Hi all,
In November I released my first game, Balloon Defence, for Android. A couple weeks ago I released it for iOSas well (after getting access to a Mac and finally sorting out the build).
The game is, deliberately, very simple. I had spent a good many months working on a much more complex game (inspired by the old Hero Quest board game), which was going well. However that was going to take a (very) long time to actually complete, meaning I wouldn’t be ready to release it and would have no experience of the whole process of app development. I had done some programming before (mostly VBA modules for Excel, as required for a previous job), but had never done any full application development.
So I sat down to come up with a simple game, and once deciding on Balloon Defence I had a working prototype in no time at all. I then spent a couple of months (I work and study, so app development doesn’t get as much time as I’d like and things move a little slowly sometimes) figuring out everything else; menus/options, artwork, instructions, sound effects, achievements, social popup, fine-tuning the difficulty, building the app, releasing to the play store / app store, etc.
I feel that the experience of working an entire app through from scratch to release is far more valuable than any experience I would have gained by continuing with my initial, (much) more ambitious game. I still fully intend to return to my previous game, but now have a series of simpler apps to complete first - mostly games, though there are a few productivity apps in there too. The next app I am working on (which isn’t too far away from release, hopefully) is again very simple, though is level-based (not endless) so I am having to design multiple levels. It requires multi-touch, which Balloon Defence didn’t, so that was a new thing to learn for this app, and for some reason I set myself the goal of having no artwork, and instead creating it entirely in code. (I will have launch images and probably a few menu items, but definitely nothing relating to gameplay.)
My question is, how other developers (especially when you were just starting out) chose which projects to undertake. Did you consider how many new elements/techniques/tools you’d need specifically, or just start with something that ‘seemed simple’? Or did you just launch straight into a complex project, and if so, did it work out for you, or are you still going?
I look forward to any responses!
Cheers,
Simon