Ask HN: Most amount of time you spent on a project with nothing to show for it?
Edit: The question was meant for personal unpaid time, not a company funded project that was scrapped.
Asked to signed a contract as a consultant so they could "properly compensate me" -- trusted and signed and got kicked out the next day + had a gag order in the agreement so I couldn't talk publically about it.
Lost a friend and learned a big life lesson there. The project floundered after that; it was my heart's desire to make it work even if I wasn't there, but they just shuttered it without letting me know. I emailed them to give me some peace and closure by at least letting me know why they did what they did but never got a response. I still see this "friend" due to a common-ish social circle.
Bad things happen some times -- I haven't lost the ability to trust and have faith in people; my opinion of lawyers and contracts that protect me have increased though.
Although with my tendency to ignore projects entirely for weeks or months at a time, it's not as bad as it seems but still there's a long line of failed projects behind me. Really, what do I have to show for anything? Not much.
I am proud of my games, I only ever wanted to be a game designer but right now I'm feeling wary of expending so much effort again for so little reward or even recognition.
The game is fun but I encountered a little snag where, somehow, it'd keep asking me if I wanted to resume the game constantly. I must be doing something non-standard with my thumbs and this takes away from the experience.
Granted, I play this on an iPad at 1x-mode, so the form factor difference might be the reason for the constant pausing.
When I put the system at 2x and played the game, I made it as far as level 8 without a glitch. Then, all of a sudden, it kept going into a mode where it kept asking me to resume again. I play the game on landscape mode on an iPad Air, if it helps you any.
The game is fun.
My constructive criticism is more business related than game related. For $1.99, there are other apps that give you a lot of strong competition. An ad model or some other addictive mechanic that employs IAP once people have it in their hands might work better for you. Also, more people looking at it will get you more feedback, and that'll guide your future development as a developer.
Regardless, I've added your blog to my list of blogs to read. I'd like to see you succeed in your efforts, whatever it is you try (if you continue on this path.)
Thanks for sharing the link.
When I set the deployment target to "iphone" rather than "universal" I assumed the app store would exclude those devices. I will have to get my hands on the various ipad models for more testing.
I've always been a bit wary of the IAP model used by so many mobile games. I guess I am more of an oldschool designer, better suited to making PC games. Oh, and thanks for checking out my blog. I've got a lot more writing in the pipeline.
I don't buy into the "it doesn't have to be good, it has to be done"; for me it has to be good and done to feel okay having my name on it. But I'm getting much better at this, and am working on a project I feel good about.