Fix, polish and publish
Make the daily puzzle the same for everyone, and not repeat before the pool is used up
Friends compare results, but one sees a different puzzle because of the time zone, a random pick repeats yesterday's puzzle, or days before the start date give a broken number. This entry shows how to make the AI choose one puzzle per day, the same on every phone.
Fix a daily login streak that resets by mistake or can be claimed twice in a day
Players lose a long streak because they travelled, played just after midnight or changed the clock, and others collect twice. Timestamps are the trap here. This entry shows how to make the AI compare calendar days instead and give a fair rule for a missed day.
Players say my horror scenes are just black and they cannot see anything
Dark is the point of the genre, but a screen where nothing can be made out is a bug. Here is a way to measure a picture the way a player's eye would, say whether it is too dark, and how much brighter it has to be without losing the mood.
Long lines of dialogue run out of the text box
Some lines fit the box, some spill over the edge, and some leave a single lonely line on the next page. Here is how your AI should break text into lines and pages so that nothing is cut off and the last page never holds just one orphan line.
Stop a double tap on a phone from buying or spending something twice
A fast second tap on a buy, upgrade or continue button takes the money twice or opens two windows. A simple delay is the usual answer and it causes its own bug. This entry shows how to make the AI ignore only the accidental tap and let honest fast play through.
I do not know how long my branching story takes to play
A store page needs a playing time, but a story with branches has a shortest and a longest way through, and counting all words together gives a number no player will ever see. Here is how to work out both ends from the scenes, and what to do with loops.
Hallucinations and screen effects flicker on and off when sanity hovers near a limit
When the fear effect switches on below one value and off above the same value, a number that wobbles around it makes the screen stutter. Here is how to give each level a separate way in and way out, so effects stay on until the player has really recovered.
Tell a tap, a long press, a swipe and a drag apart on a touch screen
A finger is never perfectly still, so a tap turns into a tiny drag, a swipe fires a tap, or a held piece is picked up by accident. This entry shows how to make the AI sort one finger movement into exactly one kind, with rules that work on every screen density.
Flashing lights in my horror scene might hurt players who are sensitive to them
Strobing lightning and flickering lamps are a horror staple, but fast flashing can be a real problem for some people. Here is a check for how many flashes a scene packs into any one second, and a way to space them out without rewriting the scene.
Some letters and quote marks show as empty boxes in my game
A stylish font often lacks the curly quotes, the dash or the special letters your story uses, and the player sees boxes where words should be. Here is how to compare the text of the whole game with what the font can draw and get a list of the culprits.
Estimate how much picture memory your game needs before an old phone runs out
The game files look small, yet on an older phone the game closes by itself or goes black. The pictures take far more room once opened than they do as files. This entry shows how to make the AI add up the real memory cost of every picture and warn you early.
Fix a game that gets cut off or stretched when the phone is turned
The picture was drawn for one screen shape, but phones come in many shapes and turn around. Without care the game is cut off, stretched, or blurry. This entry shows how to make the AI scale the game to fit any screen, keep its proportions and stay sharp.