Universal Galactic Nemesis (by CS54)

I don't know what to say, literally tearing up. I can't thank you enough for your kindness. I'm honored to have you playing.

Yesterday I did raise the price to $1.99, not because I wanted more money, but because after talking to a friend that used to work at Nickelodeon, he said that they would see the same # of downloads regardless if the game is $.99, $1.99 or even sometimes $3.99. An interesting point was people would feel more invested when they payed more and it turned into more positive ratings and reviews, so I went with it.

This is my 5th game, and each time I learn a little bit more about the process. I wrote up a little article just as this was launching on my friend's site. What I was not expecting with this game were the positive reviews that are flowing in. I have to adjust my expectations on that point, and perhaps consider more this is in my control than I thought; I just need to make better games.

Link to that article if you want to read it, would love your feedback.
http://www.overdigital.com/2015/04/21/reality-check-indie-game-development/

 

Super generous of you brother.. My heart won't let me do it though.. Wish listed and will definitely be buying it soon.. ######

 

Ugh. Seriously. Anybody who knows me on here knows that I'm not the type of person that complains or rants much, but the illigal downloading of this game (and many others) is f***ing rediculous. We're talking about a 99 cent game and only a quarter or so of the downloads are paid for? It's frustrating. Everyday all you hear is people screaming for premium games and when one does come out, it's stolen. This is one of the reasons developers are going F2P or requiring constant internet connection. (I know there are other reasons too.) We're in a day and age where we can get almost console quality games for under 10 bucks and we steal them anyway. I just feel bad for the developers out there. I guess no matter what you make, wether it's video games or bubblegum, there's always going to be thieves. Hopefully everybody here on TA that has played this game, has paid for it. Anyway, just "my 2 cents". Sorry about the rant. It's not really my thing, but reading this thread just pissed me off. This is honestly a good game and is well worth the asking price.

 

You said it way better than I could have! The 1st few days I was like WOW, so many downloads, then you get the results and think, did Apple make a mistake? HA! I've come to terms with it, all I can do is try to find a way to promote it and get legit downloads.

At one time I had thought about putting ads in, but all that does is punish the people who actually paid for it. It will be interesting to see how this is addressed in the future by Apple and Google.

 

I'm attempting to finish up the "Electric Steel" world over the next few weeks. I wanted to give this community the opportunity comment and make suggestions before it's all fully built!

Some of the aliens in this new world will shoot lightning bolts. These would temporarily stop you from being able to move or from you being able to shoot. I am thinking they would only stop you from shooting since not being able to control your ship would get really annoying. With this new world, I have the opportunity to provide possibly a 2nd shield, one which would protect against electric shocks only vs bullets.

This also allows a few more ships to be introduced! :-D I have several more already designed; they will have payloads that include more than just speed and quantity (possibly rockets).

From what I can tell, so far of the 400+ players on game center, only 7 have even made it to "Shielded Army", and only 2 of actually beat it (possibly more). I go back and forth on if I should follow the same pattern of only unlocking another world once you complete the previous, or allowing it to be unlocked sooner.

These are my initial thoughts. Would love to hear yours.

 

I've also had a few ideas for a companion app for the Apple Watch, but everything ended up just feeling like a "me too" experience and didn't add any value. I'd rather not sell out and degrade the game just to get featured in a apple watch category, but if anyone has an epic idea for that, I'm all ears. :/

I secretly really want to sell out, am I still typing, crap -.-. .-. .- .--.

 

Well, technically it's not selling out if all your doing is adding something to get noticed. Hell, if it gets you more attention, then go for it!

Maybe have a couple new levels and ships as a paid update for more revenue? Also, is there a way to make the game free with ads and have the people who already own the game to be able to "restore purchases" to get rid of them?

 

HA! True. My first idea was a watch app that just showed which alien races you've eliminated, or something that explained what each ship was capable of / what it's special weapons were. But then I think... that stuff could just be incorporated in the app. Blah! So many things to consider, so many potential ways to piss people off.

As for ads / IAP, I thought about that, but didn't find an easy way to fix it. Any way you do it, it's almost like putting a paywall before anyone can start the game (including legit downloaders), it just makes people mad. I did code in, but left turned off a "free games" button on the pause screen which would not be that intrusive, but again, I didn't want to punish the people who paid for the game. It's like the HULU model where you pay, and you get ads, that's not that cool. :/

 

I guess the only thing you can do is keep plugging away and hope that the game gets noticed in the "Best New Updates" section or do the crappy watch thing and hope to get noticed. Maybe make a free version of the game with ads and crazy IAPs? I don't know how hard that would be to make a completely seperate app. Like I've always said, I have the easy part. All I have to do is pay for and play the game. All I can say is, don't give up. This is honestly a great game. It just needs the exposure......and some more ships for me to buy. Hehe

 

HAHA!! Thanks for the vote of support. Glad you have it so easy. :-D

What would you think of a gameboy / monochrome theme pack? I had a thought to sell that for .99c, but I'll have a free day / week just for everyone that visits this forum! Here's a screenshot from testing, not just a rendering.

 

All great ideas! I'll make sure some of these make it into the next release for sure. Your comment about the Game Center on the home screen especially, that even makes me scratch my head every time, I end up going into game center, stupid miss on my part there for sure!

I'll def fix it so that GC Achievements are accounted for in the next release. I kept changing them during dev and never went back to connect them to GC.

I like the idea of a donate button, but I think that would be met with mixed reviews from folks outside of this forum. For instance, I'm not sure I'd want to open up angry birds and have them also ask me to donate.

I've not done anything with cloud saves, but I'll start investigating that this weekend. Do they normally save max scores / unlocks between the two, or is there more logic to it than that? That may or may not make it into the next release.

I thought about putting in a hidden left right left right a b unlock in the game for people that wanted to just go hog wild, or maybe codes you can enter to temporarily unlock certain things. So many things I want to do, all comes down to time! Will try and get the major features out first, then the edge case stuff. haha

 

Yea, that looks really cool! Different theme packs are a great idea. Now your thinking!! Fyi, I want a ship made after me! Lol.

 

Sweet, I need to make that happen. What would this ship made after you look like exactly? HAHA :-D

 

Party like it's 0.99!

For the rest of tonight, I set the price back to it's introductory promo price of $0.99.

It should be propagating through the store now, and last at least until midnight PST! Hopefully anyone on the fence who didn't get a chance to buy it at $0.99 will go get it. If you've commented on this forum & bought it at $1.99 and want your dollar back, just message me your address; I'll personally mail you a crisp $1 dollar bill. :-D

If you're reading this and the sale is over, don't worry, I'm sure in the next few years I'll do another sale. :-D

- Charlie

 

Haha. I'm guessing kind of falic shaped. Not too big, but not small either and very powerful! Probably with a spread shot. I'd say maybe yellow in color and could be called the hashtagNOEN. Yup. That's a winner right there! Haha. Make that happen and I'll be forever in debt to you!

 

ROTFL hahahaha.

I'm not sure anyone can make that happen. But I'll give it a try.

I'm pretty sure the problem I may run into, for a ship of those exact specifications, the game binary would change in such a way that it would no longer be downloadable over ANY 3G, LTE, or even a WIFI connections. Too many maths I guess. But I'll still give it a try.

 

Kinda like Galaga but actually done better! Controls are the key here, and this totally came through and nailed it!!

 

Hehe. Can't wait!!