Numberama. Reviving your favorite game on iOS
Remember this game? They called it differently: numbers, numbers, seeds, 19, and there was no official name. The rules are simple. At the beginning of the game, numbers from 1 to 19 (except 10) are written out on a piece of paper in a check. It is necessary to cross out the same or giving a total of 10 digits, which are next to or through the crossed out digits. When all possible pairs are crossed off, you rewrite the remaining numbers at the end. Victory is the complete deletion of all numbers.
Despite the simple gameplay, the game was popular because:
- any schoolchild or student is always at hand has a notebook and pen;
- One game can be played for a very long time. The fans could find several glued sheets cut to the width of the field, that is, such tapes, reaching a meter or more.
- the game itself is interesting and addictive. 40 minutes of a lesson - no problem, two pairs for 3 hours is also nonsense. It is more difficult to break away from the game to go for a break. :)
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School and institute years are long gone, and this summer, in a conversation with friends, I remembered these digits. The blessing was the iPad on hand, got to watch, is there such a game for iOS? Hmm ... there is nothing. So much the better, because we were just looking for the idea of ​​our first program for the iPhone. A great start!
Development
We prepared a small technical project, where all the logic of the game was registered, drew the interface, menus, and started looking for a programmer, posting a vacancy on Habré and on the forum iphones.ru. There were not very many reviews, only 5 people expressed a desire. Among them was a programmer from Krasnoyarsk, Evgeny Matyushin, who listened attentively and the next day ... refused because the standard interface with a non-standard interface was combined in the game and he, like Mostly Cocos 2D can fail deadlines. I am a fatalist in my heart and I think that if a person refuses, it means that he is not the one who is needed, and there is no need to persuade, in the long run it will only be worse. But then I directly felt that it was worth working with this person and decided to still have a little talk :) They agreed to double the development period and started working.
I can not tell something interesting about the development itself, except that the game is made on Cocos 2D. Technically, the game itself did not present any particular difficulties, issues of usability and interface were more difficult to solve. In general, the usual workflow with some shoals, alterations, new ideas during development, etc. I just want to say a special thank you to Eugene. Like a real Siberian, he tolerated our requests to “move 2 pixels by right here” and not saying any good phrases like “we thought about it and decided ...” and at the same time he himself suggested where to do better. To say that we were satisfied would not be enough. He's just great!
Apple Surprises
At the same time, they made a developer account at Apple. Sent a fax, threw on the money card, all right. A week later, they withdraw money and a letter arrives in the mail that the account is activated, and now our name is Athir Zubair and we live in Pakistan.
Naturally, we cannot go anywhere, there are no codes. Apparently somehow messed up accounts. A serious question, called in Apple. There we were not particularly encouraged, they said they will understand.
We understood the month for which I called ten times and each time I heard: “The question is under consideration, call back in 48 hours”. I don’t know if my last conversation had already worked on raised voices, but after a while we got the money back and again took it off after a couple of days, finally activating the account. A sigh of relief and thanks to the tech support for upgrading the English (the tech support call via Skype is free of charge).
Testing and first reviews
Slowly they began to test the game on friends, who revealed several interface flaws and glitches, for which they also thank you so much. Outside view is priceless. It was funny by the way to observe how people are skeptical at first about the game, such as some kind of regular sudoku, boring things. You ask to play a little, test for glitches or some inconvenience, and in a few days the wife of this man calls you with the words: “I no longer have a husband, he plays your game all day!”. :)
Launch
By October 1, finally settled on what is, because you can lick endlessly. Sharing through Twitter and VKontakte remained questionable, as well as torturing or not tormenting users with an unobtrusive request to evaluate the game. We decided not to torment yet, and with the sharing to understand the next versions. They poured the program, it was reviewed for 5 days, and today the game with the proud name Numberama appeared in the App Store. By the way, closer to the end, we found out that there are two similar games in the App Store, but their quality, in our opinion, leaves much to be desired.
So, three months passed from the idea to the appearance in the App Store. If it were not for the cant with Apple, it would probably have started earlier. But we do not regret at all. At this pace, there is time to think carefully over the little things and bring the game with frail beta to a full release. For example, in the last week they added the opportunity to start the game not only with classic numbers from 1 to 19, but also with random ones, thereby making the game even more interesting.
Sad finger
And here is the video with the gameplay. He also has his own background. We tried to shoot a typical video with a voice-over blinker, but an iPhone that has seen life did not look presentable, and stripes from a very sharp lens appeared on the screen. We thought to combine a clear picture from the emulator with the Chroma key with your finger - it turned out not so much either, although if you practice it, it will be excellent. As a result, they took a “rubber finger”, put it on the video previously recorded in the emulator, a couple of nights in the video editor and the finger ran. We called him Mr. Sad Finger :)
By the way, a separate word should be said about iMovie. We stupidly did not figure out how to cut and glue parts of the video or put music in it, although Mac has long been familiar with it. Having poked all the possible buttons, spat, and all the work was taken by the Sony Vegas clever in Windows, which, with the exception of some moments, simply pleased every second with its intuitiveness :)
Well, that's the end of a fairy tale, and who listened - well done. Catch the promotional codes!
itunes.apple.com/ru/app/numberama/id467901633
Thank you all, there are no free codes until the next update. Sorry, yes. But the game can always be bought for only 99 cents.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/130339/
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