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Show HN: Math Attack – My side project of 3 years
- Sanctor 10y agoHey everyone! I've been working on this game for about 3 years in my spare time. It's a simple puzzle game utilizing arithmetic operators. I made it using Unity3D. All the visual assets are made from scratch and the sound effects come from various free sound effect sites. Although the idea is simple I've put a lot of effort into it to make it look polished. For example there is a day/night cycle which serves no other purpose than looking good :) City lights turn on and off, crickets chirp at night and birds tweet during the day. And lots of other details. It is ad supported but ads are shown only after you've lost the game, not while you're playing. I hope you'll find it unobtrusive. I know it may not be everyone's cup of tea but I'm very proud of it. I've finally released a personal project. I'd be very glad if you played it an gave me feedback. Also I'd be happy to answer any questions relating to the process of making and releasing the game if I'm able to do so. Thanks!
- Insanity 10y agoIt looks interesting but I have not played it yet. Congratulations though on finishing your sideproject! :-)
- Sanctor 10y agoThank you! This is the first time anything I've made personally, can be enjoyed by the public. It's very exciting :)
- Majestic121 10y agoYour game looks very nice, but I'm not a big fan of ads. Is there a way to pay a premium for an ad free version?
- Sanctor 10y agoI can maybe add a "Remove Ads" IAP. This is such a niche game I didn't think anyone would be willing to pay for it. Also if you sell the game or offer IAPs you have to get into some sort of merchant agreement with Google, I don't quite know how that works. But I'll work on it. Thanks for the feedback!
- tomrod 10y agoI look forward to buying it -- always looking for good/educational apps that both my kids and I can enjoy together.
- soneca 10y agoI would also recommend a paid version without the ads. I had never saw a full screen mobile ad before. I was quite annoyed and surprised with that.
- Sanctor 10y agoThey are called Interstitial Ads. I know it's annoying but I think banner ads are worse. They are usually placed at clever positions so you'll click on them by accident. I'll release a paid version.
- soneca 10y agoYes, these indeed look more professional and less dark pattern. Just a shock as a first time.
- certifiedloud 10y agoIt may be worth noting that some parents wont let their kids play games with ads. There are two good reasons that I can think of for this: 1. The content of some ads can be inappropriate, even in children's games. 2. Fear that an ad will lead to a purchase of some kind. I think an IAP would be a good solution for you.
- mathattack 10y agoI must say you've chosen an auspicious name! :-)
- Sanctor 10y agoWow, your membership is older than my idea for the game. Don't sue me please :)
- mathattack 10y agoI had an idea for a side project and you beat me to it. Massive props to you for being the one who is actually working on it. I am not the suing type of person. :-)
- Chive 10y agoJust downloaded and played it, very cool! One comment: the font is sometimes hard to read, especially the 8s on the balloon (at first) (at least for me, Nexus 6P) http://i.imgur.com/oz11sy3.png http://i.imgur.com/oz11sy3.png
- Sanctor 10y agoThanks for the feedback! I'll think of some way to improve it. Maybe another font.
- jorgemf 10y agoShare it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.livae.apphunt.app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.livae.apph... Disclaimer: it is my side project
- Sanctor 10y agoI will, thank you! edit: I logged into the app. It seems my account has to be at least one week old to be able to share apps. I will do so when the week is up.
- sigi45 10y agoWhy is there an Manga girl? Don't think it is very appropiate.
- MyMan1 10y agoAhahahahahahahahahahaha. If there's a piece of art missing from the world. Make it yourself OK. Just because someone makes something a certain way, doesn't mean they are invalidating your world view. It's up to you to contribute.
- Sanctor 10y agoMy girlfriend and I are into anime. I asked for her to draw me a mascot and she came up with it :) I don't think there's anything inappropriate with it, but thanks for taking the time to download and play my game. I know it's not for everyone.
- hnal943 10y agoHave you looked at Calculords? It's a similar type of game with an interesting IAP strategy of offering additional content. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninjacrime.calculords https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninjacrime...
- Sanctor 10y agoI'm downloading this right now, will check it out.
- gwenzek 10y agoNice game,I appreciate the artwork in the background. The operator button could be make a little bigger though, and the balloon font could be more readable. Also I always have a hard time killing the first balloon of the level because I take a long amount of time to get acquainted with the numbers. Maybe the first balloon could wait a bit so you have time to look a the new numbers? This will also allow the player to make a little pause.
- Sanctor 10y agoAwesome feedback! I will consider all of these.
- ikeboy 10y agoI can't exit the app on a phone without hardware buttons.
- oron 10y agoLooks cool, very nice retro look for the high scores and sprites!
- Sanctor 10y agoThank you! I'm 27 and I never stopped enjoying the retro look I'm accustomed to from my childhood. I tried to replicate it.
- harryfcallahan 10y agoCore mechanics looks like in my game that I'm working on. Funny core principle are same but games are so much different. Congrats on launch!
- Sanctor 10y agoThank you very much! I'd love to play your game as well.
- aedron 10y agoCongrats, it looks fantastic, it is obvious you have worked hard on the details, (deceptively) simple graphics notwithstanding.
- Sanctor 10y agoThe core game mechanic was done in a couple of weeks. The rest took two and a half years :D Some more details: There are multiple kinds of clouds, which can spawn at specific heights. They are spawned at semi-random intervals. The stars only shine after midnight, they are dull at dusk. Every object's colour values are separately changed according to the time of day. There is a delay between UI and scene dawn/dusk times because you're supposed to be far away and looking at the distant city. I can write all day about this stuff, as I'm very excited but I'll control myself for now :)
- aedron 10y agoAwesome, that's what I meant by 'deceptive' :) Simple on first glance, but somehow everything just looks good.
- tvanantwerp 10y agoReminds me of the kind of games I played as a kid in the school computer lab. Well done!
- Sanctor 10y agoThank you! I'd be happy if kids played my game and remembered it somehow in their adulthood :)
- EmFl 10y agoHello, Played just once for now, really enjoyed it, love the fact that you can destroy multiple balloons having the same number ! Congratulations. Is it intentional that there is no pause button ?
- Sanctor 10y agoIt is, kind of... :) I envisioned this game to be very casual. Played in sessions, while you commuted or otherwise had to pass time. But a lot of my friends who played the game also requested a pause button. I might give in. PS: You can just press the home button on your device, and when you come back, it will continue where you left it :)
- sharemywin 10y agomight want to have a learning start button which allows pausing and negative points if you buy an answer. I have a second grader that I think would play it.
- Sanctor 10y agoI'm planning a Practice mode which will help kids of all ages to choose whatever kind of play experience they are comfortable with. Thanks for the feedback!
- winterismute 10y agoIs this another Frog Fractions?
- Sanctor 10y agoI hadn't heard of Frog Fractions. I'll check it out.
- jonathanpoulter 10y agoNothing seems quite like Frog Fractions...
- mkesper 10y agohttp://gcompris.net http://gcompris.net has a fine collection of puzzle games for learning.
- erdemozg 10y agoCongratulations. It requires so much dedication to finish a side project.
- Sanctor 10y agoThank you! It really does. The hardest part is getting at least passable skills in all the areas required for game development. I'm a full time programmer and I draw but I had no idea how to handle sound, things like that.
- sleepychu 10y agoNeat! I've never used unity, which bits did it provide for you? The missile tracking looks pretty cool for example, was that available from the library?
- Sanctor 10y agoUnity provides all the low level engine stuff. Both the missile and the falling bomb are GameObjects in Unity jargon. They have positions as Vector3 types. I get them both and get the difference vector. Then according to the magnitude of that, I add acceleration to the rocket and so on... The trail of the rockets and the smoke they produce are particle creators provided by Unity. You provide the sprites and tweak settings. It is possible to find add-ons for unity in it's built in asset store to do most of the things but I haven't used it. Except for Google AdMob integration.
- soneca 10y agoJust downloaded and played. Nice, fun. Easy tasks but that provoke an anxiety that makes it harder. I would change something on the onboarding. I had no idea what to do when I started playing. The tips and numbers highlighting are good, but before that a short text or visual explanation that I must create the equation which result is the falling bomb would help a lot.
- Sanctor 10y agoThis is what I'm imagining: After the first balloon is in view, the game is paused. It says "Assemble the equation by pressing on the operation and the numbers." And an animation of a pixel-art thumb coming down on the buttons in a sort of gif-loop until you complete the tutorial. How does that sound?
- soneca 10y agoGreat! To be perfect, just use a less formal wording. Write in a way that a kid will understand and not find weird.
- Sanctor 10y agoAwesome feedback! Something like "Let's create the equation!"
- dyarosla 10y agoBetter suggestion. Dont use words. It's a math game. You should be able to showcase what to do with ONLY visuals. Darken out the game on the first missile. Highlight the missile with a focus circle. Then point to one specific equation in the bottom (actually create it for the player). Show that 1 + 5 = 6. Something simple. Then have the missile explode, lighten out the tutorial intro, and let the player continue. Or add a secondary tutorial section with two missiles at once and a multiplication solution. This also has the benefit that your game becomes internationally-friendly to play (independent of language). Also, like others have said, dont put in ads. Not for an educational game. Not lucrative at all, and totally goes against what your audience (parents getting this game for their kids) want to see.
- hatsunearu 10y agoreminds me of this game: http://flippybitandtheattackofthehexadecimalsfrombase16.com/ http://flippybitandtheattackofthehexadecimalsfrombase16.com/ there is also an android version.
- krat0sprakhar 10y agoThis looks awesome! I'm playing with Clojure(script) lately and I think the format of this game would perfectly suit the web. Do you mind if I create an open-source version of this as a web-based game (with credits given accordingly, of course!)
- Sanctor 10y agoOf course! I'd be willing to open source my own code if anyone is interested. It's not the best quality code I've written though, that's why I have reservations about open sourcing it :)
- carlmungz 10y agoAlthough I've not played the game (I only have an iOS device), I'd like to say well done for finishing your side project!
- Sanctor 10y agoThank you! I bought a Mac Mini the same time I made my first commit on this project so I could build for iOS. I will definitely release an iOS version. It's just that, I have to get an iPhone and pay $100 for the developer program. It's out of my price range for now :) I developed this game using my late 2012 Glaxy Note 2.
- kejaed 10y agoJust a note, to work on the port you don't need a device to run in the simulator and you don't need to pay the $100 until you want to submit to the store. As of last year you can install on personal devices without paying the $100 either.
- Sanctor 10y agoI'll get XCode and check it out as soon as I can. I didn't know about the personal device thing.
- mkagenius 10y agoI had made a similar game, or all math games just look similar : http://mkagenius.github.io/ http://mkagenius.github.io/
- Sanctor 10y agoI just played it. Awesome! Such a simple idea, yet fast and fun. I bookmarked it in my "Interesting" folder :)
- philbarr 10y agoI also did something very similar: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyapped.calculate https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyappe... It's supposed to be like the "numbers" round from the show Countdown in the UK.
- Sanctor 10y agoI love that show! Especially the 8 out of 10 cats version.
- Sanctor 10y agoBy the way I don't normally use social platforms much but I created a twitter account for this. It's @DawnspriteGames I haven't tweeted anything yet :), but I'll let you know when there is an update. You can also send me E-Mails at support@dawnsprite.com. I'll reply from my personal E-Mail account. I'd like to thank you all again! This is a wonderful community. I'll keep reading and responding to feedback here.
- macadata12 10y agoGreat job! Coincidentally I was talking to my son today about needing to speed up his reaction time with simple multiplication. If there was an option to put this game into a mode where it asked multiplication questions only that would fit the bill perfectly. Taking this further, being able to choose addition only, or addition/subtraction only, or subtraction with/without negatives would make it playable by a lot of different ages. Also, I'd pay for an add-free version.
- Sanctor 10y agoI am planning to implement a practice mode which will allow you to choose which operations and what kinds of numbers you want to practice with. Your insight as a parent is very important for me. Thank you!
- simooooo 10y agoWhen the hints stopped I had no idea how to determine which number I had to calculate Edit:ah they're on the balloons. I assumed as they were so pixelated they couldn't
- Sanctor 10y agoThe short visual tutorial might help with this as well I imagine. I wrote it as an answer to another comment, I can't copy paste as I had to go on mobile.
- richardboegli 10y agoJust watched the video, looks real good. WELL DONE!
- Sanctor 10y agoTHANK YOU! That was done with Movie Maker :D
- rb808 10y agoThis is great. The main suggestion is to have finer grained difficulty settings - mainly so that younger children can use it. IE first graders can only add small numbers. Take a look at Sushi Monster.
- Sanctor 10y agoI'll check it out. Difficulty setting is a great idea. I was also thinking about adding a practice section where you can select the operations you want as well as the types of numbers.
- 16bytes 10y agoNeat game! It would be interesting to hear about your ad revenue numbers, especially before and after pointing to HN. Also, it sounds like you're thinking about a paid, ad-free version. It would be another interesting analysis to compare the revenue streams of both apps. Cheers! Great work!
- Sanctor 10y agoI will do that in a blog post, if ever there is anything of worth to write about :) I've just checked and since this post I've made around 3 dollars :D I don't know if sharing this violates some agreement I've accepted without realizing. Thank you!
- supersan 10y agoCongrat on shipping. The game idea is very original and interesting. I will definitely give this a try (forgot to bring my phone today but thanks to the really nice feature of Play store that lets you install apps from browser, it should be installed on my phone already).
- Sanctor 10y agoThank you! I'd be happy to hear your opinion, either here or through e-mail once you've played it.
- josho 10y agoWhen you want to grow revenue past what ads support look into purchasable themes. E.g. have zombies or godzilla skins (targeting boys), and similar for girls. I had jumped on the app store bandwagon at the outset and did alright selling apps at 99¢-2.99 but was hesitant to switch to IAP. It turns out I was wrong and the kids apps that did switch faired well enough to continue. E.g. While I was fighting for 99¢ sales, other similar apps were selling $10 bundles for graphical skins. As a developer it makes me ill that the core experience is worth nothing, but some new flashy artwork can be sold for $10. Sigh, but it works. Good luck.
- Sanctor 10y agoThanks for sharing your experience. I will think about it. Most of the games I see nowadays sell what's basically shortcuts to success. This creates a very crooked sense of value especially in children that play these games. But selling environment and character skins and other non-functional stuff might be a good idea.
- josho 10y agoIf you look around, it obviously works. E.g. Triple-A games these days all have premium editions that add new character skins. What was less certain for me was if it would work for kids educational content. I was skeptical because kids games have shorter play lengths, e.g. kids spent a few minutes at a time on our games. But, observing both the market and my own children's later experience they were keen to have the shiny new thing in the app, even if it didn't change the gameplay. People are inherently tuned into wanting novelty, simply swapping out graphics plays to that human desire. So, yeh, don't sell shortcuts to success, but do sell theme packs. It works.
- mrgoldenbrown 10y ago>E.g. have zombies or godzilla skins (targeting boys), and similar for girls. Why go out of your way to perpetuate stereotypes? Just make skins, period. Don't contribute to kids growing up with artificial limitations by making everything target boys or girls specifically.
- maluta 10y agoIs there any plan to enable translations in the app? I'd love help adding a Brazillian Portuguese (pt-br) version.
- devgutt 10y agoLoved the game. I don't mind about the ads. It was well thought, because when you lose, you deserved ;) As I suggestion. You didn't need to waste time in so much detail for the first version. If you haven't mentioned about the birds and the building lights I would never have notice. It is a nice to have, but surely it would be better to ship the game earlier. Even though, I would rather like different cities. The city is destroyed, no matter what :0
- Sanctor 10y agoYes, in hindsight I could have released it way sooner. Even now I couldn't implement half the things I wanted to implement. It's hard make compromises and cut things out. I wanted to deliver what was in my head perfectly. Let this be a lesson to everyone out there I guess :) Release, then iterate. Otherwise you miss out on so much valuable feedback for years.
- ommunist 10y agoI'd pay for it on Apple Store!
- DrScump 10y agoWhy does it need access to photos/media/files? (That's the only flagged permission request) Also, I found it frustrating. There were some totals that could not be reached (e.g. "14" where there was no 6 and no 9, and you can't use a 7 twice), so that city unfairly dies. I killed enough cities as it is via "Missile Command" over the years as it is.
- Sanctor 10y agoThe "Share" functionality takes a screen shot and has to save it somewhere. That is the reason for that permission request. If you revoke that permission, the game will still work but you'll have to take the screen shots yourself if ever you want to share your score. The totals are picked from the numbers that are given to you to use. There is no possibility of a total that cannot be reached by the numbers provided. But I'll check to see if I have some sort of bug in the code. edit: I've added a notice to the store listing so there's no confusion.
- Sanctor 10y agoAd-Free version is out now! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.DawnSprite.MathAttackEducation https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.DawnSprite...