Top 5 posts of 2021

The A Bit Gamey blog is 4 months old now. Even though most babies would not expect their first personal review at this age, I think it is time for my blog. As I said at the time of it’s birth:

"My aim is to share my journey as I attempt to develop fun and useful mobile apps, e.g. Scarper (Switch up gravity game), Aim For (Personal effectiveness) and Nip To (Toilets and other public amenities on a map)."

Since the first Hi, I’m A Bit Gamey blog post, there have been 15 others, emailed out every Sunday morning. I am grateful to my 300 subscribers.

Thank you to Austin Kleon and Ali Abdaal who inspired me to start the A Bit Gamey blog in the first place.

Top 5 posts

1) How I generate app ideas A good app is one that meets the currently unmet needs of a group of people that you wish to serve. If you plan to make money from your app then you need to deliver value that users are prepared to pay for. Monetisation techniques will be the subject of a future post. In this blog I share three ways to come up with ideas for an app.

2) Ideas vs Execution I have brilliant ideas that are going to make my fortune and I’m sure you do too. At least, that’s what we think. The aim of this post is to convince you that testing and executing an idea is what releases its real value.

3) User type needs This post shares my belief that users can be categorised into four types and, by doing so, apps can be designed to provide highly engaging experiences.

4) Hooking users Why do some products grab our attention while many others fail to do so? What turns us into habitual users? What can mobile app developers do to improve their prospects of hooking users? This post addresses these questions by drawing on insights from the Hook Model described in Nir Eyal’s book Hooked.

5) Android or iOS first? This post explains why I chose to develop my apps on Apple’s iOS platform first and the alternative development options available.

Other resources

Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

How writing online made me a millionaire by Ali Abdaal

Phil Martin’s books by Phil Martin

This post shared the top 5 A Bit Gamey blog posts of 2021.

I wish you a very Christmas and New Year break. Here’s to all the possibilities that 2022 can bring.

Phil…