

Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel - veeneck
http://battleofbrothers.com

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kevin
Chris and Ryan were my cofounders at Wufoo. When I heard they were going to do
this, I was super excited because 1) it's going to be really entertaining and
2) they're going to be blogging again. They haven't written about startups
since we were going at it on Particletree.com before Wufoo. The only reason I
got into entrepreneurship was because of them. This is because they know how
to make startups fun, which is something you can see in Wufoo's DNA even to
this day. It's something I think a lot founders forget is the key to making it
through in the long run.

Not sure who I'd put my money on, though. I do know it'll be a win for
everyone to see them try this.

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nwinter
I love this. If you want any art to start off with, CodeCombat has a bunch of
vector stuff that's open source and are always adding more:
[http://codecombat.com/editor/thang](http://codecombat.com/editor/thang)

We also have a few music tracks we've commissioned that are Creative Commons
if you're interested, like
[http://codecombat.com/file/music/music_level_5.mp3](http://codecombat.com/file/music/music_level_5.mp3)

~~~
kot-behemoth
If you're mentioning open source game assets (and your site looks really good
- bookmarked, too), it's also worth mentioning
[http://opengameart.org](http://opengameart.org). Tons of good stuff there
that can come in handy!

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gagege
I subscribed to the two blogs. Anyone know why certain blogs only syndicate
post samples? It's annoying when you are using an RSS reader and find that you
have to open up your web browser (especially annoying on a mobile phone) to
read the full post.

~~~
Braunbart
It's a decision by whoever writes the code for the xml feed of a site. Most of
the time short snippets in the xml feed are meant to tease you so you visit
their site.

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patja
Did you consider other methods of scoring besides money?

Granted money is easy to count but it is a debatable measure of which game is
better or who was most successful at the task of learning to make games.

~~~
veeneck
We did, but in the end this has to be treated as a business. All aspiring game
developers have a fear of quitting their jobs, so money is probably the most
important benchmark for anyone else who would try this out. And we have an
agreement not to go into shady/unethical IAP territory, so we should still be
proud of the final products.

~~~
opendais
Do you feel all in-app purchases are shady? Or just the 'pay to win' types?

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veeneck
Not at all -- they are a necessity. I just feel that some developers implement
them tastefully (map packs, new characters) while others are only focused on
money. I'd like to offer IAP's that look like a mini expansion where at least
a solid amount of dev effort is recognizable.

~~~
alttab
This is nice in theory, but the masses (aka mobile game players) have mental
space for three game types: free, paid, and scammy/clone/ripoff.

You will put a sizable dev effort into a 5.99 IA purchase that statically will
not sell nearly as much as the game itself. Maybe that's not the exact case
but this is the balancing act.

Personally I'd like to see the brothers produce concrete milestones. For
instance, in the first month you have to ship the first paid version. Or
whatever. So far, they haven't put their butts on the line for anything less
than a year.

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joeld42
protip: (Note I am not really pro) Don't spend a year making one game. Make as
many games as you can in a year.

~~~
soup10
Actual business advice: one really good game is better than a thousand OK
ones. Gaming is a hits based business.

Making small games and prototypes may be helpful for learning code and game
design since there is more experimentation in the early stages of a project.
But there's lots of things shipping a larger project will teach as well.

~~~
Zergy
You are assuming quality is correlated with it being a hit, this is not true
at all. Thinking of Flappy Bird as an obvious example.

~~~
vinceguidry
Flappy Bird was extremely well-designed and was very high quality, there was a
lot of work put into it. Dong Nguyen has been designing games for awhile and
isn't stopping anytime soon.

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wingerlang
Can you make an RSS feed which combines your individual feeds into one?

~~~
kevin
Could maybe try this as a stopgap?
[http://www.rssmix.com](http://www.rssmix.com)

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neovive
It would be interesting if you each pick a different development SDK (unless
you are writing raw Objective C or Android Java). Comparing how long it takes
to get up to speed as a new user would be useful for future gamedevs.

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jypepin
That is totally awesome. I really hope you guys will well document everything
you learn, with code snippets and all!

That could inspire a lot of new young programmers who want to learn more!

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bottompair
This could have been a two-day contest: Flappy Ryan and Flappy Chris. Profit.

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malkia
Now this would be a reality show I would like to watch :) Thanks!

~~~
veeneck
Yeah, we're brainstorming how to throw in some video / audio (podcast) to keep
it entertaining.

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simonhfrost
I'd personally love to see a weekly recap hosted on youtube and embedded in
your site. You could do a 2 minute interview each, and further down the track
start including screencaps.

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yincrash
I assume the $25K is excluding living expenses for yourselves?

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veeneck
Yeah, just game specific costs. Art, sound, music, tutorials, etc

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at-fates-hands
What happens if one brother comes in under budget? What happens to the money
left over?

You should be able to take your remaining budget and count it as profit.

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veeneck
If you come in under budget it won't help. The reasoning is that we should
each be encouraged to experiment. One of us may go heavy on the art while the
other focuses on marketing. Either way, there should be no punishment for
trying as much as you can within the rules.

If one of us goes over, that will count against the final profit.

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xerophtye
so are both of you aiming for mobile games or are you also considering a PC
Indie game?

~~~
xerophtye
Personally i think PC gives you more creative room. While the touch interface
is really cool for some games, but it also limits the gameplay IMO

