Next Steps Once You Have Your Killer App Idea

I have noticed on a few developer forums like this one that there are a decent amount of people who are looking for guidance as to how best execute their ideas. Most often these “idea people” are berated by the hardcore developers in the forums, written off as little more than a symptom of the iPhone app store hype. While no doubt there are a decent amount of Trism or iShoot wannabes who give the rest of us a bad name, I am writing this post for those of you who think you have something good and are actually serious about getting your product developed and following through. While I am still working on my 1st app, and have no idea how it will do in the App Store, I can tell you that I sat on my idea for a good 6 months so I have a pretty good idea of how hard it is to get started and what the pitfalls are.

Laying out the Levels

It’s 6am and I just spent the last 14 hours mocking up my 20 levels so that the developers can have a foundation on which to build the game.  I did the entire set of levels in Powerpoint, it was surprisingly easy I guess I got one decent skill out of Investment Banking (still wasn’t worth it).  For anyone who has never cared to or ever tried to lay out a game, even a simple one like mine, let me tell you it is pretty impossible to have any sort of intuition around what will play well.

Level mock-ups

Of course you have to consider user habits, the quality of the enemy AI and so on, and even knowing that and expecting future revisions it is still frustrating how much of a shot in the dark it all is

The question I grappled with most was how will the accelerometer steering affect game play…impossible to really know until we start fiddling with different filters to find the right blend of speed and control.  I definitely want to avoid making a Labyrinth style experience, where the low friction coefficient makes steering so difficult.  Another thing I didn’t really appreciate beforehand was how little real estate an iPhone screen actually has -  you do have to be efficient in your design when it comes to games.