October 26, 2009 -
balord |
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The gang at Playhaven just gave us the go-ahead to point our "Tips" button to the Snowferno game pages on playhaven.com.
Ben wrote previously about why we chose Playhaven to power our Support/Community features. He also wrote over on the escapeFactory blog how to open a UIWebView in Unity3D, which was essential to integrating Playhaven's model with Snowferno.
We're really excited about this partnership and the community features that Playhaven enables.
Here are some screenshots of what you'll find when you tap "Tips" from the Snowferno main menu... Enjoy!
(P.S: sorry I don't have a Lightbox plugin on the site yet -- it's added to my to-do list...)
It's easy to get spoiled with good reviews, and even easier to quote just those. But what about bad reviews?
Well, you're going to find them, so we'd be stupid to pretend they don't exist. And one of our first was Ben Briggs' Snowferno review today on we play iPhone.
Right off the bat, it's pretty impossible to recover when the reviewer expected from our app title a different game than what we wrote, but his review still had some good points. We don't think that what essentially boils down to "not terribly compelling" merits a D rating, but maybe a year ago -- when there weren't 100,000 other apps to choose from -- we might have scored better with our freshman effort.
Our goal with Snowferno was always, in fact, to tackle the App Store with a simple concept and learn a ton getting it built. We're extra pleased that most people love playing it. And if not? Well, we're just getting going and maybe you'll like our next one better. :)
Unity3D is progressing, as is our knowledge of optimizing within that game engine... we'll see if we can't also smooth out some more of those terrain bugs. But thanks to Ben Briggs for giving us his time for a review!
And last -- about the demerit for "no save state"... he must mean returning mid-level i.e. if interrupted by a call. But it makes it sound like we make you replay Snowferno from the beginning each time, which isn't true. There is a world map, and any level you solve is unlocked for good. Even if you have to reinstall Snowferno, our leaderboard remembers and unlocks your game the next time you boot up.
Not to split hairs, but I just wanted to point that out.
October 18, 2009 -
balord |
Comments Off3 new (ahem, glowing) reviews from the iTunes App Store:
Very Fun & Challenging - 5 stars, by Greg Meach
"Starts out very easy but then fairly quickly it will challenge you. The online scoring keeps you coming back to try and improve your time(s). Once you solve the level that is. Check out the web site to see a demo. Highly recommend over many of the other "marble rolling" type games. The simple fact that you can get smaller (with fire) and larger (with snow) and a unique challenge."
Awesome Game - 5 stars, by I Firebird I
"This game is so much fun! Challenging entertainment for everyone. Graphics make you feel like you're there. The controls are great and quick to learn. Makes great use of the accelerometer. The adjustable camera angles is a real plus which most developers forget about. And with the leaderboard this game has it all - a must get."
Great game!!! - 4 stars, by ravenmk
"Fun and pretty ... Love live highscores :D"
The v1.1 update to Snowferno is now Ready For Sale!! Of course, if you already have it, just check your iTuneses or App Store "Updates" button for your free fresh copy.
In this update you will find:
- Better performance for all devices
- Built with new Unity iPhone 1.5
- New Global Leaderboard integration in-game with webview
- New tips from the Community powered by (the already-launched-but-soon-to-be-styled-for-in-game-coolness) playhaven.com
- Fixed a few terrain bugs where you could get stuck
Happy rolling!
Last week I attended the Digital Distribution Summit here in Melbourne with fellow Escape Factory collaborator John. Even though the name makes you think it would be terribly boring, (it probably should have been called the Digital Games Distribution Summit, bit I digress) it was actually very good.
You can watch all of the speakers on the DDSummit site, which you should go and do now, and not bother reading this silly post.
If you are still reading, I will give you my belated thoughts on the content provided in the summit. If you did not attend or have no idea what I am talking about then here is the very brief overview:
The DDSummit was geared towards indie level game developers who are looking to take advantage of the increasingly popular and available digital distribution methods (like XBLA, PSX, WiiWare, AppStore etc..) The talks ranged all over but ultimately were there to help the little guy (thats us!) succeed in this new marketplace. There is a smaller barrier to entry to the indie game market now than any other time in history.
So that is the overview, what are some of the specifics?
Since I am an iPhone developer (so far) I mostly tried to apply everything that was being said to my situation (which is: zero budget development for iPhone).
The biggest thing that I took away from this event was that marketing is the single most important thing you can be doing right now. (cynically, I might even say that it is more important than having a good game) This is of course not really news to me, but having it laid out so many times and so clearly, it really hit home the fact that we are not marketing our stuff enough. This is a common problem with the indies, we are all very good at what we do (which might be programming, artwork, game design, sound, etc..) but we are not really very good at marketing (otherwise we would be professional marketing types right?)
The presenters made many good points re: marketing. If you make the best game ever and nobody knows about it, then nobody will buy it.
That begs the question: How do we, as indie developers who suck at marketing.... how do we get the word out?
This is a summary, in no particular order of the hints, suggestions and tips to better marketing. Some of these are directly from the talks and others are things that I synthesized from my notes.
- Start your marketing on day one. Do not build a protorype, do not write a design document, do not brainstorm game mechanics. The very first thing you need to do is start the marketing process. Write a blog post, tweet, whatever. Then start the actual development. Well, ok that might be a bit hyperbolic, but marketing needs to be in your plan from the very start.
- Marketing should be part of your dev process. Just like everything else you are doing to build your game. Add marketing tasks into the flow. Blog about what you are doing, tweet your advances and your challenges, solicit gamer feedback from your early design ideas
- Define your target audience. Figure out who is going to care about this game you are making. Define a narrow group of people (dont say: this game is for everyone! because it isn't.) focus on a realistic group and cater your marketing to that group.
- Define your brand. As indies this tends to get lost. Also often the brand become synonymous with the first successful game you develop. As indies, our brand is our individual style and story. Half of selling your games and ideas as an indie is having a compelling story. By story I mean who you are and what it is you do.
- Twitter. I think I heard the word twitter or tweet about 900 times. Twitter is the current social networking fad, and you should be using it. Twitter is a multiplier for word of mouth. Similarly, you should be abusing your facebook friends and using all those digital contacts to help push your game.
- Blog. You should have some sort of web site/blog for your game or development studio. (like this one! hello!) Try to keep your blog fairly up to date with current topical posts that people will hopefully find interesting. This will help keep your name and game in the tops of people's minds.
- Make good gameplay videos. Sometime after day 1, when you already started your marketing and everyone is anticipating your game release, you will need to make a good gameplay video. Again, tailor this to your target audience. Be sure to show some actual gameplay though. There is nothing more annoying than a game trailer that has no actual game footage.
- Enter every festival and contest you can. Do you qualify for the entry requirements? then enter it. Even if you don't get in, or don't win you will generally get some exposure and some good game player feedback.
- Engage the community Go and be active in the forums and the blogs that are specific to your target audience. Be a part of the gamer community. Give back via your blog. Post how-tos and code snippets.
That is a pretty good list to start.
Trust me when I tell you that I sympathize with all the indies out there who are already busy just trying to build their games, let alone do all that other stuff. It took me a week just to write this post because I was too busy with other projects. However, in order to be a successful game developer you need to also be a successful marketer.
Cheers!
-B
