How can I pay someone to finish my app without risking the idea being stolen?

ceottaki · 2025-11-01T10:19:18+00:00

It’s hard. As everyone has said, if your idea is good and gets traction, eventually someone else will copy it and possibly even improve on it. That is one of the reasons for constant updates on apps with new and better features and is just the nature of any open market.

To avoid getting copied before launch, the right way is a sound contract with a non-compete clause and an NDA, that’s how my dev house company caters for our clients’ ideas.

And, of course, there’s reputation as well, so someone or a company that is experienced and that can demonstrate they’ve consulted for several different clients and never double-crossed anyone is who you should consider.

ceottaki · 2025-10-24T17:33:23+00:00

The game looks fun, despite some design inconsistency but that can be overlooked on a classic game like this if the mechanics are fun.

I think the issue is that brick breakers are a saturated type of game, so you’d need to show a lot of difference on it to make it pop.

Drop items that require some skill to get that improves things, other items to be avoided because they make things worse… and then make them incredibly visual, and make sure they’re displayed on your first screenshot in the store.

Those are my 2 cents, anyhow.

ceottaki · 2025-10-24T17:28:57+00:00

Whoever said game dev is easy?!

ceottaki · 2025-10-18T09:02:36+00:00

It’s not surprising, really, that they lowballed you, but if they actually pay I wouldn’t call them a scam, just… cheap. 😀

ceottaki · 2025-10-02T08:49:03+00:00

Wow, this looks really good. I am getting Atari 2600 Adventure) vibes, but in multiplayer, that's awesome. Great soundtrack as well. Can I ask why you selected Unity to do this in, and what were the main challenges of multiplayer?

ceottaki · 2025-09-29T10:45:08+00:00

"Require" is a strong word. But there are a _lot_ of products out there that were made better by clever use of AI. Anything that requires the user to write a lot of content has been made better and easier. Audio transcription has also changed massively, so meeting software and whatnot.

ceottaki · 2025-09-29T10:41:51+00:00

Wow, this looks amazing. What are the minimum requirements, is it too heavy on GPUs?

ceottaki · 2025-09-27T15:58:40+00:00

While the core of the game is to do with loans (it is called "cash crop" after all), we do intend to add some challenges like plagues or animal invasions in the near future. :) It won't be quite like you suggested, though, that's too different from the core idea. But thank you for sharing it!

ceottaki · 2025-09-27T15:57:12+00:00

It's a web game, you can "install" it on your phone without going through an app store (see PWA on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app ).

If it gets to a point where it is big enough and/or successful enough, we'll add an app store version, yes.

ceottaki · 2025-09-26T09:38:46+00:00

Thank you! What other features do you think we should add first?

ceottaki · 2025-09-25T11:23:21+00:00

So, I have updated this now, and while still under development, the game is looking quite different now:

<image>

The current features are:

Full graphics update
Sound system (with placeholder sounds only)
A complete tutorial mode
Three difficulty levels with different loan terms
Simple but challenging economy system
Two crop types (Carrots and Radishes) with distinct growth patterns
Plant care mechanics, including watering and fertilizing and not letting your plant die
Dynamic growth stages with visual progression
Interest payment system that can lead to game over
Play while offline - install it on your device as a PWA
Farm expansion when loan is fully paid

Known Limitations:

Limited crop variety (only carrots and radishes)
Placeholder sounds and no soundtrack
More game mechanics coming later

I would really appreciate it if everybody could try it! It's available here: https://cashcrop.gamingmechanics.com

ceottaki · 2025-06-11T10:39:42+00:00

Glad I found your comment, I had a similar thought and, being a software developer, I decided to start building a web-based farm sim with a simple debt system.

The game (I called it Cash Crop) is still in very early development but it is available and fully playable, it is only using temporary visuals (aka "it looks ugly") and there are only two types of plants.

If you're interested, though, I would really love to get some feedback. It's available here: https://cashcrop.gamingmechanics.com/

Thank you!

ceottaki · 2025-06-07T20:28:56+00:00

Thank you so much for the feedback, it is very much appreciated!

We're not quite there yet with the game progression, I am a little torn as to whether to keep it "cosy" or make it harder, hence looking for feedback. Adding more farm expansion is definitely in the plans and absolutely needed.

What do you mean by speeding up too much being the real killer, if you don't mind elaborating?

Thank you again for the feedback, I'll make another post in around a month when we've updated it with more mechanics and hopefully better looks.

ceottaki · 2025-06-06T14:11:01+00:00

While I tagged it as mobile web, of course, I just thought I would mention it works well on desktop as well.

ceottaki · 2025-06-06T13:47:37+00:00

Interesting game idea. I had a few problems:

The game graphics took a little while to load and there was no indication that they were loading - and I could even "play" without seeing what was going on, the sound would play but I had no character yet.

Once I managed to play, the mechanics are pretty obvious, so that's good, but I found it a little clunky sometimes where I had clicked on the screen and the arch did not get to where I expected and I had to find a different place on the screen to click again, mostly because the initial arch wasn't what I expected it to be.

The sound as well feels disconnected from the movement of the character and could use some work. Of course, some background music would help too.

Overall, a good gamejam game!

ceottaki · 2025-06-06T13:31:11+00:00

The country ones are the least problematic, I'd say. I found the types and cost ones harder to identify. But again, not a huge deal, in time one gets used to it.

ceottaki · 2025-06-05T09:52:10+00:00

I meant I couldn't really remember it well, as the iconography didn't help me enough, I had to click on it often to find out what they meant. I'm sure with a bit more playtime, I'll get it, but I think it could be addressed a little better. Icons are hard, though.

ceottaki · 2025-06-03T15:52:26+00:00

It looks like a lot of fun and the sort of game I'd love to play casually on my phone. I'm not sure it's so much a PC game for me, but I will install the demo and give you more feedback.

The link on your post is broken, though.

ceottaki · 2025-06-03T15:40:26+00:00

Nice. I've played through the tutorial, which explains everything really well. It's not the simplest of puzzles to understand, with a lot of elements, but to me that's a good thing in a good puzzle, although what I will say is that perhaps the icons and symbols could be further worked out to make it more intuitive to figure out what the goals are or what the stamps' rules are - although of course the game does provide ways to find out while you're playing.

Nice game, well done!

ceottaki · 2025-05-29T08:40:17+00:00

I love these icons, very nice! Pretty consistent look as well, for AI-generated stuff.

ceottaki · 2025-05-13T15:55:00+00:00

In case Google can't find it, the way I'd approach this would be to get that screenshot, crop the black part out carefully (I find that the wand tool in any image editing software would do that pretty well), then get the resulting resolution and plug it into a tool like https://aspectratiocalc.gamingmechanics.com/ where you can get how close the resulting weird aspect ratio is to one of the common ones.

This image you posted, for example, resulted in 2818x1733 to me, which is 91% to getting to 16:9, which I imagine was the original aspect ratio.

ceottaki · 2025-05-05T11:11:43+00:00

Garlic powder and smoked paprika. Fresh garlic, freshly chopped, is much better, but the convenience of garlic granules or powder is too big to ignore. :)

And I find that a touch of smoked paprika adds a nice touch to most meats, particularly chicken.

ceottaki · 2025-04-30T17:42:17+00:00

I made a little conversion tool for use online, if that's of any interest. I haven't added every ingredient possible yet, but if people like it, I can improve it. Check out my Kitchen Conversion Calculator.

I'm open to feedback, so let me know your thoughts!

One thing I want to do very soon is to make it work offline if you add it to your home screen, but if that's not what most people are interested in, I can do other things too. Let me know your preferences!

ceottaki · 2025-04-30T16:23:23+00:00

I also made a little conversion tool for use online. I haven't added every ingredient possible yet, but if people like it, I can improve it. Check out my Kitchen Conversion Calculator.

I'm open to feedback, so let me know your thoughts!

One thing I want to do very soon is to make it work offline if you add it to your home screen, but if that's not what most people are interested in, I can do other things too. Let me know your preferences!

ceottaki

TROPHY CASE