Developing a Mobile Game in 36 Hours
From 22 – 24 May in Tivat, Montenegro was held an Interact conference and hackathon which we – Inellipse took part in. The event took place in the Museum of National Heritage located at the famous Porto Montenegro. “The Port” is one of the main supporters of the event organized by Logate – software empowerment company from Montenegro. The topic of both the conference and the hackathon was gaming.
It was the 7th hackathon in a row for the organizers and 2nd for Inellipse as attendees. The team consisted of four members: Katerina Kolevska (iOS Developer, me), Nikola Brdaroski (Full Stack Developer), Igor Georgioski (Frontend Developer) and Goce Bogoeski (Backend Developer). Our team was in competition with 8 other teams from Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro, while we were the only team from Macedonia.
Inellipse was the only team from Macedonia in the competition.
After we met the other teams we found out that most of them are already professionals in developing games. So the idea that we will just install Unity and make this cool 2d or 3d animated game vanished.
We had to think straight and we had to think fast. We had to see what we have in power and use the most out of it.
At the conference before, the judges (all coming from the gaming industry) were presenting their success stories. One of the greatest pieces of advice was that to be successful, you don’t have to make up something new, but to take what’s already done, improve it and add a few new features. We made sure to take advantage of it and that was exactly what we did!
After a quick brainstorming, we decided to make this application-like, text-based game with a “killer” story. The game would be mobile because it’s the nowadays most used platform to play on (and we have the most experience). We found a popular text-based app, found its cons, improved them, and added our mark to it.
The initial game idea was: the player is receiving messages from somebody that is in big trouble on a boat, and has to help them make life decisions. We figured out the engine, made a plan of what needs to be done, and then we had to write “The Story”.
Take what’s already done, improve it and you have a working demo in 36 hours.
At first, for the story, it took a big piece of paper, crayons, many scratches and a lot of creativity. After we thought we had it, we created an Excel sheet, which will make it easy to parse to a JSON file.
We made a React native app, which instantly gives us Android and iOS apps, scoring more points from the jury. In the end, we managed to put together a great story, appealing design, and a working game for 36 hours.
But we wouldn’t have concluded everything as wonderfully if Igor didn’t have his exceptional presentation. He managed to present the idea and the game in an extraordinary way so everybody was intrigued.
The final outcome was a great success for the team and the company because we were listed on 4th place. Of course, we are more than satisfied competing on a field not so familiar to us and among professionals.
4th place out of 9 teams, important connections, new skills and a great time.
We certainly got what we were looking for: a bunch of new friends and important connections, some knowledge about the gaming industry (maybe not that distant after all). Thinking out of the box for a few days and exposing our creativity was so refreshing for us.
Enjoy the photo gallery until the next hackathon we attend 😉
