6 ms·

Downpour: A game making tool for phones

161 points by homarp 5y ago

lucasmullens 5y ago
I really like this. As a kid I would make "flatgames" that were just Word docs that linked to each other, which in some sense inspired me to learn to code to make "real" games.
- James-Livesey 5y ago
  Same, but with PowerPoint! It's amazing how versatile the Microsoft Office suite is for purposes other than productivity...
  - procinct 5y ago
    Same here! I had a basic game where an enemy moved across the screen towards the character and you had to shoot it. Clicking the enemy would hyperlink to a slide where you shoot the enemy, the enemies animation finishing (when it touches the character) would link to a slide where you died. Working out how to do conditional logic in PowerPoint at 11 opened up a lot of exciting ideas for PowerPoint games for me. Though it lead to a lot of slides…
  - ketzo 5y ago
    I feel obligated to note here that PowerPoint is Turing complete. It's pretty radical. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8
  - nathancahill 5y ago
    I built Tictactoe in Excel by creating every possible board state and then hyperlinking between them. I fixed the window size to 3x3 so the window would scroll to each state. Later learned AppleScript to automate parts of this process and eventually got in to HTML.
- lynndotpy 5y ago
  I did this but with folders! Then I learned about HTML maps (which seem very similar to Downpour) from Neopets, which is where things get real cool.
  - insomniacity 5y ago
    Neopets has a lot to answer for in our generation :P
- kderbyma 5y ago
  I was lucky to get extra projects at school which were self directed flat games using PowerPoint, and a few other tools on the school computers. definitely some of my favourite projects as a young kid
petercooper 5y ago
This is cool. I can definitely imagine my kids having a lot of fun with something like this which wins me over immediately. However, it also got me thinking about how resistant I've been to digital note taking, simply because I like the physicality of writing and notes on paper. Yet they get super disorganized, lost, whatever. The idea seen here could work as an interesting way to digitize and "link" together paper notes too, perhaps!
- kej 5y ago
  You might like the Rocket Book notebooks. You write with a pen on paper, but then you use the app to scan your notes to email or cloud storage, and then you use a wet cloth to wipe the pages clean. You get digitized notes like an expensive note tablet, but also the feel and replaceability of a plain old notebook. (Despite making variants of this comment multiple times, I have no affiliation with them beyond happy customer.)
  - omarhaneef 5y ago
    Adding the extra step of taking a picture loses a lot of the productivity gain. I think the remarkable tablet is the right balance in 2022. It automatically pushes notes into the cloud.
    - tadbit 5y ago
      Did remarkable ever add the MAC address information to their control panel? Or do you still have to collect it from your DHCP server logs?
      - omarhaneef 5y ago
        Not added, still collected: https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002674778-Wi-Fi-settings https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000267477... "Currently, there is no way to display the MAC address on the device. A temporary workaround is to connect to a router you have admin access to and copy the MAC address from the list of connected devices."
svnpenn 5y ago
Save you a click: > It is a game making tool for phones
- wy35 5y ago
  That description isn’t enough to describe what the author is making. The context of what flatgames are is needed.
homarp 5y ago
1) you take photo 2) you create 'clickable' zone(s) on the photo 3) you link the "zone" to another photo sample games: https://twitter.com/v21/status/1477220587080724480 https://twitter.com/v21/status/1477220587080724480
- kenver 5y ago
  Back in the late 90s/early 2000s I worked at a game studio. One of the things we got in to were DVD games - we built a tool that was used to create quizzes on DVD players. Feels pretty similar to this - lots of fun.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  This sounds the same as the 'Prototyping on Paper' app from years ago: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pop-prototyping-on-paper/id555647796 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pop-prototyping-on-paper/id555...
  - darylrowland 5y ago
    I’ve started making a more modern twist on this where you draw the prototype directly on your iPad rather than needing to take photos. Also let’s you make the prototype interactive with text fields, camera components and logic. Might be of interest - https://roughups.com https://roughups.com
mikechalmers 5y ago
How come this person's blog isn't responsive / mobile-friendly? I'm sure that they're capable so I think it might be a choice, but would be interested to hear why.
- eloeffler 5y ago
  Huh! I didn't even notice that it isn't until I saw your comment. Looking back at it again it feels quite comfortable to zoom in and read/scroll. But maybe that is just my phone being the right size (it's an S9). I'd say the page is mobile friendly in a sense, even though it's not responsive.
- 5560675260 5y ago
  Responsiveness is one of the more modern (as in wasn't a thing 10 years ago) somewhat advanced parts of webdev and just not in everyone's portfolio of skills. There is a skill level where it's possible to handcode a perfectly functional website, but miss most of the modern best practices.
simlevesque 5y ago
That looks absolutely awesome.
allenu 5y ago
I followed the link to the flatgame game jam and tried a few of the submissions. I really like the aesthetic. There's something comforting about its non-digital art. It's always nice to see creative projects like these, so thanks to whoever posted it.
munificent 5y ago
My first thought reading the headline was, "But how do you author on a device where user input is such a chore?" Using the camera as the primary way to create content is brilliant. I love it.
mc4ndr3 5y ago
There's already an audiobook app with the same name. Google before writing code.
danShumway 5y ago
That is such a clever input method. I also love that the example games work in a browser, because the ease of sharing stuff like this is a big part of it -- it's not just that if you're a kid you can bang out something interactive with a stack of papers and some pencils, it's a big thing if also once you're done you can just text someone a link or paste it into a group chat. Hosting games is still kind of an annoyingly unsolved problem, but it's at least a lot easier to do with web games. It would be really cool to set a bunch of kids up with Itch accounts and have some kind of API integration with this tool where they could just start sharing web games back and forth, where the program just auto-uploads new builds over the API whenever they hit a publish button. This just looks really delightful, I'm excited to see where it goes.
eloeffler 5y ago
Sounds and looks nice! Are you planning an Android version as well? (Asking because it only mentions iOS on downpour.games which is linked in the provided post)
guyomes 5y ago
This looks lovely! One nice addition would be the ability to record sounds and link them. This feature in ScratchJr [1] allows children to make animations with cute voices. [1]: https://www.scratchjr.org/ https://www.scratchjr.org/
jtvjan 5y ago
I remember reading about the "Hot-Spot Mode" on the Game Boy Camera, and I wanted to imitate it using the digital camera and the PC I had. I discovered HTML Image Maps, and while it did work, making them was such a hassle that I never got past making a few pages. Great to see there's a proper tool for it now, that I could've figured out how to use had it been available back then.
qbasic_forever 5y ago
Very cool! I would have loved this as a 12 year old. I used to play with Hypercard in a similar kind of way as flatgames.
robterrell 5y ago
Very cool. I get the vibe of those old HyperCard games (Myst, The Manhole, Inigo Gets Out). HyperCard was simple enough anyone could hack a game together, lowering the bar for creators. I bet something great comes from this. Kudos!
paraxion 5y ago
My 9yo was absolutely thrilled to find an app on iOS with a similar concept to this - I believe it's https://www.draw-your-game.com/ https://www.draw-your-game.com/. He's thoroughly familiar with ScratchJr so he's already making games there, but I don't think he's quite ready for me to stick him in front of Unity just yet. Good on the dev for doing something in this space, it'll be appreciated.
d3fault 5y ago
This reminds me of Floors [0], an app where you could scan hand-drawn platforming levels on graph paper. I was only 12 or so, but I had so much fun with that thing. Unfortunately it seems the app has been discontinued as of 2016. [0] http://www.projectpixelpress.com/floors http://www.projectpixelpress.com/floors

161 points by homarp 5y ago

I really like this. As a kid I would make "flatgames" that were just Word docs that linked to each other, which in some sense inspired me to learn to code to make "real" games.

James-Livesey 5y ago
Same, but with PowerPoint! It's amazing how versatile the Microsoft Office suite is for purposes other than productivity...
- procinct 5y ago
  Same here! I had a basic game where an enemy moved across the screen towards the character and you had to shoot it. Clicking the enemy would hyperlink to a slide where you shoot the enemy, the enemies animation finishing (when it touches the character) would link to a slide where you died. Working out how to do conditional logic in PowerPoint at 11 opened up a lot of exciting ideas for PowerPoint games for me. Though it lead to a lot of slides…
- ketzo 5y ago
  I feel obligated to note here that PowerPoint is Turing complete. It's pretty radical. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8
- nathancahill 5y ago
  I built Tictactoe in Excel by creating every possible board state and then hyperlinking between them. I fixed the window size to 3x3 so the window would scroll to each state. Later learned AppleScript to automate parts of this process and eventually got in to HTML.
lynndotpy 5y ago
I did this but with folders! Then I learned about HTML maps (which seem very similar to Downpour) from Neopets, which is where things get real cool.
- insomniacity 5y ago
  Neopets has a lot to answer for in our generation :P
kderbyma 5y ago
I was lucky to get extra projects at school which were self directed flat games using PowerPoint, and a few other tools on the school computers. definitely some of my favourite projects as a young kid

petercooper 5y ago

This is cool. I can definitely imagine my kids having a lot of fun with something like this which wins me over immediately. However, it also got me thinking about how resistant I've been to digital note taking, simply because I like the physicality of writing and notes on paper. Yet they get super disorganized, lost, whatever. The idea seen here could work as an interesting way to digitize and "link" together paper notes too, perhaps!

kej 5y ago
You might like the Rocket Book notebooks. You write with a pen on paper, but then you use the app to scan your notes to email or cloud storage, and then you use a wet cloth to wipe the pages clean. You get digitized notes like an expensive note tablet, but also the feel and replaceability of a plain old notebook. (Despite making variants of this comment multiple times, I have no affiliation with them beyond happy customer.)
- omarhaneef 5y ago
  Adding the extra step of taking a picture loses a lot of the productivity gain. I think the remarkable tablet is the right balance in 2022. It automatically pushes notes into the cloud.
  - tadbit 5y ago
    Did remarkable ever add the MAC address information to their control panel? Or do you still have to collect it from your DHCP server logs?
    - omarhaneef 5y ago
      Not added, still collected: https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002674778-Wi-Fi-settings https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000267477... "Currently, there is no way to display the MAC address on the device. A temporary workaround is to connect to a router you have admin access to and copy the MAC address from the list of connected devices."

svnpenn 5y ago

Save you a click: > It is a game making tool for phones

wy35 5y ago
That description isn’t enough to describe what the author is making. The context of what flatgames are is needed.

homarp 5y ago

1) you take photo 2) you create 'clickable' zone(s) on the photo 3) you link the "zone" to another photo sample games: https://twitter.com/v21/status/1477220587080724480 https://twitter.com/v21/status/1477220587080724480

kenver 5y ago
Back in the late 90s/early 2000s I worked at a game studio. One of the things we got in to were DVD games - we built a tool that was used to create quizzes on DVD players. Feels pretty similar to this - lots of fun.
rahimnathwani 5y ago
This sounds the same as the 'Prototyping on Paper' app from years ago: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pop-prototyping-on-paper/id555647796 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pop-prototyping-on-paper/id555...
- darylrowland 5y ago
  I’ve started making a more modern twist on this where you draw the prototype directly on your iPad rather than needing to take photos. Also let’s you make the prototype interactive with text fields, camera components and logic. Might be of interest - https://roughups.com https://roughups.com

mikechalmers 5y ago

How come this person's blog isn't responsive / mobile-friendly? I'm sure that they're capable so I think it might be a choice, but would be interested to hear why.

eloeffler 5y ago
Huh! I didn't even notice that it isn't until I saw your comment. Looking back at it again it feels quite comfortable to zoom in and read/scroll. But maybe that is just my phone being the right size (it's an S9). I'd say the page is mobile friendly in a sense, even though it's not responsive.
5560675260 5y ago
Responsiveness is one of the more modern (as in wasn't a thing 10 years ago) somewhat advanced parts of webdev and just not in everyone's portfolio of skills. There is a skill level where it's possible to handcode a perfectly functional website, but miss most of the modern best practices.

simlevesque 5y ago

That looks absolutely awesome.

allenu 5y ago

I followed the link to the flatgame game jam and tried a few of the submissions. I really like the aesthetic. There's something comforting about its non-digital art. It's always nice to see creative projects like these, so thanks to whoever posted it.

munificent 5y ago

My first thought reading the headline was, "But how do you author on a device where user input is such a chore?" Using the camera as the primary way to create content is brilliant. I love it.

mc4ndr3 5y ago

There's already an audiobook app with the same name. Google before writing code.

danShumway 5y ago

That is such a clever input method. I also love that the example games work in a browser, because the ease of sharing stuff like this is a big part of it -- it's not just that if you're a kid you can bang out something interactive with a stack of papers and some pencils, it's a big thing if also once you're done you can just text someone a link or paste it into a group chat. Hosting games is still kind of an annoyingly unsolved problem, but it's at least a lot easier to do with web games. It would be really cool to set a bunch of kids up with Itch accounts and have some kind of API integration with this tool where they could just start sharing web games back and forth, where the program just auto-uploads new builds over the API whenever they hit a publish button. This just looks really delightful, I'm excited to see where it goes.

eloeffler 5y ago

Sounds and looks nice! Are you planning an Android version as well? (Asking because it only mentions iOS on downpour.games which is linked in the provided post)

guyomes 5y ago

This looks lovely! One nice addition would be the ability to record sounds and link them. This feature in ScratchJr [1] allows children to make animations with cute voices. [1]: https://www.scratchjr.org/ https://www.scratchjr.org/

jtvjan 5y ago

I remember reading about the "Hot-Spot Mode" on the Game Boy Camera, and I wanted to imitate it using the digital camera and the PC I had. I discovered HTML Image Maps, and while it did work, making them was such a hassle that I never got past making a few pages. Great to see there's a proper tool for it now, that I could've figured out how to use had it been available back then.

qbasic_forever 5y ago

Very cool! I would have loved this as a 12 year old. I used to play with Hypercard in a similar kind of way as flatgames.

robterrell 5y ago

Very cool. I get the vibe of those old HyperCard games (Myst, The Manhole, Inigo Gets Out). HyperCard was simple enough anyone could hack a game together, lowering the bar for creators. I bet something great comes from this. Kudos!

paraxion 5y ago

My 9yo was absolutely thrilled to find an app on iOS with a similar concept to this - I believe it's https://www.draw-your-game.com/ https://www.draw-your-game.com/. He's thoroughly familiar with ScratchJr so he's already making games there, but I don't think he's quite ready for me to stick him in front of Unity just yet. Good on the dev for doing something in this space, it'll be appreciated.

d3fault 5y ago

This reminds me of Floors [0], an app where you could scan hand-drawn platforming levels on graph paper. I was only 12 or so, but I had so much fun with that thing. Unfortunately it seems the app has been discontinued as of 2016. [0] http://www.projectpixelpress.com/floors http://www.projectpixelpress.com/floors