Scory

Inspiration

I play a lot of board games, and my friends and I frequently had to resort to pen and paper or a basic note app to keep track of scores, which was quite frustrating. We tried several apps, but none met our specific needs, so I decided to create my own.

What it Does

Scory offers two main options for score tracking plus a utilities screen featuring a timer, dice roll, and random player selection. While the utilities are a nice addition, the core functionality lies in score tracking:

• Quick Score: Ideal for fast setup, allowing players to be added with one tap. You can easily adjust scores by adding or removing points or setting a specific score.
• Sheet Score: Designed for more detailed games where tracking points across different rounds is necessary. The UI remains simple; you input scores in a table format for each round. The game can also handle a specific number of rounds or set a maximum number of points to declare a winner once this threshold is met.

How We Built It

I developed Scory using React Native with Expo, drawing UI inspiration from other apps while enhancing the user experience. Since the app was mostly for myself and my friends I could easily test it with them and have feedback really quickly to improve it.

Challenges We Ran Into

The primary challenges were technical, particularly with React Native when the app became slow and laggy under rapid updates with many players. Initially, I experimented with a new state manager which I wasn't familiar with, leading to performance issues. Switching back to Redux, which I knew how to optimize, resolved these problems.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

I'm particularly proud of how quickly I managed to take Scory from concept to release on both Android and iOS platforms—less than a month while juggling a full-time job. The positive reception from users, including some who purchased the ad-free version, has been very gratifying.

What We Learned

This was my first solo app project from scratch, teaching me a lot about in-app purchases, advertising, app marketing, and the importance of community engagement through platforms like Twitter's build-in-public community.

What's Next for Scory

For now, Scory serves its purpose well, but I'm considering adding an onboarding process to possibly increase conversions to the paid version. A highly requested feature I'm looking to implement is game sharing, where users can share a game session via QR code or a unique code, allowing everyone to update their own scores collaboratively.

Built With

• expo.io
• react-native