@nick Thanks for ringing this to our attention. It looks like this may be a glitch with the App Store. The app is supposed to be free. We are working on resolving it now.

@nick Thank you again. We’re not sure what the prob elm was, but it seems to be resolving itself now. There were App Store changes to currency exchanges last week, right around the time we were submitting the price change, so there may have been a glitch. It should show as free for you within a few minutes. Again, thanks!

@Draconis Not a problem. I'll check back in a few minutes.

@Draconis Got it! Thanks for taking action!

@Draconis Hey, how can I get the SilverDollar settings menu back to do things like switch the sound device on Mac?

@nick Press the Option key during the audio logo when the game is starting.

@matt There are many reasons, but here are a few. (We talked about this on the upcoming episode of the Maccessibility podcast as well.) First, a large portion of the VI community has access to at least one Apple device these days. Targeting Apple means we can reach a broader audience than targeting a desktop platform. Mainstream gaming is more focused on mobile and console these days, and Apple allows us to hit a variety of devices easily. (Phone, tablet, TV box, and desktop.) (1/X)

@matt Second, in our experience, nothing cross-platform matches Apple’s spatial audio API. What we’ve been able to accomplish in our upcoming releases using PHASE is a far more immersive experience for gamers than we have ever been able to offer. Cross-platform development usually means creating something that is the lowest common denominator. (e.g. Electron apps.) We want to bring something closer to console quality to audio games with our upcoming titles. [2/X]

@matt We originally did cross-platform between Windows/Mac with SilverDollar and ChangeReaction. In the end, the resources it took and the final results were not as good as we wanted. By focusing on Apple platforms, we’ll be able to deliver much, much higher quality products. Oh, and I just love #Swift. :) I’ve used a lot of programming languages over the last 35 years, and it’s by far my favorite. [3/3]

@Draconis Those reasons make sense. If you don't mind sharing, what language/environment did you use for the old cross-platform versions of Silver Dollar and Change Reaction?

@matt Those were both primarily developed with C++ in Xcode, although some modules were in other languages, depending on the platform target. We compiled with Xcode for Mac and Visual Studio for Windows. The updates to SilverDollar and ChangeReaction are still using the C++ base, but the new features are primarily in Swift.

@Draconis Oof, C++. Yeah, I can see why you'd want to get away from that. And typical cross-platform game engines like Unity are, of course, total overkill for audio games.

@matt I think it goes further than overkill—they are the wrong tool for the job—not because you couldn’t use them, but because their priorities are always going to be on the visuals. Our priorities are the audio environment, and, of course, how the physics models interact with sound.

@matt Sorry, didn’t answer your second question. We plan on bringing all our old title to iOS/etc in time.