Project 1 - MTG - Update 0
Creating a MTG life counter app may seem simple... That's because it is.
The beginning
It's an MTG app! Make a session. Ask how many users and a starting life. Throw up life boxes! It's that easy.
However, I want it to be pre-loaded offline and just a web app. PWA for the win. I think that this should be a pretty easy single page app to make into a PWA so I am hopeful that it is a quick thing to throw together.
Gotta make it pretty though! Maybe I will use a color palette from somewhere...
Making it harder
I want to support command damage, poison damage, monarch status...
I am not totally sure how to do all of these things best. Maybe a quick button in the corner of the user card so that you can assign damage? Then when a type is active it can be on the main screen.
Maybe command damage will be displayed on the bottom.
Making it even harder
The final state of this web app is going to be multi-client support. I want to be able to have a person add their session on their phone and be able to control their user counter themselves. Even control command damage/other stats independently.
The idea behind this will be that it allows people to not actually have to interact with the "main" device. You could even throw the life counter up on a TV or something without losing functionality.
That actually gave me the idea for something like a multi-session summary page...
Either way, the multi-client support shouldn't be too hard to implement. I do think that it will have to be an explicit option in setup so that it is an opt-in process rather than an always-on one. This will allow simpler interactions with the PWA process and allow me to run lower server overhead.
Should I even monetize?
I think that I should make a goal to monetize everything that I run. I don't want banner ads or anything though. I think I should throw my "Buy Me A Coffee" in the settings page for sure...
Maybe when a new game is created have an option pop up to watch and ad to help me out? I think that would be the simplest way to throw ad revenue in there that is non-obstructive. That is probably what I will throw in there after I put in the status counter functionality... I think the base counter can survive without basically any overhead 😂.
Final thoughts
I am excited to do this project. I think that throwing it together will be a lot of fun and I know I am not doing anything too groundbreaking here. (That's part of why I don't mind talking about it on here. Not to mention, no one actually reads this).
I am hoping to have my basic MTG life counter app deployed by the end of this weekend. Should be a fun little project to throw together and self host. I will have a few friends use it if they are willing and see where it goes from there!
