Haha I'm really glad to hear back from you lena! Honestly I'm not sure if the difficulty in chapter 3 is ramping up too fast or not. Hopefully the in-game hints are being helpful...
I know how frustrating it is to not get enough sales and feedback, but I really do think you have something special here and I hope you don't give up on it. If the framework you use makes porting to Android not too difficult I would definitely do that. Or PC, as someone above suggested. Maybe Vita? That seems a hotbed for indies now. But I also want to see any new games you make. I'm taking this game slowly. I'm determined to finish though!
Thanks very much for your support lena! I'm not giving up on this game. Like I said, it was my MFA thesis project and I've been working on it for a few years. I have a full time job, so keeping working on this pet project is more about the passion and love for making interesting games. It is just that the framework I use for porting the game to iOS (or Android) costs $300 a year per platform, and the process is very time-consuming (remember I don't work on this game full time). Also I don't think I can monetize the Android version much -- there are so many different Android application stores in the world and I just can't deal with them all. Also Android is not safe enough (apps can be easily decompiled), so I believe at least over 50% android users will most certainly be playing a pirated or modified version of Eyez... As much as I want people to enjoy my game, I have to find a solution to these problems before I start making a port. Or else, probably working on something new makes more sense
Eyez has been released on iOS for over a month now and it hasn't received enough ratings on the app store... If you like this game, please spend a little time and rate it! Thanks!
After Eyez WP version got updated with native WP8 support, the game is featured by Microsoft again in a long list of countries. And I really could not imagine that Apple's standard for choosing good games is much different from that of Microsoft...
No, not if you mean "what they are playing right now at this moment". But I do like discovering new games through Game Center sometimes. It's fun to see what games my friends are playing in general. It can be useful too, to tell a GC friend about a game you think they should check out. I wrote a glowing review not long after buying the full version. But it's in the Dutch App Store so sadly not all that useful for you.
Thanks lena! I really appreciate your feedback and review! I'll see if I can add in Game Center support in the next update... Meanwhile, let me know what you think after you beat Chapter 3!
IAP after 6 levels As a fellow dev grappling with how to implement IAP, I am curious to know whether this approach has worked?
Game Center would be great! I know there are some people here who will only play a game if it has GC. (I don't understand that at all and assume they are a tiny minority but still it can never hurt to implement it if it's not too much work). What do you have in mind for Game Center?
Honesty I don't have any interesting idea about Game Center integration at the moment... Most common approaches include achievements and leaderboard, and that could be something I can start with... Do you have any suggestion regarding GC features?
Hey Flowsparkstudios, the short answer to your question is that it worked download-number-wise and didn't work that well revenue-wise. The long version: when I started working on this game back in 2010, F2P was not as big as it is today and I didn't have any idea how I should charge for this game. It was my thesis project after all. And when I finally got the game ready for iOS, there were basically three options to monetize it: Option 1: make it a one-time purchase. There are still some quality indie games that go with this strategy, such as Threes! or Monument Valley. And there are still people who are willing to pay for good games upfront (especially in the west). But I thought this strategy was too risky for me, as I was not sure if Apple would feature my game on the App Store as Microsoft did with the WP version. Option 2: make it free to play and charge for in-game consumable items (such as hints or stamina, etc.). This is probably the "right" answer to drive up downloads and make money. But personally I don't think it'd work that well with a non-casual puzzle platformer, and feedback from friends is all negative, so I didn't go with this one either. Option 3: offer free trials and charge for the full version. For user acquisition this is good, as many gamers (including me) like to try out a game before deciding whether or not to pay for it. The bad news is only a small percentage of the users who download your game would spend money on it. But like I said in option 1, if your game does not get featured by Apple and if it is not free, everything is fxxked up... With this strategy however, you could at least encourage people to try out your game because it is free. And you can also add in some ads to compensate for the free downloads... So, that is why I chose option 3. Hope that answers your question.
