$ 60,000 per game Alchemy Classic, or three programmers from Samara
As we have already told , during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Intel summarized the results of the international competition Intel AppUp developer challenge, and two Russian applications were among the winners. We are already familiar with the author of one of them, Dmitry Ryzhkov , and will soon continue interesting communication. But for newcomers working under the NIAsoft brand, let's take a closer look right now. After all, Artyom Sherstobitov, Ilya Grachev and Nikolai Cholakov received the Alchemy Classic Audience Award for their Alchemy Classic game, and to them a solid prize of $ 60,000.
We contacted Samara, where all three winners live, to find out how ideas are born that bring such weighty fruits.
')
From left to right: Artem Sherstobitov, Ilya Grachev, Nikolai Cholakov.
- Tell us, please, how did each of you come to the idea of programming? Honestly, outwardly your team looks more like a rock band.
Artem Sherstobitov : In the eighth grade, instead of labor lessons, everyone attended an industrial training complex, where they received the additional profession of a truck driver or computer operator. I studied in a physical and mathematical class, so the entire class was sent to study operators. There we were introduced to the shell, which was called the “commander Norton”, and taught the basics of programming in the Basic language.
Since then, the question of choosing a future profession has not even been discussed.
Ilya Grachev : My parents studied at the same university and at the same faculty, which I later joined. Very early, they bought me the first computer - 486DX. Of course, basically I played, but a certain mentality began to form at that time. I always wanted to write some kind of game or program so that other people could use it, and, if possible, derive material benefits from it :)
Nikolai Cholakov : Probably my story is quite similar. In the ninetieth year I got acquainted with the computer, and I became very interested first of all in the "Prince of Persia", and a little later Doom. He played a lot, then it became interesting to find out how the programs are arranged from the inside. It became interesting to create your own. When I entered the university in 2000, I assumed that it would be prestigious and profitable to develop programs, and I don’t regret my choice :)
- In rock teams, people are usually selected for their ability to play certain instruments, and sometimes musicians come together, and friends are rather weak among themselves. How did your team come about?
A. Sh.: The instruments on which we can play are approximately the same - we each have a broken guitar and a piano with students left in the corner :) Well, but seriously, Ilya and I went to school together in grades 10-11. Then together they entered the Samara Technical University at the same faculty of FAIT, for one specialty “Computers, Complexes, Systems and Networks”. There we met with Nicholas. Therefore, we know each other for about 13 years.
Before the third year, they simply studied, without building plans for joint projects. But one day my dad said that the son of his friend earned $ 1,000 by writing some kind of program. I asked to find out what kind of program this is? .. It turned out that he wrote the game, seeing which we decided we could do better. That day can be considered the birthday of the team. Then we decided that we would definitely write some kind of shareware program, the main thing is to choose the right idea.
N.CH .: You have compared us with a rock band, so I want to point out that we are primarily a group of like-minded people. And besides programming, we are united by a similar view of life in general.
- How are roles assigned to your team? As far as I know, you do not have a megaboss, but how then does the motivation occur, if someone is too lazy to do something?
LF. : It also happens that one creative fuse can quiet down for a while, and in this case, someone else takes on his responsibilities, giving him the opportunity to relax a bit and collect his thoughts. We have complete interchangeability. Thanks to a well-coordinated interaction, we move forward and reach the goal ( said with a truly Komsomol enthusiasm - approx. C.V. )
A.SH .: The main problem is the availability of free time. More precisely, its absence. For us, programming for mobile platforms is rather a hobby that unexpectedly brought results. In addition to self-motivation there is nothing. Special role distributions too. It all depends on the specific task. That is, one person can be a designer in one project, a manager in another, and a programmer in a third. In addition, it is always interesting to try yourself in a new role. Therefore, we practice the principle of parallelization (the Intel Software Network team applauds standing, hearing about this good, valid principle - approx. C.V. ).
But the final decisions are always taken together. For example, the current design of Alchemy Classic was painted by Nikolai. I was engaged in programming for Android, and Ilya was engaged in content. But, for example, Ilya wrote Necklace (Masyu), and Nikolay ported Alchemy Classic under IntelAppUp and bada. Such a concept without a mega-boss at the head allows us to look at the problem from different points of view and find the optimal solution.
IG : Initially, the motivation was to try to do something new - for example, to participate in the competition. Then, of course, the period of routine came, as in any other project. At that moment, I had to do it through “I don't want”, because there was no real material motivation, except for a potential gain.
About the subject of the conversation
Alchemy Classic is a simple puzzle game. In the beginning, the player has only four elements: air, earth, water and fire. Combining them, you can find new elements and go through the evolutionary path from bacteria to mammals.
Links to the game:
Android Market , Samsung Apps , Intel AppUp .
- And what was the first jointly made software product?
A.Sh .: As we wrote above, the idea of joint development was born in the third year of the institute. One of our joint ideas, the implementation of which we, unfortunately, did not bring to the logical end - the manager of the clipboard. It allows you to insert into any place from the pop-up menu without dragging the focus. As far as we know, programs with such functionality did not exist at that time.
N.CH .: Add to the clipboard. What really is not just another clipboard manager, of which there are many now. We gave him the definition of Store And Place Manager. At the root of the idea lay the idea of the ability to collect data of any format from any sources (the clipboard is one of them), save it, have the ability to conveniently manipulate and - most importantly - implement it in the right place. And not only on the local machine. For example, a container may be located somewhere in the cloud, and several people may have access to it. For example, by simply pressing Ctrl + C you can put text or a layer in Photoshop with all the settings in the container, and paste this data on the other machine in the same form. Thus, you can easily transfer data for future use remotely. In order to insert an object with sufficiently hot keys, a pop-up window will appear (a list of candidates for insertion is similar to that in the IDE tools). It is designed in such a way that the focus does not over-pull on it, and this creates the impression of “embeddedness” in the application. There is also a mode in which this window can be fixed on the desktop. You can insert objects in several ways - by hotkeys, or by simple dragging. In the same way they are going. Work began in late 2004. Unfortunately, the project has been gathering dust on the shelf for a long time, but if the hands reach it, we will definitely bring it to mind :)
A.SH .: In the last couple of years, Android has become increasingly popular. For the sake of interest, the phones were purchased, and then, as they say, “to try”, a simple game Color Stripes was written. This is what can be called the first joint work.
IG: A feature of the Color Stripes, compared with other first joint projects, was that the development of the game was brought to a logical conclusion. We have not abandoned the venture halfway. The main goal was to study the Android mobile platform, and development for mobile platforms in general.
- As far as I know, the current victory in the competition held by a large company is not your first. What was before her?
IG .: Last summer, we learned about a competition held by Samsung for the development of mobile applications for the Bada platform. We had no global ideas, so we decided to implement a simple Japanese puzzle. Again, as a study of the new mobile platform. The result was the game Necklace, which took the third place at the regional competition (in Russia).
- How did the application come up that brought you 60,000 from Intel? Especially for the competition, or just an idea matured, and you decided to use it?
A.SH .: Yes, at that time there was already a version for Android. In addition, Intel offered to participate in the program "dollars for downloads." Therefore, we decided not to miss this chance. That is, in fact, nothing was specially invented. The idea was already, just made an implementation under Windows.
- Your applications are traditionally free for users. And did you think how to make money on them somehow besides winning contests? In general, how important is the financial component for you at the moment?
A.SH .: The first more or less successful application was Alchemy Classic for Android, but at the moment it is very difficult to sell anything in the Market. Now the app is free. The application for Intel AppUp was done in a very short time, and at the moment it is not ready for sale. Therefore, now for us the audience reach and quality improvement are important. I believe that money will come after that.
IG : It is clear that we participated in the competition because of the potential for winning. We consider monetary remuneration as an opportunity to invest it later in new projects.
- How much did the software offered by Intel help you during the development?
N.CH .: All development was conducted on VS2008. By that time, the AppUp (SM) SDK was not adapted to work with Studio 2010. Of the features of the AppUp (SM) SDK , only minimal basic functionality was used, namely, the application authorization mechanism. This mechanism does not allow the launch of programs installed to bypass AppUp, and all applications for successful completion of validation should use it. In addition, it was planned to connect the mechanism of crash reports, but since Alchemy seems to work stably :-), we decided to wait a while and do other things. At the initial stage, the demonstration materials from the Intel developer portal helped. Throughout the development process, we have been in close contact with developers supporting the AppUp developer program from Intel. After the product is released, we continue to correspond with the developers, redirect user feedback on issues related to the work of AppUp, explain to people that together we can make Alchemy Classic and Intel AppUp better.
- You have already “covered” Bada, Windows, Android - which platforms are you planning to master in the foreseeable future? Which seem the most promising?
A.Sh .: Plans to cover all the platforms for which you have the strength. We have a Qt version ready. All platforms that have their own application store are now promising. These are currently Windows Phone 7, Android, iPhone, Symbian ^ 3 (for now). Also with interest we look at MeeGo.
- You all live in Samara. Is it comfortable to do what you do, away from St. Petersburg and Moscow, not to mention the foreign metropolitan areas? Are there any restrictions - in the infrastructure, in access to the necessary information, in something else? Have you received offers to work away from your hometown? If they do, how will they react?
N.CH .: Thanks to the Internet and correctly chosen methods of communication within the team, no information vacuum is felt.
A.Sh .: It is quite comfortable. There are no restrictions now. We spend most of our time in Samara, where we live and work, but on weekends we often visit our parents in the suburbs. The Internet completely erased the boundaries between cities. All questions are discussed via Skype. Demo show via TeamViewer. For quick sharing and storage of files use DropBox. Therefore, all issues are resolved fairly quickly. In fact, we practice the concept of a virtual team.
No offers to work away from hometown. But honestly, they didn’t really look for it. Some of our friends had an initial desire to go to Moscow, many believe that they will not be able to realize themselves in Samara. But at the moment, it seems to us, in Samara it is quite possible to find a good job for the soul.
IG .: For example, in Moscow Luxoft there are several dozens, if not hundreds of open vacancies, and some of them are jobs in England. Also after registration in the Samsung competition there was a proposal to send your resume for vacancies in Moscow or South Korea. All this means that if you want, you can always try to find another job in another city or even a country. Just at the moment we have no such plans, we like to live and work in Samara.
- Well, the most important question - how will you spend the money? The amount of something solid .
A.Sh .: Some of the funds will be used for further development. To buy devices, software testing requires a lot of money.
IG: I would like to become the owner of some eplowski device.
N.CH .: I will expand my fleet, and, to complete the image of the guys from the provinces, I will improve my site.
Can a few more words without a protocol?
We would like to congratulate Dmitry Ryzhkov on another victory (category Home Innovation Project) and wish him continued success.
We are also very grateful for the help in organizing this interview and such a warm welcome from Dmitry Oganezov, Marianna Svetlossonovna, Svetlana Emelyanova and the entire team of the Intel Software Network. Special thanks for the understanding and support of our relatives, relatives, friends.
We are grateful to all users for the positive feedback and a large number of downloads due to which our game was among the winners.
Also, taking this opportunity, we want to say hello to shopping jedis, to Nikita and fellow major.
Our website: http://nia-soft.com/ , come in, we will be happy.
You can also contact us on Twitter and Facebook.
PS from Intel Sofware Network
It is worth emphasizing that the competition in which the guys won was not the last. Moreover, the acceptance of applications for the new stage of Intel AppUp developer challenge has already started .
There are a lot of categories in which you can claim your product. No, seriously - there is both “The best communication application”, and “The best application for synchronization”, and even “The best special application for France”. All contestants participate in the Grand Prix draw in four additional nominations: Best Application for Different Platforms, Most Elegant MeeGo Application, Best Tablet / Netbook Applications and Award to the Most Valuable Developer, regardless of addition, has become a prize in the main categories or not.
Prizes inspire respect. The authors of the best applications will receive awards from $ 25,000, the opportunity to attend a TED conference or take a five-day trip to Russia, including a supersonic flight on military jets. Most of the "clothing" prizes can be collected in cash.
The terms of participation can be found on the contest website . Support for Russian bidders is provided by the Intel Software Network Software Development Community.
We contacted Samara, where all three winners live, to find out how ideas are born that bring such weighty fruits.
')
From left to right: Artem Sherstobitov, Ilya Grachev, Nikolai Cholakov.
- Tell us, please, how did each of you come to the idea of programming? Honestly, outwardly your team looks more like a rock band.
Artem Sherstobitov : In the eighth grade, instead of labor lessons, everyone attended an industrial training complex, where they received the additional profession of a truck driver or computer operator. I studied in a physical and mathematical class, so the entire class was sent to study operators. There we were introduced to the shell, which was called the “commander Norton”, and taught the basics of programming in the Basic language.
Since then, the question of choosing a future profession has not even been discussed.
Ilya Grachev : My parents studied at the same university and at the same faculty, which I later joined. Very early, they bought me the first computer - 486DX. Of course, basically I played, but a certain mentality began to form at that time. I always wanted to write some kind of game or program so that other people could use it, and, if possible, derive material benefits from it :)
Nikolai Cholakov : Probably my story is quite similar. In the ninetieth year I got acquainted with the computer, and I became very interested first of all in the "Prince of Persia", and a little later Doom. He played a lot, then it became interesting to find out how the programs are arranged from the inside. It became interesting to create your own. When I entered the university in 2000, I assumed that it would be prestigious and profitable to develop programs, and I don’t regret my choice :)
- In rock teams, people are usually selected for their ability to play certain instruments, and sometimes musicians come together, and friends are rather weak among themselves. How did your team come about?
A. Sh.: The instruments on which we can play are approximately the same - we each have a broken guitar and a piano with students left in the corner :) Well, but seriously, Ilya and I went to school together in grades 10-11. Then together they entered the Samara Technical University at the same faculty of FAIT, for one specialty “Computers, Complexes, Systems and Networks”. There we met with Nicholas. Therefore, we know each other for about 13 years.
Before the third year, they simply studied, without building plans for joint projects. But one day my dad said that the son of his friend earned $ 1,000 by writing some kind of program. I asked to find out what kind of program this is? .. It turned out that he wrote the game, seeing which we decided we could do better. That day can be considered the birthday of the team. Then we decided that we would definitely write some kind of shareware program, the main thing is to choose the right idea.
N.CH .: You have compared us with a rock band, so I want to point out that we are primarily a group of like-minded people. And besides programming, we are united by a similar view of life in general.
- How are roles assigned to your team? As far as I know, you do not have a megaboss, but how then does the motivation occur, if someone is too lazy to do something?
LF. : It also happens that one creative fuse can quiet down for a while, and in this case, someone else takes on his responsibilities, giving him the opportunity to relax a bit and collect his thoughts. We have complete interchangeability. Thanks to a well-coordinated interaction, we move forward and reach the goal ( said with a truly Komsomol enthusiasm - approx. C.V. )
A.SH .: The main problem is the availability of free time. More precisely, its absence. For us, programming for mobile platforms is rather a hobby that unexpectedly brought results. In addition to self-motivation there is nothing. Special role distributions too. It all depends on the specific task. That is, one person can be a designer in one project, a manager in another, and a programmer in a third. In addition, it is always interesting to try yourself in a new role. Therefore, we practice the principle of parallelization (the Intel Software Network team applauds standing, hearing about this good, valid principle - approx. C.V. ).
But the final decisions are always taken together. For example, the current design of Alchemy Classic was painted by Nikolai. I was engaged in programming for Android, and Ilya was engaged in content. But, for example, Ilya wrote Necklace (Masyu), and Nikolay ported Alchemy Classic under IntelAppUp and bada. Such a concept without a mega-boss at the head allows us to look at the problem from different points of view and find the optimal solution.
IG : Initially, the motivation was to try to do something new - for example, to participate in the competition. Then, of course, the period of routine came, as in any other project. At that moment, I had to do it through “I don't want”, because there was no real material motivation, except for a potential gain.
About the subject of the conversation
Alchemy Classic is a simple puzzle game. In the beginning, the player has only four elements: air, earth, water and fire. Combining them, you can find new elements and go through the evolutionary path from bacteria to mammals.
Links to the game:
Android Market , Samsung Apps , Intel AppUp .
- And what was the first jointly made software product?
A.Sh .: As we wrote above, the idea of joint development was born in the third year of the institute. One of our joint ideas, the implementation of which we, unfortunately, did not bring to the logical end - the manager of the clipboard. It allows you to insert into any place from the pop-up menu without dragging the focus. As far as we know, programs with such functionality did not exist at that time.
N.CH .: Add to the clipboard. What really is not just another clipboard manager, of which there are many now. We gave him the definition of Store And Place Manager. At the root of the idea lay the idea of the ability to collect data of any format from any sources (the clipboard is one of them), save it, have the ability to conveniently manipulate and - most importantly - implement it in the right place. And not only on the local machine. For example, a container may be located somewhere in the cloud, and several people may have access to it. For example, by simply pressing Ctrl + C you can put text or a layer in Photoshop with all the settings in the container, and paste this data on the other machine in the same form. Thus, you can easily transfer data for future use remotely. In order to insert an object with sufficiently hot keys, a pop-up window will appear (a list of candidates for insertion is similar to that in the IDE tools). It is designed in such a way that the focus does not over-pull on it, and this creates the impression of “embeddedness” in the application. There is also a mode in which this window can be fixed on the desktop. You can insert objects in several ways - by hotkeys, or by simple dragging. In the same way they are going. Work began in late 2004. Unfortunately, the project has been gathering dust on the shelf for a long time, but if the hands reach it, we will definitely bring it to mind :)
A.SH .: In the last couple of years, Android has become increasingly popular. For the sake of interest, the phones were purchased, and then, as they say, “to try”, a simple game Color Stripes was written. This is what can be called the first joint work.
IG: A feature of the Color Stripes, compared with other first joint projects, was that the development of the game was brought to a logical conclusion. We have not abandoned the venture halfway. The main goal was to study the Android mobile platform, and development for mobile platforms in general.
- As far as I know, the current victory in the competition held by a large company is not your first. What was before her?
IG .: Last summer, we learned about a competition held by Samsung for the development of mobile applications for the Bada platform. We had no global ideas, so we decided to implement a simple Japanese puzzle. Again, as a study of the new mobile platform. The result was the game Necklace, which took the third place at the regional competition (in Russia).
- How did the application come up that brought you 60,000 from Intel? Especially for the competition, or just an idea matured, and you decided to use it?
A.SH .: Yes, at that time there was already a version for Android. In addition, Intel offered to participate in the program "dollars for downloads." Therefore, we decided not to miss this chance. That is, in fact, nothing was specially invented. The idea was already, just made an implementation under Windows.
- Your applications are traditionally free for users. And did you think how to make money on them somehow besides winning contests? In general, how important is the financial component for you at the moment?
A.SH .: The first more or less successful application was Alchemy Classic for Android, but at the moment it is very difficult to sell anything in the Market. Now the app is free. The application for Intel AppUp was done in a very short time, and at the moment it is not ready for sale. Therefore, now for us the audience reach and quality improvement are important. I believe that money will come after that.
IG : It is clear that we participated in the competition because of the potential for winning. We consider monetary remuneration as an opportunity to invest it later in new projects.
- How much did the software offered by Intel help you during the development?
N.CH .: All development was conducted on VS2008. By that time, the AppUp (SM) SDK was not adapted to work with Studio 2010. Of the features of the AppUp (SM) SDK , only minimal basic functionality was used, namely, the application authorization mechanism. This mechanism does not allow the launch of programs installed to bypass AppUp, and all applications for successful completion of validation should use it. In addition, it was planned to connect the mechanism of crash reports, but since Alchemy seems to work stably :-), we decided to wait a while and do other things. At the initial stage, the demonstration materials from the Intel developer portal helped. Throughout the development process, we have been in close contact with developers supporting the AppUp developer program from Intel. After the product is released, we continue to correspond with the developers, redirect user feedback on issues related to the work of AppUp, explain to people that together we can make Alchemy Classic and Intel AppUp better.
- You have already “covered” Bada, Windows, Android - which platforms are you planning to master in the foreseeable future? Which seem the most promising?
A.Sh .: Plans to cover all the platforms for which you have the strength. We have a Qt version ready. All platforms that have their own application store are now promising. These are currently Windows Phone 7, Android, iPhone, Symbian ^ 3 (for now). Also with interest we look at MeeGo.
- You all live in Samara. Is it comfortable to do what you do, away from St. Petersburg and Moscow, not to mention the foreign metropolitan areas? Are there any restrictions - in the infrastructure, in access to the necessary information, in something else? Have you received offers to work away from your hometown? If they do, how will they react?
N.CH .: Thanks to the Internet and correctly chosen methods of communication within the team, no information vacuum is felt.
A.Sh .: It is quite comfortable. There are no restrictions now. We spend most of our time in Samara, where we live and work, but on weekends we often visit our parents in the suburbs. The Internet completely erased the boundaries between cities. All questions are discussed via Skype. Demo show via TeamViewer. For quick sharing and storage of files use DropBox. Therefore, all issues are resolved fairly quickly. In fact, we practice the concept of a virtual team.
No offers to work away from hometown. But honestly, they didn’t really look for it. Some of our friends had an initial desire to go to Moscow, many believe that they will not be able to realize themselves in Samara. But at the moment, it seems to us, in Samara it is quite possible to find a good job for the soul.
IG .: For example, in Moscow Luxoft there are several dozens, if not hundreds of open vacancies, and some of them are jobs in England. Also after registration in the Samsung competition there was a proposal to send your resume for vacancies in Moscow or South Korea. All this means that if you want, you can always try to find another job in another city or even a country. Just at the moment we have no such plans, we like to live and work in Samara.
- Well, the most important question - how will you spend the money? The amount of something solid .
A.Sh .: Some of the funds will be used for further development. To buy devices, software testing requires a lot of money.
IG: I would like to become the owner of some eplowski device.
N.CH .: I will expand my fleet, and, to complete the image of the guys from the provinces, I will improve my site.
Can a few more words without a protocol?
We would like to congratulate Dmitry Ryzhkov on another victory (category Home Innovation Project) and wish him continued success.
We are also very grateful for the help in organizing this interview and such a warm welcome from Dmitry Oganezov, Marianna Svetlossonovna, Svetlana Emelyanova and the entire team of the Intel Software Network. Special thanks for the understanding and support of our relatives, relatives, friends.
We are grateful to all users for the positive feedback and a large number of downloads due to which our game was among the winners.
Also, taking this opportunity, we want to say hello to shopping jedis, to Nikita and fellow major.
Our website: http://nia-soft.com/ , come in, we will be happy.
You can also contact us on Twitter and Facebook.
PS from Intel Sofware Network
It is worth emphasizing that the competition in which the guys won was not the last. Moreover, the acceptance of applications for the new stage of Intel AppUp developer challenge has already started .
There are a lot of categories in which you can claim your product. No, seriously - there is both “The best communication application”, and “The best application for synchronization”, and even “The best special application for France”. All contestants participate in the Grand Prix draw in four additional nominations: Best Application for Different Platforms, Most Elegant MeeGo Application, Best Tablet / Netbook Applications and Award to the Most Valuable Developer, regardless of addition, has become a prize in the main categories or not.
Prizes inspire respect. The authors of the best applications will receive awards from $ 25,000, the opportunity to attend a TED conference or take a five-day trip to Russia, including a supersonic flight on military jets. Most of the "clothing" prizes can be collected in cash.
The terms of participation can be found on the contest website . Support for Russian bidders is provided by the Intel Software Network Software Development Community.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/114404/
All Articles