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Show HN: My first iPhone game – after 18 months of work

102 points by benolds 12y ago

pistoriusp 12y ago
I see that it's published by "www.makegameswith.us," so I'm presuming that you participated in the course? Do you share revenue with them? If so is the course discounted if you choose to do so? Or do you assume some level of revenue share and general publicity?
- benolds 12y ago
  I developed the prototype of this game at MIT in January 2013, where MakeGamesWithUs was helping to teach a one month course / competition on iOS game development. After the course, they offered for me to publish the game with them in exchange for revenue sharing. It's come full circle, because now I'm working for MakeGamesWithUs as an instructor for their summer academy course. The course isn't discounted if you choose to publish with them, but they can provide their SDK, art, design advice, and help with publicity.
graedus 12y ago
Nicely done! Good idea and execution, congrats.
- benolds 12y ago
  Thank you! That means a lot :)
dangero 12y ago
Kind of off topic, but that award wreath you put on the screenshot does wonders for sales from what I've seen. It's instant credibility almost regardless of what the award was.
- asperous 12y ago
  Movie marketers agree: (Not satire) http://elipunto.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/her-poster.jpg http://elipunto.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/her-poster.jpg
  - gkoberger 12y ago
    To be fair, that was intentional – the juxtaposition of all the accolades makes the main character seem extra alone and sad.
fataliss 12y ago
While the concept and dynamics are looking pretty great so far, I really have a hard time with the design/art! Like the level selection screen design looks really "amateur". White halo with cyan lines in between is probably the worst part for me :P
_random_ 12y ago
Great game, just releasing something is already a great achievement. But why planets in space and not magic orbs in a dungeon? I expect some orbital movement and gravitational pull :).
- m3mnoch 12y ago
  personally, i think this is a good call on his part. abstract planets are more "casual friendly" than magic in a dungeon. especially as a guy who's seen first-hand several neat games with sword and sorcery theming meet grisley, limited-market death by attrition.
  - dm2 12y ago
    Agreed. IMO: Dungeons, trolls, wizards, magic: No thanks. Planets, space, advanced technologies: Awesome!
funkyy 12y ago
18 months is kind a long. As a game developer I suggest you jumping on some easier platform like GameMaker or Construct 2 and just learn from vast tutorials available. The game is very nice and I like the gameplay - it is engaging. Good luck with sales!
- benolds 12y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I agree 18 months is a very long time to be working on a project. A lot of the time was spent on level design, and I did learn so very much while developing it that I think it was worth the time put into it, even if sales don't turn out to be great. Next time I make a game it should go much, much more smoothly, though :)
vermooten 12y ago
Great, very nice idea. You should be proud and not pay much attention to the negative vibes that some people are putting out. They have their own issues to deal with.
- benolds 12y ago
  Thank you! Before I released the game I started prepping myself for the inevitable negative reactions, but it can be hard not to take things personally. I appreciate your kind words :)
  - vermooten 12y ago
    It's a very interesting concept too, I haven't played anything like it before.
chasing 12y ago
Very similar to Illume, which came out last year and was recently showcased at Sonar+D: http://sonar.es/en/2014/prg/sm/illume_164 http://sonar.es/en/2014/prg/sm/illume_164 Was that an inspiration?
- benolds 12y ago
  No, it seems that Illume was released on Oct 22, 2013, more than ten months after I started development of my game. For reference, my game had already won a competition at MIT in February 2013; I wasn't aware of Illume until now.
brianchu 12y ago
Awesome. I remember giving you a coin for my vote at the MIT demo day 1.5 years ago, and was pretty disappointed when I didn't see it released afterwards. Really happy to see it now!
- benolds 12y ago
  Wow, it means a lot to me that you still remember the game from back then - thanks! :)
prawn 12y ago
I'm not 100% on the art/polish, but I really like the idea; I think it's good enough to warrant a bit more attention on the design side. Very cool concept and I can imagine kids and adults alike being able to get something from it. Going to download it now. Best of luck with it! Update: Downloaded and played it. Definitely needs polish but the basic mechanics are good. With a bit more gamification of the progress through levels, I could see this being an excellent little game for a kid especially. Red and green making yellow might confuse children though whose mixing experience with paints would have them expect brown?
- benolds 12y ago
  Thanks for all the feedback and advice! I do appreciate everything everyone has to say about the game, and plan on incorporating ideas in a future update. I've given the color mixing a lot of thought, and I agree it can be unintuitive the first time you encounter it, but I think the additive color model is core to the gameplay. Perhaps my nerdy love of science is misleading me from what the average player would enjoy, but I'm trying to simulate the way light really does mix - because, well, it's a game about light. Perhaps I could add the option to play with a more traditional color mixing scheme?
  - grrowl 12y ago
    Keep with the colour model as you have it now, it reflects reality better as mixing paint is nothing like mixing light.
  - avalaunch 12y ago
    I think you should stick with the existing scientifically accurate color scheme for the mixing of lights. I have a young child and if he were confused by it I would find it an excellent opportunity to explain something new to him.
  - prawn 12y ago
    I think keep it as is, but use it as an opportunity to explain the difference, perhaps? I imagine this would be great for scientifically-minded kids to learn from.
orta 12y ago
I played this till level 20, enjoyed it. Tried to buy it but the app crashes when you hit the buy button on iOS8 betas.
- benolds 12y ago
  uh oh! Thanks for letting me know - I wasn't able to test it on iOS8 - I'll check it out and try to fix it ASAP.
  - chrisBob 12y ago
    Don't worry too much. The beta releases often contain bugs themselves, and there is a good chance it is not a problem with your app. If you have a chance to test it then you should, but bugs in a beta often get cleaned up by apple with no changes required on your part.
    - benolds 12y ago
      Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks :)
arodceo 12y ago
Did you learn iOS at college? Was it your first programming language you learned? I like concept of the game (downloaded it). Pretty good for your first game (even though it took 1.5 yrs).
- benolds 12y ago
  Thanks! I taught myself to code in high school, mostly by messing around with little Flash game experiments with Actionscript. In my senior year of high school I taught myself Objective-C and built an iPad app for a summer internship (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/north-star-smart-stars-survey/id553016515?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/north-star-smart-stars-surve...). I didn't learn iOS game programming specifically until college, where I participated in a one-month class/competition that taught the Cocos2d game engine.
  - arodceo 12y ago
    That's awesome. Is there an email I could reach you at? Any tips for beginner? I'm very interested in learning ios.

102 points by benolds 12y ago

I see that it's published by "www.makegameswith.us," so I'm presuming that you participated in the course? Do you share revenue with them? If so is the course discounted if you choose to do so? Or do you assume some level of revenue share and general publicity?

benolds 12y ago
I developed the prototype of this game at MIT in January 2013, where MakeGamesWithUs was helping to teach a one month course / competition on iOS game development. After the course, they offered for me to publish the game with them in exchange for revenue sharing. It's come full circle, because now I'm working for MakeGamesWithUs as an instructor for their summer academy course. The course isn't discounted if you choose to publish with them, but they can provide their SDK, art, design advice, and help with publicity.

graedus 12y ago

Nicely done! Good idea and execution, congrats.

benolds 12y ago
Thank you! That means a lot :)

dangero 12y ago

Kind of off topic, but that award wreath you put on the screenshot does wonders for sales from what I've seen. It's instant credibility almost regardless of what the award was.

asperous 12y ago
Movie marketers agree: (Not satire) http://elipunto.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/her-poster.jpg http://elipunto.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/her-poster.jpg
- gkoberger 12y ago
  To be fair, that was intentional – the juxtaposition of all the accolades makes the main character seem extra alone and sad.

fataliss 12y ago

While the concept and dynamics are looking pretty great so far, I really have a hard time with the design/art! Like the level selection screen design looks really "amateur". White halo with cyan lines in between is probably the worst part for me :P

_random_ 12y ago

Great game, just releasing something is already a great achievement. But why planets in space and not magic orbs in a dungeon? I expect some orbital movement and gravitational pull :).

m3mnoch 12y ago
personally, i think this is a good call on his part. abstract planets are more "casual friendly" than magic in a dungeon. especially as a guy who's seen first-hand several neat games with sword and sorcery theming meet grisley, limited-market death by attrition.
- dm2 12y ago
  Agreed. IMO: Dungeons, trolls, wizards, magic: No thanks. Planets, space, advanced technologies: Awesome!

funkyy 12y ago

18 months is kind a long. As a game developer I suggest you jumping on some easier platform like GameMaker or Construct 2 and just learn from vast tutorials available. The game is very nice and I like the gameplay - it is engaging. Good luck with sales!

benolds 12y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I agree 18 months is a very long time to be working on a project. A lot of the time was spent on level design, and I did learn so very much while developing it that I think it was worth the time put into it, even if sales don't turn out to be great. Next time I make a game it should go much, much more smoothly, though :)

vermooten 12y ago

Great, very nice idea. You should be proud and not pay much attention to the negative vibes that some people are putting out. They have their own issues to deal with.

benolds 12y ago
Thank you! Before I released the game I started prepping myself for the inevitable negative reactions, but it can be hard not to take things personally. I appreciate your kind words :)
- vermooten 12y ago
  It's a very interesting concept too, I haven't played anything like it before.

chasing 12y ago

Very similar to Illume, which came out last year and was recently showcased at Sonar+D: http://sonar.es/en/2014/prg/sm/illume_164 http://sonar.es/en/2014/prg/sm/illume_164 Was that an inspiration?

benolds 12y ago
No, it seems that Illume was released on Oct 22, 2013, more than ten months after I started development of my game. For reference, my game had already won a competition at MIT in February 2013; I wasn't aware of Illume until now.

brianchu 12y ago

Awesome. I remember giving you a coin for my vote at the MIT demo day 1.5 years ago, and was pretty disappointed when I didn't see it released afterwards. Really happy to see it now!

benolds 12y ago
Wow, it means a lot to me that you still remember the game from back then - thanks! :)

prawn 12y ago

I'm not 100% on the art/polish, but I really like the idea; I think it's good enough to warrant a bit more attention on the design side. Very cool concept and I can imagine kids and adults alike being able to get something from it. Going to download it now. Best of luck with it! Update: Downloaded and played it. Definitely needs polish but the basic mechanics are good. With a bit more gamification of the progress through levels, I could see this being an excellent little game for a kid especially. Red and green making yellow might confuse children though whose mixing experience with paints would have them expect brown?

benolds 12y ago
Thanks for all the feedback and advice! I do appreciate everything everyone has to say about the game, and plan on incorporating ideas in a future update. I've given the color mixing a lot of thought, and I agree it can be unintuitive the first time you encounter it, but I think the additive color model is core to the gameplay. Perhaps my nerdy love of science is misleading me from what the average player would enjoy, but I'm trying to simulate the way light really does mix - because, well, it's a game about light. Perhaps I could add the option to play with a more traditional color mixing scheme?
- grrowl 12y ago
  Keep with the colour model as you have it now, it reflects reality better as mixing paint is nothing like mixing light.
- avalaunch 12y ago
  I think you should stick with the existing scientifically accurate color scheme for the mixing of lights. I have a young child and if he were confused by it I would find it an excellent opportunity to explain something new to him.
- prawn 12y ago
  I think keep it as is, but use it as an opportunity to explain the difference, perhaps? I imagine this would be great for scientifically-minded kids to learn from.

orta 12y ago

I played this till level 20, enjoyed it. Tried to buy it but the app crashes when you hit the buy button on iOS8 betas.

benolds 12y ago
uh oh! Thanks for letting me know - I wasn't able to test it on iOS8 - I'll check it out and try to fix it ASAP.
- chrisBob 12y ago
  Don't worry too much. The beta releases often contain bugs themselves, and there is a good chance it is not a problem with your app. If you have a chance to test it then you should, but bugs in a beta often get cleaned up by apple with no changes required on your part.
  - benolds 12y ago
    Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks :)

arodceo 12y ago

Did you learn iOS at college? Was it your first programming language you learned? I like concept of the game (downloaded it). Pretty good for your first game (even though it took 1.5 yrs).

benolds 12y ago
Thanks! I taught myself to code in high school, mostly by messing around with little Flash game experiments with Actionscript. In my senior year of high school I taught myself Objective-C and built an iPad app for a summer internship (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/north-star-smart-stars-survey/id553016515?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/north-star-smart-stars-surve...). I didn't learn iOS game programming specifically until college, where I participated in a one-month class/competition that taught the Cocos2d game engine.
- arodceo 12y ago
  That's awesome. Is there an email I could reach you at? Any tips for beginner? I'm very interested in learning ios.