is it possible you provide here those links?

Sure thing. So here is a press release on Gamasutra:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/276381/Defend_Your_Town_Under_Attack_In_The_iOSreg_ExclusivelsquoSteelbound_Skyrsquo__Reinventing_The_Classic_ShootlsquoEm_Up_Genre.php

But the fact is, I was also able to get my initial press release on that site on my own.

Here is another site they managed to get to show the press release:

http://invisioncommunity.co.uk/2016/07/06/steelbound-sky-flys-ios/

That's crazy lol, seems to be a common aspect from a lot of "publishers" and "advertisers".

Indeed, I felt they could have placed more effort with their customers. 

[I would highly NOT recommend Gamepromoter]

Alright. Its been many months since my initial release and after my first update, around June I decided to give Gamepromoter a shot.

I'll try to be as professional as I can with my overview of the experience.

Overall, I have to say I would highly NOT recommend Gamepromoter. My experience with them has simply been a disappointment.

1. After I paid for one of the packages, it seemed unclear what to do next. There was not logical flow of what happened after I paid. The site was quick to gather my credit card information for a sum of money which could be a lot for some indie developers.

2. I had to email them directly AFTER I paid. They said they were busy at e3 which was fine to me and I understood that. The issue is, once I gave them the game information they asked for they said to give them "a day" to look over it. I waited... over a week. I had to "follow up" on them to see what the issue was. Instead they gave me a "receipt" to my order.

3. Finally, after more emails from me and 2 weeks later, they got back to me with an actual draft of "their" press release. It was mediocre at best... since it was pretty much a reworded version of my initial Press Release that I provided them. I had to edit it to my liking.

4. They finally start the promotion. They send me a couple of "links" of the press releases that were successful. The issue is, I could have easily submitted my own press releases to some of these sites. I was forwarded emails to with people interested about the game. But It was very unclear to me that it was my job to provide them with promo codes. As in, there was no email from the Gamepromoter team to say "Here are some people and their contact info that are interested in promo codes". No, instead they forward me these emails, which are quite unclear and formatted very awkwardly.

5. The campaign said they would distribute to YouTube and Twitch channels. I asked if there were any successful streams that occurred, I never got an answer directly back. One time I got an email from them saying "Hello Nice to meet you". I replied saying I was already a customer to them, and they have not emailed me back.

And that's my experience with game promoter. They got my game advertised on a couple of sites with some links, but it certainly did not move sales the way they advertised it would.

My disappointment with them was NOT with the sales, or with the amount of people who got interested. I understand that some games don't sell. I know there is no silver bullet or magical lamp that makes games successful.

Rather, it was mostly the customer service. I tried my best to be patient with them, but I felt I didn't get the same amount of respect back. I would ask a question, and it would take ages for them to get back or sometimes their response wasn't even on topic. I'm not sure what their team is comprised of, but I don't recommend working with them. There are far better ways to use your time and resources.

PS* Another person who emailed me as this person was also curious about Game Promoter. The person used it before me, and also found the experience was lack luster.

If anyone else has any stories or experience with them please share them

MAJOR UPDATE for GAME! Version 2.0.0!

Update and Review Trailer:





Complete List of Changes:

​
Features

-Added new "Fender Forest" level to act as the new 2nd level.
-Added new Replay Mode which allows player's to replay levels that have been beaten already.
-Added Local Highscores for each level. Can be viewed in the main menu, replay menu or during the specific level.
-Added 18 Leaderboards, including one for each level and mode (both standard and Guardian mode)
-Added 30 Achievements
-Added tally for Level score for each level
-Added ability for player's to "end game" and then submit highscores after a continue countdown
-Added option to allow players to play with unlimited continues but with the cost of Less Points awarded.
-Limited continues is now called Arcade Mode, and points are counted as normal.
-Added additional detail for Torched Tombs to assist in defeating the boss.
-Added additional waves to endless mode.

Tweaks

-Level names and Parts will show at the beginning of each level
-Added Material to the Houses on the Main Town
-Added/Modified dynamic emissive textures for several enemies.
-Changed some of the UI backgrounds which should contrast better with the text.
-Added more detail to the tutorial about items, enemies that have been hit and how some curvature is now allowed
-Updated the Sky Surge tutorial to be opaque with the background.

Balance

-Increased Wind Length
-Increased time wind stream survives
-Increased curvature of wind stream so players can now draw wide curves by default.
-Increased player Health generally for upgraded health and non upgraded health.
-Doubled amount of health repaired by a Health Drop
-Slowed down heavy projectiles for Juggernaught, HeavyGunner and Steelbug
-Reduced fire rate speed and projectiles speed for Baron and Triton
-Reduced movement speed for Baron, Triton, and Pinbug.
-Increased Lightning strike distance for hitting the Steelbug
-Increased total extension of the Length upgrade
-Increased the point values for many of the harder versions of the enemies
-Added logic to allow defeating the Shield Enemies to be more sensible.

Bugs

-Fixed lives Bug when entering endless or boss rush mode.
-Fixed issue where city level incorrectly being displayed.
-Fixed issue with Patterns in Endless mode.
-Fixed issue so that Level Bonuses are split between Level Parts.
-Fixed issue where ability buttons were not being shown in Endless and Boss Rush mode.
-Fixed Highscore displayed when using a resolution using black bars in hard mode.
-Fixed issue with unlocking Final Level in Hard Mode.
-Fixed issue where the enemy points would be added even after the town has fallen.
-Fixed some of the blending for materials in Amaranth Sky's so now that level should have it's fauna render smoother.
-Fixed issues with the Swinger enemy movement.

Other

-Spelled "Guardian Mode" properly.
-Moved the time counter in Boss Rush a bit more to the left in order to fit longer times.

useful article! im going to try and use this method today! Finding reviewers on reddit isnt that fun 

Hello all,

Ive just released my App Steelbound Sky and I was curious about this company called "gamepromoter" and what they offered.

You can see their PR offers here:

http://www.gamepromoter.biz/pr.html

*Edit* Broken Link. But you can see them here:

http://gamepromoter.net/index.html

I've only seen a handful of other paid PR options. I've  tried to do all the marketing on my own, press release, press kit, emailing tons of people etc but I was curious on the effectiveness of a company like this.

In the grand scheme of things, the prices arnt too bad. But if I had someone here would could give some insight
on this PR company that would be a lot better so I know what I was getting into.

Thankyou  

game looks incredible. This is a lucid dreaming theme that is a lot more clear than the ps4 game Dreams.

You totally deserved to get greenlit. Getting +40 articles is amazing.

Hello All! Update the game is now live on the App Store!!!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/steelbound-sky/id1078802031?mt=8

I urge you all to give it a try! I really think the game is fun and unique!

*UPDATE*

Game is now live on the App Store!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/steelbound-sky/id1078802031?mt=8

 

My first commercial game that I've released! Please give it a try!

I've written an overview of the development process on my blog. It should be up in the next few weeks. Stay tuned if
you are interested!


____________________________________________________________________________________________


Hello TIGForums,

I am on the verge of releasing a game called Steelbound Sky. It's a game which is inspired by traditional shoot'em ups but is combined with a contemporary control scheme.

Rather than taking control of a ship, you are in control of the wind. Wind streams are used to manipulate projectiles or enemies themselves. It's a game which takes advantage of touch controls rather than trying to retrofit analogue buttons or joysticks on a screen.

Official Trailer:





Some screen shots:

   

If you wanted to check out some more Trailers or screenshots, here is the official site:

http://www.steelboundsky.com/

It will soon be out now on the iOS store! I will update this post with the link in the next few weeks.

Since this game is truly built for a tablet experience I recommend that it is played on an iPad. However,
it is fully compatible with most iPhones/iPod touches.

I hope you give it a try soon and enjoy it. Please ask any questions or give any feedback/criticism.

-Witherwood Studios

the art style really looks like Rayman's recent platforms. The music is very similar as well. nice.

mine is probably more of a gaming set up than a workspace...id like to think all the consoles are used as inspirations.  they are all hooked up and playable on my monitor.

alrighty. I think ill use the PC simulated/emulated screen shot then. I might even just leave a small note stating its a simulated screenshot in order to take a high resolution shot.

When doing a press kit for a mobile game, which screen shots should I choose?

The options are:

1. A High Res Screen Shots of a Mobile "simulated" game via computer

2. Actual Screen Shots via the iOS screen capture tool


The issue with option 1 is that its an emulated mobile picture. (Though its not too far off) . The pros is that
the resolution of the screen shot can be much higher than an iOS screen capture, which is useful for a press kit.

The issue with option 2 is that different iOS devices have different game resolutions. In order to keep the frame rate I had to reduce the resolutions for the lower devices. The pros are its accurate to what the game will actually look like.

Thanks in advance.

I've never used c++ with unreal before. But generally as long as you go through tuts carefully and try to understand what is going on c++ would be fine to start of with. If you master c++ other languages would be a easier to pick up.

c++ is great in some ways because it forces you to do things properly, as well as understand other concepts of computing that other languages will take care of automatically.

But as others have said...its not the smoothest language to start of with. happy coding.

I'm having a annoying issue with background music for my game which involves the music stopping when a user leaves the iOS app. The music will not resume in most cases when returning back to the app. (Using the home button, then going to another app, then returning creates this result)

I've tried every method of playing mp3 background music that I know of:
 
-Using Kismet's Play Music Track
-Using "mobile PlaySong" console command
-Using the "UpdateMusicTrack" function.

It all creates the same results.

While the control of playing mp3's is limited with UDK (since its iOS's own special hardware handling it) I think it would be much more easier to find a way to detect when the User returns to the app. That way when that occurs, I can simply play the music track again. Not the most elegant solution, but better than its current state.

Btw, Ive tried using a Timer to play the music every few seconds to see what would happen when a user returns.
It still yields the same results of silence. This occurs When using "mobile PlaySong"/"Kismet".

However, when using "mobile PlaySong" it will loop the song every few seconds even after returning. This is important, because if I could find when the user returns to the app I can simply play a silence.mp3 then play the correct level track again.


So far I've tried to use the following to detect when a user leaves/returns to an app:

"event ClearPause()" in game info.

and

"OnLostFocusPause()" in hud.

None of these events are fired at all when returning to app in iOS. I can't seem to see any obvious kismet solutions either, though of course I welcome a kismet solution.


Im using the latest Feb 2015 UDK (Since apple has new requirements I'm forced to use this, the previous UDK did not have this problem with background music)

and Im using an iPad2 with the latest firmware (I think it's 9.1)

UDK forums do not seem to know of any answer, so Im trying my luck here.  

Thanks in advance for any help. Ill see what else I can think of and try to keep this updated.

*Edit.

I have found a solution. See here if anyone is interested:

https://forums.epicgames.com/threads/990841-Detect-when-a-User-the-Leaves-the-App-to-Fix-a-Backgournd-Music-MP3-issue