I don't remember exactly. I think there were a few levels of premium unlock IAPs, like one to disable ads, one to double coins, and then a bundle of the two for a cheaper price. But if you bought one of the single IAPs first and then later decided you'd want the others, you'd get the cheaper price anyway, even though you didn't buy the bundle. Something along those lines. I think there were coin pack IAPs too, but I can't recall if those were disabled once you hit a certain threshold or not. Another tactic I've seen work well is the Crossy Road gacha character unlock thing, where you earn a free chance at random new characters but you can also just buy most of them for 99¢ too if you didn't feel like waiting to get one through the machine. That could possibly work in this game, if not with different characters with like different outfits or armor or something.
We've got a space reserved for some kind of Gacha. Pop a unit of premium currency in for a chance of a random item, some gold or a gear upgrade. We've got a crafting mechanic in the game whereby you can increase the effectiveness of your gear by spending the random materials that you accrue on your adventures. Currently, each item of gear - Helms, Robes, Staves and Trinkets - have 5 levels and each one confers specific bonuses - increasing the damage done or resisted by a particular element, or making the player less likely to be affected by a particular status effect. Now we're thinking of having an Ascension layer, where you can upgrade beyond level 5 but it'll cost you premium currency. The worry with this is that it begins to smell of pay to win - something that we're vehemently opposed to - although I put it to you: Does pay-to-win matter in a single player experience?
Yes it does. Even if just a local leaderboard I HATE games that allow unlimited continues via cash, credits, or even watching ads.
I'd never even considered continues. If you haven't done it on a credit, you haven't done it No, we'd be talking about gear that would only be accessible through premium currency and give you a bit of an advantage. Of course, premium currency doesn't always have to be bought - we drop some as part of the achievement system - but it's quicker to buy it.
We put the build we made for the Develop Conference in front of Rami to see what he thought. We did not get the iPad back for some time...
Through a rather strange and fortunate series of events, it looks like we will be showing Glyph Quest Chronicles at the Tokyo Game Show! I don't mind telling you that we're pretty excited by the whole thing. If you're fortunate enough to be going yourself, why not look us up and have a go at the game? In the meantime, here's a bit more of a trailer with the odd splash of gameplay in it. And just to head the odd question off at the pass, no, the game plays in Portrait mode - it's just that Landscape is a better fit for promo videos on monitors
i see those tiles, i wanna tap them! please give us lots and lots of gear and character customisation this time around! and maybe more but shorter quests than SGQ. And for me, in a single player, you can have all the pay to win you want, as long as the game is balanced and enjoyable with the price of purchase in mind, and without a paywall content for costumes or such.
Not exactly sold on this f2p mesh but if there's some kind of threshold to pay (that's not too much) to make this premium, I could be okay with that. Btw this time can we make sure the game title fits under the app icon for iPhone devices? That "...." part always bugged me with the old one. Thanks for the wonderful game as usual
Just a super-quick heads up. We're about to open Chronicles up for some beta testing. If that's the sort of thing you'd be interested in, keep an eye on this thread and I'll post up the sign-up info when it's all sorted.
We've talked about Patron Mode before and conventional App Store wisdom suggests that we're being really, really silly about this but... here's our publisher talking a little bit about what we're doing and why. Beyond our rationale of thanking players for giving us money for the game and not wanted to be seen as exploitative or gouging in any way, there's another reason for attempting this. We think we've got more gameplay than your traditional match-3 type game offers. I mean, we think we've got all sorts of stuff in there to appeal to plenty of people. We live in hope that these people see value in this game and are happy to monetise. But that's incredibly naive. The fact of the matter is that we don't think we're going to get the type of install-base (despite you guys and your best "tell your friends" efforts) that you need to make 'traditional' F2P work - ie: lots and lots of users with a small percentage paying something and a teeny, tiny percentage paying lots. So why try to chase those 'Whales'? Our game isn't particularly suited to that. Instead we need a larger percentage of our smaller user base to monetise and we think the best way of doing that is in a nice and friendly fashion. Plenty of gameplay and nothing that can be seen as trying to trick people into spending or coming across as being greedy. Again, maybe this is just too naive on our part, but we're still trying to resist becoming something we're not comfortable with. I guess we'll find out in a few month's time...
I love the concept of the commercial model outlined. I've always felt that if there was a known cap to the spend to make a game unlimited (let's say to remove energy or timers or comparable) then you would know your maximum outlay and be able to make a rational decision of which was more valuable to you - not spending money or flexibility in unhindered play. Some games have done this via full unlocks which is great, but I don't mind going in under a normal FTP model, spending a little bit as I go to see if it really sticks, but also knowing that if someday I want to go all in that I know what that price looks like. Hopefully I'm understanding the conceptual proposal on the table and I'm interested in more of the details as they reveal. I've enjoyed the prior games and am looking forward to this one as well!
I signed up. Well I think I did. I haven't seen a confirmation email. But I tried again with the same info to see if the sign up knew I was already in, but instead I saw a confirmation on the page when I hit the register button. Can't wait! Will probably go play some of the previous one now. #
