uptimistik said: How has sales of the iphone version of BOT been going? I continued playing and upgraded my guns to a fun level. Hope it successful for you.
Maybe I should launch a lite version of BOT, so more people can learn about it. One of the problems with the original launch was getting bumped back a day. A lite version could be like a mulligan.
BOT (for Mac) was approved today. It should appear on the Mac App Store tomorrow.
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
Congrats photics!!! I have found my self playing BOT more now that I know how to save
And the new controls are better as intuitive as I thought the controls you originally designed where. It would still be nice to loose the DPAD I find myself fighting it somehow but non the less I am able to get around better now. Encountered a boss and got my ass handed to me. LOL
Good luck with the mac version. Do you mind sharing the app store performance of BOT now that its bee out a while?
tenrdrmer said: Good luck with the mac version. Do you mind sharing the app store performance of BOT now that its bee out a while?
I don't give out exact sales figures. But as stated earlier, the sales have been "terrible"... but I think it's been good for The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook.
What's funny is that I'm updating the textbook now... and as I'm re-reading it, just about all of the mistakes made with BOT are actually covered in my book...
I especially laughed at this part...
It’s probably a good idea to think of your game’s controls well in advance. Even with the best graphics and sound effects in the world, if players can’t play your game they probably won’t like it.
Ha ha! I was like, "Shut up Mike!"
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
Photics said: What's funny is that I'm updating the textbook now... and as I'm re-reading it, just about all of the mistakes made with BOT are actually covered in my book...
I especially laughed at this part...
Ha ha! I was like, "Shut up Mike!"
LOL Photics.
Hey heres a fun fact for you I think you might enjoy. enjoy
tenrdrmer said: Hey heres a fun fact for you I think you might enjoy.
Heh, I figured that it was the second longest thread here. I doubt it's going to pass the GameSalad Direct® fiasco though. This thread is winding down.
Although, I noticed something interesting. BOT is now #9 on the top Role Playing games on the Mac App Store. I think that's a good start.
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
Photics said: Heh, I figured that it was the second longest thread here. I doubt it's going to pass the GameSalad Direct® fiasco though.
HAHA, Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Even if you did out do the posts it would not pale in comparison to the time frame that thread hit that many posts.
I was thinking of what to work on next, but I realize that I'm still not happy with the success of BOT. So, I was thinking of ways to make this game successful.
1 - Release an iPad version 2 - Release a lite / advertisement based version 3 - Free App A Day 4 - Chill out and wait for Android support and/or Apple TV.
I'm not really sure if #3 is a good idea, and I'm not really familiar with the process. #4 is an option for the future, but I don't feel like waiting around. I started working on #1 today... and GameSalad crashed. HA HA!
I'm not so sure about #2... it seems pretty easy to do and there's little effort involved... but it hasn't been successful for me with other apps. Maybe I should release a comic instead of a lite version.
RodrigoPerez said: I'm not sure how much you'd like to reveal about the financials but has BOT made enough to "pay the bills" if that was your only source of income?
Considered the time I put into the game — five months — BOT is a huge loss.
Over the weekend, I sent "BOT HD" to Apple. I think this might be more successful version for a few reasons...
1 - BOT is a big game. People on the go, with their iPhones, might not want to fuss with such a large game. But with the iPad, players might appreciate figuring out the game's challenges.
2 - The screen is bigger. I think the game is more fun on larger screens.
3 - It's smaller in size. Without the low-res graphics, BOT is about 60% smaller than the iPhone version.
4 - Historically, my iPad apps have outperformed my iPhone apps.
I'm also planning something... special... to help promote the game
Operation "Salvage" is off to a decent start, but no thanks to the GameSalad Creator. It crashed and the project file became highly corrupted.
It said something like... "Sorry Mike, this project was created with a newer version of GameSalad." Either I'm a random time-traveler or something is highly suspect with 0.9.6. I tried deleting the .gsuser file. Nope, that did nothing... except change the error message. "Blah, blah, blah... file can't be opened."
So, I deleted and restarted the project. I was thinking... "Hey, I left the editor running overnight." So, it looks like I should keep restarting GameSalad frequently... and now I have extra tedious work... like deleting the .gsuser file and scene thumbnails.
Yeah, those little screenshots don't hurt anything... but I hate them. I don't need a little picture of what scene looked like when I first hit the preview button.
I think that the GameSalad creator should have an option menu...
• Never store .gsuser data • disable automatic scene thumbnails • all behaviors expanded
Things are getting bad for GameSalad when I wake up in the morning and think, "Maybe I should restart my Guild Wars fansite."
Yet, the main source of the frustration is the success of BOT. If my game would have done well, I probably wouldn't be so grumpy with GameSalad right now. That's exactly why I shouldn't giving up! I think I have a good idea to increase the popularity of this game... and I still have the iPad version in review.
I see that you are just debating a lite version, but I think you most certainly should. Kill the King lite still averages about 300 downloads a day, and I saw a big sales increase when it was first released.
You could even try to release the full game with ads as your lite version, though I think that works best with IAP.
Eastbound said: I see that you are just debating a lite version, but I think you most certainly should.
I have something special planned. I've been working on it today. It's really nice. As the project gets closer to completion, I can make a presentation.
Meanwhile, I'm still working on Project: Salvage. I should be moving faster, but there have been some distractions... like the new Mac hardware and software updates.
I compared the size of the game to the number of iPad screens needed to show the whole game at once...
• One iPad screen is 1024x768 pixels. That's 786432 pixels. • There are 35 areas in BOT. Each area is 2048x2048 pixels in a 5 x 7 grid. • That's 10240 pixels by 14336 pixels... or 146,800,640 pixels • 10240/768 = 13.3 (14 iPad rows.) • 14336/1024 = 14 iPad rows. • 14 x 14 = 196.
So, if my math is right, The BOT playing area is about the size of 196 iPad screens. At $500 each, I would have to spend $98,000 to built an iPad array large enough to show the whole thing.
Some good news for BOT... it's now featured in the New and Noteworthy section of iPad Role-Playing. (It's ranked #29 in that category.) It's got one of those big images, so it's pretty cool.
I'm still working on Project: Salvage. I'll be working through the weekend in an attempt to finish it.
So I played Bot for about 20 mins today. I was pleasantly surprised. Not sure what you're planning on doing with it, but I think you have the groundwork laid down for a really good game here.
But for me it's missing some elements, so feels more like a game that COULD be good. At the moment it has the presentation and mechanics of a game but doesn't have the basic emotional motivators to make it a properly good game.
So anyway, I think you should keep improving it with updates. (Not sure if you were going to just move onto a a new project?)
I won't say the kind of things I'd like to see in it. I'm sure you have plenty of your own ideas. Although I will say the first easy improvement would be the music.
I reckon a good question to be asking all the way through making a game is 'what experience do I want the player to have?', or 'what do i want them to feel?'.
Much more useful than 'what do I want the game to do?'.
I'm finding that playing games is much easier than making them!
uptimistik said: And I still say, you would find even MORE success if the player knew what they were doing/where they were going.
If players can't walk a few steps to the tutorial guy, then this game is just going to be too complicated for them.
HoneyTribeStudios said: I'm finding that playing games is much easier than making them!
I agree that the game should have more emotion. Maybe that's why "Project: Salvage" will be successful.
I think the biggest issue with BOT is that I went retro. That's a problem because it divides the players into two groups. For those that have played retro games before, the new game may not meet expectations or live up to past memories. For those that haven't played retro games before, they won't have tolerance for game design issues that have been "fixed".
Project: Salvage is nearing completion. I really enjoy it. I'm starting to think that people might like this new creation more than the game it's based on. Although, something unusual happened today... I started wondering what I should rate it.
I started asking myself questions like... what is a "Suggestive theme" and stuff like that. Project: Salvage certainly has some content that is tough for me to rate. If I overestimate, the app won't appear in the iTunes App store for Saudi Arabia. So, that made me wonder... maybe I should overestimate it. What I consider "mild" might be "intense" in that country. Although, if I over-estimate, then people in a country like Japan might be like... WHERE ARE THE NAKED WOMEN?!
Since this is an iAds app, and it's not aimed at viewers under the age of 17, I started thinking, "Maybe I should add some nudity." Yet, I'm not sure if any nudity is allowed in the iTunes App Store. And yeah, I probably don't want to add nudity. It doesn't feel appropriate for this project. I don't want to add profanity either.
With that information, you might be able to make an educated guess of what Project: Salvage is about.
...but if you have no idea what it is, I'm shooting for an August 1st launch... but it might be delayed to an "early August" launch. It depends on how much work I get done in the next two days. The mystery shouldn't last much longer... and it's a free app!
Comments
Maybe I should launch a lite version of BOT, so more people can learn about it. One of the problems with the original launch was getting bumped back a day. A lite version could be like a mulligan.
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And the new controls are better as intuitive as I thought the controls you originally designed where. It would still be nice to loose the DPAD I find myself fighting it somehow but non the less I am able to get around better now. Encountered a boss and got my ass handed to me. LOL
Good luck with the mac version. Do you mind sharing the app store performance of BOT now that its bee out a while?
I especially laughed at this part... Ha ha! I was like, "Shut up Mike!"
Hey heres a fun fact for you I think you might enjoy.
enjoy
Although, I noticed something interesting. BOT is now #9 on the top Role Playing games on the Mac App Store. I think that's a good start.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=445430105
I haven't really done that much marketing.
1 - Release an iPad version
2 - Release a lite / advertisement based version
3 - Free App A Day
4 - Chill out and wait for Android support and/or Apple TV.
I'm not really sure if #3 is a good idea, and I'm not really familiar with the process. #4 is an option for the future, but I don't feel like waiting around. I started working on #1 today... and GameSalad crashed. HA HA!
I'm not so sure about #2... it seems pretty easy to do and there's little effort involved... but it hasn't been successful for me with other apps. Maybe I should release a comic instead of a lite version.
Hm...
I think I like the comic book idea.
I was playing the game last night though. I had fun. I think BOT has been good for The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook too.
Over the weekend, I sent "BOT HD" to Apple. I think this might be more successful version for a few reasons...
1 - BOT is a big game. People on the go, with their iPhones, might not want to fuss with such a large game. But with the iPad, players might appreciate figuring out the game's challenges.
2 - The screen is bigger. I think the game is more fun on larger screens.
3 - It's smaller in size. Without the low-res graphics, BOT is about 60% smaller than the iPhone version.
4 - Historically, my iPad apps have outperformed my iPhone apps.
I'm also planning something... special... to help promote the game
Operation "Salvage" is off to a decent start, but no thanks to the GameSalad Creator. It crashed and the project file became highly corrupted.
It said something like... "Sorry Mike, this project was created with a newer version of GameSalad." Either I'm a random time-traveler or something is highly suspect with 0.9.6. I tried deleting the .gsuser file. Nope, that did nothing... except change the error message. "Blah, blah, blah... file can't be opened."
So, I deleted and restarted the project. I was thinking... "Hey, I left the editor running overnight." So, it looks like I should keep restarting GameSalad frequently... and now I have extra tedious work... like deleting the .gsuser file and scene thumbnails.
Yeah, those little screenshots don't hurt anything... but I hate them. I don't need a little picture of what scene looked like when I first hit the preview button.
I think that the GameSalad creator should have an option menu...
• Never store .gsuser data
• disable automatic scene thumbnails
• all behaviors expanded
Things are getting bad for GameSalad when I wake up in the morning and think, "Maybe I should restart my Guild Wars fansite."
Yet, the main source of the frustration is the success of BOT. If my game would have done well, I probably wouldn't be so grumpy with GameSalad right now. That's exactly why I shouldn't giving up! I think I have a good idea to increase the popularity of this game... and I still have the iPad version in review.
You could even try to release the full game with ads as your lite version, though I think that works best with IAP.
Cool that you have an iPad version in review, hope it gets approved this week!
A lite version wouldn't be a bad idea, lite versions can't hurt sales, they either stay the same, or get a slight increase
I think the GameSalad community is going to like it!
Meanwhile, I'm still working on Project: Salvage. I should be moving faster, but there have been some distractions... like the new Mac hardware and software updates.
It should work tomorrow, when the app is available.
Looks like today is going to be a busy day.
It's already ranked 58 in Role-Playing... ahead of Braveheart HD. WOW!
(I reviewed Braveheart for iPhone. Overall, I enjoyed it!)
...and Apple didn't screw up the listing this time.
I was having more fun working on Project: Salvage, but it seems that's going to have to wait. Some work in marketing/promotion could go a long way!
...and someone asked an interesting question on the Touch Arcade forums...
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=101495
Basically... just how big is 146,800,640 pixels?
I compared the size of the game to the number of iPad screens needed to show the whole game at once...
• One iPad screen is 1024x768 pixels. That's 786432 pixels.
• There are 35 areas in BOT. Each area is 2048x2048 pixels in a 5 x 7 grid.
• That's 10240 pixels by 14336 pixels... or 146,800,640 pixels
• 10240/768 = 13.3 (14 iPad rows.)
• 14336/1024 = 14 iPad rows.
• 14 x 14 = 196.
So, if my math is right, The BOT playing area is about the size of 196 iPad screens. At $500 each, I would have to spend $98,000 to built an iPad array large enough to show the whole thing.
I'm still working on Project: Salvage. I'll be working through the weekend in an attempt to finish it.
But for me it's missing some elements, so feels more like a game that COULD be good. At the moment it has the presentation and mechanics of a game but doesn't have the basic emotional motivators to make it a properly good game.
If you don't already read it this is a good game psychology blog: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_the_psychology_of_games/
So anyway, I think you should keep improving it with updates. (Not sure if you were going to just move onto a a new project?)
I won't say the kind of things I'd like to see in it. I'm sure you have plenty of your own ideas. Although I will say the first easy improvement would be the music.
I reckon a good question to be asking all the way through making a game is 'what experience do I want the player to have?', or 'what do i want them to feel?'.
Much more useful than 'what do I want the game to do?'.
I'm finding that playing games is much easier than making them!
Shaz
I think the biggest issue with BOT is that I went retro. That's a problem because it divides the players into two groups. For those that have played retro games before, the new game may not meet expectations or live up to past memories. For those that haven't played retro games before, they won't have tolerance for game design issues that have been "fixed".
Here's a link an article that I think is relevant to this discussion...
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-crucial-lessons-learned-by-watching-kids-play-video-games/
Here's a quote...
"Ratings"
Project: Salvage is nearing completion. I really enjoy it. I'm starting to think that people might like this new creation more than the game it's based on. Although, something unusual happened today... I started wondering what I should rate it.
I started asking myself questions like... what is a "Suggestive theme" and stuff like that. Project: Salvage certainly has some content that is tough for me to rate. If I overestimate, the app won't appear in the iTunes App store for Saudi Arabia. So, that made me wonder... maybe I should overestimate it. What I consider "mild" might be "intense" in that country. Although, if I over-estimate, then people in a country like Japan might be like... WHERE ARE THE NAKED WOMEN?!
Since this is an iAds app, and it's not aimed at viewers under the age of 17, I started thinking, "Maybe I should add some nudity." Yet, I'm not sure if any nudity is allowed in the iTunes App Store. And yeah, I probably don't want to add nudity. It doesn't feel appropriate for this project. I don't want to add profanity either.
With that information, you might be able to make an educated guess of what Project: Salvage is about.
...but if you have no idea what it is, I'm shooting for an August 1st launch... but it might be delayed to an "early August" launch. It depends on how much work I get done in the next two days. The mystery shouldn't last much longer... and it's a free app!
-Still the champion!