State of hmmm...

I didn't do one thing on my app over the last 1 week and 1 day. But I actually have a good reason. I was developing a new website for the bookshop that my wife and I own. We decided to buy into the e-commerce solution that the American Booksellers Association (ABA) offers to its members. The price of opting into their solution used to be too cost prohibitive for the ROI (return on investment). We're a tiny shop and our "fan base" just isn't that rabid, so once the e-commerce solution goes live I doubt we'll make that much from it, but at only $100 a month to use it, it was too inexpensive not to try. Previously, they charged a setup fee and the monthly was $250. Also, they now offer Google ebooks, so that was the primary reason I showed renewed interest.

So for the last week I've been using all of my free time to develop the website: thebookerynook.com (feel free to buy an ebook from us!).

Okay, back to the game. I abandoned my latest idea (there were buckets and witches and stuff). I still like the idea and will try to pursue it later. But as I was developing it, and had most of the game-play finished, I realized the rest of the game was too big for me at this moment. It would have been along the lines of Angry Birds. So I would need to develop 20 scenes per level with high scores and the ability to go to any already-completed level and ... well ... it was overwhelming. So I backed up and thought about a game or an app that would be "easy" to do. Where "easy" means no scoring, no levels, no worrying about getting scores up to Facebook, etc.

I did a lot of brainstorming by myself and with my wife. One idea I've toyed with before and came back to here was a maze. I assume mazes have been done and, quite frankly, I wasn't sure how to have a real maze and keep an avatar centered along the walls of the maze as a player moves it around with their finger. But the idea kept bubbling up until I married it with another idea: board games.

I've decided to build a game where the player cannot see any paths, just squares and as they travel, trying to find their, way, obstacles (ala a board game) pop up, sending them backwards, sending forwards, sending them to a different area of the board. And, you know, so on.