{"id":48,"date":"2016-08-11T16:51:56","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T16:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskylab.com\/blog\/?p=48"},"modified":"2016-08-12T05:42:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T05:42:47","slug":"warbits-postmortem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskylab.com\/blog\/warbits-postmortem\/","title":{"rendered":"Warbits Postmortem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"postmortem<\/p>\n

Warbits is a turn-based strategy for iOS developed by two highly motivated morons.<\/div>\n
Warbits on iTunes – $3.99<\/a><\/div>\n
Warbits Website<\/a><\/div>\n
\"App-Store-Screenshots_iPhone6-11\"<\/div>\n
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Warbits was a dumb idea.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Despite the fact that Warbits worked out for us, it was a certified dumb idea. <\/span>That\u2019s not to say the idea wasn\u2019t worth <\/span>pursuing<\/span>, just that we could have made our <\/span>foray<\/span> into game development a little more graceful. <\/span>4 years and thousands in personal funding is a lot to risk for a niche strategy game launching on 1 platform. Our game did have an\u00a0under-served market, but it was a gargantuan task for us as first time game developers.<\/span> We were fortunate enough to get the Editor’s Choice nod and a 2 week feature on the App Store, <\/span>which we are forever grateful for, <\/span>but none of that was guaranteed. Thankfully, hard work and a ton of help from our friends allowed Warbits to become a very <\/span>significant achievement<\/span> in our lives.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Stranger Danger.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Risky Lab is the classic two man indie team<\/span> with a slight twist, <\/span>during the entire 4 years of development we had never met in person.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"postmortem<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Joe Borghetti handles programming from the Boston, MA area and Reilly Stroope manages all things art out of Dallas, TX. We were introduced to each other through a small community forum of fellow tech and creative types<\/span>. <\/span>E<\/span>ventually connect<\/span>ing<\/span> over the desire to work on a mobile game<\/span>, <\/span>we began moonlighting our first project<\/span> in<\/span> early 2012. Shortly thereafter<\/span> (hah)<\/span> we completed and launched Warbits on April 14th of 2016.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Why Warbits?<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
It all started because we were tremendously<\/span> naive.<\/span> W<\/span>arbits was born out of the desire<\/span> to bring the magic of the Advance Wars series to a modern mobile platform. <\/span>A quick guilty pleasure to get under out belt. <\/span>Easy right? Estimated completion time, 6 months. We soon found out that what makes the Wars series so incredible is th<\/span>e depth shrouded in its simple presentation. Advance Wars casts a long shadow.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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So how did you do it?<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
To create a product of the same standards with two people that have never worked on a single game before was laughable, but we gave it our best shot. What we lacked in experience we made up with time and tenacity. Deciding to keep our day jobs was probably the most important factor for Warbits . It slowed development considerably, but the first 2 years was spent figuring out how to make a game in the first place. It was way less stressful to approach it as more of a hobby than something we were betting our livelihood on. Coming home from work and shutting ourselves in our offices to work on Warbits became the routine. Communication began as an extremely long email chain but later transitioned to Google Hangouts, it was helpful to be in constant contact. Hangouts allowed us to quickly fire ideas at each other throughout the day, and we would frequently hop on voice calls as we worked in the evenings.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Development<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Language: Objective-C<\/span><\/div>\n
Engine: Cocos-2D<\/span><\/div>\n
Platform: Universal iOS<\/span><\/div>\n
\"postmortem<\/div>\n
It took 4 years to make Warbits. That\u2019s not to say it takes 4 years to make a game like Warbits, just that it took <\/span>us<\/i><\/span> 4 years. When you have an idea for a game, it helps to actually know how to make one. A good portion of our development time was spent learning new concepts like Object-oriented programming, sprite sheets and even git repositories.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\"postmortem\u00a0Our process started messy and meandering, but eventually filtered it down to a rather lean and productive system. Trello, Dropbox and Google Hangouts were our tools of choice. We tried various project management tools, but the heavy methodology often weighed us down. We didn\u2019t necessarily need the motivation or hyper-organization that other tools offered. We needed a place to collect our thoughts and act <\/span>on <\/span>them. In that way Trello served as the perfect virtual whiteboard, ever changing to meet the needs of what we wanted accomplish at that very moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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How much <\/b><\/span>did this hobby <\/b><\/span>cost?<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Joe and I split all costs 50\/50 with the exception of any equipment like laptops or mobile devices. Looking back, I feel like we were pretty frugal with our expenses.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Freelancers<\/b><\/span> $11,029<\/span><\/div>\n