Show HN: 1 Weekend, 1 Developer – validating an idea and taking a break

Show HN: 1 Weekend, 1 Developer – validating an idea and taking a break(itunes.apple.com)

21 points by JonD23 12 years ago | 30 comments

JonD23 12 years ago |

I know it's common to start projects and never finish. I’ve started tons of them: mobile apps, games, web apps, etc. Every once in awhile, for some unexplained reason I’ll finish what I started. The success is small but incremental. I don’t exactly know what it is that makes someone finish what he or she started, but I guess if we did then things would be different.

I’ve been working on a mobile app for months now. It’s one of those apps that I know I’ll finish, but I wanted to take a break and try something different. So last weekend, I set a goal. I’ll give myself the weekend, from Friday to Sunday night, to make a micro game. A small game is something I can complete, and I did complete it. I also had a lot of fun in the process. I knew I was rushed, but I had a goal, and I could see the end.

The game is out, it’s up, and it’s free on the App Store. It’s not doing great as far as downloads go, but that’s ok. I’m totally feeling rewarded for my efforts. I’ve gotten some feedback from friends, and I really enjoy seeing their reactions when they play the game.

Now, I’m more charged and ready to finish my big app. I remember what it feels like again to put something out there, and I like it.

Just wanted to share,

Jon

smcl 12 years ago |

In my opinion this hits all the right notes to become an painfully addictive game - punishing hit detection, no recovery from a slight mis-step, death (and "next screen") animations that are just long enough to be frustrating after you die without doing any terrible psychological damage :) These are all compliments btw, you've made a spiritual successor to Flappy Birds and I'm sort of hooked.

JonD23 12 years ago | |

Awesome man, thanks for the compliments. It's seriously rewarding to have someone like what you create. I'm worried that there is way too much green though. I know the right colors can bring up some emotion. I've tinkered with the idea of adding dirt to the road, but I'm afraid it'll be too distracting. Any ideas?

oxymoron 12 years ago | |

Agreed. I had a fun time playing it, and had to force myself to put it away after 15 minutes.

ambigu0us 12 years ago |

Does anyone else think that this Flappy type craze is going to help non-gamers come more and more into challenging games?

Like I've seen people playing more and more games in the last five years. I wonder if the tides are changing.

larrybolt 12 years ago | |

Personally, it's not that I don't enjoy gaming, but I feel guilty for the time I "wasted" afterwards. Every other activity such as cleaning up, going out for a walk or even reading a good book seems to be more rewarding and useful than playing a game.

I tend to give that as the reason I started teaching myself programming, and later I won't allow my children to waste days playing games. But let them do more productive activities on the pc such as video-editing, messing with photoshop, chatting with foreigners (the good old days on IRC..)

ambigu0us 12 years ago | | |

I think games are different for everyone. For some it's recreational, while others, not so much. Some people it's a stress relief or a learning tool, but I can see how some games can be a waste of time as well.

I agree that whenever I have kids, I'll be sure to teach them coding or editing. The way society and the future job market is evolving, it looks like those tools will be way more beneficial then learning Spanish or French in high school. A moot point, but somewhat realistic.

JonD23 12 years ago | | |

Video games were my gateway into computers. I contribute my path as a developer to when I started playing the Quake 1 demo in 96. I remember getting the demo from a pc mag cd, and spending all day playing. One day I wanted to start learning to make my own mods. So that started me on my development path.

But I totally agree, I hope I don't let me kids play as much games as I did. I got lucky, but everyone is different.

zimpenfish 12 years ago |

Good work. Bit too fast for my old brain though.

One small piece of constructive criticism - the "leaderboard" link is right where I was tapping to restart and that got very annoying very quickly. Perhaps move it to a corner?

JonD23 12 years ago | |

Thanks for the feedback. I totally agree that it needs to get moved. I recently started hitting the leaderboard on accident myself, but I wasn't sure if that was just me or other people too.

colinbartlett 12 years ago |

I can't figure out how to play. I just smash into the first thing immediately. I gave it 10 tries.

Generally I'm pretty bad at games. I never got past the 2nd pipe in Flappy Bird.

mgkimsal 12 years ago | |

You are supposed to 'tap' to one of 3 spots, basically (left, right, middle), from what I can tell. That at least lets me avoid things a bit.

The opening animation shows a smooth hand gliding around, which would indicate some sort of dragging motion as the input mechanism, but it's not at all drag-based. Took me a good 3-4 minutes to figure that out, and it was frustrating. It's only because I was reading some stuff here of other people saying it was fun that kept me going.

Personally, I think it's too fast to start with. Add better instructions, slow things down a tad for the first few obstacles, and this would be 'hook' material for more players. As it stands, I think the 'game over in 1 second' factor will keep it from being recommended more.

But... great job on getting something out so quick!

JonD23 12 years ago | | |

I can see that now. Sometimes it takes another set of eyes. I think I had the mechanics stuck in my head, so I always looked over it. I'm going to fix that now.

aaronetz 12 years ago |

Forgive me for plugging my own flappy inspired (but sufficiently different) game: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.woodenclos...

I made it over the course of a few days, using libgdx as an engine. It was really fun to make.

JonD23 12 years ago | |

Dude thats awesome. Ya both are totally flappy bird inspired. Theres something addictive about playing a game that is quick and hard.

aaronetz 12 years ago | | |

Thanks! Do you have an Android version of your game? I don't own an iDevice...

lnmx 12 years ago |

FYI, Chris Hildenbrand has a number of (mostly) free tutorials and game art assets on his blog, including some of the graphics from this game [1].

[1] http://2dgameartforprogrammers.blogspot.com/2014/02/top-down...

JonD23 12 years ago | |

Yeah, Chris' blog is great and where I got most of the assets. If anything he teaches you it doesn't take much to get something good for a little work.

The sounds were purchased from http://audiojungle.net/ The whole Envato network has great resources for developers.

dexkiki 12 years ago |

I'm on a 4s and to mirror previous comments, the game is really hard, as in impossible. I think part of the problem is the ad on the very top of the screen. It's covering up part of the "Drive" in "Drive Soldier Drive" on the title screen.

Also, I don't like how you have to click twice to start playing again.

JonD23 12 years ago | |

Yeah the ad is a part of the problem. It wasn't an issue until last night, when the ads kicked in. Before it was harder on the 4s, but now it seems nearly impossible. That being said, I'm going to fix it and make it playability for both screen sizes. Thanks for the suggestions.

MattBearman 12 years ago |

Congratulations on getting a polished looking game out so fast.

Some feedback - the game is unplayable on my iPhone 4s, I'm guessing because the screen isn't as long as on the iPhone 5, there's just not enough time to react to incoming obstacles.

JonD23 12 years ago | |

I just picked it up on the 4s, and Im with you on that. I'm going to fix that now. I tried it out in the simulator, but nothing beats the real device. Thanks for the feedback.

jason_slack 12 years ago |

Jon, What's the stack? Objective-C? Cocos2D? Spritekit? OpenGL? Love your games BTW.

JonD23 12 years ago | |

It's objective-c and spritekit. I started making games back in 2009 using objective-c and uikit. Honestly, once you get those sprites moving on the screen I find that it really doesn't matter what you're using, but Spritekit is awesome.

I'm pretty good with Xamarin in c# development. I use that mainly for business apps, but nothing beats objective-c and the opensource projects out there to make iOS apps.

Thanks man

jason_slack 12 years ago | | |

ok, cool. I am using Cocos3D-x for my ios games and slowly replacing with my own OpenGL as I get better and better.

BTW Dash has Spritekit docset, IIRC.

socialist_coder 12 years ago |

You should at least put 1 screenshot of the gameplay in the iTunes preview

JonD23 12 years ago | |

I completely overlooked that. I'll fix it. It almost looks shaddy now that you mention it.

jjonahjameson 12 years ago |

How much work would it take to get it playable on an Android phone?

JonD23 12 years ago | |

It's definitely something I could port over in the future. Maybe I can learn a little about Android development in the process. I'll most likely wait until I have a polished game. I submitted an update to the game a hour ago that included a lot of suggestions from HN. It should be a good improvement.