This game made me go back and play Mage Gauntlet (but on ipad mini now) and it holds up great and is a ton of fun on the mini. Which there was a cloud sync for hats and progress. And will be purchasing some IAP for Punch Quest tonight - game is a ton of fun and it sucks that you tried to do something more fair/less in your face and it didn't pay off. Really hate the free to play trend the way it is playing out and need to support those that do it fair.
Yes!! This is what I want. A level based system where I run run run then kill a boss, then move on to the next level. Each level would be slightly harder than the one prior. I don't need to go left or have a control stick. +1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1
That would be SO awesome, I would buy that in a heartbeat! There is no game like that on iOS yet. (Beatdown is not even close)
And honestly, IT WOULD BE THE SAME GAME!! The running gets harder the further along you progress, right? So if the progression goes from 1 to 10 during a single run... make the level 1-1 only have a difficulty of 1, then level 1-2 can have a difficulty of 1 and 2. Each level would have a boss of course and would drop some fun loot when destroyed. I think it would work, but then again I'm not an iOS developer, so maybe it'd be more challenging than I imagine it would be. *shrug* Either way, when I read that post, I got excited because that's how I imagined the game would work in the first place
I haven't been watching it all day, but it looks like this is slowly climbing the Paid Games chart. 58 last minute I checked.
Noah, sounds like a mode we could add pretty easily. And since we're in the middle of adding some new modes...
Keep At It I usually lurk on the board, but because the devs are reading this, just wanted to drop a note. The last few missives on the thread sound glum. That sales aren't good enough. That the last update will be made soon and you'll have to move on to other things. I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I just spent $10 on IAPs last night, not because I needed Punchos, but because I think you should continue. This is a fun game. It's an addictive game. And people are responding incredibly well to it. There are so many places you can take this game. That adventure spin-off sounds great. Hell, I can see you talking to another company and having them pay you to create the same game with their branded characters. (Who wouldn't want to play Punch Quest as The Flash, with the Flash's rogue's gallery, or as Link from Zelda, or as Bart Simpson, or Mike Tyson from Punch-Out, for that matter...) Anyway. Love the game. Hope y'all keep making updates. People out here are eager to play 'em.
I really don't think this'd work well on iOS, I've tried numerous games controlled with a virtual stick, and they all end up the same, me missing the tacticle feedback, and just flat out dumping the game, and never looking back. There's a rare few games using this that actually do work. But I can literally count them on my fingers. The great games that've stuck with me are the ones that really make good use of the touch interface, instead of trying to emulate more traditional controls (aka virtual joypad and buttons). Or the ones that offer engaging gameplay without to intricate a control scheme (aka Punch Quest). If I really want to play those more traditional games, I'll just fire up my console. Not to say that the iDevices couldn't be used as a hardcore gaming device, but the amount of people actually using them without an interface that's specifically tailored for touch screens, instead of just a virtual dpad and buttons, seems rather low to me. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more hardcore titles appear on the devices, I just don't think the medium and the inherent control flaws work for it.
I could do it... have already prototyped stuff that gets around the control issues, just have to give the right feedback.
[edit] ugh, apparently I was logged in on my artfoundry account instead of lcddreams when I posted. Oh well. Heh yeah, Zynga's not doing so hot now - that's largely because their games have mostly been centered around the same game mechanics with just different skins, and people are getting tired of it - it's over saturated, but those games also cater to more casual users who don't monetize as well. They're realizing that now and are trying to make games for midcore players now (legends: rise of a hero is one of these), but it's kinda late. They did do one thing right though - acquisition and retention of those casual users. Paying user percentage is seriously low (like .5%), but with 30M MAU, it balances out. But with hardcore games, you have a smaller set of users, so you need a higher percent of payers. A good percent is around 5%, but that's more common for pc games. I think for mobile, it's probably closer to 2%. So if you have 1M installs and 2% pay rate, you'll have 20k buyers. If each spends average of $3/month (ARPPU), that's almost $100k/month. That brings it back to how to get your users to buy - this is why the hat feature is so important. It's the hardcore players that are going to buy, and the hat re-rolls are the main hardcore feature. But right now it's too risky to buy into it. So if you make it a sure thing, you'll get more buyers. And if you raise the price (number of punchos, not currency conversion rate), you can still make the money while keeping the non-buyers from getting the hats too easily. Or you could go with that tiered system I mentioned if you want to keep the slot machine element.
I logged back on these forums just to say that I really enjoy the game, Kepa! Keep up the good work. It's a shame this game isn't making the kind of revenue it deserves. I believe that it is more than just hardcore versus casual. I would love to spend my money on this game, but my problem is that doing so would take the fun out of the game for me. Buying the in-game currency basically turns the game into a hat rolling game. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but I believe that the problem is that Punch Quest isn't very compatible with this free "pay for extras" marketing strategy. If the game was like one of those Farmville simulators where the point of the whole thing was just to farm gold, then the free game market would be more suitable. Why buy punchos when I can collect punchos and enjoy the game? In short, I wouldn't blame the currency system, just the way it was implemented, and the type of game it was used on. This just isn't the type of game that I see the free market working with.
Actually this game can work quite well as freemium. The problem with the view of freeium currently is that a lot of players and devs alike think the only way it can work is by limiting the high level content only to buyers, which is definitely not true. Most purchases in freemium games done well are shortcuts - ways to bypass the work or time needed. Second to that would be aesthetic items. I should qualify something. When I talk about the hardcore feature, I don't mean that it's a feature that necessarily is only played by hardcore players. There are different types of players that get into these features. There are the leaders that go for power and high scores, the collectors that try to get everything in the game, the social players that focus on multiplayer and chat, the anonymous types that mostly play by themselves (for the single player campaign and what not), and the more general players that don't fit in these categories (at least not at first). All of these types have both payers and nonpayers, tho the general category is more nonpayers. So some of these will go for this content through gameplay while others will pay. The hard part becomes trying to target the right group(s) with both paid and nonpaid content to satisfy everyone (including your wallet). BTW, I also had the same issue as you - I didn't want to buy punchos because I wanted to earn them (and I don't often buy IAP), but I decided first I wanted to support the devs (I've also supported Madgarden before by buying SoF and contributing to the SoF2 kickstarter and Rocketcat by buying Mage Gauntlet), and second, I wanted to get the sacrificial upgrade quickly so I could start working toward rerolls (which I didn't think I'd spend money on). So I bought 40k punchos to speed up the progress toward the sacrificial upgrade. I can still enjoy the game even though I purchased. I have no plans on buying everything (which some people do, and more power to them... and the developers).
I just recently tried this game. It's pretty fun and comparable to StormTrain, although Punch Quest requires more skill overall. I especially like how 'uppercuts' are essentially a jump and 'punches' are essentially running. Furthermore, the fact that you can punch after an uppercut to give the illusion of an air dash is brilliant. I can't think of anything else to say atm because I haven't gotten into the game deep enough. I'll write some more after I've invested a bit more time into this game.
I would first like to say that I am a large supporter of Rocketcat Games (I'll admit that I was not a follower of Madgarden before Punch Quest). I've purchased every game Rocketcat has published so far, and I have purchased almost every piece of extra content available for every one of their games, excluding Punch Quest. I agree with you that some people have the view that freemium games should exclude high-end content to only buyers, and that this view is a misconception. That being said, I don't honestly see how that is relevant to the particular case of Punch Quest. Punch Quest's freemium system is not based off of this view, and I don't think anyone thinks it should be. You mention that you did not originally wish to buy Punchos, but you did so to support the developers - which is exactly I'm talking about. This particular freemium setup can't gain enough revenue just from people wishing to support the developers, the players need incentives. The problem with this particular freemium model for this game, not talking about any general view, is that the incentive to play the main aspect of the game disappears when players buy punchos. The way Punch Quest is set up is so that the player plays the core part of the game (the actual side-scrolling action) and is rewarded with Punchos. These Punchos can be used to play a mini part of the game, which I will refer to as "hatfest". The hatfest is just icing on the cake of an already enjoyable game, and gives more incentive to play. But when the player buys Punchos, the player loses the incentive to play the core part of the game because they already have enough Punchos. As a result, the core game becomes the hatfest, and the hatfest is not nearly as entertaining as the side-scrolling. Basically, buying Punchos translates the core gameplay to shopping and re-rolling for hats, which isn't entertaining enough on its own.
General replies: We're streamlining the hat rerolls. There's no reroll upgrades (except Trademark Hat), you can just reroll an ultra hat as soon as you get one. 50k buys you a 25% chance to get a Power I skill. 200k buys you a 100% chance to get a Power I skill. Zynga's still a bad example of acquisition, especially in regards to their unique relationship with Facebook. Not sure about retention. A lot of Punch Quest's pay problems were from me trying to do something new. I knew that designing an intentionally slow early grind was a huge thing in free games, I was seeing if we could get around that. The answer's obviously "no". The biggest surprise was the importance of having a long wait *between* unlocks, as opposed to the total time it takes to unlock everything. Since PQ is paid now, we're thinking about not going on with our plans to add a second currency. Just keep it coins, with new items just being expensive. However, if paid doesn't work out too well, we're going to mess with the prices. Most likely a total, drastic redesign. Oh, and someone mentioned games with virtual controls. Mage Gauntlet has virtual controls, I thought those worked really well. Though the two button setup wasn't ideal. In the new game we're working on, the controls are down to zero buttons, it's just tap to attack, swipe to use different abilities.
What controls the power meter ? Just a quick question: What exactly causes the power meter (the 3 block bar) to fill up or drop down ? Or in other words, what do you have to do or don't to have it filled up asap ?
Hitting enemies powers up the meter, and being hit also powers up the meter. I think not hitting anything and not getting hit would make the power meter drop. It also drops if it reaches the maximum power and the super or ultra move is activated.
