So I've been having a bit of crisis of faith on OttoJotts. I think the game is pretty fun and should be enjoyable for total word geeks like me. The concern I'm having, though, is that as I get further and further into the two player games, the more things crop up that need to be addressed. For example, most recently I realized that in order to do two player games I need to revamp how the games are set up - and that they'll be different for 2 player than for solitaire. This, in and of itself, isn't what's causing the crisis, but rather it's the whole process. I've been working on 2 player games all this year. I haven't been doing it full time, but I've spent upwards of 2 weeks of actual time (80 hrs) working on it and I keep finding whole new sets of things I need to do before I can move forward. So now the question is - should I keep moving forward with the 2 player games and have them available at launch or should I launch the single player (solitaire) games and then, in an update, add the 2 player games?
I'd say that a fair portion of the games in the App Store are single player. You might be able to challenge someone to beat your score or something, but in general the two player/multiplayer market isn't quite as prevalent. So having 2 player, competitive gaming would be a differentiator for my game, but the time it's taking (or at least seems to be taking) is making me wonder if it will EVER get out.
Currently I'm still torn on what to do. I'm not sure that the single player/solitaire game is going to be compelling enough to keep someone playing. There's not enough there yet (achievements, etc) to make it something that a player would come back to over and over again. The graphics need to be redone to make it look a bit more professional (any graphic artists willing to work on a royalty basis out there?) and the game play needs to be cleaned up and the app hardened overall (error handling, etc). So I've still got at least 2 weeks of work left to do all of that, even if I dump 2 player games for now.
So, what to do?
