Si digital News | App
Adam’s Apple’s Game Of The Day
A game designed and built by our youngest developer
At Si digital, we always want to do as much as we can to help up-and-coming developers. As part of this, we regularly attend EBP South career events, giving talks on roles in development and chatting to young people about the work we do. This was precisely how we met Adam, who was just 13 years old at the time. With bucket-loads of enthusiasm, Adam came to Si digital for two work experience placements and was clearly incredibly talented. Fast forward a few years and when Adam applied for one of our vacancies, we were delighted to offer him a developer role. It has been genuinely fantastic to see Adam grow and develop his skills.
A gaming Mastermine
Adam’s progression was such that when he told us a game he’d built at home, Mastermine, had been featured as Apple’s Game of the Day, we weren’t surprised. If you don’t know Game of the Day, it’s where Apple’s editorial team decides which game is worthy of being showcased in the App Store, making it easier to discover and promote downloads. It’s a massive deal.
Adam came up with the idea for Mastermine while playing 2D Minesweeper, when he noticed the Rubik’s Cube on his desk - that’s when the cogs started to turn. He started working on a prototype as a hobby a few years ago, but couldn’t give it the time or attention it needed. Lockdown changed that; suddenly Adam had loads of free time and was able to finish it. Mastermine itself is a classic 2D puzzle, but in a new dimension.
The game times how long it takes to complete and compares with other players, then this information is captured on a leader-board. At one point, there were 50,000 players competing against each other. It also offers different game modes, unlockable moves, personal challenges and customisable cubes, so there’s a lot going on.
Shortlisted by Apple
Apple emailed Adam to let him know that his game had been shortlisted and asked for creative elements. That in itself was exciting enough. Unbelievably, they didn’t tell him that Mastermine had been chosen as Game of the Day, so he didn’t know until he experienced a wave of new downloads.
When he investigated the cause, he found the feature on the App Store. Of course, he thought it was amazing and couldn’t believe his game was favourably reviewed by the experts at Apple (“No matter how many rounds you play, Mastermine always feels fresh. It’s a total blast”). Afterwards, they provided Adam with some statistics: a mind-blowing 24 million people viewed the feature!
What happened next?
With such high profile promotion as that, downloads went crazy and have neared the 100k mark. Here are some other ridiculously cool stats about Mastermine: to date, 3 million cube puzzles have been played, the time spent solving puzzles adds up to two years and for every second there’s a minute of play. Amazing!
We are so proud of Adam for this incredible accomplishment … and what he did next. As we said at the beginning, Si digital prides itself on nurturing young talent, so when we say that Adam has since moved on to work for one of the world’s biggest and best known tech companies (Google it), it’s not with total sadness. In fact, it fills us with joy and pride, and we wish him well from the bottom of our hearts.
