[Q] How long to code this game? - General Questions and Answers

Hi everybody,
and sorry if this question is not in the good forum.
I'm a researcher in psychology just starting my PhD this year. As you might know, apps and games are getting more and more popular to gather data in this field. During my PhD, I'd like to build a simple game for Android tablets to study cooperation between people.
The thing is, I can't spend three years building this game. That's why before I start reading the doc seriously, I'd appreciate if you could tell me how long it would take to code this kind of game:
- the game is a deer hunt game, two players collaborate to kill a deer and then share it
- each player has a tablet in its hands and plays next to the other player, the tablets communicate by bluetooth
- Player 1 avatar is on the left of the screen, player 2 avatar on the right of the screen
- in the middle of the screen, a deer is moving up and down
- players shoot arrows at the deer, once the deer gets shot say three times it dies
- players then have to share the meat of the deer, one of the two players indicate on its screen how much of it he wants to give to the other player
So for someone working full-time on it, with no prior knowledge of java but knowing other languages (C, python, php...), how long do you think it would take to code it (a bracket of several weeks is ok)?
I think there would be 4 big areas to work on:
- the events as described above
- the communication between the two tablets
- the graphics (they can be very minimalist)
- how to save the data
Also, is it possible to use some existing libraries or code pieces to build this game, or do I have to start from zero? For example, shoot'em all games are very common, maybe there is some code for throwing arrows that I could reuse?
Thanks for your answers!

Nobody has an idea? :crying:
Is my question stupid or is it not the place to post it?

Hi,
can someone point me to a forum where I will get answers?

Related

Settlers of Catan

Hey there,
There is a Settlers of Catan game for the iPhone. I'm wondering if anyone knew of that game being ported to Android any time soon? All I can find for Android is the 'Better Settlers' which helps with setting up the board.
Thanks in advance for any info!
Jeremy
shameless "bump!"
I would guess there would be copyright issues or some such :S
well you could try developing your own game..
I'd like to see settlers of catan on this platform too!
Me too, if someone is interested in doing the gameplay, maybe graphics, or whatever else. I would be happy to do the development.
Doesn't neccessarily have to be clone as such, it can have similar gameplay. Try playing something like Travian, it's similar but not exact.
It's a game I'd love to have on my phone . . . don't know it well enough to have a go at dev, but I'd be happy to alpha/beta/gamma test if someone gave it a crack . . .
there was a flash game i found a while ago - never got it working on my mogul though. Also I could help with graphics if a new game was designed
I'd love a SoC game for my Evo. Any new info on this?
Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk + Swype
This would really be great. Id like a version where you could play with others on different phones via wifi/3g. It would be a lot of fun to play with friends and coworkers through out the day (or week as needed)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
mesasone said:
This would really be great. Id like a version where you could play with others on different phones via wifi/3g. It would be a lot of fun to play with friends and coworkers through out the day (or week as needed)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. This would be an awesome
Multi-player app especially if you could save and resume a game. You'd almost have to have one person host the game so the data is all housed on one SD card.
Other thoughts are the ability to change the rules before starting, built in chat and or push to talk functionality, bartering alerts, next turn alerts, review of score and previous actions, the list goes on.
If someone is serious about developing this then I am totally willing to help think it through and create graphics. Send me a PM.
Sent from my HTC Vogue FroYo using XDA App
Settlers of Catan Android game in the works
I've been having a dabble with android development and have been working on a Settlers of Catan game as it is such a great game and it's a good way to learn android dev.
I'm ready to admit that someone might beat me to it, whether by making the iphone version available to android or whatever, but still if anyone is interested in a) helping out on the project b) doing some testing or c) pimping the game, let me know! You can contact me on cettlersofsatan at gmail dot com.
It's currently in SVN online in a single user repository. But I would happily move it to Google Code or something if others were interested.
I'm as eager as everyone else to see this project pull through. And stone do NOT lose faith. It is always better to have an option then only one option for a game/app.
I have assembled a list of people who expressed interest in helping:
stoneskin - work in progress
niknah - dev
Willuknight - graphics
ii Candor ii - graphics/thinktank
DJGibbon - test
You guys should really get together especially with stone and get cracking! Heard some good ideas and plenty of offers to help. The XDA community NEEDS A SETTLERS!
Thanks guys!
I'd love to help too. I don't think can commit the time to help with development though. Real life is just too hectic lately. However, I'd love to help testing.
If the time opens up, I'm interested in helping with development.
As to graphics, just no skills to bring to the table. Although, I did have a thought last night on this subject. The game might be more playable with simpler graphics. Instead of trying to have an understandable picture of sheep/ore/... on the hexes, just use colors. Light green for wool/sheep, dark green or brown for lumber, goldenrod/yellow for wheat, dark grey for ore and dark red for brick.
Work in progress!
Gino, Latenk, thanks for the feedback. Here's the deal.
I agree, simple graphics to start with, I've uploaded a screenshot, but before anyone analyses it too much , let me state what I want from the project initially.
1) The basic game (i.e. no expansions) in full.
2) Multi-player (up to 4 initially) or single-player (with AI) on one phone.
3) Basic graphics, but a clean separation in implementation so that the graphics, special effects, zoom, board rotation, whatever the monkey-magic one wants, can be added ON TOP OF the rest of the app.
4) Game is free (shouldn't be any copyright issues right?) and would be great if it could get onto Android Market or equivalent.
5) Open source?
I hate graphics, hate the tweaking, fiddling, pixel-adjusting and so on, so I've knocked up the simplest GUI imaginable. I've slapped on a handful of buttons which as you can see, have rubbish little text labels - RD = Roll Dice (in one of the screenshots it's displaying the number rolled), BR/BS/BC are build road/settlement/city, MR = Move Robber, C=Cancel, D=Done, X=exit.
In these shots I'm not even playing a game, I'm in a test mode where I'm just free-building. My colour is white. So a hex-side is painted white for a road, the small circles are settlements, the large circle is a city. The large red circle is me selecting a vertices. As you can see, the current player (Bob) has no resources (free-building) but resources are laid out with shoddy little cards.
So the graphics are v. poor. But I'm not too concerned right about it right now.
Where have I got to?
I've got the basic 'model' in place. That is the game model that maintains hexes, vertices, hex-sides and their roads/settlements/cities.
I haven't even touched on AI, ports, trading.
I'm trying to build the app cleanly, so the views have no concrete knowledge of the game model, and any calls to it are interfaced out.
But this is my first Android app, so I'm learning from scratch, possibly comitting all sorts of Android crimes.
I'm a full-time .Net developer, so I'm kinda fitting this in around job/family and so on, so progress is slow.
Here are my thoughts. I'll aim to get this to a clean/stable state within the next week or so, then if others want to get involved in dev I'll create a Google Code project (or equivalent) and sort it out from there.
I'm currently building against 1.6 because I have an X10 mini. It would be great to support up to the latest API versions.
Ok, uploading the images now. Graphics ARE AWFUL but I'm focussing on the game at the moment.
By the way, if anyone knows what licensing/copyright issues there are with something like this please let me know. I've currently called the project 'Cettlers of Satan' 'cos that made me smile. If rights issues meant it can't go through market places then so be it, but would be great if someone could research this.
Haha, you know that is a basic layout but gets the job done! What you could do is have the game map be at least twice as large as say the resolution of a N1 screen. Enable finger scrolling and/or pinch to zoom (comlpex perhaps but a thought) and let people move around the game map as needed. That'd allow for better graphics, larger maps, and a larger feel to the game. The HUD could possibly go up either side of the game map. In fact I'd say make landscape mode MANDATORY so you have the extra real estate.
Check this out: http://games.asobrain.com/
That is what I envision this game like. That game is everything this game COULD be and he even found ways around copyright. Check that game out, play a round or two and it will give you plenty to think about/use as inspiration. Obviously no need to copy, but you can use it for ideas.
Lastly, the previous statement someone made about notifications is pure gold. Allow people to play their turns then pass to the next with a notification appearing. Great ideas.
I've been there before, but a while ago and he's closed all unactive accounts and stopped registration unfortunately.
If you are a member maybe you could upload a couple of screenshots or explain to me how the GUI works in more detail.
I love the idea of finger scrolling/pinch/zoom etc. I'm gonna give some of that a go tomorrow. But like I say, what I'm initially trying to achieve is
GUI
Model
in a clean separation. So any visual representation would be possible. I'll try and knock out some basic zoom/finger scroll effects just to convince myself that my rudimentary framework will hold together.
Thanks for the quick feedback mate.
This shows the basic layout, how it all works, the HUD and such. Again this would have to be adjusted for the handheld, but in general it looks and works great!
In the top left is a pane for the players in the game. It shows Player Name, Player Color, a count of the cards in the players hand, any held and/or played D cards. This pane can be hidden if the player wishes.
The pane on the bottom left shows all things the plyer can buy and what it takes for the player to buy them. (in the android version I imagine this being a tab you can bring up to buy/see what you need and have.
Below that pane is Played Cards, and Table cards which speak for themselves.
Of course along the bottom you see your hand.
On the bottom right you have 3 buttons, claim victory, trade, and end turn.
And of course you see the dice.
Top right is the chat box.
All of this again is simply for inspiration and not for copying. This gives you a great idea of a fleshed out game and how it could look on a handset.
This is a trade window.
Two things of note here. First notice the top left. WHen a player gets cards on a roll, they show up face up for a brief moment. GREAT idea if possible to implement something similar.
Secondly, bottom right is what appears to be a chart. That shows how many times a number has been rolled. This is more advanced than what we'd need, but an interesting idea and prob easy to implement.
Now on this one a couple things to point out. Look at how they do cities and roads. Similar to what you've suggested. I was thinking maybe circles with symbols on the top (kind of like tokens or markers). Of course maybe more intricate and detailed models could be added later.
Also, that speech bubble that popped up shows where the person played their road or city or settlement. This is ESSENTIAL in some form or another on this game. Plan to include SOMETHING like it.
And lastly, this picture shows what it looks like when a person trades succesfully. Again not necessary but certainly handy.
I must repeat again that I DO NOT CONDONE OUTRIGHT PLAGIARISM with anything Asobrain has done. This is purely for inspiration and research. This should give you PLENTY of ideas!
I've got tons!
This is a beautiful start. Couple thoughts.
- The desert color isn't clearly distinct from wheat.
- The name will have to be something other than "Settlers of Catan". I'd avoid the current name for two reasons. One, a lot of us will take some degree of exception to the Satan reference. Two, it's not really different enough to dodge trademark concerns.
- I despise needing to scroll around in a game to see everything. This is my main complaint with "Pirates & Traders".
- On such a small screen, keep the UI as simple as possible. AsoBrain is wonderful. But, it is designed for a largish screen. (BTW, I hate that he killed old accounts when closing registration. I was away for just about the exact period to get locked-out).
- As we proceed, I'd like to plan for a multi-device/network play. This game would be awesome in a peer-to-peer, networked model.
Thanks for getting this started.
P.S. I *REALLY* like how you did the board. The buttons: meh. The board: Wow!
GinoAMelone said:
This is a beautiful start. Couple thoughts.
- The desert color isn't clearly distinct from wheat.
- The name will have to be something other than "Settlers of Catan". I'd avoid the current name for two reasons. One, a lot of us will take some degree of exception to the Satan reference. Two, it's not really different enough to dodge trademark concerns.
- I despise needing to scroll around in a game to see everything. This is my main complaint with "Pirates & Traders".
- On such a small screen, keep the UI as simple as possible. AsoBrain is wonderful. But, it is designed for a largish screen. (BTW, I hate that he killed old accounts when closing registration. I was away for just about the exact period to get locked-out).
- As we proceed, I'd like to plan for a multi-device/network play. This game would be awesome in a peer-to-peer, networked model.
Thanks for getting this started.
P.S. I *REALLY* like how you did the board. The buttons: meh. The board: Wow!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Agreed, the desert should be a tan, and wheat clearly a gold.
2. Also agree. It cannot even closely resemble Settlers. We can worry about the name when we have a game worth naming (I was thinking something like Travista, or something resembling travelers).
3. That is why it'd also be prudent to include a pinch to zoom or zoom controls. Let the player get in close if they wish, or let them sit way back and view it all from a distance.
4. Agreed. Simple yet elegant/complex in its design is what I'd like to see. Again give the player the option of getting as complicated as they wish. This can be easily accomplished with tabs that the player can pull out as needed. The only thing that should remain on the screen is the players hand, and a few essential buttons. Look at a game called PocketEmpires, use that idea for assembling tabs. I do feel that certain tabs should be entirely devoted to one type of action (like a building tab).
5. Once you have a basic game framework laid, you can work on making it work across the board and with all devices. The dev should focus on getting it to work native first, then move onward. As for a p2p network GREAT IDEA! If there is a way we can link this either by device or via a server that'd be the best way. Allow players to run through an entire game, or let players take their turns and move on to another player (IE pass it back and forth via notifications, similar to how Scrabble works on the iPhone).
I only wish I knew any code/dev tools to help with. All these ideas and nothing to do about it!

[GAME][2.3.3] Plane Popper (Fun & simple, Play Games services, Facebook)

Hello XDA!
I'm Bobbyloujo and I made a game called Plane Popper! You can get it on the Play Store. This game adds some fun new twists on the old Flash game Helicopter Game. Touch the right side of the screen to go up, release to fall down. Touch the left side of the screen for a speed boost. Pop as many balloons as you can while dodging fireworks and blimps! The game gets progressively harder as you pop more balloons.
Here's a gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNvl1UJ53Rg
Story time:
I made this all on my own. The programming, the graphics, the sound effects, I did it all. It started in November 2012 when I started to teach myself Java. I developed a simple game engine and then moved on to Android. Taught myself Android development using many online resources (including XDA!). Plane Popper started off using the Canvas drawing system but I realized that was too slow for this type of game. So, I learned OpenGL ES 1. That was probably the hardest thing. Most of the time spent programming Plane Popper was spent on writing my own game engine that uses OpenGL. I've started separating the engine from the game and I'm planning on releasing it when I have something presentable put together.
My only previous programming experience includes some Nintendo DS homebrew development using DS Game Maker. The DS homebrew scene has pretty much died off and I think Android is a great next step. I'm also a sophomore in college trying to get into Computer Science (part of engineering at my university) but I might end up switching to IST. Engineering is hard and stressful and I can always just keep teaching myself what I want to know.
As I said, I also did the artwork. I like making graphics just about as much as I like programming so a lot of time spent making Plane Popper was also spent making graphics. I'm not so good with sound effects though. Most of the effects in Plane Popper are just edited claps and fan noises haha.
So tell me what you think! I'm pretty proud of my little game as you can probably already tell . Initially there were some glitches causing the game to crash on startup. I'm pretty sure I fixed it but please tell me if it happens to you or if you find any other bugs. Also tell if the graphics look pixelated on your device. That may be a side effect of my fix.
My website is www.bobbyloujo.com and you can find some screenshots and videos on there as well as my DS work and a whopping 2 blog posts
Finally: many people have told me that the game is too hard. I'm planning on adding different difficulty setting when I get the time. Tell my what you think and if you have any other feedback let me know! Also, don't forget to rate and review it on Google Play if you like it
Any comments? I posted this late at night so I think it may have gotten overlooked.
Great game, I like the graphics keep it up!
Good game!
Haha, this game is pretty fun! And challenging in the same time! Good for killing time.
Thanks everyone! Soon I'll release an update with ability to change the difficulty.
This is awesome!
It's really funny game
Good job, the game is well-done !

[Game] Endless Food - saves lives

About me:
Hello!
My name is Ilya.
And I apologize in advance for my bad English.
I am the creator, programmer and designer in my small studio: Thevisioline
Throughout my life I have been helping many people: from simple advice, to great actions. I always liked to help people. But, for obvious reasons, I can not help anyone who addresses me. But one day I had an idea: almost everyone has smartphones, so why not help a large number of people with this help at the same time?
I had knowledge in programming and founded a studio to create applications on the phone - it was not a problem. But what is the studio without its own product? At this point, I decided to approach this topic from the other side: a mixture of the game and the application in one small game. So my studio appeared, and with it my first project: Endless Food.
Game description:
Every day for two months I worked on Endless Food. And even now, five months after the release of the game, work continues on it.
Let me tell you more about my game: Endless Food is a mixture of game and application. The main task was to make a game that would be useful and interesting.
So what can Endless Food help people? Can it, for example, give a second life or give immortality?
It certainly can not give immortality, but in emergency situations it can help, and often, it can save a life for you or someone around you. My first creation is able to train people in such necessary skills as Reaction. Incidentally, the game helps you to think through your moves in advance and make a decision instantly.
When you first start the game does not give you a path by which you can develop the necessary skills. It is just a tool for gaining knowledge. The game gives you only an opportunity, but how you use it, start playing and improving your skills, or you'll delete, you decide only yourself.
The user who just started the game, first of all sees how the hamburger tries to escape from the fork, moving on the plates. In appearance, mindless occupation, but do not rush to make hasty conclusions. To score more than 20 points at the very beginning will be problematic enough and only by training the necessary skills, the player will begin to correctly evaluate all his actions and possibilities, and only after that the user will be able to gain more and more points. But, despite the first successes, in order to develop these skills at the proper level, it is necessary to play this game for at least 15 minutes a day for 2-3 weeks. After this period, the player will restore these vital skills.
There are two modes in the game: Classic and Back and Forth. Each of the modes is responsible for training different skills:
- Classic - suitable for those users who feel that the reaction they have at the proper level. In this mode, the player controls the speed of the hamburger: slows the hamburger or accelerates, thereby using not only the reaction, but also the speed of decision making and the speed of thinking about the consequences. In order to gain in this mode as many points as possible, you need to think through each step.
- Back and Forth - will be more useful to beginners. This, so to speak, the first step in restoring the required level of reaction. In this mode, the hamburger and fork move in the same direction at the same speed, but at any moment the plug can change its direction. The task of the player is to have time to click on the screen, thereby changing their direction.
Endless Food will be useful not only for the younger generation, but also for a more adult audience. Because a person is over 40 years old, care begins to deteriorate, he becomes more diffused and does not have such a quick reaction as in his youth. But, after a very short period of play for 2-3 weeks, even an adult will begin to feel better.
You probably wonder where the calculations came from, if you need to play at least 15 minutes a day for 2-3 weeks? From the moment of development to the release of the game, we conducted many tests on different groups of people, in order to determine the optimal time for training. The game was tested on 50 users from different age categories. 44 of which showed an impressive result. For the remaining 6, we increased the playing time to 20 minutes per day, and after 2 weeks they showed a much better result, although it did not reach the previous 44 users, but it proved that our game can help people of all ages.
The graphics also made a special approach: our goal was to make the graphics simultaneously stylish and pleasant, to attract both young and older audiences. Therefore, we chose the approach to use low polygonal graphics, thus the game became less demanding to the power of the phone, but the graphics remained at a decent level. On the main screen and during the game, it was decided to use as few distracting elements as possible, thereby completely immersing the user in the game.
The game also has a table of records, thereby giving the player to compare their successes with the successes of other users of Endless Food.
The game is free, but the game has unobtrusive advertising, which is necessary for further research in this direction and creating more games.
Addition:
Endless Food is the first, but by no means the last, mixture of the game and the application, in the meaning of which is the help to people. New projects are already being prepared that can help a person in all sorts of life situations.
I want to help as many people as possible using games in their devices. Telephones now have almost everyone, but not everyone can find the necessary information in it. With our games, all the vital information the user can acquire and train through the phone.
To understand if such an approach is necessary for people, we need to get as many downloads and, as a result, feedback. Once in the top on xda-developers, we can quickly get a large number of reviews and complete the game, if necessary. After that, I will immediately start creating new projects and will be able to help even more people.
I plan to gather a team of like-minded people with whom we can do more large-scale projects aimed at helping people. At this stage of development, I need to get into the top xda-developers, after which Endless Food will immediately receive a lot of downloads and reviews! I'm sure that this type of games will become more useful for users every day.
Once again, I apologize for my English.
Thank you in advance and thank you for your time.
Best wishes to you!
Thevisioline
Download: t(dot)co/2zPlbh0fmB

How we made the game. Our story.

Hi everyone! I’d like to tell you the story about the creation and release of our first game. I will tell you a little about our company’s background and the difficulties that we encountered during the development. I hope our story might be useful to you too.
It all started a few years ago when my brother built up a team of like-minded people who were eager to create, and this was then expressed in the creation of animation and computer graphics for various projects. The team eventually grew, as well as the number of orders from clients. Then there was a point when we decided to create our own game project. Thus, we began a long preparation process. Unfortunately, our existing knowledge base was not enough to start the project. New volunteers joined the team, the learning process started, and the project began to acquire its first outlines. The result was a prototype of Crocks Hunter, a 2D platformer.
The plot of the game was as follows: Crocodile-aliens arrive on Earth to steal the Moon from earthmen. The main characters of the game (a boy or a girl, depending on player’s choice) must go through six different locations (desert, jungle, lava, water world, ice jungle, and fairy forest), and catch — not kill, the game is absolutely violence-free and child-friendly — all the Crocodiles into boxes which are used sometimes for some puzzles, and then defeat the final boss. One of the graphics features of the game is that 3D character models were rendered into 2D to make more complex, natural and fancy animations and to keep the high quality of the overall picture, along with a light-weight installation file.
Initially, the project was planned to be released for mobile platforms, but as the development progressed, it was decided to release it for PC, and then for Nintendo Switch. This was due to several reasons. Firstly, mobile game publishers are into the free2play game model, for which platform games are not quite suitable, although we figured out how to monetize the game, and to draw the player’s interest to micro-transactions. Secondly, in order to enhance the visuals of the game with various effects, we would have to sacrifice the performance. Therefore, it was more interesting to release the game on PC and consoles but at a set price. One of the publishers suggested that we release an update with six levels and two bosses once a month. Thus, it would be possible to retain the player for a long time, but so far we have not tried this model. Although, who knows, maybe you will?
We temporarily froze the Crocks Hunter project but did not abandon it. We are writing new documentation, and designing new levels. We are open to cooperation with investors and publishers to make a global bestseller together.
Currently, we are working without an office, so the whole team works remotely. In order to complete the project and make it at a high level, we would need to gather all the team members in one place, and this requires funding. So we started looking for investors. Many publishers appreciated the great potential of the game but would invest in the project after it being fully fledged and ready for release. As it turned out, Russian investors are afraid of the gaming industry, and they are completely unready to invest in it. Perhaps, this is due to their not understanding the potential and the specifics of the industry. Many foreign investors simply don’t work with Russia. At some point in our search for investors, we were stumped. The team could no longer work on pure enthusiasm. Some team members quit. Some began to slow down the main process, saying that they’d prefer to take orders as before than “work for the fairies and unicorns”. But some determined team members still believed in the project and continued to create it. So this is how the PUSHINGAMES company was created.
Unfortunately, there is no “book for dummies” on how to achieve success from the beginning to end in video games industry. The information you may find on the Internet is very superficial. Therefore, look for according courses, literature, or even better, find some competent mentor who will guide you. Our mentor was a game designer Konstantin Savochkin
One evening, when we were discussing some details, we decided to create a little something to distract ourselves, and came up with the “Quick Week” project. The main goal of which was to create and release one mini-game within a week. It took a couple of days to write game design documents and calculate P & L. Meanwhile, our artists already made the first sketches and prototypes.
We really like the examples of the Nintendo and Marvel universes when the story of one character is woven into the story of another, thereby creating fascinating endless worlds. Maintaining the heritage of the “Crocks Hunter”, we chose the main character to be a crocodile. The result was Jumping Crock: Jellyfish Attack, an arcade retro jumper for mobile platforms, designed in the style of space comic books of the 80’s .
Download link on GooglePlay: Jumping Crock Jellyfish Attack
In total, we spent around $600 to create the game, excluding licenses and developer accounts. We spent most of the budget on localizing the game and its description in 12 languages, including Russian.
To do the translation job, we chose a small but very responsible team — Locnloader a pool of freelance video game translators with 8 years of experience and voice over actors collected in one place. They specialize in indie-games and such small teams as ours, and that affects the price in a good way. For a reasonable price, they did us translations within 2 days. Moreover, they helped us with the ASO description text and edited it to sound a little more adequate, which is sometimes hard when it comes to repeating many same keywords in one small text. What I personally liked is that their team manager had some understanding in game design (and even took a course in it), and a little in ASO. That’s what I call speaking the same language!
We are very proud of the music in our arcade in particular. We love rock! There is 8-bit Space Rock music in the game. It was written by a wonderful musician, composer, and our cousin Yevgeny Protopopov. The music takes you back to the past, especially if you played Battle Toads and Tanks as a child.
Since we created the project with our own money, the payment to our specialists for the work done was extremely symbolic and incommensurable with the level of their professionalism. Therefore we are immensely grateful to our team and believe that without them we wouldn’t succeed.
In order for the project to be successful, it is very important for the team to have a Team Lead, who could drive this train, per aspera ad astra. In our team, that would be my brother Nikita.
Many companies could have achieved well-deserved success, but they never reached it, stopping halfway through. The history of the company with the fruit on the logo is the lodestar for us on how to do things.
Of course, you always want to do something unique and ambitious like Crash Bandicoot. You might want to make the game more complex by adding many different features and mechanics, but it’s better not to do so. Make it easy! The process of creativity absorbs you. You always want to add something else, when almost everything is ready. It’s best to concentrate on the main idea and actually bring it to life, and after the release, just make an update. By making game updates after the release, you maintain players’ interest and make your app appear at the top of the search results in application stores. In the long-term development of your project, it’s very important to take a detached view. Do beta and alpha testing. Of course, this is a bit like parent-teacher nights at school, when they scold your beloved child, and it can be painful, but it will be good for you.
We made our game free-to-play. We were looking for ads SDK for a long time, and we stopped at the companies:
● Appodeal
● AdMod
As the saying goes, “Creativity is great, but sometimes hunger takes over”. The most important thing is to remember who we are doing this for. We believe that a player should stay immersed in the game as long as possible, without being disturbed by ads in the heat of the moment. And of course, you can’t go without them at all. Use all available services of GooglePlay and AppStore, in-app ads, Achievements, and Leaderboards.
After we published our game in stores, the hardest part began — promotion. Promoting the project itself is also very important. You can create a masterpiece, but in order for it to become a bestseller, you got to try your best. How can you do it when there is no budget? To accumulate link mass, you can write articles in the media and various forums. But as practice has shown, there is nothing better than word of mouth. Bloggers, YouTube and streamers are such goodwill ambassadors. Each of them makes game reviews in their particular style. Find the one you like and persuade them to do a review for free. However, you are unlikely to have luck on this one (we haven’t). Russian bloggers ask for two to three times more money than their foreign counterparts, by the way.
Before releasing your game, create your info channels and use cross-references between them. It works! We use:
● Facebook
● Twitter
● Youtube
● Instagram
● Yunoia
● Bridget Loker
● Telegram channels and chats.
Now let’s get to the final part — working with app stores and how we published our game.
Google — everything is quick and easy. The main thing is to make an agreement with your conscience and not to sign Coppa.
AppStore —an application is being checked for a long time. It feels like an eternity. But in fact, it takes a week for them to check it, despite them saying 24 to 48 hours.
Amazon — quick and easy.
AppScater — as soon as you publish on the main stores, you can start invading Greater China. Appscater is there to help you.
So it goes.
P.S.
Once again I want to say thank you to my team. And please, don’t forget to try and play our game
The author of this article and chief marketing officer, one of the brothers, Artem Pushin.
Love your journey from starting to till today. Thanks for your post. :good:
Сongratulations on the release! I would like to read about promotion steps, if you did any, except social networks cross-references..
Love it!

[Game] One hint of magic - interactive text adventure app

So I’ve developed an android app now and I’m really curious about your feedback! The app is completely free to play.
Here’s the link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=callandha.app
As I already mentioned in the headline, this is an interactive text adventure story app, so you can make your own choices to alter the course of the story.
I’ve orientated myself on certain other text adventure games and specifically added a lot of graphics and illustration, because that’s what I’m always missing when reading good text adventure story games and I believe it pulls the reader even deeper into the story and makes the characters more realistic.
Short overview of the story:
The story is about five girls, who discover supernatural abilities like a special bond to one of the four elements. Laurel, the protagonist, also is repeatingly dreaming about a certain boy, but every time she encounters him in the dreamworld, his face looks unfocused. One day, a shady figure appears in her dreams as well, watching her from the shadows and threatening her. Laurel also encounters four other girls in the real world, who seem to have supernatural abilities just like her, though some of her friends seem closer to the darkness than Laurel might have thought at first gaze. The following days, the five girls meet up regularly and eventually find the way to a hidden school that teaches magic. But not all is as well as it seems. Laurel keeps getting into bad accidents and someday, one of her friends suddenly disappears without a trace. Is this related to the creepy shadows, that lurk around the school? Are they somehow connected to the mysterious school director? The shadows are coming… Can you keep your friends safe from them?
The whole book is parted into six parts and I’ve just released the first part and I’m already working on the second part now. A second book is planned as well. Please leave a review on Google Play Store if you like the app.
You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram to keep track of every new story release!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/callandhastudio
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/callandha_studio/
Greetings, Callandha

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