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[PompiPompi]

I have released Sumerian Blood to the world(google play, Amazon Appstore and indievania) and didn't get many sales. About 8 overall if you don't include the canceled purchased(from google play). In indievania 1 sale, and Amazon App store 0.

Now, I know Android is a tough market, but on the same time I almost forgot I made this game.
I believe there are things to do regarding "marketing" or getting it out there, even if I won' make much money ou of it it's good for my experience.
I worked for about 2 years on the game, and that's what amazing that I have become really apathic to my own game which I liked a lot during development.
It's kind of sad that many indie wannabe developers like me work hard on a game, and once they don't get instant success they go straight to workibg on the next game forgeting all the hard work they have put in the previous game.

So I guess what I am asking is, is there much I can do to promote my game without spending a lot of money?
I also found that places that covered my game when it was alpha kind of ignore it now. For instance IGM. I am so used to not get a reply from sites that I even don't send emails to big sites because I believe up front they won't review my game.

Anyway, I decided to get a full time job anyway,and maybe this will be more of a hobby until I can actually make a living out of it.

I know Sumerian Blood can be fun, I enjoyed playing it myself against Pandara which is rare for me to enjoy my own game. But now I just don't bother to "spread the word".
I dunno, seems like I just don't care that much.

[Eigen]

It sort of happened to me too ...

I didn't work on it nearly as long you did and I made as freeware but the reception was similar. Long story short, I learned a valuable lesson, got some good tips for the future in that topic, shrugged off the failure and moved onto the next game which seems to be doing much better already.

I haven't totally given up on the previous game but currently I have no plans to go back to it and change whatever needs changing (re-doing the art mostly).

Anyway, try to think what it was about your game that didn't ignite people's interest and try to remedy that with your next game

[PompiPompi]

That is the thing, I think I did a prrety good game. But I guess 2D games need to have really exceptional and attractive visuals to stand out, otherwise people won't try them.

For instance I post in a website called IndieDB. Sumerian blood has a total of 25 watchers(people who follow development of the game).
My next "project" a 3D game got about 35 watchers in one or two weeks, a big difference right from the start. And I didn't even show any gameplay yet.

[Eigen]

But I guess 2D games need to have really exceptional and attractive visuals to stand out, otherwise people won't try them.

Your art is not bad and is quite unique but it lacks polish and has quite a lot of rough edges. Literally, it looks like it's done with the pencil tool in Paint. Had you done your game in more vectorized style, it would've probably looked and done better.

IndieDB is a great site to gather up some interest, especially if you update the content often and go around playing and commenting other people's games as well. I'm using it extensively.

Maybe we should create a TIGSource group there?

[nyyjen]

That is the thing, I think I did a prrety good game. But I guess 2D games need to have really exceptional and attractive visuals to stand out, otherwise people won't try them.

For any kind of game visuals are important to draw people in, I think. Any chance you can team up with an experienced artists to replace the existing art assets?

After watching your video the game looks very similar to Archon. If that was an inspiration for you, you might be able to get interest from people who used to love that game back in the day. I certainly did.

I think your video is a bit too long and kicks off rather slowly. I was really enjoying it once it got to the bit showing the game board and then the action sequence, but everything in between seemed like it could be cut. Maybe try a making a shorter and more to the point video?

You obviously spent a lot of time making the game, so maybe it is just a matter of vamping up the production quality (visuals) for it to get more exposure? I would not give up on it just now, especially if your livelihood does not depend on it.

[aschearer]

I have always struggled with getting my games out there and building awareness for them. It is definitely soul crushing when you spend a great deal of time on a game only to have it completely ignored by the world. I'm still trying to figure out what the recipe for success in this area is. I do not believe simply building a "better game" is sufficient. Some advice I plan to follow with some of my upcoming games:

  1. Write to all the major blogs/news outlets for your game. i.e. Touch Arcade or something similar. Let them know about your work and provide them with a free review copy.
  2. Write to all the top twitterer's for Android gaming doing the same thing.
  3. Release smallish updates to the game. These give you a chance to try the blogs, twitter again. They also help re-engage players who downloaded the game in the past.
  4. Try holding a sale now and again. Once more reach out to news outlets when you do this.
  5. Try changing the theme of the game, possibly to something to topical or seasonal. e.g. a Christmas theme for Christmas. You've done a ton of work, so resist just throwing it away and starting from scratch with a new game.
  6. Tighten up your trailer. It was OK but a little slow. Try to make your game look more exciting or perhaps drop the trailer. I would seek more feedback on this point.
  7. Target more platforms. Your website says it's for Windows but I could not find a download link. Are you aware that Windows 8 is about to be released and supports C++?

Best of luck and I hope it works out!

[PompiPompi]

Eigen, would be nice to open a TIGSource group.
I look at other people's games from time to time, but didn't think to respond much or don't really follow them. I guess most of the people in IndieDB are developers themselves?

[Evan Balster]

I don't think you ought to give up on this project just yet.  Maybe you shipped too soon?  Think of it as 90% done when the "game" part is finished.  The last 10% -- polishing, polishing, cutting things out, polishing, replacing what isn't pulling its weight and polishing -- takes a disproportionate amount of time.  It's painful, unfun and demotivating work, but it's rewarding and it's what makes a game complete, separating the "wannabe" developers from the ones who stand a chance at success.  It's also what makes a game marketable.  Being a "good game" isn't enough.

So, that said:

Honestly I like the character art.  The backgrounds and props are very dull and keep the characters from "popping" as much as they could, and a few (but not all!) of the character animations are awkward-looking.  UI could use some work as well.  Your other high-res art (like Gilgamesh) is not spectacular, and the text on the title screen (and website) is extremely unprofessional-looking and generally unattractive.  You would do well to hire a musician to replace what I assume are your own compositions, and maybe an artist who you think is capable of replacing the large non-character assets while keeping with the visual style.  Or buckle down and redo it yourself.  Work on your effects for things like projectiles and fire -- they're very flat and dull as they are now.  I haven't seen what the menus look like, but work on them some more regardless.  Work on them until your fingers hurt.

Add sound effects for everything.  The best you can make, find or buy.  This is hard, and will take a long time or a very lucky acquisition in the way of collaborators, but it will make a huge difference.

Assuming you can fix those flaws and make a polished game, there's a lot more to be done afterward as well -- work on making a better website, a compelling and well-paced trailer, and building awareness through press releases and the like.  (Or a player community, given you have online multiplayer?)  Think very hard about how you sell your game (there are lots of directions to go) and for the love of god put up a demo.  The current market is very fickle in this regard.


Basically, the bottom line is this:  Long ago, when there weren't many games on the market (if the stories are to be believed) you could work on something until it seemed complete to you, get it published and it would sell reasonably with any luck.  These days, there are a great deal of little things that have to be done in the way of gift-wrapping the "complete" work to make it appear professional, responsive and stimulating.  Some of these, like sound engineering, will improve the actual gameplay and aesthetics.  Others, like screenshot-minded art direction, will not, but can be very important to making a sale.

Good luck, and please don't leave this one in the sand, or you may be setting your next project up for the same fate.  

[J-Snake]

The lack of marketing will be the big down for me aswell. However we should not forget that the quality of the game matters aswell.

[SundownKid]

Teaming up with someone will bring in more money in the long run because you will be able to get better art, or marketing, or some other aspect of the game which you are lacking in. From what I've seen, the art seems 'iffy' and I'm not really into that many 'arcade style' games.

But yeah, I would test it extensively and see what people dislike about it. In my opinion, if a game is actually truly good, people will spread it through word of mouth alone. Despite that, marketing is 90% of game development, and you can't market a halfway-polished game.

[Manuel Magalhães]

It happened to me too with Paper Physics¹. To date I got 50-60 purchases of it.² 

I got disappointed with the numbers. I haven't done much marketing, but at least I thought it was enough to get Apple's subscription money back. I got about 45 euros with it, while the subscription costs 90 euros.

I was, and still am, proud of that game, since not only it was the first time I gained money with a game as it is my best game yet.
Not saying that I wouldn't do some changes now, though. The art style would have benefited with a LIMBO-like polish, and the overall presentation is far from the best.

I also would have done a trailer from the start, alongside with more marketing. I feel the presentation and the lack of marketing were the problem.

The first thing users are going to notice when passing through apps is the app's icon. The icon, both because of the concept of it and the execution, is boring and the screen-shots are not exactly eye candy due to the art style.

I also did little to no marketing. I posted about the game in a couple of places, opened accounts in a couple of social networks, and even did a fun marketing thread in TIGSource. ³

But it wasn't enough. I had no trailler until months after the game was released, and even though I had a Flash demo there wasn't anything compelling in there. ⁴

It might be too late to remedy this now, but I'll make sure the mistakes I've done in this launch won't happen again.

1 - http://itunes.apple.com/pt/app/paper-physics/id463908101?mt=8 [shameless plug]
2 - Without counting the St.Valentine's sale, which I made it free. I got about 1000 purchases there.
3 - http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=22408.0
4 - The demo had 12 of the 48 levels. These 12 levels were tutorials.

[st33d]

I think you've really got to wait at least half a year before you can look at anything you've made objectively.

Either you've made something crap and you can't see it from being too close to it, or you've stumbled into cult-hit territory (kinda like how I think John Carter of Mars was really entertaining - but was a box office bomb and got slated by critics).

Just keep your chin up - it didn't work, or hasn't worked yet. Keep trying. A masterpiece is built on the foundation of countless failures.

[e_va]

here's one problem: you didnt even tell us what the game is about in your first post.
i clicked the link in your sig, which is the devblog... and i don't know what an archon-like is supposed to be, so i clicked a link to your site. now i know from reading it is: 1) a strategy game like chess, 2) sumerian mythology

so some tips for that would be:
1) you might want to describe the game better for interest sake.

2) there are no screenshots on your website

3)

this trailer is the only thing on your site so i'll give some feedback on that. it's slow. the intro logos take too much time, and they aren't even animated so why are they taking up 20 seconds? once the gameplay starts it does a good job showcasing that the game is simply about moving your chess pieces... i think you might want to show the parts where it gets strategic. in the middle of the video its 10 seconds of a still frame of some guy. if you want to show off the "sumerian mythology" you might want more than one picture. im losing interest at this point but kept watching. the action section is probably the most interesting but the art is not so good and you have debug text in your trailer.

4) there is no demo on your site? is there even a pc version? it mentions a pc version but it's not on the page either. is the "google play buy android app" thing also for pc? i don't even know what google play is.

[Mittens]

I think one thing that might be holding it back from getting more sales is pricing,
When I bought it was around 4 dollars, (not sure if you've changed it since then) regardless, this is 4 times the normal/average price of an app, which makes people need to be convinced of buying the game 4 times more than if it cost only 1 dollar.

I think the game design has awesome potential, I was describing the game to a friend last week and he got all excited saying "that sounds like an awesome idea" but then when he saw he was disappointed by the overall look/presentation.

I know people like to say "it shouldn't matter if it has good graphics, a fun game will be fun regardless" but unfortunately, even though this might be true, in a market as flooded as ours, hot graphics are a necessity in order to get people to even try the game.

I've seem some of your directX 11 engine work, and you clearly know how to code some pretty flashy effects, I think if Sumerian Blood looked more flashy and was cheaper it could still potentially be profitable

[PompiPompi]

Thanks, after reading this I really considered to have some artist who knows what he is doing rework the visuals. Currently I can't afford it since I am in the process of lookig for a new job, but oc I have a new job that is something I would like to do.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i don't think you necessarily need an artist, you can make it cooler visually in other ways: more particle effects, more background effects, etc. etc. -- watch this video, if you haven't yet:



basically the difference between indies that have popular games and indies that have unpopular games isn't gameplay, or even graphics, but something called things like production values / juiciness / sensory stimulation. your game lacks sensory stimulation, and people play games to stimulate their senses. even little things like blasts of sound and flashes of light can matter a lot. basically it doesn't matter if it's boring and ugly if it feels exciting, and it doesn't matter if it's fun and pretty if it feels boring, and the boring/exciting scale depends largely on sensory stimulation / feedback

i think that if you do some of the stuff in that video and add it to the game, then make a new trailer that shows off that new stuff, you'd probably get 10x as many sales. but even 10x as many sales may not be worth that work if you are into your new game and would rather work on that right now, so just think of it as a lesson for next time

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

here's an example of what i mean btw:








ugly sprites, amateur graphics, but at least they *look exciting*, they make you want to play them. your graphics can be ugly as anything but if you use them well (like in these two games) and do a lot of sensory feedback that doesn't matter

[J-Snake]

Sorry Paul, but I see a lot of skill in those graphics compared to the bare bones of his game.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

ya i agree, i think those, as bad as they are, are a lot better than the ones in his game

but both of them are still far short of professional quality, both have the amateur look

[James Coote]

i don't think you necessarily need an artist, you can make it cooler visually in other ways: more particle effects, more background effects, etc. etc. -- watch this video, if you haven't yet:

I remember watching a presentation on the UI apple uses on the iPhone, and the presenter went on about "dog ears". When the dog shakes its head, the big floppy ears flap around in a delayed reaction to the turning of the head. When you flick down a list, the speed of the scroll slows down in a non-linear fashion. When the list hits the bottom, it bounces etc