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I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

apps.apple.com

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Re: I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

#21

Post by jeffhuys »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #14

The app looks nice and the concept sounds interesting. But this worries me a little bit: "I also needed a distraction" - is it really a good idea to treat our brains this way? Why do we need distractions all the time? Why is boredom so intolerable? Also, you can simply just think about stuff, you don't have to feed your compulsion loop.

Boredom is a bad feeling “by design” - it makes us go out and find new experiences. If, in this current world, you’re in a situation where you really can’t get out of, we instinctively try to find distractions.

Thinking about stuff is also a distraction. And for some people there’s nothing to solve, really, as they’re okay where they’re at in life.

That’s why I feel like you’re projecting a bit; it’s not intolerable, it’s just… nothing. So if you have no other option, why not play a game?

I’m currently not in the camp of “nothing to think about” - I could sit for hours and do nothing except think. But there were (and will be) times in my life where that would not feel good - I wanted experiences!

Re: I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

#23

Post by pbhjpbhj »

password4321 wrote: post #12

A game for people who get carsick looking at screens, awesome! I would love more suggestions that fall in this same category, aka games for the vision impaired. Where can I sign up for notification of a future Android (specifically Kindle Fire [Kids+]) release?

I think you could do an audio-looping app. You'd make a loop up from a series of instruments, but the instruments would appear consecutively. You choose the loop type (3 bars of 4-4 time, say, I'm not a musician!). Then you get an announcement "clap", with a metronome sound in the background, you tap the phone for a beat. Next the app announces "snare" and you tap for each snare, etc.

Maybe it works best by giving you a few bars of a tune and you make the percussion up to fit?

Whatever, I think there's something there.

Re: I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

#24

Post by zeta0134 »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #14

The app looks nice and the concept sounds interesting. But this worries me a little bit: "I also needed a distraction" - is it really a good idea to treat our brains this way? Why do we need distractions all the time? Why is boredom so intolerable? Also, you can simply just think about stuff, you don't have to feed your compulsion loop.

Among other things, "needing a distraction" is why I pretty much always have music playing. It's something my brain can do as a background task, and it's tremendously effective at suppressing the otherwise strong desire to investigate whatever just made that weird sound. I don't know if I could have survived in an office environment without my headphones.

Re: I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

#26

Post by bayindirh »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #14

The app looks nice and the concept sounds interesting. But this worries me a little bit: "I also needed a distraction" - is it really a good idea to treat our brains this way? Why do we need distractions all the time? Why is boredom so intolerable? Also, you can simply just think about stuff, you don't have to feed your compulsion loop.

I don't think its boredom. It's keeping racing and insisting thoughts, the uncomfortable things at bay, and this is worse than not allowing one to get bored.

When you take everything from the brain, and sit silently, it starts to remember. Oh, the plants, the presentation I'm going to give, financials for the month, remaining tasks at the office, etc. Maybe some worse issues which bother you but you try to ignore.

Escaping into some distraction from these uncomfortable thoughts is always marketed as the norm, the way it should be, but it's not. One should prioritize mental discipline over fidgeting and dopamine hits, IMHO.

I know not every problem in life have a solution, and battling with some problems is hard. But running away from any and every problem is not the solution.

Re: I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

#27

Post by appsDev »

invalidlogin wrote: post #15

OP: 1. Use “you’re“, not “your”, for “you are”. It is wrong in the first “screen” image in your App Store listing. 2. Use an ellipsis — three dots, “…”, never two dots. This is in two images in your listing.

Thanks for the tip! I will fix that (I have the bad habit of using 2 dots all the time) and the "your" part will definitely take care of. Thank you!!

Re: I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

#28

Post by password4321 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #23
password4321 wrote: post #12

A game for people who get carsick looking at screens, awesome! I would love more suggestions that fall in this same category, aka games for the vision impaired. Where can I sign up for notification of a future Android (specifically Kindle Fire [Kids+]) release?

I think you could do an audio-looping app. You'd make a loop up from a series of instruments, but the instruments would appear consecutively. You choose the loop type (3 bars of 4-4 time, say, I'm not a musician!). Then you get an announcement "clap", with a metronome sound in the background, you tap the phone for a beat. Next the app announces "snare" and you tap for each snare, etc. Maybe it works best by giving yo…

Thank you for sharing your idea! Lots of unexplored options with audio for sure, especially music as you pointed out.

It would be possible to use the touch screen for multiple inputs split into large regions, multiple fingers, etc.

Re: I made a game you can play without anyone knowing (no visuals/sound)

#30

Post by appsDev »

jonpurdy wrote: post #16

Bought it for the novelty, easy decision. Feedback: it's pretty difficult even at the first level. As a distraction, even just easy 2-3 beat patters might be good to start with. So having difficulty levels would be great. Maybe the difficulty comes from the strength of the haptic engine, but not sure how to easily change that (somewhere in Settings app I'm sure).

Thank you so much for buying it!! I really appreciate it!

That is really nice feedback. The main thing that impacts the difficulty is how off the user's taps can be from the exact timing, and I tried to set it at a level that is not too easy/hard - but that is good feedback and will definitely look into it!

Till then, I would suggest tapping along to the haptics as they occur just to get a feel for the timing. After a couple of tries it should get easier..

Thanks again for trying it out!

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