I require information to prevent me from breaking down and impulse buying Hunter: Episode 1 (which seems to have a disappointing lack of zombies)...
Hi guys, TS was approved by Apple a few days ago. We will announce the release date and all the other stuff during the next days! Last stage of the launch now - I'm as eager as you to get this into your hands /Thomas
Me tooooooo :-D The game started as an idea over a year and a half ago. So to be soooooooo close to launch makes me jumpy. But I'm wisely adviced to not just hit the release button and actually try to launch the game with a small marketing launch thing this time. Like trying to get the TS guys to write something about the game So while the lovely Julie does her PR/marketing stuff I can announce that we've started the dev team on campaign 2!! Should be out well before summer. Dont want to spoil too much by telling the story, but it will involve a dual chainsaw wielding boss :-D Back to launch preparations! /Thomas
if its done, you should release it. if the game is as good as it looks, then it will sell great regardless of you spending more money. Plus, i want to play it now. there are about 15 great looking games that are on this site on the upcoming games due to be released any day soon. if you wait too long, then you might be doing yourself a disservice, and spending additional money that you didn't need in the first place. my two cents.
You can always give it a big ad push, even after it hits the app store. But EVERY day that it's not available, you're losing money. That's business. Believe me.
its better for you to be released now...if you delayed..u will compete with Final fantasy tactics and great little war and alot of other TBS coming so soon..
especially since nothing good has come out for days. i'm sure others are itching like me to buy anything that looks semi decent. And this looks way better than semi decent!
Thanks for the feedback, and I totally understand what you are saying. We are indies and have to live and learn by mistakes - but we are always listening and especially we are always honest with you guys - the ones who pay hard earned money for the entertainment we can provide. But all our previous games have been released that way that you suggest - without a proper launch, without any up front marketing but taking it from release day and afterwards. The problem with this approach is unfortunately very bad for us simply due to the fact how the app store works. It is chart/top-100 list driven. The crude fact is, that if we want to earn any kind of real money to pay back from years of development (having cost our hard earned money to fund) then we need to get as far up the top-100 lists as possible on day 1. If we release now then we will have various sites pick up things in a slow pace over make a few weeks. We will not get the initial boost that we desperately need on the app store. The approach we have been advised to use is this one - we wait until Apple approves the app (giving us control of the exact release date). And then we do the final 2 weeks of launch marketing. Trying to get as many sites like Touch Arcade to write about the game at launch date as possible. Theoretically this will give us the largest kick into the charts to be noticed by people who do not read this excellent site or similar ones. I hope you understand, that we have put 2+ man years of work into this game. If we earn $1000 of sales on this, then there will not be any sequels made because that will never pay the food, rent and time we put into our game. And trust me (I speak of bitter experience) that a lot of games on the app store wont ever make $1000. We _really_ _really_ want to be able to make more games like Tactical Soldier. We love turn based, we love our players, we love to bring back xcom'ish feelings to the best gaming platform on the planet. To do that we need to make money back on the investment we made. Tough reality of this world. Please please dont take this posting as any kind of whining post. Just trying to explain the rationale behind the decision of trying to do it like the big boys this time. To sweeten up the waiting time - part of the guerilla marketing we will use - is that there will be daily small info bits and teasers shipped on facebook and twitter. There will be competition to win really cool and exclusive prices by following us on twitter and facebook. It all starts tomorrow. The facebook site is: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tactical-Soldier/209260789084269 Twitter has http://twitter.com/tsurgame So please - you can help up right now best by spreading the word! And we will give things back to you for the effort! First little piece of cool stuff is the box art shot that Pat - our excellent inker and the guy who inked the ingame cartoons - just did for today. Check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=209264345750580&set=a.209264342417247.57283.209260789084269 That little nugget will soon be part of a competition to win ;-) Best Thomas
Good luck with your app; I hope your energy in marketing it on Touch Arcade hasn't backfired now that the release has seemed temporarily delayed. I know I'll be buying it and the pushback about delay is a good sign. For my money, if you now announce a solid release date on Touch Arcade it would help solidify the marketing and give the audience an cleared expectation. Also consider a prelaunch promo code contest on Touch Arcade itself.
My only (very slight) reservation with this one is that the zombie theme is a little played out. I know this a post far too late to make any difference, but I find zombies (particularly in this type of game) to be a little.. samey? If you'd gone for militant opposition, or included aliens or something you could have much more variation in terms of baddie type and weapons etc which would promote much more variety in strategy and gameplay. To my mind, zombies aren't known for wielding a vast array of weaponry, so won't all of the zombies be pretty much the same?
I agree with stevieboy to a degree, I will buy this game as it looks great. But maybe in a year or two with your feet under the table you could use the game engine for non-zombie games. WW2 would be good (Pathway to Glory is my all time fave mobile game). But a SWAT team style game or even some post apocalyptic Mad Max shenanigans would be fantastic.
