I thought building the apps was going to be the hard part.

LOL.

For the last three weeks, I have been trying to get The Hardest through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store process, and I have a whole new level of respect for anybody who has successfully gotten an app published.

Because holy crap.

There are SO MANY LITTLE THINGS.

And I don't mean little things like, "Oh, I forgot to upload an icon."

I mean icons in different sizes. Screenshots. Different screenshots for different devices. Descriptions. Promotional text. Privacy policies. Terms. Support URLs. Categories. Age ratings. Subscription information. Pricing. Testing. Test accounts. Test users. Build numbers. Version numbers. Signing things. Certificates. Permissions. Disclosures.

Then you finally think you've got everything.

Nope.

There's another screen.

Then another checkbox.

Then something is wrong.

Fix that. Upload again. Wait.

Error.

Google doesn't like something.

Fix it.

Apple wants something else.

Fix that.

Test again. Upload another build. Wait again.

At some point I genuinely started wondering if anybody had ever successfully published an app before.

Obviously they have. There are millions of them.

But when you're sitting there at 1:00 in the morning trying to figure out why some tiny thing you didn't even know existed is preventing you from moving forward, it starts to feel personal.

I Made A LOT of Mistakes

This was definitely not one of those smooth, "we submitted the app and everything went perfectly" launches.

Not even close.

I uploaded things wrong.

I missed things.

I misunderstood things.

I had errors I didn't understand.

I fixed errors and created new errors.

We tested.

Then tested again.

Then I found something else.

Then the testers found something.

Then something worked perfectly on one device and looked completely different on another device.

Back to work.

And honestly, that's probably the biggest thing I've learned from this whole process.

Getting an app into the stores isn't just uploading your app.

You're basically proving that the entire thing works.

Your accounts work. Your subscriptions work. Your links work. Your privacy information is there. Your screenshots are right. Your descriptions are right. Your app behaves the way you say it behaves.

And somebody, somewhere, has apparently thought of every possible little thing that could go wrong.

Hats Off To The People Who Figured This Out

I complain about Apple and Google plenty.

But after going through this process, I also have to give them some credit.

The systems are tedious because they're trying to create a process that works for millions of completely different apps, developers, businesses, countries, devices and situations.

That's insane when you really think about it.

Somebody had to figure all of this out.

Some team had to sit in a room and say:

"What happens if they sell a subscription? What happens if the user cancels? What happens if the app collects this information? What happens if it's being used by a kid? What happens if the developer changes this? What happens if the user deletes their account?"

And then somebody had to build a system for ALL OF IT.

So yes, I yelled at my computer a few times.

But also... hats off.

Seriously.

Because I don't know how the hell you build a process like this.

Three Weeks Later...

The good news?

I FINALLY DID IT.

After about three weeks of mistakes, testing, testers, screenshots, forms, uploads, errors, fixes, more uploads, more errors and me clicking around dashboards wondering what button I was supposed to press...

The Hardest is finally listed.

Apple.

Google.

Done.

Well, "done" is probably dangerous to say because I'm sure there's another checkbox hiding somewhere waiting for me.

But we're there.

Our products are listed, everything is getting lined up, and we're officially preparing for launch.

August 24, 2026. That's the date.

It's kind of funny because I've spent so much time building the actual games that I never really thought about how much work would happen AFTER the games were built.

Turns out, quite a bit.

But seeing The Hardest sitting there as an actual product in the stores made all of those stupid little errors worth it.

For the first time it doesn't just feel like something I'm building on my computer.

It feels real.

We built this thing.

We somehow got it through Apple.

We somehow got it through Google.

And on August 24th, we're finally letting everybody in.

Now I just need people to actually download it.

That should be easy, right?

...right?

- Kit