A screenshot celebrating the 2.0 release of LOSER - A Word Game for Apple platforms. It is free for 24 hours.

A screenshot further celebrating the 2.0 release of LOSER - A Word Game for Apple platforms.

🚨The massive 2.0 update of my app, LOSER - A Word Game, is out now & to celebrate I am making it ✨COMPLETELY FREE✨ for the next 24 hours!

💅No catch. No caveats. No ads. No limits. No data collection.

💙Download LOSER today & it’s yours to play and keep. Forever.

🔗 apps.apple.com/us/app/loser...

The Biggest App Store Algorithm Change is Here - This is What You Need to Know We reverse engineered a big ASO change to the App Store that's impacting thousands of apps and here's what we know.

"Apple is now extracting text from your screenshot captions with OCR and treating that text as part of your keyword metadata." by @arielmichaeli.bsky.social

#ASO article: appfigures.com/resources/gu...

Just deployed a lil' first draft accessibility page for LOSER. Seemed like an easy win, especially since Apple is letting us link to pages like this in our App Store listings now. Really having a blast working on a11y features 🥰 #WWDC25 ninolindo.dev/accessibilit...

A screenshot of AppStoreConnect that shows the supported accessibility features of "LOSER - A Word Game".

Published my first set of App Accessibility details for LOSER on AppStoreConnect a little bit ago. *And* a few more a11y options are in the works that I am hoping to release soon 😉 I love that Apple is allowing us devs to showcase this. #WWDC25

A screenshot of API documentation from Apple. The document is for the GKGameCenterViewController symbol.

A screenshot of API documentation from Apple. The document is for the GKAccessPoint symbol.

More GameKit observations: tons of symbols like GKGameCenterViewController are now deprecated. And I can't find any obvious replacement APIs so I am thinking Apple now prefers us to build our own UI for in-game achievement & leaderboard browsing? GKAccessPoint is still supported though. #WWDC25

A screenshot of API documentation from Apple. The document title is "Creating engaging challenges from leaderboards”.

A screenshot of documentation from Apple. The document is for the new "GKChallengeDefinition" API.

The new Challenges API added to GameKit looks fun & nifty. Love that Challenges are based on Leaderboards so you get a lot of things for "free" if your game has already integrated with Leaderboards. #WWDC25

Cold Take: my beef with LLMs (minus ethical/environmental concerns) is their overuse. AI is an incredible new arrow in our quiver but the hype cycle has us trying to use it for *everything*, often when it doesn’t make sense. This isn’t a novel sentiment at all but woo baby it exhausts me.

A screenshot of an iOS Home Screen with 28 shortcuts to LOSER-A Word Game.

Kids: you got any games on your phone???

Me: yes.

My game is literally 1/80th the cost of the new Mario Kart game 😇 Hint hint nudge nudge

I think this is an alright score for my very first game? It was fun :)

Oh and there are other more relaxed game modes too for the folks who don’t want their blood pressure to be elevated 😅

‎LOSER - A Word Game ‎Introducing LOSER, the all-new word game that offers unlimited playing, an array of exciting modes, and a variety of challenging difficulty levels. Crafted with care by a solo developer, LOSER promis...

P.S. I made this game and it’s currently only $0.99 on the App Store. Go buy and see how many words you can solve before the timer expires. apple.co/4hzkjAe

A screenshot of Time Trial mode results in “LOSER - A Word Game” for iOS.

Not awful for being out of practice on Time Trial mode but dang… that feeling of panic when the timer starts to get low. It’s a genuinely satisfying feeling when your own game humbles you.

If you see this, post your Lock Screen

I see no flaws here

I tried changing my ways but we just can’t quit it.

I use “we” in comments and commits in private-to-just-me repositories. And I won’t be taking any questions about it, thanks.

Finally started using a custom `PreviewModifier` for my SwiftUI previews that caches a preview-specific `ModelContainer`. Not sure if I am actually seeing a performance improvement from said changes or if I'm just confirmation biasing. #iWantToBelieve

A screenshot of the top paid word games on the App Store, with “LOSER - A Word Game” at rank 15.

Since dropping the price of LOSER-A Word Game to $0.99 it’s been steadily climbing the top paid word games chart (currently at #15!). Super exciting, tons of gratitude for all the folks willing to try my game. Makes me extra excited for my eventual next big update! 💙

An App Store screenshot of a five star review of “LOSER-A Word Game.”

One of my goals is for LOSER to respect your time, money, privacy, and device. Here’s what one recent player has to say about their experience🥰

‎LOSER - A Word Game ‎Introducing LOSER, the all-new word game that offers unlimited playing, an array of exciting modes, and a variety of challenging difficulty levels. Crafted with care by a solo developer, LOSER promis...

I just dropped the price of my game to $0.99, be a Loser and go buy it now apple.co/4hzkjAe

Happy copyright update day

A summary of word solve stats in "LOSER - A Word Game" in 2024.

My 2024 LOSER stats. I blame debugging for all 85 of my failed words 😇

Come play LOSER - A Word Game (my game!) with me this morning. I'll be live on YouTube chatting about software, word games, and 2025 plans 💙 youtube.com/live/5pYKa4C...

Yeah they seem nifty and I can imagine a couple of my existing code bits where they could be swapped in. Just need to remember to reach for them!

+1 to this. And FWIW I see a lot of other apps doing the same thing. Haven't yet been tripped up by any esoteric rules.

I keep forgetting I can use Typed Throws now in Swift 6. Still haven't figured out how useful they are in practice but I'll never find out if I keep forgetting to incorporate them.

Livestreaming SwiftUI for charity Help Paul Hudson raise money to support Julian House

December 22nd is my birthday, and once again I’ll be live streaming building a SwiftUI app from scratch to raise money for charity!

- Watch the stream here: https://buff.ly/4grWMjo
- Donate to my nominated charity here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/swiftui-birthd…

Anecdotal tip for persistent Xcode preview crashes: if clean builds & derived data wiping doesn't work then try making a lil' change to your preview code. For me this hits the preview engine with a metaphorical hammer & things start working again. I assume it acts like a form of cache busting but 🤷🏽‍♂️