How to finish the decree with benefit?

My name is Sergey, my wife Alla, our son is 2.5 years old. For a child, this is the age when we started letting the child play educational games on the iPad under the supervision of parents. “Well, once a week!” Well, for 20 minutes! Oh please! Well, Paaaaaaaaa! ” At one of the developer forums, they gave me 2 promo codes for children's games. My son really liked ... Still, in our time, with a stick, they were picking the ground.

Now our baby is starting to get used to kindergarten. You know, when you first drive a week for 2 hours, then for 4, and so on. “Quiet hours” began to appear, and I began to teach my wife how to draw in Photoshop. Not just like that, but for a specific purpose - we decided to make a game for kids.

I have never made games for children, in the sense, for the smallest children. I am sure that now many children play simple games and “This is Normal!” (Elena Malysheva). But this is a game for kids - first you need to attract parents, and then to captivate the child.

My wife draws, I “fix” and program. It should be noted that none of us knew how to draw, and we have no art education. But for the frequent lack of money, I had to open a graphic editor and draw as I could.

The first few days we painted like this:

1. We photograph a toy.
2. Insert the photo as a background in the editor.
3. We outline the contours in the vector.



Since I had at least some experience, I came up with a few tips:

1. Draw simple, colorful elements;
2. Do not use effects;
3. Draw in a vector, because the dimensions of the element will change or be in several resolutions;
4. For everything that will be in the final product, use one palette.



In order to create a palette, I took the main colors of the rainbow, some of them were lightened, and the other made darker. So it turned out shades.

After a few days, we draw like this:
1. Google the pictures that we like.
2. We set ourselves, do not copy, like through a carbon copy, but “inspire” them.



At first they decided to make a game with dinosaurs, but a little later Alla drew insects as a secondary element. That's where everything was decided.



We dug into the AppStore, tried to write interesting ideas for implementation. The game should not only give one parent a break, but also educate the child. We aimed at the audience for 2-4 years. We decided this way: the game will teach the child shapes, colors and numbers. Here he played his own experience. Numbers, letters, figures, colors - this is what at our age we are trying to learn and fix. The letters were not taken, as this will greatly delay the development. And in terms of dad said - "1 month." Rate your strength really! Otherwise, believe me, after six months you will run out of enthusiasm.

When they made the mini-games “draw a number and put figures in their shadow”, doubts crept in that the game would be boring. Then we turn on the fantasy and come up with mini-games ourselves. I really wanted to make a kind of Tap the Frog for children.



So there appeared “put the bug on the flower with the right shape” and “put the bug in the car of the right color”, and many others.





At the top of the game there is an owl whose task is to tell about the purpose of the game. When a child clicks on it, the voice of a real owl sounds, which we, like all sounds, found on freesound.org .



To read the numbers (among other things, 3 languages: Russian, English, Ukrainian), they took a karaoke microphone from acquaintances. Normalized, cut the sound, removed the noise, all this took 2 days.

Music at the request of us was written by a relative who plays hard rock. But we did not doubt for a minute. Selecting multiple tracks at audiojungle.net, sent him a request to do similar. Ready in a week - we like it. Still, for free to get music. Translation into English had to pay ~ $ 4. It’s better not to be greedy, but to trust a professional. A typo in the text will scare away the buyer of the most paid language.

It is impossible not to single out the longest occupation - creating an icon. This ritual should occupy a special place in the sacrifice of your time. By the icon you catch the user's eyes. Use as few details as possible, test icons in services, like testico.net , to see how it looks in different resolutions and sizes.



The first test with my son was charming. The kid couldn’t be torn off, so much so that he found about 10 bugs, 2 of them were critical. Moreover, I somehow had no idea that it would occur to someone to click there or do so. They began to test more often ...

After a month and a half, the game was sent to the store. 15 mini games, a bunch of fun and a little learning.

I used Unity as an engine. Published on almost all available platforms: iOS, Mac, Win Store, Win Phone, Android. All this allows you to make a free version, of course, if you have the proper hardware, software and developer subscriptions.

Probably, there should be a point and the rainbow smoothly goes up into the clouds. But keep in mind that when publishing, several dozen similar applications enter the market with you every month (considering the category). Undoubtedly, the number of users of available devices is growing, but this is unlikely to affect the success of your product. In the tops are big companies that pour a lot of money into advertising and promotion. It is unlikely to get into the featurer, with an artist and an amateur programmer and a monthly project. Newsletter review is a matter of luck and mood of the author. As a result, you see how your application is simply drowning in the market.

But this is a hobby! Is not it? Therefore, we enjoy the development, not the sales.