oodavid
|
|
« Reply #360 on: March 18, 2015, 05:40:15 AM » |
|
Today I'm grateful for Lord Mountbutton, he's so easy to just drop into the game, this is the new ending sequence, all of 8 lines of code... So all the levels are done, lots of new audio, new graphics etc. which means it's time to submit another chapter for review and release!
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
JobLeonard
|
|
« Reply #362 on: March 18, 2015, 08:58:54 AM » |
|
He's great. Could use a bit more banter options though, I see him repeat the same jokes a bit often.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
oodavid
|
|
« Reply #364 on: March 19, 2015, 08:19:46 AM » |
|
Right, that's v0.9.6 submitted for review! KNOCKING EM DOWN! He's great. Could use a bit more banter options though, I see him repeat the same jokes a bit often.
I've put that as my first item for the next release; to allow Gavin and Simon to modify LMB's speech, that is to say, de-couple the text from the code into external language files. Which will pave the way for translations too, I think the game is getting mature enough to start on this path without too much fear of things changing... We owe you bigtime for all your feedback! You've been super influential in how I've approached game development and prioritising ideas. In fact, I've just added you to the "Beers Owed" spreadsheet...
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Kurtis Beaulac
Level 0
|
|
« Reply #365 on: March 19, 2015, 12:24:15 PM » |
|
Have you enjoyed playing?
Yeah, it's very playable mechanic, i like it! But methinks this game requires some simplification. For example, you can make intro-tutorial easier, because your gameplay is intuitive At the same time, it can be individually
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Zorg
|
|
« Reply #366 on: March 25, 2015, 03:06:19 AM » |
|
Also being used for the "out of lives" sequence 150 minutes? Edit: Ah, i get it, 5 * 30, right? (I only read the left gif.) Is it possible to wait only 30 minutes to play again with one heart?
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Seaport
|
|
« Reply #367 on: March 30, 2015, 11:38:34 PM » |
|
You had me when Lord Mountbutton used the word 'gumption' Looks like a really a stylish,well put together and interesting game, I'm going to download it once I get home and give it a go
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
JobLeonard
|
|
« Reply #368 on: March 31, 2015, 02:06:33 AM » |
|
Latest version appears broken on my girlfriend's iPad Air - when entering a level the game freezes before the level overlay ("3 perfect patterns", etc) even appears.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
oodavid
|
|
« Reply #369 on: March 31, 2015, 02:11:37 AM » |
|
Just back from a weeks skiing holiday and playing catchup, lots going on in camp oodavid... Latest version appears broken on my girlfriend's iPad Air - when entering a level the game freezes before the level overlay ("3 perfect patterns", etc) even appears.
Good spot dude! We fixed that bug yesterday and sent it off for expedited review, got the confirmation that it's live but I think it takes a day or so to propagate - the fixed version is 0.9.7 You had me when Lord Mountbutton used the word 'gumption' Looks like a really a stylish,well put together and interesting game, I'm going to download it once I get home and give it a go Cheers Seaport! Hope you like it, give me all the feedback - be brutal if you want to
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Mittens
|
|
« Reply #370 on: March 31, 2015, 05:45:52 AM » |
|
I got around to playing this. I liked it once the depth of mechanics became evident but the first few stages masked the code of the game with their over-simplification. It's probably unavoidable due to the all-ages / 'lowest common denominator' thing which is more important on the mobile platform I guess I should have skipped the tutorial if I wanted the game to be harder
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
oodavid
|
|
« Reply #371 on: April 03, 2015, 06:59:34 AM » |
|
@Mittens - thanks for giving it a go, I keep coming back to the tutorial levels and wondering the same thing, now that the scoring / star-rating logic has been vastly simplified the whole game feels a lot more straight forward so i think you're right about getting a bit more information in there...
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
JobLeonard
|
|
« Reply #372 on: May 19, 2015, 03:27:09 AM » |
|
Is this project still alive?
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
oodavid
|
|
« Reply #373 on: May 19, 2015, 03:52:46 AM » |
|
Hey Job! Indeed it is! My wife has just had surgery for a cochlear implant and is off work for a few weeks, I'm taking the opportunity to spend time with her. Since I'm still freelancing the game is taking a bit of a back-seat. A super brief rundown of happenings: - We've started experimenting with Facebook Ads
- I want to integrate Facebook analytics as it can feed into the Facebook Ads platform (and in itself is pretty powerful)
- Seeing success in non-english speaking countries means internationalisation / localisation is on the cards
- Money is starting to trickle in
- We're going to give the first-time-user-experience another work-over (yes, for the nth time, it's important!)
- We've got a physical marketing strategy brewing: posters and flyers have been designed, just looking at budgets etc.
- There's a new chapter designed: "The Caves", we just need to balance the levels
- I'm optimising the map for speed and to not "look shit" on iOS
Of that ^ list I think the Facebook Ads / Analytics is the most interesting, I'll try to make time to update this thread with my findings
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
JobLeonard
|
|
« Reply #374 on: May 19, 2015, 04:40:10 AM » |
|
My wife has just had surgery for a cochlear implant and is off work for a few weeks, I'm taking the opportunity to spend time with her. Since I'm still freelancing the game is taking a bit of a back-seat. Figured it was something in your personal life - at least this sounds like something positive! Hope you also have some monetization plans for those of us who hate ads on principle? (like me)
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
oodavid
|
|
« Reply #375 on: May 19, 2015, 04:59:56 AM » |
|
My wife has just had surgery for a cochlear implant and is off work for a few weeks, I'm taking the opportunity to spend time with her. Since I'm still freelancing the game is taking a bit of a back-seat. Figured it was something in your personal life - at least this sounds like something positive! Hope you also have some monetization plans for those of us who hate ads on principle? (like me) Yeah all good!! Tis the other way round, we're running ads on facebook to get new players, ie:
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
JobLeonard
|
|
« Reply #376 on: May 19, 2015, 06:55:40 AM » |
|
Ah, like that. Well, I'm already a fan, so that doesn't matter
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
oodavid
|
|
« Reply #377 on: May 19, 2015, 08:18:21 AM » |
|
Facebook AdvertisingI went to a talk by a developer at leaf.fm on their experiences with Facebook Ads to drive up app-installs, with a budget of £300 ($465) per month for 8 months they managed to get to 140,000 installs, not bad for £2,400! ($3,700). Their process was pretty logical and because this was their first foray into Facebook Ads they were learning as they went and their insights were in recent memory. V. handy! To sum up their knowledge: - Your goal is to create as many ads as you can, variations of imagery, text, call-to-action etc.
- Facebook automatically optimises the ads that are the most effective (thus cheap)
- For £300 / month you should be looking to have 10 campaigns with a budget of £1 per-day
- Try to target an audience that is small(ish), maybe 500,000 users; that way you can try to saturate niche groups, then move on
- Localise your text for foreign markets, even just the advert and preview images in the app-store is enough to drive conversions
- Use the analytics as part of a feedback cycle in creating more ads...
- Have a successful campaign? Modify the others to follow suit
- Are certain ad variations more effective? Try variations along those lines
Our Experience So FarWell, we've only been doing this for a few weeks and the results have been promising, by investing the £60 ($90) of In-App-Purchases into Facebook Ads we've managed to double the amount of new and returning players, which is great! Hopefully this will lead to a nice cycle of growth. On top of re-investing all the app-related revenue I'm going to put in £300 / month for ads; I liked the numbers leaf.fm were throwing around, it all adds up nicely. And to be fair, I want to make a success of this, and I'm fortunate in that I can afford the outlay. ^ We have a campaign running in the Philippines and have got the cost-per-install down to about 5p, with tweaking we should be able to get lower, maybe 3p or 2p. Even with the higher cost that will still see 600 new players per month. Multiply that by the 10 campaigns and we'll be looking at 6,000 new players per month. After a year; 72,000 players.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
slarti88
|
|
« Reply #378 on: May 19, 2015, 11:16:55 AM » |
|
Just tried it out... the game looks and plays beautifully! Congratulations on that!
Also quite interested in seeing your experiments at making the game a financial success. All the best!
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Dewfreak83
|
|
« Reply #379 on: May 19, 2015, 07:27:58 PM » |
|
Great to see how this progressed over time! I love the marketing info - can you share what your plans are for the physical marketing campaign?
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|