Thank loptr! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Design-wise, the core idea came quickly when I was playing with the idea of reducing a shooting game to its most basic fundamentals -- one target + one projectile. Then as I played the prototype I was struck by the fact that I was missing the target much more often than I expected (the initial movement speed was quite a bit faster) and that it always felt like my own fault -- partly because I couldn't resist going for the full length shots. I could write loads about about how the rest evolved, but in essence it all stemmed from focusing on rewarding players for taking the long shots, and conversely making things harder in the long run to some extent for players who took safer shots (hello red guys!). This all evolved over a moderately long period, then -- once I had those basic ingredients in with placeholder graphics -- active development all but stalled for a month or more while I kept playing and tweaking values to find what felt like the right balance for everything. I must admit I only got a few people to test it once I was happy with the balance, mainly to establish that they could reach the first goal, get some 20pt shots, etc. Then I returned to my cave to finish it off, not knowing that I was only about 30% there (at that point the moon was still mute, and did nothing expression-wise apart from watch the rocket approach). So basically the remaining 70% of the time was spent on the rest, with a few minor tweaks to the gameplay along the way. (Of course I had completely underestimated how long all that would take.) Finally, I had a few more friends test it when it was very nearly complete. Varying skill levels and scores, but even the ones who just shot at the moon willy nilly and got terrible scores kept playing. Their feedback was "release it!" which seemed like a good response. And so after some more polish and couple of small additions, I did. @Roger, I have a feeling you're going to overtake Andy very soon at this rate.
786, #4 on the leaderboards. Just a few points away from andy but I bet it takes just 5 minutes and he has a score of 1000+
A little late to the party, but really enjoying it. I just dropped a vote for Shoot The Moon on the GoTW poll, which is currently active if anyone else feels like giving Alone (in the lead with 5 votes) a run for it's money. Am I the only one who MUST play with the sound off? That song eats right into my head! (Mute) The Moon Congratulations on a great game, Shaun.
Wow would have felt like a completely different game without the singing and the reactions. Awesome stuff Shaun! Been telling my colleagues about it and they've been loving it. It's more accessible than the other one-tap games without being any less challenging.
Shaun C - I haven't got a chance to d/l and play your game yet, but it looks great and I really look forward to playing it. I love that you're so involved in this thread, this is obviously a labor of love for you (I've read all of your text walls, btw). My question is how are you monetizing the game? Are there ads or IAPs?
@paulkane haha... perhaps I should update the description: The moon will not stop singing! (Unless you turn off the music, which shuts him up pretty good actually) If all goes to plan there will be a third sound option in an update that will allow you to turn off the vocals while keeping the music... just in case some people get sick of the moon's dulcet tones. @loptr Oh, that's awesome that you've been telling others to give it a go. I truly appreciate it! @Lazer Kat Well first off, thanks for proving my wife wrong by reading my text walls. (Finally! A point for me!) And you're right, it absolutely was a labor of love. I must admit I got quite carried away with implementing just about everything I wanted the way I wanted. Which meant the idea of it being a sensible endeavour from a financial perspective pretty much evaporated a long time ago due to the overlong time investment. So at this point, any money it makes is a blessing, but the main thrill has definitely been seeing people play and enjoy it. As for how I'm monetizing the game... very poorly, I suspect. It has a banner ad on the game over screen, and an interstitial that appears on transition from game over to title - but not every time; it's timer based. The only IAP is a tier 1 (ie, US$0.99) purchase to remove ads. During most of development I was planning to make it a paid app with no ads, but in the end I decided that the combination of a price + my woeful marketing skills would run too great a risk of virtually no one playing it, so after a lot of humming and hahing about it, in they went. At some point in an update I would like to add some little extras as a reward for removing ads, which would of course be auto-unlocked for anyone who has already done so. Sorting through some ideas now. Update should be due out late 2015. (< Haha, I joke! ...I hope.)
Congratulations on getting featured by Apple. I hope you shoot up the charts (it's already in the top 100 Free Arcade Games in the US). This game deserves it.
Oh my goodness, what an unexpected and extremely welcome surprise! Thanks for the good wishes, Lazer Kat. And also thanks for the heads up! Funnily enough I didn't even know I had been featured until I saw your post here, as yesterday I decided to stop checking my falling downloads and try to focus on working on an update instead. Of course now when I check the leaderboard now it's like... well, hello... something's happened!
It's such a roll of the dice. If you knew you would be featured you could have charged $0.99 for the game and done well.
Configurations for being in the Best New Game this week. In fact, I downloaded this game last friday already and quite addicting into this hilarious moon. Well done!
- Top 50 in overall Free Games in the US App Store - 97 ratings/reviews in the App Store already, with a 5-Star average (and only one negative that I can tell. Something about copying a game called chicken invaders). I really hope this is one of those feel good indie App Store success stories we see once or twice a year.
So addictive One thing that I think would make this game better: A bit of a change in the aiming/controls. I seem to accidentally shoot sometimes because I hover my thumb above the bottom strip, and an accidental touch ends my run. Personally, I'd prefer to hold my thumb down and shoot when released. Another option (which I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement, or if it's even a good idea) is an aiming line which shows the projected path, and the ability to aim diagonally, and bounce off of the walls. This would add lots of strategy when trying to get around angry red men.
Well, it's been pretty wild couple of days watching the Apple Featured effect in action. It's also been very heartening. Towards the end of development when I checked some sites for advice on how to launch your app, they tended to offer the usual advice regarding the huge number of things you should be doing well in advance to generate buzz. And although I expect that advice is all very sound, when you're a lone developer who's just focusing on finishing your game, it's also kind of depressing and impractical to varying degrees. So Apple's Featured list is a truly amazing feature. Really gives indie devs a fantastic opportunity to go toe to toe with the big players. I know that's an obvious observation, but hey, I'm still trying to get my head around the 'Feature effect'. @antony, Thanks! But be careful you don't get too addicted, or you might find yourself looking at the moon on a perfect summer's night and thinking "I reckon I could hit that." (Hey, it's happened to me!) @paulkane. Poor moon! All he wants to do is be heard! @Lazer Kat, It's interesting you mention that (touch then release to shoot), because for a while I was torn between the two methods. In the end I decided against touch>release because I felt that when the moon is moving fast, dragging your finger across the screen to choose your launch point felt a bit awkward/frictiony (at least with my clammy fingers), and although I couldn't be certain, it seemed to me that registered touch point trailed one frame behind. Mind you, even with 'release to shoot', the player could simply choose to hover over the screen and do a quick tap>release>shoot that would be virtually indistinguishable from a tap>shoot, but somehow I got it into my head that the extra one or two frame delay this might cause due to having to lift your finger would lead to missed shots, and so went with the tap>shoot. I retrospect I must admit I probably got needlessly obsessive over matters of timing there. (Wouldn't be the first time.) Maybe an option to let the player choose would have been a good way to go. Or a future way to go? Diagonal shots, eh? Interesting…. very interesting. I wonder if there will be a sequel one day.
#29 on the free game charts now! 2000 downloads in the last hour or so. I'm glad so many other people have found this game because it deserves wide recognition. I play quick fix/reflex games all the time and very few have this much polish and heart. Reminds me of tiny wings and that's about the best compliment I could give an iOS game. I think this will crack the top 10 soon and defintely surpass that horrid Kim Kardashian app.
