Monthly Archives: October 2019

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Mass Website Update and Catalina Support and others

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A summary of what I’m doing lately

Catalina Support

All Roseverte Games on Steam has been updated to work with Mac OS Catalina. There are some issue with Cafe 0 ~The Drowned Mermaid~ and Duplicity though, so please read the information carefully on Steam.

For the non-Steam version, I haven’t finished to notarize them, but they should work in Catalina until end of this year (since the notarize is mandatory start from next year). Only the non-Steam version of East Tower, duplicity and CAFE 0 ~The Drowned Mermaid~ might not working yet with Mac Catalina as they are quite old and I haven’t touched them for a while (kind of confused though, do people still use them?)

How to Take Off Your Mask iOS ver. now supports Russian!

The review has finished and now it’s available on Appstore!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/how-to-take-off-your-mask/id1031178753

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How to Take Off Your Mask 40% OFF Sale on Steam!

Don’t forget to get the first game within this Eroolia series!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/365350/How_to_Take_Off_Your_Mask/

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Eroolia Series Website Update

https://eroolia.roseverte.net

The website is now responsive and can be viewed better on smartphone.
In a near future I plan to update other games’ sites in a similar format too.

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Last

I never thought this year will end in just couple of months without I finished any other game T_T There are so many technology support, learning new engine, fixing website, preparation to start selling merchandise and others.
I’m trying to update more info on my patreon (https://www.patreon.com/roseverte) though I must admit I’m very slow and it’s mostly about business experience T_T since well… that’s mostly what I’ve done lately T_T

There are still updates to come that I haven’t finished yet.

  • Google Play 64 bit supported apps-all apps must be rebuilt and the in app purchase needs to be re-code.
  • Roseverte Store updates.
  • How to Fool a Liar King French version.
  • Catalina support for non Steam games. Considering to only sell at itchio and steam.
  • Other games website update.
  • Re-coding and remake some assets for 3 games for hidden projects.
  • Remake a game from scratch for other hidden project.
  • Expanding business in Japan.
  • And others I can’t remember because there are too much things to do.

Last, tbh I never thought this year would be the year of “learning”, either the programming, business and others. I hoped to be more productive but maybe a year like this is necessary as well. Though it’s very costly, and kokouta hasn’t break even yet ^^;;;;

Experience Talk

Things you need to be cautious regarding Mac Apps notarization.

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After googling, finding more and more info and some deep search, I found that the past fail I experienced with the Mac Apps notarization was not because of the notarization itself, but because some progress I did after the notarization. Below I listed some stuff that you need to pay attention in regards to notarize Mac Apps, especially if you’re using Adobe Air like I did. Btw, I’m not really a programmer, so sorry if some of the text below sounds silly to some of you. I’m using Mac 10.13.6 with xCode 10.1 by the way, since my Mac is very old (2012) and I can’t install any newer OS.

1. Don’t use Steam Content Prep.

My first fault was because I use Content Prep from Steam SDK as a habit to prepare the Mac version for Steam. It seems after the Content Prep “warp” the notarization will be annulled, and if we do the opposite (warp first then notarize the warped app), the notarization will be failed. Just, don’t use this tool.

2. Don’t forget ENTITLEMENT.PLIST

This is the culprit which caused me to redo all of my notarization!!!
You can proceed the notarization without using this, but Steam API requires a special setting on entitlement.plist to work (a permission for the dylib file)!! Also, if your game is using Java (as far as I know both of Adobe Air and renpy is using java to build, so I added Java related permission here just for in case). Anyway, it’s a simple xml file, yet it’s very important!!

3. Make sure the file name inside MacOS folder has no space (inside the .app bundle).

So after my first “success” notarization progress, I tested the file (it was fine) then uploaded the file to Steam, and downloaded it to test again if it works but… it’s failed. I somehow have already been suspicious with the file inside MacOS folder inside the app bundle, so I simply edit the file name and the game works again. But—the notarization was annulled. (You can check this by running xcrun stapler validate on Terminal.)

To settle this, first I tried to re-notarize the file with edited name only, but then it caused more rejected notarization, and I realize that rebuild a whole new .app file is easier and faster. Just, especially for Adobe Air user, don’t add space within the name inside <filename> section.

4. Inside Resource folder is still editable (probably?) But not the one inside MacOS folder.

I tried to delete one file and added random folder inside Resource folder and it’s fine. But when I delete/ edit the file name of the original file inside MacOS folder the notarization was annulled.
I haven’t checked the Resource folder thoroughly, so probably there’s still hidden rule in it.

5. Notarized the plugin first before the app is useless.

I noticed that the notarization fail report mostly mentioned about the plugin/ ane I use, so I tried to notarize it first before using it to build the game, but it won’t do T_T just, notarize it once for all when the .app is done.

6. What the notarization based of?

Tbh I’m not really sure of this.
I have 3 files for East Tower – Kuon, for example, and they only different in languages. The final command on notarization is only “xcrun stapler staple xxx.app”, so at first I was wondered, how could they differ which xxx.app has been notarized, if there are three Kuon.app? But, they really can. I tried to notarized English version first, then I try to staple the Japanese version without the notarizing it, but it was failed (the English version notarization won’t be applied to the Japanese version), and it was the same when I tried to staple an earlier version of the English version. Only the correct .app file which has been through the notarization can be stapled.

To put it shortly, there are still some mystery within this progress. I’m not really sure, but it should settle the notarization issue for now even if… well, it’s indeed taking time to notarize a game, especially a big one,  as we need to upload a zip file to Apple server.

Experience Talk

Nightmare with Google Play

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After Mac issue, Google Play? Isn’t there any good news for developer? T_T Sadly that might be the current case…

FIRST NIGHTMARE: GOOGLE PLAY 64 BIT NECESSITY

This is actually happened quite long ago but I haven’t done anything to fix it yet as it’s pretty complicated.

64bit app issue is actually pretty old, but it seems the new issue is different with the older one. To support Android Q, Google asked developer to make the app to contain the new arm binary (er forget the code), different with the older one. The problem is, if I update my current app to this version, the ANE (Plugin) to process the in app billing won’t work anymore, and~~~I will need to buy and learn the new one (from different provider since the previous ANE maker doesn’t support this update anymore.)

But this is not all. Google did ask us to update the app to match Android Q requirement (it doesn’t mean the current app can’t be played on Android Q, but they want to remove all app which doesn’t match this requirement from Google Play Store), but most of Android devices actually can’t play this 64 bit type app. It’s too high-spec.
As the result, now developer need to upload at least 2 types of apps to Google Play store for one title, the older version which supports earlier version of Android OS and the newest one which only can be played on Android Q and other 64 bit supported devices.
Basically: Double Works.

Luckily, Google Play has let us to finish this until next year deadline. So there’s still time to learn about the new plugin and others…

SECOND NIGHTMARE: GOOGLE PLAY PROMO VIDEO

Sooo isn’t it just youtube?

Yes, even I myself would never think youtube will give me such issue orz.

The nightmare started with the notification from Google, asking us to remove ads from the google promo video (it’s youtube video), or the promo video will be removed from Google Play Store.

The issue is, I did monetize my older video, but all the ads now have been removed due to Youtube new rule, which mentions only channel with more than 1000 subscribers can have ads. But, it seems youtube system still detects this video which doesn’t have ads anymore as “video with ads” and Google play support can’t do anything beside telling me to ask youtube about it.

BUT

YOUTUBE HAS NO EMAIL SUPPORT IF YOUR ACCOUNT DOESN’T HAVE SPECIAL PRIVILEGE

Basically I only can write down on a community forum, andddd no one would answer it of course.

…okay it’s easier to reupload the video as a new video! Google Play also suggested this! Except….

“Your video has been uploaded previously, therefore this one can’t be proceeded. “ — Youtube

…the moment I saw that error message on youtube, I just feel… hopeless….. just…why? This is so absurd T_T

Maybe the only thing I can do is edit the video, like adding a blank frame at the end or something, changing the file name and try to reupload it again. But… this would give me more hassle, so probably I’ll simply delay this matter for now.

*Just hope there would be less issue for developer from now on.

Experience Talk

Dilemma with the new Mac OS 10.15 Catalina

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There are soo many dilemma with the the technical support lately. Sometime I wonder why the new OS update will cause more stir rather than bringing more sales >< Anyway, I’ll tell you a story about the issue with MAC update this time.

CATALINA HORROR

One day, Steam sent me email, notifying that I need to make sure my apps support 64 bit and notarization to make it works with the new OS, Catalina. I usually don’t pay much attention to OS update, because well, I have my apps in too many platform, and it’s a big hassle to confirm if it works in every new OS for every platform, unless there are a big notification that it will need urgent update like this or it won’t work anymore.

I thought it would be easy, like only turn the app to 64 bit and upload it to somewhere to get notarized. I WAS WRONG.

It’s very easy to turn the app to 64 bit, and all my apps on Steam started from HTTOYM (2015) are all 64 bit.
But then, the first notarization try ended failed. At first I thought I simply used a wrong SDK version, but that’s not that easy. The app needs to get the correct code sign first before notarized.

To do this code sign, we need to generate a certificate within the apple developer console (which cost 99 usd a year) but it’s ok as I already have it for iOS anyway. But that’s not all……..

After build the new app using the new SDK, I need to eliminate some files generated by the SDK that might bother the notarization progress, then code sign everything using the correct developer id certification (I got issue before cause idk why but there’s weird extra space that needs to be added on my developer id) then after finish everything, the next is…. proceed with the notarization.

NOTARIZATION HORROR

Tbh I already failed 3 times with this.

Basically it’s simple, I only need to upload the file to apple server. But it’s slow! I tried to use my ET Akio data to try because it’s the smallest, but it takes 30 minutes ish for the notarization. And then… ok let’s try the luck and see if it works or not this time 😕😕😥😥

After the notarization finished, I still need to staple the notarization result to the app itself before upload the new build to Steam.

Finish?

FINISH?

NO!

THE TRUE HORROR

Basically it will only finish for 1 build, while in my case, the games have each build for each language version.

This means, for Akio I need to reupload 4 build for the 4 languages it supports. Same for Takashi, then I also still have Kuon, Kurenai, and all my Eroolia and CAFE 0 Series. Imagine with the HTTOYM which now supports 7 languages (insert Death flag here) — in other words I need 14 hours ish only for HTTOYM game.

…is it really worth to do all of this?

…or maybe I should ask, is it really worth to ask developer to do all of this, Apple? 😭😭😭😭😭😭

For the meanwhile, I decide to learn first about how to notarize first while proceed with my other porting project T_T I can’t promise if I will make Catalina works with my games for now, as I haven’t succeeded yet as far with the notarization.

If it takes longer and messier than what I thought, I might drop all support for Catalina and later. My suggestion for now is simply, don’t update to Catalina yet T_T