Project 72
I came across a site yesterday which is documenting in real time a team of four guys who writing an iPhone game in 71 hours, hence the name of the project.
They all seem to have experience already and hence thought they could create the entire game in 7 days, with the actual game coding being done in 71 hours. Their website is tracking a countdown timer and also has a live web cam of them working away. It also has regular video updates of their progress on the game which is not looking bad at all.
Certainly having 4 people working on a game helps, as you have someone who can do the sound, another on graphics, another on the core engine etc.
I’m going to keep watching these guys to see how they get on.
This is also an experiment in getting hype out there before the game is even complete, which is certainly one of the things that can help with making a game more successful. So I’m interested to see how this goes for them.
Certainly worth checking out their progress.
Mike
17 Comments
mike on January 7th, 2010
I agree, hype != quality.
I’d also be interested to know what framework they are using i.e. Cocos2D or similar. 72 hours to build a game and a game engine would seem impossible to me, so they must be using a pre-built engine under the hood. I’ll post a comment and ask :o)
Mike
Scott on January 7th, 2010
I’m just not buying into it. I think this is just another clever way to generate some buz in a very competitive market. I’m putting this in the same catagory as Granny Coder – clever but not truthful.
Truth be told, I’ve had bugs that took longer than 72 hours to chase out.
mike on January 7th, 2010
Ha ha, you make a very valid point Scott. This could easily be just a hype machine with the App having already been done.
I’ve been looking at the site and the quality of the graphics, sound and the actualy game play and flow itself is something I’m not sure you could do in just 72 hours.
Well, let’s just say I couldn’t. I know I’ve been learning as I’ve been going, but SLQ, including the writing of the game engine as well has been going for over 6 months…
Mike
sickdog on January 7th, 2010
Hey guys, it’s great to see your comments, and although we are actually doing it it’s fun to see the doubt. We can however never prove that we did this in 72 hours which is a little bit annoying but at least we know it’s true :)
And the game will be good. Buzz = Motivation == Quality
/Rasmus
mcgoogles on January 8th, 2010
Given that these guys have written games before, it does seem likely that they’re reusing a lot of code. The high-score thing in particular makes me wonder, since it hooks up to the server for another game they did. Still, that’s fair. I wouldn’t start from scratch either, but it’s misleading to suggest that the app was developed in 72 hours if it uses resources that were developed earlier. It would be nice to know how much code they’re reusing (or if they’re using something like Cocos2d). I haven’t seen any response to those questions.
It’s an interesting way to get some buzz, but I’m not sure that they’re getting buzz from anyone other than other developers. I don’t see how that translates into sales, but maybe that’s not the goal here.
mike on January 8th, 2010
Hey Rasmus. Your project is certainly generating a lot of interest one way of another. I think the comments are driven by other devs knowing how hard this stuff can be. Doing something like this in 72 hours is impressive, although I’m sure you must be reusing code you have or a framework such as Cocos2d to get things moving.
Even that being the case, getting something built and out in 72 hours is impressive and if that is what your doing then all credit to you :o)
I’m sure there will be plenty of devs out there who would like to know how you tackled the game as well when your done i.e. frameworks you used etc. I’d find that info really interesting.
Mike
kingbombs on January 8th, 2010
Having quickly looked at the youtube video that was posted, i personally would say its very much possible from the type of game they are doing
its a randomly generated game(pretty sure on this), so once the random astroids and powerups have been made to appear and float down the screen, it will look like the majority of it is already done. (as i said look like, not is done)
If they are also developing the graphics in this time then that would be interesting (one or two artists on this?)
But i deffaintly believe its possible, again if they already have the sound effects then that wouldn’t be a problem to speed everything up just a little bit.
Couple people mentioning reusing code. Personally i find even if i don’t reuse code by copy and pasting i end up writing something similar that i may have used before, but this is a major difference between a 40 year old and a 20 year old, the 40 year old most likly has coded many different projects and in different ways which makes them mentally reuse code they have done before (which they just remember and not copy/paste) which speeds up game creation time to some extent.
Also its 71 hours, which they have most likly set aside all of there time for it. Which means if you code almost solid in that time (and with four of you its better to keep the motivation up) then its even more possible. If its a team of four that has worked before together and are use to each others coding styles and they already know all the formats needed for images and audio etc, then deffaintly a bit easier for them. Also if design work has been done before this time as well thats helpful to.
lastly on the high scores, i have high scores in two apps, i send all the high scores to a server elsewhere and that deals with everything there, so in the case of this game the highscores may have been the fastest part for them to implement :D
I may have said easy a few times, this is still very much a challenge but an awesome challenge at that which would be great fun to do with 3 other people and i hope they do it :D
sickdog on January 9th, 2010
Thanks for the new comments. Here is what we’ve done…
- > 15,000 lines of code
- Approx. 23 builds
- Over 20 sound effects made from scratch in Logic Pro
- 2 Soundtracks made from scratch in Logic Pro
- HUD
- All graphic design made in Illustrator and Photoshop
- Copywriting
- Sending out Press Release
- Dogtownstudios.com Website (which took many hours to setup)
- Forum posting
- Video recording
- Blogging
- Tweeting pretty much all the time
- Drinking many cups of coffee
And yes, we have used the Cocos game engine.
Cheers!
mike on January 9th, 2010
Hey Sickdog
Thanks for sharing what you have done to get Project 72 completed. It’s a hell of an achievement and something you should all be well chuffed with.
Congratulations and I hope Project 72 does well on the app store :oD
Nice Job
Mike
sickdog on January 10th, 2010
Thank you! It has been a true fun adventure for sure and we’re all really excited about the results. If anyone would like an ad-hoc full version, please email me at adhoc@dogtownstudios.com
Cheers!
Eugene on January 10th, 2010
Personally I believe in this guys. It seems possible. All of them are experienced enough, they’ve done games before, and even games for an iPhone. And I’ve seen what CommandGuru have made in 7 days. So personally I don’t mind if they reuse existing code, or some graphics. It’s cool, and the buzz around the game is a bonus.
4 boys, good luck with sales. =)
sickdog on January 13th, 2010
Thanks Eugene,
The game should be released any day now (depending on how busy appstore reviewers are).
I just can’t stop playing the game, but since I have the high score I think we have to build some sort of achievement system.
I’ll post something about suggested updates after the game is released.
/Rasmus
wuzutags on January 15th, 2010
Hi Sickdog,
Congrats on project72. I wish you all the best on the appstore. I’ve seen your website! What you guys are doing must be very exciting. Good Job!
I made iWarrior (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObj.....9&mt=8) in 1 month using a fusion of mike’s engine and criag’s engine with alot of tweaks which I’ve named MiCriEngine :).
Peter on January 20th, 2010
I personally believe that these guys pulled off the task. There are 4 of them and the game itself is relatively simple.
I’ve been working with a friend for several months on writing a fun, quality game for the iPhone and feel pretty confident that if we had a game design similar to theirs we could have done it in a week or two at least.
You can follow our progress at http://www.squaresmile.com
Peter on January 20th, 2010
I personally believe that these guys pulled off the task. There are 4 of them and the game itself is relatively simple.
I’ve been working with a friend for several months on writing a fun, quality game for the iPhone and feel pretty confident that if we had a game design similar to theirs we could have done it in a week or two at least.
You can follow our progress at squaresmile.com
Torpedo on January 26th, 2010
The game was released on appstore yesterday
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app.....67736?mt=8
I played it and it looks and plays very nice – its a typical highscore game much like doodle jump
scepticalmonkey on January 7th, 2010
Sounds like a an interesting way to try and hype up an app and drive sales. Sadly if the app is successful it’s unlikely to be because it’s good! :)