

How a bedroom developer's 'ugly little game' became an App Store hit - shawndumas
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/04/luca-redwood

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nonrecursive
I love stories like this. Personally, it's very difficult for me to focus on
one project and get it to the point where it's completely awesome and people
love it. In the past year I've worked on <http://openhercules.com/> ,
<http://emailegg.com> , <http://omgsmackdown.com/> ,
<http://www.whoopsapp.com/> . I've also spent time working on a multiplayer
game in common lisp and just this weekend I finished putting together my first
desktop app. Perhaps the most successful site I've made is
<http://happyjobsearch.com/> , followed by <http://visualmess.com> .

Which is all to say that while I spend a lot of time on side projects, I have
a hard time getting from "this is good enough to show people" to "people love
this and want to show other people." Saying no to all the ideas that are
always bouncing around in my head so that I can focus on just one, like the
guy in the article, always feels painful and risky. My internal dialogue goes,
"What if this idea doesn't work out? I should just move on to the next one.
That way I'm at least learning something new." What's more, when I initially
release a site and it doesn't get any traction, my response is almost always
to mentally run from it so that I don't have to experience the pain of
disappointment.

How do people deal with that?

~~~
LucaRedwood
Dev here. I never expected it to do well or sell at all. The way I looked at
it is like this "I'll roll the dice, probably won't work out but I'll give it
a shot"

I think in general you've just got to get it wrong. If you look at other games
by EEG, you'll see "RollRover" - a terrible terrible little puzzle game that
didnt even sell 50 copies, Why do we fall Mr Wayne?

Having said that, the biggest part was luck. right place/time etc

~~~
j2bax
Congrats Luca, you have achieved the ultimate goal! If you don't mind me
asking, whats next?

~~~
LucaRedwood
Updates with a bit more content ( challenges room / gamecenter ) and the
android version

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techtalsky
I had a tremendous amount of fun with 10000000. It worked as a fun little joke
about upgrading EVERYTHING, it's got a zippy little feeling to play, and not a
pixel onscreen in wasted.

And... even though once I beat it I wished there was another level, I found it
refreshing that it simply ended and I got to watch the credits like an old NES
game.

I knew nothing about the guy's story, so this was kind of heartwarming.

~~~
afterburner
If you like this, you might like Dungeon Raid even more. Similar idea: puzzle
match, dungeon-crawl theme. But much more addictive, and deeper.

EDIT: fixed the name

~~~
techtalsky
Yes, indeed I do love Dungeon Raid already and have poured countless hours
into it. I almost have every class upgraded to level 10. If there was a sequel
I would buy it tomorrow. 10000000 was a breath of fresh air. I'm a little sad
DR hasn't come up with a sequel or at least some updated content. It's a good
game with very deep strategy and surprisingly a lot of content in a way, but
now that I'm mostly through it I'm wishing for more.

These games hit a certain sweet spot for me in that you play in short sessions
but there's a long term progress you can work towards. That way even when I'm
tired on the subway I can chug slowly forward and still feel like I'm making
progess. Other times I can rejoice in playing with zenlike brilliance.

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kranner
Presumably this game took off because Eli Hodapp of TouchArcade covered it.
But according to <http://toucharcade.com/2012/07/26/10000000-review/>, Hodapp
discovered it via the TouchArcade app's Hot New Games list.

Does anyone know how games make it to that list?

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swombat
Ugly little game? Screw you, Wired.

It's retro, not ugly.

~~~
colinshark
It's... Fairly ugly. Lots of "retro" games are beautiful. This one isn't.

~~~
arthurrr
And a lot of "beautiful" games are quite boring to play. Even if this game is
"ugly", does it make it less fun to play? Personally, a game like this is
inspiring because it means that it is possible to make a successful game
without spending a lot of resources on graphics, and focusing more on
gameplay.

~~~
89a
That wasn't the debate. It was more that it's retro and ugly but being retro
isn't what made it ugly.

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jere
>"I haven't played any games at all in the last year. I worked on 10000000.
That was the deal I made with my wife -- I would make the game but that was
it, it was my project." Luca Redwood spent a year in monastic isolation with
no free time distractions besides new prototypes of 1000000, getting a little
better each time.

I really envy this kind of drive. My dream is to be that "bedroom programmer"
making small games and it seems like there is simply no time.

~~~
engtech
There's time, you just have to figure out where else you're spending it.

Cut out any free overtime at work, cut out TV, cut out video games and
books... and there's a lot of time.

I think it would have been a different story for the Luca Redwood if he had a
toddler vs having a pregnant wife

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dkarl
Sounds like he had his fill of the game but couldn't bear to stop until it was
finished.

 _"Some people said to me that they wanted to play more," Redwood told me.
"It's great that they like the game but, you've finished. You're done."_

I bet he took the FREEDOM tag from a sticky note attached to his monitor.

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yeureka
Congratulations to the developer! This is a great story to boost my resolve to
finish writing my little game. I also used to work in finance and kept
daydreaming about something like this. Some of my friends have published games
on the app store but without much luck. Crossing fingers...

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trafficlight
I was just watching a gameplay review on Touch Arcade and, man, this game
looks fun.

One more reason I need trade in my Android for an iPhone.

<http://toucharcade.com/2012/07/26/10000000-review/>

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Evbn
What amazed me is that "Bejeweled" has become an entire genre, like
"platformer". The original isn't just cloned, it becomes a foundation for
larger games.

~~~
drhayes9
This happened with Doom, too. For a long time, every FPS that came out was
called a "Doom clone"; there was no such thing as "FPS" as a genre.

It's fun to think of games that create genres and those that don't: the
"Tetris" genre never really caught on like the "Doom" genre or the "Bejeweled"
genre. Yes, yes, there's Dr. Mario and a host of other clones, but I get the
feeling that FPS and Match 3 are gonna be around a long, long time.

~~~
TheSOB88
Bejeweled is a Tetris clone in some ways. They're all "puzzle" games, check
out how similar Bejeweled is to Tetris Attack or Meteos.

