dave_chenell

+1 for plaid. It's awesome, I built something similar to OP about 6 months ago just using plaid and my existing bank account.

this is so good

This post makes me sad.

I almost worked with The Grid about a year ago, from my experience everyone there is nothing but kind and talented. From what I saw, the team really wants to build a great product and is extremely passionate about what they do.

Sure they have flashy marketing and throw the word AI around a lot. Clearly its working better than “Hey we use automated A/B testing, analytics, fluid auto-changing layouts, dynamic color schemes, and whole bunch of cool photo filters to tie together a unique website based on your content!”

Regarding the delays, I think the same would be true for any startup with really good pre order sales, who is feeling the mounting pressure to meet the bar they have set for themselves. This is called caring about your work.

I think the author is misguided here and took liberties on what The Grid is actually promising. I don’t understand why people feel the need to blog scathing reviews about startups they have researched for 20 minutes. Ignore the haters Grid team.

+1, I use sails for most of my projects. Works great in production

great writeup, thanks for sharing the progression

Loving the progression from a newsletter to a hacker news style site, great stuff, I hope a solid community forms around it.

The IAP for the bear, lets you ski as the bear https://twitter.com/davechenell/status/545580869696888833, Chasing monsters coming soon http://thewaterbear.com/obstacle-avoidance-a-i/

Yeah, its the sound from the game, a sort of white noise to add atmosphere? Real music and sound effects will be coming in an update :)

Thanks I appreciate it. I do design and code yet I work with my friend Eric on everything. I think working with someone is good for your product and sanity :) We also got extremely lucky that Apple featured the game.

Yeah, Android version is coming soon, hopefully before the end of Jan. I did use Unity3D, and while it is very easy to port, releasing on two platforms can be time consuming for one person while I'm freelancing fulltime. Dealing with tracking bugs, IAP, GameCenter, Google Play, optimization, Screen sizes etc adds up. Also I lack an android device at the moment for reliable testing.

Thanks! It was built in Unity3D

Thanks I appreciate it! I will definitely fix that in the next update.

This is awesome. Love the simple execution of the door/proximity sensor.

This is awesome. The first song I tried worked perfectly. Well done!

This is perfect

Crazy stuff. That was a good recap. The tech scene is awesome.

30% is a awesome conversion. Any specifics on how you were able to get it up so high?

Thanks alot for the input. Is the game your thinking of MUGEN? it was an old school open source fighting game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.G.E.N

"very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it"

In reality you are able to do alot about it. Aside from the actual fight, everything you do controls what will happen. How your draw, who you choose to fight, what arena you fight in, what items or weapons you select etc etc. Simply because you are not pressing buttons at the time of action does not mean all hope is lost and everything will become a random simulation. A la the video, we are working on the balance of the game.

"The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game"

Disagree, almost all of the people who have sent us sketches are not from the typical gamer crowd. They are drawn to the fact they don't have to control them, it takes the pressure off.

"You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them."

This is a really interesting argument that I go both ways on. History has shown both times where it pays to listen and times it pays to ignore your users requests and show them something new and better that they never even thought of. "Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations" Or exceeding them :)

Thanks for your feedback though, you bring up some interesting points. We aren't ruling out controlling your characters forever, but for the initial launch we think it will ruin the purity of the game. We are exploring adding more decisive elements without adding live "control" if you know what I mean. Mini games etc.

Why is that so ridiculous? The idea behind Kickstarter is to have people pay for something they want before its built. Actual customers funding you is much more powerful that some VC's who think people will one someday buy what you build.

We are part of a new incubator in Syracuse at the moment (http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com). The older VC crowds we have pitched to really cant understand what we are doing and why it could be huge. We opted to experiment with crowdsourcing from people who "get it". We will let you know how it goes.

I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out there. It is much more rewarding to see your character preform an epic karate kick because you have drawn long legs and a headband rather than just pressing the B button. Its more of a strategy/design/creation game rather than a traditional fighting game. All the fun is had with a pencil and paper.

Right now we aren't limiting drawings with rules because we are gathering data for all the different types of drawings that can be thrown at it. On Kickstarter the reward means you get a character that can pretty much do anything you can imagine, because we can program specific moves for it that are not in the move pool.