I started this project back in September… I had the idea for doing an “augmented” game where you’d use the mobile device as a part of the game, but not really *the* game. The game logic would be with the players, and the mobile device would just add-on to the game.

I thought the easiest way to experiment with this idea would be to do an augmented version of the classic card game Crazy Eights because the rules are pretty simple, and it would be easy to add some additional fun things into it. Zombie Crazy Eights was my first thought, but since it was already September, I would be working on it only in my spare time, and I’d never used the Corona SDK before, I figured I better shoot for something more attainable like Christmas. Christmas Crazy Eights was born.

I immediately started mocking up the game using Balsamiq. After I got it to something I was happy with, I started mocking it up in Photoshop with art from iStockPhoto. Once I was happy with my Photoshop mockups, I bought the art from iStockPhoto. Here’s the interesting part, though. I only bought the standard license. I looked over the extended license, and it didn’t seem to fit for a mobile game, so each piece of art cost me about $20. So I spent about $150 on art for a Santa, a Rudolph, a background, some buttons, some gifts, etc.

Meanwhile, I was programming the game, learning Lua and the features of the Corona SDK.

About a month later, as I was getting ready to buy some more art (I had planned on having more than just two characters in the game), I looked at the iStockPhoto licensing terms again, just to be extra sure I was still compliant. I swear the license terms had been rewritten (!!!), or made more clear at least. It now says specifically that you cannot use iStockPhoto art in a game unless you pay for the extended license, which costs an additional $150 per piece. $150 x 7 pieces… I couldn’t afford that for this “experiment”!

I was very discouraged for about 2 days, thinking, “This game just isn’t gonna happen,” but I pulled out of my funk and got back to work. I contacted Dave Neale, an amazing artist whom I’d worked with previously, and he whipped up some awesome Christmas characters for me for a reasonable fee. (Should have contacted him first, but I thought iStockPhoto was a deal.) I set to work creating the background and some additional art for the game myself (spending many, many hours on Photoshop tutorials and struggling with the damn pen tool), and I set out to find some new gift images as well.

I found a whole set of Christmas icons (which included gifts) and promptly bought them directly from the artist for a small fee. Now, I finally had all the art I needed, and everything was legit!

I finished up programming/testing the game and released it for iOS and Android devices in early November for $.99 USD.

Woohoo!

Please read Aftermath of Christmas Crazy Eights, Lessons Learned for the next chapter in this epic tale. Learn how it all goes horribly wrong! Well, not horribly wrong. That’s too strong. Learn how it all goes not-as-awesome-as-I-had-hoped!