Indie Log #4

I temporarily stopped developing Writeflow to focus on another project for the rest of the summer vacation. This project is a simple tool for my friends and me when we play a game together. We usually hang out in a PC방, a facility with many computers for public use, where we like to play League of Legends. We compete for the highest total damage dealt to champions score. After each match, we record the ranking to determine who is the worst player overall. If someone has better game skills, we impose a penalty that decreases their score. It's a hassle because we have to calculate it and write it down every time to see who is the worst. So I made it automatic, and I’m going to show you how it works.

Site URL: https://knifewind.com

Knifewind

Knifewind is a translated word (in Konglish, a mix of Korean and English) for 칼바람, which is the map name "The Howling Abyss" in English. The main page looks like this:

I can input my game name and friend's name here. If I click the button below, I will be taken to the statistics page.

I can share this page's URL with my friends to show them the ranking stats and see real-time updates together. After each game, I can click the button below to update it, and then the server fetches the Riot API to get the match result, including our scores and calculate it in the client side.

That's it. I just automated what I used to do manually. It took 3 days to build main features.

Marketing

I think marketing is the hardest part of making a product. I’ve been using this app for about 2 weeks, and it worked well for me and my friends, but I wasn’t sure if it would work for others. I had to tell others about this project, but I wasn't part of any LOL communities, so I didn’t know how to reach them.

The first thing I tried to promote it was sending a link in the lobby chat, pretending to talk to my friends to make my other game teammates curious. Sometimes it worked, but nobody has used it.

And then I posted a promotion article where many people can see it.

https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=howlingabyss&no=256024&page=2

I've never written a post on internet communities before, so it was pretty nerve-wracking and horrifying for me. As expected, some comments were offensive, which pissed me off at first. After some time, though, I was thankful for them because they were feedback.

Even with this promotion, only a few people visited my site, and no one has played yet. But it’s okay—I was encouraged by good comments and learned there is no need to fear showing my work. I’d rather make this app better, and I will upload another promotion post soon.