
Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game - Omicron3141
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cheese-miners-lunar-supremacy/id570118272?mt=8
======
pooriaazimi
I was writing/learning HTML with FrontPage 2003 and Flash 5 _(6? 7? I
thankfully don't remember anymore)_ when I was 14 - while knowing almost no
English _(thus, not understanding even what the menu items and controls
mean!)_ and without a manual or teacher and just clicking around and seeing
what happens to the code :-( Hard, hard times it was. But I enjoyed it
nevertheless.

But still, I'm jealous of you.

If you were to seek my advice, I'd tell you to watch some OCW (OpenCourse
Ware).

<http://cs50.tv> <\-- _great_ for starting out. I am ready to bet $50,000 that
you'll learn soooo much (while not being overwhelmed) that you can't believe
it

<http://cs75.tv> <\- great for starting web development (php, mysql,
javascript, css, ...)

<http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx> (CS106A is good for now or a little
later, CS106B and CS107 are _way_ more advanced but you might find them very
educating in a year or two)

[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-
courses/#electrical-e...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-
courses/#electrical-engineering-and-computer-science) (I've heard good things
about 6.00SC)

All in all, I'd suggest you start watching cs50.tv right now (if it's not a
whim and you're really interested in programming as a career, or if you at
least _enjoy_ programming right now).

Best of luck.

~~~
gnarbarian
Get off my lawn. I first learned HTML and JavaScript using Notepad in 96 when
I was 14.

~~~
nirvana
When I was 14, you couldn't just go buy a "personal computer", as the
minicomputer revolution was underway. So, I had to build my own computer...
and I did. (I think I started at 13, and finished at 15).

When I say, I built my computer, I mean I designed a PCB, laid it out, etched
it, assembled it, then needed to build a display board to output to a TV,
which was another several months of design, etc. And when I had all that...
then I had to start writing some sort of software for it! (EG: I had to write
software, build an EPROM programmer (because they were expensive) burn EPROMS
..... all to get to the point where I could start working on making an
implementation of BASIC!

So, when people complain that "kids can't hack on iPhones" ... well, I think
its silly. You buy a Mac and you get a fantastic IDE and development platform
for free, etc.

To the OP: Congrats on making your game! It looks very professional. Keep at
it!

~~~
knowledgesale
That is remarkable, yet the thread somehow more and more resembles this nice
Monty Python's sketch: <http://youtu.be/Xe1a1wHxTyo>

~~~
Typhon
Monty Python ? In _my_ days, we were happy watching 'At last the 1948 show !'

------
dm8
Congrats!! Keep it up..

Why are so many HNers being dismissive of this young fella? He has done
something cool and he is really proud of that. He learnt something that is
considered very hard for the majority of population and put his work out there
on app store for real test (by real users). Lets applaud him (like some of the
posters).

EDIT: Don't forget to contact your users. They will give you feedback and it
will help you improve your game and write newer games/apps.

~~~
chris_p
> Why are so many HNers being dismissive of this young fella?

I feel like I should explain my reasons:

He acts as if his age is very important in his accomplishment. Why is it in
the title? Why does it matter so much that he is 14? Maybe he has been
programming for much longer than the 30 year old who released a website
yesterday. Nowdays, anybody over the age of 12 can take online university
classes, publish apps (especially when they get the art from sites like
MakeGamesWithUs) and learn programming much more easily than 10 or even 2
years ago. 14 year old programmers aren't that uncommon anymore.

I've posted some of my projects to HN a few times. I only got to the frontpage
once. I never mentioned my young age, because it's not relevant. I've probably
sat in front of a computer many more hours than the Average Joe. If anything,
I'm under accomplished. The success/experience ratio matters more than the
success/age ratio in my opinion.

But the game is cool indeed, and it's always nice to see somebody complete
their first project.

~~~
DanBC
> I only got to the frontpage once. I never mentioned my young age, because
> it's not relevant.

You didn't get to the front page. This person did. Why do you think the
problem is with the way that he describes his project, and not with the way
that you describe your project? Your marketing needs work.

~~~
chris_p
> You didn't get to the front page.

I did, but that's not the point.

> Why do you think the problem is with the way that he describes his project,
> and not with the way that you describe your project?

Because successful marketing isn't everything, and because he is not
describing his project. The title doesn't say anything about the game. The
developer's age doesn't describe a game. I think a community like HN should
value the quality of the product over the age/gender/awesomeness of the
developer. But obviously I'm in the minority, and I'm just stating my opinion.

If people are going to use something I make, I want it to be because they
enjoy it, not because of the number of years I've lived on this planet.

------
JunkDNA
Man to be your age and feel what you're feeling right now! I had grandiose
plans as an 11 year old to write games on the Amiga. But without the Internet
and relying only on books learning was a slow process. It ultimately never
happened. I hope your parents support and recognize your achievement. 90% of
success is just showing up and actually doing something. It's important to do
things like this because you just never know where it will lead, who you will
meet, what you will learn. Keep it up!

------
olalonde
Amazing work! I remember when I was about 15 I started selling my first
software (a billing web app for shared hosting companies). I developed it in
maybe one or two months during the summer, set up a website and started
getting payments through Paypal. My English was so-so at that time and there
were no Hacker News or StackOverflow. I remember one day suddenly realizing
that "if"/"for"/"while" were actually English words.

Sales quickly averaged ~150$/day and despite that, my parents still wanted me
to get a summer job (at McDonald's maybe) like "the other kids". I also had a
computer usage quota and was often going over at my friend's house just to
cheat the quota :). Looking back at those days, I think they just wanted me to
spend more time with my peers. Anyways, I turned out fine!

To conclude, I truly hope your parents are supportive and if they are not,
feel free to get in touch with me for advice (can't help with game development
though, you are way more advanced than me).

PS: You have a bright future in front of you!

------
pacomerh
Sometimes I'm a bit skeptical about these kinds of posts "I'm X age, I made
this". I feel like, why would a 14 year old want to make sure his age is on
the post title?. It's not that extraordinary I think, I mean it's great that
his doing this, but it's not that un-ordinary, sometimes it seems like someone
else is driving this for promo.

~~~
ruswick
I agree. If you've made a good app, its merit will stand on its own. The fact
that people believe their age to be the most remarkable aspect of the
development of their product raises flags. If any things, it just seems like
an attempt to artificially lower standards.

Your age doesn't matter. Your product does.

~~~
garretruh
That's it. Discourage them right from the start. He (or she) is 14 for crying
out loud.

~~~
ruswick
I'm not discouraging them. I'm saying that age doesn't matter. Completing an
app is a laudable accomplishment for anyone. Emphasizing their age, if
anything, makes light of this accomplishment because it can come off as
patronizing. I think that it's great that they made an app, but their age
isn't important.

~~~
cristiantsara
I think age is relevant for this post. Otherwise nobody would be really
interested in reading a post about a new release, everytime a programmer in
this website comes up with their new app. So I think the most important thing
is that he is just 14 years old provided that the quality of his work is
decently acceptable.

PS: don't be like that to your own kids, cuz you will be hated as a father, I
can guarantee you that.

------
j45
You're awesome.

If you aren't, the nicest gift you can give yourself in 10 years is a blog,
even if it's private and you write all the crazy stuff you're learning and
doing and how scary it felt at first and how great it felt after.

Some things I had someone said to me and I hope you'll say to someone at 14
one day:

As you get older you'll meet so many subtle doubt worshippers that spread
their doubts because they can't get over their own self-doubt.

Be a man of action and launching. Haters and doubters are busy doing nothing.

Don't ever let anyone poison this ability to build, and launch.

Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't figure out anything and build
something.

Do laugh, while you launch and ship often while everyones busy optimizing
their stack.

------
tisme
A very heartfelt congratulations, I would give up a lot to trade with you at
the moment, you must be feeling on top of the world.

Games are a great area to work in, you get to learn a lot more about systems
level programming from building a game than you'd get from building a web-app.
Games are never finished either, you can always improve on them, add levels
and so on so they're a great way to grow your skills in managing progressively
larger codebases.

Once again, congratulations! And I hope to see much more of what you've made
here.

------
jetsnoc
Great job. The world is your oyster. Keep learning and don't let anyone ever
tell you something is impossible.

------
dysoco
Hey! Really cool stuff. I'm 15, and have been programming since I was 9, but
I'm more focused in stuff like Systems Programming and Machine Learning, thus
I have not really released anything interesting.

~~~
bradhe
> Systems Programming and Machine Learning

Oh? What are you working on? Do you have any code available?

~~~
dysoco
I'm currently working in a Revision Control software in Go (While learning the
language), I'll push it to Github when I have a somewhat working prototype.

~~~
bradhe
Interesting. What from those fields are you applying to revision control?

~~~
scrumper
I'm curious too. Semantic diffs maybe? (This change affects control flow, this
one doesn't; this change adds complexity, this one removes it.) Something like
that would be useful for getting an overview of a project's evolution, instead
of highlighting major commits only in terms of lines changed (often just a
meaningless refactor.)

~~~
dysoco
Basically I started with the things I like from Git, I simplified them and I
ditched everything else: It's a personal project so I can learn Go.

------
rsuttongee
Nice, pretty good for a first game!

Now that you've started writing some code, you can start talking to users!

Here's some quick feedback I've got:

-It's a little hard to tell where on the screen I can touch to move the miner vs. where I can shoot. Perhaps but a line on the bottom demarcating where touches will move instead of shoot?

-Perhaps the game would be more fun if the movement was faster? If you sped it up, it would make it easier to grab 2 pieces of cheese on the same row. It's up to you to decide how to balance control responsiveness vs. difficulty, but it's worth testing it out.

At any rate, good job and congratulations!

~~~
Omicron3141
Thanks for the feedback. Good to know, I'll try and put this in for the next
version.

------
SurfScore
When I was 14, I walked uphill to school at 4 AM, in the snow, both ways,
while carrying an IBM mainframe in my backpack!

~~~
kgabis
Obligatory Monty Python: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo>

------
dave84
Great stuff. How did you find MakeGamesWithUs? I know a few people your age
who want to learn Objective-C etc. would you recommend this route for them?

~~~
Omicron3141
Hey, thanks. I was referred to MakeGamesWithUs by my cousin. I certainly would
recommend this route; It's great to not have to worry about art and promotion
while you learn, and to have someone to fix your horrible mistakes.

------
Omicron3141
Hi everyone, thanks for all of the great feedback. Honestly, I feel lucky to
have the tools, technology, and support to build games like Cheese Miners.
Sorry that I haven't responded to all of your comments yet, I will get caught-
up later this weekend. My school has a camping trip and I have been prepping
for the trip most of day and walking out the door now and will have no
internet access while camping (no phones allowed, and I agree!). Such is the
life of a 14 year old at boarding school. When I get back I would love to
continue this discussion. Your comments have been very inspiring and there are
some really good suggestions I need to follow-up on. Thanks for the great
discussion. HN rocks!

------
dbh937
As a fellow fourteen-year-old programmer, congrats! The game looks great!

------
remixz
As a fellow teenager who is also programming, this is great! I'm glad that
there are sites like MakeGamesWithUs that are encouraging our generation to do
this sort of thing. Really, great job!

------
ecubed
Congratulations on your first game. Keep up the hard work and you'll have some
pretty competitive stuff on your resume for college applications!

~~~
Omicron3141
Thanks, I appreciate the kind remarks.

------
stewie2
How did you make game graphics?

~~~
Omicron3141
I got the art through MakeGamesWithUs.

~~~
randartie
That's great, art shouldn't be a bottleneck or discouraging when learning to
program a game.

------
zobzu
I was doing 68k asm at 14. Kids those days! :)

(now then again anyone who's done 68k asm would know this is extremely easy to
code and understand, more than objective-c in fact. But then again, I had
Codewarrior [which I won at metrowerks] and powerplant, and those, are hell.)

~~~
bitcartel
Amiga coders will remember Seka, Devpac and AsmOne... one wrong move and it
was Guru Meditation!

~~~
zobzu
Wished to have more machines.. Dad had a Mac tho, so, I used that;-)

------
jaf12duke
I'm so unbelievably impressed with you Jonah.

------
tete
Don't stop now. I remember, when I was 11 I was also really nerdy and in many
ways much smarter then now. My mistake was that I at some point dropped all
this, because I couldn't find stuff that interested and excited me. It's
really a flaw. As long as you are a teenager, you are able to find what
excites you.

It's really hard to describe, but it is extremely bad to come out of practice
and it happens so quickly. If you must find some kind of job or something that
will make you practice every day.

P.S: Stuff that looks boring at the beginning usually isn't when you really
get into it.

------
rietta
Excellent job!

Keep your drive, motivation, and by all means keep launching your software!
You will go much farther than most people.

I also started teaching myself programming at 14. 16 years later, I cannot
imagine doing anything else.

------
Jonanin
Good work, I'm jealous; I wish I was doing things like that when I was 14.

~~~
jamesjguthrie
I know, right? Me too!

------
mmcnickle
Fantastic, it takes a lot of effort and motivation to get something like this
out the door. Hope to see the next one on here soon.

Is it games that you're most interested in, or just programming in general?

------
willholloway
Great job! Parlay those skills into some lucrative consulting gigs. Earn
early, and earn often. Compound interest, especially at your age, is the most
powerful force in the universe.

------
napolux
Every now and then here on HN someone is claiming that he's a teenager
building an iPhone game. Is just a coincidence that the platform is always the
same? MakeSpamWithUs :P

------
scottchin
Wow! Nice job! I haven't had a chance to download it, but just by looking at
App Store page, the app looks fun and makes me want to download it!

How much time did you spend making it?

~~~
Omicron3141
Thanks! The game took me give or take 100 hours over about 4 months.

------
mani27
Congrats on your first game. This is awesome work for an 14 year old. I have
downloaded and played this game for some time. I feel movement needs to be
little faster.

------
ianstallings
Anyone that's had to submit an app will be impressed that you went through
that process successfully, let alone made a cool little game for the iphone.
Good job.

------
sojorn
I started using Internet when I was 10 and started to dabble in HTML and then
PHP3 and later 4. Earned a decent amount of money (for a kid), but then I just
stopped because of workload in highschool and college.

Man, my skills got rusty I can barely write something these days. So, dont you
ever stop doing that because returning to programming can be hard - your brain
wont function at this ultraspeed it is functioning now.

------
Zombieball
Did you also do the artwork?

~~~
Omicron3141
I did the concept work, but the guys at makegamewith.us provided the artist.

------
pclark
I wish I had had this kind of drive to learn to code when I was 14. Amazing
job Omicron3141, your parents must be blown away.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Well, I'm 16 now, and I'm writing a chatroom/game thing in HTML5 with
WebSocket (<http://ponyplace.ajf.me/>)

But when I was 14, I was programming a TCP Minecraft server.
(<http://github.com/TazeTSchnitzel/SchnitzelCraft0>)

~~~
FlightOfGrey
Impressive, where did you find the information for your TCP server and why
choose that as a project?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The folks on #mcdevs on Freenode had done the hard work for me, they had
reverse-engineered and documented the Minecraft Classic protocol. It's a very
simple binary TCP protocol with only 16 packet types.

And why as a project? Well, I saw the protocol was simple enough, and it
seemed like a fun thing to do since I liked playing Minecraft Classic. There
were already loads of other Classic servers, but I wanted to make my own so I
could do things my way and add silly features. Yes, there's plugins, but
sometimes I like reinventing the wheel.

I added some features, for example, "Zombies", imitating those in Minecraft
Survival/Indev/Infdev/Alpha/Beta/Release. I sent packets as if another player
had spawned, and I set up a minecraft account with the right skin, so that
when a player with the same name as that account was spawned, they would look
like a zombie. The AI was very, very stupid. It would always turn at right-
angles, making them easy to trap. Still, it was fun. Also, at the time I did
not understand recursion, so the "physics" for things like spreading water
didn't work properly.

The code I ended up writing, in C using WinSock and zlib was... horrible.
Ridiculous levels of nesting, and almost everything was in the main function.
This was a result of getting it _working_ before getting it _right_. However,
I never really refactored it much, and it became an unmaintainable mess. At
various times I have refactored it a bit, as recently as a year ago, and it's
the refactoring-in-progress version you can find on my GitHub page.

------
xenonysf
When I was 14 I was crying for a computer, but I had to wait until I was 17...
I never had a commodore, although I wanted so much... I don't have stories
about those days, like some talk about commodore disks and etc... were poor
days... still luckily I am Software Engineer ...

Good job man! Keep going with your passion!

------
lazyjones
Congratulations! A nice slap in the face too for those people who constantly
rant about kids/young people being distracted too much and unable to learn
much nowdays (by the Web/new technologies/gadgets). It's the adults who get
distracted and become unproductive, kids' brains adapt more easily.

------
songgao
Great job!

I was busy with homework and tests when I was 14. Kids in China are not as
lucky :-(

I did play a bit with Visual Basic 6.0 at 11. It was a lot of fun for me. I
also got a VC 6.0 on my family computer but never managed more than running an
MFC window that does nothing. But it turns out not to be important anyway.

------
vostrocity
When I was 14, I didn't have $99 to give to Apple. So I made games that no one
ever knew about.

~~~
jvrossb
Shameless plug: if you publish through makegameswith.us, we cover the $99 fee.
You do need a Mac though.

------
jweather
Congrats... my first iPad game is about 14 years old now and still not
released yet... sigh. Enjoy the piles of free time while it lasts, and be sure
to take some time to explore different areas to find out what you're really
interested in.

------
donebizkit
Am I the only one who was playing gameboy and watching cartoons when I was 14.

------
dmritard96
legos from the beginning .in elementary school they had a cool program in my
neighborhood run by motorola engineers where you could take courses on logic
design and build _simple_ cricuits (combination locks, tic tac toe...). when i
was 12 i built and electric go kart, 13/14 - a minibike. 15/16/17 - a solar
powered car (from scratch <http://www.sphssolarknights.org/>). Moved into more
CE/CS type projects now but once you start building you will never stop! Keep
it up. :)

~~~
dmritard96
also - as much as my fiance hates it. I still have all my legos! ;-)

------
scrumper
The premise alone is enough! Brilliant whimsy. Congratulations on shipping!

------
hashpipe
At 14, I was busy playing soccer. I didn't get to computers and coding till I
was 17-18, when my brother bought a PC. So jealous of you guys who build such
awesome stuff at this age ! Way to go..!

------
socialist_coder
Does it use Cocos2d or another game engine from makegameswithus.com ?

~~~
jvrossb
It was done in Kobold2D, a version of Cocos2D that's also free.

------
jerryjerko
Mh, something seems weird about this... Looked up his profile here at HN and
checked out the domain of his email address... <http://innolution.com>

Huh?

------
ovechtrick
Very impressive! Keep at it! You have a great future ahead of you!

------
jimwalsh
Great job, keep it up! At 14 I didn't even have a computer yet.

------
mbenjaminsmith
Congratulations.

I'm going to echo the more pleasant half of HN and say don't let anybody
dismiss your accomplishment. Shipping is all that really matters and shipping
is hard.

------
ceol
Seriously, congrats on both learning Objective-C and publishing a videogame in
a marketplace. I can't wait to see what other awesome stuff you do!

------
keyboardP
Congrats! Keep working hard and releasing more games!

------
justplay
thanks for sharing . I really didn't even thought about copying unix. Anyhow,i
think if you're learning domain specific language then it is not good to
implement unix . Consider php,it came up for web . so it would be nice if we
solve challenges or do stuff which matters. I use to check stackoverflow
question and try to learn it . Anyway i will mind your advise . thanks

------
alen
Brilliant work! Where did the sounds/artwork come from? It all fits together
very nicely.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you make next!

------
allforJesse
Well, now I feel old.

But more importantly, congratulations!

------
BklynJay
Great job! Congratulations. It takes a lot of persistence and drive to see a
project through to the end.

------
chris_wot
Nice! Did you do the artwork yourself?

------
jiggy2011
Good job, I don't have an iDevice to test it but it looks more professional
than what I managed at 14!

------
ThePinion
Looks good, congrats and keep it up.

------
tsieling
Awesome concept, looks great, and you're in the app store. Congratulations,
totally impressed.

------
phatbyte
Impressive, keep it coming ;)

------
nickporter
The game looks very polished! Did you create the art as well?

------
ekn
Well done, Congrats!

------
cdestroyer
Wow!!! Well done!

------
sonabinu
Fantastic ... You are truly an inspiration.

------
viviantan
Great work! Can't wait to try it :)

------
swiety
Seems good ;)

------
damniatx
Your father must be proud. /s

------
toutouastro
when I was 14,I started learning pascal and c I think :p

------
armenarmen
That is so awesome.

------
evandrix
pls release source and provide link on github.

------
photorized
Nicely done.

------
filipmares
Congrats!

------
jnazario
cheese! and ObjC! and app store!

rock on!

------
gdonelli
well done!

------
capsicum
congrats

------
tkahn6
Congrats! Would you consider putting the source on github?

~~~
Omicron3141
I might, I'm not sure yet.

------
marshallp
The last kid getting overambitious with computers is now serving time in
federal prison (Aaron Swartz). You might want to peace out on the hackz.

------
bradhe
This is the worst thread I've EVER seen on HN.

