Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Download Stats I

Now that we've been on SlideMe, Android Market, Code.Google, and Indievania for a while now we've finally got some growth numbers to show off!

Downloads As of October 19th:

Android Market  :  211

Code.Google       :  43

SlideMe              :  63

Indievania          :  0                                             Total  =  320 downloads

**Some side notes*
  • We have currently been on Android Market the longest (since October 1st) so we expected to see the largest number of downloads here. Something to consider about Androids' statistics; I'm not sure how often they are updated because the number of active installs on the first day was at 46 when I had 0 user installs showing
  • Code.Google has pretty much been abandoned as far as downloads are going since the release of the market download (probably because we put a huge button that said "Available in Android Market" on that page) It's still interesting to track the page visits though as we get quite a bit of traffic
  • SlideMe has seen significant growth since we put it up just a few days ago (October 13th) Overall this market alone accounted for 20% of the total downloads from the past 6 days alone. A viable alternative to any developer trying to reach a larger audience
  • Indievania has been the least successful at 0 downloads since releasing. I think this site might be more focused on pc gaming development rather than Android at this point in time

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Mid-October Update:

I know that not many people read this blog as of now, but I still think it's important to document my studio's work so far for future reference (like if we become popular later!).


So, Here's What's Been Going on This Month:

 

 

TwoD_mentia v0.1.2 was released bringing:

  • New levels (and updates for old ones) to players  
  • Minor bug fixes were made

 

 

Quite a bit of P.R. management has been going on:

  • Initially I started the project on my DeviantArt profile, posting journals of my progress. I'm not sure I actually got anyone interested in my game here (my total page views are only 400), but I wanted to feel like I was marketing it somehow during development!
  • Soon I moved over to code.google using our project page to market to other developers and the Replica Island coding community who were very helpful in giving feedback
  • Eventually we forked over the $25 developer fee and uploaded our app to the Android Market! This officially gave us a label as an Android Development Studio
  • In attempt to reach a larger audience, we have also uploaded the app to some third party distributors namely, Indievania and SlideMe. We have yet to see significant growth from these markets though
  • Finally we created what you see here, our Studio Development Blog

We've reached 200+ downloads for the app in total and have a 5 star rating in the market!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

TwoD Shirt Prototype

I guess you could say this is our first attempt at advertising the game in public. I made a shirt for our first game "TwoD_mentia" during my free time (a little side project from my side project) not only because I wanted to advertise the game to others, but I love making things like this. Naturally I just wanted to put both my talents together!

That logo in the middle of the shirt is the one that promotes this studio TwoD Vision and will be our signature for anything we release from this point forward. The wording up the side of the shirt (as I'm sure you all could figure out) is the name of our first project and release.

So far I'm the only one wearing this shirt, but my hopes are that as I become more well-known for these apps I might be able to spread the love and get variations of these out to others.

Unrelated to the game: If anyone wants to see more work from me just as far as Art in general goes you can visit my DeviantArt gallery at my user page: SikkPup to see everything from early Artwork for the game to random t-shirt designs I've created.

TwoD_mentia Overview

This was a project that started out as just studying source code to get a little bit of understanding of how Android games work. After looking over and over at the open-sourced code of Replica Island it occurred to me.. wait I'm a graphic design major, as important as coding is, I need to show my artwork more than anything. So that's how it started out, rather than being as ambitious as I had planned in creating a completely unique game, I decided I would make a mod of Replica Island.

Now before you go Hey! That's basically just copying! I did use the open-source code provided by Replica Island's Chris Pruett, but I believe I have made it perfectly clear this game is an (extensive) mod from the original. The original creators of Replica Island were also attributed in the credits of the game. Anyone that has played both games can see that while it has similar mechanics used in the game, it is a completely new experience.
  • The story has been completely rewritten 
  • Characters have been modified to fit into my story structure (Yes, Shadowslime was starred as a guest appearance in tribute, however)
  • New mechanics have been added to create additional challenges to overcome
Back to the development of the game, I knew that I wanted to create some sort of style which contrasted the differences between black and white (I will admit, Limbo the game was a huge influence). From here everything was built up to what your playing today.


STORY EXTENDED:

The story begins with a rescue cinematic performed by some mysterious Shadow character. It seems he has been tasked to retrieve at all costs this dying Shadow-blob creature he finds towards the end of the intro. (This is the character you become and will play throughout the game)

As a Shadow that was destroyed by the Light that seems to be taking over the world, you have been revived, but to a shocking surprise.. Not only have you retained all the powers that Shadows have been given, but it seems the extended expose from the Light has gifted you with unique abilities which fuse these mortal enemies; Light and Shadow.

You first come in contact with another Shadow creature (much like the first) that seems to be willing to teach you to control your abilities. In return, he wishes for you to join his resistance, to become the savior of the Shadow world, and for now this seems a righteous quest to be given.

In your first few levels you start to master your abilities as you are challenged both physically and mentally until you come into contact with a new, deceptive character. gRRm (as he calls himself) informs you of his plans for domination of the Shadow world and credits himself with the Light influx so far. He sees you as a valuable asset and presents to you a proposition: when you reach the source of the Light, rather than destroy it in favor of the Shadows, take a final stand and destroy the Shadow creatures instead. He asks this of you with promises of conversion, to make you 100% Light and more powerful than ever.

It will be up to you what you decide.. Will you protect those who have taken you as their own and defend the Shadows from the evil that is the Light, or will you succumb to your thirst for power and lead the transformation into this new world alongside gRRm?

Studio Description

You might already have some idea of who we are because well, you found our blog. For anyone who doesn't have any idea and somehow ended up here, we must be really interesting looking then!, here's our basic description:

  • We are a game development studio created by Sean Kinnane when he developed his first game "TwoD_mentia". This page is going to be the main place we will be posting news on future releases, updates to our older games, and pretty much anything that relates to us that might be interesting to you, our audience. 
  • While we aren't necessarily a "professional" studio by any means, we hope to release quite a few projects under this name in the near future. Really, we just needed a name to use as an identifier in the Android market and this seemed very fitting in relation to the name of our first project.
  • If you have any feedback to what we're doing here let us know (things like suggestions to our older releases, what you would like to see next, etc.) We already have quite a few ideas for our next releases, but feel free to share what you would like to see us work on.
  • Supporters and fans of TwoD_mentia: Don't worry, as ambitious as we are, we will be supporting all of our games until they are in a finished state and adding updates to fix problems / make changes as needed regularly.

  • Ok, as of now I'm still the only one heading the studio, not sure why I keep saying we, but I do have some people that test my games consistently before each release, so I guess they could count as members, right?