The last thing I posted was announcing Rizer Messenger – an iPhone to iPhone instant messenger to enable people with iPhones to communicate for free. But just before Christmas, I decided that this was not the way I should be going, so took the tough decision to stop active development on it. Here’s why:

I started making my messenger client (let’s face it, I needed to come up with a better name!) when there was just one competitor. I knew I needed to be quick, but I didn’t quite realise how quick I needed to be developing this. Now I’ve lost count as to how many direct competitors there are, most of which have more features than I would have launched with and many of which are free – just not a viable option for me. I felt like I couldn’t keep up with the rapid development that these people who had a good head start on me where making. So I quit.

“Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.” – Seth Godin, The Dip

Quitting so often is looked upon as something to be ashamed of, but sometimes it just makes sense! There are times where the best thing you can possibly do to succeed is to give up. Change your plan. Go down another route. I guess it’s a shame in some ways the the messenger app didn’t work out, but actually I’m really glad I didn’t keep going. I learnt a heck of a lot, and I’m now working on a whole new app. This time it’s a game, which is what I really wanted to be doing from the outset. I’ve really thrown myself into this new project this week, and it’s already pretty much playable in it’s most basic form. I’m reenergised to do something awesome, and I’ve let my creativity fly.

The new game is going to be a simple, casual mathematical challenge game, building off the popularity of things like SuDoku and Brain Training. And because I’m having fun with this, I’ve been working on the characters, back story and game design! I’ll be posting more details and development ‘snapshots’ every week up to release. Cannot wait for release day!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 19:50 and is filed under Casual Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.