Over the last year I’ve been working on my Craft Pricing Pro app. The app is useful and the interface is clean and easy to understand. I’ve also added many features including some basic inventory and sales tracking. I don’t know how many people will use those features, but they are there and they do work.
But, writing the app – although it can be difficult – is the easy part. The truly difficult part is the actual marketing of the app. It’s nice to have an app finished and available for sale, but it doesn’t really pay the bills until people start to purchase it. That’s the block I’m currently running into. The app works well and the little bit of feedback I’ve been given has been positive. But, the problem is that it hasn’t really been found by the many people that would find it useful.
Yeah, I know it’s ironic that I wrote an app so people can make more money with their own projects, but I’m struggling to make money with my own. The accounting math isn’t hard for me. It’s the actual selling. How to get people to first of all take a look at the app, and then how can I convince them that it will help them make money? It will, I know it will. When I was selling more crafting items, the earlier version of this app did in fact help me make more money. It’s why I wrote it and it’s why I feel strongly about marketing it.
So, with this I guess my newest effort is to avoid adding features or starting new projects. But, instead work on creating interest and sales in the projects I currently have out there. Yeah, that’s scary and difficult, but here we go.
Sometimes it is worth stepping back from work related projects and focus on something that you find more fun. Over the last month or so, I started to work on a couple of these fun little projects.
The project I’m going to show here is a sand simulator. There is a short animated gif shown below.
This project came from watching a Youtube video where someone explained creating their own version of a sand simulation. I used many of their ideas, but implemented them in my own ways. What you see above is the current version of what I have been playing with. The app includes 8 different types of particles that interact with each other in different ways. Sand will pile up like sand does. Water attempts to level itself. Snow and ice pile up in their own ways and fire will turn water, ice or snow into steam that will rise off the screen.
There were many interesting techniques used to make this all happen with the main movement based on Cellular Automata theories. Each particles moves by looking at it’s surrounding neighbors and then decided how to move. For the most part, they only care about the 8 locations directly surrounding them. As simple as that sounds, it allows for some interesting and occasionally surprising interactions.
Doing this project let me work through some interesting programming issues, while at the same time giving me something fun to play with. A majority of the code fits in around 400 lines and it does everything you can see above.
So, if you find yourself stuck – step back and find a small project that appeals to you and work on that. It will not only better your programming skills, but it will also allow your brain to reset before you return to your actual work.
A lesson that I learned again recently – inspiration can come from anywhere. I have been working on several projects lately and also taking some time to learn new skills and also refresh some old knowledge. During those attempt to refresh old knowledge I fell into a rabbit hole of going through old games that I used to play. When I say old, I mean old. Most of these I had had played on my old Apple II back in the 1980s. Needless to say, many old memories came flooding back. But, also, I was able to see things that were done with games back then that kept my attention and kept me playing. These games were made decades before micro-transactions, and years before the internet would start to shape our lives. They had to focus on the gameplay itself to keep our interest and there is a lot to be learned from that.
In my case, I was reminded how much humor and curiosity for what would come next drew me in. Spare Change on an Apple II emulator was the game that prompted this post.
A screenshot from the Apple II version of the game Spare Change
The goal of Spare Change was simple – collect coins while trying to keep the robots from stealing them. The robots themselves were quite funny. They would perform various silly moves as they stole the coins, including passing between each other, running into each other or kicking the coin into their piggy bank. If they collected too many coins the game would end. Also, of interest were short cut scenes involving these robots and their silly antics. But a feature that kept me wanting to play the most were the various items on the game board that could be used to distract the robots. They loved watching Popcorn popping, or dancing to the music on the jukebox. On some levels you have get them to talk to each other using the pay phones. Now, these distractions would cost a coin, so you had to be careful to not waste too many coins. This became more of an issue as the levels went on. But, it all led to the player wanting to keep playing in order to see what other silliness could happen along the way.
So, what does a 40 year old game have to do with my current efforts? It caused me to rethink my own game that I am currently working on. I have since made an effort to add cutscenes along with items for the player to collect. I should back up and explain the game a little bit – it was essentially a demolition derby game using various geometric shapes to battle.
An image of game play from Fruit DerbyAn image of a cutscene from Fruit Derby
The images above show a little view of what the game looks like. It also shows a shot from one of the cut scenes that can be found in the game. I am proud of how the game is turning out. The sides on the shapes turn red as they get damaged until the player dies if the damage becomes too great. Once an enemy shield is destroyed, you have the chance to steal their fruit. It is the fruit that is necessary in order to advance to the next level – by making an epic fruit salad to impress your alien overseers.
You can clearly see how playing a close to 40 year old game inspired a new game. If I hadn’t taken the time to play Spare Change, my game would still be the original Geometry Derby game in which you would simply crash into shapes until you finally died. It was somewhat fun even if it did get a little boring over time. The new version is one that can easily hold interest for a far longer time.
So, to bring things back around – don’t be afraid to look for inspiration everywhere. You never know what might contain an idea for a future project.
