pickle, I’m going to guess that you are the same person who left a very similar, but more obnoxiously snide comment on my last game (which I decided not to publish). if you find my stuff that much crap, why do you read the blog in the first place? just to get a thrill out of leaving nasty comments?
Not snide, just an opinion, I think you’ll find that at $.99 you are competing against games with much higher production values, with more than 1 weekends development time.
The reality is the Appstore is not a get rich quick scheme, priced at $.99 I suspect your game, like your previous game will fail to have any impact.
Anyway, no doubt that some 99 cent games have a lot of “production value” put into them. That doesn’t make them good, or even successful. We all know the Dapple story. Months and months of production, testing, art work, thousands and thousands of dollars invested. A few hundred copies sold.
On the other hand, I had enormous success with Falling Balls, which, yes, was free, and yes, did take a weekend to make. And with the ad revenue… yes, it was a get rich quick scheme.
So now I’m seeing what I can do with a paid app. It was a tough decision actually – whether to release it free or $.99. If it fails, big deal. I had fun making it. The worst that happens is I am personally responsible for 1/50,000th of the app store clog.
As I said, it’s just an opinion, it’s not meant to be snide.
All I am saying is that you’re following the quantity over quality route and I really honestly can’t see that your game has the potential to do anything more than sell a dozen copies, the gameplay (forget the low production values for now) just won’t convince a customer who is used to paying $.99 for a game like Peggle to buy your App. Sorry, the appstore is harsh, not saying it’s right, but when I can buy Peggle,Let’s golf, and dozens of others for $.99 how will your game be anything other than noise?
You mention falling balls, but surely even you’ll admit that was pure luck….
Luck indeed. I tell everyone who asks that the app store is like playing the lottery. Unless you are a big game company with a big advertising budget and hooks into Apple to get your app featured, luck plays a big part. Anyway, I enjoy making the games. I do them in my own spare time. If I don’t get rich, no big deal. If I hit the lottery (again), yay for me.
hmmm, partially agree, small indie devs can make it, but the games have to have the spirit of independent development. i.e if you try and build a madden game you’ll fail. Indie games have to be unique, and excel in their gameplay, take a look at the top 100 it’s still possible, but I also still believe your game would do better as a freebie
Keith, I love your game idea … probably because something similar was on my list of ideas a while back … mine never made it into production (however, you implemented multi-touch which wasn’t in my game idea – my original target wasn’t iPhone).
Don’t know who Pickle is, but I wouldn’t let his comments drag you down.
It’s a nice little game, i like the bouncy physics. I do wonder if people will buy it (and its kind), since theres so much free stuff around. I guessyou’d probably make more money if you post a similar Flash game on a site that shares ad-revenue, but thats not based on any hard facts whatsoever.
And thumbs up for doing what you want, and having the guts to post it on your comments-enabled blog (haters need source material too 🙂
thanks. I’m under no illusions that it’s a shoe-in for a best seller. But you never know if you don’t try sometimes. My wife loves it, and that says a lot. 🙂
I’m really curious to test it out, having a game project starting with similar approach (that is 2d, physics and nature, nothing similar gameplay wise).
Side question, have you managed to do some light 3d work with cocos2d (ala oc3d), by extending its feature set ?
It’s my first IPhone project and I’m still wondering wether using cocos2d+customization or SIO2.
The level of 3d I’d like to add is relatively small, that is having a sense of depth but always with an upper view.
Quantity over quality eh?
You’ll really struggle to sell at $.99 there are some amazing games available at that price, looks more like a freebie to me
(I know you won’t publish this, but the harsh reality is that games like this do nothing but clog up the Appstore).
pickle, I’m going to guess that you are the same person who left a very similar, but more obnoxiously snide comment on my last game (which I decided not to publish). if you find my stuff that much crap, why do you read the blog in the first place? just to get a thrill out of leaving nasty comments?
Not snide, just an opinion, I think you’ll find that at $.99 you are competing against games with much higher production values, with more than 1 weekends development time.
The reality is the Appstore is not a get rich quick scheme, priced at $.99 I suspect your game, like your previous game will fail to have any impact.
Like I said just an opinion…
Not snide? OK…
Anyway, no doubt that some 99 cent games have a lot of “production value” put into them. That doesn’t make them good, or even successful. We all know the Dapple story. Months and months of production, testing, art work, thousands and thousands of dollars invested. A few hundred copies sold.
On the other hand, I had enormous success with Falling Balls, which, yes, was free, and yes, did take a weekend to make. And with the ad revenue… yes, it was a get rich quick scheme.
So now I’m seeing what I can do with a paid app. It was a tough decision actually – whether to release it free or $.99. If it fails, big deal. I had fun making it. The worst that happens is I am personally responsible for 1/50,000th of the app store clog.
So, what apps do you have out there?
As I said, it’s just an opinion, it’s not meant to be snide.
All I am saying is that you’re following the quantity over quality route and I really honestly can’t see that your game has the potential to do anything more than sell a dozen copies, the gameplay (forget the low production values for now) just won’t convince a customer who is used to paying $.99 for a game like Peggle to buy your App. Sorry, the appstore is harsh, not saying it’s right, but when I can buy Peggle,Let’s golf, and dozens of others for $.99 how will your game be anything other than noise?
You mention falling balls, but surely even you’ll admit that was pure luck….
Luck indeed. I tell everyone who asks that the app store is like playing the lottery. Unless you are a big game company with a big advertising budget and hooks into Apple to get your app featured, luck plays a big part. Anyway, I enjoy making the games. I do them in my own spare time. If I don’t get rich, no big deal. If I hit the lottery (again), yay for me.
hmmm, partially agree, small indie devs can make it, but the games have to have the spirit of independent development. i.e if you try and build a madden game you’ll fail. Indie games have to be unique, and excel in their gameplay, take a look at the top 100 it’s still possible, but I also still believe your game would do better as a freebie
Just my 99c
Keith, I love your game idea … probably because something similar was on my list of ideas a while back … mine never made it into production (however, you implemented multi-touch which wasn’t in my game idea – my original target wasn’t iPhone).
Don’t know who Pickle is, but I wouldn’t let his comments drag you down.
Good luck with Bug Out.
-sj
It’s a nice little game, i like the bouncy physics. I do wonder if people will buy it (and its kind), since theres so much free stuff around. I guessyou’d probably make more money if you post a similar Flash game on a site that shares ad-revenue, but thats not based on any hard facts whatsoever.
And thumbs up for doing what you want, and having the guts to post it on your comments-enabled blog (haters need source material too 🙂
thanks. I’m under no illusions that it’s a shoe-in for a best seller. But you never know if you don’t try sometimes. My wife loves it, and that says a lot. 🙂
Can’t find it in the appstore, is it still in ?
Still waiting for approval. Seems to take a lot longer these days.
Ok, thanks.
I’m really curious to test it out, having a game project starting with similar approach (that is 2d, physics and nature, nothing similar gameplay wise).
Side question, have you managed to do some light 3d work with cocos2d (ala oc3d), by extending its feature set ?
It’s my first IPhone project and I’m still wondering wether using cocos2d+customization or SIO2.
The level of 3d I’d like to add is relatively small, that is having a sense of depth but always with an upper view.
Thanks !
Haven’t really tried to do much beyond 2d with cocos2d, though I understand you can do some basic, maybe 2.5d, kind of stuff with the camera.