QUAD - Color Match Puzzle
Released!
I just self-published a game called QUAD - Color Match Puzzle at iOS AppStore for iPhone and iPad, PlayStore for Android Phone and tablet, Mac AppStore, Microsoft Store for Windows PC, and itch.io.
If you want to try out, here are the links:
Fun fact, the gameplay looks like 2D, but it’s 3D scene with ortho projection. I made directional light to rotate around the scene in order to animate subtle triangle’s color/shape changes.
Postmortem
I had this puzzle idea quite a while, but I wasn’t sure how to actually make it as a game. I took a simplest form and made it as a block puzzle. The initial prototype took 7-8 days. Polish and self-publishing process took another 2-3 weeks.
I had a wrong impression about Blueprint for so long. I always doubted node style scripting with respect to long term maintenance and debuggability. The prejudice came from the fact that I’m a long time C++ lover and I love using Github Copilot (It works so well for Unreal projects!).
After this project, I changed my mind. I made this game with 98% Blueprint and 2% C++. Development iteration is so much faster. Visual debugging is much clearer to see what’s happening. Although visual debuggin isn’t enough, I had a lot of “Print String” Blueprint nodes to log almost
everything to track down bugs. And, oh gosh, asynchronous programming is a lot easier and faster with graph based scripting! This is definitely unexpected. I guess I’m very slow to understand these things. I have used Blueprint before but I didn’t realize how it can improve the way
asynchronous programming can be done and understood. Also, LE Extended Standard Library made the async programming even easier with Latent Action class.
I discovered two issues with UE 5.3.1 for mac packaging:
I found iOS packaging + submission experience gotten a lot better with modernized Xcode setup since UE 5.3. I wish the same setup is possible for other platforms as well 
For both iOS and Mac, there is an issue with the generated project file. The engine’s template Asset.xcasset file is linked to the project. I was unknowingly modifying the engine’s template file for icon setup. I had to manually create another Asset.xcasset file and replace the link to correct the issue.
Releasing to Microsoft Store was quite interesting. This was the first time uploading anything to that store. I had to create a EXE installer first, then repackage the installer with MSIX package tool. Something very odd about the process is that a certain set of information the MSIX package tool asks is completely unknown and not mentioned anywhere. But, after uploading, the store dashboard errors out with those set of information, so I had to “modify” the package with the same tool to copy and paste the information and repackage the deliverable. I’m guessing Windows Visual Studio automatically does this for UWP apps?
Next
I’m going to polish more and add more game modes. If there are indie solo devs who made successful projects, I wonder how they market the project beyond ameliorating the quality and gameplay. Any suggestions?