(Or how to build a great, polished App as an Indie Developer).

I had the honor of having my very first game featured in the app store.  I was not aiming for a feature and did not do anything out of the ordinary to make it happen but I will retrace my steps to hopefully shed some light so you can learn from my lucky stumble into the spotlight.  My first game, Smart Kid ABC, in the New & Noteworthy section of the Apple App Store:

Now this did happen way back in 2011 so I’m sure the rules have changed a lot but maybe there will be some good take-aways.

A little background first…

At the time I was getting into game development my daughter was 2 years old.  We had this magnetic toy on the fridge with alphabet cutouts that she used to place back into their corresponding positions and asked me for the names of the letters each time she positioned them.  I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for my first game due to the simplicity and having my target audience readily available (outside of sleepy time).  Instead of her needing me to sound out the letters each time, I could automate that process into a game.  I don’t know if Unity was available back then but in any case my research led me to using native Objective-C (Xcode) and the Cocos 2D framework.   I finished the education-type 2D game in six months or so and did all the graphics in Photoshop, used my family for the English, French and Spanish spoken language and of course did all the coding myself.

Tip 1 – Keep it simple

This was my first game and I knew I needed to keep it simple so I could:

1. FINISH THE GAME
2. BUILD A POLISHED GAME WITH LIMITED RESOURCES

Too many well-hearted indie developers get into the game wanting to re-create their favorite childhood game.  For me that would have been Mortal Kombat II.  I knew I could not do that as even my 10^th game so went with something that I could eventually release into the world.

Tip 2 – Build a polished Game

I was decent with Photoshop so spent a lot of time getting the form-factor, colors and graphics just right at the highest resolution that would not slow down the game on an iPad. 

I used a nice wooden background that gave an earthy feel to the game:

I bought cute animal graphics that showed up after the alphabet “puzzle” was completed.  Kids could touch these stickers and they would make funny sounds like the laughing dinosaur:

Tip 3 – Know your Audience

I was lucky that I could try out the game progress on my daughter daily.  I found out early on that I had to have the letters snap to their respective location when they were kind of in the area of where they were supposed to be.  Otherwise it just got too difficult for young kids with underdeveloped motor skills.  I added a back button that was out of the way (see the red triangle in the top left above) so that parents could hand the play level to their kid without the kids accidently getting out of that level or ruining their’ progress.

Tip 4 – Get Testers Early and Iterate Fast in Small Increments

I tested my app on my daughter every week so I could fine-tune it.  I could see what new features worked and which ones did not.  This means you need to get some family or friends involved to help test out your game or app.  Don’t think your way of playing or reacting to elements of the game is necessarily how others would react.  Through my 10 years plus of app / game development I’ve conclude that I don’t really know what other people think.  As a side note I think the studying of human psychology would be a great benefit to anyone building a product.

Tip 5 – Focus All Your Efforts on One Platform

I built for iOS first with specific sized iPads in mind.  My form-factor was perfect for the few iPads available at the time.  The game was simple (this could be a benefit for Indie Developers, think Flappy Bird, Mr. Jump) but had a great mechanic and awesome graphics that worked well on iPads.  I think the folks at Apple saw this and gave me a feature.

Tip 6 – Try to Build for a Niche Market

As the app store is getting more and more saturated it is getting even more difficult to get your app featured.  At the time I was building Smart Kid ABC the kids iPad education section had some room for a newbie simple polished app.  My screenshot at the beginning of this article of the feature is from the Canada app store.  I just realized as I’m writing this that the French and English audio must have been a big deciding factor for having been featured in Canada.

Tip 7 – Outsource your Icon Graphics

I used an online company (was bought by www.upwork.com ) to outsource my icon graphics for $80. I am so happy I did this as I got a very different perspective on the game than what I could have given it. Your icon is the first thing people see so if you don’t have the skills to build something amazing, outsource it.

Tip 8 – Enjoy the Process, Don’t Focus on the Money

I had fun building the game and it taught my daughter the alphabet quickly along the way as an added benefit (English and Spanish).  I wish the main game was still available on the app store, but only the free version remains since I could not update the Cocos2D code anymore (I have since moved to using Unity too).  You could check out the free version here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id440740323.  A word of warning, I have not updated the app for 9 years so certain functionality might be broken at this point.  I might spend some time converting the app from Cocos2D to Unity since I have all the assets already.

Because I had fun while building the game, I put extra effort into it and completed the project.  I did not expect to make money from my first game ( I ended up making some money ) but still built the best game I could with my limited skills because I enjoyed the process.

That’s all I have for now.  Please comment on how the rules have changed and if you have tips on how to get a game or app to feature these days.

Until next time,

TheUnityGameDev.

Last modified: September 18, 2020