As a consumer, I'd rather see "Hook Worlds FREE" released, the exact same game, with iADs, so that people could play that one if they wanted. Implement a method of migrating your progress to the paid app (I've seen this in The Quest, Isotope and others) and don't bother with the IAP to remove the adds. The one sucky thing with this model is that Apple doesn't allow IAP to tie between games, which could plague this model (as it does any app that has separate iPhone and iPad versions...)
The equivalent of the Words with Friends Free model would probably be showing an ad every time you died in Hook Worlds. I'm not quite sure how that would pan out. I'm kind of leaning towards "not very well", maybe I'll consider it after building a panic room in my house. Would probably have to just take out IAP of that proposed free version, too. The main problem with this idea is that the game gets split up, meaning that it's harder to concentrate downloads into a single version. This is why we haven't bothered with LITE versions anymore, either. You make a lite version to hopefully get more awareness for a paid version, but then the problem becomes "how do we get awareness for the lite version, which will then get awareness for the paid version". It's funny how that works out. Also, unless I'm mistaken, people don't fall for LITE or FREE anymore. That is, as a suffix at the end of a game name. If they see either, they tend to avoid it. The era has passed, I guess, maybe too many developers made really terrible lite-versions. Then again, I'm not sure if LITE even really worked at all, except when the App Store was quite young. Correct me if I'm wrong. So yeah, if we did make Hook Worlds free, we'd probably just add another IAP pack, take out some of the stuff paying customers get and make it an IAP pack containing that and some new stuff, and then make sure previously paying customers get that IAP pack for free. This strategy would have the advantage of being the least time consuming one I can think of. I don't have a lot of issues, morally, with making an already 99 cent game free, except I wouldn't want to halfass it. The issue I see is that we'd probably end up going way over time budget adding stuff. It would start with adding IAP packs, then we'd probably want to add another game mode. We don't have much self control here. ***SPOILERS***: The game we make after Mage Gauntlet will be free+IAP, anyway. We want to get in on that before it possibly goes the way of the dinosaur that was the "lite version". I know freemium is supposed to be the future and everything, but you never know if a million soulless button-tapping simulators will sour people on it.
Dunno... I actually find LITE/FREE versions really handy. It's basically a demo to try out the game without risking disappointment. Since Apple prohibits using the word as a label in the title this is the only way to offer such a thing.
Heh heh. Hey, whatever keeps your business afloat enough to make your *real* games then that's fine with me. Might want to only do something like that using a different company name though to not defile the Rocketcat name.
Depends on the price more than anything else, I'd say. The Secret of Chateau de Moreau was NZ$6.49 upon release, and while it looked good, I wasn't going to pick it up without checking it out first. Turns out from the demo version that the game was worth the full amount, easily. Of course, knowing how the the app store works, I still waited two weeks and picked the game up today for $1.29. For lowest-tier pricing ($1.29), I normally wouldn't even bother with a "lite" version; if a $1 game looks even remotely interesting to me, I'll just pick it up, because I usually find it impossible not to get at least $1 worth of entertainment out of the deal.
I don't see a problem doing a free game with IAP to unlock the full game. While Rocketcat usually has niche games and groups of people instantly buy them, the appeal of free games is much more universal. Either way, the people who lock Rocketcat is going to buy the IAP to get the complete game. Being free just entices more people to bite. As long as the game is of similar quality to all of their past ones, I don't see the issue.
It's handy for the buyer, but it doesn't lead to any more discoverability for the game developer. If you're looking to see if a game has a lite version or not, you not only already know about the game's existance, you're also already really interested in the game. Hook Champ's Lite version had a huge conversion-to-paid rate, but at the same time it had much lower download numbers than the paid version of Hook Champ. The situation is pretty counter-intuitive, but Lite doesn't do as much as you'd expect. We're going to try to make a F2P game that is actually good. We will be using how League of Legends handles things as an example. That game lets you buy new classes that enable you to try different gameplay styles, but doesn't force you to buy anything. A selection of classes are free, and which ones are free change weekly, so you can play most of them if you're patient. Or you can use in-game currency you get for playing to unlock classes permanently. It's the least detrimental system I've ever seen for a free game. We will use a similar class system for the freemium game we're making after Mage Gauntlet. It will also have buying coins to instantly get equipment upgrades, like Gun Bros and Solomon's Boneyard and such do. However, our system will be much less grindy than Gun Bros, and hopefully even less grindy than Solomon's Boneyard. Still a little grindy, though. It's a disadvantage you can't really get around: I think free-to-play games will always inherently be grindier than a paid game. Coins for equipment upgrades will be easy to get just for playing the game, there will be no other content locks besides the ones above, and there won't be any ads. There won't be long arbitrary waits between sessions, and there won't be a Zynga-like "energy" system that limits your playing time. Am I missing any other design traps that gives F2P games a bad name? Anyway, more info about this game after Mage Gauntlet is released.
If you wana do a good free to play, League of Legends is a good example. As far as IOS is concerned, Nimblebit has it down.
Nimblebit's system is good for simulator type games, but not really action games. It's going to be an action game, so we're going for how League of Legends does it, mixed in with an equipment shop. Kind of like all the equipment shops in our previous games, but now you can buy coins if you want things sooner.
Have you guys considered making a tactics RPG in the vein of FFT or disgaea in your new RPG engine? That would be amazing.
We haven't considered that yet. A tactics RPG is a bit more of a jump than just making a turn-based RPG, though. Will most likely make a turn-based RPG down the line. I really would like to take Final Fantasy style games and make the battles more interesting than FIGHT/ITEM/MAGIC/RUN. My dream is obviously to remake "Charles Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden" for the iPhone. Bugfixing/checking seems pretty much endless. Complicating things is that the game is way longer than we thought it was (more time needed to check things), and the whole "programmer in vastly different time zone" bit. I'll make posts pretty much everywhere when the game is submitted, until then just kind of making small tweaks.
Turn based RPG is a genre needing a boost on iOS, best wishes making that come to be. I hadn't ever heard of "Charles Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden" but am now breathless.
I have had several random RPG ideas over the years but I'm not in game design so they'll probably never see the light of day. Here's a few examples of the type of stuff I've thought of that I think might be cool in a JRPG. Anyone want to use them feel free as I never will. 1) One of the characters is a sentient sword that has to take over and drain the life force from other people in the game. Think Stormbringer. But the more powerful the sword-character gets the stronger that the character wielding the sword has to be. Unless you've invested skill points into the sword to allow it to be wielded by weaker characters. But then that means that the sword itself will be weaker. Choices, balances, and tradeoffs... 2) Some spells take more than one round to cast but they do more damage, have a greater area of effect, etc. But if your spellcaster gets disrupted prior to casting the spell. Some skill increases would let a spellcaster improve the ability to do more damage with spells already learned, or the ability to cast them faster, etc. I keep thinking some mechanism of spell casting similar to the "kid's MMO" "Wizard 101" could be used - that game has such a cool turn based combat system. 3) Tied into the second idea is to have another character (a tank character) actually be able to defend the spell caster but he can't attack. Or you choose a certain amount of defense he provides and he gets a weak attack. Obviously skill increases could change what options are available. 4) I'd like to see a lot more variety in weapons in "old school" RPGs. Not have just a strict +Attack or +Damage but give me more realistic stats or tradeoffs and have different armor and weapon systems. Or give some stats like speed, damage, bonus to attack or defend etc, based on the weapon or armor. And use a similar system with spells. If you're wearing heavy armor then you should have less movement/agility. Make the player want to choose different weapons or spells to use depending on the situation or potential threats. Give the player choices and decisions - not just a "no brainer" decision like the new sword does more damage than the last one. I could go on and on but I won't as this is a forum thread for Mage Gauntlet - not random JRPG thoughts. Best of luck still with Mage Gauntlet by the way. Still looking forward to it very much.
I usually tune out as soon as I see the first blue haired anime she-boy with a giant sword... But this game doesn't seem to have fallen into that trap so I might check it out as the gameplay does look fun (with a bit of depth even..)
If I ever made a JRPG one of my main characters would be such a "she-boy" with big hair and a giant sword and the annoying arrogant attitude to match. This "she-boy" would believe himself to be a true bad ass and is marveled at how much power and skill he has with this sword he has found. After a while the player would figure out that the giant sword is the true main character and that during the game the emo wielding the sword would start looking more and more frail and sickly while the sword got more and more powerful, darker, and more evil looking from all the souls it has slain and by feeding upon the life force of its own wielder - leaving nothing more than a dusty skeletal husk behind... but complete with the big hair left perfect and flawless. Once the very much sentient (and evil) sword realizes it is expending far too much of its own energy just to keep the sad and now almost skeletal form of its current wielder just barely alive it will then finish the job and await a new sucker, err, owner take the old owner's place. Thus allowing the cycle to continue...
Oh didn't read ur post with the story. Was talking about the game style. But sounds like a good story.
