Holdem Solitaire - My puzzle/card game

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#1

Recently, I received a notification from the App Store informing me that my little game, Holdem Solitaire, could be removed from the catalog if I didn’t update it to the latest version of the iOS APIs. They also said it didn’t reach the download threshold (which they didn’t specify exactly).

I’ve already sorted out the technical part and resubmitted the app. I took the opportunity to make some adjustments and difficulty balancing. I think it’s better now :slight_smile:

What I can’t solve (without some help) is the downloads part. I know it’s a “niche” game. If you don’t enjoy puzzles (with playing cards), you probably won’t like Holdem Solitaire. But I would really like to keep this game in the stores as part of my portfolio. It’s free for both iOS and Android.

If you can, and want to help me, please follow one of the links below and download it. Your gesture will contribute to increasing the chances of platforms showing my little game to others when they are searching (in the card games section). There are a trillion games of this type out there. Getting any spotlight and growing organically in the face of such competition is virtually impossible. That’s why I rely on your support and sincerely thank you in advance!

I also made the sources and assets of this game available on GitHub. It was my first try with Defold and I must say, I’m very satisfied with the results. I’m not exactly proud of my code… I know it could be refined in several ways. But for someone who started from scratch, I think the final result turned quite good :slight_smile:

Links:

iOS

Android

GitHub Repository

18 Likes
#2

Wow, a lot of work went into that. Thanks for making the source available, there is quite a lot in there. I am not on iSO so I can’t help with the stats. Hopefully you will find the time to make more Defold games.

1 Like
#3

Card game isn’t my favorite type and I don’t know how to play it either but from what I see that this game is cool. How long did you develop this game using Defold? Your source code looks clean, I would learn something from it. Good job & well done!

2 Likes
#4

This game took me about a month to develop (actually port), from the concept I had to the final product. I worked on it in the middle of the pandemic, right after I left my formal job (at the time). I had a version of the game made in C++ for PC (from 2007/2008), which I made using Haaf’s Game Engine, but I didn’t publish it back then. When I saw the opportunity, I decided to port it to mobile, and Defold was very, very handy to accomplish that.

3 Likes
#5

Nice game!

1 Like
#6

I like it… looks great. Plays well. But I have no idea what it takes to win and why I lost.

Maybe a tutorial level at first to explain what is going on would help.

3 Likes
#7

Thank you very much on sharing the source code .
I try to build simple mobile game .
Can you share please how was the experience to publish the game both on android and iOS ?
Thanks

2 Likes
#8

Check out the new steamgame balatro. It’s a great game and may give you some new ideas to make something even better. It’s similar to what you have done.

1 Like
#9

Publishing for the first time may be a little confusing. Each store has a set of rules you must comply to have your app accepted. Google’s PlayStore charges a one time fee to open a developer account ($25). Apple’s app store charges an anual fee to keep a developer account open ($99). There will be some terms you’ll have to read and accept on each platform, and some forms you’ll have to fill (about you or your company, and about your app). The number of terms and forms vary deppending on the type of app, and if it’s monetized or not.

Apps must be digitally signed. You’ll be able to make the package for Android (APK or ABB) on any Windows PC, but you must have access to a Mac to be able to create the package (IPA) for iOS. The process of signing an app is easier on the PlayStore. If you choose to let Google take care of your signing keys, you’ll have no problem (it’s optional). Also, all steps of publishing an app for the PlayStore can be done directly on the developers website.

App Store, on the other hand, demands you to create a set of profiles and certificates in order to sign your app locally, before uploading. The uploading process is not available on the developers website. You’ll have to download and install the Transporter app in order to upload your package for the App Store.

Once you have done all this process, updating your app will be less troublesome.

Both stores provide analytic reports about your app, like the number of installs, purchases, crashes, etc. And in order to make you game a success, you may have to invest in promoting it (I didn’t, so I have very few downloads).

Not sure if that’s what you asked about, but, there it is :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#10

Thank allot , what i meant is developing with defold and the challenges the engine present when publishing to the appstors , like iap , ad’s , screen resolution , compilation and testing

#11

Oh… Now I see it! :slight_smile:

I had a very good experience with Defold, both, on development and testing alike. I’ve used other multi-platform frameworks (like Xamarin, for example) which demand you to write platform specific code in order to get things working “the same” on each of them. With Defold I didn’t have to change or add a single line of code. It’s plain Lua. Everything just works as expected on all platforms. Bundling is just a matter of choosing the target platform and Defold will do everything for you (for IOS, you’ll have to install some certificates on your Mac, but Defold will automatically find and use them to sign your bundle).

I can’t tell much about the monetization part, cos my app do not have one. Regarding the resolution, my game uses a solid color background (black), so I had not much to worry about. I just picked the recommended resolution for a landscape game (1280x720) and it expands well on all devices. The major part of my image assets are 128x128 png images. They scale well, even on high resolution monitors (desktop).

I’ve done all development and testing on desktop (windowed). I tested on devices only before publishing. Testing on Android is not a problem. If the device has Developer Mode enabled, you can install any APK. For iOS you have 2 ways to test: upload the app but not publish it, then use TestFlight to download it to your devices… or, create and install a Provision Profile on the devices you want to test, then use Xcode to copy the app to each device. Apple security is, indeed, very restrictive.

Defold is a very well done engine. I hope it will have a very long life :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#12

Great tnx

#14

It turns out that are more ways to loose at Solitaire than I would like ;). But hey, really nice game, worth downloading.

2 Likes