rocketsloth

Awesome, I'll take a look. My main reason for choosing mp3 was compatibility, but I didn't research it thoroughly, I just chose the cookie cutter option. My app is currently min 5.0 so this seems like a very viable option. Thanks :)

ya very fair, I'll look into this after some analysis, thank you!

"That said, I applaud the OP for learning the Android APIs in a creative way."

Appreciate that and thanks for your feedback.

I'm a huge timely fan and didn't realize they were so young when they made it, that's awesome. Thanks for the kind words too. I don't take it personally at all though, everyone is entitled to their opinion

Hi! Thanks so much for this very detailed feedback and glad you like the testimonials :).

intro/onboarding feedback: I agree with you and will look at ways to cut it down both in length and quality

- I just removed the "Try tapping" and changed it to tap cause I agree with you (it will be pushed out next update)

- you're 100% correct on the sound previews too, I implemented the listener as an onChanged rather than onClick, but will look into fixing that in the near future.

- the 42 MB is almost entirely due to mp3 sound files (the alarm ringtones + sleep engine sounds). I used compression to strike a balance between quality and space and also used seamless looping on the sleep engine to get rid of the need for giant audio files, but there is always room for dramatic improvement on that front and I'll keep working at it. If you have any suggestions please let me know. I think that once I get a back end going what I'd eventually like to do is have users download the tracks based on what they need (this might be a very naive approach though so correct me if that's a bad idea).

Really appreciate the feedback, I'm exploring several options for this that will be added in the near future and think that you're right, snooze is only half the battle.

That's a really interesting question that I'm going to look in to. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. At the moment if you pay for the ad free version, ads are immediately destroyed and prevented from loading from there on out. The only thing that I need to look in to is if initializing AdMob in the app results in any tracking. It is not my intention to send any user data to ad networks if they have the ad-free version and I will fix it if I find out that I've overlooked something.

"The more you clamp down on ways to exploit the system the more player's will respect their achievement." Those are very wise words and something that never crossed my mind. Master Sloth will definitely be making an appearance in some way and I've added it to the Trello board. I do plan on having some form of social interaction, probably something simple to start like sharing constellations you make to social media and I'm most likely going to implement a further limit on star making based on your suggestion.

As for Nebula evolving in to a dating app, if a single person ever shared anything related to this app in a tinder bio for any reason at all, I think that's when I'll know it's time for a hard pivot. I believe (and I could be totally wrong) there have been links to people's odors and who they find attractive because we seek partners with complementary immune systems to our own and one indicator of that is the way someone smells. Maybe sleep patterns have a similar correlation. If the pivot ever happens I'll credit you for giving the idea.

is this so that you have to go to the bathroom in the morning so badly that you wake up naturally?

Thanks, I'm so glad someone noticed. Also as a disclaimer, my mom is super supportive and uses my app every day.

I should have been more clear about that, my apologies. I've only made the Android app so far and have plans to work on an iOS one soon

That's my mistake, I didn't even notice that and will fix it in a bit. Thank you.

Thanks for the catch! Classic English language, am I right. Appreciate that :)

That's a really well designed app, thanks for sharing. I really like their bedtime reinforcement mechanism. Sleep town seems to be much more focused on the scheduling aspect of sleep and reinforcing strict routines whereas at the moment Nebula is much more focused on going after the snooze button, but both of these things are quite related.

Thanks for the feedback. There is currently a hard limit in place where a user can't count a star towards the constellation based achievement system unless it grows for a minimum of one hour to prevent unethical star farming. Do you think that's sufficient?

Thanks and 100%! The moment I get a chance I'm going to dive in

Thank you, I knew I wasn't the only one. Really like Bx too

Thanks! I didn't want to force people in to the "money shredder" mode, but I think that it works really well and provides an effective uninstall/force quit protection for users who try to take shortcuts to dismiss the alarm in the morning.

I'm sure a lot of people will feel the same way as you and I completely respect that. I made this app above all else to learn as much Android as I could after graduating. I tried to expand on a simple concept to make something I thought was cool and really had a lot of fun doing it, but I know this isn't everyone's thing.

I've gotten that request from quite a few people now and am looking in to ways to add that functionality to the alarm while preserving the overall idea of setting meaningful alarms with consequences. The reason behind the single button initially is that it forces you to consciously set your alarm which I felt would increase commitment. I completely understand that it isn't for everyone so am working on the multiple alarm / repeat support options too.

this app has quite a few dismissal methods designed to do similar things to all these examples, like having to scan a QR code (which is optimally taped to your bathroom mirror to force you to get out of bed), having to solve a brain teaser based around the Stroop Test, and having to shake your phone several times to shut the alarm off

I agree that screens likely play a big role in messing up a lot of bedtime routines. I have a few ideas for updates in the near future to combat this issue, but I don't think I know how to shut off computers and TVs from an app yet and after a quick stack overflow search it doesn't look like anyone there does either

you sound just like my mom!

I definitely can't guarantee you won't snooze cause the app is only a tool to help, but with some effort on a users part and settings like qr dismissal along with an annoying, loud ringtone like "digital style", this app can help fight the urge by annoying you out of bed and rewarding you for dismissing the alarm correctly.

Thank you :)

Reinforcing good bedtime habits is a really interesting idea. Even if that can't guarantee a person is sleeping, it can force people to set their phones down for the night which is something at least I could definitely use. Maybe something like if a user moves their phone past a certain time, the star is destroyed. Going to explore the points option and a few others. Thank you for your feedback

Thank you, really appreciate that

100% there are several dismissal options and one of them is just a simple stop button that you press to collect your star

Hi HN, I just wanted to add that I'm looking for any kind of feedback on the app. I've been working on it since graduating in may and released it a couple of days ago.

I've found that my experience with the android app has improved a lot since snapchat's earlier days. The app used to be quite buggy which may account for some "ptsd", but I haven't had any problems in quite a while.