Hi Everyone! Id like to announce the soft launch of our debut game Faedom plus introduce you to our brand new company, Squish, a Sydney based two man indie team. Wed be honoured for the opportunity to share this release of Faedom with any Touch Arcade Beta testers wanting to play through the first two faerie kingdom worlds Sky Realm & Dark Forest and wed appreciate any feedback. We're always looking for ways to improve the flow of the gameplay, story and excitement. FAEDOM SQUISH A magical bubble popping playground full of action and adventure! Journey through an enchanted Faerie Kingdom filled wi… $0.99 Buy Now Watch Media DetailsA magical bubble popping playground full of action and adventure! Journey through an enchanted Faerie Kingdom filled with rainbow coloured realms and stunning creatures where powerful faeries are the protectors against the Darklings and their minions. EASY TO PLAY • Fly with the butterflies, ladybugs and other critters and seek out a friendly rainbow dragon for gold • Upgrade your powers and use your gold coins in the Hall of Heroes • Earn keystones by playing the mini challenge • Score 2 Stars or more in order to advance through the Realms WHAT MAKES FAEDOM SPECIAL? • Fun challenges within the realms • Open world playground to explore at your own pace • Never ending action and fun • Wholesome positive entertainment for kids and families • A new surprise hidden around every corner • Level up each unique hero with magical powers, protective armour and attractive forces. • Adaptive gameplay suitable for all skill levels (Not too hard, but also not too easy) • Autosave is always on so stop playing anytime, but remember to come back for a 200 GOLD COIN DAILY BONUS! • Bonus secret codes for GOLD COINS and POWER STARS found at https://www.facebook.com/FaedomGame/ • Collect Gold Coins to play mini-challenges or to unlock new heroes • Earn Power Stars which are used to upgrade your heroes • Ranking up your hero allows you to play mini-challenges and improves your heroes skill level We @ Squish hope you enjoy Faedom as much as we did creating it :) Stay tuned for more Rainbow Realms and Heroes! Information Seller:SQUISH Genre:Action, Family Release:Apr 11, 2017 Updated:Apr 26, 2017 Version:1.0.3 Size:131.0 MB TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating:Unrated Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal Description FAEDOM IS A MAGICAL OPEN WORLD TO DISCOVER. A BUBBLE POPPING PLAYGROUND FULL OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE! Journey through an enchanted Faerie Kingdom filled with rainbow coloured realms and stunning creatures where powerful faeries are the protectors against the Darklings and their minions. Fly with the butterflies, ladybugs and other critters and seek out a friendly rainbow dragon for gold. Upgrade your powers and use your gold coins in the Hall of Heroes and to play the mini challenges in order to advance through the Realms. What makes Faedom special? * Open world playground to explore with never ending action and fun * Wholesome positive entertainment for kids and families * Play at your own pace * Adaptive gameplay suitable for all skill levels (Not too hard, but not too easy!) * New surprise hidden around every corner * Level up each unique hero with magical powers, protective armour and attractive forces. Audience * Our intended audience was 6-10 year old children however, we have found players from all ages enjoying the experience. Price * FREE with in-app purchase and rewarded advertising * In-app purchase for Gold Coins to play mini-challenges or to unlock new heroes * In-app purchase for Power Stars which are used to upgrade your heroes. Rank up to play mini-challenges and to improve your heroes skill level. * Rewarded Video & Rewarded Interstitial Advertising - Choose to watch for Gold Coin rewards! Notes * In-App purchases are not required to complete the game, they only help to speed up the unlocking of Heroes and can be used to play mini-challenges. * Advertising in the game can be watched for a gold reward and is chosen to be activated by the player only. * Offline mode will turn all in-app purchases and rewarded advertising off Inspiration Our original inspiration for Faedom came from an old addictive online flash game called Flow. We also loved Leos Fortune and Badland. Please provide us with any feedback, good or bad. We are always looking for ways to improve the flow of the gameplay, story and excitement. To send feedback, please use the form at the bottom of here.. Thanks for your help! Deano @ Squish Squish Links Website http://squishgames.com/faedom Facebook https://facebook.com/faedomgame Instagram https://instagram.com/faedom Twitter https://twitter.com/faedomgame ramzarules Well-Known Member Sep 13, 2014 2,112 128 63 Greece #2 ramzarules, Apr 12, 2017 Hi! while i am not in your target age (30s) i love fairies since i saw and read Peter Pan as a child, so i got your game. The graphics are magical. I dont know how you managed such quality and aesthetics, but you nailed it. The gameplay is fun, popping bubbles and getting upgrades here and there. But the lower bar is a bit confusing, does it ever go past one? and how do you free your caged friend? i emptied the bar, filled it and emptied it again zapping the cage but nothing happened. Also since your target are kids, i suggest to add audio hints when there is no progress, to tell you what to do and make the game interesting again. I'm sad to say the controls dont work well though. Sure, it doesnt need precision, but its frustrating not to control where and how you move. I tried dragging anywhere on screen and tap to move. Sometimes i went where i wanted, sometimes not at all, sometimes slow and sometimes super fast. Maybe it is a problem that you have all control schemes enabled at once and the fairy cant recognise the move command 100%of the time? I'd love to see another game with this art style, a bit older fairies, with upgradeable-collectable accesories, equipment, powers, some magical enemy butt kicking and a world that gates your progress to the next unlocked power. Yeap, i guess i want a Metroid with fairies. I didnt know it until i played your game Good luck and welcome to TA! DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #3 DeanoSquish, Apr 12, 2017 Thanks ramzarules for downloading and testing. Congrats, as you are the first to post! In answer to your questions... The lower bar is your "Power Bar". As you collect orbs, this will fill up and you can use it to shoot at the cage, or as you'll find after a bit more playing, you will need to shoot at some other not so friendly critters. The prison takes a while to break open. I'm considering making this a bit easier though as you're not the first to mention that it seems it doesn't make any difference shooting it. As you upgrade your Heroes, this does get easier anyway. I've added a lot of audio hints, like the baby saying "get me out of here", "help me" etc but perhaps there is still more to add, so any more like that one, please let me know. The controls do take a bit of getting used to especially if you find yourself switching into "joystick" mode when intending on "Tap n go" mode. I find dragging around is best and gives the best feeling of flying. The joystick, (holding down and moving in a tight area), was mostly intended for iPads as dragging across the entire screen could be tiring at times. Anyway, we'll keep an eye on this and make updates appropriately. We actually had older fairies at one stage. Check her out here. We plan to create many more games with this engine. I've spent the past 3 years, (on & off), making it in such a way that we'll be able to produce games of the highest quality and efficiency. Thanks again for your speedy review Deano ramzarules Well-Known Member Sep 13, 2014 2,112 128 63 Greece #4 ramzarules, Apr 12, 2017 This is great to hear! i will be looking out for updates on this game, and the next games from you. The world, graphics and atmosphere are spot on and hopefully more people here give Faedom a go and provide feedback. Nullzone ð® Spam Police ð Jul 12, 2013 3,669 79 48 Male #5 Nullzone, Apr 12, 2017 Not exactly down my alley, but I want to comment not on the game itself but on the IAP and Ads. Something for you to think about: As a dad, I want full control over if my kid sees that stuff or not. So, "Airplane mode turns it all off" and "Ads only when player wants to see them" is not enough in my book. Most kids that age can figure that out and turn Airplane off again. You should have an option to manually switch it all off, hidden behind a parental control with a passcode you can set yourself. Of course, ultimately it's my responsibility, by properly educating my kid and setting my iOS thingie to require a password for every purchase (and not give that to him, naturally). But you don't have to make my job harder And, as we all know, not all parents are responsible. Not to mention that I find it HIGHLY questionable to put IAP and Ads in a game for a target group of 6-10 year olds... DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #6 DeanoSquish, Apr 12, 2017 Last edited: Apr 12, 2017 That's a great bit of feedback thanks Nullzone. Do you think intuitively people would discover the option if we added it into the settings area of the game, i.e. "Parental controls", or do you think it should be an optional alert popup when first starting the Sky realm? I'm also a parent and I totally agree with you, which is why allowing the game to be played in Airplane mode is important to me. Please note: The app was originally going to be for this 6-10 year old age group, however it's grown into something much more broad as we've found that children and adults of all ages are loving it which is amazing and has taken us a little by surprise. We originally wanted to just charge a couple of $ but after doing much research we found that would significantly reduce our exposure for our debut game. People in general tend to seek out the freebies and the paid apps tend to rapidly taper off after a year or 3 at the most. Even the best sellers. We've offered a massive amount of value for free and don't require any payments to enjoy Faedom for many hours. I think this is pretty awesome. Being a 2 man team means we don't need much to keep on creating Our market research, (friends, family, neighbours), actually showed the children loved to discover & watch an advert since they would get a gold reward. However in saying all of this, I have launched with the ads DISabled and intend on testing the quality and content before I do release them live. If I see a single ad that is inappropriate for kids I won't be adding this feature. In-app purchase is only for the people that want instant gratification, (who am I to deny them that) Thanks once again for your feedback Nullzone. Please don't hesitate in feeding us with any other helpful suggestions you may have. Deano Nullzone ð® Spam Police ð Jul 12, 2013 3,669 79 48 Male #7 Nullzone, Apr 12, 2017 Last edited: Apr 12, 2017 I'll need some time to answer you properly, Deano. Bloody busy day at work, and I don't know if I can get around to it tonight. Patience please, could take me another day or three... DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #8 DeanoSquish, Apr 12, 2017 Thanks ramzarules! DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #9 DeanoSquish, Apr 12, 2017 Nullzone, your help is greatly appreciated and please take your time getting back. DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #10 DeanoSquish, Apr 13, 2017 Secret codes For all the helpful feedback, go to the settings screen, open the padlock and enter the word "EGGS" for 5 Power stars for upgrading your Hero, and then "CHOCOLATE" for 500 GOLD COINS! These secret codes are only going to work over the Easter weekend. (til midnight Monday 17th April 2017). More codes will pop up on our social sites Stronsay Well-Known Member Aug 6, 2015 987 230 43 #11 Stronsay, Apr 13, 2017 Thanks for the eggs and chocolate! Sure helps to upgrade the combat magic, especially against the white wasps. Got the power to take them out now; and releasing the baby has paid off. Trying to understand how the 'weaponry' works as it's changing of its own accord. It seems a higher bubble bar powers up the magic offence too. And sometimes magic has infinite 'ammo'. Finding stones for the next realm seems to be random, plus sometimes those that have been collected are later disappearing. Anyway, good work this; very imaginative. Great to see hi-res graphics - a welcome change from the onslaught of blocky pixels. Something of a work of interactive art as well as game. Contols took a few minutes to figure out and it's a clever system once used to it. Using a combo of virtual stick and taps works on the ipad. I'm much inxs of the 6-10 age range but there's something here for everybody once the game opens out. DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #12 DeanoSquish, Apr 13, 2017 So glad you like it Stronsay. The Powerup gems for magic weapons, will keep the power bar full until it times out. For the Magnetic attraction for gold and orbs, the pattern scales down behind the hero and the suction will decrease gradually. Your correct with the magic offence in that the fuller you keep it, the more magic damage you will dish out, so use that orb magnet when you get into trouble or want to break open that Cage. The magic "Gemstones" are not to be mixed up with the portal "Keystones" though. Gemstones are the powers and the Keystones are what you will use to unlock the portal to the next realm. You can only find those in the mini games. Get 2 stars or beat a boss. Please tell me if I've given too much away or if I should be explaining those points a bit more in the game? Thanks & Good luck! neilsarkar Member Patreon Silver Apr 9, 2017 16 0 0 Founder at Super Serious Company Baleal, Portugal https://superseriouscompany.com #13 neilsarkar, Apr 13, 2017 Also not in the target demo (30s), but I'm interested as a member of a small (three person) indie team in Portugal. The consistency, quality, and immersive nature of the art and audio is impressive. I know that skill is more important than tools, but I'm curious...what software did you use to create the art? What framework (if any) are you using? Did you design the sounds yourself in Logic Pro X or something else? Did you do the voice acting yourselves? Nice job on your debut game. DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #14 DeanoSquish, Apr 13, 2017 Last edited: Apr 14, 2017 I'm the Developer and my designer is on a road trip currently, so I'll possibly have to come back and edit this bit... Most of the designs were done via Photoshop. We started out early on with Poser for the 3D models but have switched to another program for better quality. The name of it escapes me, sorry I'll get back to you. I've developed over 200 online flash games since 1998 so I couldn't help myself and built the entire game engine using Adobe Animate/Flash Builder with a Starling extension to give it the power required I made most of the sound fx on my Apple Mac Book Pro using Garage Band, (I LOVE IT), plus used my iPhone 6Plus to record all the voiceovers. Then used Adobe Audition to edit the sounds. I did my best Billy Connolly for the Dragon, made all the farts and pops with my mouth I promise had my 7 year old son Josh do Joshi's voice and Kimba, the designer had his wonderful daughter Elle do Lilly's voice. I have to say, it certainly took a lot of work to get that consistency and I still see many areas we can improve. You'll probably find it takes many rounds of re-working till you feel complete with it. All the best on your games! Deano ramzarules Well-Known Member Sep 13, 2014 2,112 128 63 Greece #15 ramzarules, Apr 13, 2017 Thanks for the codes! I finally broke the fairy free from the cage, but have no idea what that did some more feedback: 1)For the keystone in minigames, it would really help while playing them to see how far you are from scoring the star/ getting the keystone. 2)For the powerups, i discovered intuitively that they are not activated as soon as you pick them up- that you have to press on the fairy and then activate them manually. Is there instruction for this? Also, i think it should be written what each power up does and how long it lasts. Which leads me to 3)All too ogten the hints and explanation are through audio only. For playing with low/off sound (like me, and of course many others) there should be written explanations in appropriate hints/ menus. 4)Please, controls! Now that these pesky wasps are everywhere, it's annoying to tap them frantically, only to find your fairy heading to them after some shots - same for the cage. Tap it to attack, the fairy shoots and moves to it, you have to tap away to move, then tap to attack etc. Please make one V-Stick for movement and one for shooting. This way our fingers will not cover up the beautiful art as well! 5)Well... how about having an unlockable playable mini dragon? i believe the model is already there with some rescaling and animation.. ??? Edit: Hopefully helpful long feedback post. Stronsay Well-Known Member Aug 6, 2015 987 230 43 #16 Stronsay, Apr 13, 2017 Thanks for the clarification of powers, gemstones, keystones etc. I have to change strategy in the light of this info! Whether or not it's good to know this in advance could be the subject of a PHD thesis. For example, ramzarules realised the magnets and stones had to be activated, whereas I didn't. Thought they were working passively. It would have been helpful to know this in advance, but glad I didn't as it's interesting to make discoveries along the way, even from TA forums. However, I guess new players will need to know that there is more to the game than bubble popping if they are to stick with it. It's enlightening to read about the technical details of production and this adds to appreciation of the experience. Amazing what can be done with Garage Band. As for the dragon, that's the most alarming Billy Connolly impression I've ever heard! Nullzone ð® Spam Police ð Jul 12, 2013 3,669 79 48 Male #17 Nullzone, Apr 13, 2017 Last edited: Apr 13, 2017 My pleasure! Good UI design has become a bit of an enthusiastically pursued hobby for me Starting with this part: If your primary target group no longer is younger kids, you can of course skip all the parental control stuff. Parents need to pony up and act responsible, after all. If I allow my kid to play a game aimed at an older age group, it's my job to keep him away from IAP, watching ads, or whatever. ...Or not, if I don't mind that he bleeds my bank account dry Most definitely no never count on players - especially the more casual ones and/or younger kids, which both seem to be your target audience - to discover anything that's not directly visible. Parental gates and stuff: I double-checked on some of my kid's apps. Keep in mind that those are really targeted at under 5 year olds, mostly. Those that do have good parent controls show them prominently on the main screen, some even give you an explanation - like you suggest with your popup - when you first start the app. Most of these apps put the parent controls behind instructions that most 2-5 year olds will have trouble with, because it's safe to assume that most of them cannot read yet Examples: Simple math written out (e.g. "what is three plus five? enter the number here"). Simple instructions for a simple action ("tap the 3 red squares in this 3x3 grid", "tap & hold till the circle fills all the way up"). I didn't note down which ones made a good impression on me with their implementation of parent controls, and of course I forgot the names already Toca Boca is a typical publisher of childrens' apps, same goes for Sago and Dr. Panda. If you're in a hurry, check some of theirs that have IAPs. Just found this comment on momswithapps (see below), here: "toca boca and nosy crow have baby gates that include a plain text link for parents on the homepage, then display a dialog giving a randomized instruction to swipe x fingers in y direction. the randomization helps ensure kids can’t just observe and copy." That link has several examples of parental control gates, worth checking out. Oh lookie, even Apple itself has guidelines on the topic. Slight tangent: I just checked a random Toca Boca app ("Toca Dance Free") on the Appstore. No IAPs, but note that they explicitly mention this under "Features" (emphasis mine): - Kid-friendly interface - No third-party advertising - No in-app purchases Personally, I'd have put that right at the top of the description, as you can't expect that people read further than the first few lines that are visible on the Appstore without clicking "More". This one says the same. What I'd do for parental controls: 0) Of course, follow Apple's guidelines (added after I discovered those). 1) Put them behind one of those simple actions I listed above. 2) When you first start the app, provide a huge popup or such that explains things. 3) Have a "Help" button prominently on your game's main page (e.g. I've seen something like "Help/Information for Parents" more than once), where you put the information from the popup in #2; and anything else you want parents to know. For example, putting your privacy policy in there is pretty common. Very much spot on, nothing to add here. Sure, mine loves to watch anything with fighting in it, too but that does not mean I approve of everything. And I saw several ads already that I do not consider suitable for his age, like with bleeding zombies and whatnot. UPDATE for clarification: Any unsuitable ads I've only seen in apps for older age groups, typically 12+ . Everything below that is fine so far, most times all they show is short ads (e.g. just one slide) for other games from the same developers. You're really putting in extra effort here, applauding you for that. However, I think it's next to impossible to vet ads beforehand as you plan to. The big ad networks pretty much shovel out anything that advertisers pay for and where their systems think you fit the target audience. Unless you can find an ad provider that specifically targets apps for kids or offers such a program, you might be in a bit of a quandary here. I know next to nothing about ad network providers when it comes to details, so you'll have to check elsewhere for that: E.g. ask on TA's Developer Forum, or inquire with http://blog.momswithapps.com/ . The latter actually has a good bunch of valuable resources, both for devs and parents. Think that's it for now, hope you enjoyed the lengthy read. See you next time for Nullzone's Happy Hour, right here on SmartassTV! stubbieoz Well-Known Member Jun 23, 2015 1,880 358 83 Male Grey haired gamer NSW Australia #18 stubbieoz, Apr 13, 2017 iOS 10 only?! I am not in the target age group but I was willing to give the game a try after reading the positive posts here. But my iPad is staying on iOS 9, so I'm outa luck. ☹️ DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #19 DeanoSquish, Apr 14, 2017 This helps so much, however I have a slight dilemma. Will adding parental controls upset the majority of players? Will this create a barrier to enter a sale? It looks like the most non-intrusive way to handle this is to have a nicely designed "Ask your parents" screen with a puzzle/math question to appear right before any advert or In-App purchase. Perhaps a "Turn parental controls off" checkbox on this screen may fix this dilemma. Do you think that would work and cover all other points on this topic Nullzone? We may need to just keep an eye on what happens in the next few days before we commit to any decision on this. I welcome any more feedback on this discussion though. So far we have only seen "Child friendly" ads during our early tests and you may have noticed I have switched them to live now. Again, I'm watching this and any reaction very closely and will switch them off if: 1. They show anything inappropriate 2. They excessively harm the gameplay and offer little monetisation benefits Thanks again Nullzone Deano DeanoSquish Member Feb 8, 2017 11 0 0 #20 DeanoSquish, Apr 14, 2017 Yes, sorry stubbieoz. I had no choice with the amount of graphics being loaded, iPad 2 or lower, and iPhone 4S or lower were not able to handle the graphics. I tried to cut them back significantly but still had some issues on performance. We found 76% of all IOS devices have IOS 10 or later. Refer to this helpful article by David Smith (Apr 2017) Also see for a Support Matrix (Sept 2016) dorianroy blog It's a shame as my iPad 3 performed perfectly well, but since it only supports IOS 9.3.5, I had to let that go as well. My iPad Pro looks and plays amazingly well! As time goes by I'm sure this will be less of an issue. Deano (You must log in or sign up to post here.) Show Ignored Content Page 1 of 2 1 2 Next > Share This Page Tweet Your name or email address: Password: Forgot your password? Stay logged in
Hi! while i am not in your target age (30s) i love fairies since i saw and read Peter Pan as a child, so i got your game. The graphics are magical. I dont know how you managed such quality and aesthetics, but you nailed it. The gameplay is fun, popping bubbles and getting upgrades here and there. But the lower bar is a bit confusing, does it ever go past one? and how do you free your caged friend? i emptied the bar, filled it and emptied it again zapping the cage but nothing happened. Also since your target are kids, i suggest to add audio hints when there is no progress, to tell you what to do and make the game interesting again. I'm sad to say the controls dont work well though. Sure, it doesnt need precision, but its frustrating not to control where and how you move. I tried dragging anywhere on screen and tap to move. Sometimes i went where i wanted, sometimes not at all, sometimes slow and sometimes super fast. Maybe it is a problem that you have all control schemes enabled at once and the fairy cant recognise the move command 100%of the time? I'd love to see another game with this art style, a bit older fairies, with upgradeable-collectable accesories, equipment, powers, some magical enemy butt kicking and a world that gates your progress to the next unlocked power. Yeap, i guess i want a Metroid with fairies. I didnt know it until i played your game Good luck and welcome to TA!
Thanks ramzarules for downloading and testing. Congrats, as you are the first to post! In answer to your questions... The lower bar is your "Power Bar". As you collect orbs, this will fill up and you can use it to shoot at the cage, or as you'll find after a bit more playing, you will need to shoot at some other not so friendly critters. The prison takes a while to break open. I'm considering making this a bit easier though as you're not the first to mention that it seems it doesn't make any difference shooting it. As you upgrade your Heroes, this does get easier anyway. I've added a lot of audio hints, like the baby saying "get me out of here", "help me" etc but perhaps there is still more to add, so any more like that one, please let me know. The controls do take a bit of getting used to especially if you find yourself switching into "joystick" mode when intending on "Tap n go" mode. I find dragging around is best and gives the best feeling of flying. The joystick, (holding down and moving in a tight area), was mostly intended for iPads as dragging across the entire screen could be tiring at times. Anyway, we'll keep an eye on this and make updates appropriately. We actually had older fairies at one stage. Check her out here. We plan to create many more games with this engine. I've spent the past 3 years, (on & off), making it in such a way that we'll be able to produce games of the highest quality and efficiency. Thanks again for your speedy review Deano
This is great to hear! i will be looking out for updates on this game, and the next games from you. The world, graphics and atmosphere are spot on and hopefully more people here give Faedom a go and provide feedback.
Not exactly down my alley, but I want to comment not on the game itself but on the IAP and Ads. Something for you to think about: As a dad, I want full control over if my kid sees that stuff or not. So, "Airplane mode turns it all off" and "Ads only when player wants to see them" is not enough in my book. Most kids that age can figure that out and turn Airplane off again. You should have an option to manually switch it all off, hidden behind a parental control with a passcode you can set yourself. Of course, ultimately it's my responsibility, by properly educating my kid and setting my iOS thingie to require a password for every purchase (and not give that to him, naturally). But you don't have to make my job harder And, as we all know, not all parents are responsible. Not to mention that I find it HIGHLY questionable to put IAP and Ads in a game for a target group of 6-10 year olds...
That's a great bit of feedback thanks Nullzone. Do you think intuitively people would discover the option if we added it into the settings area of the game, i.e. "Parental controls", or do you think it should be an optional alert popup when first starting the Sky realm? I'm also a parent and I totally agree with you, which is why allowing the game to be played in Airplane mode is important to me. Please note: The app was originally going to be for this 6-10 year old age group, however it's grown into something much more broad as we've found that children and adults of all ages are loving it which is amazing and has taken us a little by surprise. We originally wanted to just charge a couple of $ but after doing much research we found that would significantly reduce our exposure for our debut game. People in general tend to seek out the freebies and the paid apps tend to rapidly taper off after a year or 3 at the most. Even the best sellers. We've offered a massive amount of value for free and don't require any payments to enjoy Faedom for many hours. I think this is pretty awesome. Being a 2 man team means we don't need much to keep on creating Our market research, (friends, family, neighbours), actually showed the children loved to discover & watch an advert since they would get a gold reward. However in saying all of this, I have launched with the ads DISabled and intend on testing the quality and content before I do release them live. If I see a single ad that is inappropriate for kids I won't be adding this feature. In-app purchase is only for the people that want instant gratification, (who am I to deny them that) Thanks once again for your feedback Nullzone. Please don't hesitate in feeding us with any other helpful suggestions you may have. Deano
I'll need some time to answer you properly, Deano. Bloody busy day at work, and I don't know if I can get around to it tonight. Patience please, could take me another day or three...
Secret codes For all the helpful feedback, go to the settings screen, open the padlock and enter the word "EGGS" for 5 Power stars for upgrading your Hero, and then "CHOCOLATE" for 500 GOLD COINS! These secret codes are only going to work over the Easter weekend. (til midnight Monday 17th April 2017). More codes will pop up on our social sites
Thanks for the eggs and chocolate! Sure helps to upgrade the combat magic, especially against the white wasps. Got the power to take them out now; and releasing the baby has paid off. Trying to understand how the 'weaponry' works as it's changing of its own accord. It seems a higher bubble bar powers up the magic offence too. And sometimes magic has infinite 'ammo'. Finding stones for the next realm seems to be random, plus sometimes those that have been collected are later disappearing. Anyway, good work this; very imaginative. Great to see hi-res graphics - a welcome change from the onslaught of blocky pixels. Something of a work of interactive art as well as game. Contols took a few minutes to figure out and it's a clever system once used to it. Using a combo of virtual stick and taps works on the ipad. I'm much inxs of the 6-10 age range but there's something here for everybody once the game opens out.
So glad you like it Stronsay. The Powerup gems for magic weapons, will keep the power bar full until it times out. For the Magnetic attraction for gold and orbs, the pattern scales down behind the hero and the suction will decrease gradually. Your correct with the magic offence in that the fuller you keep it, the more magic damage you will dish out, so use that orb magnet when you get into trouble or want to break open that Cage. The magic "Gemstones" are not to be mixed up with the portal "Keystones" though. Gemstones are the powers and the Keystones are what you will use to unlock the portal to the next realm. You can only find those in the mini games. Get 2 stars or beat a boss. Please tell me if I've given too much away or if I should be explaining those points a bit more in the game? Thanks & Good luck!
Also not in the target demo (30s), but I'm interested as a member of a small (three person) indie team in Portugal. The consistency, quality, and immersive nature of the art and audio is impressive. I know that skill is more important than tools, but I'm curious...what software did you use to create the art? What framework (if any) are you using? Did you design the sounds yourself in Logic Pro X or something else? Did you do the voice acting yourselves? Nice job on your debut game.
I'm the Developer and my designer is on a road trip currently, so I'll possibly have to come back and edit this bit... Most of the designs were done via Photoshop. We started out early on with Poser for the 3D models but have switched to another program for better quality. The name of it escapes me, sorry I'll get back to you. I've developed over 200 online flash games since 1998 so I couldn't help myself and built the entire game engine using Adobe Animate/Flash Builder with a Starling extension to give it the power required I made most of the sound fx on my Apple Mac Book Pro using Garage Band, (I LOVE IT), plus used my iPhone 6Plus to record all the voiceovers. Then used Adobe Audition to edit the sounds. I did my best Billy Connolly for the Dragon, made all the farts and pops with my mouth I promise had my 7 year old son Josh do Joshi's voice and Kimba, the designer had his wonderful daughter Elle do Lilly's voice. I have to say, it certainly took a lot of work to get that consistency and I still see many areas we can improve. You'll probably find it takes many rounds of re-working till you feel complete with it. All the best on your games! Deano
Thanks for the codes! I finally broke the fairy free from the cage, but have no idea what that did some more feedback: 1)For the keystone in minigames, it would really help while playing them to see how far you are from scoring the star/ getting the keystone. 2)For the powerups, i discovered intuitively that they are not activated as soon as you pick them up- that you have to press on the fairy and then activate them manually. Is there instruction for this? Also, i think it should be written what each power up does and how long it lasts. Which leads me to 3)All too ogten the hints and explanation are through audio only. For playing with low/off sound (like me, and of course many others) there should be written explanations in appropriate hints/ menus. 4)Please, controls! Now that these pesky wasps are everywhere, it's annoying to tap them frantically, only to find your fairy heading to them after some shots - same for the cage. Tap it to attack, the fairy shoots and moves to it, you have to tap away to move, then tap to attack etc. Please make one V-Stick for movement and one for shooting. This way our fingers will not cover up the beautiful art as well! 5)Well... how about having an unlockable playable mini dragon? i believe the model is already there with some rescaling and animation.. ??? Edit: Hopefully helpful long feedback post.
Thanks for the clarification of powers, gemstones, keystones etc. I have to change strategy in the light of this info! Whether or not it's good to know this in advance could be the subject of a PHD thesis. For example, ramzarules realised the magnets and stones had to be activated, whereas I didn't. Thought they were working passively. It would have been helpful to know this in advance, but glad I didn't as it's interesting to make discoveries along the way, even from TA forums. However, I guess new players will need to know that there is more to the game than bubble popping if they are to stick with it. It's enlightening to read about the technical details of production and this adds to appreciation of the experience. Amazing what can be done with Garage Band. As for the dragon, that's the most alarming Billy Connolly impression I've ever heard!
My pleasure! Good UI design has become a bit of an enthusiastically pursued hobby for me Starting with this part: If your primary target group no longer is younger kids, you can of course skip all the parental control stuff. Parents need to pony up and act responsible, after all. If I allow my kid to play a game aimed at an older age group, it's my job to keep him away from IAP, watching ads, or whatever. ...Or not, if I don't mind that he bleeds my bank account dry Most definitely no never count on players - especially the more casual ones and/or younger kids, which both seem to be your target audience - to discover anything that's not directly visible. Parental gates and stuff: I double-checked on some of my kid's apps. Keep in mind that those are really targeted at under 5 year olds, mostly. Those that do have good parent controls show them prominently on the main screen, some even give you an explanation - like you suggest with your popup - when you first start the app. Most of these apps put the parent controls behind instructions that most 2-5 year olds will have trouble with, because it's safe to assume that most of them cannot read yet Examples: Simple math written out (e.g. "what is three plus five? enter the number here"). Simple instructions for a simple action ("tap the 3 red squares in this 3x3 grid", "tap & hold till the circle fills all the way up"). I didn't note down which ones made a good impression on me with their implementation of parent controls, and of course I forgot the names already Toca Boca is a typical publisher of childrens' apps, same goes for Sago and Dr. Panda. If you're in a hurry, check some of theirs that have IAPs. Just found this comment on momswithapps (see below), here: "toca boca and nosy crow have baby gates that include a plain text link for parents on the homepage, then display a dialog giving a randomized instruction to swipe x fingers in y direction. the randomization helps ensure kids can’t just observe and copy." That link has several examples of parental control gates, worth checking out. Oh lookie, even Apple itself has guidelines on the topic. Slight tangent: I just checked a random Toca Boca app ("Toca Dance Free") on the Appstore. No IAPs, but note that they explicitly mention this under "Features" (emphasis mine): - Kid-friendly interface - No third-party advertising - No in-app purchases Personally, I'd have put that right at the top of the description, as you can't expect that people read further than the first few lines that are visible on the Appstore without clicking "More". This one says the same. What I'd do for parental controls: 0) Of course, follow Apple's guidelines (added after I discovered those). 1) Put them behind one of those simple actions I listed above. 2) When you first start the app, provide a huge popup or such that explains things. 3) Have a "Help" button prominently on your game's main page (e.g. I've seen something like "Help/Information for Parents" more than once), where you put the information from the popup in #2; and anything else you want parents to know. For example, putting your privacy policy in there is pretty common. Very much spot on, nothing to add here. Sure, mine loves to watch anything with fighting in it, too but that does not mean I approve of everything. And I saw several ads already that I do not consider suitable for his age, like with bleeding zombies and whatnot. UPDATE for clarification: Any unsuitable ads I've only seen in apps for older age groups, typically 12+ . Everything below that is fine so far, most times all they show is short ads (e.g. just one slide) for other games from the same developers. You're really putting in extra effort here, applauding you for that. However, I think it's next to impossible to vet ads beforehand as you plan to. The big ad networks pretty much shovel out anything that advertisers pay for and where their systems think you fit the target audience. Unless you can find an ad provider that specifically targets apps for kids or offers such a program, you might be in a bit of a quandary here. I know next to nothing about ad network providers when it comes to details, so you'll have to check elsewhere for that: E.g. ask on TA's Developer Forum, or inquire with http://blog.momswithapps.com/ . The latter actually has a good bunch of valuable resources, both for devs and parents. Think that's it for now, hope you enjoyed the lengthy read. See you next time for Nullzone's Happy Hour, right here on SmartassTV!
iOS 10 only?! I am not in the target age group but I was willing to give the game a try after reading the positive posts here. But my iPad is staying on iOS 9, so I'm outa luck. ☹️
This helps so much, however I have a slight dilemma. Will adding parental controls upset the majority of players? Will this create a barrier to enter a sale? It looks like the most non-intrusive way to handle this is to have a nicely designed "Ask your parents" screen with a puzzle/math question to appear right before any advert or In-App purchase. Perhaps a "Turn parental controls off" checkbox on this screen may fix this dilemma. Do you think that would work and cover all other points on this topic Nullzone? We may need to just keep an eye on what happens in the next few days before we commit to any decision on this. I welcome any more feedback on this discussion though. So far we have only seen "Child friendly" ads during our early tests and you may have noticed I have switched them to live now. Again, I'm watching this and any reaction very closely and will switch them off if: 1. They show anything inappropriate 2. They excessively harm the gameplay and offer little monetisation benefits Thanks again Nullzone Deano
Yes, sorry stubbieoz. I had no choice with the amount of graphics being loaded, iPad 2 or lower, and iPhone 4S or lower were not able to handle the graphics. I tried to cut them back significantly but still had some issues on performance. We found 76% of all IOS devices have IOS 10 or later. Refer to this helpful article by David Smith (Apr 2017) Also see for a Support Matrix (Sept 2016) dorianroy blog It's a shame as my iPad 3 performed perfectly well, but since it only supports IOS 9.3.5, I had to let that go as well. My iPad Pro looks and plays amazingly well! As time goes by I'm sure this will be less of an issue. Deano
