T-Shirt Design

My new icon design has been translated into a T-Shirt design. I think it will make a nice give-away. Here is a mock-up using my friend Scott as a winner.

I have known this guy my whole life and he has made many bonehead moves. One of his favorite jokes is to put his finger under his chin after doing something dumb. His question would be, "What's this?"...answer, "sh_t on a stick".

We would play with GI Joe, Lincoln Logs, wood blocks and Hot Wheels when we were kids. Twisting track through our creations testing gravity. That mindset continued through life as digital tools allow for artistic interpretation. Beat the Boss actually started many years ago, playing with little cars.

iPhone apps in Flash CS5

It is interesting how time moves on. The creation of the Beat the Boss was a cooperative effort between IndiaNic and Mike Browne. I created all the art and assembled it in Flash. Indianic took great efforts to interpret my thought and implement it in the iPhone SDK. They had to literally rip it apart and put it back together. Now that we are almost done, Adobe announces that Flash CS5 will include an output to create for the iPhone directly. It will be out later this year…it is now October.

When The Boss is done it will look like it was created in Flash and everyone will be wondering how we did it so fast. The reality is that it was put together piece by piece. One thing I know for sure is my next app will be created in Flash from the start. My guess the creation time of this same project would be a fraction of the 6 months it took to create The Boss.

As I write this, there are about 75,000 apps and 2 million downloads. A year from now it should be 5 times that amount. The tough part is going to be iTunes. How will people find your apps? It is hard standing out now amongst 75,000, imagine down the road. Another thought is the approval process. It takes minimum 2 weeks now to get approved by Apple now, with rejections this can be months. What will they do when the Flash crowd shows up?

The Boss will come out right on time. Just before the crowd hits after people figure out how to make Flash CS5 work for them. The game is changing, but I have the right skill set to work within the platform. I will adapt with everyone else. But there is more to it than tools. Beat the Boss is an idea that is well thought out and the game play is fun.

My good friend Terumi gave me this Flash action character a number of years ago. She was right, Flash is the answer.

More Time

It occurred to me while watching people play the game it gets kind of frantic. This is a good thing. The music loop combined with the game play makes you want to achieve each level before time runs out. My next move is to add a timer that records your overall time.

Recently at a street concert I heard someone say, "People will do anything for a free T-Shirt!" Sounds like a good idea to me. I will sign up with Cafe Press and send out a T-Shirt once a week based on the overall top score.

Another thought after watching people play is that I need to add a "sound off" button. After messing around with it, I changed my mind. If you play Beat the Boss, you have to listen to his bullshit. My goal is to get someone fired for playing my game.

Donald Trump would be proud

Looking back, my app is a good business lesson. I can't claim to have no experience or be surprised by any element involved with the creation. I started with an unwilling partner and proceeded on my own, so all decisions are on me. My previous app got me in all kinds of hot water with Apple, again I have to be smart or get rejected.

During the creation of the app I watched entrepreneur shows on Tivo like, The Apprentice, Shark Tank, Billy Mays and American Idol. Everybody is selling and I wanted to pick gems if I can find them. There are reasons products sell and reasons they don't. Apps shouldn't be different. I believe the Donald would approve. (Speaking of which, I did this Trump drawing with my left hand a few years ago. I had broken my right arm breaking wood during my black belt test in Japan)

Market is solved, the are millions of potential customers. My target is working people that are holding an iPhone that have disdain for their boss. For the cost of a side order of fries you can wail on your superior with 10 different weapons.

A free version will demonstrate a $1.99 paid version. First thing is to inform the public that my app is available for sale. My true interest is conversion from free to paid, I want a ton of free downloads. If the game is good and fun to play, people will upgrade.

Every developers question is how do you get noticed surrounded by 75,000 apps. An earlier post speaks of Tim Cascio's 50 tips. I am using about 25 of them.

Very few people have contributed to the app's story line. It is kind of like cartoon writing, after you finish you hope that people get the joke.

Tortoise and Hare

Having a free and paid version means your intro's need to be different. The free version will allow for 1st level play and end with a pitch to buy the paid version for $1.99. The full version will include 10 weapons, 12 levels, two speeds and the ability to save a game. You can opt to have the Boss send you e-mails insulting your intelligence while reminding you to buy the full version when you are in a WiFi area. The free version will be under 10 megs by design so people can try it on the fly. I will use the tortoise and hare as an international symbol of slow and fast.

New Icon

Reading up on what to do to make your app more successful, the icon is mentioned often. If your icon is weak, they game is probably weak. My logo for Beat the Boss is a boxing glove. It is the first weapon used to hit the boss in the game. That's great, but the glove in the game isn't exactly the right image for an iPhone icon. It needs to be square and shown up against a black background. You really don't know what it looks like till you see it on the phone. After two adjustments I think it worked out well. I will also use this glove on T-Shirts as well. If your logo looks good on a T-Shirt it will look good on the phone.

Flying Cars

I attempted to learn to use the iPhone SDK like I have used other programs to animate in the past. I have experience using Flash, After Effects, Director, Media 100, I figured I could learn another discipline. Wrong. By the time I could program the game by myself, we will be driving flying cars. I am right brained, C+ is left brain. I bought a book, "iPhone in Action" and learned what was possible, then found help. Searching the Internet I chose Indianic.

This game has been in development for approximately 6 months. It has been a challenge working with developers in India. Not so much English, more distance and time. Actually, now that I think about it, I had men calling me "dear". I created "The First Dog" working with Indianic, so I knew the routine. Part of that routine is patience. If you have a good idea or adjustment, most probably no one will know about it for about 13 1/2 hours. These days we are used to instant answers, this is more like can and string.

In any creation, getting your thought into a programmer and out a device is a challenge. My technique has been the super storyboard. Being that I animate in Flash, the programmers just follow what I show them. I provide them a moving guide, art and a full written explanation. They apply their skill to my art, so it kind of looks like Flash. If the iPhone ever uses the Flash player floodgates will open.