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[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

So another thing that was bought up during the test phase was orientation. It was something I tried to tackle previously with no luck, but it became clear that if I wanted people to play the game with their devices landscape, the UI would need to cater to that angle. With that in mind, I've spent the last few days digging my hands into the filth of iOS orientation coding. After a lot of messing around, I've managed to get it working:

This isn't to say I'm done either - when I clicked on the option to test other languages, I was greeted with all of my carefully placed words miss-aligning.

I'll be patching up the various languages today, as well as fading the opacity of certain buttons when the timer is active and making sure the player jump code can't run if the game is paused.

Stay tuned for more on both of these things for more info soon!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey folks,

So I've spent most of today getting the different layouts of buttons for the pause menu for the various languages. That's now done, so all that's left to do is dig into those last few pointers (displaying the pause button on the first level to direct players, reducing the opacity of buttons when the timer is active, disabling jump code during pause and throwing a couple more fade effects to hide jittery transitions between menu states). Other than that, it'll be a couple of tweaks to the ad systems built in (game involuntarily pausing on certain phones) and setting up in app purchases. Certainly enough to keep me busy these next few weeks!

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey folks,

A couple of updates for today - from requests of others, I added in a prompt during the first level of Narcissus to explain where the pause menu can be accessed. On top of that, I dealt wit alignment issues on the splash screen with some of the text and also made some subtle changes to the pause menu (dimming the black/white control deciders when the timer is active.

These things might seem petty, but it's because I'm running out of stuff to fix. Here's some of those last things:
- checking reports of the game randomly pausing after playing ads/ads being skipped.
- taking another look at overlap issues of music
- making sure the pause menu is always accessible, even if the player is in the process of dying.
- looking at different orientations to hold the device (and views)
- monetisation implemented (ability to remove ads)

Stay tuned for more soon, there's more to come yet!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey folks,

Update on the stuff I cracked today- managed to solve the random pausing issue, the overlapping/duplicating music, making sure the pause menu is accessible/visible throughout where it is necessary in the game and I've started looking into the issue of the character jumping when the game is unpaused. All that's left is adding monetisation and sending out a new test build to see if there's anything else left to be fixed. At this point things for the game are getting pretty thin on the ground since there not much left to do in engine.

Stay tuned for more soon and let me know if you're interested in testing!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey folks, super quick update before bed. Managed to fix the pause issue - created dead spots on the screen where the pause buttons were (obviously depending on which orientation). It took me a while to nail down but I've pretty much got it sorted with the exception of the Dutch pause symbol which has some unique code that is creating some issues (need to change the numbers/variables for the positioning of buttons/animations). I've also got to go through and remove some of the debugging stuff I put in before (there's one that triggers a game breaking bug since it toggles the player movement off, should be simple to fix). With those areas gone, it's just a matter of adding monetisation functions and I can send out the final test build/press copies. More coming real soon.

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Update on what I've been up to - Over the past few days I've been distracted running and taking part in a game jam in Cambridge building alternative controllers. Whilst this has taken time away from Narcissus, it has given me a much needed break from the project to work on something new and come back to the nearly finished project refreshed and ready to finalise the game.

Here's a look at the final game/controller in action:



I've sent out the latest build for testing and other than finalising the payment options (And any bugs that come from this final set of tests), I'll be good to submit it! Once again, if anyone is interested in getting involved in the testing process, let me know and I'll send you a build.

Also worth mentioning any Press on here, please get in touch as I'll be sending out press copies soon.

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Today I'm updating my website - Finally managed to hear back from my host who I'll be sorting things out with (So I can upload the edits). Compared to my previous god awful website design, I've reduced it to one page and kept it suitably minimalist with a version of the game as the focus (Rather than split over 4 pages). After a lot of consideration, I'm keeping this version to 25 levels (Same as the previous flash version) but with the graphics, interface and levels updated (As well as that god awful fluorescent purple nowhere to be seen)

OLD FLUORESCENT PURPLE COMPARED TO NEW ONE



NEW WEBSITE

Here's the original for comparison btw (WHAT WAS I THINKING WITH BLACK TEXT ON A BLUE BACKGROUND, WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY EYES)


I've spotted a couple of errors so far in the latest version of Narcissus, I recently broke my phone and since it's repair I'm uncertain of what is a bug in the game or a fault with my phone. Thankfully there's a couple of other devices I can test on. I'll be deciding the launch date over the next week, with any luck getting in touch with someone at Apple to advise any dates to avoid being overshadowed/buried by (E.g. Launch of a massive title/festivity).

I'll be gathering a stack of footage over the weekend with the intention of compiling the final trailer, as well as making some fancy looking screenshots.

More soon, so stay tuned!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Despite dealing with an increasingly stubborn Macbook (It's 8 years old so can be forgiven), I've managed to make some more changes and add some features this weekend.

A friend of mine bought up the suggestion of adding the option to split the screen both horizontally or vertically (Since the game played in portrait mode can be a bit fiddly if held upright). Before you start the game, you pick which way you want the screen to be split. (As shown in more detail on the video in the link below). Whilst it feels pretty good on tablet, I'm not sure how this will work on a phone sized device (Whether it'll block too much of the bottom half of the screen). I'll be sending out the updated build as soon as I've made that page look/feel more snazzy.


VERTICAL SPLIT                                        HORIZONTAL SPLIT

VIDEO OF INTERFACE/FUNCTION

Update on my Website - The company that hosts my site got in touch and have helped me get my account working again, so I should have it updated along with my Presskit within the week. Not sure if I'll be uploading the game build just yet, but I've decided to release the equivalent of a remaster for the flash version. By that, I mean it'll be the same number of levels of the previous flash version (25) with a remastered version of the original track. The reason for this is to give folks a reason to check out the phone version whilst still giving a taste for the experience and good enough reason for a revisit of the game for fans.

Stay tuned for more soon, thanks all for your patience and interest in the project.

[AlexVsCoding]

Narcissus fully translated into 14 different languages. I'll be keeping an eye out for any typos, hopefully they'll come up! Got my tablet connection working again, added a more sleek version of the style select (The lack of symmetry and sudden movement of the alternating buttons I found off putting, replaced now with a smoother subtler movement (I'll post a gif in a bit).

I'll be adding the above text in shortly after posting this, leaving only adding a style changer in the pause menu and an indicator for which style in the first level.

More updates tomorrow, will likely send out the new iOS build then!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Here's a quick look at the new style interface in action.

Stuff I'm going to do today:
- Check up with the web hosting company to see if I can start editing my website.
- If this is the case, start uploading the new template for the site.
- Update the content for my press kit.
- Add an overlay based on the style selection to the first level (To show the player where to tap/not to tap)
- Add the style switch options to the menu.
- Release the latest build to testers.

I've managed to test the game on phone and despite my initial worries that weighting the controls to one side of the screen would obstruct the player's view, this hasn't been the case. I'll post up some footage of me playing it in the two states soon (Probably in vine format).

Stay tuned for more soon!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Here's a quick update:

Settings is fully implemented in multiple orientations, got a couple of refinements left to their design in order to make them more consistent, such as their shape, size, line thickness and colour. Once I've done this, its getting my website updated, getting in App purchases done then releasing the final test build and contacting press. Check back in a bit to see how the new settings bar looks.

Oh! And here's some footage of the two different play styles in action.

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

So here's those new icons - I've tried to focus each of their designs to match the shape of phones, reflected in some of the earlier icon designs:

For some context of it in the menu, here is it mocked up:

I'll be posting these up here for some feedback, in the meantime I'll be focusing on getting my website up and running. Let me know what you think compared to the originals and if there's any improvements needed!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Here's the UI in motion - Just a couple of tweaks to address then that's all sorted. From here, going to aim to have my website online by the end of the day and at some point a bike ride.

I'm aware that a lot of the stuff I've been posting is UI tweaking and refinement, not necessarily the most exciting stuff in comparison to other Dev Logs. Whilst this is the case, UI design (And this nitpicky bit at the end of development) is as essential to the development process as the exciting leaps and bounds at the start. Having said that, I'll try and chuck up some gameplay gifs and maybe even a partial playthrough to liven things up. If you are interested, thanks for following the work.

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Apologies for the lapse in communication, the Stencyl Jam took up my weekend (Had an absolute blast and the output, WORMBALL is definitely going to be my next commercial project (Assuming that Narcissus doesn't completely tank )).

You can check out the development log for it here: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=58244.0

As for Narcissus, I've posted the latest build of the game up to my testers, so I'll wait to hear back from them to what they thought and from that I'll be reaching out to Press and in turn, Apple.

My website should be up tomorrow, first without the playable build of the game, as I need to make it a cut down edited version as mentioned in previous posts (Visually and audio wise an improvement, but still enough missing to encourage people to check out the full game).

I'm back on with the project now, stay tuned and I'll let you know how things develop.

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks!

UI Limbo continues - From the testing, I've had some in depth feedback that has led me to make the following changes:

After talking to some folks about UI design for iOS, I'm standardising the menu whilst retaining the theme of the game:
- Putting the settings on a separate page which will be handling the style select, languages, orientation, song, timer and other elements.
- Players holding the game portrait previously had to reach to the top of the page to start the game, now it's at the bottom with a minimal risk of pressing the wrong thing and easy to reach.
- A side effect of flipping the menu is the two most important pieces of information (START GAME AND LEVEL SELECT) are in bold white whilst credits and difficulty are in black and in turn blend in more.

BEFORE                                                                                   AFTER

Unfortunately this isn't a screenshot the final thing - the new menu is in this image just a digital mockup, meaning I'm going to have my work cut out for the next few days implementing these changes. It's a pain in the hind but I know the game will be better for it in the long run, just hope it doesn't corrupt the game!

Stay tuned for developments, should be a lot of them!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

So some quick updates:

Here's the mockup for the settings menu - I was going to have the two characters running and the background scrolling, but I want to keep everything except gameplay still and calm compared to gameplay.

So here's what I've got left to do with these new alterations:
- Destroy the style select menu from existence (Possibly merge this menu with the settings to make use of some of it's elements). The reason I'm getting rid of it is it breaks the website rule of more than 2 clicks to get to what you're looking for (Gameplay), and it's something I can put in the settings menu/pause menu.
- Re-position the buttons on the main menu and make sure they're the right colours.
- Create duplicates of the pause menu buttons to put in the settings menu. Technically I could create code to do this and might do this tomorrow.
- Rework some of the graphics (Such as the option arrows) and ensure all of the text is correctly aligned to the centre.
- Make sure the interfaces work with both orientations.
- Send out new build.

Here's some admin things I've got to sort out:
- Update my website (My hosting company got things sorted so I'm good to tear that god awful website design down).
- Update presskit screenshots
- Compile trailer footage

The heat is really on to get these new changes added, as I'll be sending out to press/Apple next week! More tomorrow!

[AlexVsCoding]

Hey Folks,

Figured this might be a useful conversation with a developer to add to here from the thread I started for WORMBALL, discussing my plan for launch:

Awesome. I hope to see more hardware games by indies in the future. I've seen Narcissus on these forums (maybe on Twitter?). You speak of shipping & getting revenue very confidently.. how did you manage that, marketing-wise?

P.S. https://alexvscoding.itch.io/narcissus in your sig 404s

"Thanks for the heads up with itch! I'm currently doing some renovations, should be sorted within the week. Hardware wise, a great website to check out for that is http://shakethatbutton.com/

As for my shipping/marketing, I've been developing the game on and off for around 4 years and over that time have accumulated a decent number of reviews from press for the game, reviews that I can point the Apple team to upon submission as a stamp of quality. I'm heading to a mobile event next week where there will be reps from Apple and since the game is in a finished state, there's a good chance of it being picked up. Failing that, I've got a couple of other contacts I've picked up at Apple elsewhere that I can reach out to.

There's also the factor of regional features - By translating the game into 14 different languages, it increases my probability of getting a feature in these regions (The Apple Store is split into various parts of the globe).

After talking with some other developers who regularly release Apps to the store (Who've each had multiple features in the past), I changed my monetisation method from premium to Ad based since it massively increases your user base. To give a rough idea of the comparison, one of the teams had over a million downloads (From which to display Ads to) but only 400 purchases of the "Disable Ads" function.

Quite a few developers who take the paid option for their game do a "Free Game of the Week" feature and see their downloads balloon, but realistically they don't see any of they revenue from that feature. Possibly afterwards from the press/popularity of it, but it's a bit like handing out Steam Keys to your game as a feature to get people to buy your game - It does direct traffic towards your product but if you'd implemented Ad based options you could've made money from that traffic.

Finally, as a one man team, I don't need to make a vast amount of money to justify the next project - For every £1200 I make from Narcissus, that's a month of time I can dedicate to games development. My workflow is a lot faster than it used to be (Can kick products out on a 3 month cycle), so once I nail the first feature future ones should be easier and in turn I can make money from features more often.

Despite my thorough distaste for the result of Brexit, the pound is currently very weak against the dollar so I'll make more money than I would've if I'd stuck to my previous plan and launched earlier in the year:

Pre-Brexit = $100 I'd make £60
Post-Brexit = $100 I'd make £80

To be honest, the project still has a chance of flopping - The success of the project hinges on an App Store Feature, but having done the desktop release for the game (Which flopped catastrophically) I've learnt a lot of lessons (For one targeting the wrong platform, Narcissus is in my opinion a mobile game by design and a PC game second, despite it first finding it's ground on Flash Portals). I'll write an article on the comparison between the two releases at some point once the game is released for iOS.

Hope this answers your question!"

-----------------

Today I'll be cracking on with ripping out the interface and I'll be aiming to get my new website uploaded. Stay tuned for more of that soon!

[io3 creations]

Thanks for the recent reply.  It's interesting from a marketing perspective.

Flash games are technically PC/computer games but are considered by many (most?) players the same way as free and premium games on mobile.  Flash games are supposed to be "free". 

I wonder what was the difference between the Flash version and the PC versions of your game?  If it's fairly similar, then I can understand why people wouldn't be interested in something that they can play for free.  There have been games that started with a Flash version but had a lot of extra content added (e.g. many more levels and features) that made the PC purchase worthwhile.  Or the other possibility is that as you mentioned, games need a lot of exposure and the PC release was lacking it.

[AlexVsCoding]

Thanks for the recent reply.  It's interesting from a marketing perspective.

Flash games are technically PC/computer games but are considered by many (most?) players the same way as free and premium games on mobile.  Flash games are supposed to be "free". 

I wonder what was the difference between the Flash version and the PC versions of your game?  If it's fairly similar, then I can understand why people wouldn't be interested in something that they can play for free.  There have been games that started with a Flash version but had a lot of extra content added (e.g. many more levels and features) that made the PC purchase worthwhile.  Or the other possibility is that as you mentioned, games need a lot of exposure and the PC release was lacking it.

p

The flash version has half the levels and less music, but both are produced using the same export method (I could technically publish it as a flash game as easily as a desktop game). Having said that, i implemented controller support and added the appropriate functionality for a full fledged release separate to the Flash version. I've pretty much scrubbed Steam off as a market for the foreseeable future as the budget / scale for my games seems more compatible for iOS. I set Steam originally as my target platform (and in turn sank a lot of time trying to get it through Greenlight). Eventually I burnt out after a year of trying to push it through GL and set myself a date to ship it on itch.io to move onto something new. Less than a month before release, I got Greenlit, but by that point my spirit had been smushed and I just wanted to put the project out there and walk away. So, I did the prep for launch and released the game on Valentines Day and pretty much everything that could've gone wrong, went wrong. (Deals didn't come to fruition, website stopped working the day before, IT WAS VALENTINES DAY)

Still, I learnt a bunch from doing it without blundering it on a major platform (I can still release it on Steam at some point).

If it does well on iOS and android, I'll look at releasing the Steam version with some reputation behind it, but not banking on it making big money.

The element of Flash games being free was actually one of the things that won me over to free to play - after years of getting stupid amounts of traffic through flash games, it seems obvious now as a backwards step for considering releasing the same games on phone platforms with a price tag.  I'm intending on writing up a full article at some point after launch talking about free to play as an option. Genuinely do feel that a lot of the stigma around choosing it as a business model for phone comes from other developers, rather than fans. Obviously this hinges on how well it's implemented (Not displaying ads everywhere all the time), but if done fairly can benefit the player and developer.

[io3 creations]

Yeah, a lot of things can work if done "right".  Understanding what the target audience and platform is one aspect but also have to take into consideration the financial aspect.  For "hobbyist developers" there is usually less cost (e.g. renting office) but still have to decide what kind of monetization approach would work best.

I've seen a number of articles about implementing ads for free mobile game (mostly in the Unity newsletter).  The ones that seem to work well not only aren't spammy with the ads but also give something to the player.  The "watch the ads because the game is free" aspect might be fine for a short while but people can get annoyed it quickly.  So, instead people are given the option to watch an ad in exchange for something: extra life, continue or upgrade options, costume, etc.  Then people can see "benefit" to actually watching ads.  If it's integrated well, then as you mentioned, it can work for both developers and players.

Not sure if you saw it, Phesse tried a "Pay what you liked" model for Honey Rose on Steam recently.  You can see the updates here:
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=42222.msg1286935#msg1286935
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=42222.msg1287006#msg1287006
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=42222.msg1288572#msg1288572