BugMirror

Name: BugMirror
Price: 12.00 $
Rating: 5 (5 reviews)

1.12

23 March 2008

Screen saver packed with insects.

Overview

BugMirror is a different screen saver; as its packed with bugs!

Nowadays screens are made out of pixels. What if they were made of living creatures instead of pixels?

That's what BugMirror tries to explore, as it proposes a screen made of thousands of little bugs.

The bugs react to camera input, trying to mimic what the camera sees. They are free to walk around and change their color. This creates a low-precision slow-reacting mirror, giving it a very organic and unique feeling.

Every single Bug thinks locally, reacting to its surroundings. But by having thousands of them, all thinking on their own, makes the whole bug community work as a single entity.

What's new in BugMirror

Version 1.12:

Optimized parts of the drawing code, should feel faster (especially on lower end graphic cards).

Requirements for BugMirror

Intel 32
PPC 32
or later

BugMirror Screenshots

7 BugMirror Reviews

$12!!!!!! Once the first nag screen came up after 1 Min of playing with it.... I thought Spamware. But it is acutally done well and is unique. But $12 for BugMirror, Well it Bugs Me.

Version 1.12

You are right, 60 sec should do it. Will do on next release.

Version 1.01

8 answer(s)

J-A-X

27 November 2007

How about giving people a few days to test it out, not just seconds.

Version 1.02

Armadillu

27 November 2007

Well you'll agree with me that this is a screensaver. It's not like a text editor you need to "work with it" or something. I think this is reasoanble now.

Version 1.02

Brionybob

29 November 2007

You might think it's reasonable; the rest of us will vote with our wallets. I like to leave a screensaver on my mac for a while, and if I like seeing it after a few days, I consider shelling out cash. A sixty-second preview isn't going to make me rush to an impulse buy, and draconian shareware puts me off even more.

Version 1.1

Armadillu

29 November 2007

No one is forcing you to buy what you don't like. And realistically, you really have to like a screensaver a lot to actually pay for it. This a very unique screensaver. The idea is simple, and it doesnt change over time. It will behave the same after 60 seconds, or 60 days. I'm not trying to rip anyone off, like most shareware apps that you can see around. This is not a clone of anything else around, it's not badly and cheaply coded; this comes from creativity and lots of effort on coding the desired behaviors. It's sad to hear comments like that one, and makes me wonder if I should move away from this. Do you think i'm a billionare bc I get 7 euros from everyone who buys this? I do it mainly for fun, and make sme happy to hear people enjoy playing with what I do. I've released tons of sucessful freeware before this, this is just a test to see how shareware works in numbers.

Version 1.1

Brionybob

29 November 2007

I wouldn't dream of suggesting you're trying to rip anyone off. I'm suggesting that a longer trial period would entice me to buy it, while a sixty second period makes me feel you're being stingy. That's all - you can't possibly rip people off with a screensaver; if you like it, you pay for it. If not, you don't. I just thought your comment about it not being a word processor and not needing to be tried out was a little rude and short sighted. If you can increase sales by allowing a longer trial period, well then you've lost nothing, have you?

Version 1.1

Armadillu

29 November 2007

Didnt mean to be rude at all, sorry if it seemed like. English is not my mother language, sorry if I offended anyone. I hear your suggestion, but honestly I believe its fair as it is. Might look "short sighted" to you, might not to others. Thanks for trying to help me out though!

Version 1.1

Mrk

11 December 2007

A suggestion: don't make bugs disappear in Test mode. That's enough to see it working.

Version 1.11

Bruseth

23 March 2008

I think that 60 seconds is too little of a time to properly evaluate this screensaver. I wouldn't look at something for 1 minute and decide to buy it. I know some will criticize this and say, ‘but heck, this is less than you'd spend on a pizza,' but I, personally, don't spend money that freely (I live on a school teacher's salary). If I checked this out for a week, and enjoyed the heck out of it, then I would think, ‘I really like this and would not want to get rid of it - so I better pay the shareware price the author wants for it.' But to look at it for 60 seconds and then make that decision? It's not going to happen. As a matter of fact, knowing that it's only going to go for 1 minute, and then stop, or whatever it does, makes me decide that it isn't worth the effort to download it and then remove it in the event that I don't want it. As an aside, and certainly not to criticize the author who seems like a very decent fellow, I think that many things that were offered as free a year or so ago on the Mac platform, are now being charged for. I guess I don't blame anybody for that (even thought I bring it up). If a hundred thousand people download a shareware and only one percent of those people register/pay for that item, the shareware author is able to make, at $10 per item, a cool $10000 dollars! That is an allure I most certainly would have a hard time passing up. I only mention this because I have spent the last few months on a PC (my Mac's motherboard was fried), and while I wondered around in PC world, I noticed that just about everything, as far as shareware, or what I thought would normally be presented as freeware, was being charged for. After doing the math, and realizing the large number of users in the PC market, I came to realize that writing shareware programs could be an extremely lucrative sideline. I guess that the Mac shareware authors have caught on to the ‘game.' Less and less freeware, and more and more shareware/'donation ware. Oh well, if I had the ability to write this stuff, I probably would be doing the same thing. Best of luck to one and all.

Like (2)

Version 1.12

v. 1.0.1 is working for me now also. I do have one comment/suggestion... could you make the delay a bit longer in demo mode? not much happens with it before the "bugs" disappear. a little hard to tell if its worth the purchase.

Version 1.01

This is such a cool screensaver. The way the bugs move is a little creepy - it's just too real! I especially like the way they rush away from dark areas to cluster with their buddies. It's a bit of a CPU hog, especially at higher detail levels. And it's crashed on me once. Initial release though, so it's forgiven. This has become my new screensaver-du-jour. It's actually the first screensaver I've ever paid for (I'm still not sure about the logic of paying for an app that doesn't do anything useful, but I like it, so that's enough reason) Steve

Version 1.0

Fails to run on an Intel dual core iMac running Leopard 5.1

Version 1.0

9 answer(s)

Armadillu

24 November 2007

Can you please be more specific? It works fine on my intel imac with Mac OS X 10.5.1

Version 1.0

Pissnaround

24 November 2007

doesn't run quite right on my late 2006 iMac either. first,if you have the clock option set it wont load at all. if you turn that off will load but says no camera although I have a builtin iSight cam. also using Leopard 10.5.1

Version 1.0

Armadillu

24 November 2007

Mmmm no problems with or without clock here. This might be due to the intel GMA intergrated graphics card? Does your computer have this graphic card? About Bugmirror not finding a camera, make sure it's not in use by any other application.

Version 1.0

Pissnaround

24 November 2007

yes, it has a ATI Radeon X1600 chipset... and I have nothing open thats using the camera far as I can tell.

Version 1.0

Armadillu

26 November 2007

Ok I think I found the problem, BugMirror could be "colliding" with other screensavers you might have installed. PleaseTry the newly released version and let me know if it fixes the issue.

Version 1.01

A-Busbey

26 November 2007

Here is the error I keep getting: Screen saver “BugMirror” did not load properly. Please select another screen saver. Error: *** -[GLString initWithString:withAttributes:withTextColor:withBoxColor:withBorderColor:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x1d81d980

Version 1.01

Armadillu

26 November 2007

Yes that's right, please re-download version 1.01.

Version 1.01

A-Busbey

26 November 2007

I got the error with the 1.01 version. But... when I opened screen savers and clicked on it a second time it started working just fine.

Version 1.01

Armadillu

26 November 2007

Yes, that is bc I forgot to change that partiular class (GLString) before I uploaded 1.01. Please try downloading again.

Version 1.01