Tetra for iOS - my new Letterpress-inspired board game app

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tetra-board-game/id648252454?ls=1&mt=8

by jazzychad • 13 years ago

38 32 13 years ago

itunes.apple.com

simonista• 13 years ago

Does this app share any code with Letterpress or did you re-create the UI elements/interactions?

jazzychad6• 13 years ago

No code was shared. I wrote my own UIKit layer to accomplish the UI (whereas Loren used a 100% OpenGL implementation for Letterpress).

CodeWithCoffee2• 13 years ago

I think that is probably a sensible way of doing it - it did seem a bit extreme that Letterpress is pure OpenGL. How much do you rely on QuartzCore/Core Animation rather than regular UIKit animation?

blackdogswe• 13 years ago

I'd say it's more that inspired by...

jazzychad6• 13 years ago

s'ok - I showed Loren before it launched, and he was cool with it :)

camflan• 13 years ago

for the sake of your own brand, I'd iterate that design so it doesn't look like a carbon copy. Either people will assume you ripped him off, or that it's another of his games, not yours.

nonchalance• 13 years ago

What do you get with the $1.99 upgrade ?

jazzychad6• 13 years ago

You can play more concurrent games and change themes (color schemes) in the app. The free version lets you have 2 concurrent games and use the basic theme.

sarreph• 13 years ago

I wonder where that idea came from...

spne2• 13 years ago

How is this game different from Quarto [1]?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto_(board_game)

jazzychad6• 13 years ago

It's not :) It is an app version of the same game. You're the first person who has made that connection in months of beta testing and showing people the app. I'm sure other people will recognize it as well, but I don't think it's as recognizable as was, say, Words With Friends was an app version of Scrabble.

spne2• 13 years ago

Quarto is a great game, and I think it's well suited for an app like this where you can take your time thinking about your turn. However, it would be nice to give the game designer some credit.

mratzloff• 13 years ago

Well, the first person that commented on it anyway. I made the connection as well. :-)

chubot• 13 years ago

Wish it didn't require iOS 6. I don't upgrade my iPad after previous updates made it slow.

umsm• 13 years ago

Usually, apple tries to improve firmware speed after they add features. I found that staying updated is the best policy.

nnnnni• 13 years ago

Unless you're trying to run iOS 7 on the iPhone 4 or iOS 6 (or was it 5?) on the 3G.

There are definitely times where it DOES NOT END WELL even though the device technically supports the upgrade.

A better policy is to wait for reports and then upgrade after a few weeks if they're positive.

sillysaurus2• 13 years ago

I upgraded from iOS 5 to 6 on my iPhone 4 and immediately regretted it. There are multi second delays with no visible feedback. Text boxes (such as the one I'm typing into) is almost completely broken in Chrome (by the update). iOS 5 was far superior to 6 and I wish I could downgrade easily.

spartango2• 13 years ago

I couldn't upgrade my iPad because it's the first generation one...Again, would love a non-iOS 6 version; what features of this app depend on iOS 6?

melling• 13 years ago

It's a $0-$2 app. It's not worth the effort to support an older generation of iOS. 93% of people have upgraded to iOS6.

The one thing Apple really got right was getting a large percentage of their users upgraded to their latest OS. Hope it goes as well for iOS7.

junto• 13 years ago

I'm in the same boat as you. I have an iPad 2 and since there is no easy downgrade I'm not prepared to move to iOS6 either.

I had a bad experience with my iPhone 3G. I had to jailbreak it just to downgrade back to a usable phone. That whole process took several hours of time, which I really don't have these days.

pbiggar• 13 years ago

Cool game, nicely done!

It wasn't that clear to me that I could play more than one game at a time though, might want to make it clearer. It's been a while since I played letterpress, but I recall I had dozens of games going at once there.

samelawrence• 13 years ago

Nice work, chad!

mdznr• 13 years ago

A little too "inspired"

joeblau• 13 years ago

Game looks awesome. I'm glad to see that you got everything put together and out there :).

Tetra for iOS - my new Letterpress-inspired board game app

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