Two years ago (exactly on May, 4th 2011) I launched Kwik with the goal to transform the way people create storybook apps and comics. Based on users feedback, I am happy to say that we (myself and you, the user) have accomplished a lot since version 1. Take a look at the Showcase, partnerships and blog postings and you will have a small idea of what we have done.

With thousands of users and hundreds of apps published, varying from storybooks to games, the future seems to be very bright to all of us.

Saying that, now it is time to give back. During the month of May, for every Kwik purchase, buyers will have the option to get a FREE version to a friend or donate it to a school in need (we have a list of schools asking for Kwik donations).

If you are planning to purchase Kwik, there is no better time for that. No matter you get 2 licenses for the price of one or are kind enough to help the ones in need, take the advantage of this 50% off price promo and start to create now.

If you are still uncertain about what will come in the future, take a look at the download page and see how many free updates we have provided since Kwik 2 launched last September. The list of cool things coming in “Kwik next” is big and will surprise many of you!

Keep supporting us, with purchases, forum postings, tutorial suggestions, etc and much more will come sooner than you expect.

I am so grateful for your help and camaraderie!

Thanks again and again,

We are happy to announce a new partnership with Supa Sounds, a leading sound library provider, that will help Kwik users to improve their applications.

Supa Sounds is a music library service specialized in 30 seconds, royalty free, sound loops to help mobile apps stand out.

To kick off our new partnership, Supa Sounds is offering a free ”Kwik Sound FX pack” and a special discount to both paid and non paid users (just email metric@supasounds.net, mentioning you are Kwik user). In order to download it, access https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ll7cu8xbh85ziim/zprQgrmoPc/Kwik%20Sound%20FX%20Pack.zip.

For Kwik’s paid users, Supa Sounds is also providing several high quality music loops for free. Instructions of how to download it will be sent in the next newsletter.

IMPORTANT: if you use the sounds in your commercial app, Supa Sounds requests you add their logo (available in the package) on your app splash screen or credits page.

Thanks again to the Supa Sounds team for making this offer available for Kwik users!

UPDATE 5/8/13: An intro app for the saga is already available for iPad. Check that at: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/nearhumanitynews/id643325144?mt=8

If you are willing to help, check the official page at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/near-humanity-the-motion-comics

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background

I come from an industrial design background, but since my youth, movies, novels and comics, video gaming, and paper role-playing game have driven me to the interactive and video gaming world. Now, I try to drive my passion more in trans medias projects, crossing several medias and platforms through one universe. I had been involved and released up to 26 games on mobiles, consoles with big names like Atari, Microïds, Gameloft, Disney and Sarbakan.

You are not new to Kwik’s world. Your first app,  “Halloween Recreation”, was even awarded as App of the Week from Corona Labs followers. How did you find Kwik and how was the experience learning/using it?

I tried several non-programmers tools, as my background is design and visual more than coding. I’ve been scripting in several engines and multimedia tools, but Kwik and Corona SDK were the final and efficient choice. There were two major factors that have pushed me to this choice:

a) The first one is that Kwik+Corona offer a cross platform deployment solution. You don’t have to code again too many elements, if you planned/designed them well. This simplifies your porting.

b) The second factor that really appealed me was that you don’t have to export your assets all the time, when working on a project. In all other engines, when working in Photoshop, you must save your asset files, and then you have to import and format them in the game engine. In Kwik, it is not necessary because it gets all these aspects directly from the compositions. If, like me, you use smart objects in Photoshop for many or all of your layers, you can nearly edit any asset, at any step of the process. Even is you change too much your visuals, editing some of your scripting is still lighter then comparable solutions.

Your next project, Near Humanity, seems to be one of the coolest things I have seen. What is about and how is the development at this moment?

 Thank you at first for your great comment. Your comment is the reward explaining why we are battling now to make Near Humanity gets funded. Near Humanity is a collaborative work with Emmanuel Beaudry, the co-director on the project with me. I had in mind to start as soon as possible a project for a mature audience. I went in a comics forum and found an initial pitch from Emmanuel. It had this classical touch for a horror story in an historical context, which we kept till now, but the original pitch has expanded to explore our universe in several periods of history and adding new characters to the cast.

Secondly, I do believe the market is also ready to explore mature and adult content on handled devices. I’m totally fan of cute and colorful games, comics, as seen in my first project. Emmanuel and I are also passionate about horror projects with an intelligent approach.

Near Humanity have these classical touches, dark and gritty emotions, elements that remind you of movies, comics and other references. Again, I feel that our approach is to play with history and some of its darkest days, twisting them along our mind and point of views.

The project at this time is moving on, but with a slowdown, as we spend more time now to promoting, building our audience, and more, raising the funds to produce it. We spent time in production and development, having funded everything ourselves. Now it is time to gather funds from contributors, if we want to explore, develop the full series of 12 episodes, featuring between 5 to 7 minutes per episode.

We want this project to be an “Indie series”, especially after such positive feedback like “Near Humanity looks gorgeous like some blockbusters”. We plan to go further and keep the quality, but all of these aspects have costs to be covered.

You mentioned the story is going to be divided into several motion-video episodes. What are you planning for the app interactions? Anything you can share for now?

At this step of development, we won’t unveiled precise and accurate details about how we’ll divide each episodes, but we decided these multi-segments from exchanges with partners, making screen testing with some testers to see how they behave, react to the project and to existing products. A motion comic is not a movie, neither it is an animated movie, a video game or a traditional comic. It must be a mix of all these facets. It will help to guarantee readers/players attention and enjoyment all along the story and events.

How is your regular day during project times like that? What’s your flow planning, designing and developing your apps?

Basically we work on two fronts: the motion comic and the app development. In the first one, we work on the motion comics. We start from the script by Emmanuel. He send me a script, I read it and we exchange. We agree on some ideas, modifications, then we move on an animatic to study what we could have at the end. We analyze the animatic, make changes, and think again on the flow. Then I draw the final illustrations, mixing several medias (photos, scanned sketches, 3D, digital paintings etc…), then I import it into After Effects, where animation happens. Emmanuel then edits everything in Final Cut.

All along the process, I prepare the music and the sound design. Emmanuel on his side will get involved with real actors, to drive their performances.

Our main flow is really organic. We exchange but, as we are a really small team, we also adapt to both our ideas, and besides, we are both big movies addict, so sometimes when we speak of a scene, we share common influences and inspirations to make it punchy. I do believe also that you can approach deep and hard subjects if you keep in mind to add some wow moments and other “in your face” visuals effects to make the project more commercial and punchier.

The second front is concerning the app development. I’m the in charge of this technical aspect. Emmanuel prepares all the text and then we decide together what will get in the app. I then work on the visuals and create a first page, the main menu of our application, to set the tone. Kwik helps me to work fast, to test and see on the tablets if it works. As I did with Halloween Recreation, I make videos, and some testing on several testers devices, to know how they react to the content.

You can keep your focus, your identity but you have to pay attention to how people react to your content. Did they understand? Do they approach as you planned it? Is it fun? Is it scary, etc…

Are you planning to fully use Kwik native’s features or external code will be added to the project as well? Any feature you wish it was native from the plugin?

Near Humanity is less intensive on development need. We don’t see Near Humanity as a video game in its essence. We are looking more on a way to keep the mood consistent across every Near Humanity representation. The main feature we would be looking for Near Humanity in short term is the plain use of Expansion files for Android, as the app is heavy on visuals and the 50 MB limit in Google’s platform is not enough. We would have to decrease the video quality for Android, which don’t please us. We’ll have interactions, but we want to tell a story at first and make it with several facets.

How can people help the development of Near Humanity?

People can contribute at first to the project on our Indiegogo page. The contributions will not only help the entire project to be funded but also it reward people with lot of really great perks. The beauty is the more we raise the more people gets. We decided to offer a variety of perks to make it affordable, you can contribute low if you have a limited budget, but you’re welcome and you will belong to our fellowship.

People can also help us by promoting our project, share our Facebook page or the link to our Indiegogo page with your contacts. The more people aware of our project, the bigger audience we could gather and higher chances to raise funds.

Any tips or final words to Kwik users reading this interview?

Copy and paste actions are so great and save you lots of time! Use them enables you to quickly script your app. It help to explore, or within a given time to do more or shorten your coding period.

Don’t hesitate to throw away content, change, edit and test your app with other users, and more with your audience. You’re not doing something for you. It’s your stuff, it’s your app, you want to do your best illustration, your best application but, at the end, it is your final audience the one who embrace the experience.

At the end, make things with passion. It’s like 20 years I’m in visuals and product development, and I hope to be able to share with a large audience more and more creations, and our last one Near Humanity.

All the best to Near Humanity project. We are looking forward to have it in our devices!

Many times I answer questions like, “Can Kwik work with GIMP, Photoshop Elements or Fireworks? I cannot afford Photoshop,” or “Does Kwik need the paid version of Corona SDK to publish?” More than looking for different options, people were usually concerned about the costs of the final solution.

Until a few months ago, willing to develop your own apps with Kwik would cost you close to a thousand dollars (besides Kwik, users needed to pay a full license of Photoshop, plus a Indie or Pro version of Corona SDK), which added a barrier to those that were not confident they could get their money back in sales revenue. The risks were too high for many.

With Adobe heavily promoting their Cloud subscriptions, which include Photoshop and all other products from the company, for less than $50 a month, half of the big burden (the cost of a full Photoshop version) was removed. However, you would still need close to $500 to get Kwik and Corona SDK.

A few days ago, Corona Labs announced a major change in their licensing model (more below) that potentially affect lots of Kwik users. The introduction of Corona SDK Starter, a free version including almost 100% of the current native features in Kwik, opens a new territory for people willing to create apps for iOS and Android devices on a budget.

Corona’s announcement (more here) is a game changer for Kwiksher.  Corona SDK Starter offers everything Kwik can do, with the only exception being in-app purchase (IAP), meaning that thousands of new users will be able to use our plugin without spending money on Corona Pro. You may be interested to learn that, more than 90% of the apps made with Kwik are not using IAP at this time.

The news is really big not only for potential new users but for current ones as well. Several people stopped using Kwik after their Corona subscription ended, because they couldn’t afford to renew. With Corona SDK Starter, they can come back and keep bringing new storybooks, games and apps (now for all platforms) without spending more.

People are already asking: “Is Kwik compatible with Corona SDK Starter?” The answer is: YES! Not only is Kwik compatible with Corona SDK Starter, but it also worked with Corona Pro (if you need IAPs) and Corona Enterprise. By the way, if you are a Pro subscriber, expect in a near future features specific for that too.

In order to use the new Corona subscriptions, you will need to download Kwik’s newest version 2.3, which is compatible with the new builds, and provide lots of new features. You can find more about it here.

Don’t miss this great opportunity to create amazing things with Kwik and Corona. If you left in the past, it is time to return. Also, keep sending your feature suggestions. Many great things are already to be developed and announced in future versions.

As always, feel free to send your questions.

All the best,

I am a believer that there is always space for improvement (in our lives, skills, and so on). Of course this applies to Kwik made apps. In a previous posting, I mentioned that quality is one of the top reasons for successful positions into store rankings.

Thinking about that, I partnered with Folio Academy and Will Terry, one of the top children’s book illustrators in the world, to provide quality instruction to anyone willing to improve illustration and painting skills with Photoshop.

Will’s life’s goal was to become a children’s book illustrator, and to date, he has illustrated over 25 children’s books with great publishers like Scholastic, Random House, Leap Frog, Houghton Mifflin, Dial, Albert Whitman, and Simon Schuster.

I am really a fan of what he is able to do and I believe everybody will get great insights from his blog at http://willterry.blogspot.com/

I am happy to announce that every Kwiksher customer can get 50% off discount (till end of April) on the following four trainings from Will at Folio Academy (by the way, instructions on how to get the discount are available on March’s Kwiksher Newsletter – check your inbox for that):

• How To Design A Drawing: explains what it means to design a drawing as well as an introduction to the design principles and elements. Honestly, I wish I had this information while in college;

• Beginning Photoshop for Digital Painting: developed for the beginner who has never used Photoshop;
• Digital Painting in Photoshop: will be shown all of the settings, controls, and the relatively few tools will uses to create digital textual colorful “paintings”;
• Digital Painting in Photoshop Part 2: demonstrates how to take a sketch to finished piece step by step;

Together, these tutorials cost US$100 so, don’t miss the opportunity to get them with the discounted price.

With more and more people willing to extend our plugin’s native options, I am focusing on benefits for individual and teams adding external code into Kwik.

By the way, the fact of a feature not coming in this version does not mean that it will not come in a future release. However, it is also important to understand that some suggestions may not appear anytime soon because a) they are not a priority to the majority of users (some suggestions are specific to a project or a particular, non-reproducible, need), b) Corona cannot render (page curl, for example) or has known issues rendering it (masks, for example) or c) requires longer design times than others.

So, what is in the pipe?

Besides several bug fixings (some very annoying for a while), this is the list of things already coded (it will be available in next week’s first beta):

• Ability to create a project only for the new iPad (meaning Kwik will not generate @2 images for older iPads);
• Option to add external code from an external file (besides writing/pasting the code into the editor) – this will help a lot teams that will be able to share a Lua (or txt) file in a folder. When publishing, Kwik will read the file content and integrate the external Lua code with the auto-created one;
• Add external code in the main.lua file (I am hearing some “yay!!”s already);

What else?

The list below contains the things I am planning to add (hopefully no big issues will appear and I will be able to deliver all of them):

• Automatically make all layer sizes even (to avoid blur when zooming to other devices) – thanks to Julian Stokoe sample code!
• Compatibility with the new Widgets 2.0 library from Corona;
• Few new options for the drag interaction (clearly one of the top used features in Kwik 2);
• A few complex features that I prefer not to disclose/commit now;
• A couple of non-code related, “ready to use” new options

As always, I am looking forward to your feedback!

Having seen so many Kwik made storybooks (the words below are valid for non-storybooks as well) since them, I think it is time to provide some more insights to people willing to create their own stories.

Great story, features, ideas, excitement… Stop! You can’t start yet!

It is very common, Jane (our fictional user) has this nice story in her head (it could be an original one or a personal visit to one of the old classics) and a few sketches, that she thinks are great for a storybook app. She searches and discovers many tools with all sorts of features (Kwik included). She learns a few tricks, get so excited and start to design her project. After a couple of frustrations, she gets on het feet again and, few months later she publishes her book. She prices it at $2.99, after all it is a great story with nice illustrations. She even does some marketing. Weeks pass, sales do not come, she sets the app price now to $0.99. Sales are still not coming. Thinking she spent time and money in something she may not have enough talent, she gives up and returns to her previous daily life. Jane never creates another storybook.

Sounds familiar? These may be some of the main reasons:

Not knowing the market. Research first.

For some reason, this important and first thing is neglected by most people. For example, Jane decided to create her version of the classic “Little Red Hood”. A quick search in AppShopper reveals 1,000 entries for this! Does the universe needs another “Little Red Hood” app? If so, how to differentiate from the other ones (after all, prices vary from free to $4.99)?

Keeping researching, Jane would be surprised to learn that, for the Amazon devices, only 20 apps show up in the search results! Maybe the original focus on the iOS platform should be reviewed, right?

Again, just a simple example of  “15 minutes, can save…” research (fill the blanks with, money, time, frustration, etc), that may help with final decisions.

Differentiation.

Now that Jane knows a little bit about her competition, she needs to understand why some apps are selling (even priced higher) and others are not. Although the list of differentiators may be huge, lets focus on 3 important ones:

• Technology: for some (publishers and customers) being in the edge of technology is what drive their work. Take the example of Nosy Crow. They started as a small independent publisher in the United Kingdom. Being small, and possibly trying to avoid large fees, they decided to create storybooks from old time classics. Their differentiation against so many Cinderella’s, Three Little Pig’s, etc? Amazing interactions never seen before in storybooks (use of accelerometer, mic, gorgeous animations, etc). Targeting people who love technology (usually people with more money), they put prices of $7.99 for each app they made. You download a “common, free” Cinderella app and compare with Nosy Crow’s “trial” version. You will, promptly see the difference and spend your money! Rapidly they became famous, with several traditional publishers looking them now to bring original stories to the new media.

• Focus: I am still surprised when people ask me “what do you think about my app?” and I return with a simple question: “who is your main target audience?”. Usually the answer is “Everybody” or “Children from 5 to 12″. Clearly there is an issue here. Different age ranges require different interaction, illustration style, activities, etc. With the benefits of the technology, people tend to use “as many features as possible”. Just check our forums for feature requests and you will see several examples that make me to think “in which scenario a reader will use this?”. Alright, back to the topic. Take the example of The Monster at the End of This Book, from Sesame Street. Since its launch, it costs $4.99 and it stills a top seller. Checking the book, for several times, I thought to myself “what hell? This is the simplest thing in the world!”. No fancy games, hard interactions, nothing! Plain story with few animations and straight audio [I am analyzing the original version. Updated ones have introduced more stuff]. The reason it showcases so well (besides well known characters)? It is targeted to small children, willing to listen a nice bed story. Simple as that!

• Quality: None of the examples above would be successful without quality. Although quality may be subjective to many, lets be fair and bold here: quality means, a great story with impeccable illustrations, perfect audio and interactions (animations included) that enhance the experience while reading the story. Sadly, several authors miss one or more from the above list. Lets see some examples:

Little Fox Music Box, from Shape Minds and Moving Images, is a perfect example of image, audio, experience and target audience. The audios exist to match the experience. By the way, let me pause here: why so many authors like to add “click-able” objects that do nothing then just play a “boing” sound?

Take Amelia and Terror of the Night, from OhNoo Studio, as another example of great quality. The illustrations are gorgeous and the animations are used to enhance the story. Another pause: why so many authors like to add “click-able” objects that do nothing then just “rotate” on the screen? Or animate a static bee over a path? Bees (and every animal that flies) wings flaps while they fly! A simple sprite sheet (or movie clip) with 2-3 images would improve a lot the animation. Not hard to do but, many are missing the opportunity to increase quality.

Can you do it alone?

Before you say “all nice apps above were made by teams, with lots of money, etc. I am just Jane!”, check Sylvester’s Band, from just 2 guys at Uncle Handsalt.

Hopefully Jane gets the point here. Research, differentiation, and quality (then marketing efforts) are crucial for success. With the maturity of the platforms, few will thrive “by lucky” or “because they arrived first”. I strongly believe that is a matter of time for the ending of free to $0.99 storybooks. People are starting to understand that quality driven products must cost more and they will pay for that. Again, how many Cinderella stories you have downloaded are still in your device?

As always, I am looking forward to your feedback!

What’s new in version 2.2: http://www.kwiksher.com/tutorials-kwik/video-tutorial-version-2-2/

Two things you should know too

Reducing file sizes is one of the top topics in our forums, with several users suggesting tools to help PNG compression.

With Kwik 2.2, I am happy to announce that Kwik now automatically installs pngquant (an open-source application that reduce files immensely) and allow you to compress your project images with just a matter of a click (check the new Compress images button in the Settings toolbar).

I have no words to thank Kornel Lesiński for his help in the implementation. He is the man behind pngquant and ImageAlpha, another favorite tool from Mac users using Kwik.

The tutorial below shows how it works:

Transferring licenses between computers

Another common request is “how do I transfer my serial numbers to other machines (after purchasing a new one, for example)?”

With Kwik 2.2 you will be able to automatically do that (no need to send me emails anymore), up to 4 times. After that, you are done and will need to purchase a new license.

In order to do it, check the new Registering page for more info.

As always, I am looking forward to your feedback!

Before Kwik 2 arrived in September, 30 updates were delivered for Kwik 1. Talking about Kwik 2, the launch brought several new users, mostly due the ability to extend the product. Dozens of apps were made with the plugin, with some of them winning awards (Cherry At Starts), some still running for prizes (Frederik Spin), others becoming series (Tangram Puzzles). The first adventure game arrived (Stranded, which stills on top lists in some countries around the world), as well as the ones celebrating Halloween and Christmas! Take a look at our Showcase to learn more about them.

Kwik will continue to grow in 2013 and it is my commitment to bring the features you want and the support you need to get more exposure in the stores. Starting now, all apps submitted to the Showcase will receive my personal review (in the format of a video). The ones that I believe are the best will be promoted together with Corona. The bar is higher now so, do your best while designing/creating your applications.

Talking about improvements, Kwik 2.2 is cooking and you probably have seen some of the tutorials (written or in video format). I am fixing the last reported bugs and trying to implement a new feature that will help A LOT your project sizes. I will keep you posted for sure.

So, what to expect in 2013? Besides the customary updates and support, more products are in my pipeline. Obviously I cannot share anything at this moment but, in the correct time, you will learn about them.

13 is a lucky number for Brazilians and hopefully it will be for you too. All the best!

Your passion about the product and support buying, promoting and creating apps is something that stills amaze me. From time to time I find myself thinking about the first prototype, back in March of 2011, and cannot believe how much better, faster and powerful Kwik 2 is. Your input and dedication helped a lot in this journey. I am really grateful for that!

No matter what you celebrate in the next days, I sincerely wish you to spend some time with your loved ones, recharge your batteries for a new year that comes and get ready to be a better person in 2013. Just one improvement a day and the world will be much better.

If you are working on a new project with Kwik, think about what can be done to make it even better. If you have already a published app, consider what can be done to get it more attractive.

In Brazil we use to say, “a man is completed when he has a son, writes a book and plant a tree”. Honestly, I think it is very easy to have a son, write a book (Kwik helps, right?) and plant a tree. The challenges are to raise a son, publish/sell/share the book and nurture the tree. Ponder about that when creating your next project: will you cultivate it after the launch?

Happy holidays to all and lets develop a better world in 2013!