The build I have is just furries. Personally I think it's a good idea to do it that way cause the engine needs to be optimized for multiple generations of devices. With all the badguys on screen it get's overwhelming from a ""I don't wanna die" standpoint but the framerate isn't dropping at all. Once that is stable then the textures can be switched out for the other enemies/backgrounds. As to whether more enemies will be in the final build... Only the Mountain Sheep know Also of note is my build has an option to flip the screen so I can play it on my iphone and still hear that epic music. Gotta love a dev that is thinking about us iphone users
Quote of the week! Sure it is just the devs' company name but I love the mystic feel it gives as if the answers lie in the desolate heights of the mountains where only the mountain sheep dare to tread.
When I typed it I thought of the very top of a craggy mountain. A Mountain Sheep perched on the very tip. And with a mighty head butt would send you flying down a mountain face first if you crossed it
when the 3.0 update fiasco clears through. You can bet there is a massive backlog of games jammed up waiting for apple to clear all the other stuff of their plate.
Still have to break the 2000 barrier... I'll get there, just have to grab the mountain sheep by its horns...
Just look at illusion labs. They hardly ever have price drops and yet they stay on the charts like champs. If you price your app at .99 cents, where can you go from here. We all know that a price drop brings attention to the app and attempts to draw on impulse buys, and create more visibility. What does a price increase do??? It sure as hell doesn't have people rushing to buy the app. It decreases the visibility and alienates the core audience. It's not like I have some meta-cognition skills, just basic marketing. Albie would be able to explain it best as marketing is that man's forte'. EDIT: Just saw this on appgamer and it perfectly outlines the risks of low pricing. Sorry for the off topic tirade, this will be my last post on the matter. http://appgamer.net/features/2009/jun/25/problem-app-store-pricing/
We price our games what we think they are worth, i.e. 4.99 and not 0.99. 0.99 should be reserved for very simple games and utilities. No "sales" unless there is a good reason. People (me included) think that if they miss out on a sale, they think they are doing a bad deal and will just wait for the next sale, which could mean that you have to wait forever. We have lowered the price of Labyrinth due to a) it's over 18 months old and b) the clones are almost on par (not regarding physics and feel though, in that department they are lagging behind). Also, people seem to, understandably, get pissed when their 9.99 game suddenly is 0.99 after just a short while, which means they will never ever buy anything again from them for full price -- why not just wait for the drop to 0.99, right? With that said, it's sad to see Minigore go for 0.99 when it clearly looks a polished title. I don't know about gameplay as I haven't played it yet, but the graphics look polished to me. And back to topic...
Thanks Ander's for the back up. I've always been impressed with illusion labs, pricing strategies. You guys stick to your guns, and the market has rewarded you accordingly. You guys are a shining example on how an app should be marketed. I'm really tired of seeing the market diluted by the onslaught of .99 cent apps. Mini gore, looks very polished, and I would have easily paid 3-4 dollars for it, and could be inticed to pick it up as high as 5-6 dollars. As the article suggests the floor may collapse soon and then we'll be left with thousands of below average games priced at what everyone wants.....99cents.
Have to agree with everything you said Anders, but... Don't you think things have "evolved" a bit since Sway and Touchgrind were released? There is an Ocean of apps in which it is very easy to get lost. How many good games are released every week? Everybody (but a very few) have started to do $0.99 sales even for premium games. A lot of people can't see the difference between a quality game and rubbish. Not when they are all priced at $0.99. I agree it's sad, I would have paid more for Slotz and for Minigore, both are worth a fair bit more and have a high level of polish in visuals and gameplay. And I'm very happy with the price I paid for Sway and Touchgrind. If they are going to sell 1.000.000 copies of Minigore and the same number of Hardgore, fine. But if they have to give up half way through the updates because there is no money coming in, I'd rather pay a price that reflects the quality of the app ad the dev, and provides a long term future for good devs, rather than a $0.99 for every game on the app store.
Also worth pointing out is that it isn't solely the companies fault, it is mainly because Apple choose to promote apps priced at 0.99 the way the top 100 lists work. The easiest way to solve this mess is by changing the top 100 lists to sort by revenue instead, for instance, and the only one who can change this is Apple themselves. It would be nice if Mountain Sheep could give their thoughts about pricing too. If perhaps their publisher is the one who is pressuring them, I would understand why they cannot comment about it, of course.
I have a feeling it's their "publisher" who is pushing the pricing strategy, and so we probably won't hear much from the mountain sheep. Although I'm interested in confirming my suspicions.
Difficult to expect much from Apple as they don't even seem able to review apps properly, but the top 100 is not doing anybody a service as it stands. I still believe mountain sheep want to use minigore to create a userbase and hard to cash in (hard cash!), recycling much of the work done for mini. (I mean this in a very positive way). PS: I'm thinking more and more that Chillingo is the key here
Maybe pricing the game cheap is so it gets attention and regular consumers will know what hardgore is before it comes out so they can sell that at a higher price point
