Hello, Fastlaners.
I'm glad to be back, I let the script kind get to me the past couple of months, but I'm making a comeback.
I'm using my last year in high school to try and build a product and monetize off of it.
For the past couple of months, my friend and I have been building an online multiplayer robot-themed card game: You can find it here!
The product development has been very end-to-end: We've had to play the role of front-end, back-end developer, web designer, product manager, game designer, admin, etc., which is one of the greatest pleasures you can have in Fastlane pursuits (and creative work overall). "Specialization is for insects"
Here is our roadmap so far:
- Developed the main fun-loop to get players hooked
- Programmed the server, web-client and database barebones
- Designed web-client
- Designed automatic authentication so new players don't have to signup and can automatically start playing
- Perfected multiplayer duels
- Bought domain-name, deploy to a production server and hosting service
- Design and code community dashboard including a lobby, chat and announcements
- Add progression to keep players engaged
- Code singleplayer duels against AI to get practice and keep players hooked even when there is not much activity
- Add a legendary card for players that signup during our testing phase (right now)
These are some key points to building a product I have learnt during the process
Focus on building a product, not writing code.
As programmers, we tend to focus too much on small optimizations and preferences. When building a product, however, none of that matters. What matters is the product. Code is not an asset, it's a liability. It takes up storage, it takes time and energy to write, it creates more bugs. Focus on working on features that get your product closer to being fit for the market, not writing code.
Focus on the one right thing
When developing for a launch phase, we focus on a set of ground-goals we create and do not change until we release. I have learnt to filter tasks to work on based on one question: "Is this really blocking launch for our next phase?" When you work on a project you have to be very selective about how you spend your time and energy. If we have a new idea we have to ask ourselves "Is this blocking launch?". If not, we move it to the "ideas" section and think about it more in our next phase.
Be willing to break some rules
For this game, we made some unique decisions for the architecture that would ordinarily not be normal in other products (We did this because we had the freedom to experiment and because we believed the rewards would be worth the risk.)
For example, Users don't need to sign-up: We create an account for them so they can start playing as soon as they reach the site, and we let them claim the account with their email whenever they want. We can also have as many users as we want because we don't have a database; we just set up a bucket that scales infinitely.
-
We are currently getting ready for our 2nd testing phase, where we open up the game to players and do some real-life stress testing: make sure what doesn't work, what needs works, what suggestions players have, etc.
After we go through this phase, I imagine the next steps will probably involve...
- Creating another fun-loop for singleplayer
- Creating "flow" to keep players engaged
- Creating some basic monetization system (Like donations and buying in-game money)
- Releasing new content regularly
- General marketing and spreading the game
Will continue to update
GLHF
I'm glad to be back, I let the script kind get to me the past couple of months, but I'm making a comeback.
I'm using my last year in high school to try and build a product and monetize off of it.
For the past couple of months, my friend and I have been building an online multiplayer robot-themed card game: You can find it here!
The product development has been very end-to-end: We've had to play the role of front-end, back-end developer, web designer, product manager, game designer, admin, etc., which is one of the greatest pleasures you can have in Fastlane pursuits (and creative work overall). "Specialization is for insects"
Here is our roadmap so far:
- Developed the main fun-loop to get players hooked
- Programmed the server, web-client and database barebones
- Designed web-client
- Designed automatic authentication so new players don't have to signup and can automatically start playing
- Perfected multiplayer duels
- Bought domain-name, deploy to a production server and hosting service
- Design and code community dashboard including a lobby, chat and announcements
- Add progression to keep players engaged
- Code singleplayer duels against AI to get practice and keep players hooked even when there is not much activity
- Add a legendary card for players that signup during our testing phase (right now)
These are some key points to building a product I have learnt during the process
Focus on building a product, not writing code.
As programmers, we tend to focus too much on small optimizations and preferences. When building a product, however, none of that matters. What matters is the product. Code is not an asset, it's a liability. It takes up storage, it takes time and energy to write, it creates more bugs. Focus on working on features that get your product closer to being fit for the market, not writing code.
Focus on the one right thing
When developing for a launch phase, we focus on a set of ground-goals we create and do not change until we release. I have learnt to filter tasks to work on based on one question: "Is this really blocking launch for our next phase?" When you work on a project you have to be very selective about how you spend your time and energy. If we have a new idea we have to ask ourselves "Is this blocking launch?". If not, we move it to the "ideas" section and think about it more in our next phase.
Be willing to break some rules
For this game, we made some unique decisions for the architecture that would ordinarily not be normal in other products (We did this because we had the freedom to experiment and because we believed the rewards would be worth the risk.)
For example, Users don't need to sign-up: We create an account for them so they can start playing as soon as they reach the site, and we let them claim the account with their email whenever they want. We can also have as many users as we want because we don't have a database; we just set up a bucket that scales infinitely.
-
We are currently getting ready for our 2nd testing phase, where we open up the game to players and do some real-life stress testing: make sure what doesn't work, what needs works, what suggestions players have, etc.
After we go through this phase, I imagine the next steps will probably involve...
- Creating another fun-loop for singleplayer
- Creating "flow" to keep players engaged
- Creating some basic monetization system (Like donations and buying in-game money)
- Releasing new content regularly
- General marketing and spreading the game
Will continue to update
GLHF
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