

Show HN: 1 Weekend, 1 Developer – validating an idea and taking a break - JonD23
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/soldier-run-drive-soldier/id823638723?mt=8#

======
JonD23
I know it's common to start projects and never finish. I’ve started tons of
them: mobile apps, games, web apps, etc. Every once in awhile, for some
unexplained reason I’ll finish what I started. The success is small but
incremental. I don’t exactly know what it is that makes someone finish what he
or she started, but I guess if we did then things would be different.

I’ve been working on a mobile app for months now. It’s one of those apps that
I know I’ll finish, but I wanted to take a break and try something different.
So last weekend, I set a goal. I’ll give myself the weekend, from Friday to
Sunday night, to make a micro game. A small game is something I can complete,
and I did complete it. I also had a lot of fun in the process. I knew I was
rushed, but I had a goal, and I could see the end.

The game is out, it’s up, and it’s free on the App Store. It’s not doing great
as far as downloads go, but that’s ok. I’m totally feeling rewarded for my
efforts. I’ve gotten some feedback from friends, and I really enjoy seeing
their reactions when they play the game.

Now, I’m more charged and ready to finish my big app. I remember what it feels
like again to put something out there, and I like it.

Just wanted to share,

Jon

------
smcl
In my opinion this hits all the right notes to become an painfully addictive
game - punishing hit detection, no recovery from a slight mis-step, death (and
"next screen") animations that are _just_ long enough to be frustrating after
you die without doing any terrible psychological damage :) These are all
compliments btw, you've made a spiritual successor to Flappy Birds and I'm
sort of hooked.

~~~
JonD23
Awesome man, thanks for the compliments. It's seriously rewarding to have
someone like what you create. I'm worried that there is way too much green
though. I know the right colors can bring up some emotion. I've tinkered with
the idea of adding dirt to the road, but I'm afraid it'll be too distracting.
Any ideas?

------
ambigu0us
Does anyone else think that this Flappy type craze is going to help non-gamers
come more and more into challenging games?

Like I've seen people playing more and more games in the last five years. I
wonder if the tides are changing.

~~~
larrybolt
Personally, it's not that I don't enjoy gaming, but I feel guilty for the time
I "wasted" afterwards. Every other activity such as cleaning up, going out for
a walk or even reading a good book seems to be more rewarding and useful than
playing a game.

I tend to give that as the reason I started teaching myself programming, and
later I won't allow my children to waste days playing games. But let them do
more productive activities on the pc such as video-editing, messing with
photoshop, chatting with foreigners (the good old days on IRC..)

~~~
JonD23
Video games were my gateway into computers. I contribute my path as a
developer to when I started playing the Quake 1 demo in 96. I remember getting
the demo from a pc mag cd, and spending all day playing. One day I wanted to
start learning to make my own mods. So that started me on my development path.

But I totally agree, I hope I don't let me kids play as much games as I did. I
got lucky, but everyone is different.

~~~
larrybolt
That is exactly the way I tried introducing more useful alternatives to
spending time behind a pc to my younger brother and sister. By showing them
how they could write mods or even complete games with programs such as
Cinema4D, Maya, Photoshop, Unity...

It didn't stick very long, but I hope I had some positive influence on their
life in that aspect.

It is a very interesting subject though on how developers got into
development! My first programming experiences was with mIRC and its funky
scripting language to make simple irc bots.

------
zimpenfish
Good work. Bit too fast for my old brain though.

One small piece of constructive criticism - the "leaderboard" link is right
where I was tapping to restart and that got very annoying very quickly.
Perhaps move it to a corner?

~~~
JonD23
Thanks for the feedback. I totally agree that it needs to get moved. I
recently started hitting the leaderboard on accident myself, but I wasn't sure
if that was just me or other people too.

------
colinbartlett
I can't figure out how to play. I just smash into the first thing immediately.
I gave it 10 tries.

Generally I'm pretty bad at games. I never got past the 2nd pipe in Flappy
Bird.

~~~
mgkimsal
You are supposed to 'tap' to one of 3 spots, basically (left, right, middle),
from what I can tell. That at least lets me avoid things a bit.

The opening animation shows a smooth hand gliding around, which would indicate
some sort of dragging motion as the input mechanism, but it's not at all drag-
based. Took me a good 3-4 minutes to figure that out, and it was frustrating.
It's only because I was reading some stuff here of other people saying it was
fun that kept me going.

Personally, I think it's too fast to start with. Add better instructions, slow
things down a tad for the first few obstacles, and this would be 'hook'
material for more players. As it stands, I think the 'game over in 1 second'
factor will keep it from being recommended more.

But... great job on getting something out so quick!

~~~
JonD23
I can see that now. Sometimes it takes another set of eyes. I think I had the
mechanics stuck in my head, so I always looked over it. I'm going to fix that
now.

------
aaronetz
Forgive me for plugging my own flappy inspired (but sufficiently different)
game:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.woodenclos...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.woodencloset.floppybeard)

I made it over the course of a few days, using libgdx as an engine. It was
really fun to make.

~~~
JonD23
Dude thats awesome. Ya both are totally flappy bird inspired. Theres something
addictive about playing a game that is quick and hard.

~~~
aaronetz
Thanks! Do you have an Android version of your game? I don't own an iDevice...

------
lnmx
FYI, Chris Hildenbrand has a number of (mostly) free tutorials and game art
assets on his blog, including some of the graphics from this game [1].

[1] [http://2dgameartforprogrammers.blogspot.com/2014/02/top-
down...](http://2dgameartforprogrammers.blogspot.com/2014/02/top-down-view-
props-army-base.html)

~~~
JonD23
Yeah, Chris' blog is great and where I got most of the assets. If anything he
teaches you it doesn't take much to get something good for a little work.

The sounds were purchased from
[http://audiojungle.net/](http://audiojungle.net/) The whole Envato network
has great resources for developers.

------
dexkiki
I'm on a 4s and to mirror previous comments, the game is really hard, as in
impossible. I think part of the problem is the ad on the very top of the
screen. It's covering up part of the "Drive" in "Drive Soldier Drive" on the
title screen.

Also, I don't like how you have to click twice to start playing again.

~~~
JonD23
Yeah the ad is a part of the problem. It wasn't an issue until last night,
when the ads kicked in. Before it was harder on the 4s, but now it seems
nearly impossible. That being said, I'm going to fix it and make it
playability for both screen sizes. Thanks for the suggestions.

------
MattBearman
Congratulations on getting a polished looking game out so fast.

Some feedback - the game is unplayable on my iPhone 4s, I'm guessing because
the screen isn't as long as on the iPhone 5, there's just not enough time to
react to incoming obstacles.

~~~
JonD23
I just picked it up on the 4s, and Im with you on that. I'm going to fix that
now. I tried it out in the simulator, but nothing beats the real device.
Thanks for the feedback.

------
jason_slack
Jon, What's the stack? Objective-C? Cocos2D? Spritekit? OpenGL? Love your
games BTW.

~~~
JonD23
It's objective-c and spritekit. I started making games back in 2009 using
objective-c and uikit. Honestly, once you get those sprites moving on the
screen I find that it really doesn't matter what you're using, but Spritekit
is awesome.

I'm pretty good with Xamarin in c# development. I use that mainly for business
apps, but nothing beats objective-c and the opensource projects out there to
make iOS apps.

Thanks man

~~~
jason_slack
ok, cool. I am using Cocos3D-x for my ios games and slowly replacing with my
own OpenGL as I get better and better.

BTW Dash has Spritekit docset, IIRC.

------
socialist_coder
You should at least put 1 screenshot of the gameplay in the iTunes preview

~~~
JonD23
I completely overlooked that. I'll fix it. It almost looks shaddy now that you
mention it.

------
jjonahjameson
How much work would it take to get it playable on an Android phone?

~~~
JonD23
It's definitely something I could port over in the future. Maybe I can learn a
little about Android development in the process. I'll most likely wait until I
have a polished game. I submitted an update to the game a hour ago that
included a lot of suggestions from HN. It should be a good improvement.

