing bad or anything, just more so a lot of work to do. We are really excited!

Okay not too long before I decided to make this post, I was casually browsing the Android Marketplace and decided to see all of our apps in our profile. I noticed that instead of 12 pages of apps that were usually listed, there was only 4 pages. On top of this, all of the apps except one (guess which one - Maidens Avatar Creator Deluxe) were free. I kept thinking to myself, gee this is a little funny, why aren't all our apps listed? Then I went to check my HTC Evo, and went to one of our game listings and clicked on "View more by MagiSoft" and it was showing the same exact thing I saw on the web. SO, something is really wrong there. On the other hand, I had already made a solution and was well prepared for the nuances of Android Market. They have so much of a history of making changes with little to no information given to developers, that I am not surprised anymore. I came ready.

I have a link inside just about every single app that we created that would link to all of our games through search. So, I went to the web and typed in MagiSoft in the search and all our games appeared. I bet your thinking, why share this? Well, since 4 pages of mostly free games show with the link I had from our website, I temporarily changed the link to our Apps on Dream-Maidens to the search method until Android Marketplace fixes the glitch, if they ever intend to fix it. This is all still temporary anyway because I need to have all our games on our website. I've just been passive about getting it together, but now since I am publishing in multiple app stores, I think it would be a good idea to roll out a section for our apps.

We are currently in the process of inviting more of our family and friends into our workspace, educating them about our work, and giving them access and materials to pursue creating games or any other type of online media. We are never stingy or selfish with our skills, and by remaining humble we are always encouraging and motivating others to stay positive and creative. This idea was derived from Keyeske and I preparing a big dinner every Friday for our Family and Friends, which I'll talk about later.

Keyeske and I are almost finished studying Java, and are well on our way to creating some Java programs. We still intend to use Flash for certain things, but we are gathering as much knowledge as we can to keep going. Last month, when I had Jury Duty, I took a Android Game Development book and read through most of the important chapters. It was go hard, but at the same time, if I didn't read anything, I would have been bored out of my mind! Every now and then I will try to add more games up the website, so that we do not lose our wonderful visitors :) I also need to mirror Dream-Maidens and place it on Dark-Maidens with a few adjustments, since it is just a different theme (dark, emo, etc.).

When I was browsing around on LinkedIn the other day, there was a small discussion about HTML5 replacing flash and how it will change the web etc etc. I managed up enough courage to say my spill:

"Just because it is on the decline, doesn't mean that it will disappear. There are still a lot of places that use flash in one form or another, whether it is standalone (air) or web based (flash), actionscript is still great. I think having a background of multiple platforms is really necessary not just for a backup but an all around understanding of programming. I remember when people were using java applets on websites, and some still are, along with flash, and at the same time html5, jquery etc. checkout GaiaOnline to see what I mean. Flash isn't going anywhere, all those great apps on Facebook with millions of people hooked, with flash being the graphic power behind most of them. If html5 gets the audio together and a good solid IDE I will definitely port my flash games as a great way for my Apple friends to see my creations :)"

So, I think this will conclude the MagiSoft Developer News. Onto the last section!

In "Oh So Random" (Everything Else) News......

Food from one of Our Dinners

Every since January, Keyeske and I have decided to have a big dinner on Fridays, inviting family and friends to come over. We would make all kinds of food, and have a great time sitting at the dinner table, having a great meal around good company. Not many families sit down and eat at the table anymore, let alone cook food in the kitchen. So, we've dedicated every week to try to get that tradition back, and giving back. Every week there is always a different crowd of people, and then there are a few people that come every week, faithfully.

More Food from one of Our Dinners

Its so nice, because Keyeske and I don't really get a chance to see and talk to people since we work from home. I would like to do this in a big scale one day, but every little bit helps and makes a difference to many. So, if you ever feel it in your heart to gather your friends and family to sit down and talk like they did in the 1950s, then by all means! As of right now, Keyeske is known to make a very delicious fried rice, and I am known for my cornbread and rolls.... and a lot of other food. Keyeske doesn't cook as much as I do, but he helps me out with the things that I cook. How often do you see couples in the kitchen having fun cooking together? I make a big deal out of it because anyone can do this, cooking is a skill that with continual practice, confidence is almost unavoidable. 

We have a few cooking disasters, but we recover well. Keyeske made a cake one time that was stuck to the pan, so it crumbled apart once we got it all out. SO, what he did was scooped them into small balls and added icing on top, calling it "cake balls". They were so good! Last time I was going to fry whiting fish, but the bag of fish was frozen. I thought by putting it in the oven to help thaw the fish would speed up the process, but it did not! It was so soggy and it crumbled apart. SO, I made the whiting like I was going to make salmon cakes, and I called them "whiting cakes". They too, were very good!

My Whiting Cakes

Well this wraps up the "oh so random" news. I need to get to work on some of my projects, and checking out what people are talking about on Google+ ^_^

In conclusion, I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I took the time out to write so much. <3

Take care!

~Chykara