thestoicjester

About 6 years ago, I posted an article I wrote about my experience on the app store[1] and somebody (now a good friend of mine) reached out and asked why I wasn't living in silicon valley. Long story short[2] I ended up moving to San Francisco less than a month later and I've been here ever since. That was unexpected.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2705440 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424592

I was playing around with writing an app for the new Apple TV, and it was fun enough that I ended up putting a bit of polish on it and releasing it to the app store. It's a free game called Slingshot Superhero.

It wasn't until the app got approved that I started to realize just how terrible app discovery is on the platform. There's no "new apps" list at all. There are no Top 100 lists in the individual categories. I can't even link you guys to the app. The only way anybody can find my app is if I personally tell them to go to the app store, find the search feature, and use the hilariously bad text input feature to search for "Slingshot Superhero".

I probably won't be making any more Apple TV apps.

I feel like we're past due for somebody to come in here and complain about there being too much meta-discussion of HN these days.

True. But the suburb I was living in was pretty close.

Yeah, absolutely there is a great tech scene in the TC area. I tried to paint MN and my former employer in as good of a light as I could while concurrently throwing them under the bus and using them as the bad guy in the story.

Hmmm, I don't think so. I did a pretty good job of avoiding... everyone during that period of my life. It's only in recent years that I've realized that there are better ways to operate than being a complete hermit-weirdo.

Yeah, thanks for the heads up. Just set up CloudFlare, so hopefully the stress level will be going down.

Tomorrow will be 11/12/11 again. Just like in 1911.

False dichotomy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Neat. I'm pretty sure that text at the beginning is a reference to a similar easter egg from an old version of windows (95 maybe?).

That is the first thing I looked for, too. Whoever made the list must not watch enough Seinfeld[1].

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAlinvw2Rb0

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's not stupid.

Good catch. Updated.

True... but I think it'd be hard to argue that I'm not a small fry in the App Store.

But your point is well taken. I don't see EA writing blog posts like mine.

You're definitely not coming across as an asshole. I know a lot of assholes and I hardly ever see them mock-up screenshots for strangers. Very much appreciated. The screenshot is definitely food for thought.

Btw, I feel like I should have a good answer for why the bullseyes are spherical and not flat... but I don't. More to think about there...

Yeah, I definitely plan on follow-up posts with any changes that occur.

As for engines, I used cocos2d for all of the 2d (imagine that) stuff like menus and the HUD. The 3d objects I made using blender, modified some code I found online[1] to load them into the project, then pretty much just cobbled together a physics and rendering engine by hand. Good times.

[1]http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/start-of-wavef...

I think the other common theme is that programmers don't think about marketing until we need to.

Wow. I really appreciate you going out of your way to help like that. That is awesome.

It's horrible to think back and remember that I went out of my way to go for a "gritty" look, way back before I was even considering thinking about the marketing angle. There's one lesson well learned. I'm definitely going to take this advice to heart. Thanks!

Yeah, it's looking like a lot of people agree with you that the icon needs work. You've been contacted.

I'm definitely not in love with it, but it's better than the other ideas I had. The problem I was having was trying to depict the in-game action in such a small space. 3D stuff just seems to get cluttered or lost.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Yeah, but don't let my results get you down. Just keep in mind that whatever you do, it seems like the App Store still involves a bit of luck.

Very interesting.

I did release a 'lite' version with fewer levels, but I do have plans to put together an ad-supported 'free' version. I'll follow up with results when that all goes down.

I appreciate all of this.

The purpose here was to take a quote-unquote negative experience and spin it into something hopefully helpful for other devs, and myself (hello, hn front page).

The plan has definitely been in the back of my head for a while to release a free ad-supported version. I just wanted to get this postmortem-type thing out the door first, and it's been difficult to force myself to sit down and take a hard look at how things went.

Cool, thanks for the feedback.

The menu buttons do have an invert effect when you tap them, but it might be too subtle. There's also audio feedback when you tap a button, but that doesn't help if you have your sound off.

I came in here to make the same point. I can attest first-hand that having software distributed by the app stores does not in the least make them pirate-immune.

Yeah, I had Hulu Plus for a bit, and the thing about the commercials that got me was the bait and switch time indication. They'd have a countdown saying "Your video will resume in 30 seconds", then another commercial would start and the countdown would reset! Not impressed.

This reminds me very much of Navin R. Johnson. Not only just in phrasing, but also the attitude that he'll be "just fine" with his few apps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VbI5zcB8Ac