
Youngest Y Combinator Founders Launch MinoMonsters, The Pokemon Of Social Games - lachyg
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/17/youngest-y-combinator-founders-launch-minomonsters-the-pokemon-of-social-games/
======
jazzychad
Meta: I am appalled by the amount of hate and (non-constructive) criticism in
these comments. In a total role-reversal, all of the comments on TC are
positive and encouraging. The congratulatory comments in this thread have been
downvoted to negative points. What gives? Is it easier to criticize than give
encouragement? These guys already have 95,000 active users... what a feat!

I am ok with constructive criticisms and asking meaningful questions, but
pointing out other competitors and implying that this product is a waste of
everyone's time is just _mean_.

Josh and team, I am extremely proud of you (never having met you). Do what you
love doing, and keep doing it. Don't listen to the haters.

~~~
BoppreH
About the downvotes: "Congrats Josh" and "Woot go Josh!" don't add anything.
If they were "Josh sucks!", they would be downvoted equally.

~~~
jazzychad
True, but there is a difference between downvoting and not-upvoting. Leaving
them alone at 1 point would have let them sink to the bottom just as well and
not appeared to be mean-spirited.

~~~
BoppreH
I see that as noise, and I prefer to downvote noise. Not voting is reserved
for comments with very small contributions or opinions I disagree with and
don't seem properly justified. But that's just me.

I agree that downvoting is a harsh punishment, but it's also my opinion that
this "noise" should be differentiated from the above cases, so I don't see any
way around.

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teej
It seems he's starting to learn the hard lessons of building inside a walled
garden. Facebook has already shut down newsfeed stories for his app (a major
user acquisition channel) due to ToS violations. Welcome to Hell.

~~~
chrischen
Do you have a source for this? I'm seeing newsfeed items from Minomonsters
right now...

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oniTony
So here's my bug report:

\- Quest completion progress doesn't update until I manually click through
into the details.

\- A retreating pet is referred to as {{pet_name}} (problem in the template
layer?)

\- Using just about any special character when naming a pet <, &, \, ', (,
will make the AJAX call fail and a pet will end up with untitled<hash> name
instead

\- A blank name will be accepted (I expected it to revert to the default name)
and used as such.

\-- "What would you like to call this monster?" alert box message is about as
descriptive as "Would you like to perform this action?" (The offending part
being just "this")

\- If I'm allowed to try to use a capture card just once, this mechanic is not
apparent. It just looks like the inventory disappears.

\- switch pets screen appears to be cached on first view of the battle.
Subsequent switches will not show damage to HP of any party members.

\- sometimes the battle will just stop at "You have chosen to use Bash"
message. Presumably the client has missed a response from the server and there
is no retry logic?

\- at some point it would start refreshing the page after every battle move is
executed

\- is successful escape (run away) supposed to be titled "you lost this
battle"? (it also seems to have killed the in-play pet that escaped)

\- after the battle, the pet graphics are always fixed, but the experience
bars are sometimes re-ordered.

Some other observations:

\- it's annoying to go to the dashboard after every single battle.

\- the "weak bash" (0 energy move) is not available unless a pet has little
energy (what if I want to just tap a wild pet , in a capture attempt?). At
that point the UI is very un-intuitive, as regular bash becomes weak, and all
the moves (including weak bash!) are greyed out.

\- I wasn't able to figure out where pets beyond the 4th captured one are at.
No apparent way to select or re-order the party.

\-- as such the game quickly becomes nothing but a low-level grind, as first
weak pets take up all the available slots and make it impossible to move
further into the game.

\- do I _have_ to explicitly click on "aquire[sic] reward" if it's only gold
(presumably this is always wanted)

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aidanf
I'd like to see a bit more of what this site is about but everytime I go to
<http://minomonsters.com/> I get redirected to facebook.

It would be nice if I could view the site and learn something about the game
without having to authorize it to access my facebook account and email.

~~~
Groxx
There _really_ needs to be a BugMeNot for Facebook. Or something similar.

edit: Mailinator's alternate addresses occasionally aren't blocked, but I
haven't yet successfully received a confirm email :/

~~~
bhousel
Why not just set up a fake facebook profile?

~~~
benologist
Cause it takes a lot of effort to make a 'fake' facebook profile - I had one
and it only lasted a few months before it was locked out pending government-
issue ID being sent to them, since I wasn't actually using it for anything
more than looking at the occasional thing that required an account I can only
assume they monitor for unusual use patterns.

~~~
edanm
I'm pretty sure you can make a fake Facebook profile, mark it as a test
account, then use it to connect to things.

Test accounts can't interact with real Facebook users, but they can be used to
log in to sites.

~~~
Groxx
I don't think so, it looks like that might have to be done entirely via the
programming API, and you need an application registered to do so (or the
access token of another application) because it only works on one application:
<http://developers.facebook.com/docs/test_users/>

~~~
edanm
You can definitely create a user and then turn him into a test account
manually, I've created many test accounts that way. You have to visit a
special URL that turns the account into a test account (can't remember it
offhand, and I'm not going to post it anyway since if anyone clicks on it then
clicks "accept" without looking, it nukes their regular account).

~~~
Groxx
Can the test user then interact with the site in a mostly-regular way? I've
never tried, clearly :)

~~~
edanm
Yes, except for the fact that it can't interact with regular users.

------
citricsquid
I'd be interested in his old business, who bought that company for six figures
and why?

Also congratulations on the success :-)

------
hdctambien
Something to keep in mind about cloning games:

Zynga started with "Just another Texas Hold'em" game and followed that with an
exact clone of Farm Town[1] which it iterated on quickly and marketed well.

Angry Birds is thought to be inspired by Crush the Castle[2] but with a better
control mechanism and friendlier targets.

Minecraft was a fork/clone of Infiniminer[3] which focused on the community
aspects of the game rather than the competitive nature of the original.

What starts as a clone today, could be something unique tomorrow.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille#Originality> [2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Birds#Development> [3]
<http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Infiniminer>

------
daniel-cussen
How did you deal with Tyler's under-18-ness, legally? I remember there was
some mention of this being a small issue in terms of entering contracts in a
pg essay.

~~~
markbao
The way I did it was basically to have my parents sign off on whatever
contracts I did. My first sale had a signature line for me and one under it
for my parents.

 _aww, that's cute!_

------
robotkad
Sorry to rain on the parade, but isn't this simply a clone of Pokemon?

You start by selecting one of three monsters (they even resemble the starting
three from the orignal game). The battle screen and fight dynamic looks almost
identical.

Am I missing something?

~~~
Fjslfj
I have to agree with this. It's obvious these guys are smart and savvy.
Couldn't they have come up with a new, brilliant idea instead of a Pokemon
clone? I hope this gets acquired so they can spend their 20s doing something
more meaningful.

~~~
jazzychad
New and brilliant ideas are much more difficult to gain traction. Great
execution on a "cloned" idea is much easier. How many Groupon clones are
there? How many of them are making a lot of money? (Hint, a lot). How much
money is spent on Pokemon and related collectible card games? (Hint, also a
lot).

Meaningful is in the eye of the beholder.

~~~
brackin
The point is Groupon Clones did something Groupon wasn't doing (targeting
countries Groupon wasn't targeting) meaning Groupon isn't entitled to be the
market leader and the other startups are free to create one for their country.

Pokemon is not making a social web game, this is a big difference to the
Groupon situation in my opinion as they are different things. I wouldn't say
it's a copy just the story/theme is inspired by Pokemon.

------
grahammather
<http://apps.facebook.com/monstergalaxy/>

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markbao
Wow, someone's downvoting every congratulatory comment on this thread. To that
guy: congratulations on not doing anything useful with your time (while we
did).

Also, congrats to Josh and team! I'm totally jealous and proud of a fellow
young dude.

~~~
jedsmith
If you're talking about those comments at the bottom, one of the accounts was
created just to leave the comment, and all of them were left very rapidly
after the actual item was submitted. I don't personally agree with this, but I
can see an argument that they're not contributing to the discussion (and could
be perceived as noise), which seems to be extremely important to some users on
HN.

It isn't just "[one] guy", and I think your insult of "him" is a little bit
counterproductive. I honestly don't think it's because they're congratulatory,
and I think you're going after someone needlessly -- I don't see any
systematic assault on good will in this thread, as a couple people have.

Consider it weird and move on.

~~~
markbao
Considered weird. Moving on.

------
bryne
I'm pleased for these guys, but a little surprised as well. Launching a
Pokemon social game isn't exactly being disruptive; it's not as if there's any
dearth of them on Facebook, particularly at a time when many companies are
fleeing the already strip-mined platform for greener pastures.

~~~
webwright
People are still MINTING money on Facebook. I imagine the top 5 grossing
facebook games make the top 5 grossing iPhone games look like adorable little
hobbies. The #40 game on Facebook has 6M monthly active uniques. THe #120 game
on Facebook has 2M MAU. How many iPhone games have those kind of numbers?

Platform quibbles aside, I imagine it's the fastest/cheapest way to get
tens/hundreds of thousands of users to test their gameplay. It's easier to
develop for Facebook than mobile, doesn't have the approval nonsense for rapid
iteration, has a built in viral channel, etc.

I think it's a smart move.

~~~
ThomPete
Are they? Who else other than Zynga is. Making money?

~~~
webwright
<http://www.appdata.com/leaderboard/developers>

There's a list.

How many millions of active users do you think it'd take to make meaningful
income?

------
Tichy
I guess it is normal in the Facebook age, but I think it is a pity that it
seems to be impossible to see _anything_ from the game without giving the app
access to my Facebook network first. Somehow I can never bring myself to give
apps access, as I am not sure what they will be doing. Must create another
account just for testing apps...

Still, it used to be that you get to examine the merchandise before you buy
it.

------
tealtan
I have wondered for a long time why there hasn't been a mobile version of
Nintendogs / Tamagotchi. Seems like it would be the perfect way to carry one
of those around, along with the ease of local social stuff on top.

And: a) touch interaction would feel way more immediate b) constant updates to
these apps would allow the dev to constantly change / add to pet behavior

------
dominostars
This startup actually has me more exciting than a lot of the other ones here,
even though I doubt I'll ever use it. Games are rarely about being novel,
they're about being good. And if if pg tells the truth about funding people,
not ideas, then I'll be very interested to see how this turns out.

------
philjackson
"At 15, he was selling his first company for just over six figures."

7 figures?

~~~
mkramlich
I interpreted that to mean something in the range $100-125k

------
chr15
I'm trying to see the larger picture

1\. Get people addicted to Pokemon game 2\. Add in-app purchases 3\. Start
gaming empire

For those who haven't seen the game, it's incredibly well executed. Good
sounds and graphics.

------
TheRevoltingX
The graphics are really cool and all, but this definitely isn't what pokemon
would be. Where is the ability to walk the world and interact with non
playable characters? It's decent, but it's no pokemon as far as playability.
It's just a stripped down version of pokemon with social elements added. It
would be really nice if you could actually play as a character, view battle
animations (like pokemon fire attacks show flames) etc.

------
richardburton
Congratulations Josh. I remember the first time we met in person a year and a
half ago. Now seeing you rock it on the big stage brings a tear of pride to my
eye.

------
9999
This is a fine concept, but it would be a serious mistake to limit themselves
to Facebook and not take advantage of local connectivity options. A lot of
children have iTouch devices, but not many have actual iPhones with 3G
connections to take advantage of the kind of social gaming that Facebook
promotes. It doesn't seem like this will play very well in the schoolyard, and
it also doesn't seem anywhere close to sophisticated enough to appeal to
adults.

~~~
michael_dorfman
_it also doesn't seem anywhere close to sophisticated enough to appeal to
adults._

You mean, like Farmville is sophisticated?

As for iTouch devices-- that sounds like a reasonable idea, but first things
first. If they get some traction with the Facebook app, there's plenty of
further opportunities for them to explore.

------
acconrad
Wow, what am I doing with my life?

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naithemilkman
Anyone else feel old?

------
Raphael
So I started playing and it offers to increase my speed stat for the price of
8 Facebook credits. That just doesn't seem right.

------
lachyg
Well done Josh, you really deserve the success you're now having!

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sim0n
Congrats Josh! Great work with Mino dude.

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coryl
Terrific! I'm jealous.

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jamespickens
Congrats Josh

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brackin
Woot go Josh!

