How I published my app in 6 days (effectively)
March, 2017. I was working with LogicRoots as a senior developer and core team member at that time. We had shipped a product (a math learning app) for iOS devices on iTunes and were working on to publish it on Google Play Store.
I was taking care of end to end app development. The publishing part was being taken care of by our CTO.
I was going home (Jaipur) from Mumbai and thought I could make something on my own and publish it since I had all the resources available to build a game (with Cocos2d-x framework).
How did it start (Spark) :
Train journey gave me ample time to think and I encouraged myself to build a product (a game).
Break
I was at home for a week or so and couldn’t spare time to write an algorithm.
Back on track
When I returned back to Mumbai, on the following weekend, after having lunch at Hostel-3 (they still had good food!), I sat down on the couch and started writing (on paper) the algorithm for 2048 game and finished the first version that day itself. Afterwards, I started developing the algorithm.
Getting the momentum :
I converted the algo into code on (18–19th March 2017 weekend). Ran the code on my pc, and it worked quite well. I got really excited and motivated to see the outputs. Over the next week I worked to improve the Algorithm, improving the efficiency and making the system robust.
The following weekend (25–26th March 2017), I downloaded few screenshots of the classic 2048 puzzle mobile game from internet and referring them I developed my own layout of the game in Gimp (free design tool similar to Photoshop). Prepared proper colors for various buttons etc. Experimented with visual components (eg. Score holder box) on the screen and then fixed their positions.
Then extracted these component images separately and packed them with another tool (TexturePacker).
- Next, I integrated these images into the game.
I had finalized following features for the MVP :
- Game Info for user — Game title and game mode
- Score — To display score for the current instance of the game
- High Score — To display highest score across all the instances.
- Start a new game — To start a new game.
Set a deadline on a Trello card, (2nd April 2017- Sunday). And started executing the small chunks of tasks as I got time.
- Prioritization of tasks was very important. I pushed some lessor priority tasks to the 2nd release.
- I paid for google developer account ($25) so that I get more serious about publishing my game, that was Sunday early morning (Sun, Apr 2, 2017, 2:28 AM), and by the coming Monday, my app was live.
- When you achieve a milestone, you get a kick. And then those kicks get you more motivated and excited to achieving more.
- The first version of my game was very ugly as compared to the current version in terms of UI /UX. But that’s ok as long as you keep improving. Getting started, achieving the first milestone is the biggest step in a journey. And that’s where most people give up.
- I completed my app’s first release development over a period of three weekends since I stay busy with my full-time job during weekdays.
- I started the work on ‘Holi’ (the festival) weekend. Completed the algo and UI design during that weekend.
- Conclude your work. Be decisive, Take decisions fast. Don’t take too much time to take decisions (refer to Jeff Bezos‘s 70% info rule for decision making).
To summarize, I ideated, implemented and published my first app/game on Google Play store in effectively 6 days.
