Progress on Knaves Online has been great over the last month. The game is evolving and I am getting great feedback from a small group of players. Overall, I'm really pleased with the direction it is going.

I was, like many Flash developers, enraged by the announcement that Apple would no longer support 3rd party compilers on the iPhone and iPad. Now that I've had some time to think about it, though, I'm actually a little glad...

The main reason I'm glad about my inability to create Knaves as an iPad app is that it takes the pressure off a bit. Now I can focus on my core market, and that's Facebook. As much as I would have loved to see my game running on an iPad, the time I would have spent creating and testing it would have been better invested in adding features that make my game fun and profitable.

It's almost like a weight has been lifted.

Now it's time to rock. And rock I shall. I recently read a terrific article on the Facebook Indie Games blog called Social Game Lifecycle and it helped me decide to launch my game, at least in a beta format, as early as possible to start getting player feedback.

This has helped me in two ways:

• I get immediate feedback on what works and what doesn't
• Knaves starts getting small amounts of buzz

I genuinely feel like I have approached many of my game launches wrong. I always wanted the game to be perfect, before it launched. Now I just want it to be a little bit fun, so I can grow the game in the direction the players want, and they're the ones who matter, right?

Over the next few weeks I will be adding sound, the social aspects of the game, and achievements. After that I'll be focusing on the multiplayer. This is going to be an exciting month. I hope that anyone who reads this will take the time to check out the latest build of the game.