Monday, January 16, 2012

Feedback Review

Everyone should be entitled to their own opinion, so to respect this I've included some positive, negative, as well as constructive feedback below. While not every review is always helpful especially when vague we always value our players opinions and would love to see what you think about what were doing here.


Positive Reinforcement / Constructive Feedback:

 

 Ishan (Android Market):

  • Great game, but why i can touch light from the bottom but not from above? please fix that, it seems messed up. I've played some great games, but yours deserves to be at the top of my fav list! (but PLEASE consider my request and have the shadow guy tell you the light touching thing?) 
  • Thanks for the detailed feedback Ishan! As far as the light touching, you should not be able to touch it anywhere. It is possible to get fairly closer to it on the ground than when you are flying, but this was implemented because testers requested a little more room for mistakes while on the ground moving (it was too difficult without putting that extra space in). We will, however, take another look back at it when we go into the game to make some long overdue updates. In the next update we are looking to condense the tutorial levels into a shorter, more precise set of instructions that let you jump into the action sooner (we have had many people tell us that the talking at the beginning takes far too long to get through).

Dillin (Amazon Marketplace):

  • A pretty cool game, but very few levels. Some levels are literally impossible at higher difficulty levels. Poor quality. I definitely would not reccomend. 
  • Well we are very glad to hear you think our game is cool, not so much about the not recommending / poor quality part though. In the next update we should be potentially doubling the amount of levels present now, making about 20 overall. We are also hoping to get some more testing done on the difficulty of each level, making changes as needed, hopefully these updates are enough for you to take another look!

Negative Feedback:

 

Acoperis / Micutul (Android Marketplace):

  • Annoying...
  • This is very sad news Acoperis / Micutul. Perhaps we can make changes to, what was that you said annoyed you again? We are whole-heartedly sorry that you did not enjoy our game, but being vague and  cynical does not help us in any way shape or form. Perhaps if you suggested something that we could improve on we could make a better experience for you in the future.

Download Stats III

It's been a long time since I've come back to this blog, so busy with other things lately. Anyway, I'm sure not too many people minded, I know this is still hardly viewed by anyone haha. Some huge landmarks were met in the past 2 months. Overall we now have over 1000 downloads, still trying to reach that 500 mark in a single market though.

Downloads As of January 16th:

Android Market  :  464

Code.Google       :  78

SlideMe              :  490

Amazon Market  :  124

Indievania          :  0                                       Total  =  1156 downloads

%Percentages of Total%
  • Android Market - 40% The growth here has been slowing down recently, but still getting positive feedback
  • SlideMe - 42% Well it's finally done it as predicted! SlideMe is officially better for Indie Dev.!
  • Code.Google - 6% I'm actually surprised people still download it from here at all with the other market options, still a decent amount, however
  • Amazon Market - 10% The biggest surprise jump of all! The first few months were extremely slow, but recently it seems to have picked up speed at a dramatic pace

**Some side notes*
  • Android Market seems to be slowing down over time. I would most likely attribute this to my lack of updates to the game in the past 2 months. I'm hoping to find some time to finish the game up once it hits that 500-1000 downloads mark. Growth was 179 downloads since last update, thats a 62% increase in the Android market!
  • Code.Google is doing relatively well for all the other markets my game is now available in. It experienced an increase of 25 new downloads! thats a 47% growth!
  • SlideMe has taken all other markets by storm, surpasing Android Market as predicted, likely to become the first to hit that 500 download mark. Growth was 354 downloads since last update, for this market that's a 260% increase!!
  • Amazon Marketplace is by far the most shocking of all the numbers. In the first few months I had this posted, after a very delayed start, there was maybe 7 downloads total? It looks like since last checking it however, back in early December, it spiked dramatically! Growth was about 124 downloads since early december.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Download Stats II

It's a new month and we've got some new numbers to share. We've got New Markets, Old Markets, and.. well I guess that's it in this post.

Downloads As of November 4th:

Android Market  :  285

Code.Google       :  53

SlideMe              :  136

Amazon Market  :  0

Indievania          :  0                                       Total  =  474 downloads

%Percentages of Total%
  • Android Market - 60% we've been here longest but growth seems to be constant
  • SlideMe - 28% it is very likely this market will surpass Android Market in the coming weeks
  • Code.Google - 12% it might not be much, but it's a good starting point for beginning developers
  • All others - 0%

**Some side notes*
  • Android Market has been getting some updates recently in the developer console so hopefully the numbers of active installs are reflecting a little better this time around. We now have 84 active installs to stack alongside our 285 downloads. I think most of the people who uninstalled did so because the game is still in a demo state. Growth was 75 downloads since Oct. 19th thats a 26% increase in the Android market!
  • Code.Google has still been pretty much 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) We did however see a small amount of growth here since Oct. 19th accounting for 10 new downloads! thats a 20% growth!
  • SlideMe still looks like the best alternative for developers trying to reach a wider audience, accounting for 136 downloads! Growth was 73 downloads since Oct. 19th for this market that's a 53% increase!!
  • Indievania, Amazon Market, and ASC (AppStoreConnect) have all shown no signs of increase since their release. I was actually very surprised with Amazon Market, it took 2 weeks for them to review my app and allow it on the market, but it still has yet to get a single download since going live last week. So far I would have to say stick with Android Market and SlideMe for the best results.

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?