Hundreds of lines of computer code filled seniors Ben Ruelas and Brian Witham’s Macbook Pro. In a preview screen pixelated stars moved from the top of a window to the bottom. Enthusiastically, the two coding friends screamed in excitement as they had just made their game work.
“I can’t tell you how much yelling and anger goes into making an app,” Witham said. “You just push through it.”
“Starry Night!” was the first application created by the duo, who hold Co-CEO titles at their gaming company B&B Games. Gameplay functions around stars falling from the top of the screen to the bottom. The object of the game is to tap the stars before they exit the screen. While it sounds simple, the game has proven difficult but addicting for gamers like senior Nicole Clark.
“I think it’s addicting when my high score is bad,” Clark said. “I want to beat my friend’s high scores.”
The game was coded using Apple’s Swift program and XCode 6.2 over the course of a month. Learning the software presented a challenge to Ruelas.
“Learning a brand new computer programming language that I’ve never really seen before was probably the most difficult part,” Ruelas said. “Also creating the game to be fun, challenging, aggravating, and addicting all at the same time so players would play over and over again.”
The fledgling company has set an income goal of $300,000 for the first month. The team makes money from iAds placed in the game. Averaging thousands of downloads a day including 10,000 on May 12 gives B&B Games an optimistic outlook on the future of the company. They plan to launch on Android the week of May 10, which Witham hopes will propel the game to Flappy Bird heights.
“We didn’t expect this to be anywhere where it is so far,” Witham said. “It took Flappy Bird a year to get where it was and we are already on our way there.”
Students at Legacy have been instrumental in the game’s success, encouraging people via Twitter to download the app. The company hasn’t had to advertise the game since the game has spread entirely by word of mouth.
“With success there is haters, we get a bunch of haters,” Witham said “and to see people supporting us, that’s amazing.”
