Glad to see people like my ideas Maybe you could pull one of those marketing strategies where you release the game as is (probably at $.99) and promise a future update (with something like the above) that would accompany a price raise. Then people are intrigued, and are encouraged to adopt it early, and you thus get some early publicity. It worked pretty well for iDracula, and I think some other games, I forget now...
@LordGek I can totally see where you're coming from, and that from just the screenshots it might look like the same game with a different background. It definitely plays very differently though. I'll post up a video at some point so you can really see the difference. The main difference - you don't get points for *docking* a boat. You get points for unloading cargo off a boat, more points for more cargo. Which means that you need to: 1. Dock the boat 2. Wait for it to unload 3. Undock the boat so that a new one can use that dock Again, I know the difference is subtle, so just wait a few days until I get the video up That's a cool idea. However, I don't want to encourage people to buy a game based on what they hope the game will eventually become. I think this is a great game, and I'd hope that people feel that they want the game exactly as it is. And of course, the updates are always a welcome bonus That said, we're absolutely serious about committing to update if the game continues to sell. If Harbor Master gets into top 50 games, we'll start working on the update right away. As long as it stays up there, we'll keep putting out those updates for you guys
@Nattylux I think LordGek was referring to Fletch's idea about the purchasing of items that I commented on
Whoa whoa! No, I think you have a fun game here and I'm very interested. What I was griping about is the concept you folk once had of the "growing town". I thought it would be cute IF it affected gameplay but if it was just a meaningless background fluff to the main game it wouldn't mean much to me. Again please don't get me wrong, I'm VERY interested in this game!
Ahhh ok, sorry - I totally misunderstood you. Glad you're interested And you're totally right on the fluff. In fact, we started with the town-growing concept. As you earned more points, items would get added to your port, and the village grew into an industrial city. Then we sent it out to the first round of beta testers and they basically said - Meh. So although we liked our little animated sheep, since it wasn't adding anything to the fun, we just ripped the whole concept out. I think people are a lot happier with the game now, and nothing feels superfluous. I think there must be a way to get the empire building right eventually, so we'll keep playing with it and add it on as an update if we figure it out.
A good plan, master the basics of gameplay and from user feedback you can get a better idea of what folk would love to have you add most.
How about adding some actual achievements? What you have now is more of an activity log, which is fine, but when I think 'achievement', I think of a medal, badge or ribbon for 'achieving' something. Like: - a certain number of ships on screen - reaching a certain cargo number (100 is a good start, I'd think -- then can have another for 200(!) ) - lifetime cargo moved - reaching a certain place in the online score list (top 100, top 50, top 10, number 1) for any(or each) map The achievements don't need to affect gameplay, but it gives you something to strive for in addition to high score.
I wouldn't have touched 1. Quite liked the surprise when a boat misses by a bit and frustration when it hits. Haven't heard the deep horn!?!? And finally heard the music! Do you plan to have diff ones for each island? To make Fishing bay easier incoming boats could only come from the south, then you wouldn't have to worry about collisions.
I think there's something fishy going on with the largest ships and Cyclone Island. It seems when the ship follows the path you draw, if it gets close enough to the island, it loses its pathing. I have noticed it when it trys to turn and is near the lower left (7-8oclock ish) of the island. I thought it was a fluke, but then it happened again.
No luck today, uff, funny you got it so quickly And I see few other people closing in also!! Great!! I'll try again tomorrow after installing the new version. Edit: How can Sturgeon be the fav? Everyone knows Cyclone is the best
The Larger ships have a bigger turning radius. Could it be that in attempting to follow the path the ship would (or did) hit the island? That would cause the path you drew to be invalid and require you to draw another
I can't seem to figure out why the new beta won't install on my iphone. I keep getting this message, "the application "harbor master" could not be installed on the iPhone "iPhone" because it could not be verified" Any ideas?
hmmm...that happened to me for the last game I beta tested...I can't remmber what I did to fix it though...
