Very Soon!

Hello everyone,

just a quick note, the work on the new Digital Character Sheet: Dark Heresy First Edition App is done! The app has been reviewed successfully by Apple and Google and is almost ready to launch. We are now in pre-launch mode, which means a lot of writing press releases, making screenshots, creating new promotion images, updating our website and social media pages and more 🙂

Once the App is live, we will add a blog post covering every detail of the new app.

Have a nice day!
Thomas

Developer Diary #2

Hello everyone!

We started the weekly developer diary last week and we are going to continue this week (what a surprise!).

Progress

We are still working on the new DH1 app. I’ll post a screenshot of the new design later this week. The new design features a complete rewrite of the navigation, which got changed to a sliding sidebar instead of the top navigation of the DH2 tablet app. We also tried to adapt the book design where it was suitable and I think it looks really cool 🙂 There are still some things to add and colors to change, that’s why we don’t want to show a screenshot just yet.

Milestone!

We are also very happy to announce the 1000th sale of the DH2 app! Thanks for your support! This is a great success for a new company like us and we will continue to provide you with the best digital character sheet apps 🙂

Enemies…

With the release of the new “Enemies Without” supplement, we are getting a lot of questions from you asking if and when the supplement will be available in the DH2 app. The good news is: YES, the new supplement will be added to the DH2 app. The bad news? This won’t be done this week, because we need to finish the DH1 app first. This is not that bad though, but don’t expect a Enemies Without Release this or the next week.

Bugs and problems with the app

In the last week, we got two bug reports via the google play review system. If you have problems with the app, please write us an email (support@dizelabs.com), because it is almost impossible to help you in the 350 characters we have to comment a review.

Thanks again for the App Milestone, and as always, if you have any questions or feedback, you can always write us an email 🙂
Thomas

Developer Diary #1

Hey everyone,

we are currently working on the Dark Heresy first edition version of the digital character sheet app. This is always a time where we can’t show much or post a lot of update, so we thought we can at least provide you with a weekly developer diary.

The last week, we finished the first edition character creator and started working on a brand new huge component for the new app called “path planner”. This module allows you to select which advances and ranks you want to take, and plan your character in great detail, so you don’t have to think about your advances each week. We think it is a great addition and considering DH1 has more than seven supplements with alternate ranks and classes, having it all in one place is just awesome!

This week, we will finish the path planner feature, add the new design and hopefully complete the database. As usual, it always takes longer than expected, but we are making progress and you should be able to create your characters for DH1 in November.

Also, if we find the time, we will try to launch the DH2 app for windows phones this week. This won’t be a windows (pc) program, because this is something we want to have time for and build from scratch with another engine, more features and a better UI, but it will be the same app that iOS and Android users are loving since the launch in May 🙂

If you’ve got any questions about the apps, got a feature idea or find a bug, just send us an e-mail.

Have a nice day!
Thomas

Dark Heresy Digital Character Sheet 1.3.1 released

And here is the inevitable bugfix release. But this time, we’ve even added new features!

Changes in this version:

  • fixed: Player Name missing in PDF export
  • fixed: Non-default skill names break PDF export
  • fixed: Elite Advances shown as [object] in PDF
  • fixed: Mementos missing in PDF export
  • fixed: XP calculation wrong in PDF export
  • fixed: NaN shown in modifiers on first combat action with character
  • changed: new waiting-popup while pdf is being created
  • added: Damage Dice Rolls in Multiplayer Chat

Damage Dice Rolls:
Just type “1d10” to throw a D10 and get the result. This works like the other dice rolls, just without the target value.

Non-default skill names in PDF:
The skill names in the DH2 (Paper) Sheet Template are quite “hard-coded”, which means you cannot add your own skills in the template except for Lores and Trades. In the 1.3.x version, we try to stick to the original template wherever possible, which unfortunately removes the ability to add custom skills in the pdf export (they are of course shown in the app itself). In the 1.3.0 version, custom skill names broke the pdf export, which has been fixed in 1.3.1. We might change the skill creation in the future to allow the export of all skills, but for now, if you want to be on the save side, use the search function to add new skills. These skills will have the right name format to be displayed in the PDF. Perhaps an example is easier to understand: If you name your Skill “FL: Underworld”, it won’t be shown on the PDF export, because the app does not know what FL stands for. If you stick to our naming conventions and name the skill “Forbidden Lore (Underworld)” or “Forbidden Lore: Underworld “, it will be shown at the right spot in the PDF.

Dark Heresy Digital Character Sheet App 1.3.0 released!

promo_640x300_092015_1

Today, we have released the new free content update for the Dark Heresy Digital Character Sheet App called “Multiplayer“. In this update, we added two very important features: multiplayer and printable character sheets!

Changes in this version:

  • added: Multiplayer
  • added: Printable Character Sheets (export as .pdf file)
  • added: Character Cloud Backup
  • added: Power Save Mode Button
  • added: Combat Actions
  • added: Error Indicators
  • added: Max Carry Weight modifier
  • fixed: Ammo reloading
  • and as always bugfixes and minor improvements

Details about each change can be found in our update reveal post.

— How to Install —

The new update will be automatically downloaded to your app if your device is connected to the internet (download size 10mb). You don‘t have to wait for the update to go live on the app stores. Once the download is complete, the app will restart and you should see the new additions immediately. If you want to be sure, check the version at the bottom of the overview tab, it should read version 1.3.0.

— What’s next —

We will gather feedback and release a bugfix patch when necessary (we highly doubt we found all bugs in such a big update…). If you find a bug, please report it via mail to support@dizelabs.com and please include the character file of your active character when the bug happened.

We’re now working on the Dark Heresy 1st Edition App. Once this is live, it is time to go back to the 2nd Edition app (this one here), add the new supplement which is being released later this year and also add a bunch of new features 🙂

— Feedback —

If you are experiencing any problems with the new content update, found a bug, have an idea for a new feature or just want to talk about the app, just write us an email, comment and like us on facebook and follow @dievo on twitter :p And of course don‘t forget to check or company blog at http://blog.dizlabs.com for news, updates and stories about the ongoing development of the Dark Heresy: Digital Character Sheet App.

Have a nice day!
Thomas

DIZELABS GbR

web: http://www.dizelabs.com
blog: http://blog.dizelabs.com
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dhdcs

Content Update 1.3.0

MEMORY ERROR MEMORY ERROR MEMORY ERROR. This haunted us for the last few weeks…

== Sorry ==

First of all, sorry about the “radio silence”, we were working day and night to finish the release (besides other problems which we needed to solve first). In the beginning, we tried to provide a new app version around every three weeks. This time, it took a bit longer.

== Memory Error Problem ==

After we were done coding all the features and fixing bugs on August 29th, we started our final tests. In this stage, we are copying the app on all of our test devices and start testing the new features. Normally, nothing goes wrong in this stage, because we also use a small subset of these devices in our development stage. We were quite shocked to see that all iOS devices and a few android devices crashed on the PDF generation with a “Memory Error”. For the technical people: Let’s take an iPad for example. Any app on it is allowed to use 500mb RAM. If the app goes beyond this limit, the app closes instantly without any error message. This happened every time we tried to generate a character sheet PDF file.

Eventually, we scrapped the whole PDF generation and started over with a new approach. After a week with very little sleep and over 400 generated pdfs, the new sheet was done, works great, looks almost exactly like the FFG Character Sheet (except for the background, which is white on our sheet).

With the PDF Generator done, the new version is finally complete and, after a last round of tests and the usual approval process, will be pushed to the server. To be on the safe side, I expect the update to go live on monday, but maybe we will get it live faster.

== Mystery Image ==

You might remember our cool mysterious image we revealed step by step on our blog. This was a badly executed marketing attempt to hype the new patch and we are very sorry about that. We are a new company and still have a lot to learn, but we promise we won’t do a guessing game this way ever again 😉

But I think we still owe you the final image, so here it is:

screen7

== Content Update 1.3.0 ==

Here is the full list of what is new in the 1.3.0 update:

  • Multiplayer:
    Play with your friends! The multiplayer allows you to create rooms for you and your friends, where each dice roll made in the app, every initiative roll and every combat action is shared with all characters in the room. You can view the character sheets of your friends and the inquisitor can add multiplayer characters to the warband.
    mp
  • Printable Character Sheets:
    The most requested feature is finally in the app. Create a pdf file from any of your characters by clicking the “create PDF sheet” button in the character backup popup (due to technical limitations, only the currently active character can be exported to pdf, so please activate the character you like to export first). The PDF File will be stored in the same folder as the character backup files and can be viewed and printed by any pdf viewer.
    pdf1_1 pdf2_2
  • Character Cloud Backup:
    It is now possible to create backups of your character in the cloud. It works like the offline backup, but it is in the cloud! 🙂 It should work even if you delete the app from your device and later install it again.
  • Power Save Mode Button:
    There is a new button in the footer of the overview tab. It enables/disables the power save functionality of your device (only for DHDCS), which means the screen will not darken after a few minutes.
  • Combat Actions:
    Ever wondered what you can do during a fight? All Combat Actions from the source book are now in the combat tab, easily accessible via the search function and including a description. If the action involves rolling dice, the app automatically shows this option. It also includes any dice modifiers made for example by aiming (even half and full round aim) and all out attacks.
  • Error Indicators:
    Duplicate Aptitudes and negative Experience Points are now shown in bright red to help you spot these sheet errors.
  • Touch the “Max Carry Weight” line in the inventory section to add a modifier (for example because you are wearing a backpack)
  • Reloading Ammo via the reload button now works as expected
  • lots of minor bugfixes

We hope you’ll like the new version 🙂

== Videos ==

In the very near future (next week), we will open a youtube channel with tutorial videos on how to handle the app as well as feature overviews and more.

== What’s next? ==

With the new release, we think that the Dark Heresy 2nd Edition App is in a good state for the moment. It is quite possible that we will release a bugfix patch or two next, depending on the stability of the multiplayer. Our next project, the Dark Heresy 1st Edition App, is already in the making and will be out quite soon. The next big content update for the 2nd Edition is planned with the release of the “Enemies Without” supplement.

If you have any questions, ideas or problems with the app, just send us a mail and we will try to help you maybe integrate your idea in the next update. Of course, I am also here every day to answer any posts 🙂

Current state of “isitcut”

With all the buzz and news around our “Dark Heresy Digital Character Sheet” app, one might forget that we also have another app in store called “isitcut”. In Germany, we have a very strict movie rating system, which results in many movies being cut to get a wider audience. With isitcut, users should be able to see if they are going to buy a cut or uncut film by scanning the barcode.

Unfortunately, we cannot run isitcut the way we want to at the moment. Every barcode has to be checked by us manually, title and publisher added and then the search for “cut or uncut” begins.

Another problem is the payment model. When we started the project, we thought a 1 Euro per 5 checks (with the first 5 being free) seemed reasonable, because if you don’t buy one movie because it is cut, you saved yourself around 10 Euro (or more). In the two years we are running this app, we sold two in-app purchases for a total revenue of 1,40 Euro.

So, did the app fail? Maybe. Was it a good idea? Absolutely!

The future of “isitcut” is uncertain. At the moment, we have to concentrate all our efforts on our Warhammer apps. Maybe we will just make isitcut community driven, which means we eliminate the in-app purchase and add a form into the app to add movies.