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Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

playadrift.com

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Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#271

Post by greggman »

pmelendez wrote: post #183
archagon wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. 90% of the games that are currently on my iPhone were a) made by dev teams with 1-3 people, b) provide a unique and polished experience, and c) became known mainly based on community outreach. None of them are currently in the top rankings, but as far as I can tell they make enough money for the teams to get by. People keep talking about "hidden gems" on the App Store that failed to succeed despit…

Unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the 400k indie games out there that are not making the top 100 and are competing between them to have a little piece of cake. Asymmetry is a real problem in the App store.

There aren't 400k polished and unique indie games. There are 399.9k shit quality clones and a few gems. The question to ask is "if I make a quality game that is at least somewhat novel does it have a chance to do ok" where ok = enough to fund a 2-4 person team for their next project.

Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#273

Post by iends »

enraged_camel wrote: post #254

Minor issue: if you accidentally cross the paths of the colors, it fails silently. There's no "you fail" message or anything like that given, and it's not immediately obvious that the only way to try again is to reload the level.

I didn't have this issue on chrome, you can just start dragging again and reconnect the paths.

Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#274

Post by pcl »

ronyeh wrote: post #114
seanalltogether wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for all the feedback, it's all really good advice, We've gone back and forth on the ad thing and we're still not sold on whether to integrate them or not. The game was written in cocos2d, and I wrote the initial prototype in html5, so thats whats being used on the website. Also yeah "Adrift" was taken as an app store entry, so we had to figure out something else for the title, I agree its a bit clunky.

Yeah, I didn't include ads for my first year either. Now, my model going forward will always be: Free + iAds/AdMob + IAP to get more content and remove the ads. There are people who can never pay you (kids whose parents have disabled IAP). There are people who would have been happy to pay you after 20 levels, but got distracted by a new SuperCell game and never came back to your game. You want to monetize every user,…

Also, it's not clear that there are more level packs if you swipe horizontally. Maybe if you add the three little dots (page indicators) at the bottom? Or maybe arrows that you can tap to change the page? I know this all looks ugly, but sometimes you have to be explicit. There are lots of users who need a bit of guidance to navigate your app.

I had a hard time figuring this out too.

Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#275

Post by chipsy »

pdog wrote: post #257
VonGuard wrote: post #130

Hey guys, thought I'd throw in my 2-cents as an Independent Games Festival judge, and as press. First of all, your presentation is terrific. Great art and sound. Top notch, feels like it came from a very talented team. With this game on your resume, you've got a great future ahead of yourselves. Now, the bad part: from a gameplay perspective, your game is not unique enough to win out on its own merits in any app stor…

> Oh, and when it comes to press, I really don't have any good advice. Try to find some small outlets to work with because the big guys will ignore you, and do so in a mean and churlish way. With nearly 600 upvotes, 250+ comments, and the front page of Hacker News, he shouldn't have trouble finding press coverage.

Unfortunately, it's a clone of a type of game that is commonplace on Flash portals. It doesn't have remarkable features beyond being polished - and what the press and the (word-of-mouth) public needs most to market the game for you is stuff that can be remarked upon. On HN the same rules don't apply because pure execution can be praised instead.

Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#276

Post by greggman »

enraged_camel wrote: post #254

Minor issue: if you accidentally cross the paths of the colors, it fails silently. There's no "you fail" message or anything like that given, and it's not immediately obvious that the only way to try again is to reload the level.

you just draw over the tiles with the correct color. I guess that wasn't obvious though I figured it out. You can make as many mistakes as you want. I guess a tutorial would solve that but there is no fail. Just win or give up.

Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#277

Post by gavanwoolery »

VonGuard wrote: post #130

Hey guys, thought I'd throw in my 2-cents as an Independent Games Festival judge, and as press. First of all, your presentation is terrific. Great art and sound. Top notch, feels like it came from a very talented team. With this game on your resume, you've got a great future ahead of yourselves. Now, the bad part: from a gameplay perspective, your game is not unique enough to win out on its own merits in any app stor…

I hate to admit it, but VonGuard is right -- without a novel game your best bet is to "cheat" the system - you can hack it in "honest" ways though. It is no different from SEO. That said, even doing so will by no means guarantee you success. Your real best bet is to make a good, novel game. This game is highly polished, but the mechanics were just not interesting enough for me to recommend it to anyone.

If you are "going indie" you have to think about your real motivations -- are you building games to make a profit, or are you building games that you want to play but do not exist? The most successful games seem to fall in the latter category (successful indie games, that is). I do not say this to be snide or critical, just my honest, well-intentioned advice.

Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#278

Post by VonGuard »

greggman wrote: post #271
pmelendez wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the 400k indie games out there that are not making the top 100 and are competing between them to have a little piece of cake. Asymmetry is a real problem in the App store.

There aren't 400k polished and unique indie games. There are 399.9k shit quality clones and a few gems. The question to ask is "if I make a quality game that is at least somewhat novel does it have a chance to do ok" where ok = enough to fund a 2-4 person team for their next project.

The answer is Yes, where "OK" is directly proportional to "uniqueness/novelty" factor. When judging, a novel gameplay idea will win me over before anything else. Good gameplay trumps all, but it's the toughest thing to get right, especially with the terribly limited interface you have on mobile devices.

This equation also works, sadly, when you replace "uniqueness/novelty factor" with "boobs." Look at the top apps and see that this is true.

Re: Show HN: 6 months ago I quit my job to pursue indie dev. Here is our first game

#280

Post by derefr »

joeld42 wrote: post #175
VonGuard wrote: post #130

Hey guys, thought I'd throw in my 2-cents as an Independent Games Festival judge, and as press. First of all, your presentation is terrific. Great art and sound. Top notch, feels like it came from a very talented team. With this game on your resume, you've got a great future ahead of yourselves. Now, the bad part: from a gameplay perspective, your game is not unique enough to win out on its own merits in any app stor…

A less sleazy way to do this is to offer players something ("unlock the secret panda level") in return for giving you a five star review. You can't verify that they actually do, but if you give them the item and then send them to the app store, some of them will. Then, set this up as a timed promotion along with a push notification so you can get a bunch of players to hopefully respond at the same day. It's not as ef…

Another strategy--and I'm not sure about the morality of this, except it's less evil than the above--is to pop up a "please rate!" dialog right after doing something nice for the player.

For example, have a random time-based trigger that will unlock a DLC item in the middle of regular play. Tell them they got it, make it shine and sparkle, and then--maybe not right away, but after a minute or so, after they've gotten back to the game and might be playing around with their new toy--ask them for a rating.

Another way to put it is: if Nintendo, as some unknown up-and-comer, had released SMB3 on the App Store, a ratings dialogue would almost certainly appear approximately two minutes into the Kuribo-shoe level.

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