4 ms·

Thinking about making my table-top RPG an iPad app. Looking for advice.

10 points by JimmySwill 16y ago

I wrote a fantasy role-playing game called Wayfarers a couple of years ago, and have been selling PDFs and hardcopies of it and supplements since. It’s more of a hobby than a business, but one that I plan to continue for some time. After playing with the iPad, I think it would be awesome to rewrite the book as an app. Tables in the book could randomly generate results, and characters could be built. Also, I could update for errata and new features and material. I don’t think I could make much money, but I am really excited about the idea, and I think it would be a lot of fun. I have all of the art and text ready to go, but my programming experience is limited to some FORTRAN and Matlab for physics research years ago. How difficult of a task am I looking at here to teach myself how to build the app and do it? I’m considering teaching myself, but I have other projects in the works. If I were to pay someone to do it, what kind of time frame could I expect? Any advice at the moment would be appreciated, as I am trying to figure out the best way to make this happen. I’m convinced that this is going to be the future of tabletop RPG material, and it would be so cool. Thanks, -Jimmy

wallflower 16y ago
> I don’t think I could make much money, but I am really excited about the idea, and I think it would be a lot of fun. It's not fun. There are some parts that are fun. The Cocoa framework is a joy to work with, compared with some other languages/frameworks. You can definitely see the 20+ yrs of NextStep lineage. Like deploying your app to the iPad for the first time. And most especially when you get the finished product in the App Store. > I have all of the art and text ready to go +10. The fact you have the artwork is huge. Even better if you did it yourself. Programmers are commodities. Programmers who can do some design are not. > I’m considering teaching myself, but I have other projects in the works. You have to choose whether to drop everything else and put them on the backburner. There is not one single competent iPhone programmer I've met who learned without going after their first iPhone project with near-maniacal focus. > How difficult of a task am I looking at here to teach myself how to build the app and do it? How dedicated are you to the task? From personal experience and that of others, I conservatively estimate it will take about 150-200 hours of hands-on work before Objective C/Cocoa stops being the problem and starts becoming the solution. That is about 2 months.
- JimmySwill 16y ago
  >It's not fun. There are some parts that are fun. Well, even a grueling task can be fun with the right perspective. But point taken. :) >+10. The fact you have the artwork is huge. Even better if you did it yourself. Programmers are commodities. Programmers who can do some design are not. Yes, I did the layout and design, some of the artwork too. The rest of the art I commissioned, and have the rights to use. >You have to choose whether to drop everything else and put them on the backburner. That's the toughest part right now. I can get pretty focused (the game is 400+ pages and took nearly 2 years), but I have another front-burner project at the moment that is going to remain so for some time. >From personal experience and that of others, I conservatively estimate it will take about 150-200 hours of hands-on work before Objective C/Cocoa stops being the problem and starts becoming the solution. That is about 2 months. That's 6 months in real-time then? :P Thanks. That helps.
  - stiggz 16y ago
    lol, don't forget that whatever time you put in will pay dividends. You'll be a real programmer! And although this project won't be making you money, you'll have the expertise to turn on a faucet for apps in the future. I'd say, do it yourself- don't listen to the people who say you can't learn to program in six months. Just build your program as you go, grab books that give a thorough step-by-step process to building apps, read other people's source code, and make friends with some successful iphone app developers. A web-app would be nice, php would probably be the easiest way (TONS of example, and php.net is a definitive resoure), so you may want to prototype in php, but don't stop trying to learn Objective-C, you'll still be one of the first on HN to 'get it', and 'use it' to build their own ideas out.
mhd 16y ago
If you're really going for an "interactive book" instead of a character generator / combat tracker / DM tool that supplements a traditional print/PDF publication, then the integration will take a lot of design work. You might really be better off learning the requisite skills yourself, as otherwise I'd predict a lot of back and forth talk between you and the developer. Which can be more frustrating than learning Cocoa/Objective-C, never mind that lots of iterations are usually quite costly. It all depends a bit on how thorough your vision is and with how many mockup drawings you could provide the programmer. How hypertext-y do you imagine your full product? Lots of interaction or more a few mini-apps that contain links to a textual copy provided (e.g. a character generator that would link to the relevant texts in an integrated PDF viewer if required, but otherwise would look like a desktop program). I'd say that most of this could be done as a webapp, which would make the app more universal (players could use their laptops, too) and would increase the pool of potential developers. Clicking on a table to select one result randomly is a trivial javascript addition, character generation is a bit more involved (I haven't seen a good character generator for any RPG yet.)
- JimmySwill 16y ago
  Wayfarers is pretty old school, and I fully intend that the game remain on the table top, so not so much of an interactive book. Basically this: The tables in the book can randomly generate results (layout remains more or less the same), and there is a character sheet that has fillable fields. (I suppose that the sheet would be the most difficult, because it would be nice if the logic would provide adjustments, -such as a damage bonus for high strength.) Also a basic dice-roller, and bookmarks. But that is it to begin with. I imagine the app aping the book design/layout, but having a few dynamic elements. Maybe a webapp is the way to go. Thanks.
  - JimmySwill 16y ago
    No, on second thought, I think I'd rather the overkill of the iPad app over a webapp. It leaves some very interesting development doors open for the future, and has a consistent interface like a book.

10 points by JimmySwill 16y ago

wallflower 16y ago

> I don’t think I could make much money, but I am really excited about the idea, and I think it would be a lot of fun. It's not fun. There are some parts that are fun. The Cocoa framework is a joy to work with, compared with some other languages/frameworks. You can definitely see the 20+ yrs of NextStep lineage. Like deploying your app to the iPad for the first time. And most especially when you get the finished product in the App Store. > I have all of the art and text ready to go +10. The fact you have the artwork is huge. Even better if you did it yourself. Programmers are commodities. Programmers who can do some design are not. > I’m considering teaching myself, but I have other projects in the works. You have to choose whether to drop everything else and put them on the backburner. There is not one single competent iPhone programmer I've met who learned without going after their first iPhone project with near-maniacal focus. > How difficult of a task am I looking at here to teach myself how to build the app and do it? How dedicated are you to the task? From personal experience and that of others, I conservatively estimate it will take about 150-200 hours of hands-on work before Objective C/Cocoa stops being the problem and starts becoming the solution. That is about 2 months.

JimmySwill 16y ago
>It's not fun. There are some parts that are fun. Well, even a grueling task can be fun with the right perspective. But point taken. :) >+10. The fact you have the artwork is huge. Even better if you did it yourself. Programmers are commodities. Programmers who can do some design are not. Yes, I did the layout and design, some of the artwork too. The rest of the art I commissioned, and have the rights to use. >You have to choose whether to drop everything else and put them on the backburner. That's the toughest part right now. I can get pretty focused (the game is 400+ pages and took nearly 2 years), but I have another front-burner project at the moment that is going to remain so for some time. >From personal experience and that of others, I conservatively estimate it will take about 150-200 hours of hands-on work before Objective C/Cocoa stops being the problem and starts becoming the solution. That is about 2 months. That's 6 months in real-time then? :P Thanks. That helps.
- stiggz 16y ago
  lol, don't forget that whatever time you put in will pay dividends. You'll be a real programmer! And although this project won't be making you money, you'll have the expertise to turn on a faucet for apps in the future. I'd say, do it yourself- don't listen to the people who say you can't learn to program in six months. Just build your program as you go, grab books that give a thorough step-by-step process to building apps, read other people's source code, and make friends with some successful iphone app developers. A web-app would be nice, php would probably be the easiest way (TONS of example, and php.net is a definitive resoure), so you may want to prototype in php, but don't stop trying to learn Objective-C, you'll still be one of the first on HN to 'get it', and 'use it' to build their own ideas out.

mhd 16y ago

If you're really going for an "interactive book" instead of a character generator / combat tracker / DM tool that supplements a traditional print/PDF publication, then the integration will take a lot of design work. You might really be better off learning the requisite skills yourself, as otherwise I'd predict a lot of back and forth talk between you and the developer. Which can be more frustrating than learning Cocoa/Objective-C, never mind that lots of iterations are usually quite costly. It all depends a bit on how thorough your vision is and with how many mockup drawings you could provide the programmer. How hypertext-y do you imagine your full product? Lots of interaction or more a few mini-apps that contain links to a textual copy provided (e.g. a character generator that would link to the relevant texts in an integrated PDF viewer if required, but otherwise would look like a desktop program). I'd say that most of this could be done as a webapp, which would make the app more universal (players could use their laptops, too) and would increase the pool of potential developers. Clicking on a table to select one result randomly is a trivial javascript addition, character generation is a bit more involved (I haven't seen a good character generator for any RPG yet.)

JimmySwill 16y ago
Wayfarers is pretty old school, and I fully intend that the game remain on the table top, so not so much of an interactive book. Basically this: The tables in the book can randomly generate results (layout remains more or less the same), and there is a character sheet that has fillable fields. (I suppose that the sheet would be the most difficult, because it would be nice if the logic would provide adjustments, -such as a damage bonus for high strength.) Also a basic dice-roller, and bookmarks. But that is it to begin with. I imagine the app aping the book design/layout, but having a few dynamic elements. Maybe a webapp is the way to go. Thanks.
- JimmySwill 16y ago
  No, on second thought, I think I'd rather the overkill of the iPad app over a webapp. It leaves some very interesting development doors open for the future, and has a consistent interface like a book.