Hello, I'm the developer of SuperTrip. My friend posted this and I saw there are a few questions. Just reply to this comment and I can answer whatever!
Show HN: SuperTrip
11–20 of 28 posts
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#12This seems quite similar to Geocaching - did you take inspiration from it? In fact the only differences seem to be that there is no physical object at the destination, and that it's a race.
SuperTrip is very inspired by my personal experiences geocaching. I always loved geocaching but hated the hide-and-seek mechanics of it. I've spent way too many hours searching for a geocache once I was at the destination and often giving up. SuperTrip is my personal answer to that. Rather than use a GPS location, SuperTrip is only a direction and distance. The location is abstracted so you don't know where you are going but at the same time, the final destination isn't hidden. For me, it made it more of an adventure. Plus, once you reach a destination, you've made it. There is nothing physical at the locations, and the first version is only a pat on the back, but the goal is for there to be in-game rewards for reaching destinations. I just haven't developed all of that yet.
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#13So being an adventurer / go-getter / hero is walking down a concrete sidewalk admiring your surroundings through the lens of an augmented iPhone? I think that's disingenuous marketing to people like myself, and I'd focus on what it really is (gamification of urban discovery) because the current proposition comes off gimmicky. When you talk about "adventure", I think the general consumer associates that with brands li…
Good points. As you pointed out, this is gamification of the real world. I didn't even think of "true heroes" being taken in that context. I was applying it from a game player perspective. Everyone is a hero in a video game. This allows you to be a hero in SuperTrip.
I'm just a one man team (aside from contractors) with some marketing experience but am still definitely learning so I need all the feedback I can get. Thanks :)
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#14I notice you launched on both iOS and Android which often a portable stack was heavily leveraged (e.g. Xamarin or HTML5). Can you share some tech details?
I used Google App Engine for my backend and Unity for the app itself. The code base has very minimal changes between iOS and Android.
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#15Promising idea. I like it. Does this work with any city, or is it just select cities?
Works pretty much anywhere. Though if it can't find destinations or previous locations in the area (on the ocean), it creates random ones.
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#16I notice you launched on both iOS and Android which often a portable stack was heavily leveraged (e.g. Xamarin or HTML5). Can you share some tech details?
I used Google App Engine for my backend and Unity for the app itself. The code base has very minimal changes between iOS and Android.
Sweet!
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#17Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#18Any plans to allow user created courses? Can think of 100 uses for a user created course to be immediately accessible to a bunch of phones from a virtual alleycat bicycle race to a LARP.
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#19I think this is a typo: "Destinations are signified by green strobing destinations."
Also, I think your video would be better placed higher up the page: I had to scroll a long way to get to it.
Re: Show HN: SuperTrip
#20Here's the best feedback I can give you- a real time description of my thoughts as I scan/scroll:
1. "supertrip" – what is this? drugs? roadtrip? backpacking?
2. 'not your typical adventure' - well that's a waste of a subheader, doesn't tell me anything. Bad first impression.
3. 'not for the faint of heart' still nothing. You could cut this sentence out and literally lose nothing. You're wasting precious seconds of attention here.
4. 'you and your friends will travel to locations you never thought were there... ah! So it's a sort of real-life waypoint driven amazing-race type thingy.
5. 'choose how many waypoints, how long a game, race or go as a group...' ah, that actually sounds like an amusing way to kill an afternoon with some friends.
You're completely burying the lead there, friend. Kill 2 and 3, and lead with 4 and 5. Uber says "everyone's personal driver", not "not your typical journey" or "not for the outdated commuter" or something like that. You have precious seconds of attention. Don't tell us what your product isn't. Tell us IMMEDIATELY what we can expect to do, and what the benefit is.
Cheers