It was a big effort getting this update together in time for Eurovision 2023 but I'm so glad I did. This updates was really well received and I personally think it's a huge step forward for the app! The app has received some lovely reviews over the week of Eurovision and is now 4.8⭐️/5⭐️ on both Google Play and Apple App Store!

Social scorecards and account system

The headline feature for this year is social scorecards. I came up with this idea last year when a friend casually asked if at her Eurovision party they could all score together on my app? I told her she couldn't but that was a fabulous idea! (Thanks Ellie!) Group scoring is an addition to the scorecard system for 2 years back. It allows you to create a 'Group'. During the development of this I was chatting to another friend (Queenie this time) and they asked if the group would have a combined scorecard -another fab idea! Initially I had planned for it to just allow you to see each others scorecards and share your realtime reactions (with emoji) but this would elevate the feature so I pushed to add this and prioritised it over seeing each others scorecards.

I wanted to make this work for large groups. As a member of OGAE UK (The UK's official Eurovision fan club) which around 1k members - I wanted to make sure that if a club used it, then it would work. I decided on setting a limit of 500 members for each group and worked backwards from that. Each minute a cloud function would trigger which would look for any active group scorecards, and generate the latest scorecard for that group. I could increase this to every 30 seconds during the week of Eurovision - maybe this is something I'll do in the future. People can also add emoji reactions which are shown to the group in realtime. There is a limit on the frequency these can be posted by individuals based on the group size. I added some simple management tools to the UI so the group owner manage their group.

I really think this feature is my apps 'Killer feature', it's something that no other app does and something I don't anticipate anyone else doing. It's quite a complex thing, and with this not being a money making app it would take someone as crazy as me to invest time in to making it work!!

(To do: Add a video of the group scorecard feature)

Everything is now free! 💸

Speaking of this app not making much money -I've decided to make everything free this year. When I first implemented scorecards I set a restriction that the current/latest year required a paid 'VIP Pass' (£2.99 one off for a year or £1.99 per/year subscription). The app has always made very little money and if I want my scorecard feature to be used by lots of people then I need to life that restriction. So this year I've kept the concept of a 'VIP Pass' but I give people the choice: Watch an advert for a temporary pass or buy a subscription (£1.99 for the year or £10.99 for life). I'm really happy with this change as now the people can download my app and use it fully without paying a penny, it also works for those that don't want to watch an advert so would rather subscribe or just buy it once and own it forever. The little bit of revenue I receive contributes towards the running costs of the app.

New scorecard themes & layouts

I've added a 4 new scorecard themes and 2 scorecard layouts. I intend to add more in the future but this is a decent upgrade over the single theme and layout up to now.

So that wraps up my updates for 2023, if you haven't downloaded ESC Party yet then what the heck are you waiting for? -download it now, the links are available on my apps project page!