The game looks great. Thanks for all the info. Unfortunately for me, I just plain suck at puzzle games. The only levels I could pass would be the ones you showed in the video...which I think was only the first one. Great addition of adding eyes to the ball. Many developers don't add any character to their heros and it takes away from the game. You're addition of eyes popping out when the ball stops is great.
@darwiniandude All reasonable suggestions. The editor is something I'd plan for a later version. It's great in that it gives a game a longevity outside of my direct control. It may end up as a browser based app, as using a mouse and keyboard is much nicer for editors. That's a far forward looking plan though. For now, I want to focus on carefully designed stages and a satisfying difficulty curve for all of them. @Chumbake Speaking of difficulty curve, maybe you just haven't found the right puzzle game yet. Maybe mine will be it. One nice feature is that there is no artificial limit on chances or penalties involving a 5 or 10 stage backtrack. Instead, when you fail you are right back on the same stage to give it another go with no delays. (I thought it was a novel idea back in 2004 for the original snowball game, but it's actually pretty common now.) In the end these games aren't everyone's cup of tea (even tea isn't everyone's cup of tea.) I'm convinced though, that there are many who would enjoy this type of game if they gave it a chance. I've had good success sharing this early version with non-gamers who got hooked pretty solidly.
I was gone all weekend so just recently read your posts... move count and timing sound like nice additions maybe the game could show the minimum number of moves possible to beat a level? so there would be incentive to go back after completing the first time I would suggest getting the game out there at a cheap introductory price, make some sales, get feedback, and then add some polish and some "level pack" updates...just an idea i'm hoping for the best good luck to ya, ~Fletch
So any word? Edit: oh just saw you've got a newborn kid. Congrats! Mods, can you edit out the "Edge ripoff" from the thread title?
ooh, forgot about this one. hope the dev. chose to go quality and not hurry it out. still looks great.
Hi all. I've got a little update here for you. Nothing about release dates or anything, but getting closer. As someone noticed from my little work blog, yes, I had a little baby boy! He came 4 1/2 weeks early so everything got interrupted big time, but all for a good cause. Here's the link to the blog for a progress update: http://www.buzzabit.com/aaron/2009/06/12/snowball-touch-progress/ Just for clarity: I have no knowledge of this, or what the reason might be. I don't think there is anything related to this game that would cause any problems and I haven't tried to release my game, yet. It's not done. Thanks for the kind comments, everyone! (BTW, I didn't have email notification on before, so sorry I didn't reply a bit faster to some of these comments. It's on now. )
Congratulations, I know the feeling, I have a 4 month old myself Edit: Oh and yeah, can't wait for the game to come out. Got caught up in the baby news
Note from the Blog "I am contemplating the possibility of in-game purchasing of stages." How much up front disclosure does a developer have to make on the I-tunes store concerning in store purchase or upgrades? What is the minimum value of a add on, can it be less than .99? Is it a requirement for the program to ask for the users password or to ask are you sure you want to purchase this upgrade. I can see a developer placing a buy button in a place where the user might push it by accident. Just like some of the placements of the ads where you tap on them while playing a game by accident. Developers need to provide true value versus nickel and dimeing; other wise the reviews for the app will show it. I see the possibility of so much abuse that users like me may just move to the android phone over the frustration of a developer shipping an unfinished game and making the user pay for bug fixesand.99cents per level gouging versus a true expansion pack.
This game looks fun. One thing you could add is achievements maybe? It would increase the replayability of Snowball Touch for sure.
Thanks for the kind words about the baby, all. He's a joy and we're thrilled with having a second child, but it's taxing to say the least! And S.I.D. Crazy, congrats to you, things change so fast at that age, right when you figure something out -- it's not the same anymore. lol. I'll do my best to keep you guys posted here. I'm anxious to get this out there while still making it as great as I can. Thanks for commenting on the in-store purchases Rad, I really want as much feedback as possible on this. I think we are still under NDA on the details of the Beta, including in-app purchases, but I'll say that Apple seems like too smart a company to allow devs to use their system in a sneaky get-the-user-to-press-the-buy-button-by-accident type of way. For my part, I know that it would be instant marketplace suicide for my games and business if I tried to pull such a thing off and I'm not in this for a one-shot money grab. I enjoy this stuff and would rather devote much more time to it. sn0wned, I think achievements are a pretty good addition, but I don't think I'll have something in the first release. I'll give that some extra thought, though. I'm just trying to think of what would be fun achievements for this particular game.
I think that in app purchases would be fine for this game, as long as they contain a legitimate amount of new levels. Maybe each "expansion pack" could even have a new background theme, or come with a new character as well.
@Fletch I agree with you. Just adding more of the same, but rearranged is not enough. Though some value certainly comes from super-tricky stages. The additional stages, whether as a separate app or as an in-app purchase, are intended to add new dimensions to the play. For instance, the penguins and spiders may make only a brief appearance in the first game (and I haven't shown everything, yet.) I have a 3-part simple story planned that divides the features into 3 parts with a decent little finale in mind. The second two sections would introduce new head-scratching features along with greater and greater difficulty as well. This is a diversion from my somewhat naive pre-app store plan that saw all this in one (more expensive) game. The good news is that when my wife and I were analyzing all the play mechanics players need to learn to solve the puzzles we had a deeper game than I had first thought. So, dividing it into three games will still mean a good number of unique stages in each and I believe it will be a better value for players, to boot.
That sounds like a solid way to break it up. It will probably lead to a good marketing strategy as well, as each part of the story could just be say $.99 cents, or something cheap. Then people will purchase the first part, get hooked, and end up buying the other two or three, when they never would have initially considered buying the game at $2.99 or $3.99, if ya know what I mean...
Fletch... am I sensing a Jedi Mind Trick? Fletch says, "You want to release this game at 99 cents." (waves his fingers subtly.) Aaron says, "I want to release -- Hey, what's going on here?" Full disclosure for my current ever-changing thinking: I intend to release a fun little free "lite" edition at the same time as the full version. I intend to price the full version at higher than 99 cents, yet still on the lower-end of pricing. Of course, it's too early to decide anything as the final set of stages is not finished and I don't really know exactly what I have yet. BTW, do you guys like the idea of the lite version having different stages than the full version? It would have similar aspects to learn, but alternate stages.
