iPhone Games Development Diary

So yesterday my first iOS game, Who’s New at the Zoo, made its way into the App Store. This posts is kind of a making of report and how I managed it on a tiny budget.

Who’s New at the Zoo? is a fun new puzzle game for young kids focusing on improving concentration and memory skill. Every day a new animal moves into the zoo. The players job is to remember who they have seen before and tap who they think is new. As new animals are added, they shuffle positions. The more you play a level, the harder it gets as you can be confused whether you saw the polar bear in this game or one before.

The idea came about from a game I remember playing in nursery similar to Kim’s Game. The teacher would show you a tray of toys. You had about a minute to memorize everything in front of you. She would then cover the toys with a towel and you had to close your eyes. One item was removed and when the towel was removed you had to pick out which toys is missing. 

The development work started as soon as the idea popped into my head, mid February. As I work full time this was a part time project, working an hour or so a night and at the weekend. After only a few weeks work, on March 3rd I submitted the app to Apple. Wouldn’t you know it, they accepted it first time after a week waiting for review. 

I have been playing around with Corona SDK, a multiplatform framework, coding in lua. It has an incredibly documented API so getting a working prototype was complete within the first couple of days. It must have been only three days in and I was uploading a test build to TestFlight and distributing a beta copy to friends for testing. This rapid application development would have been severely stunted if it wasn’t for finding a fantastic free animal vector pack from the brilliant CustomizedGirl. Maybe with a future release I’ll create my own animals illustrations but people seem to love them so probably best mess with a good thing.

Testing the app with friends and their kids was a really interesting experience and shaped the game a lot. My youngest tester, at 3 would talk through who he had seen in previous rounds with his dad and press each one to confirm before hitting the correct answer. He loves the noises, big ticks and crosses. Getting all three stars and a high score wasn’t as important to him as I though it would. He just wanted to play the game for the sake of playing. For this reason the points system was pushed to a nice to have for any bigger kids, cutting it back leaving it simply big and colourful.

Points and highscores weren’t ripped out completely after my 20 something friends got hold of it and became hooked. Getting the top score on level offered some serious bragging rights, given how tricky it is to get a perfect round. Memorising 12 animals isn’t as easy as you might think. There was pretty encouraging, for a game I had aimed solely at nursery school aged kids in the beginning.

Marketing is something I’ve never really done before. I had kind of banked on Apple accepting my app the first time, telling friends it was due for launch on the 14th. It could have easily bit me in the ass if Apple said no. Luckily they said yes. So I’ve been emailing reviewers every since hoping to get some exposure. I would have loved a bit more hype on the run up so maybe for the next one I’ll leave a bigger gap between launch and review.

The total budget of this project not including Apple and Corona membership which I already had was only £6 which was spent on the menu music. All other sounds and graphics where either hand crafted or public domain. That’s the indie way. There’s plenty great sites out their for free graphics and sound effects like vecteezy.com and freesounds.org to really help keep your budget to a minimum. There’s no need for expensive tools either. GIMP and Inkscape are good enough alternatives to Photoshop and Illustrator for the most part. 

So what does the future hold for Who’s New at the Zoo? Well the game is about ready to go for Android. It really just depends on how well the iPhone version goes since I’ll need to upgrade my Corona license. I plan on getting some themes in there, maybe sea life, farm animals or even vehicles. Since there are a lot of big kids playing, maybe some trickier challenges like an all bears level but this really depends on my illustrating skills. 

Q: How often do you read a game’s instructions if you’re given the option? 

I’ve just submitted my first game, Who’s New at the Zoo, to Apple for review. The testing phase was an interesting experience, watching friends start it up for the first time and instantly play level one without hitting a big how to play button on the level select screen. They don’t bother reading the instructions. Why would they? Instructions are boring and delay the fun part of scoring points and nailing levels. They’ll work it out as they play. I know I do exactly the same with other games, even new gadgets and IKEA furniture. I think the only instructions I do read are on medicine bottles and food packaging.

Personal favourite, Cut the Rope, completely avoids sole purpose how to play screens and instead integrate instructions seamlessly into levels. This practise allows them to push out new mechanics in new levels without delaying cutting ropes and feeding whatshisname.

Let the player work out how to play, as they play, as quickly as possible.

My first iPhone/iPad game, Who’s New at the Zoo?, has been submitted to Apple for review. If all goes to plan it will be hitting the App Store March 14th.

Who’s New at the Zoo is a puzzle game for young children which focuses on improving concentration and memory skills. The game is set at a zoo. Every day a new animal moves in. It is your job to remember who you have seen before and pick out who is new. 

I’ve set up a Facebook page to post regular updates and get feedback if you have any. This is my first game so all feedback will be extra appreciated.

It’s been a real eye opening experience testing the game. My friends were more than willing to help out by playing and passing it over to their kids. I’ll cover more of this in a future post. A massive thanks goes out to everyone who took the time to help me out.

If you’re reading this after the 14th you should be to download the app.

I’ve been developing the scoring framework for my game the last couple of days. One thing I noticed shifting from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to the next release was the increase in points gained for the same action. MW1 awarded 5 points for the same action while MW2 stuck a zero on the end upping it to 50. The second instalment also added a butt load of additional depending on the type of kill.

Common with plenty of other games too sees the more zeros the better. You feel you achieved a lot more finishing a game on 1,000,000 points compared to only 1,000.

My next game, aimed at toddlers will likely follow this practice. The scoring is not as important and they are unlikely to know many numbers beyond 10 but given that the number is longer the better they are doing could add some value.

Being both fun and frustrating.

This is what I want to achieve with my game and here’s why. Nine to five I’m a programmer, building crazy complex website for big-time clients. My day goes a lot like playing a difficult level in Angry Birds. 

Fuck!. Shit!. Baws! Crap! Baaaasstaaard!

but then finally

Yaaaaaaaaaaaassssssss!!!!!!!

90% of my day may have been spent rubbing the side of my head against the desk swearing and crying inside but it’s all worth it for that knee slide moment you don’t get with instant success.