Bounty Hunter Space Lizard Stay Inside Games, LLC Free; no ads or IAPs. Play the most dangerous game! You are a space lizard, despondent, on the cusp of a new awakening.… Free Buy Now Watch Media DetailsFree; no ads or IAPs. Play the most dangerous game! You are a space lizard, despondent, on the cusp of a new awakening. Journey through 20 levels over four stages in this turn-based strategy game focusing on tactical movement around small maps. Features: * Continual saving, can be put down and picked back up any time. * Turn-based. * Tactical puzzle-strategy on small maps. * 20 levels, with story and an ending. * Two skill paths. * Portrait orientation for stealth playing. "A highly tactical turn-based roguelike" with "serious chops when it comes to gameplay." -TouchArcade, Game of the Week “It’s about smart movements and clever attacks . . . It’s hard, it’s fun, and that’s great.” –PocketGamer “The game keeps shaking things up, shifting from clockwork stealth to a chess take on Bomberman.” –TechRadar “[I]t takes time for the rules to click, and for you to master the game’s various strategies and weapons. Throughout, though, it’s a masterpiece.” –Macworld Fans of roguelikes, board games, strategy and tactics games, and RPGs have really enjoyed this game. This is a unique game from true indie devs, and we hope you enjoy it. Please email contact@stayinsidegames.com with any feedback or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you and address any concerns. Information Seller:Stay Inside Games, LLC Genre:Arcade, Strategy Release:Oct 08, 2019 Updated:Apr 30, 2020 Version:1.1.10 Size:23.0 MB TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating:Unrated Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bounty-hunter-space-lizard/id1473048875 Front page preview article: https://toucharcade.com/2019/10/02/bounty-hunter-space-lizard-release-date/
Hi, I'm Nick, the coder half of Stay Inside Games. We officially released Bounty Hunter Space Lizard today after years of development. I found this thread while anxiously scouring the internet for external validation. I'd be happy to answer any questions about the game, development process, Amy's art, marketing, publishing, sandwiches, you name it. Thanks to TouchArcade for covering our game, and thanks Royce for making this thread!
Welcome! I haven’t had a ton of time to dig in yet, but I am really enjoying the game so far. It’s a really unique set of mechanics that seem to evolve with what limited progress I’ve made so far. The controls weren’t entirely intuitive for me. Even though I know it’s wrong, a few games in, I still find myself occasionally attempting to swipe to move and firing a bullet. I’m sure I’ll get past that though. Also on my iPad (whatever the pro model is that’s the same size as regular iPads were that they only made 1 year) the ads are all cut off at the right and bottom which means the x to close them at the top right is also cut off and difficult or impossible to hit. I plan to buy the ad removal IAP but I thought I’d mention it. I’ll post some more impressions when I’ve had more time with the game.
Thanks for the feedback! And thank you for letting me know about the ads issue. That's not acceptable. I'll figure out which iPad that is and figure out what's going on. I can think of a potential cause/fix off the top of my head, and hopefully I can submit a new build to Apple on Friday or Saturday. (I have a normal day job.) Ads are a bit difficult to beta test, along with IAPs, which is unfortunate because they're also the biggest source of friction with the players. I hate monetization. Thanks again.
Good work @Nick_SIG. Everything in BHSL works good. Much prefer tap to move rather than continual swiping. Kind of chess-like style of planning ahead, especially at higher levels, predicting the moves of multiple pieces, but more fun because of the ability to collect or miss turns. Then there is the wrap-around board to consider, teleports, and choice of end level bonus. Hunting levels provide for a change of pace. If this isn’t Game of the Week I’ll eat my proverbial hat.
It’s been a while since I have played a « hoplite », « enyo » kind of game and I REALLY LOVE IT!!! Congratulations to the dev crew! 5* for me!
Thanks for the kind words! Mobile controls... Anything more than a simple tap starts to become a tricky UX. The best option, as I've learned from this, would be to give players multiple options. For BHSL, I'd like someday to give the option for a d-pad for shooting (or moving), although this would take a full revamp of the UI. We would need to find somewhere to put the button. I suppose one way would be to change the black bomb button into a d-pad, then change the pink-bomb button into a split button showing both kinds of bombs. We played with tap-to-shoot and swipe-to-move early on. Tap-to-shoot is troublesome because of the wraps: how do you signal which direction you want to shoot in? One possibility would have been to tap on the wrap-tile itself, but teaching the player that concept would be tough. Also, you would still need to move, and swiping to move one tile at a time is pretty painful. Again, a soft d-pad would've been one way to go. I admit I was a bit prejudiced by my own dislike for overlay controls. Also, I really like that you can shoot yourself this way. That was actually something I first discovered in play testing... Edit: Amy (the artist) just reminded me to say we'd really appreciate any reviews on the app store.
Hullo! Beta tested this, and must say This game is FANTASTIC. Earlier this week I was looking for something Rogue(lite)(like)(ish) and this delivered! Congrats to the dev team and I look forward not only to future play time with this but also anything else you decide to make in the future Thanks for all the hard work!
Also, the bounties kind of look like A pixel Vault Girl(Fallout) in the early levels, but maybe that’s just me
Now that you mention it, there is a definite resemblance! Whoever it is, bounties can be sneaky. Have lost a few games while resting and waiting for a bounty to approach. Sometimes another will teleport to an adjacent square during the same move causing multiple hits.
The underground bounties are wearing blue-and-yellow jumpsuits, yes. I think Amy enjoyed that as a bit of humor. Outside of that one thing, though, we avoided referencing other games, memes, in-jokes, and things like that. We want the game to stand on its own, you know?
If anyone anyone else has experienced the bug that @Royce mentioned, where an ad spills outside the bounds of the display, and wants to help me out, please shoot me, nick@stayinsidegames.com, (1) a screenshot, and (2) your device type, or model, or screen resolution, etc. so I can determine its screen resolution. I'm having trouble reproducing the bug. Things seem to work on my first-gen 9.7" iPad Air. Ads are difficult to troubleshoot because they don't work in a simulator. Even on physical devices, I'm limited to "test ads" because AdMob may ban me if they see me looking at my own ads.
Well it looks like your hat is safe. https://toucharcade.com/2019/10/11/toucharcade-game-of-the-week-bounty-hunter-space-lizard/ Congrats to SIG. This was a strong week for releases too. I honestly still haven’t had the time I need to really get into this, but I hope all the TA fans of movement based roguelikes, broughlikes, and other similar things (puzzly, thinking roguelikes where you need to plan ahead) catch on to this. I think they will like what they find.
... Yeah!! We are beyond chuffed. I absolutely could not have hoped for such a positive response from a site of the stature of TouchArcade. And there's no better company or comparison I would choose than Hoplite.
Quick update: Update 1.0.8 is live. We added a couple features requested by players: Tighter touch controls overall. A new "sensitive touch" option, available under the Options screen. If enabled, this option eliminates the 30ms hold time needed to "run" to a non-adjacent tile. Five new maps (two static maps for levels 2-4, and three templates for levels 6+). Performance overall should be better. A warning for when a player loads a game that was saved in a prior version of the game. Normally, this isn't a problem, but now people know what to do if it is. Thanks all of you again for the support!
Man, you're fast! You posted this before I knew the game had passed review! Yes, we decided to de-monetize. We'll write up a piece explaining our reasons in the next couple weeks, and I'll post a link here and on our twitter. One of our concerns about going free was disrespecting people who already paid to remove ads. For anyone who did, I want to thank you for supporting us.
That’s quite unexpected! I’m really curious about the reasons, so please, don’t forget to let us know once the article goes live. Until then I’m just gonna keep scratching my head wondering.
@macplash Here's the piece I wrote. In a nutshell: We hated monetizing in the first place. After a good launch, we made $6 total in November, so it became pointless from a financial angle. We got over the idea that our work needs to be monetized to be legitimate. We'd like to see our work enjoyed by as many people as possible, and, so far, it appears that making it free will attract more players. The advice I've gotten and seen from other mobile developers is that, to break through on mobile these days, you have to make more money per user than it takes to "buy" a new user via advertising, and there's not much hope of becoming a viral success through press and word-of-mouth. I don't know if that's always true, or if there's a way to beat the system, but we gave it our best shot and hit a wall. We're proud of our work, and it'll be really nice to take what we've learned and move into the next project.
@Nick_SIG thanks for the article. And I’m sorry for the outcome. I don’t really know what to say. It just makes me sad. I could go on about how I despise free to play model, monetizing in general. You pretty much covered it already though. I admire your decision going free. Just for the satisfaction of your game being played and enjoyed. There’s no reward in it from developer’s perspective, but from the point of view of someone who loves to make games and bring them to people, it might be at least something in return. Unfortunately, with your game being completely free there’s no way to support you anymore. Did you consider the way of making it free to try (for unlimited amount of time perhaps) and unlocking the full game for whatever price feels right to the customer? Something like previously seen in Mekorama for example. Could be at least something, right? Anyway, maybe going for Apple Arcade could be a way, as you wrote yourself. You wouldn’t have to worry about covering the costs and possibly revenue, and you could bring your game to a wider audience without the necessity to advertise. Maybe for the next project? Nevertheless, I hope this experience doesn’t change your attitude towards making games. And I’m really looking forward to whatever game you bring next while enjoying the BHSL in the meantime. Thanks and good luck!