Working for a client? Advice and tips pelase :)

jay2dx

Hi Guys, hoping someone with some experience in this can help.

So I’ve been approached to produce a few flash card apps and unsure about some things.
I’ve a few questions that I hope someone with experience in this can help me with:

So:

1: If I produce the app with my own PRO GS account, can I link it to the clients Apple developer profile when publishing through my GS account.?

Or does the client need a PRO GS account linked to their Apple developer account for publishing?

2: Would it be best to develop the app and publish to my own Apple developer account then transfer it to the clients Apple developer account?

3: I’ve quoted £500 for the first app “without art” and subsequent apps will be lower due to the game code and interface mechanics already being developed.

4: if you have made a flashcard app using tables, what are the current issues in the latest version of GS that I should be aware of? If any! do they work with android!?

End note: if you help me out with my queries I’d be happy to do a little bit of free art for you in exchange for the advice. First come first served though.

thanks in advance..

The_Gamesalad_Guru

If the client doesn't mind you can put their certs on your machine and then publish it out on your machine. To me the easiest method would be to do the transfer. The only thing about tables is to be sure you never try calling a row/column 0 when using attributes to call a value. It should work fine on android but android is always a crap shoot just because of the high number of different versions of android out there.

jay2dx

@Lost_Oasis_Games thank you, Yeah the client doesn't even have a developer account at this point so I'd have to do that for the too,

And your probably right about just doing the transfer! Never done that before so unsure about the lead time for it,

Again thanks for the help so far

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I believe it happens right away or not too long maybe a few hours.

kolabo

I've used the first method a few times with success: my client gave me admin access to their Apple developer account so I could make and install the certs on my machine. I set this up as a new user on my mac. That helped to keep everything in order and clean.

It was a little tough to get right, but once set up, worked great. @Lost_Oasis_Games had a video tutorial that helped.
A plus to this method is that updating the games was really easy later on.

I agree a transfer is probably easier to do, but I'm not sure how you would handle game updates if needed. Something to think about.

jay2dx

@kolabo thanks for the heads up on updates, that didn't cross my mind! I'm going to have to set up their Apple dev account anways so that method won't really be a problem so mite go down that route but will read up on updates and app transfers etc on the apple documentation.

@Lost_Oasis_Games thanks again

Nice one

jay2dx

@kolabo update on that, reading the docs it looks like you can update a transferred app but you need the clients credentials, the same bundle identifier is used but a new provisioning profile is required,

So if updates are expected it's probably wise to just publish to the clients Apple dev account in the first instance, but if your selling the app out right and expect to Have no further involvement I'd just transfer it maybe!

kolabo

@jay2dx said:

So if updates are expected it's probably wise to just publish to the clients Apple dev account in the first instance, but if your selling the app out right and expect to Have no further involvement I'd just transfer it maybe!

That makes sense for me.

Armelline

@jay2dx said:
1: If I produce the app with my own PRO GS account, can I link it to the clients Apple developer profile when publishing through my GS account.?

As Guru says, technically yes, but it costs $30 to buy a month of Pro and publish the apps themselves. This is much easier, and I'd personally charge a client much more than $30 for the hassle of setting up their certificates etc. It also gives them the option of doing updates without needing your later involvement.

If they're paying you to set up their dev account anyway, though, it might be easier to just publish the game yourself. I find that most clients prefer to handle that bit, though, even if they think they don't want to at the start. I'll typically charge someone between £25-75 to walk them through setting everything up, from applying for their account to uploading and submitting their first game. The cost varies a lot as some people are much easier to help than others!

2: Would it be best to develop the app and publish to my own Apple developer account then transfer it to the clients Apple developer account?

No, but it is an option.

3: I’ve quoted £500 for the first app “without art” and subsequent apps will be lower due to the game code and interface mechanics already being developed.

Depending on the complexity of the game, this seems pretty reasonable. People get a pretty decent app from me for £500 - I'd expect to spend about 25 hours for that cost, and you can make a pretty decent game in 25 hours.

4: if you have made a flashcard app using tables, what are the current issues in the latest version of GS that I should be aware of? If any! do they work with android!?

There are no table issues that I'm aware of that will affect it, other than HTML5 table issues. There's quite a few with HTML5. There is one table issue worth remembering with GS in general, and that's that you need to use numeric expressions when checking booleans in tables, as string expressions won't work. So:

When tableCellValue(table,1,1) is 1

not

When tableCellValue(table,1,1,) is true

jay2dx

@Armelline thank you for all the help friend, some great advice there