I'm Creating a Game App. Help!
I have no coding knowledge or developer skills, but I have a stellar concept and most of all- passion!
After a serendipitous series of events this spring I decided to turn my book series into an ios and android app. I went in search of a developer to design the graphics, but unfortunately I cannot afford to pay until I start receiving royalties, so as you can imagine I have had zero bites. So I am jumping into the deep end all alone, and without a lifeguard on duty :)
Without a developer I only have writing. So, for now the app will be Interactive Fiction- kinda like a Choose Your Own Adventure story- aka Gamebook I cannot afford software, so I am using Squiffy from Text Adventures
If you know of anything better, please let me know. Keeping in mind that the only thing I can do is write the story ;) And that I plan to monetize this, and so far am familair with Google Ad Mob- is this a good choice or is there something better? I plan to release a limited version with ads, and completely remove ads and time limits with paid version.
With that being said, I am open to working with a dev/artist to animate the game, for future profit sharing.
Due to my real life timeline, I want to release this one month from today or sooner.
Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate any suggestions or tips!
But most of all, I appreciate you :)
Please Resteem to your followers, I need all the expertise and advice I can get <3
I appreciate your support <3
I appreciate your support <3
This sounds like a perfect opportunity to host a steemgig or run a contest! We have lots of talented graphical designers and artist here on steemit and some coders too. I'm sure some of them would be willing to work with out and negotiate some form of future reimbursement. I'll share and let's see if you get any bites!
Thank you so much! Truly, I am very appreciative!
I think you are already on the channel : https://discord.gg/CGuPyyT. you can dm some of the coders on the right directly as for logos, there are many on there too. You can dm @flauwy @deveerei @malicered @sjennon @epicdesigns @oppianyu etc
Oh, ok. Thank you!
I have nothing I can help you with except to give you a re-steem. Hopefully that helps!
Oh honey, that is extremely helpful!!! Thank you <3
Squiffy looks like a pretty cool bit of software. I've never heard of something like that. The website says it does all the HTML and scripting for you, so what else would you need? I suspect you need a place to store your files (a website)? I have no idea about the rest (like monetizing it and only allowing access to paid customers). I am very curious though and would like to learn more about it. I did create an e-book for a friend of mine, but that is a little different by the sound of it.
So I will be purchasing the rights for it to be in both iTunes and Google play. Amazon Fire also. So when someone purchases it from their phones store, I will get a portion of the fee I set. And the free version I will monetize with Ad Mob or another, and they will pay me each time a player views and/or clicks on the ad while playing my game...
Am I understanding this correctly?
In order to put these (let's call them) game books onto the 3 platforms you mentioned above, they need to be in a specified format for each platform as an AP (which requires someone to program them into an AP) that then draws the files from a server (host). Does that sound correct? Or are the files embedded into the AP itself and the entire package resides on the 3 platforms? Or perhaps you yourself don't know either and thus asking for help? Because then you may not even need Squiffy.
I'm thinking that if you use Squiffy you may not need to purchase any rights and just make them available on a normal website. Get a PayPal vendor account and get paid the entire amount rather than just a portion. I'm wondering if you can accomplish your goal with a WordPress website and a shopping cart add-on like Simple PayPal Shopping Cart? That would be really cheap since the only cost is a domain name and hosting. WordPress and its add-ons are free.
I do not know the answers to those questions.
As far as hosting the game in my own website, I will have a website with the links to the platforms, however it needs to be in the app stores so that players may download...
Even the top games like angry birds and solitaire are offered on all platforms.
There is the a way I could go super cheap and only offer it on a website, but I would have very little visibility - how are people going to find it? It's a $200 expense I realize, but it's necessary. Even if I wanted to go this route, it would be very time consuming and probably cost me more as I do not even know what you're referring to by AP, lol ;)
From what I've researched, there's a converter for $25 that works with Squiffy to enable it on iPhone and Android.
The converter sounds good. My son is making a video game and he has found that almost all conversions for different platforms are done by software anyway, so no need to have someone code it manually.
I'm sorry to confuse the issue. By AP I meant app. which I believe is simply an abbreviation for "application".
OH! Ok, lol, no worries hun!
Your request sounds interesting and I'm sure that this is a good idea.
Squiffy I did not know yet. - It reminds me a bit of texinfo or La/TeX and I will try it, good hint, thank you.
I had a similar idea some years ago.
So I came up with the idea of using the LaTeX text-set programming language to create interactive PDFs.
I even programmed my own interpreter (for simple production of interactive PDFs) in this bizarre programming language, but in the meantime my modest programming skills are very rusty.
In some other languages I usually only have only rudimentary knowledge and I lack any knowledge about iOS and Android.
But if I am right, in Android apps the interactivity in PDFs will not really work.
I do not believe that I can help you, but I will be glad to answer further questions.
(For my bumpy English I have to apologize. I used Google Translator to help.)
Good luck in your project!
Thank you so much :) I appreciate your reply!
@arbitrarykitten Have seen this which might help, as it has a fully free option to write for Android & ios left bottom page https://www.xamarin.com/visual-studio Think it might be enough for starters, til you feel comfortable to expand areas.
Oh, cool- thank you!
np.. visuał studio is usually good stuff.. should be plenty of support.. all else fails, youtube has enough diy's
True that. I taught myself Photoshop on you tube. There's good stuff if you weed thru the junk, lol
photoshops fun.. mostly used it for comical reasons. gimps another good alternative. if costs are a problem. paintshop pro corel i have for the win machine, but these days pixelmator (mac) does plenty for a 1/16th of adobes prices.
If I had more experience creating games, I would offer my help but I am only coming to the end of my software development course this year and yet to do something big like a storybook/gamebook even though it would be fun to do.
Thank you, tho :) I wish you well on your incredible future journey!
Hello :)
First of all, good luck with your project :)
There is an app called sketchware that could help you, thid is an android only app, that lets you create app directly from your smartphone! You can give it a try, maybe you'll like it ;)
If you have question, you can ask me directly :D
I would so love to help, but unfortunately coding isn't really my thing. I would recommend going after advanced student coders because they are hungry to get their name on something and will more likely for credits and future pay-outs!
Go to message boards of the sites loke Udacity, Udemy, and Code Academy and just put out there what you're looking for and you should get some nibbles!
Good point.
I tried many sites as you mentioned, unfortunately many have where you must put your rate of pay before you can post.
But I am going to try steemgigs. Perhaps theres one here on Steemit that understands my situation and the potential of the series and that would be so cool- keep it in the Steemit family!
If you already have good idea of gameplay and all this stuff, i can probably help a bit with the coding, i know java and android sdk, not so familliar with iOs though.
it's possible to do things using javascript that works on all platform through the web browser even if it's not necessarily the best for real time peformance, depends on the type of game.
Are you familiar with tell tale games?
Is it like adventure / point & click games ?
No, its an animated interactive storyteller. Kinda like a Choose Your Own Adventure type video game. You get to make decisions and the game takes a different path
Ok yes, i see this with path selection based on game states, and conditional selection of current state of the game based on past actions that change those game states.
Normally its the sort of things not too hard to do with a script language.
Do you aim for real time 3d anim, or precomputed 3d anim, or 2d vector anim, 2d precomputed / drawn , video ?
If it doesn't involve too much real time computation, i guess the best for compatibility is using javascript for ui + server side script to keep track of game state / choice, and delevering the scene data.
Javascript can work in all browser on all devices, and it can do 3d anim, video, audio and simple scripting.
Oh, yea, see- all of that is Greek to me ;) lol!
I am just the writer and creator. If I were to have the game I want it would look like a Tell Tale game. That's where a dev would come in- for the coding and animation graphics
You already have material for graphics ? If yes in which format ?
Creating graphics and dev is different thing :)
I guess the principle is kinda like the psycho pass game ?
Most of them use 3d graphics now, can take quite some time to design and render.
Can do things more like cartoon with 2d vector, its probably easier.
But most likely you need both graphician & developper, its rare to find people who can do both.
Making good 3d graphics in less than a month starting from scratch with zero budget seem hard .
Even with good computers, for precomputed anims, need to count several hours of rendering / sec of anim, plus several days to make the scene.
With 2d / cartoon like can be easier, but if you want good graphics you need more graphician than dev, and then get a dev when you already have the graphics well advanced.
If you already have material for the graphics can be easier though, and quicker for graphicians.
No, I am just the writer. I wrote the plot, narration, scene, etc.
If you are interested you can checkout courses on https://udemy.com . They have several courses with game app projects. You can basically buy one course and code along and see how it is done. I would suggest for you to get a 3 or 4 hours course that shows you all the tools as well as the code you need to learn to develop the app.
Follow me @codero
Good luck. I don't have much advice to give, but eventually you might want to take a look at Buildbox, a game maker software. It might be worth taking a look at!
ok, thanks for the info, I'm definitely checking it out!