Hello, fellow developers and parents! Today I am excited to share with you my latest submission to the Apple App Store – not just to showcase my new app, but more to document the exciting journey to get there. As a father of 2 and a full-time work from home developer for the past 5 years, I have been able to trade in daily commutes for more time with the family. In addition to my role as a developer, I also play the part of principal because my kids homeschool, although the pay isn’t great, it is a very fulfilling role and fairly simple. My tasks are to pop my head into the home classroom every blue moon, maybe play mediator, or just come give my dad stare when I get a text that my youngest is giving the teacher a hard time. Easy right, truthfully I just take it all in while my wife (the teacher, counselor, lunch lady, admin and coach) does all of the heavy lifting, she’s amazing.
Another difference in my life as a work from home dev is that all too often when working on site you would have those times where you really need to get something done but a co worker really wants to chat about nothing… or even worse, a group of coworkers set up a gaggle session right next to your desk. I don’t miss that, but those breaks in concentration oh they still happen but I love it now. Hearing footsteps run from the classroom to my office excited to show me a grade received, or “hey daddy come see” right before an exciting science experiment goes down. When things get a little rowdy on a school break and voices are finally heard coming from my office, the next thing spoken by someone is “shhhh… Daddy is on a call.” Like I said, I love it, but then it happens – the dreaded question: “Dad, what are you working on?”
They stare down at my screen. I imagine they are seeing all the open code on my screen and what that has to look like them. (Probably like the first time I saw the cool effects of those green falling characters on the movie The Matrix.) This question isn’t dreaded because of their curiosity, but I usually find myself working on projects and solving complex problems that can make it difficult to answer, especially when these questions come from a 12-year-old and a 6-year-old. So that’s where I had the idea: Hey, I’m going to make a very simple app so that I could share the experience with the little ones from manifestation to deployment. This project allowed me to share my passion for app development with my kids and create something they can be proud of.
The goal was to develop a fun and educational game that will help divert some of their attention away from popular titles like Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft. By creating this game, we hope to inspire our kids and encourage them to explore the world of coding and app development. In addition, I wanted to have a quick turnaround and use this project as an opportunity to get reacquainted with a framework I don’t use every day. Seeing that I was building a game, I chose GameCenter to be that framework and fully integrated it into the game’s functionality. As you may know, GameCenter offers a variety of features such as leaderboards, achievements, and challenges that can make any game more engaging for players.
The premise of the game is very simple: The app generates a 4-digit code, and the user tries to guess it – that’s it! Hours and hours of fun right? Highly debatable, but it does allow the development of deductive reasoning skills with hints given on certain difficulty levels. So those “What are you working on” questions were answered by “Hey, I’m creating a feature roadmap,” or “The victory screen,” or “I’m waiting on you to help me test out the game.”
That’s all I have for today, stay tuned as we continue to roll out new features to the project such as multiplayer or WatchOS support and share our experiences with you. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. We look forward to embarking on this adventure together.
You can find my app here
“Can you crack the code”? #codeburst #crackthecode
You must be logged in to post a comment.