Planning a TappedOut App for Android
TappedOut forum
Posted on Oct. 30, 2013, 3:53 p.m. by MinscAndBoo
Just a heads-up that I'm going to be developing a TappedOut app for Android OS. With yeaGO!'s permission of course!
A little background:
I'm a C#/C++ developer with some experience in Java, so I'm doing this partly to build up my skills. But mostly because TappedOut needs an awesome app! I had started building a Windows Phone version, but once Microsoft dropped WinPhone 7 support in Visual Studio, I decided to move to a more popular platform. My new phone is Android I must say, it pwns Windows pretty hard.
This will be developed in my spare time so please don't expect to see anything for a little while!
The first release is going to be pretty basic, so we can iterate on it and add features as we go. The most essential things (at least from my experience as a TO user) is checking notifications and viewing/cycling your decks, as well as looking up card prices for trades at your local game shop.
Planned for Alpha release:
View deck lists
View notifications
Search cards
Deck cycle / Deck Feature
This list will probably be amended as we discuss!
Planned for later releases:
Deck builder with voice support (just say "four x Selesnya Charm, four x Voice of Resurence"...etc, much easier than typing in your decks!)
Post in comments and forums
Trade binder
Life counter (because what MtG app doesn't have one?)
Full-featured play tester (only solo; no AI opponent, but it may have a few more brains such as recognizing enters-tapped lands.)
All other TappedOut site features!
Once we have something running I'll set up a site for beta testing. That will be a while; this is very much in the planning stages as I get up to speed on Android development.
Please add your ideas and suggestions! I'll necrobump this thread with status updates as planning and development progresses. And please let me know if Wizards send their hit men to my house, I wanna secure my collection before skipping town.
Thank you, holy savior. I'm constantly using it on my Droid and this is much overdo.
Although, I think the voice recognition might be a little over ambitious. So many ways to pronounce these made up words, it would take years to complete.
October 30, 2013 4:07 p.m.
MinscAndBoo says... #4
@RickyHoeppner Thanks--haven't decided about pricing yet, but I'd rather charge a few bucks for an ad-free app, since ads eat up valuable screen space on an already-small device. It's going to depend what Yeago lets me do, though.
October 30, 2013 4:08 p.m.
MinscAndBoo says... #5
@Jp3ngu1nb0y Haha thanks--depending on the voice APIs' sophistication, it might be easy or it might be really annoying. Definitely not a first-iteration feature, though!
October 30, 2013 4:08 p.m.
Maybe make payment work the same way as Tappedout? Limited use for free, but upgrade for extra goodies and that warm feeling inside. +karma
October 30, 2013 4:31 p.m.
I'd definitely pay a couple bucks for something like this.
October 30, 2013 4:37 p.m.
MinscAndBoo says... #9
@Jp3ngu1nb0y You know, that's a really good idea! We'll see; pricing can be figured out later. First I gotta build something XD
October 30, 2013 4:43 p.m.
Haha good point. I'm no good for code help (I took a Java class... once...), but if there's anything I can do to aid in the process just let me know!
October 30, 2013 4:49 p.m.
smash10101 says... #12
I think having a trade thing using tcg prices is pretty much necessary to compete in the MTG app market. The app most of my friends use is MTF Familiar (I think) and has a very good one. Life counter is also essential, as is card search (with errata and gatherer rulings). As for T/O specific, just a mobile version of the site with an improved interface sounds good, at least for the first iteration. I have no clue how hard it is to do this in tandem with Android, but I think an iPhone/iPad version would be good too.
October 30, 2013 5:08 p.m.
MinscAndBoo says... #13
@user:smash10101 Definitely, the trade with card prices is essential; I use Familiar and it made trading a lot less stressful; I no longer have to worry about getting ripped off!
October 30, 2013 5:18 p.m.
MinscAndBoo says... #16
Chubbub iOS may be developed in the future; the first release is gonna be Android. It's going to be enough of a learning curve making an app for one platform, later on hope to do cross-platform using mvvmcross. Since I have a PC, developing for Mac would require a dual boot/VM which I don't want to invest time/money in at the moment.
This isn't to knock iOS, it's just gonna be much easier to develop for Android starting off. Sorry about that!
October 30, 2013 6:06 p.m.
VinylScratch says... #18
What would be helpful is a deck checklist so you can check off what cards you have in your deck so that when you go your local game store you can see exactly what you need to buy and how many of them.
October 30, 2013 10:11 p.m.
MinscAndBoo says... #21
It is still planned; I'm studying up on Android app development at the moment (I come from a C# .NET background). Once the self-paced training is complete (few months probably) the real fun begins! At least for now the website is a bit more mobile-friendly.
March 4, 2014 11:25 a.m.
megawurmple says... #22
I'd pay for this, any day of the week. The mobile site is okay, but an app would be awesome.
RickyHoeppner says... #2
I would pay for this app, I spend so much time in the browser on my phone for this site. This would help so much. If you charged for it, it could go into development of it too.
October 30, 2013 3:59 p.m.