[HN Gopher] Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a gam...
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Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer
Author : bananabat
Score : 929 points
Date : 2021-11-09 21:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (apps.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apps.apple.com)
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Hey don't let the world tell you 48 is "late", never too late
| bananabat wrote:
| Someone has pointed out that my age is also 0x30. I am no
| longer 48, and so it's still early for me.
| sprkwd wrote:
| Ha! Are you me? Am also 48. Developing in Godot Engine. Long way
| to go. But having fun!
| bananabat wrote:
| For real? Would love to see your WIP when you're ready!
| crummy wrote:
| Looks great! I spent a lot of time playing Escape The Red Giant,
| a flash game, which looks similar in mechanics (perhaps an
| inspiration?)
|
| https://www.kongregate.com/games/oopixel/escape-the-red-gian...
| (requires flash)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9zSXFy0rw
| bananabat wrote:
| I've never played that but huh, it's freaky how the mechanic
| and game loop are similar. There's even food flying around!
| Thanks for showing this to me, I will probably crib some stuff
| for an update. It's really cool. But I hope that floating baby
| finds a safe planet!
| bilekas wrote:
| > I've always loved playing video games. Cool.
|
| From the moment I realized there were places called arcades with
| wonderful machines that ate your coins, I was hooked. Game and
| Watch? Nagged my mom for every single one. Nintendo Famicom? We
| had ALL the bootleg cartridges. Gameboy? Couldn't afford it so I
| burned with envy. Original Xbox? I have 4 of 'em stashed away
| somewhere. Playstation 1-5? Heck, yeah. Mobile?
|
| My husband bought our first iPad because we saw someone playing
| Angry Birds on it.
|
| -> Right, so many people bought ipads because of angryBirds. BS
|
| > PC? I'm playing The Ascent with my whole family right now. ->
| wow - multi keyboard ? Or multi BS.
|
| I mean wow. don't you tick every box
|
| More than playing video games, though, what I wanted to do as a
| kid was to MAKE games. I still remember punching in a borrowed
| Mario Bros cartridge for the first time, pressing START and
| having a freaking epiphany. How cool was it that someone MADE
| this?? To heck with being an astronaut, when I grew up, I was
| going to do THIS. I knew it with all the certainty of 8-year-old
| me.
|
| // Bullshit more feeding off everytype of gamer there is.
|
| But you know how it goes: like most childhood dreams, I put this
| one on a shelf and gradually left it behind. I didn't become an
| astronaut either (in case you were wondering).
|
| // Funny right - hillarious
|
| What I did was drop out of university in my third year. And since
| then, I've been a copywriter, graphic designer, business owner,
| immigrant, stay-at-home spouse, and for a long time, the stay-at-
| home parent. And it's been great. Life with all its up-up-down-
| down-left-right-left-right-B-A's...it's all been wonderful.
|
| -> copywriter, graphic designer, business owner, immigrant, stay-
| at-home spouse
|
| Couldn't find your way to make a game in between ? Even with all
| that gush before?
|
| "Hold up," you might say, if you're still reading this. "Why are
| you telling us all this? Boring."
|
| -> not boring - bullshit.
|
| Right. Let me get to it. -> Heres the sales pitch
| -> I'm 48 and if there's a lesson that has been inescapable
| these past two years is that we may not see tomorrow. (Wise - who
| knows when death comes - nobody) -> So, I've decided to
| focus on happiness in the here and now (after boring AF jobs).
| -> Carpet diem, as my kid used to say when he was little - He
| taught himself ? -> And you know one thing that has added
| to my happiness - Scamming fellow people ? -> Ah no -
| Dusting off my dream, sitting my ass down and finally learning
| how to be a game developer. And happier still? -> I've
| done this with my husband. really important its with your
| husband, it really matters. In the 'lets get to it'. Okay.
|
| So we've published our first mobile game. - Poof just like that!~
| - It's called "Slingshot Effect" and it's available on App Store
| or on Google Play. - Think you mean 'and' - It's an infinite
| jumper (ooooh big change on the usual infinite scroller!) that's
| easy to just pick up and play. - Perfect for commutes (for you
| fucktards who dont program games in your 40's duh) - or if you're
| stuck in a waiting room somewhere (weirdly specific).
| - It's a paid app because we feel strongly
|
| (we want money)
|
| that the level of monetization in the casual game space is
| just...ugh...it's bad.
|
| (Quick 90's relation) `Ugh` You should also mention : "Because I
| want money directly"
|
| - Thanks for listening, I really appreciate it.
|
| - Finish on a sales note - (Sales note usual)
|
| TLDR: I'm selling. And lying to you to get it done. Oh and with
| my husband of course.
| elesbao wrote:
| Thanks for the godot engine tip. > 45 here, always wanted to try
| my hand building a game but no framework clicked as godot. The
| getting started guides are easy on me.
| bananabat wrote:
| Love Godot! You're right, sometimes it's just about what
| clicks.
| topkai22 wrote:
| @bananabat, congrats on launching your game and on your beautiful
| write up here. It made me remember Randy Pausch'a famous "Really
| Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", better known as "The Last
| Lecture." (https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo). Like many others, I
| remember being deeply touched by it. It is ultimately being about
| a man reflecting on a life well lived and achieving some
| childhood dreams like this is part of it.
|
| It is wonderful that you have been able to do something you find
| worthy in and of its self and find fulfillment here. Thank you
| for sharing.
| bananabat wrote:
| I remember watching parts of this before from other sources.
| Thanks for linking the whole thing, my husband has never seen
| it so we're gonna watch it together later.
|
| Thank you for reading my post.
| drunkpotato wrote:
| It's a neat game! I dig the art style and the music. I think my
| kids are going to have a blast with it too!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you. We did all the music ourselves. If you want to check
| it out as an album:
| https://open.spotify.com/album/7hddjvc2p2nQZAPjowpNUf?si=tI2...
|
| You'll also find it with other music streamers or on Bandcamp,
| if Spotify isn't your thing.
| mattbee wrote:
| Congrats! It reminds me of Gravity Ghost from a few years back.
| bananabat wrote:
| I've never played that game but it is really pretty. Thanks for
| bringing it up!
| admin787 wrote:
| Thanks for visiting
| zerr wrote:
| Not sure if I'm the only one - I loathe games and gaming in
| general, think that it is a lifewasting activity mostly... But I
| love game development, engine development to be precise.
| throway98752343 wrote:
| You're not the only one. Somehow games are worse than other
| forms of storytelling: netflix, tv, movies, reading. Maybe this
| always happens to the newest form of entertainment, maybe it's
| because unlike the other forms your playthrough won't be the
| same as my playthrough.
|
| In the end all our learning, experience, and content
| consumption is wiped away. Only what we produce remains, and
| most of that remains only a little while longer. Still, that
| doesn't provoke a mass of memoirs from the majority of mankind,
| so it's okay to sit back, relax, and enjoy entertainment.
| bananabat wrote:
| Mhm...I love games so I'm not sure how to respond lol.
|
| Ok, but maybe I can relate in a way...I love cultivating pot.
| For real, my other dream is to be a boutique grower one day
| when regulations aren't so red-tapey. But I really don't care
| for it. I don't like being sleepy. Just gimme a beer.
|
| Btw, do you have a game engine I can check out?
| JetAlone wrote:
| Good. It's more virtuous to sustainably produce than to
| endlessly consume.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Purchased. Nicely done. Can I be proud of you even though we are
| not in any way related? =)
| bananabat wrote:
| I am proud of whatever you create, too. Thank you!
| paulhart wrote:
| Thank you for both the inspiration and distraction! As a fellow-
| traveler (similar age, similar situation), I completely empathize
| with the struggle needed to accomplish something like this.
|
| Bought!
|
| Also: great set of credits including the tutorials and such, and
| _waves to fellow Canadians_
| bananabat wrote:
| Thanks, fellow Canadian, for giving our game a chance!
| skinkestek wrote:
| Cool! Can you promise no stupid trackers?
| bananabat wrote:
| https://github.com/13Bananas/policies/blob/main/13_bananas_p...
| eitland wrote:
| Perfect. I just bought it just because of that. (I might have
| bought it otherwise to if I remembered it tomorrow, but this
| was enough to get me to do it now :-)
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you! We really don't know how to track people. That's
| a whole 'nother discipline that we're really not interested
| in.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Congratulations in actually releasing a game!
|
| It is never too late to learn anything, what matters is being
| able to enjoy doing it.
|
| Good luck with whatever else comes up.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you! The "too late" is so pervasive in our culture but
| I'm beginning to see a definite trend of people who just want
| to do their own thing, no matter their age. It's heartening.
| sgt wrote:
| Looks great man, keep it up!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you so much!
| selcuka wrote:
| I believe the OP is a woman.
| sci_prog wrote:
| Congratulations! Game development is what got me interested in
| programming in the first place. Once I put my first pixel on the
| screen and I figured out how to interact with it blew my mind,
| limitless possibilities. Since the pandemic started my wife and I
| have published one game [0] and currently have a second one [1]
| in a pre-release phase (probably going to make a separate SHOW HN
| post once it is live).
|
| Keep up the great work! We use Unity3D for our development
|
| [0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gibberish-game-against-
| friends...
|
| [1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-setting-sun-block-
| puzzle/i...
| bananabat wrote:
| How has your experience with Unity been? It overwhelms me for
| 2D work.
|
| Thanks for the links, I'm gonna check out your games!
| sci_prog wrote:
| The curve is a bit steep but once the things start clicking
| you productivity goes through the roof. You'll be able to
| make game prototypes in a few short hours.
|
| I admit that building 2D games with unity is a bit of an
| overkill but the fact that everything just works across
| different platforms makes it well worth it. I originally
| developed games using Java and a cross platform framework
| called libgdx. It was fun till you needed to implement things
| like cross-platform advertisements and IAPs. With unity you
| know that the support will be there for the foreseeable
| future and no other engine comes close in terms of the
| available free online resources.
| bananabat wrote:
| I love the Unity asset store and I use it a lot for graphic
| assets. I intend to get back to Unity when I feel a little
| more competent and not feel like I need a whole bunch of
| third-party programming assets to do what I want to do.
| sci_prog wrote:
| The easiest way to learn unity (or any other new
| framework/engine/language) in my opinion is to recreate
| the project that you've already built. And you have one.
| bananabat wrote:
| Good point. I will do just that.
| iamthemonster wrote:
| I just paid for your Android app and had a play with it and
| left a review. It is more polished in-game than I expected
| from the Google Play listing; the icon for the app looked a
| little bit 2009. So I was pleasantly impressed with the game
| itself. Great work!
| bananabat wrote:
| We were going for an old school look. I'm trying to think
| back on a 2009 aesthetic lol. Thanks for trying our game.
| Really appreciate it.
| baby wrote:
| Nice! Always wanted to be a game developer myself. One day.
| bananabat wrote:
| When things are just right, it'll be there for you. :-)
| andretti1977 wrote:
| I'm here just to congrat with you, I love everything you wrote in
| your write up, so inspiring! What you did is something small but
| so meaningful! No big dreams startup, simply live your life
| living its up-side-downs and loving that and after some time,
| doing something simple but joyful! So simple, but to these days,
| so great!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you for reading it. I am so glad that you found meaning
| in it and that it has found some resonance in the community.
| [deleted]
| Anther wrote:
| Congratulations! Something I noticed - one of the screenshots on
| the store app page has a spelling mistake - the word
| distractions.
|
| Good luck!
| bananabat wrote:
| Yes, someone else pointed it out and that amateur-hour moment
| is gonna drive me crazy until we can push another update. Thank
| you for paying attention and caring enough to let me know.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Nice
| sabujp wrote:
| please make a free version with limited levels or whatever
| bananabat wrote:
| Is this generally how you prefer mobile games? Free to try...or
| just a playable limited free version? How do you feel about ads
| or IAPs?
| sabujp wrote:
| i absolutely can't stand ads or iaps so i would be happy with
| some other limitations.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thanks, we're trying get a feel for what players prefer
| nowadays.
| thebrain wrote:
| Here, take my Google Survey money. Best of luck!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thanks! :)
| lamontcg wrote:
| I also started to get into game programming when I was 48
| although I got distracted this year by programming language
| design
| bananabat wrote:
| So glad to see that there are more and more people taking on
| new things whatever their age. Hope you find time for game
| development, eventually. It's fun.
| Osiris wrote:
| My son wants to learn how to make games but I have no game
| development experience.
|
| What path did you take to start learning game development?
| oumua_don17 wrote:
| Coding Games in scratch [1]
|
| [1] https://www.dk.com/us/book/9781465477330-coding-games-in-
| scr...
| empressplay wrote:
| Logo can be a great place to start, it's good for simple games
| because each game element can be a turtle you can control
| relative to its own position. Logo interpreters suitable for
| simple game development include turtleSpaces
| https://turtlespaces.org
| debaserab2 wrote:
| This may not be age appropriate depending on your kid, but the
| (free) CS50 course for games from Harvard [1] is outstanding
| and accessible to someone with a beginner level of experience.
| It's not as intro level as something like Scratch would be, but
| it's very practical hands on learning with tons of resources
| for anyone who wants to get "serious" about game programming.
|
| [1] https://cs50.harvard.edu/games/2018/
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Some really great resources for kids to learn to program games:
|
| CodeCombat
|
| Construct 3
| TomGullen wrote:
| Hey thanks for the Construct 3 mention we're always thrilled
| to see it come up :)
| bananabat wrote:
| I'm entirely self-taught. My personal experience is this:
|
| - Try a bunch of free engines and platforms. Depending on your
| son's age, this might mean starting with something like
| Scratch. I've played around with it myself and it's fun. It at
| least gives you a feel for game logic and how a game loop
| should feel.
|
| - GDevelop has come a long way. My son prefers it when he's
| just doodling around.
|
| - My husband prefers GameMaker Studio 2. But it's a paid
| program and the export modules (mobile, console, html5) are
| extra expenses that can add up. Also, GML is a nightmare (just
| my opinion).
|
| - I use Godot Engine. It's free, lightweight, GDScript is
| Python-like so pretty easy to get a handle on. It's perfect for
| 2D development. And the teaching community is very rich.
|
| - There's really no "x is better than y" as far as game
| engines, IMO...all depends on what you're trying to do and how
| far you are in expertise/experience. And it also comes down to
| what engine feels right to you.
|
| - Start with 2D, cannot stress this enough. Make as simple a
| game as possible when you're starting. This also means staying
| away from Unity and Unreal because both are simply too much
| engine for a beginner.
|
| - At some point, you're gonna have to learn how to code for
| real. Don't have to be a wiz...just enough to be competent.
|
| - Be a generalist, if possible. Depending on what you want to
| do and/or whether you have collaborators or not...you might
| also need to have basic art skills. I'm a graphic designer by
| trade so this wasn't an issue. But I had to learn Blender
| because I wanted to incorporate 3D art in my games. My husband
| learned how to make music. I also learned video editing so I
| could make good trailers. Etc, etc.
|
| - Love games. All kinds of games. I think this should've been
| first.
|
| - I hope that helps.
| pbourke wrote:
| Did you use Godot for this game?
|
| Are you working on a next game?
|
| Congratulations on getting it finished and out there!
| bananabat wrote:
| Used Godot for this game. I started my journey with Unity
| but my C# is, at the moment, utterly mediocre.
|
| Maintaining this game but also starting on next ideas.
|
| Thank you very much!
| lloeki wrote:
| > Make as simple a game as possible when you're starting
|
| Back when I had enough spare time to do game jams, one
| critical thing I learned was, once you have some idea, make
| it simpler. Now make it even simpler. And then, make it
| simpler again. Repeat that about 20 times, possibly more. Now
| you have something that you can possibly build and actually
| release, and guess what, counterintuitively, it'll be fun as
| hell.
|
| Coz what makes a game fun is not the thousands of wonderful
| ideas you may have bolted on together, it's just a couple of
| things you distilled for the love of it, chiseling away, down
| to the core of the game mechanics, into some magical essence.
| bananabat wrote:
| I've never been brave enough to do game jams. I dunno, I've
| always been afraid I'd break under the pressure. Was it fun
| for you?
| lloeki wrote:
| Tons of fun.
|
| It's been frightening alright but I learned so much, and
| not just about game dev: lots of takeaways that apply to
| day-to-day development, like finding the balance between
| quality and getting things done, keeping things ultra-
| simple, understanding the value in inlining or even
| repeating code, finding the minimal abstraction sweet
| spot...
|
| It's OK to be afraid! Turns out it also teaches that you
| can just let it go, go for it and enjoy the wild ride.
| bananabat wrote:
| Guess my insecurity comes from not having any kind of
| programming or even math background. Esp in group game
| jams, I have a feeling I'd be the weakest link and
| everyone would yell at me.
| nassimsoftware wrote:
| You should look into replit with kaboomjs. Nothing to install
| easy setup and very easy to pick up game library.
|
| https://replit.com/site/kaboom
| lmilcin wrote:
| I am developer with over 20 years of experience. I have learned
| programming from books where computers were generally not
| available where I grew up.
|
| But my son is learning programming (started when he was 6, he
| just turned 8 recently).
|
| He started by goofing off with some robots programmed in visual
| languages. Then moved to goofing off even more in Scratch. When
| pandemic started we found a school that teaches programming
| online and they used Scratch to program Minecraft which got my
| son hooked up -- he likes Minecraft a lot and having it do
| stuff that wouldn't otherwise be possible was a huge motivation
| for him to learn. He is now attending a second semester in that
| school and they are using Kodu for some more advanced, 3d
| goofing off.
|
| My son became big fan of Undertale recently and he approached
| me to learn to make some fan content based on Undertale. We did
| some research and found Undertale was made in Game Maker -- a
| game engine for 2d games. So this is what we just recently
| started learning. He is excited to finally start learning
| something that can be used to make professionally looking games
| and says that if it was good enough to make Undertale it is
| good enough for him:)
|
| He also just got his own Minecraft server (ehm... Raspberry Pi
| 4 with 8GB of RAM) and I am hoping that when he is bored with
| vanilla gameplay with his school friends he will want to start
| modding the game in some ways.
| bananabat wrote:
| GMS2 is a good engine. I also built a Minecraft server for my
| son. Started with an RP4 but he complained about lag so I
| finally just let him a Linux laptop.
| lmilcin wrote:
| I went with PaperMC after I found vanilla server lags.
| PaperMC is "built for speed" and it seems to work fine even
| with couple people playing.
|
| Additionally, I can write plugins for PaperMC which is the
| whole point of having the server in the first place (at
| least in our case).
| bananabat wrote:
| We use PaperMC too. We've tried to implement GeyserMC so
| that his non-bedrock friends can join but so far, no
| love. I haven't had time to dig into why.
|
| Very cool that you can write plugins for your kid's
| server!
| lmilcin wrote:
| Yeah. When he was little younger he had trouble with
| navigation when flying Elytra between our distant bases.
| In particular he made a huge tower on a remote (4k
| blocks) mountain and we made gunpowder farm in the middle
| of an ocean (7k blocks away).
|
| So I wrote a plugin where you can save your current
| location with a name and you get a small overlay that
| tells you where you are pointing -- ie. what is saved
| destination closest to where you are pointing and whether
| it is right or left of where you point and how far (1, 2
| or 3 angle brackets ).
|
| I am also working on couple other plugins.
| bananabat wrote:
| He def thinks you're the coolest dad!
| zby wrote:
| What do you use for programming in Minecraft? I tried Tinker
| with my son - but the process is rather tedious, you have to
| type in a command and an internet address to connect to with
| each game session, not to mention that Scratch block
| manipulation on iPad. Also the examples were rather limited.
| I don't play computer games at all myself - so I did not know
| what to propose to him.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Start with something that works, that has code, and that can be
| hacked on. When my kid was 9 we did the whole "decompile
| Minecraft" thing, and he made some pretty cool changes with no
| help from me. But I'm sure there are game tools with published
| repos that you can download and hack on. That's how I learned,
| except it was "typing in games from magazines" and modifying
| them. Starting from scratch (with "Hello World") just sucks.
| bananabat wrote:
| Question: what is "typing games from magazines?"
| Osiris wrote:
| Back in the very old days, early 1980s, magazines like Byte
| would include games in the magazine in the form of code you
| had to manually type in and save. The ones I did were
| multiple pages of pure HEX.
|
| Later, magazines would ship with floppies that had the free
| software on it.
| bananabat wrote:
| Wow, this was not a thing where I grew up. I never even
| saw a real pc until I was in uni. That sounds awesome.
| Thanks for explaining.
|
| EDIT: Still totally fascinated by this. I asked my
| husband because I remembered that he had a much-beloved
| Spectrum when he was a kid and sure enough, he had
| digitized Your Sinclair issues on his iPad and he showed
| me several examples of games in Basic and hex. Super
| cool.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| Note that half the time, you'd make typos and it wouldn't
| run. So it sounds nostalgic, but not so much.
|
| However, debugging it helped to learn the language. :)
|
| Dr. Dobbs Journal was probably the king of source code
| listings in magazine format.
|
| Pre-Internet, there were some remarkable mass-
| distribution Unix magazines with significant source code
| for utilities: Unix Review and Unix World. Even today,
| the back issues would be useful.
|
| I remember lusting over the AT&T 3B Unix machines
| advertised in those, but never could afford one. So I
| waited until VAX Unix in uni (the arts dept. had an
| unused one), then SCO and Linux.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_UNIX_PC
| bananabat wrote:
| So I can see how you can debug BASIC when you're doing
| the magazine thing and it doesn't run. But what about
| hex...how did people even find where they made had typos?
| redis_mlc wrote:
| Most probably gave up on the hex listings if there were
| typos, but I never typed that in - it was all ASM or
| BASIC.
|
| I think it's important to realize that there was a golden
| age of early personal computing, but for most people it
| wasn't the first couple of years of toggle switches, very
| limited RAM and hex.
|
| Unlike Raspberry Pi's, the early PC was a standalone
| device that needed a usable UI before it had widespread
| appeal.
| prerok wrote:
| If you are interested in the history of games there is an
| excellent blog here:
|
| https://www.filfre.net/2011/06/the-trash-80-part-3/
|
| Have been following it for years and would recommend
| reading it all the way through. Maybe even get an idea
| for the next project :)
| bananabat wrote:
| Saved the bookmark for reading, thanks!
| ako wrote:
| Yes, remember friends typing in games from a magazine on
| a zx81 around 1983. Horribly slow with the membrane
| keyboard. And then someone would touch the table, the
| 16Kb memory extension would disconnect and all work would
| be gone...
| arafalov wrote:
| I did that for a programmable calculator. Without
| permanent memory.....
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I bought it just because I was excited to see an app with an
| actual price and no in app purchases XD
|
| Now now onto the 3GB IOS 15 download...
| PetrBrzyBrzek wrote:
| 10 years ago, we did the same space game. It was done in Flash.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b-SNsLbhUw
| bananabat wrote:
| Your game looked absolutely beautiful. Thank you for that.
| leetrout wrote:
| Wow. More evidence that new ideas are hard to come by.
| andrecarini wrote:
| Congratulations on working in your childhood dream and seeing it
| to completion!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you very much, appreciate it!
| bdowling wrote:
| So, you've published your first game. What's your goal? Is it to
| make money from this game or do you just want people to play it?
| Are you going to make a second game? If so, will the goal be any
| different?
| bananabat wrote:
| In an ideal world, we'd want to be sustained by our creative
| efforts. Not be a gazillionaire out of it, just make a living
| in a way that is pleasurable and inspiring. This is something I
| wish for everyone, btw.
|
| I hope that people will play our game so that we can keep doing
| this. But maybe they won't, that's ok too. I've been discussing
| this very thing with my husband and he said something that was
| inspiring to me: our dream and our income stream don't have to
| be the same thing.
|
| In gamer metaphor, we know our main quest...but sometimes you
| need to gear up before you can tackle the more challenging
| stuff. And so I've never minded the side quests. :-) The path
| will reveal itself.
| danbolt wrote:
| Congratulations on shipping your first game! Wrapping it up and
| shipping it is always the hardest part, technically and
| emotionally.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you. And yes, it's hard to say enough spitting and
| polishing already.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| That's so wonderful to hear and I wish you all best.
|
| I make little games (inspired mostly by burnout):
|
| How to Run an All-hands meeting: https://rafsters.itch.io/all-
| hands
|
| Tommy the Toe and the Chamber of Hostile Carpentry:
| https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tommy-the-toe/id1498417487
|
| > And since then, I've been a copywriter, graphic designer,
| business owner, immigrant,
|
| Sounds like your skill-set is very well rounded. From my
| experience, coding was the easiest part, marketing and narrowing
| down the game logic to what's really needed/fun is always so
| hard. Congrats!
|
| If you want to exchange ideas or just chat about your experience
| making indie games, I'm running occasional pairing/rant sessions,
| where everyone can just call me and chat:
| https://sonnet.io/posts/hi/
|
| If you're interested in a chat, give me a shout! Otherwise, good
| luck! It makes me so happy to see people building stuff like
| this. Thank you.
| bananabat wrote:
| I just downloaded your game and started giggling. This is why I
| love indie games: the stuff you experience can be fucking
| sublime, no matter how long or how little it lasts.
|
| The artwork is ~ chef's kiss ~ .
|
| Found myself truly watching out for that knife. I guess humans
| have a deep-seated fear of stabby things.
|
| If you ever feel that this game could be expanded, that would
| be awesome. This is so much more fun than something like Doodle
| Jump, imo.
| Folcon wrote:
| Wow, as someone who hit their mid thirties and basically decided
| the same thing congratulations!
|
| Do you have a next one in mind? Or are you going to see what the
| reception for this one is first?
|
| I must admit I focused on game jams to start, I've tried going
| down this road a few times before with little success. Having
| managed to complete a jam game has given me enough confidence to
| try and build something small which I can slowly add to. My aim
| is to have a playable, if very likely ugly prototype ready by the
| end of the month. Followed by a bunch of requisite refining and
| iteration.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you. We have a pipeline of ideas: some of them are pretty
| big in scope so will have to wait. Some of them are technically
| challenging so we'd have to level up in skill to bring them to
| life.
|
| I am afraid of game jams lol and I applaud people who enjoy it!
| Maybe I'll get brave enough to join one someday.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Ah, it requires iOS 15. Will try again after I get a chance to
| upgrade.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you!
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Sure thing! BTW, I upgraded and tried your game and it's
| great! LOVE the authentic indie DIY backstory -- and "No ads
| / IAP / data collection of any kind" -- and the game itself
| is charming and challenging enough to make for a fun
| diversion. An absolute winner for casual iOS game. Hope it's
| a huge success and you go on to make lots more!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you very much. You're not the only one who's been
| surprised about the iOS 15 thing. We'll be more mindful
| about version compatibility with the next update. We're not
| using any cutting-edge features here, so we probably don't
| need to set compatibility to the latest os version.
|
| Nevertheless, I appreciate that you tried our game even
| with some UX friction and if I could impose on your
| kindness a little more, please consider leaving our game a
| rating and a review if you have extra time.
|
| Thanks again!
| leetrout wrote:
| Another vote for not requiring the latest version
| harrisi wrote:
| I couldn't find a comment addressing my gameplay recommendations,
| so apologies if this was already stated.
|
| - Replaying shouldn't take two taps. I just want to get back into
| it! I now know the middle button replays, but it's not
| immediately obvious.
|
| - I don't understand what the floating aliens are for. I keep
| trying to get them but they don't seem to do anything.
|
| - My score doesn't stand out, it took several plays to notice it,
| and I still don't feel better about reaching 20 planets as
| opposed to two planets.
|
| - It feels awkward that each planet has quite strong gravity when
| you hit it, but if you barely miss there's nothing. (This ties
| into the next point.)
|
| - There's no incentive to do anything, as far as I can tell. I
| can wait ten minutes to rocket off to the next planet and my
| score is the same. Along with the previous point, maybe make the
| score decrease while orbiting, or make gravity weaken.
|
| Just messed around a bit more and I realize now that the score
| does decrease after orbiting, but it's not obvious. Maybe make
| the score multiplier show decimal points and/or be more
| prominent.
|
| I also discovered the autopilot button, which is fun, but I don't
| understand when or why I can use it. It also wasn't clear that it
| was a button - I thought it was some godot logo. That might just
| be because I know of godot but not very well.
|
| While using the autopilot I noticed my multiplied going up, but
| then it drops immediately. Dropping it all at once feels bad
| since it's such a towering mountain to climb - maybe drop it
| every orbit or two (maybe drop it more frequently based on
| current multiplier) so you can still climb.
|
| I don't understand what the last two options are in the options
| menu.
|
| All of this is to say I had fun, and I'm glad you made this. I
| hope this didn't sound bad. Good job!
| bananabat wrote:
| Great and detailed feedback, thanks!
|
| - UI has always been my weakest point in the sense that what
| seems logical to me might be puzzling to others. I've been
| taking notes on what's confusing to players and will implement
| improvements on the next go-around
|
| - Floating aliens are just...that. I've thought about making it
| more obvious that they are part of the environment or just
| removing them altogether
|
| - The score HUD needs to be improved if it's not giving players
| the satisfaction of keeping a streak. Will test a few things.
|
| - The regular planets give you more turns and they are more
| present in the lower levels. I might reduce the amount of
| allowed turns. But in the higher levels, you'll need them if
| you want to rest a little bit because most of the planets will
| allow 3 turns at the most or only 1 turn.
|
| - I agree that the multiplier probably needs to be more
| prominent.
|
| - Autopilot gives a countdown about how many auto jumps are
| left. The incentive there is that it's entirely possible to
| keep your streak going if you're paying attention.
|
| - LOL @ the last two options. I'll tell you the story about
| that. We tried to keep words to a minimum because we have a
| multilingual option and some terms just don't translate well.
| FYI, they control camera shake and camera smooth/snap,
| respectively. If anyone has better icon suggestions, I'm all
| over it.
|
| Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed the game despite some
| moments that gave you pause.
| cybernautique wrote:
| For context, this isn't from a player; I steadfastly refuse
| to run google services on any of my devices, so I'm incapable
| of downloading your game from the Google Play store. I'll
| keep an eye out for it, should you ever decide to release the
| .apk or host it on F-Droid!
|
| Your personal story is nothing short of inspiring. A sincere
| kudos to you and your husband :) Your children are incredibly
| lucky to have two such productive role models, and I hope
| they grow up to see computers as not just tools but as
| friends (as it seems they were to you in childhood)
|
| To me, computing is somewhere between a philosophy and a
| spirituality. I'm still very novice, but welcome to the
| rarefied air of technological wizardry! You had a vision, a
| meaning in your mind, and you manifested that into the
| devices of strangers. You _created_ something wholly new and
| thereby opened a port from the rich inner world of bananabat
| &co. into the reality of our shared experiences. This
| capability, to me, is nothing short of miraculous. It was
| your combined passion and effort that seized upon such
| miracles to create novel spectacles. As I said: nothing short
| of inspiring!
|
| Best of luck to you and your family as you continue down this
| journey! I wish all of you well, and who knows? Maybe in some
| years from now, someone will post a Show HN with their own
| project, their passion fueled by Slingshot Effect!
|
| Keep rocking!
| vodkapump wrote:
| Can you not grab the game with Aurora Store? Or does the
| game require Google Services?
| bananabat wrote:
| I respect that. Thank you for your very kind words and well
| wishes. I think creativity is simply the synthesis of all
| that's past and what's present around you. What we
| celebrate as originality is mashup. And I think that's
| absolutely wonderful.
| harrisi wrote:
| I think the floating aliens are fun and add environment. I
| think it could be a fun way to add bonus points (or
| multiplier!) when hit!
|
| There aren't many elements to the score HUD. It seems
| straightforward to just have a "pop up" at the top of the
| screen when a multiplier is increased and/or a big score
| increase happens. Maybe with a bit of a shake.
|
| I don't know what "regular" planets are. Maybe different
| colored outlines akin to RPG item rating would be helpful.
|
| The justification for the camera options makes sense. Maybe
| you could show the change when adjusted. Shake the camera or
| move it around when a change happens. That would at least
| make it more obvious, and the user wouldn't have to mess with
| it, play the game, and see what changes happened.
|
| You've inspired me, and thank you for that!
|
| Good luck.
| bananabat wrote:
| And you've helped me a lot. Thank you very much. You'll see
| these tweaks soon.
| freetinker wrote:
| Just wanted to corroborate this. I think this feedback is spot-
| on! I was thinking of sharing my perspective, but that would be
| repetitive. This nails it!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you, too. I really dig constructive feedback.
| andy800 wrote:
| Nice. I turned 50 this year, I created a custom Tecmo Super Bowl
| ROM (for original NES) with my college friends as the players and
| a bunch of custom graphics and mods referencing our jokes and
| incidents from back in the day. There is a community dedicated to
| the game that helped with some of it, but I definitely had to
| dive deep into hex editing to add all the elements I wanted.
| bananabat wrote:
| How come you didn't continue making games?
| andy800 wrote:
| Sorry if my post was confusing -- I created the game this
| year as a way of celebrating turning 50 and reconnecting with
| my college friends, we were all obsessed with Tecmo when it
| first came out in 1991.
| bananabat wrote:
| Did you post your rom anywhere? I have a RG350M for all the
| old games I love.
| [deleted]
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Congrats! It's absolutely refreshing to dust off an old hobby and
| do something with it!
|
| I'm only 28, but during the pandemic I decided to dust off my old
| electronics hobbies that fell by the wayside when the mobile app
| boom started.
|
| Middle school and early high school me thought I was going into
| robotics, but the iPhone came out the year I started high school.
| When the App Store came out the following year, the smartphone
| revolution started, and about a year later I went all in on
| mobile apps and gaming for the rest of high school and my college
| years. Contract iOS and Unity3D work got me through college.
|
| It's somewhat ironic, because I haven't written or worked on a
| single mobile app since I left college (nor have I owned an Apple
| device). I ended up taking all of the knowledge of embedded Linux
| systems I gained doing robotics and started doing esoteric high
| performance storage virtualization systems as the starting point
| of my career. Never saw that one coming.
|
| I hadn't really done any serious hobby electronics in nearly a
| decade, but I've continued to lug all of the equipment around
| every time I move. So, I dusted off some old hardware and got
| hooked once again, only to find out that the AVR is old news and
| everyone is into ESP32 and ARM these days :)
| bananabat wrote:
| Thanks! I've always been fascinated by electronics and I so
| envy people in that domain. I bought an Arduino board (sorry if
| that's totally kiddie to you) and some parts and so far, my son
| and I have made a little robot that runs very inefficiently on
| 9-volt batteries. I just want to plug the damn thing in to
| overcome the power issue.
| qiqitori wrote:
| (I don't know how much you know about electronics so sorry if
| I'm stating the obvious here)
|
| 9V batteries sound and look like they should last long, but
| putting 6 1.5V batteries in series should last much longer.
| 9V batteries have a typical capacity of ~550 mAh, 1.5V
| batteries (even rechargeable ones) have a typical capacity of
| 2000~3000 mAh.
| andylynch wrote:
| Of course 9v batteries are just six 1.5 cells in a
| rectangular pack- often they are even made of round cells
| like AAA, only much smaller.
| StevenWaterman wrote:
| They're actually AAAA cells!
| bananabat wrote:
| How many As are there in batteries?
| bananabat wrote:
| I'm glad my lil research has been validated. Last week I
| bought one of those adapter cases that accommodate 6 1.5Vs
| but have 9V terminals. Now how to tape that case to my
| little robot.
|
| And I don't know much, so thank you.
| robocat wrote:
| The Arduino regulator can very likely take 10 Volts -
| although do check first.
|
| Advantages: fairly cheap, rechargeable, and you can give
| PowerBanks to kids or whatever when finished or if you
| upgrade to something better. Maybe get kids to help!
|
| > sorry if that's totally kiddie to you
|
| Things are only kiddie if you think they are (personally I
| enjoy learning from children).
|
| Worrying too much about what others think will hold you back
| from having fun! Enjoy the game programming!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you. I guess a lot of people (including me) can be
| apprehensive about wading into technical domains. I've run
| into some hostile online environments, for sure. But a
| great majority of people are are always enthusiastic to
| help anyone who wants to learn.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| > But a great majority of people are are always
| enthusiastic to help anyone who wants to learn.
|
| That's one of the things I miss about "the old Internet".
| I remember when I first started using it around ~2000 to
| communicate with other electronics hobbyists, back when
| avrfreaks was big or just random people's widget shops
| has forums. There seemingly wasn't the level of toxicity
| that exists today. The first time I think I ever ran into
| someone being toxic (directly to me) was about 2009. IIRC
| they were saying that because I wasn't an EE I shouldn't
| be attempting to help people or something (I was halfway
| though high school at that point).
| bananabat wrote:
| It's why I'm always grateful to stumble upon any
| community where the members are constructive.
| robocat wrote:
| If a friend who knows nothing about computers asks me for
| help, they are often ashamed of their lack of knowledge.
| I usually can fix the problem. However I feel even more
| deeply ignorant than them, since I have spent my life
| working with computers and electronics. For example I
| might reinstall Windows, and my friend thinks I am a
| computer wizard, but I am fraudulent in my own mind
| because I didn't actually diagnose the cause of their
| problem. By learning more we discover the depths of our
| own ignorance.
|
| I'm not sure how to nurture my own inner child of
| discovery and protect it from the unconstructive bullies
| in the world, or my own negative inner voices. We all
| have to learn our own techniques, since they have to be
| personalised to our own personalities.
|
| Anyway, good fortune on your own path of discovery, and
| thank you for publishing your journey. I do find it
| inspiring!
| bananabat wrote:
| What you just wrote is really inspiring to me, thank you!
| donquichotte wrote:
| > I bought an Arduino board (sorry if that's totally kiddie
| to you)
|
| Not kiddie at all, AVR microcontrollers have been used
| commercially for ages and they have some properties that can
| be nice, e.g. they are fairly simple cores, they operate at
| 5V and their output pins can sink ~40mA, so you can easily
| e.g. drive a MOSFET gate.
|
| The Arduino ecosystem is huge and it's great to get things up
| and running quickly.
| bananabat wrote:
| Barely scratching the surface of that domain. I'm mostly
| enamored of enabling little automations in my other
| hobbies. Like moisture sensors and auto sprinklers for my
| indoor grow.
|
| One day, I'll do something about everything!
| design-material wrote:
| Congrats! Game developers are the only subset of developers /
| software engineers worth paying money to / for :)
| bananabat wrote:
| What are the other subsets? :-\
|
| And thank you very much.
| lazlee wrote:
| Cool. 49 yr old Canadian here that also started game dev this
| year. Best of luck in your future endeavours.
| bananabat wrote:
| Middle-aged game dev Canadians, unite!
| hoffspot wrote:
| I love it! I'm finding it really hard to find the time,
| motivation, and focus to sit down and learn the prerequisites
| required to accomplish something truly challenging later in life
| (I'm in my late 40's too). Congratulations on shipping your first
| game! That is a tremendous accomplishment and you should be very
| proud!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, it really is hard. Time and
| motivation are rare currencies. There is just so much shit to
| do in "life-ing." I hope that you get to do the things that
| make you happy.
| bovermyer wrote:
| This is a fun little game and worth the money. Easy to get into,
| easy to just play for a few seconds or a few minutes.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you very much!
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Someone once said, "It's never too late to become a programmer. I
| didn't even start until I was seven years old."
| bananabat wrote:
| LOL I'm 41 years late but imma try to catch up.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| Congrats on shipping a game. I'm almost 40 and have started so
| many engines and infrastructure projects that I'm looking forward
| to retiring early to make games. Carry on!
| bananabat wrote:
| When are you retiring so we can see some games? :-)
| adamquek wrote:
| Congratulations. Age is just a number. In fact, you are probably
| a lot better at finding the right resources with your experiences
| in life, socially or professionally.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you, and you're right...I'm perpetually surprised at the
| actual number of my age.
| sgt wrote:
| In hexadecimal you're only 30.
| bananabat wrote:
| I'm going to use that now. My age is hexadecimal 30, if
| anyone asks.
| robofanatic wrote:
| great story and the game looks cool from the screen shots and
| videos in the app store. wonder if you have plans to introduce a
| free version with in-app purchases. bet you will get more users.
| bovermyer wrote:
| I'm not the author, but personally, I'm hostile to freemium
| games.
|
| This is especially the case in multiplayer games. Making it
| free removes a check on "low quality users" - e.g., hackers,
| griefers, etc.
| bananabat wrote:
| You know, we've considered it and we've been approached by a
| couple of publishers in the "hyper casual" space to go the
| route of free-but-with-IAPs. First the terms of industry-
| standard contracts are onerous. And second...well, I personally
| love casual games. And I never minded paying a reasonable
| amount for games I play. And then there are games like Two Dots
| that I really, really liked but the endless monetization just
| gets to be too much.
|
| This is just our preference. We don't have anything against ad-
| supported or IAP-supported games. We just feel that there is
| still a pool of mobile players out there who don't mind
| purchasing a casual game outright.
|
| And who knows, we might decide to collaborate with a publisher
| on a future game. We'll see what the future brings.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Congrats on the release!
|
| I can only say anecdotally from my own experience, but the
| games we had listed for a price got 1% or less of the
| downloads of the same game after we made it free. People
| complain about free with IAP, but the $ shows otherwise.
| bitwize wrote:
| Indeed. Free with IAP is _the_ model for mobile gaming,
| because nothing else makes nearly as much money.
|
| If you want to do this as a business, free with IAP is a
| must.
| armagon wrote:
| Mysterydip, how do the sales compare of a game with IAP vs
| one with an upfront cost? (I ask as it is conceivably that
| fewer than 1% of people who get the IAP version pay, in
| which case you've made as much either way).
| mysterydip wrote:
| I've not done IAP, just ads and amazon underground (which
| has since been cancelled). My games weren't geared for
| IAP. Underground by far made us the most. To be sure
| there's companies squeezing every last drop
| psychologically out of its free users, and it irks me to
| no end. Games are supposed to be fun.
| bananabat wrote:
| This is something that's a dilemma for us. Thanks for your
| input!
| mysterydip wrote:
| I started out same as you, charge a dollar or two for a
| quality game seems like a fair trade. But I can't count
| how many conversations I had with people who would balk
| at 99 cents while either holding their $5 daily latte or
| paying another $10 for gems/energy for the "free" game
| they were playing. It's frustrating but the mentality of
| the mobile market. There are good/ethical and bad ways to
| approach it, though. I wouldn't do anything rash with
| your first game; let it be as-is out there for a while
| and try different ways to advertise or work with user
| feedback and see how it develops.
| bananabat wrote:
| I was reading about how the mobile game space has taken a
| totally different path from PC/Console games. Players are
| largely onboard with the "value" of even the most casual
| games on the latter platforms. But there is now a lot of
| resistance to mobile games that aren't free...even though
| a player's regular spend on an IAP-monetized game might
| actually exceed the cost of even a subscription-type
| model.
| james-skemp wrote:
| First thing I thought when I looked at the Apple Store
| version was 'good on you for charging, and for more than
| $0.99.'
|
| Out of curiosity, when were you approached by publishers?
| After you had launched?
| bananabat wrote:
| Yep, after. And all hyper casual (lol @ the term)
| publishers have a free-to-IAP business model.
| robofanatic wrote:
| I meant kind of trial to buy model, not ad-supported per se.
| There may be a lot of users who might give a try to the trial
| version which may just be a skimmed down version, if they
| like it they'll buy! I think a lot of people are afraid to
| spend money (no matter how little) and then get disappointed
| (not saying this game is disappointing)
|
| Just my 2 cents.
| bananabat wrote:
| I appreciate your 2 cents, seriously.
| jhunter1016 wrote:
| Just downloaded the game and I love it. Also love that it's built
| with Godot. Nice work and congrats!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you for giving it a try and I'm glad you like it!
| quelltext wrote:
| The game looks similar to Rocket Bunnies (which I think might not
| be available anymore or isn't maintained since the developer has
| closed shop): https://youtu.be/m0fuRys9plo
|
| Will check yours out.
| bananabat wrote:
| That game is really cute. Thank you for the link. And thanks
| for checking our game out.
| zby wrote:
| I am 48 and I am finally learning machine learning with neural
| networks.
|
| I have made some money on crypto and I left my programming job 5
| years ago. I have had some reservations, like can I still learn
| new stuff, would I be efficient enough with it to make anything
| valuable, how can I compete with the young guys. And I still
| don't have answers, the project seems to crawl so very slowly.
| But I enjoy the work.
| bananabat wrote:
| I've gone through the same thought (and emotional) process. I
| guess if you're enjoying it and it brings you happiness, that
| is the best reason to do it.
|
| We have some advantages that only accrue with age. It seems you
| have a nest egg that lets you do what you want to do, that's a
| major thing. Also, you have a professional, social and
| experiential foundation that serves you in good stead.
|
| I'm happy for your enjoyment. Best of luck!
| stefanos82 wrote:
| I like the spirit :) keep up the good work!
|
| By the way, do you have a blog or a github account?
|
| I am quite comfortable finding useful information and lately I
| have collected a good amount of game development libraries and
| resources that could help me become a better programming
| adventurist.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Mind sharing please? I am in the lookout for game dev libraries
| and resources as well. I am at the unity stage now and i dont
| much to share in exchange tho. Thank you!
| bananabat wrote:
| We have a github that I plan to populate with the useful bits
| and pieces that I've written along the way. Will come back here
| when I stop procrastinating.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It's gratifying to see this remain #1 on HN for so long. I
| sincerely wish you luck.
|
| I like your privacy policy: https://13bananas.com/privacy-policy/
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you. It's been pointed further down in the comments that
| this claim is not as straightforward as we intended it. There's
| a thing or two going on in our website, mostly with an embedded
| player from Bandcamp and something going on with Wordpress.
| Gonna fix it.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| haha, and I used to be really proud of mine:
| https://sonnet.io/tommy-the-toe/policy/
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That's great!
|
| Thanks for sharing it!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thanks for reading it. Appreciate that it resonates.
| ghgr wrote:
| While I appreciate its simplicity, private data on the
| internet is messier than it sounds, and almost impossible
| _not_ to collect it (server logs store the ip by default for
| example). In particular, 13bananas.com has outbound
| connections to stats.wp.com (prompty blocked by uBlock
| Origin) and to bandcamp.com. Also, uBlock Origin seems to log
| access to Google Analytics through a bandcamp script.
|
| Sonnet.io seems to be less chatty, except for the requests to
| Heroku.
|
| Congrats on you game! It looks really nice, and I wish you
| the best of lucks!
| bananabat wrote:
| I see what you mean, thanks for pointing all of that out. I
| admit that the finer points of privacy are not really my
| area. We only meant that _we_ as a company don 't collect
| or store or use the data of anyone who interacts with us.
|
| But I wasn't paying attention to embeds and also WordPress
| stuff that's going on. I'll probably roll a local audio
| player to address that. As for WP...maybe it's a plugin I'm
| using. I'll look into it. We really want all our
| interactions to be a pull from the user. Because as a user
| myself, I try to avoid services and products that want to
| be my friend forever.
|
| Thanks again!
| rpastuszak wrote:
| > While I appreciate its simplicity, private data on the
| internet is messier than it sounds, and almost impossible
| _not_ to collect it
|
| Yup 100% agree. One of the reasons I do this is that I used
| to work in adtech (focusing mainly on privacy, which is a
| complete joke in that industry, but we all know that), so
| in most of my projects I try to use privacy-friendly
| alternatives.
|
| For instance, the Heroku requests will either use umami
| (without sessions/state) as well as stripping unnecessary
| headers/cookies from the payload from the network traffic
| (e.g. credentials: none). The code is available on GH.
|
| I still want to know what's happening on my site, e.g. UX-
| wise, so I can fix and adjust stuff. But, so far I've never
| needed to know "who" is visiting vs. what are the general
| interactions with the content.
|
| Just like oil/CO2 emissions, user data should be considered
| a burden, not an infinite resource.
|
| Even if your expectations of adtech are already low, I can
| assure you that some of the shit I've heard considered
| acceptable is just mind-boggling, and scary.
| bananabat wrote:
| All I can say is, where's the toe? :-)
| taratatira wrote:
| Great read. I always want to start in my project (game) but
| something comes up and I push it. I quit my job so I can focus a
| bit more on things I love. I have installed all the dev tools and
| started working on the story line. Work always got in the way.
| Finally I get to fuckin do it. My kid is working on the
| characters and they look dumb as shit but it brings such
| interesting side to the story.
| bananabat wrote:
| I'm super glad that you're doing the thing you love. My son
| helped out in game dev. He's credited as "best ideas ever" and
| he is also demanding a cut of profits.
| VladimirGolovin wrote:
| Hey, looks like I'm not alone! I'm 49 and we (3 people, aged
| 30-49, with no prior gamedev experience) are working on an
| isometric sci-fi shooter-looter -- think Diablo meets Aliens:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWN3l4LdTIA
|
| Also, 800 upvotes can't lie. I wonder, which part of the premise
| resonates with the HN crowd: "it's never too late" or "I always
| wanted to make games too"?
| animal531 wrote:
| Same here, I'm 46 and now also working full time on my first
| real game. Going a bit slow so far, but I'm keeping at it!
| bananabat wrote:
| Happy for you. Would love to see your work when you're ready!
| bluedino wrote:
| That looks pretty cool
| bananabat wrote:
| Thanks!
| bananabat wrote:
| I would think that quite a good chunk of people who go into
| tech (as a general domain) did so because they loved games as a
| kid. This is true for us and anecdotally, everyone I know who
| is in IT has tried their hand at making a game at one time or
| another.
|
| As for "never too late": maybe when we're older, we do become
| aware that we are closer to the end than the beginning. Part of
| it is also the last few years. You don't thing the blackest of
| black swan events will happen until it does. So are you gonna
| do your best to be happy right now? Or are you gonna keep
| punting until the meteor comes?
|
| Umm, I would totally buy your game. I love isometric shooters,
| rpgs, etc. First-person shooters, sadly, make me nauseated and
| barf-y within minutes. How far along are you guys in
| development?
| VladimirGolovin wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words!
|
| >> How far along are you guys in development?
|
| Movement and gunplay are basically done and feel great.
| Graphics is looking pretty decent (the video is a bit
| outdated). Story / progression is being written and
| integrated at the moment; it will be text-only so no voice
| acting is required, which should speed things up. Some items
| and their stats (armor, guns, sets, etc.) are already in
| place, but there are no proper legendaries yet. Crafting and
| talents are not yet in place. Sound is completely nonexistent
| at this point -- we're going to try an approach without music
| (it may work, see No Country for Old Men).
| bananabat wrote:
| If you ever call for beta testers, ~~ raises hand ~~
| yboris wrote:
| Great work! Reminds me of _Gravity Wars_ - the game that got me
| into some "hardcore" coding with Visual C++ (using a book from
| the library).
|
| I've re-written the game several times over the years - always a
| pleasure.
|
| Current iteration: https://github.com/whyboris/Gravity-Wars
| bananabat wrote:
| Will check that out! Thank you.
| splatzone wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your story, it warms me up to hear about
| people pursuing their dreams - I'm excited to see what games you
| develop for us. Give us more to play!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you for taking the time to read it and leave such kind
| words. That warmed US up!
| arafalov wrote:
| Congrats. Visual esthetic is very clean. The music is really nice
| as well, could be a programming background sound-track even.
|
| I am, actually, in the same age category and have suddenly
| realized that I am super excited to understand, explore and
| (eventually) produce something that relies on 3D game engines.
| Not necessarily a game, but something leveraging the game/3D/
| Meta/Multi/Omniverse tooling that is available for free/cheap.
| Watching Borderland game's creators explaining how the game is
| really produced on Unreal engine and knowing all the same tools
| are available to me for free is just mind-blowing.
|
| Did you find any community on the web to hang out at with this
| new focus? I saw a couple (itch, etc) but I am curious if there
| are secret gems out there.
|
| Also, I am curious if you leveraged any of the commercial tools
| that are targeted at pro-crowd but have free/cheap licenses?
| Something that is an overkill for your development needs but
| turned out to be a great return on (time/money) investment
| anyway. Unreal is that for me, so I am looking for other gems.
|
| Ps. Yay, maple syrup :-)
| bananabat wrote:
| The first game I made was a Breakout clone in Unity -- only
| rivalled in popularity among baby game devs by Pong clones.
|
| I like Unity, it's free for a super small indie. I liked
| learning C#. However, when I reached the point where I was
| thinking of more sophisticated functionality, I started using a
| lot of 3rd-party development plugins (all so wonderful in the
| Unity store) and they were becoming a giant crutch.
|
| Now don't get me wrong, I am a fan of NOT remaking the wheel
| and I'm a total code snippet learner. However, I don't have a
| foundation in math or science. In the beginning, something as
| simple as rotation_speed = PI was utterly confounding. So I
| switched to Godot, which uses a Python-like scripting language.
| Far easier to learn and awesome for 2D. Also, the lack of a
| "store" with readily-available packaged solutions forced me to
| understand what in the actual fuck I was trying to do. It's
| free as in speech and beer.
|
| I actually learned Blender much earlier because it's closer to
| graphic design than game dev. It'll be useful if we ever do 3D
| or VR.
|
| And yes, maple syrup is a superfood. I will not be taking
| questions on that topic.
| JeremyReimer wrote:
| Congrats on releasing the game! Great work!
|
| I'm 49 and I have basically the same story you did... and also
| share the same secret dream to write games "one day", so I'm
| starting really small with a simple little 2D game in GameMaker
| Studio. So far it's slow going but super fun. But you've inspired
| me to keep going, so thanks!
|
| EDIT: Purchased! Looking forward to playing it!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you! How's your experience with GMS2?
| JeremyReimer wrote:
| I'm really enjoying it so far. It seems to fit with my mental
| model of making video games, which basically ended when I was
| 15 and writing games in MBASIC on my Heathkit (and later
| QuickBasic on MS-DOS, but I sort of stopped making games at
| that point) Obviously the language is very different and it's
| object-oriented, which MBASIC definitely was not, but it sort
| of feels... similar somehow? I can't really explain it.
|
| Some things about the GML language are a bit odd, and
| sometimes it seems like people on the forums believe wrong
| things about it (I read more than one person complaining that
| you couldn't define your own functions, which is not correct,
| but the docs could be a lot clearer on that) But overall I'm
| happy enough with it.
|
| I'm recreating a game I wrote in interpreted BASIC back in
| 1987 [1] and so far I've got the levels, basic player
| movement, simple enemy AI, and a very basic game loop. It's
| nothing fancy but I'm learning a lot so far.
|
| [1] https://jeremyreimer.com/rockets-item.lsp?p=282
| bananabat wrote:
| I just looked at your blog post. Artwork is amazing for
| your original game. I wouldn't say great for a 15-year
| old...it's super well-done, period.
|
| And it's adorable that you had stuffies on your monitor.
| JeremyReimer wrote:
| Thanks! I think it's just a combination of the limited
| graphics character set on the Heathkit, plus eight years
| of practice (at the time) making games using it.
|
| The stuffed animals are from my childhood, so I kept them
| on my childhood computer. I think they're happy there. :)
| mysterydip wrote:
| If you're looking for something a bit more BASIC-like, I
| recommend checking out AppGameKit, made by the people who
| did Dark Basic back in the day.
| pbourke wrote:
| Very cool to have a piece of your own computing history
| that you can reinterpret/carry forward.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Looks cool, bud! I was in a similar situation a while back and
| published a game too. It never made any money, mostly because I
| didn't market it too hard, but it was one of those milestones
| that I accomplished just to say that I did. :)
|
| Heads up! You misspelled 'distractions' in your screenshot.
| bananabat wrote:
| Jesus Christ, thanks for pointing that out. Imma fix it with
| the next update.
| [deleted]
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| I think you might find these topics useful, especially Jonathan
| Blow's as he notes changes (we have more abstractions that take
| us away from gaming progamming which was easier before).
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788317
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29127098
|
| One interesting note was that TempleOS which is called a
| religious OS had a Commadore64 structure and it was apparently
| easy to make games on it. You mentioned learning unity, the old
| game programmers would make ISA games that had no OS overhead,
| ran on all hardware that supported the instructions which happens
| less when the engines are abstractions that are designed to run
| on more abstractions like the OS, which of course costs
| performance, has more bugs, and basically filters your
| intentions, as well as every version of the engine, OS and other
| factors a game developer can't control will degrade their
| software through no fault of their own.
|
| Check out this game made on TempleOS.
| https://scumgames.neocities.org/blazeitfgt.html
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you very much for these links. One reason why I quickly
| decided to move away from Unity is that it's such a "big"
| program to make a relatively simple 2D game. I guess the level
| of abstraction that modern game engines provide is a double-
| edged sword in that while it is more accessible to users
| without a background in programming, it also obscures most of
| what's going on under the hood. So now game devs (as well as
| game consumers) accept that modern games have a certain amount
| of overhead that you live with. And bugs. And
| incompatibilities.
|
| I moved to Godot because you can totally configure it to suit
| your needs. You can compile the engine yourself, rewrite the
| editor, etc. When exporting our game to iOS and Android, I was
| a bit disconcerted that it was around 100MB...and it's just a
| jumping game! I tried to pare down all the graphical assets to
| be as light and as undemanding as possible; but ultimately, a
| good chunk of that was overhead.
|
| There were instructions on how to strip away all the 3D parts
| of the engine and just recompile...but I chickened out. Not
| confident enough at the moment but I'm learning. I might try
| doing that when we push the next update.
|
| Thanks again. Really appreciate it.
| joejohns wrote:
| Congratulations on publishing the game. I do have a giggle on
| your privacy policy.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you. I just remember the early days of mobile gaming when
| FB had some kind of stranglehold on what passed for social
| media...and every game wanted you to let everyone on FB know
| that you successfully raised your 100th chicken. It was some
| bullshit.
| sharps1 wrote:
| You really need a video as the first thing you see so it is
| easier to grasp what the game is about.
|
| EDIT: The video from your 13bananas site should be the first
| thing in the App Store page.
|
| Looks very well done, still confused about what the goal is other
| than flying around planets.
| bananabat wrote:
| It's an infinite jumper. Jump 'til you can't jump no more.
| artemonster wrote:
| Thank you for being so inspirational.
| bananabat wrote:
| Nowadays, I just try to be truthful and open. Thank you.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| Congratulations!
|
| I'm going through a similar phase myself spurred on by the
| pandemic (games are, after all, why I started programming in the
| first place).
|
| I'm continuously amazed by how complex even simple games can be,
| especially if you're not using one of the big game engines. It's
| incredibly easy to get sidetracked or over-engineer a certain
| aspect. It's made me realize just how tough shipping a game - so
| congratulations on that. It's a huge feat.
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you! It's really nice that someone sees this. I
| appreciate it.
| exdsq wrote:
| Really awesome to see people following their interests and dreams
| :) I don't have an iPhone so can't download this, but it looks
| great, well done!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you! It's on Google Play too...but if you meant that you
| don't use a mobile device in general, we still appreciate that
| you read the post.
| peter_retief wrote:
| 48 is only old to people under 30.
| bananabat wrote:
| According to another poster here, I am just hexadecimal 30,
| hehe.
| dqh wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your story. I am a similar age and a couple of
| weeks ago I took the somewhat scary step of quitting my CTO job
| to pivot to indie game development. Can't wait to get started
| after my notice period ends. It helps to know that i'm not alone
| starting game dev later in life :)
| bananabat wrote:
| "One of us, one of us!"
|
| Hey, there's a reason why the roller coaster is always the most
| popular ride! Best of luck and hope to see your WIP.
| freetinker wrote:
| Congrats! Just bought it, and absolutely love the "Data Not
| Collected" badge -- the best ad, imo. ;)
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you. We don't know how to collect data. And what would we
| do with it?
| bananabat wrote:
| I've always loved playing video games. From the moment I realized
| there were places called arcades with wonderful machines that ate
| your coins, I was hooked. Game and Watch? Nagged my mom for every
| single one. Nintendo Famicom? We had ALL the bootleg cartridges.
| Gameboy? Couldn't afford it so I burned with envy. Original Xbox?
| I have 4 of 'em stashed away somewhere. Playstation 1-5? Heck,
| yeah. Mobile? My husband bought our first iPad because we saw
| someone playing Angry Birds on it. PC? I'm playing The Ascent
| with my whole family right now.
|
| More than playing video games, though, what I wanted to do as a
| kid was to MAKE games. I still remember punching in a borrowed
| Mario Bros cartridge for the first time, pressing START and
| having a freaking epiphany. How cool was it that someone MADE
| this?? To heck with being an astronaut, when I grew up, I was
| going to do THIS. I knew it with all the certainty of 8-year-old
| me. But you know how it goes: like most childhood dreams, I put
| this one on a shelf and gradually left it behind. I didn't become
| an astronaut either (in case you were wondering).
|
| What I did was drop out of university in my third year. And since
| then, I've been a copywriter, graphic designer, business owner,
| immigrant, stay-at-home spouse, and for a long time, the stay-at-
| home parent. And it's been great. Life with all its up-up-down-
| down-left-right-left-right-B-A's...it's all been wonderful.
|
| "Hold up," you might say, if you're still reading this. "Why are
| you telling us all this? Boring."
|
| Right. Let me get to it. I'm 48 and if there's a lesson that has
| been inescapable these past two years is that we may not see
| tomorrow. So, I've decided to focus on happiness in the here and
| now. Carpet diem, as my kid used to say when he was little. And
| you know one thing that has added to my happiness? Dusting off my
| dream, sitting my ass down and finally learning how to be a game
| developer. And happier still? I've done this with my husband.
|
| So we've published our first mobile game. It's called "Slingshot
| Effect" and it's available on App Store or on Google Play. It's
| an infinite jumper that's easy to just pick up and play. Perfect
| for commutes or if you're stuck in a waiting room somewhere. It's
| a paid app because we feel strongly that the level of
| monetization in the casual game space is just...ugh...it's bad.
| Thanks for listening, I really appreciate it.
|
| TLDR: When I was a kid, I wanted to make video games. And now
| that I'm kind of old, my husband and I made one.
|
| App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/slingshot-
| effect/id1537916631?...
|
| Google Play:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thirteenba...
| chefandy wrote:
| Nice. I'm 42 and in an undergrad program (my first) for a BFA in
| interaction design after being a web developer for 10 years.
| Feels great to make moves.
| bananabat wrote:
| What does interaction design encompass, domain-wise? This is
| very interesting.
| SimianLogic wrote:
| I've been doing it on and off for 14 years and I'm still learning
| how to do it. Started a new prototype last night after the kids
| went to bed.
| bananabat wrote:
| Do you post your WIPs anywhere?
| SimianLogic wrote:
| I usually post gifs on Twitter (same username), but I've been
| doing more web dev recently. 2016-2018 are full of abandoned
| prototypes. Finished stuff and ludum dare entries get posted
| to my website at (username).com
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you, bookmarked your site so I don't lose track of
| it.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| This is very inspiring - I started out life as an artist and then
| became a programmer in my late 20's. I'm now 37 and feel that I
| could have been a game developer but that I'm a bit too old to
| start.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Never too late to take it up as a hobby!
| bananabat wrote:
| I don't think it's ever too late to start. And really, even
| just a few years back, barriers to entry for anyone who wanted
| to be an indie dev were a bit high.
|
| I was born and raised in a 3rd world country. And while we had
| consoles and devices thanks to being in Asia, hardly anyone had
| a computer. I first touched a PC when I was in university.
| Before that, personal computers might as well have been alien
| technology.
|
| Nowadays, there are lots of free/affordable game engines to
| choose from. Soooo many game devs who are also great teachers
| (I'm not one of them) and they put out a lot of content.
|
| If you're an artist who knows how to code, you are already way
| ahead of the game. So many indie developers are hampered by
| being a specialist in one domain or another. Give it a go!
| mckirk wrote:
| Congrats! :)
|
| Since I haven't seen it mentioned here so far, there's a typo in
| the screenshots: 'Play without distrctactions'.
| bananabat wrote:
| Now I know, hehe. Thank you for the 'grats and the heads up.
| muzani wrote:
| I love the rawness of games that are built by people who just
| want to make games. Today, we have tons of games that are made
| for money. Some are "fun" but missing that bit of soul.
|
| I haven't played this, but there's something appealing from the
| screenshots. The flat colored backgrounds, the slightly unaligned
| colors, the typo on the screenshot. It's like an alternative rock
| band.
| bananabat wrote:
| I just hope that we are not the Smashing Pumpkins of indie game
| dev.
|
| Thanks for your comment. Made me smile.
| mc_woods wrote:
| @bananabat This is awesome, your write up put the biggest
| freaking smile on my face. Like you, it is something I've always
| wanted to do and put off, now 43 and still got to get back to my
| dream. I love that you've got your first game out, that is epic!
| - I'm off to go grab a copy, and I'm looking forward to seeing
| what you release next!
| bananabat wrote:
| Thank you for reading it. I was a bit hesitant framing our
| experience in such personal terms because...huh...I don't know,
| I'll figure it out after a bit. Maybe because I'd get my
| feelers hurt if it didn't resonate with people?
|
| I have to get better at being okay with sharing what I feel
| like sharing and also being okay with whatever I get back.
|
| Thanks for giving our game a try!
| robocat wrote:
| More links for 13 bananas:
|
| https://13bananas.com/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnf6zSXFCIXHgHO9kXu3dAA/vid...
|
| Their privacy policy is pretty cute:
| https://13bananas.com/privacy-policy/
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