What makes this interesting
Back in the day, making a game was hard work. This one took a day, plus a second day of polish - most of which went into the card-flip animation, and I regret nothing. Real-time multiplayer over WebSockets, friends or bots, both rule sets: the official one and the one allegedly whispered into a game night organizer's ear at a convention. Play whichever version of the truth you prefer.
What I expanded it into
People keep asking me how hard it is to make a multiplayer mobile game. The question is never about the game - it's about how they'll spend the money they've already made in their head. So, the honest answer: the game took a day. Rooms, live sync, bot opponents. Second day for polish. The technology stopped being the hard part years ago.
Which is the bad news, if you slow down and think about it. If I can build it in a weekend, so can everyone else - the app store graveyard is full of games that work perfectly and were played by eleven people. What separates the winners is marketing, retention design, and luck. One of those is an engineering problem. Guess which one nobody wants to pay for.
Which is the bad news, if you slow down and think about it. If I can build it in a weekend, so can everyone else - the app store graveyard is full of games that work perfectly and were played by eleven people. What separates the winners is marketing, retention design, and luck. One of those is an engineering problem. Guess which one nobody wants to pay for.