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Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer
- adamquek 5y agoCongratulations. Age is just a number. In fact, you are probably a lot better at finding the right resources with your experiences in life, socially or professionally.
- muzani 5y agoI love the rawness of games that are built by people who just want to make games. Today, we have tons of games that are made for money. Some are "fun" but missing that bit of soul. I haven't played this, but there's something appealing from the screenshots. The flat colored backgrounds, the slightly unaligned colors, the typo on the screenshot. It's like an alternative rock band.
- bananabat 5y agoI just hope that we are not the Smashing Pumpkins of indie game dev. Thanks for your comment. Made me smile.
- dqh 5y agoThanks for sharing your story. I am a similar age and a couple of weeks ago I took the somewhat scary step of quitting my CTO job to pivot to indie game development. Can't wait to get started after my notice period ends. It helps to know that i'm not alone starting game dev later in life :)
- bananabat 5y ago"One of us, one of us!" Hey, there's a reason why the roller coaster is always the most popular ride! Best of luck and hope to see your WIP.
- mckirk 5y agoCongrats! :) Since I haven't seen it mentioned here so far, there's a typo in the screenshots: 'Play without distrctactions'.
- bananabat 5y agoNow I know, hehe. Thank you for the 'grats and the heads up.
- andretti1977 5y agoI'm here just to congrat with you, I love everything you wrote in your write up, so inspiring! What you did is something small but so meaningful! No big dreams startup, simply live your life living its up-side-downs and loving that and after some time, doing something simple but joyful! So simple, but to these days, so great!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you for reading it. I am so glad that you found meaning in it and that it has found some resonance in the community.
- bdowling 5y agoSo, you've published your first game. What's your goal? Is it to make money from this game or do you just want people to play it? Are you going to make a second game? If so, will the goal be any different?
- bananabat 5y agoIn an ideal world, we'd want to be sustained by our creative efforts. Not be a gazillionaire out of it, just make a living in a way that is pleasurable and inspiring. This is something I wish for everyone, btw. I hope that people will play our game so that we can keep doing this. But maybe they won't, that's ok too. I've been discussing this very thing with my husband and he said something that was inspiring to me: our dream and our income stream don't have to be the same thing. In gamer metaphor, we know our main quest...but sometimes you need to gear up before you can tackle the more challenging stuff. And so I've never minded the side quests. :-) The path will reveal itself.
- JeremyReimer 5y agoCongrats on releasing the game! Great work! I'm 49 and I have basically the same story you did... and also share the same secret dream to write games "one day", so I'm starting really small with a simple little 2D game in GameMaker Studio. So far it's slow going but super fun. But you've inspired me to keep going, so thanks! EDIT: Purchased! Looking forward to playing it!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you! How's your experience with GMS2?
- JeremyReimer 5y agoI'm really enjoying it so far. It seems to fit with my mental model of making video games, which basically ended when I was 15 and writing games in MBASIC on my Heathkit (and later QuickBasic on MS-DOS, but I sort of stopped making games at that point) Obviously the language is very different and it's object-oriented, which MBASIC definitely was not, but it sort of feels... similar somehow? I can't really explain it. Some things about the GML language are a bit odd, and sometimes it seems like people on the forums believe wrong things about it (I read more than one person complaining that you couldn't define your own functions, which is not correct, but the docs could be a lot clearer on that) But overall I'm happy enough with it. I'm recreating a game I wrote in interpreted BASIC back in 1987 [1] and so far I've got the levels, basic player movement, simple enemy AI, and a very basic game loop. It's nothing fancy but I'm learning a lot so far. [1] https://jeremyreimer.com/rockets-item.lsp?p=282 https://jeremyreimer.com/rockets-item.lsp?p=282
- mysterydip 5y agoIf you're looking for something a bit more BASIC-like, I recommend checking out AppGameKit, made by the people who did Dark Basic back in the day.
- bananabat 5y agoI just looked at your blog post. Artwork is amazing for your original game. I wouldn't say great for a 15-year old...it's super well-done, period. And it's adorable that you had stuffies on your monitor.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bananabat 5y agoI've always loved playing video games. From the moment I realized there were places called arcades with wonderful machines that ate your coins, I was hooked. Game and Watch? Nagged my mom for every single one. Nintendo Famicom? We had ALL the bootleg cartridges. Gameboy? Couldn't afford it so I burned with envy. Original Xbox? I have 4 of 'em stashed away somewhere. Playstation 1-5? Heck, yeah. Mobile? My husband bought our first iPad because we saw someone playing Angry Birds on it. PC? I'm playing The Ascent with my whole family right now. More than playing video games, though, what I wanted to do as a kid was to MAKE games. I still remember punching in a borrowed Mario Bros cartridge for the first time, pressing START and having a freaking epiphany. How cool was it that someone MADE this?? To heck with being an astronaut, when I grew up, I was going to do THIS. I knew it with all the certainty of 8-year-old me. But you know how it goes: like most childhood dreams, I put this one on a shelf and gradually left it behind. I didn't become an astronaut either (in case you were wondering). What I did was drop out of university in my third year. And since then, I've been a copywriter, graphic designer, business owner, immigrant, stay-at-home spouse, and for a long time, the stay-at-home parent. And it's been great. Life with all its up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A's...it's all been wonderful. "Hold up," you might say, if you're still reading this. "Why are you telling us all this? Boring." Right. Let me get to it. I'm 48 and if there's a lesson that has been inescapable these past two years is that we may not see tomorrow. So, I've decided to focus on happiness in the here and now. Carpet diem, as my kid used to say when he was little. And you know one thing that has added to my happiness? Dusting off my dream, sitting my ass down and finally learning how to be a game developer. And happier still? I've done this with my husband. So we've published our first mobile game. It's called "Slingshot Effect" and it's available on App Store or on Google Play. It's an infinite jumper that's easy to just pick up and play. Perfect for commutes or if you're stuck in a waiting room somewhere. It's a paid app because we feel strongly that the level of monetization in the casual game space is just...ugh...it's bad. Thanks for listening, I really appreciate it. TLDR: When I was a kid, I wanted to make video games. And now that I'm kind of old, my husband and I made one. App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/slingshot-effect/id1537916631?itsct=apps_box_link&itscg=30200 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/slingshot-effect/id1537916631?... Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thirteenbananas.slingshoteffect https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thirteenba...
- robofanatic 5y agogreat story and the game looks cool from the screen shots and videos in the app store. wonder if you have plans to introduce a free version with in-app purchases. bet you will get more users.
- bovermyer 5y agoI'm not the author, but personally, I'm hostile to freemium games. This is especially the case in multiplayer games. Making it free removes a check on "low quality users" - e.g., hackers, griefers, etc.
- bananabat 5y agoYou know, we've considered it and we've been approached by a couple of publishers in the "hyper casual" space to go the route of free-but-with-IAPs. First the terms of industry-standard contracts are onerous. And second...well, I personally love casual games. And I never minded paying a reasonable amount for games I play. And then there are games like Two Dots that I really, really liked but the endless monetization just gets to be too much. This is just our preference. We don't have anything against ad-supported or IAP-supported games. We just feel that there is still a pool of mobile players out there who don't mind purchasing a casual game outright. And who knows, we might decide to collaborate with a publisher on a future game. We'll see what the future brings.
- mysterydip 5y agoCongrats on the release! I can only say anecdotally from my own experience, but the games we had listed for a price got 1% or less of the downloads of the same game after we made it free. People complain about free with IAP, but the $ shows otherwise.
- bananabat 5y agoThis is something that's a dilemma for us. Thanks for your input!
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- sgt 5y agoLooks great man, keep it up!
- thebrain 5y agoHere, take my Google Survey money. Best of luck!
- bananabat 5y agoThanks! :)
- Osiris 5y agoMy son wants to learn how to make games but I have no game development experience. What path did you take to start learning game development?
- andrewstuart 5y agoSome really great resources for kids to learn to program games: CodeCombat Construct 3
- TomGullen 5y agoHey thanks for the Construct 3 mention we're always thrilled to see it come up :)
- lmilcin 5y agoI am developer with over 20 years of experience. I have learned programming from books where computers were generally not available where I grew up. But my son is learning programming (started when he was 6, he just turned 8 recently). He started by goofing off with some robots programmed in visual languages. Then moved to goofing off even more in Scratch. When pandemic started we found a school that teaches programming online and they used Scratch to program Minecraft which got my son hooked up -- he likes Minecraft a lot and having it do stuff that wouldn't otherwise be possible was a huge motivation for him to learn. He is now attending a second semester in that school and they are using Kodu for some more advanced, 3d goofing off. My son became big fan of Undertale recently and he approached me to learn to make some fan content based on Undertale. We did some research and found Undertale was made in Game Maker -- a game engine for 2d games. So this is what we just recently started learning. He is excited to finally start learning something that can be used to make professionally looking games and says that if it was good enough to make Undertale it is good enough for him:) He also just got his own Minecraft server (ehm... Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of RAM) and I am hoping that when he is bored with vanilla gameplay with his school friends he will want to start modding the game in some ways.
- bananabat 5y ago
- andrecarini 5y agoCongratulations on working in your childhood dream and seeing it to completion!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you very much, appreciate it!
- hoffspot 5y agoI love it! I'm finding it really hard to find the time, motivation, and focus to sit down and learn the prerequisites required to accomplish something truly challenging later in life (I'm in my late 40's too). Congratulations on shipping your first game! That is a tremendous accomplishment and you should be very proud!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, it really is hard. Time and motivation are rare currencies. There is just so much shit to do in "life-ing." I hope that you get to do the things that make you happy.
- bovermyer 5y agoThis is a fun little game and worth the money. Easy to get into, easy to just play for a few seconds or a few minutes.
- bananabat 5y agoThank you very much!
- paulhart 5y agoThank you for both the inspiration and distraction! As a fellow-traveler (similar age, similar situation), I completely empathize with the struggle needed to accomplish something like this. Bought! Also: great set of credits including the tutorials and such, and waves to fellow Canadians
- bananabat 5y agoThanks, fellow Canadian, for giving our game a chance!
- yboris 5y agoGreat work! Reminds me of Gravity Wars - the game that got me into some "hardcore" coding with Visual C++ (using a book from the library). I've re-written the game several times over the years - always a pleasure. Current iteration: https://github.com/whyboris/Gravity-Wars https://github.com/whyboris/Gravity-Wars
- bananabat 5y agoWill check that out! Thank you.
- debaserab2 5y agoCongratulations! I'm going through a similar phase myself spurred on by the pandemic (games are, after all, why I started programming in the first place). I'm continuously amazed by how complex even simple games can be, especially if you're not using one of the big game engines. It's incredibly easy to get sidetracked or over-engineer a certain aspect. It's made me realize just how tough shipping a game - so congratulations on that. It's a huge feat.
- bananabat 5y agoThank you! It's really nice that someone sees this. I appreciate it.
- zerr 5y agoNot sure if I'm the only one - I loathe games and gaming in general, think that it is a lifewasting activity mostly... But I love game development, engine development to be precise.
- JetAlone 5y agoGood. It's more virtuous to sustainably produce than to endlessly consume.
- bananabat 5y agoMhm...I love games so I'm not sure how to respond lol. Ok, but maybe I can relate in a way...I love cultivating pot. For real, my other dream is to be a boutique grower one day when regulations aren't so red-tapey. But I really don't care for it. I don't like being sleepy. Just gimme a beer. Btw, do you have a game engine I can check out?
- throway98752343 5y agoYou're not the only one. Somehow games are worse than other forms of storytelling: netflix, tv, movies, reading. Maybe this always happens to the newest form of entertainment, maybe it's because unlike the other forms your playthrough won't be the same as my playthrough. In the end all our learning, experience, and content consumption is wiped away. Only what we produce remains, and most of that remains only a little while longer. Still, that doesn't provoke a mass of memoirs from the majority of mankind, so it's okay to sit back, relax, and enjoy entertainment.
- skinkestek 5y agoCool! Can you promise no stupid trackers?
- bananabat 5y agohttps://github.com/13Bananas/policies/blob/main/13_bananas_privacy_policy.txt https://github.com/13Bananas/policies/blob/main/13_bananas_p...
- eitland 5y agoPerfect. I just bought it just because of that. (I might have bought it otherwise to if I remembered it tomorrow, but this was enough to get me to do it now :-)
- bananabat 5y agoThank you! We really don't know how to track people. That's a whole 'nother discipline that we're really not interested in.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mathgladiator 5y agoCongrats on shipping a game. I'm almost 40 and have started so many engines and infrastructure projects that I'm looking forward to retiring early to make games. Carry on!
- bananabat 5y agoWhen are you retiring so we can see some games? :-)
- danielvaughn 5y agoThis is very inspiring - I started out life as an artist and then became a programmer in my late 20's. I'm now 37 and feel that I could have been a game developer but that I'm a bit too old to start.
- NortySpock 5y agoNever too late to take it up as a hobby!
- bananabat 5y agoI don't think it's ever too late to start. And really, even just a few years back, barriers to entry for anyone who wanted to be an indie dev were a bit high. I was born and raised in a 3rd world country. And while we had consoles and devices thanks to being in Asia, hardly anyone had a computer. I first touched a PC when I was in university. Before that, personal computers might as well have been alien technology. Nowadays, there are lots of free/affordable game engines to choose from. Soooo many game devs who are also great teachers (I'm not one of them) and they put out a lot of content. If you're an artist who knows how to code, you are already way ahead of the game. So many indie developers are hampered by being a specialist in one domain or another. Give it a go!
- SimianLogic 5y agoI've been doing it on and off for 14 years and I'm still learning how to do it. Started a new prototype last night after the kids went to bed.
- bananabat 5y agoDo you post your WIPs anywhere?
- SimianLogic 5y agoI usually post gifs on Twitter (same username), but I've been doing more web dev recently. 2016-2018 are full of abandoned prototypes. Finished stuff and ludum dare entries get posted to my website at (username).com
- bananabat 5y agoThank you, bookmarked your site so I don't lose track of it.
- sci_prog 5y agoCongratulations! Game development is what got me interested in programming in the first place. Once I put my first pixel on the screen and I figured out how to interact with it blew my mind, limitless possibilities. Since the pandemic started my wife and I have published one game [0] and currently have a second one [1] in a pre-release phase (probably going to make a separate SHOW HN post once it is live). Keep up the great work! We use Unity3D for our development [0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gibberish-game-against-friends/id1513796144 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gibberish-game-against-friends... [1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-setting-sun-block-puzzle/id1588174839 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-setting-sun-block-puzzle/i...
- bananabat 5y agoHow has your experience with Unity been? It overwhelms me for 2D work. Thanks for the links, I'm gonna check out your games!
- sci_prog 5y agoThe curve is a bit steep but once the things start clicking you productivity goes through the roof. You'll be able to make game prototypes in a few short hours. I admit that building 2D games with unity is a bit of an overkill but the fact that everything just works across different platforms makes it well worth it. I originally developed games using Java and a cross platform framework called libgdx. It was fun till you needed to implement things like cross-platform advertisements and IAPs. With unity you know that the support will be there for the foreseeable future and no other engine comes close in terms of the available free online resources.
- bananabat 5y agoI love the Unity asset store and I use it a lot for graphic assets. I intend to get back to Unity when I feel a little more competent and not feel like I need a whole bunch of third-party programming assets to do what I want to do.
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- chrisweekly 5y agoAh, it requires iOS 15. Will try again after I get a chance to upgrade.
- bananabat 5y agoThank you!
- chrisweekly 5y agoSure thing! BTW, I upgraded and tried your game and it's great! LOVE the authentic indie DIY backstory -- and "No ads / IAP / data collection of any kind" -- and the game itself is charming and challenging enough to make for a fun diversion. An absolute winner for casual iOS game. Hope it's a huge success and you go on to make lots more!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you very much. You're not the only one who's been surprised about the iOS 15 thing. We'll be more mindful about version compatibility with the next update. We're not using any cutting-edge features here, so we probably don't need to set compatibility to the latest os version. Nevertheless, I appreciate that you tried our game even with some UX friction and if I could impose on your kindness a little more, please consider leaving our game a rating and a review if you have extra time. Thanks again!
- Teknoman117 5y agoCongrats! It's absolutely refreshing to dust off an old hobby and do something with it! I'm only 28, but during the pandemic I decided to dust off my old electronics hobbies that fell by the wayside when the mobile app boom started. Middle school and early high school me thought I was going into robotics, but the iPhone came out the year I started high school. When the App Store came out the following year, the smartphone revolution started, and about a year later I went all in on mobile apps and gaming for the rest of high school and my college years. Contract iOS and Unity3D work got me through college. It's somewhat ironic, because I haven't written or worked on a single mobile app since I left college (nor have I owned an Apple device). I ended up taking all of the knowledge of embedded Linux systems I gained doing robotics and started doing esoteric high performance storage virtualization systems as the starting point of my career. Never saw that one coming. I hadn't really done any serious hobby electronics in nearly a decade, but I've continued to lug all of the equipment around every time I move. So, I dusted off some old hardware and got hooked once again, only to find out that the AVR is old news and everyone is into ESP32 and ARM these days :)
- bananabat 5y agoThanks! I've always been fascinated by electronics and I so envy people in that domain. I bought an Arduino board (sorry if that's totally kiddie to you) and some parts and so far, my son and I have made a little robot that runs very inefficiently on 9-volt batteries. I just want to plug the damn thing in to overcome the power issue.
- donquichotte 5y ago> I bought an Arduino board (sorry if that's totally kiddie to you) Not kiddie at all, AVR microcontrollers have been used commercially for ages and they have some properties that can be nice, e.g. they are fairly simple cores, they operate at 5V and their output pins can sink ~40mA, so you can easily e.g. drive a MOSFET gate. The Arduino ecosystem is huge and it's great to get things up and running quickly.
- bananabat 5y ago
- stefanos82 5y agoI like the spirit :) keep up the good work! By the way, do you have a blog or a github account? I am quite comfortable finding useful information and lately I have collected a good amount of game development libraries and resources that could help me become a better programming adventurist.
- bananabat 5y agoWe have a github that I plan to populate with the useful bits and pieces that I've written along the way. Will come back here when I stop procrastinating.
- yrgulation 5y agoMind sharing please? I am in the lookout for game dev libraries and resources as well. I am at the unity stage now and i dont much to share in exchange tho. Thank you!
- dkonofalski 5y agoLooks cool, bud! I was in a similar situation a while back and published a game too. It never made any money, mostly because I didn't market it too hard, but it was one of those milestones that I accomplished just to say that I did. :) Heads up! You misspelled 'distractions' in your screenshot.
- bananabat 5y agoJesus Christ, thanks for pointing that out. Imma fix it with the next update.
- sharps1 5y agoYou really need a video as the first thing you see so it is easier to grasp what the game is about. EDIT: The video from your 13bananas site should be the first thing in the App Store page. Looks very well done, still confused about what the goal is other than flying around planets.
- bananabat 5y agoIt's an infinite jumper. Jump 'til you can't jump no more.
- freetinker 5y agoCongrats! Just bought it, and absolutely love the “Data Not Collected” badge — the best ad, imo. ;)
- bananabat 5y agoThank you. We don't know how to collect data. And what would we do with it?
- drunkpotato 5y agoIt's a neat game! I dig the art style and the music. I think my kids are going to have a blast with it too!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you. We did all the music ourselves. If you want to check it out as an album: https://open.spotify.com/album/7hddjvc2p2nQZAPjowpNUf?si=tI2eYTLnSP2ZEcYcCooSbg https://open.spotify.com/album/7hddjvc2p2nQZAPjowpNUf?si=tI2... You'll also find it with other music streamers or on Bandcamp, if Spotify isn't your thing.
- danbolt 5y agoCongratulations on shipping your first game! Wrapping it up and shipping it is always the hardest part, technically and emotionally.
- bananabat 5y agoThank you. And yes, it's hard to say enough spitting and polishing already.
- exdsq 5y agoReally awesome to see people following their interests and dreams :) I don't have an iPhone so can't download this, but it looks great, well done!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you! It's on Google Play too...but if you meant that you don't use a mobile device in general, we still appreciate that you read the post.
- sprkwd 5y agoHa! Are you me? Am also 48. Developing in Godot Engine. Long way to go. But having fun!
- bananabat 5y agoFor real? Would love to see your WIP when you're ready!
- crummy 5y agoLooks great! I spent a lot of time playing Escape The Red Giant, a flash game, which looks similar in mechanics (perhaps an inspiration?) https://www.kongregate.com/games/oopixel/escape-the-red-giant https://www.kongregate.com/games/oopixel/escape-the-red-gian... (requires flash) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9zSXFy0rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9zSXFy0rw
- bananabat 5y agoI've never played that but huh, it's freaky how the mechanic and game loop are similar. There's even food flying around! Thanks for showing this to me, I will probably crib some stuff for an update. It's really cool. But I hope that floating baby finds a safe planet!
- mattbee 5y agoCongrats! It reminds me of Gravity Ghost from a few years back.
- bananabat 5y agoI've never played that game but it is really pretty. Thanks for bringing it up!
- baby 5y agoNice! Always wanted to be a game developer myself. One day.
- bananabat 5y agoWhen things are just right, it'll be there for you. :-)
- Anther 5y agoCongratulations! Something I noticed - one of the screenshots on the store app page has a spelling mistake - the word distractions. Good luck!
- bananabat 5y agoYes, someone else pointed it out and that amateur-hour moment is gonna drive me crazy until we can push another update. Thank you for paying attention and caring enough to let me know.
- taratatira 5y agoGreat read. I always want to start in my project (game) but something comes up and I push it. I quit my job so I can focus a bit more on things I love. I have installed all the dev tools and started working on the story line. Work always got in the way. Finally I get to fuckin do it. My kid is working on the characters and they look dumb as shit but it brings such interesting side to the story.
- bananabat 5y agoI'm super glad that you're doing the thing you love. My son helped out in game dev. He's credited as "best ideas ever" and he is also demanding a cut of profits.
- design-material 5y agoCongrats! Game developers are the only subset of developers / software engineers worth paying money to / for :)
- bananabat 5y agoWhat are the other subsets? :-\ And thank you very much.
- bilekas 5y ago[flagged]
- andy800 5y agoNice. I turned 50 this year, I created a custom Tecmo Super Bowl ROM (for original NES) with my college friends as the players and a bunch of custom graphics and mods referencing our jokes and incidents from back in the day. There is a community dedicated to the game that helped with some of it, but I definitely had to dive deep into hex editing to add all the elements I wanted.
- bananabat 5y agoHow come you didn't continue making games?
- andy800 5y agoSorry if my post was confusing -- I created the game this year as a way of celebrating turning 50 and reconnecting with my college friends, we were all obsessed with Tecmo when it first came out in 1991.
- bananabat 5y agoDid you post your rom anywhere? I have a RG350M for all the old games I love.
- harrisi 5y agoI couldn't find a comment addressing my gameplay recommendations, so apologies if this was already stated. - Replaying shouldn't take two taps. I just want to get back into it! I now know the middle button replays, but it's not immediately obvious. - I don't understand what the floating aliens are for. I keep trying to get them but they don't seem to do anything. - My score doesn't stand out, it took several plays to notice it, and I still don't feel better about reaching 20 planets as opposed to two planets. - It feels awkward that each planet has quite strong gravity when you hit it, but if you barely miss there's nothing. (This ties into the next point.) - There's no incentive to do anything, as far as I can tell. I can wait ten minutes to rocket off to the next planet and my score is the same. Along with the previous point, maybe make the score decrease while orbiting, or make gravity weaken. Just messed around a bit more and I realize now that the score does decrease after orbiting, but it's not obvious. Maybe make the score multiplier show decimal points and/or be more prominent. I also discovered the autopilot button, which is fun, but I don't understand when or why I can use it. It also wasn't clear that it was a button - I thought it was some godot logo. That might just be because I know of godot but not very well. While using the autopilot I noticed my multiplied going up, but then it drops immediately. Dropping it all at once feels bad since it's such a towering mountain to climb - maybe drop it every orbit or two (maybe drop it more frequently based on current multiplier) so you can still climb. I don't understand what the last two options are in the options menu. All of this is to say I had fun, and I'm glad you made this. I hope this didn't sound bad. Good job!
- bananabat 5y agoGreat and detailed feedback, thanks! - UI has always been my weakest point in the sense that what seems logical to me might be puzzling to others. I've been taking notes on what's confusing to players and will implement improvements on the next go-around - Floating aliens are just...that. I've thought about making it more obvious that they are part of the environment or just removing them altogether - The score HUD needs to be improved if it's not giving players the satisfaction of keeping a streak. Will test a few things. - The regular planets give you more turns and they are more present in the lower levels. I might reduce the amount of allowed turns. But in the higher levels, you'll need them if you want to rest a little bit because most of the planets will allow 3 turns at the most or only 1 turn. - I agree that the multiplier probably needs to be more prominent. - Autopilot gives a countdown about how many auto jumps are left. The incentive there is that it's entirely possible to keep your streak going if you're paying attention. - LOL @ the last two options. I'll tell you the story about that. We tried to keep words to a minimum because we have a multilingual option and some terms just don't translate well. FYI, they control camera shake and camera smooth/snap, respectively. If anyone has better icon suggestions, I'm all over it. Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed the game despite some moments that gave you pause.
- lamontcg 5y agoI also started to get into game programming when I was 48 although I got distracted this year by programming language design
- bananabat 5y agoSo glad to see that there are more and more people taking on new things whatever their age. Hope you find time for game development, eventually. It's fun.
- quelltext 5y agoThe game looks similar to Rocket Bunnies (which I think might not be available anymore or isn't maintained since the developer has closed shop): https://youtu.be/m0fuRys9plo https://youtu.be/m0fuRys9plo Will check yours out.
- bananabat 5y agoThat game is really cute. Thank you for the link. And thanks for checking our game out.
- admin787 5y agoThanks for visiting
- sabujp 5y agoplease make a free version with limited levels or whatever
- bananabat 5y agoIs this generally how you prefer mobile games? Free to try...or just a playable limited free version? How do you feel about ads or IAPs?
- chefandy 5y agoNice. I'm 42 and in an undergrad program (my first) for a BFA in interaction design after being a web developer for 10 years. Feels great to make moves.
- bananabat 5y agoWhat does interaction design encompass, domain-wise? This is very interesting.
- chefandy 5y agoInteraction Design, or IxD, is a design discipline that deals heavily in visual communication like graphic design, but focuses on back-and-forth communication, typically in a software GUI. Much like Graphic Design, adding beauty and fun are merely tools in a much more important skillset: interaction designers should also have a good sense for users' goals, workflows and communication dispositions; using layout, form, and animation to communicate meaning instead of verbose language-dependent labels that add to cognitive load and disrupt focus; how to form interfaces to match users workflows rather than the developer's mental model of the process; etc. Many of the UI practices developers have absorbed through osmosis– such as grouping buttons with like actions and having them change color when you click on them— have their roots in pre-computer design disciplines. While they often work ok, they often aren't optimal, and an interaction designer can make your users lives' much better. For example, I might look at buttons grouped because they perform a technically similar function and think "what are the user's goals here? What likenesses should gestalt communicate for them? Do the other elements nearby alter the meaning of their grouping?" Or I might see a standard modal where an alert pops up if the form fails validation because it uses an API which can't yield real-time feedback. Error popups are a big emotional disruption— like getting pulled over and given a warning rather than being redirected with a well-placed road sign. They also add cognitive load because they have to read it AND find the problem fields, the extra click can take time, and dealing with all of that can totally kill a user's flow and concentration. If it's common user stumbling block, I might make the button border and problem field switch to the same color and rapidly shake horizontally like a head shaking 'no.' The emotional rebuff and interruption to the user's flow are significantly reduced. It will drastically improve that user's experience. While many technical folks consider these trivial issues, good interaction design is consistently one of the reasons folks will shell out serious skrilla for proprietary, less technically sound, less secure, and less flexible commercial software and why open-source alternatives will remain alternatives for everything but developer and technician focused software. One of my primary goals is to ply these skills in the FOSS scene.
- Folcon 5y agoWow, as someone who hit their mid thirties and basically decided the same thing congratulations! Do you have a next one in mind? Or are you going to see what the reception for this one is first? I must admit I focused on game jams to start, I've tried going down this road a few times before with little success. Having managed to complete a jam game has given me enough confidence to try and build something small which I can slowly add to. My aim is to have a playable, if very likely ugly prototype ready by the end of the month. Followed by a bunch of requisite refining and iteration.
- bananabat 5y agoThank you. We have a pipeline of ideas: some of them are pretty big in scope so will have to wait. Some of them are technically challenging so we'd have to level up in skill to bring them to life. I am afraid of game jams lol and I applaud people who enjoy it! Maybe I'll get brave enough to join one someday.
- Folcon 5y agoThat's fair =)... I'd say give it a go if you're feeling adventurous with the goal being just participating and maybe learning something. That's what I aimed for in my first jam and it ended up being a great experience when I had a bunch of fun collaborating and getting positive feedback from people for a game I'd made. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next then!
- topkai22 5y ago@bananabat, congrats on launching your game and on your beautiful write up here. It made me remember Randy Pausch‘a famous “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, better known as “The Last Lecture.” (https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo). Like many others, I remember being deeply touched by it. It is ultimately being about a man reflecting on a life well lived and achieving some childhood dreams like this is part of it. It is wonderful that you have been able to do something you find worthy in and of its self and find fulfillment here. Thank you for sharing.
- bananabat 5y agoI remember watching parts of this before from other sources. Thanks for linking the whole thing, my husband has never seen it so we're gonna watch it together later. Thank you for reading my post.
- 1-6 5y agoNice
- devoutsalsa 5y agoI bought it just because I was excited to see an app with an actual price and no in app purchases XD Now now onto the 3GB IOS 15 download…
- bananabat 5y agoWe’ll be more mindful of version compatibility going forward. Thank you for getting our game despite the iOS 15 surprise.
- robocat 5y agoMore links for 13 bananas: https://13bananas.com/ https://13bananas.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnf6zSXFCIXHgHO9kXu3dAA/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnf6zSXFCIXHgHO9kXu3dAA/vid... Their privacy policy is pretty cute: https://13bananas.com/privacy-policy/ https://13bananas.com/privacy-policy/
- pjmlp 5y agoCongratulations in actually releasing a game! It is never too late to learn anything, what matters is being able to enjoy doing it. Good luck with whatever else comes up.
- bananabat 5y agoThank you! The "too late" is so pervasive in our culture but I'm beginning to see a definite trend of people who just want to do their own thing, no matter their age. It's heartening.
- peter_retief 5y ago48 is only old to people under 30.
- bananabat 5y agoAccording to another poster here, I am just hexadecimal 30, hehe.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoIt’s gratifying to see this remain #1 on HN for so long. I sincerely wish you luck. I like your privacy policy: https://13bananas.com/privacy-policy/ https://13bananas.com/privacy-policy/
- bananabat 5y agoThank you. It's been pointed further down in the comments that this claim is not as straightforward as we intended it. There's a thing or two going on in our website, mostly with an embedded player from Bandcamp and something going on with Wordpress. Gonna fix it.
- rpastuszak 5y agohaha, and I used to be really proud of mine: https://sonnet.io/tommy-the-toe/policy/ https://sonnet.io/tommy-the-toe/policy/
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoThat's great! Thanks for sharing it!
- bananabat 5y agoThanks for reading it. Appreciate that it resonates.
- ghgr 5y agoWhile I appreciate its simplicity, private data on the internet is messier than it sounds, and almost impossible _not_ to collect it (server logs store the ip by default for example). In particular, 13bananas.com has outbound connections to stats.wp.com (prompty blocked by uBlock Origin) and to bandcamp.com. Also, uBlock Origin seems to log access to Google Analytics through a bandcamp script. Sonnet.io seems to be less chatty, except for the requests to Heroku. Congrats on you game! It looks really nice, and I wish you the best of lucks!
- 5y ago
- PetrBrzyBrzek 5y ago10 years ago, we did the same space game. It was done in Flash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b-SNsLbhUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b-SNsLbhUw
- rpastuszak 5y agoThat's so wonderful to hear and I wish you all best. I make little games (inspired mostly by burnout): How to Run an All-hands meeting: https://rafsters.itch.io/all-hands https://rafsters.itch.io/all-hands Tommy the Toe and the Chamber of Hostile Carpentry: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tommy-the-toe/id1498417487 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tommy-the-toe/id1498417487 > And since then, I've been a copywriter, graphic designer, business owner, immigrant, Sounds like your skill-set is very well rounded. From my experience, coding was the easiest part, marketing and narrowing down the game logic to what's really needed/fun is always so hard. Congrats! If you want to exchange ideas or just chat about your experience making indie games, I'm running occasional pairing/rant sessions, where everyone can just call me and chat: https://sonnet.io/posts/hi/ https://sonnet.io/posts/hi/ If you're interested in a chat, give me a shout! Otherwise, good luck! It makes me so happy to see people building stuff like this. Thank you.
- bananabat 5y agoI just downloaded your game and started giggling. This is why I love indie games: the stuff you experience can be fucking sublime, no matter how long or how little it lasts. The artwork is ~ chef’s kiss ~ . Found myself truly watching out for that knife. I guess humans have a deep-seated fear of stabby things. If you ever feel that this game could be expanded, that would be awesome. This is so much more fun than something like Doodle Jump, imo.
- rpastuszak 5y agoThanks, I started making it when my partner broke her toe. It was supposed to be a 1-day spike, took 3 months of work. > This is why I love indie games: the stuff you experience can be fucking sublime, no matter how long or how little it lasts. oh my god, yes, I can only dream of making as simple and powerful as this, for instance: https://laurahunt.itch.io/in-the-pines https://laurahunt.itch.io/in-the-pines (tip: if you have a chance to play it, put some Nick Cave/Warren Ellis on Spotify, the whole game takes 5-10m)
- splatzone 5y agoThank you for sharing your story, it warms me up to hear about people pursuing their dreams - I'm excited to see what games you develop for us. Give us more to play!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you for taking the time to read it and leave such kind words. That warmed US up!
- artemonster 5y agoThank you for being so inspirational.
- bananabat 5y agoNowadays, I just try to be truthful and open. Thank you.
- m3kw9 5y agoHey don’t let the world tell you 48 is “late”, never too late
- bananabat 5y agoSomeone has pointed out that my age is also 0x30. I am no longer 48, and so it's still early for me.
- VladimirGolovin 5y agoHey, looks like I'm not alone! I'm 49 and we (3 people, aged 30-49, with no prior gamedev experience) are working on an isometric sci-fi shooter-looter -- think Diablo meets Aliens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWN3l4LdTIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWN3l4LdTIA Also, 800 upvotes can't lie. I wonder, which part of the premise resonates with the HN crowd: "it's never too late" or "I always wanted to make games too"?
- bluedino 5y agoThat looks pretty cool
- bananabat 5y agoThanks!
- animal531 5y agoSame here, I'm 46 and now also working full time on my first real game. Going a bit slow so far, but I'm keeping at it!
- bananabat 5y agoI would think that quite a good chunk of people who go into tech (as a general domain) did so because they loved games as a kid. This is true for us and anecdotally, everyone I know who is in IT has tried their hand at making a game at one time or another. As for "never too late": maybe when we're older, we do become aware that we are closer to the end than the beginning. Part of it is also the last few years. You don't thing the blackest of black swan events will happen until it does. So are you gonna do your best to be happy right now? Or are you gonna keep punting until the meteor comes? Umm, I would totally buy your game. I love isometric shooters, rpgs, etc. First-person shooters, sadly, make me nauseated and barf-y within minutes. How far along are you guys in development?
- elesbao 5y agoThanks for the godot engine tip. > 45 here, always wanted to try my hand building a game but no framework clicked as godot. The getting started guides are easy on me.
- bananabat 5y agoLove Godot! You're right, sometimes it's just about what clicks.
- jhunter1016 5y agoJust downloaded the game and I love it. Also love that it’s built with Godot. Nice work and congrats!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you for giving it a try and I'm glad you like it!
- joejohns 5y agoCongratulations on publishing the game. I do have a giggle on your privacy policy.
- bananabat 5y agoThank you. I just remember the early days of mobile gaming when FB had some kind of stranglehold on what passed for social media...and every game wanted you to let everyone on FB know that you successfully raised your 100th chicken. It was some bullshit.
- mc_woods 5y ago@bananabat This is awesome, your write up put the biggest freaking smile on my face. Like you, it is something I've always wanted to do and put off, now 43 and still got to get back to my dream. I love that you've got your first game out, that is epic! - I'm off to go grab a copy, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you release next!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you for reading it. I was a bit hesitant framing our experience in such personal terms because...huh...I don't know, I'll figure it out after a bit. Maybe because I'd get my feelers hurt if it didn't resonate with people? I have to get better at being okay with sharing what I feel like sharing and also being okay with whatever I get back. Thanks for giving our game a try!
- GhettoComputers 5y agoI think you might find these topics useful, especially Jonathan Blow's as he notes changes (we have more abstractions that take us away from gaming progamming which was easier before). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29127098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29127098 One interesting note was that TempleOS which is called a religious OS had a Commadore64 structure and it was apparently easy to make games on it. You mentioned learning unity, the old game programmers would make ISA games that had no OS overhead, ran on all hardware that supported the instructions which happens less when the engines are abstractions that are designed to run on more abstractions like the OS, which of course costs performance, has more bugs, and basically filters your intentions, as well as every version of the engine, OS and other factors a game developer can't control will degrade their software through no fault of their own. Check out this game made on TempleOS. https://scumgames.neocities.org/blazeitfgt.html https://scumgames.neocities.org/blazeitfgt.html
- bananabat 5y agoThank you very much for these links. One reason why I quickly decided to move away from Unity is that it's such a "big" program to make a relatively simple 2D game. I guess the level of abstraction that modern game engines provide is a double-edged sword in that while it is more accessible to users without a background in programming, it also obscures most of what's going on under the hood. So now game devs (as well as game consumers) accept that modern games have a certain amount of overhead that you live with. And bugs. And incompatibilities. I moved to Godot because you can totally configure it to suit your needs. You can compile the engine yourself, rewrite the editor, etc. When exporting our game to iOS and Android, I was a bit disconcerted that it was around 100MB...and it's just a jumping game! I tried to pare down all the graphical assets to be as light and as undemanding as possible; but ultimately, a good chunk of that was overhead. There were instructions on how to strip away all the 3D parts of the engine and just recompile...but I chickened out. Not confident enough at the moment but I'm learning. I might try doing that when we push the next update. Thanks again. Really appreciate it.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
- arafalov 5y agoCongrats. Visual esthetic is very clean. The music is really nice as well, could be a programming background sound-track even. I am, actually, in the same age category and have suddenly realized that I am super excited to understand, explore and (eventually) produce something that relies on 3D game engines. Not necessarily a game, but something leveraging the game/3D/ Meta/Multi/Omniverse tooling that is available for free/cheap. Watching Borderland game's creators explaining how the game is really produced on Unreal engine and knowing all the same tools are available to me for free is just mind-blowing. Did you find any community on the web to hang out at with this new focus? I saw a couple (itch, etc) but I am curious if there are secret gems out there. Also, I am curious if you leveraged any of the commercial tools that are targeted at pro-crowd but have free/cheap licenses? Something that is an overkill for your development needs but turned out to be a great return on (time/money) investment anyway. Unreal is that for me, so I am looking for other gems. Ps. Yay, maple syrup :-)
- bananabat 5y agoThe first game I made was a Breakout clone in Unity -- only rivalled in popularity among baby game devs by Pong clones. I like Unity, it's free for a super small indie. I liked learning C#. However, when I reached the point where I was thinking of more sophisticated functionality, I started using a lot of 3rd-party development plugins (all so wonderful in the Unity store) and they were becoming a giant crutch. Now don't get me wrong, I am a fan of NOT remaking the wheel and I'm a total code snippet learner. However, I don't have a foundation in math or science. In the beginning, something as simple as rotation_speed = PI was utterly confounding. So I switched to Godot, which uses a Python-like scripting language. Far easier to learn and awesome for 2D. Also, the lack of a "store" with readily-available packaged solutions forced me to understand what in the actual fuck I was trying to do. It's free as in speech and beer. I actually learned Blender much earlier because it's closer to graphic design than game dev. It'll be useful if we ever do 3D or VR. And yes, maple syrup is a superfood. I will not be taking questions on that topic.
- Jeff_Brown 5y agoSomeone once said, "It's never too late to become a programmer. I didn't even start until I was seven years old."
- bananabat 5y agoLOL I'm 41 years late but imma try to catch up.
- lowbloodsugar 5y agoPurchased. Nicely done. Can I be proud of you even though we are not in any way related? =)
- bananabat 5y agoI am proud of whatever you create, too. Thank you!
- lazlee 5y agoCool. 49 yr old Canadian here that also started game dev this year. Best of luck in your future endeavours.
- bananabat 5y agoMiddle-aged game dev Canadians, unite!
- zby 5y agoI am 48 and I am finally learning machine learning with neural networks. I have made some money on crypto and I left my programming job 5 years ago. I have had some reservations, like can I still learn new stuff, would I be efficient enough with it to make anything valuable, how can I compete with the young guys. And I still don't have answers, the project seems to crawl so very slowly. But I enjoy the work.
- bananabat 5y agoI've gone through the same thought (and emotional) process. I guess if you're enjoying it and it brings you happiness, that is the best reason to do it. We have some advantages that only accrue with age. It seems you have a nest egg that lets you do what you want to do, that's a major thing. Also, you have a professional, social and experiential foundation that serves you in good stead. I'm happy for your enjoyment. Best of luck!
- misterflibble 5y ago@bananabat this is absolutely terrific and I'm going to download the app now!
- bananabat 5y agoThank you so much! If you have some extra time, we’d be stoked to get a rating/review of your experience.