I spent over 2 years building an iOS game. It has sold 18 copies after 3 weeks. AMA

Are there micro transactions?

Edit: no micro transactions.

No there aren't any micro transactions. This was a REALLY big decision for me to make. Modern day guides to iOS revenue say that Free to play with micro transactions generate the most money.. I think it really boils down to the type of game.

In the end, I felt like my game didn't fit the "free2play" genre and I thought I'd try to go old school without micro transactions.

The trailer looks like you went too complex. Nothing wrong with complex games, but all of the apps I have see that go nuclear are EXCEEDINGLY simple. Sadly, I love complex games and get bored with games like flappy bird rather quickly.

Honestly, I would say this is a great start. Don't think of it as a few years wasted on an app that goes nowhere. Instead, you have just been working out your development and creativity muscles for the past two years.

Ya I think the game is pretty complex. I decided right from the start the start the this game would be way too niche for it to ever go nuclear. But I think half the fun when making a game is making something cool for yourself right?!

My original post got deleted. I think my user name being what it is doesn't help. I REALLY am not doing this to be some stupid advertisement of my game. I genuinely want to answer questions about the process of a long-term commitment to a game development project. My name is Dave. I’m from Toronto, Canada. A few weeks ago I released a game in the iOS AppStore called “Inject”. In 2012, I had this game idea/mechanic in my head that I thought was pretty cool – To use a touch screen to simulate an injection mechanism. At the time I didn’t know a single thing about programming or game development but the dream seemed possible. And so I decided to try. I struggled to learn how to program to bring this game to life. It was brutal. I wasn’t built to program things. Codeacademy lies. Not everyone can code. But in the end, I finished. Proof: http://www.playinject.com I think that by having my iTunes link and my youtube trailer posted, it made my post seem WAY to advertisey. =(

Hey, first of all, don't be discouraged. Flappy Bird didn't become popular in 3 weeks. So much of this is word of mouth and I'm sure more people will play it. And secondly, how much of the time creating the game was learning to program?

Thanks for the support! I think the "learning" process never ended. Trying to figure out even the simplest problems took forever!

In terms of programming, you start to build up a library of solutions to problems that you can rely on. Over time, you can refine those solutions.

yep. Codeacademy doesn't lie. Programming isn't hard. Its tedious. The reason guys like me who've been doing it for 20 years get stuff done? Its essentially solving the same problems over and over again. You learn a lot of shortcuts for a "class" of problem.

Hi Dudealicious.

You're right, programming isn't "hard" in the traditional sense of the word. I just think programming isn't for everyone because of repetition. For someone like you, repeating to learn is easy and natural. But for many people, repeating to learn is brutal. Especially when it something that we're not good at.

I think one of the most common mistakes new game developers make is trying to make stuff that is way too complex. I made that mistake. Even games that seem simple to non-programmers are incredibly difficult to create. I wish I could tell this to anyone making a game. Simplify! (unless you have 20 years of experience)

• Any reason why you wanted it to be on an iOS?
• Where did your inspiration come to create a game with this kind of theme?
• When you were developing this, how often / how long would you work on it per day?
• Can you make one for Android as well? I have an addiction to fully mastering difficult games, and I think yours is one as well. Sadly, I own an android.

Hey Veere,

• I chose iOS because that was the kind of phone I have. I think if I had an Android phone at the time I would have just done it on Android instead hah
• My inspiration. Great question. As weird as it sounds, I always thought some kind of injection thing would be cool on a touch screen. I remember using my friend's iPad and thinking that some kind of game where you controlled a syringe would be kinda neat. I'm in health care so I do see needle pretty often. I hate getting shots, but I think squeezing syringes can be fun haha.
• The time spent per day really varied. Sometimes only a couple hours a day. Some weekends I would do benders and work on it non stop. I'd say on average I was doing about 15-20 hours a week?

Could you identify any mistakes that you think you made? I want to release a mobile game and this post scares me.

Hey duyaw,

I made a ton of mistakes hah Hmm.. I'd say the top 3 are:

• Underestimating how much time "polish" takes. Little details like subtle animations, how sounds interact with music etc. Polish is incredibly important and many games feels/looks really ugly without it. I wish i knew this in advance and did it along the way. Instead of the "oh i'll just do it at the end"

• Underestimating how difficult it is to balance games: Most games have a bunch of variables that affect it's difficulty. Things like monster hp, monster speed, player speed, played hp, player damage, upgrade trees etc. Each variable exponentially increase balance difficulty. I wish I had made it simpler.

• Not doing any marketing stuff until after the game was done. This is hard. I'm not good at selling things to people that they don't want. I always believed that if a game was "good" it would sell itself. Sadly, I don't know if I believe this anymore hah

Any plans for a Google play release? Is it possible?

With Stencyl, I think it wouldn't be too difficult to do a Google Play version.

I haven't looked into in detail, but a couple things do concern me in regards to multiple screen resolutions and such but it's something I do hope to do in the near future.

I downloaded the game on my iPad and it's crashed four times. Once in the loading screen, and three times after killing the first germ in the tutorial.

What am I doing wrong? It seems like a fun game, if I could advance.

Hey redthoughtful.

I'm SO sorry it's crashing for you. An update was sent to apple that fixes that bug yesterday morning. (It took me forever to find that bug because I didn't have access to a high-res iPad during development). It should get updated on wed/thurs of this coming week. MY HEART IS ALL CLENCHY THAT IT CRASHED FOR YOU!! =(

My buddy just spent $10,000 developing an app that ended up not getting approved for iOS. How much did you end up spending?

$10,000?! that's so sad!

I didn't spend any money really. A stupendous amount of time. Although in all honesty, if i had worked at minimum wage it would been more than $10,000 dollars.

Do you know why your friends' app wasn't approved?

What did you do for your marketing? How did you advertise and push your product? Or did you just 'put it out there' and hope for the best?

I put my product out there and hoped for the best. I always thought that truly unique kind of game mechanic with good art/sound/music would automatically find it's ways into users hands but I don't think that works anymore. Marketing is SUPER important. I genuinely think my game is really cool. But I had no way of getting a weird/novel game concept into people's hands. To be honest, I was pretty damn sad when I saw how few copies I had sold day after day. But seeing the support in here is like.. It makes me warm and fuzzy! I can't even describe it properly. It's like you guys are all husky puppies LICKING MY FACE.

You mentioned CodeAcademy was used to learn the basics, but where did you go from there? Any tips for transitioning from basics to making an iOS game?

I used Code Academy just to learn how languages work. I seriously had ZERO background in anything to do with programming. I was always bad at math. I even suck at most games but I like playing them.

I think once you understand how computer languages in general work. (you only need a really superficial understanding). You can then chose a language that you want to focus on and look up tutorials for that language/framework to build what you are trying to build. So if you're trying to make something for iOS look into obj-C /cocos if you have big balls. Or for something more newb friendly like game maker/stencyl etc.

It looks like you have all the pieces in place, and great art design. I don't use iOS so I can't give you impressions of the gameplay. But don't lose hope just because your first time out is taking off slowly or didn't reach 100% of your expectations. The impression I got from your ad is that this is kind of like a touch-optimized horizontal version of Space Invaders with lots of special items to help the player. Maybe you could strip down your concept to make this comparison even more linear?

By the way, if you ever need a voice actor for one of your games, I'd be glad to pitch in.

I did think of doing VO's for Dr. Pokewell. But I totally didn't have a budget for that kind of stuff. I do know a guy making a game (ghostsong) who is looking for VO's I'll pass on your info!

What do you spread on delicious delicious toast?

Hmm.. Probably apple jam and peanut butter

On a side note, I discovered something DELICIOUS this morning.

Golden Oreo with a spoon of cream cheese on top. It sounds disgusting. I know.

but it basically tastes like a cheesecake

How did you learn to program? What languages did you learn? Thanks for the AMA and good luck with your game!

I used codeacademy to understand the basics of how computer languages worked. I used cocos2D to start but then transitioned to using Stencyl about 1/4 of the way through. For me, learning this stuff was really about "doing". You just gotta try things repeatedly until it hopefully works.

That's how I got into Web Dev, sometimes you just have to jump in at the dump end.

Sometimes you just gotta crawl up into the asshole of a problem.

haha. <3 dat name

this seriously sums up how to learn to code. All the "learning" sites on the web try to sugar coat the painful process of coding.

Butthole_Commander has it right. You just gotta lube up and dive in.

I feel like programming games is similar to programming beats. As someone who has put years into a song only to have 5 listens on a soundcloud, my heart sincerely goes out to you. But buddy, we're ARTISTS. This is what we DO! And I've heard plenty of developers (and producers) who've had to create HUNDREDS of pieces before getting the recognition they deserve. I think the company behind Angry Birds had something like 230+ games submitted before Angry Birds took off?

Krishna once stated "We have the right to our labor, but not the fruits of our labor."

It looks like you made a decent product, now take the rest of your night off. Grab a beer. Wake up tomorrow and start brainstorming a new one!

Wow.. That's a a really REALLY great quote.. Thank you.

I actually feel a heck of a lot better after reading that.

Thank you! And good luck with your music Wub! =)

Who is your favorite pornstar?

Currently? hmm... Asa Akira?

Looks like an interesting game. I just bought it and will give it a try

Thanks Juggling bear!