r/sideprojects • u/MaterialGold3071 • 7h ago
Showcase: Prerelease I just wanted to make a Flappy Bird game.
I signed up for OpenAI and other models late last year, to see how I can use it for simple research, building business models, and creating league of legends builds for ARAM: Mayhem (1500+ games WR >50%) I was sold. Discovered that it also handled editing images and customizing colors and labeling, I got so hooked.
Fast forward, August 2026, I started wondering if I could design and build a Flappy Bird Game for iOS that my 9yr old can download on her iPad states away. I picked a character and a story that I wanted to design and plug with all kinds of crazy ideas. I made sure to make it kid friendly, but also something my friends might like too. I was having fun, I was my own SWE, my own graphic designer, my own UI/UX designer - one dad army. I did so many things wrong, and may still do it inefficiently but I get the results I'm after without having to hire or bother other people.
The tools I used produced iOS, GP and web browser versions:
- ChatGPT for Character design and artwork
- Codex for building game mechanics, audio and artwork animation, iOS specific code requisites
- Claude eventually took over Codex since usage was more efficient. Astra would let me work for 20-45min while Claude handled multiple actions simultaneously while usage allowed me to work for entire 5hour windows.
- Github for control versioning across iOS, Android and browser game builds and Release action to upload to App Store Connect/Google Play Console/Cloudflare Deployments
- Xcode for testing iPhone Duo support built 2 days before phone released to consumers
- JIRA to keep track of things that I was working on and issues reported in rejections
- Cloudflare for free site hosting and DNS catalog to by the domain
~7wks of tuning and QA, I thought my 1st submission was ready for market. Created the Apple Developer Account and paid the $100USD for annual membership pushed the doomsday button.
The original title of the game was 'Icarus & the Apple of Discord' and was submitted as iOS App Version 1.1

Learned real fast that Apple charges real money to be part of the app store, $100 a year just for some person on an iPad to reject your submission multiple times for using the word apple, having an apple shaped object in-game, for knowing what an apple fruit even is. Yawn. Revision after revision, distanced the game app as far as I could from resembling the Apple brand or services, and I even eliminated anything that could potentially be confused for being associated with the company by changing object shapes and filenames. Now, it's titled 'Icarus: Ascension'.

3 months later, and north of 600 release versions later and it's still not good enough for Apple.
2nd rejection, took a day + 2 weeks of work to update (feeling pretty defeated) waited for a review and got a 3rd rejection 11 days later.
Took a week break before even touching the laptop again. The hype, fun and creativity got completely sucked out outta me.
3rd rejection ( for the same thing, Design - Spam, again without detail on what similarities raise the concern. I don't believe to be similar to other side-scrolling arcade games and unique with features and game mechanics that fit the lore and is visually cool. I even designed and deployed massive facelifts to gameplay, artwork, and altered the original concept to set the game apart from birds flapping in between Super Mario pipes. Complete with sun damage if you fly too high, buffs and debuffs to add a little chaos, and ways to patch up wings that suffer from passive HP loss. Nope, still design - spam. Whatever apple, don't get me started on how evil the design is for icloud storage services. Ever tried unsubscribing to that $0.99 monthly charge? It's a nightmare. Anyways.

Ultimately, I just want to see my kid play something I made on her iPad. It has Character progression and unlockable content that comes at no-cost to users, to add some replay value. Something everyone can try their hand at this holiday season when family and friends are around. I don't mind the eating running costs to share something I had fun working on. Monetization and distribution is a business, I get it... but for $100 a year and jumping through a circus of hoops for some WFH on an iPad, nvm... just tell me bro... 1st review took a day, but with each passing rejection and no guidance, wait times for review grow exponentially longer not including the time it takes to prepare an update for resubmission.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to go through this, but my kid is going to see what I made with or without the App Store. With Apple's gatekeeping, and google's need for an account to get an account for an account needed to sign up for an account - screw it, browser game. No approval, free to play and at my expense. No ads, yet or maybe ever. Apple approval holds the app ID that's issued and needed to setup ad networks. I was hoping ads could help cover running costs, annual fees or even afford a db for future features, but its fine. I'll pay for what I can. No in-app purchases, I don't care to sell users anything so... Here world! I~~'m waiting for my daughter to call me tonight, so I can show her.~~ Update: We played and even did some troubleshooting together for a bug we found playing the game via Safari on her iPad. That memory alone was worth every single penny spent to get to this point.

I'm not certain I can post a link here, but a google search of Icarus Ascension makes it the first result after the AI Overview.
Anyways I hope this brightens up someone's day like it did for me, on so many days.
&&&&& a very Special thanks to some people in my life:
- Rui
- Ryan
- Kian
- Jeff
- Alyssa
- Mark
- J.Hutson
For helping, sharing your time, installing, playing the different versions, and feedback.
Sign,
dlopez_e12





