

Corona game from 14-year-old reaches no 1, passes Angry Birds - rlander
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/01/corona-game-from-14-year-old-developer-reaches-1-passes-angry-birds/

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stephencelis
This is a bit disingenuous.

1\. It did not pass Angry Birds, but Angry Birds Seasons Free, which is a
relatively new app.

2\. The Free app list is more volatile in general.

Still, congrats to the developer on becoming so visible so quickly.

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dmix
Off-topic: It's one thing to be inspired by Apples web design, but to
completely rip it off is in bad taste.

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pavlov
Who really cares, as long as they're not infringing copyrights? This site
design may have been tested to work for attracting their audience and
converting interested eyeballs into sales.

They are not selling a continuous service or "lifestyle" product, so I'm not
sure if they would benefit from having a site with a unique visual identity.

At $349, the Corona SDK is not a cheap product in a world where most
development kits have become free... Looking like Apple may be just the
simplest way of reassuring their customers that they're getting something that
fits the Mac development environment like a glove.

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alanfalcon
The web design almost turned me off completely from investigating Corona
further. Then again, I come from a web design background, so I may be more
sensitive to that than others. Fortunately for Corona, the actual product does
seem to be the best for what I'm looking for.

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gte910h
It's a dashcode output (aka the free web design thingy that comes with XCode).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashcode>

Apple makes the tool that makes websites look like that.

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dchest
I cannot find this template in Dashcode. Does it use Blueprint CSS framework
too?

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alanfalcon
"As of January 14, it has gotten 1,571,213 downloads!"

That's about two weeks that the app has been out. Incredible.

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greyman
Yes it is... more so when you try to play it, which I did just now. It isn't
bad, but I also wouldn't call it a great game. I just don't understand the
popularity...

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smackfu
I'll pretty much download anything new that pops up on the free list. A lot of
it is junk that gets deleted fast, but if other people are doing the same...

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electromagnetic
Free and downloaded isn't the same as free and replayed.

I download Xbox Live demos of almost everything, I may only buy 1/100 that I
try (exaggeration). I'm sure this game has some modicum of popularity, but you
can only truly tell by longevity when something is being served to you for
free.

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schwabacher
Does anyone have any experience using corona? How well does it work, how full
featured is it, etc?

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consultutah
I've used it for a few apps and am generally happy with it. Search for Wetwork
or ConsultUtah in the app store to see what I've done.

I definitely congratulate anyone that can make that kind of headway. It makes
me feel extremely humble that I can't get anywhere near the results that this
14 year old has... ;-)

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consultutah
Here is a great follow-up review from someone that has had success in writing
iphone apps with Corona: [http://jonbeebe.tumblr.com/post/2726165170/corona-
sdk-revisi...](http://jonbeebe.tumblr.com/post/2726165170/corona-sdk-
revisited)

~~~
schwabacher
Great article, thanks!

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ambirex
I'm glad to see other tools for RAD succeeding but after trying it I don't
know that it is the most polished game and probably wouldn't survive if it
wasn't free (almost hate saying that about a 14-year-old's game).

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dangero
It's an excellent name and I wish I had thought of it. People seem to like the
word "bubble" in the app store. Not sure why, but there is definitely a trend
there if you look into it.

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cpeterso
Will "Bubble %s" become the new "Doodle %s" for copycat games? It's
interesting to watch the popularity of certain, seemingly random, words in
copycat game titles.

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jawee
Interesting. I´ve found better, free ¨physics¨ games in the past with simple
exercises in kinematics. The engine seems slightly off from my limited playing
after seeing this article, and the graphics almost detract from the game. It´s
just odd that this particular game ended up with so much popularity.

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wahwah
I wonder if he did anything to market it. He's either incredibly good or
incredibly lucky.

