KoboldTouch vs cocos2d-iphone Architecture Comparison

On November 7, 2012, in KoboldTouch, by Steffen Itterheim

I posted a KoboldTouch vs cocos2d-iphone architecture comparison chart to the KoboldTouch product page.

It’s only a start to better explain how KoboldTouch compares with cocos2d-iphone.

KoboldTouch Mini-Game

I’m now working on a KoboldTouch mini-game to showcase the KoboldTouch workflow and features. It’ll be the basis for the KoboldTouch Introduction Tutorial.

I’ll post a video presentation of the project and key points once it’s done. If you’re interested you can follow KoboldTouch development via PivotalTracker.

The mini-game project is also very important to “eat my own dogfood”. Even just a simple game made several things that didn’t feel right obvious, and presents opportunities for improvement.

I’m happy that the KoboldTouch users requested this simple game tutorial.

Excellent Growth

Speaking of members: leaving aside the initial 2-day launch rush, on average two new members sign up every day.

If KoboldTouch continues to grow at this rate, it will have 100 members before Xmas! That would be a major milestone I did not expect to achieve before February/March!

You can help KoboldTouch by taking 5 minutes of your time to complete the Cocos2D Developer Survey. I’ll post the results in a week and what they mean for KoboldTouch.

From Dogfooding to Catfooding

On September 22, 2011, in idevblogaday, Kobold2D, by Steffen Itterheim

Most developers have heard of the phrase “Eat your own dog food”. It refers to the habit of actually using what you’re creating.

A typical example would be a company building Yet-Another-Issue-Tracking-Tool™ while using said issue tracker to manage their Yet-Another-Issue-Tracking-Tool™ project. And you’ll surely have heard of a game engine that was initially only developed as a necessity to build a game, then polished and released to the public to great success, while the developer continued to create games with his own engine.

Dogfooding is considered a good practice, actually a best practice. You know that the tool you’re building works, and that it satisfies your needs.

But “your needs” is also the achilles heel of dogfooding, and it’s just a small step away from forever “perfecting” your product (known as “gold plating”). So sooner or later, you’ll have to do some catfooding, too. Meaning: to feed the user’s needs.

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