Universal Mikey Boots (by BeaverTap Games)

More proof since mobile won't do two pics per post.

 

Fantastic! I'm glad you enjoyed playing the game.

 

Will you ever add any content updates? What kind if so (levels, clothes, even harder vs more of the same difficulty, secrets) ?

 

Posting this as per the request in the Goblin Sword thread...

Mikey Boots is one of those games that supports iPod Touch 4, but doesn't really run very well. It just kind of chugs along. The best I can describe is it looks like it's running at a very low framerate. Putting Retro Graphics on helps speed it up, but it's still sluggish compared to my 4S. It ran bad enough that my oldest son stopped playing after the first day it came out where as he played quite a bit of the two Mikey Shorts games (yes I count the free Halloween edition) and Mikey Hooks. Goblin Sword on the other hand just works seemingly the same between the old iPod Touch 4 (even the lowly 8gb model) and my 4S. I am not really expecting any kind of fix.

 

So, may I ask: what have we done to piss you off so bad? You seem more interested in bashing us in pretty much every other game thread. I'm sorry you hate Mikey Boots so much. The only goal we had was to try and make a fun game that people would enjoy.

And such little faith in us fixing issues. There is actually something we can do, and it would be very simple. The problem is most likely due to the heavy load of our new backgrounds, and for older HW we have made a tweak to make it not so intensive. Unfortunately, that did not include the iPod Touch 4 as we didn't have one to test on. So yes, there is a potential fix for this, and we'll look at adding that into the next update (we're still waiting for the current update to go through).

 

To be fair to Nighty I don't think he meant to upset anyone; certainly not a developer who has made games that he and his family have enjoyed. I can understand your frustration when you see negative comments about your game in another thread, but again, I don't think it was personal on his part. As for the "I'm not expecting any kind of fix," I think that comment was misconstrued.

Anyways, I finished the game a few days ago. All coins collected and all panties found. Good job, BeaverTap.

 

Thanks man. You get it.

I posted maybe 4 times (two of which were about GOTW voting) negatively about Mikey Boots outside of this thread. Heck one of em was just saying that it was ok the guy (a friend) didn't click with Starborn Anarkist sort of like how I didn't ultimately click with this game. None of it was trolling. I definitely haven't been going in every thread and bashing Mikey Boots, that's just crazy to suggest that. I haven't even posted in this thread in nearly a full week because I thought it was better to walk away as I had stated pretty clearly what I felt made this game not really fun and there was no reason to beat a dead horse. To recap, I don't like that all the path finding in this game is ultimately ruined by the coin path.

The only reason I came in to post here today was because the developer derailed another thread and requested me to post about the ipod touch 4 issues here... so stupid me decided I would do what the dev requested because I'm all about helping devs & gamers when I can.

I'm not really expecting a fix for the ipod touch 4, simply because I know it's one of the worst apple devices to support with it's limited memory and retina display. When new games do work though it's refreshing since so many new games don't. Goblin Sword should be praised for that support right at launch... and I mentioned how Super Heavy Sword also didn't work well at all on the device... and I've posted time and time again how much I love the pixel art Ash puts into those games.

And what the dev here forgets is all the praise I had for Mikey Hooks and how much I helped by suggesting the coins collected during level fails could be saved and that would go a long way to making the collectathon side of the game possible. They took the suggestion to heart and implemented it in Mikey Hooks and then put the fix into the older games as well as included that way of thinking into this game. I mean, I'm no troll here. If constructive criticism isn't wanted though, that's cool... I can walk away. I'm not here to make money (Edit: or create drama), just talk about games.

 

OK, this is not heading in the direction I want. No you are not a troll, and as you pointed out we have listened to you in the past with Mikey Hooks. I guess I'm being overly-sensitive here because it has been a rough release, and because from my perspective you did make your thoughts known about Mikey Boots multiple times in this thread, and yes I overstated "every", but still stating similar things in 4 other threads seemed like a lot. And Eli hit the nail on the head, you come off as an abrasive person. I understand that probably isn't intentional, but still, it is hard to tell in written posts. And the fact that Eli stated that leads me to believe I'm not the only one.

And then to say I derailed a thread -- you called out Mikey Boots and optimization issues, not me. I just don't like being compared to another game negatively without being given the opportunity to try and deal with the issue first. How else am I supposed to get your attention so that I can learn about the problem? I almost PM'd you multiple times, but I figured that would've been viewed as hostile, which is not what I wanted. I made ONE post asking you for more information. That's it! No idea how that is "derailing" a thread.

And no it wasn't a trap to pull you in here. I guess I'm not used to criticism like this, and I honestly got the feeling we did something to make you mad, and I wanted to understand that. I don't want to alienate any fans. But that might be too late.

I'm also not trying to create drama. Trust me, that is the last thing I want. Though you appear to like it considering your snide comments you continue to make in the GS thread. When all I asked you was to report the problem you mentioned (how is that creating drama by the way?!?).

EDIT: I take you not being a troll back. I just saw your post in TA GotW thread indirectly slamming us again. For someone that doesn't troll and doesn't like drama, you sure as hell do a lot it. Our game has been out 2 weeks now and you still can't give it up.

 

Ooh...oooh..*raises hand* I wanna talk!

Just my 1 1/2 cents but I'm personally befuddled by those who complain, berate and otherwise rant about older devices not processing newer software. I'm not just referring to the above incident. We all see this over and over again on the AppStore, but especially here on TA. Anytime you look at a new release thread within the first five posts you can expect to see this; "Duz it play on an iPhone fore!!?". You also always see people who insist it BETTER be compatible with iOS v. 4.3 or whatever other version they refuse to give up for god knows what reason.

If you aren't willing to get with the times you should expect to get left behind, period. Why should a developer have to spend countless hours digging through dozens of iOS versions and a dozen, outdated iPhones, iPads and iTouches just to please the few stubborn/cheap/lazy people who have to be difficult?

Anyway, OT, still playing Mikey Boots quite often and really just a big fan of the franchise altogether. Sorry Mike to hear that the launch didn't go as well as expected, hope it wasn't too bad though as I'd imagine continued promotional efforts might be helpful.

 

Just my two pence worth too
I read nights comments about not expecting a fix differently, I took it as an acceptance that cos he is on an oldish device that these things happen type thing, but I can see how it could be taken another way. The internet is a pain in the arse in that way and I've gotten myself in hot water the same way, then add in auto correct and my clumsiness, I shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard lol.

I'm sorry to hear launch didn't go as planned. My Daughter plays this everyday (I wrote on upcoming about she was looking forward to boots arrival more than santa's lol) and I honestly think because of her enjoyment of this the news that her beloved minecraft has changed hands hasn't been as bad. Everyone I've told in real life bought the game and love it, with some picking up the others, I have everything crossed that sales pick up and if there is anything I can do to help, be it tweets or stuff lemme know.

 

Thanks for the kind words Rich and Cloudpuff! I'm glad you, and many others, are still enjoying the game. Overall everything has been really positive towards the game itself, so it is always great to release something that people do enjoy. And we do have something coming (hopefully very soon!) that might help out. I can't say right now, but I'm sure some of you could figure out what's new in iOS8. So we'll see!

Yeah, supporting old devices is a tough thing. And a lot of the time it is Apple that forces developers to support newer hardware (like not allowing older iOS versions in Xcode). I'm guessing it will get even worse for after iOS8 and new iPhones release.

That said, we made a big effort to support old HW when developing Mikey Shorts. That worked out really well because MikeM had access to a 2nd generation iPod Touch! However, with iOS7 and Mikey Hooks and all, we couldn't support it anymore with iOS4.3 as the new base. And of course the new (big) backgrounds and particles in Mikey Boots really tax older HW (my original iPad barely chugs along). But I did make the simple change to hopefully help out a bit with the iPod Touch 4, so it should show up at some point whenever we submit an update with that fix.

 

In contrast to you i totally like the coin path feature. Thats a very good way to design such hard and fast later levels without making them impossible to finish. Just my 2 cents...

 

And that's the exact reason the coin path exists. We wanted to make this game harder, but not that *hard*. Without the coins the later levels would become really hard, if not impossible for some people, as you mentioned. But if we do another level set, I half-jokingly told MikeM that we should remove all coins and make them impossible levels.

Unfortunately, to balance the difficulty out, and give people a chance that may not have played our other games, we needed to start out with easier levels and progress to hard. And that's the reason the current update (waiting to be reviewed) unlocks all of the levels. So if the first 20 are too easy, then you can jump right into the later levels where the difficulty starts to pick up.

 

There are currently only 36 levels in the main game. I finished 21 out of 36 levels with all coins & stars. Of the 6 bonus levels, I unlocked 3 of them and played the first two. I'm still ranked pretty highly on the first 20 levels with the best being my #3 rank on level 4. Most of my scores are pretty easy to find because I seriously played this game.

I can't seem to find you, Eli or Carter on the leaderboards at all. Can I get a reference on any level to see how good/bad you managed to do and see what level you quit on?

Level 21 has only 1,622 people on the leaderboard which is a far cry from the 13,476 people that posted scores on level 1.

So for some reason 11,854 people of the 13,476 stopped playing before I did. Half of those quit before level 7. Only 364 people bothered to finish the game with only 202 even managing to unlock bonus level 6 and finish it. Will doing something new to the series and unlocking all the levels make people play it more? It'll be interesting to see, but I'm probably not going to follow where the game goes from here as I had walked away before and only came back as requested.

I'm not pretending to have all the answers here, just posting my own experience as a fan of the series that actually threw his bucks down on launch day to buy this. I hope it'll help the dev. I'm completely open to being an isolated blip on the radar of the overall big picture of why people aren't playing this game and the retention rate is the worst among all the Mikey games. But I think it's possible that I'm not alone and others quit this game way before the dev expected and not because it was too hard but because the gameplay ultimately is very shallow. I'm sure too that there are people that aren't comfortable with the flappy/tiny wings type controls. But I wasn't one of them. The controls worked fine for me.

Whatever the case, I wish the dev the best... even if it means the direction they take makes me (a serious iOS gamer that takes the platform as seriously as consoles, pc, and everything else) not their target demographic anymore. I don't hold grudges or ill will. This is gaming. I'm only looking for great games to play that appeal to me... not every game is going to do that.

 

It's funny. In my case, I've only reached Level 20 because I've been slightly obsessed with beating qpawn's #1 local score on every level (Level 12, for some reason, and Level 16 are holding me back). This may be atypical or there could be thousands out there like me.

My admittedly shallow and unscientific take on why this game might not have as many players as the others—it's been a crazy iOS month where tons of primo games have been released and grabbing/keeping gamers' attention is harder than ever on the AppStore. Also, iPhone 6 and iOS 8 and Desert Golfing might be drawing attention away from actually playing/completing games one has downloaded.

Finally, I salute the Mikes for developing kickass games and moving past the Hook Champ-fueled robot suspicions of yore to form a friendship, nay a partnership, that I'm sure will endure.

 

Hey Guise! Glad to see you back, and thanks!

In the end, who knows. The App Store is a strange and mystical place. Though I'll admit that we didn't really want to release in early September for the exact reasons you list Guise -- Apple's iPhone event, and the fact that we released on the same day as Angry Birds, King's new game, and Ubisoft to name a few.

Maybe the game is too easy, or maybe just maybe, the game really did become too hard for other players. You'd be surprised at messages we get stating that someone found an early level to be VERY HARD!

I'm sure you could see the same retention drop off in our previous games. Probably skewed by the fact that Mikey Shorts went free for awhile. But I do know that only a small number of people played Challenge mode in Mikey Shorts. That was a reason we changed it to unlock those levels from the start. Too easy? Too hard? Or just the fact that there are a ton of great games in the App Store to play? I guess we'll never know.

And we're just trying to make fun games. We aren't trying to go in any direction that excludes people -- we want everyone to play our games!