The economics of gaming with your kid
Show Notes:
Not even an ill-timed decision to update to Ubuntu 20.04 update could stop Reactor.am from going up tonight! It did require Mark retyping a tedious four-word command, but thanks to his pile of Ruby & shell scripts, that was the entirety of the cost. However, Justin still won't add intro music to the show until 10 people email hosts@reactor.am and ask for it.
Justin's got Nugget ready for review, but it's been surprisingly tough to get it reviewed! Mark invited three relatively successful boostrappers he knows, but no bites yet. On the good side, Justin's gotten a couple of positive reviews through his network.
Mark's gotten two more videos recorded but still not edited or published. Phoenix Igniter hasn't gone as well, though. He's had a harder time setting aside time to work on it due to the fact that there's no front-end setup that would satisfy everyone. Many customers want a fairly vanilla back-end MVC app with "JavaScript sprinkles", many others want a fully separated SPA and still others are excited about going all-in with LiveView.
The 4th of July is coming up and this is a leap year in the Chinese lunisolar calendar! That means lots of big meals in a short time for Mark, but not quite at the level of the epic feat he pulled off a decade back in which he managed to partake in a Dragon Boat feast in Taipei, a Canada Day BBQ in Toronto and then a 4th of July in Boulder.
Justin has gone DEEP into the economics of Roblox and has started messing with Roblox Studio and seeing what it would take to make a game his son Jack would enjoy. He's keeping a lid on the details for now, but a side-side-SIDE-SIDE project may be underway.
Mentioned
Justin's goals for next time
- Get the Nugget Bootcamp out to the world
- Get out for a "proper" walk each day
Mark's goals for next time
- Stay on point for diet 5 days this week
- Work on Phoenix Igniter
- Reactor.am is already "done"
Video version at https://youtu.be/Kpnwr8xL3Kk
On Apple Podcasts at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/reactor/id1500109358
Recorded on 2020-07-01
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(5 comments)
@Justin What were those toolkits made by the game dev on Nugget you mentioned 10m in?
@Mark: Seems like you may need to offer multiple front ends, one being the default, and the others could could be optional plugins (perhaps for a separate fee), or even driven by crowd-sourcing to have customers put their money where their interests are to prioritize which front-end to work on first.
@Justin: It took me a week or so to find the time to go through the bootcamp content, and there's a ton of good content in it. I'm not starting a business, so I can't directly apply any of the lessons now, and I probably went through it faster than the content deserved, but wow, I can see why it took awhile for you to get it together. I can also understand why you had the thought that you may be "giving away" too much in the bootcamp.
I was a little caught off guard in a good way on the imagined Mixergy interview page when I saw my name in the responses by the interviewee. At first I thought that I was getting extra famous, but then I realized that it was easy, but such a thoughtful thing to do to make it more personal.
@Justin: Now a game is under development? :-) I hope you can plug in more CPUs or memory to handle all the various paths you keep going down. Good luck mate!
For those interested....link to Octalysis: https://yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/octalysis-complete-gamification-framework/ I bookmarked that site...I think it'll be useful at work as we're considering integrating gamification into our application, and trying to figure out what would work best for our customers and end users.
@Justin: Suggestion for whatever is next that is similar to the Nugget Bootcamp...Put it out a step at a time rather than all at once. That way it's several small investments time, than one large one. You should be able to get good feedback as the content is still getting created, and you can go back and update the earlier steps if something significant changes based on content developed in the later steps.
@Danilo - Thanks so much for taking the time to go through the bootcamp. I'm really glad you liked your name on the Mixergy interview page I through it might seem a bit magical if I just did it in that one place.
The game is getting quite far down the development track I think it will be ready for launch in about 2-3 weeks from the time I write this.
Yeah the bootcamp is probably a little dense... I've been told (by Mark) that I have that problem ;)
@Danilo: I like your idea. I think I'll just focus 100% on the back-end for now and then make add-on packs for various front-end options.