Doodle Galaxies is free for today

Sparkyidr

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/doodle-galaxies-doodle-shoot/id368740185?mt=8

If you haven't had a chance to try the game yet, today would be a good day

enjoy

Sparks.

MagoNicolas

Thx¡

QuinnZoneStudios

That's a cute game - thanks for posting this.

There's definitely something appealing about a no nonsense game that just gets down to business - you aim and shoot, that's it.

I need to learn from this and make my next one less complicated lol!

Thanks Sparkyidr

Sparkyidr

@Mike. cheers.
I think the simpleness comes from the fact that we (Flaming Mitten) think that mobile games should be as immediate, and free from complexities as poss. Most of the time when playing games on the phone, it's when people are waiting around to do something else (catch a bus etc) so I personally don't want to play something that takes me 20 mins to get into.

Gotta be something that I can have a 2 min bash at, and have just as much fun if I sit and have a 20 min stint.

for example :
Something like Hero of Sparta, whilst technically really good, and really playable, never gets a look in my phone, just because it requires that you get into it over time.
Doodle jump on the other hand, I can play, and just turn off when I need to, and not worry that I have lost any progress because I had to put the phone down or whatever.

QuinnZoneStudios

Yep you hit the nail on the head!
Thanks so much for sharing (the game and the insights).

quantumsheep

Sparkyidr said:
@Mike. cheers.
I think the simpleness comes from the fact that we (Flaming Mitten) think that mobile games should be as immediate, and free from complexities as poss. Most of the time when playing games on the phone, it's when people are waiting around to do something else (catch a bus etc) so I personally don't want to play something that takes me 20 mins to get into.

Gotta be something that I can have a 2 min bash at, and have just as much fun if I sit and have a 20 min stint.

for example :
Something like Hero of Sparta, whilst technically really good, and really playable, never gets a look in my phone, just because it requires that you get into it over time.
Doodle jump on the other hand, I can play, and just turn off when I need to, and not worry that I have lost any progress because I had to put the phone down or whatever.

I agree with this a lot. Which is why I want PAUSE back in asap!

The Hero of Sparta example is excellent. Big games like that take up more time than I'm willing to give, unless they're immediately engaging!

I do, however, think you can still have complexity in there. It's a fine balance - make a game that's immediate and worthy of a 2 minute blast, but has enough depth to keep you playing for longer if you want to!

Cheers,

QS

EDIT - Oh, and thanks for the game! I liked it, but my main gripe is the same as the one with your excellent ski game - I want more than one life!

IntelligentDesigner

Thanks for the freebie, Sparky! It is the best doodle type app I've ever played! Also loved Donk, and Brain Scan! Keep up the good work!

Cheers!

expired_012

AWESOME! 50,000 beat that!

Sparkyidr

50K is pretty good.

If you manage to get to 100,000 though, you will see the alien invasion )

AfterBurnett

Sparkyidr said:
@Mike. cheers.
I think the simpleness comes from the fact that we (Flaming Mitten) think that mobile games should be as immediate, and free from complexities as poss. Most of the time when playing games on the phone, it's when people are waiting around to do something else (catch a bus etc) so I personally don't want to play something that takes me 20 mins to get into.

Gotta be something that I can have a 2 min bash at, and have just as much fun if I sit and have a 20 min stint.

for example :
Something like Hero of Sparta, whilst technically really good, and really playable, never gets a look in my phone, just because it requires that you get into it over time.
Doodle jump on the other hand, I can play, and just turn off when I need to, and not worry that I have lost any progress because I had to put the phone down or whatever.

This is my theory too... I have built my first game to reflect this Hope we're right! I know that's how I see the iPhone as a gaming platform.

Sparkyidr

Wow!
We had over 7000 downloads on it's free day. How nice.
If only we could do 7000 paid downloads in a day, I would be a happy Sparky

AfterBurnett

How are sales for Doodle Ski going?

Sparkyidr

Dropped right off now. I guess on average around 5-10 a day. sometimes less, sometimes "slightly" more.

Shows the importance of being featured.

We only ever hovered around the late 90's overall in the top 100's. So we still were not visible enough to get to the "self perpetuating" sales of being say, in the top 20.

Been a great game for us though, has surpassed anything else we have put out x10, and deffo spurred us on to do better stuff.

With a bit of luck, who knows, if we get only 2 or 3 featured in a year (we aim to try to have 1 game out every month from now on) times would be good at Mitten Towers.

expired_012

@sparkyidr, how big is your company?

Sparkyidr

There are currently 2 of us. Mark P is a designer (websites/print media and the like), and I am a musician/producer, so GS is great for us to get our ideas out there. Even though we both have computer based qualifications, we kinda hate coding.

And we often get other people involved in with graphics etc (See Ian on these very forums).