I'm not using standard widgets, so I'm having to create a library of custom widgets.
Everything is 100% vector graphics (no images at all), so I've have to write a library of vector routines, (very) basic physics, etc
Transitions; Every non-game object (text, menus etc) has custom animate-in and animate-out transitions. nothing just 'appears' on the screen.
Games need sound, which I've never used in a desktop or web app before. This is a whole new world to me.
and so on...
I'm not entirely sure It'll be done by October 31, and when it is I fully expect to receive comments like "This is a very basic game, should be free, not worth $2". I'm pretty much doing it for the experience, but I'm also creating a game I (think) that I'd like to play.
- instructions
- high scores
- online high score boards
- update mechanisms / announcements
- options that can be turned on and off
- methods for purchasing
- a website
- and more....
The idea and implementation is only the first step.
I've been in the game business for a while now, and one thing I've learned is, if I say "oh, that's a simple idea, I can do that in a week..." I should add 3 to 4 weeks, and that's for a simple indie game idea.
Good luck though. I feel like you're doing yourself a disservice going for the $1 from a game by the end of October however. Why not go for "significant additional income to your bottom line"?
Why not go for "significant additional income to your bottom line"?
I'd love to, but you've got to learn to crawl before you can run, as they say
You can put in the hours, but you also have to have a little luck. If your app hits, then all that work pays off, if not, then it can be very frustrating.
I have 1 big hit, 1 smaller hit, and 5 losers in the market. Some of my losers took a lot of time.
You're willing to put in the work, so I personally believe you are a step ahead.
I never had any intention of crawling - but I guess I did, so I see where you're coming from.
if you ever read this comment (it's been a few days now since your reply) could you please email me as I wouldn't mind getting some feedback from you.
But perhaps part of the answer is sitting there in your question. Younger tech is more exciting tech, and though Hackers is an awesome book, it is also a historical document from thirty years ago, when personal gaming systems were in their infancy. Now it is thirty years later. Programmers have been exploring games for almost fifty years by now. (Spacewar will celebrate its fiftieth birthday in February 2012.) Computer games, as traditionally defined, are a relatively mature field.
By comparison, the web is a youngster, only in its teens. Social networking on the scale of Facebook is a handful of years old. The era of ubiquitous omnipresent wearable mobile networked computers -- we call them smartphones for the moment -- is less than five years old, even if it can be said to have truly arrived yet. These things are very exciting, because we have no idea how they will turn out, and because you can walk down the street and see opportunity everywhere. There are so many ground floors to get in on.
And, of course, many of the new opportunities will be games. But they may not all be called games, at least not at first. For example, my understanding is that game critics are having quite the existential crisis about Zynga's work. Farmville certainly looks like a game, and it is sold like a game, but it isn't like the games that have come before. Which brings me back to my first point: Game genres which are decades old may not get as much press, but people talk about Zynga on HN all the time. Because they are new and different.
* The Wii brought [1] 3d motion to games
* The iPhone brought multitouch to games
* The rise of GPS aware phones created location based games
* Facebook brought about mindless social games that involve clicking a cow
The only new innovation I've seen is the 3ds, and it's yet to be determined whether it's actually innovative or just irritatingly headache inducing.
[1] Herein brought / created refers to the first major commercial success.
First, I don't spend much time playing games, because they don't hold my attention long and they're not the best use of my time (they're a pastime, literally, a way to pass time, but I don't need many of those). I know you don't need to play games to make them, but a deep love of games probably helps motivate you to make them, and I don't have that.
Second, I'm ultimately interested in creating things that change people's lives to some extent, whether by helping them solve problems, communicate more effectively, earn more money, etc. I think many people on HN feel similarly - they are interested in building things that enable people to get more out of life, in some way, and games don't always fit that description.
Of course these are just my personal opinions.
I'm still somewhat interested in developing games but more as a way to improve my skills in other areas, such as Javascript (I'd probably focus on HTML5 games if I got around to it) and challenging stuff like AI.
I can't argue that a game could be more effectual than something like Google, obviously, but I think games are a lot more than a way to pass or waste time, and definitely can provide a lot to people.
HN is for vertical niches (JOS fans), and people looking to build the next big web-app (pg fans). It's also good if you want to read about geeky stuff and general business. But there just isn't the space to discuss 2 winner-takes-all product lines. The two sub-communities would both find it too noisy.
Also, non-state-of-the-art games are getting more and more popular with the Wii and iPhone, while more and more people start to play games, people who don't demand hyper-realistic graphics and who want to try new ways of having fun.
To me we're still on the tip of the iceberg of game development; it has lots of potential and places to go for independent teams of hard-working, creative hackers.
I think mobile platforms are the way to go for indie developers, because the technical standards are so much lower. The App Store's top charts frequently feature games that are no more complicated than many Flash games and are sometimes direct ports of them (e.g. Canabalt, Solipskier).
A lot of the small studios' commercial ambitions are more along the lines of "profitable small business that makes us a living while maintaining our artistic independence" rather than "looking for an IPO" or (god forbid) "sell to EA".
I think the people of HN are not going to offer the type of feedback people writing games are looking for, so they post elsewhere.
Thanks in advance.
International Game Developers Association: http://www.igda.org/forum A lot of activity on this one about entering the industry.
Not a discussion group like here but in case you didn't know it existed: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/
Hacker news is much about entrepreneurial things done by small teams. That is a much smaller intersection these days.
It's definitely fun solving a growing problem for developers - games aren't disconnected and audiences are massive, "I want high scores in my game" is not as simple as hacking together some php/mysql on your $8 hosting account when a popular game reaches 10s of millions of people.
I think the biggest difference ultimately is HN doesn't hold any marketing value for me or other gaming startups so none of us are making a play for it. The analytics side of my platform dwarfs many of the ones we talk about here - but the others are relevant for anyone with a registration form, so they write / submit more stuff.
There is still plenty of good information to be found on game making at least though.
Making a game is quite an endeavor. There are just so many small things that have to be polished before it can be released.
Making a prototype can only take 2-3 weeks, but building up content is the real time consuming process.
I'm working on a MMORPG for Android and I wish I could speak more about it. It has some unique aspects due to the mobile nature of it.
I'm building a web app now that lets you create maps, quests, characters, etc for the game and anyone can play them on their Android device right away.
The idea is to offload at least some of the content creation to power users so I can continue to concentrate on polishing and adding features to the game.
In any case, it's ideas like these that are interesting to me and I guess like you, feel that they're not really talked about often. However, there are nugs here and there. I can understand that web apps are just more popular.
Anyway, you can find my dev blog here: http://developingthedream.blogspot.com
Games == Assets == IP == Millions of dollars == Risk.