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Youngest Y Combinator Founders Launch MinoMonsters, The Pokemon Of Social Games
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- coryl 16y agoTerrific! I'm jealous.
- lachyg 16y agoWell done Josh, you really deserve the success you're now having!
- brackin 16y agoWoot go Josh!
- jamespickens 16y agoCongrats Josh
- citricsquid 16y agoI'd be interested in his old business, who bought that company for six figures and why? Also congratulations on the success :-)
- sim0n 16y agoCongrats Josh! Great work with Mino dude.
- aidanf 16y agoI'd like to see a bit more of what this site is about but everytime I go to http://minomonsters.com/ http://minomonsters.com/ I get redirected to facebook. It would be nice if I could view the site and learn something about the game without having to authorize it to access my facebook account and email.
- Groxx 16y agoThere really needs to be a BugMeNot for Facebook. Or something similar. edit: Mailinator's alternate addresses occasionally aren't blocked, but I haven't yet successfully received a confirm email :/
- bhousel 16y agoWhy not just set up a fake facebook profile?
- benologist 16y agoCause it takes a lot of effort to make a 'fake' facebook profile - I had one and it only lasted a few months before it was locked out pending government-issue ID being sent to them, since I wasn't actually using it for anything more than looking at the occasional thing that required an account I can only assume they monitor for unusual use patterns.
- edanm 16y agoI'm pretty sure you can make a fake Facebook profile, mark it as a test account, then use it to connect to things. Test accounts can't interact with real Facebook users, but they can be used to log in to sites.
- Groxx 16y agoI don't think so, it looks like that might have to be done entirely via the programming API, and you need an application registered to do so (or the access token of another application) because it only works on one application: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/test_users/ http://developers.facebook.com/docs/test_users/
- edanm 16y agoYou can definitely create a user and then turn him into a test account manually, I've created many test accounts that way. You have to visit a special URL that turns the account into a test account (can't remember it offhand, and I'm not going to post it anyway since if anyone clicks on it then clicks "accept" without looking, it nukes their regular account).
- grahammather 16y agohttp://apps.facebook.com/monstergalaxy/ http://apps.facebook.com/monstergalaxy/
- bryne 16y agoI'm pleased for these guys, but a little surprised as well. Launching a Pokemon social game isn't exactly being disruptive; it's not as if there's any dearth of them on Facebook, particularly at a time when many companies are fleeing the already strip-mined platform for greener pastures.
- webwright 16y agoPeople are still MINTING money on Facebook. I imagine the top 5 grossing facebook games make the top 5 grossing iPhone games look like adorable little hobbies. The #40 game on Facebook has 6M monthly active uniques. THe #120 game on Facebook has 2M MAU. How many iPhone games have those kind of numbers? Platform quibbles aside, I imagine it's the fastest/cheapest way to get tens/hundreds of thousands of users to test their gameplay. It's easier to develop for Facebook than mobile, doesn't have the approval nonsense for rapid iteration, has a built in viral channel, etc. I think it's a smart move.
- coryl 16y agoAgreed, the bet isn't on this game, its on the team. As in, "I bet they could displace Zynga one day".
- patio11 16y agoThat isn't even necessary as a success condition, but in general, YC invests in Texas Hold'em because they see the glimmer that suggests you're capable of eventually executing on FarmVille. (Zynga wasn't Zynga on day one, either.)
- ThomPete 16y agoAre they? Who else other than Zynga is. Making money?
- noahth 16y agoYes. Quite a few of us.
- robotkad 16y agoSorry to rain on the parade, but isn't this simply a clone of Pokemon? You start by selecting one of three monsters (they even resemble the starting three from the orignal game). The battle screen and fight dynamic looks almost identical. Am I missing something?
- Fjslfj 16y agoI have to agree with this. It's obvious these guys are smart and savvy. Couldn't they have come up with a new, brilliant idea instead of a Pokemon clone? I hope this gets acquired so they can spend their 20s doing something more meaningful.
- jamespickens 16y agoCan you come up with something? No, alright then.
- jazzychad 16y agoNew and brilliant ideas are much more difficult to gain traction. Great execution on a "cloned" idea is much easier. How many Groupon clones are there? How many of them are making a lot of money? (Hint, a lot). How much money is spent on Pokemon and related collectible card games? (Hint, also a lot). Meaningful is in the eye of the beholder.
- brackin 16y agoThe point is Groupon Clones did something Groupon wasn't doing (targeting countries Groupon wasn't targeting) meaning Groupon isn't entitled to be the market leader and the other startups are free to create one for their country. Pokemon is not making a social web game, this is a big difference to the Groupon situation in my opinion as they are different things. I wouldn't say it's a copy just the story/theme is inspired by Pokemon.
- pgbovine 16y agotime to cue the cliched "isn't google just a clone of altavista" or "isn't facebook just a clone of myspace" rebuttals.
- daniel-cussen 16y agoHow did you deal with Tyler's under-18-ness, legally? I remember there was some mention of this being a small issue in terms of entering contracts in a pg essay.
- markbao 16y agoThe way I did it was basically to have my parents sign off on whatever contracts I did. My first sale had a signature line for me and one under it for my parents. aww, that's cute!
- teej 16y agoIt seems he's starting to learn the hard lessons of building inside a walled garden. Facebook has already shut down newsfeed stories for his app (a major user acquisition channel) due to ToS violations. Welcome to Hell.
- chrischen 16y agoDo you have a source for this? I'm seeing newsfeed items from Minomonsters right now...
- acconrad 16y agoWow, what am I doing with my life?
- tealtan 16y agoI have wondered for a long time why there hasn't been a mobile version of Nintendogs / Tamagotchi. Seems like it would be the perfect way to carry one of those around, along with the ease of local social stuff on top. And: a) touch interaction would feel way more immediate b) constant updates to these apps would allow the dev to constantly change / add to pet behavior
- Raphael 16y agoSo I started playing and it offers to increase my speed stat for the price of 8 Facebook credits. That just doesn't seem right.
- gjkyuliy 16y agoClick on our website: http://simurl.com/voblec http://simurl.com/voblec Christan Audigier bikini $23 Ed Hardy Bikini $23 Smful short_t-shirt_woman $15 ed hardy short_tank_woman $16 Sandal $32 christian louboutin $80 Sunglass $15 COACH_Necklace $27 handbag $33 AF tank woman $17 puma slipper woman $30 http://simurl.com/voblec http://simurl.com/voblec ~ ¤ ╭⌒╮ ╭⌒╮ ╭⌒╭⌒╮╭⌒╮～╭⌒╮ ,））））,''）~~ ,''~） ╱◥█◣ ╱◥█◣ ｜田｜田｜｜田｜田｜ ╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬
- jazzychad 16y agoMeta: I am appalled by the amount of hate and (non-constructive) criticism in these comments. In a total role-reversal, all of the comments on TC are positive and encouraging. The congratulatory comments in this thread have been downvoted to negative points. What gives? Is it easier to criticize than give encouragement? These guys already have 95,000 active users... what a feat! I am ok with constructive criticisms and asking meaningful questions, but pointing out other competitors and implying that this product is a waste of everyone's time is just mean. Josh and team, I am extremely proud of you (never having met you). Do what you love doing, and keep doing it. Don't listen to the haters.
- jedsmith 16y agoThose congratulatory comments were all left in a row, and one of the accounts was created just to leave one. That might have triggered somebody's "noise" radar; I haven't voted on anything in this thread, and I don't see them as noise personally. That might be an explanation for at least that, though -- I wouldn't rush to call that malicious. A misunderstanding, maybe, but I doubt someone is systematically downvoting the good will in this thread, maybe because I look for the positive in everything. I also wouldn't consider pointing out other competitors mean. I'm sure the person leaving that comment, and the numerous votes for him, are just wondering what the difference is (and another comment hit it: it's the team). Don't attribute to malice what mere stupidity can explain. Stupidity is a bit strong in this case, but you get what I mean. I don't really observe a lot of hate here, just a broad spectrum of responses.
- codexon 16y agoThe problem with TechCrunch's Facebook comments is that you can't speak your mind if you have something negative to say about anything. If you make a positive comment, you might get some friends, but if you make a negative comment, you are much more likely to make enemies just for saying what's on your mind. That is why TechCrunch comments are now nothing but a sea of sycophancy. The value of an anonymous forum is that the truth gets told.
- netcan 16y agoAre you being facetious?
- markbao 16y agoWow, someone's downvoting every congratulatory comment on this thread. To that guy: congratulations on not doing anything useful with your time (while we did). Also, congrats to Josh and team! I'm totally jealous and proud of a fellow young dude.
- jedsmith 16y agoIf you're talking about those comments at the bottom, one of the accounts was created just to leave the comment, and all of them were left very rapidly after the actual item was submitted. I don't personally agree with this, but I can see an argument that they're not contributing to the discussion (and could be perceived as noise), which seems to be extremely important to some users on HN. It isn't just "[one] guy", and I think your insult of "him" is a little bit counterproductive. I honestly don't think it's because they're congratulatory, and I think you're going after someone needlessly -- I don't see any systematic assault on good will in this thread, as a couple people have. Consider it weird and move on.
- markbao 16y agoConsidered weird. Moving on.
- naithemilkman 16y agoAnyone else feel old?
- 9999 16y agoThis is a fine concept, but it would be a serious mistake to limit themselves to Facebook and not take advantage of local connectivity options. A lot of children have iTouch devices, but not many have actual iPhones with 3G connections to take advantage of the kind of social gaming that Facebook promotes. It doesn't seem like this will play very well in the schoolyard, and it also doesn't seem anywhere close to sophisticated enough to appeal to adults.
- michael_dorfman 16y agoit also doesn't seem anywhere close to sophisticated enough to appeal to adults. You mean, like Farmville is sophisticated? As for iTouch devices-- that sounds like a reasonable idea, but first things first. If they get some traction with the Facebook app, there's plenty of further opportunities for them to explore.
- richardburton 16y agoCongratulations Josh. I remember the first time we met in person a year and a half ago. Now seeing you rock it on the big stage brings a tear of pride to my eye.
- chr15 16y agoI'm trying to see the larger picture 1. Get people addicted to Pokemon game 2. Add in-app purchases 3. Start gaming empire For those who haven't seen the game, it's incredibly well executed. Good sounds and graphics.
- dominostars 16y agoThis startup actually has me more exciting than a lot of the other ones here, even though I doubt I'll ever use it. Games are rarely about being novel, they're about being good. And if if pg tells the truth about funding people, not ideas, then I'll be very interested to see how this turns out.
- oniTony 16y agoSo here's my bug report: - Quest completion progress doesn't update until I manually click through into the details. - A retreating pet is referred to as {{pet_name}} (problem in the template layer?) - Using just about any special character when naming a pet <, &, \, ', (, will make the AJAX call fail and a pet will end up with untitled<hash> name instead - A blank name will be accepted (I expected it to revert to the default name) and used as such. -- "What would you like to call this monster?" alert box message is about as descriptive as "Would you like to perform this action?" (The offending part being just "this") - If I'm allowed to try to use a capture card just once, this mechanic is not apparent. It just looks like the inventory disappears. - switch pets screen appears to be cached on first view of the battle. Subsequent switches will not show damage to HP of any party members. - sometimes the battle will just stop at "You have chosen to use Bash" message. Presumably the client has missed a response from the server and there is no retry logic? - at some point it would start refreshing the page after every battle move is executed - is successful escape (run away) supposed to be titled "you lost this battle"? (it also seems to have killed the in-play pet that escaped) - after the battle, the pet graphics are always fixed, but the experience bars are sometimes re-ordered. Some other observations: - it's annoying to go to the dashboard after every single battle. - the "weak bash" (0 energy move) is not available unless a pet has little energy (what if I want to just tap a wild pet , in a capture attempt?). At that point the UI is very un-intuitive, as regular bash becomes weak, and all the moves (including weak bash!) are greyed out. - I wasn't able to figure out where pets beyond the 4th captured one are at. No apparent way to select or re-order the party. -- as such the game quickly becomes nothing but a low-level grind, as first weak pets take up all the available slots and make it impossible to move further into the game. - do I _have_ to explicitly click on "aquire[sic] reward" if it's only gold (presumably this is always wanted)
- TheRevoltingX 16y agoThe graphics are really cool and all, but this definitely isn't what pokemon would be. Where is the ability to walk the world and interact with non playable characters? It's decent, but it's no pokemon as far as playability. It's just a stripped down version of pokemon with social elements added. It would be really nice if you could actually play as a character, view battle animations (like pokemon fire attacks show flames) etc.
- philjackson 16y ago"At 15, he was selling his first company for just over six figures." 7 figures?
- mkramlich 16y agoI interpreted that to mean something in the range $100-125k
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- Tichy 16y agoI guess it is normal in the Facebook age, but I think it is a pity that it seems to be impossible to see anything from the game without giving the app access to my Facebook network first. Somehow I can never bring myself to give apps access, as I am not sure what they will be doing. Must create another account just for testing apps... Still, it used to be that you get to examine the merchandise before you buy it.
- hdctambien 16y agoSomething to keep in mind about cloning games: Zynga started with "Just another Texas Hold'em" game and followed that with an exact clone of Farm Town[1] which it iterated on quickly and marketed well. Angry Birds is thought to be inspired by Crush the Castle[2] but with a better control mechanism and friendlier targets. Minecraft was a fork/clone of Infiniminer[3] which focused on the community aspects of the game rather than the competitive nature of the original. What starts as a clone today, could be something unique tomorrow. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille#Originality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille#Originality [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Birds#Development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Birds#Development [3] http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Infiniminer http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Infiniminer