Well, I wouldn't say busy, but I am working with a few other people to collaborate on a project. I can't afford to risk another solo project after how my last two went. I still don't know that much about it though, except that it will be based on Tactical Warrior and will be freemium. In the mean time, it has left me wondering about just adding IAPs to Tactical Warrior. After having the game free for a few days with Daily App Dream it has around 60k installs, so IAP might work, but I am scared to try making a whole new campaign without having any idea how of many people buy IAP, since it is around 6 weeks of work.
Work on the freemium collab. If it is based off of this game, it'll be grand, I'm sure. Freemium means more downloads which'll mean more potential buyers for you when the see the game. Just my opinion.
I just finished playing the easy campaign (to the detriment of my sleep), and I must say it's awesome. I will be starting Medium just after I finish this post. It reminds me a lot of Gladius by Lucas Arts, which has the ignoble distinction of being the best game ever that nobody played. I'm really sad to see that your game may suffer the same fate. Here are some suggestions that will hopefully help you out. First Impression. You need a great icon. Scott Michaels of Atimi Software in Vancouver has a lot of expertise and experience with the AppStore. When he speaks about the have/have-not relationship about getting into the top-100 and staying there, he talks about how people underestimate the effect that their icon has on willingness to try. Look Amazing. Updated graphics would help considerably. Obviously there's risk involved in investing more time or effort, but it may be possible for you to find some artist that's willing to help out for a reasonable price or a cut of the proceeds. This leads to the best advice: Space is more fun than History. I love the swords and sandals, but if you switch it to Robots and Space, you'l sell way better. You wouldn't have to change much (other than graphics) to change wooded areas with tents and towers and battles on fields to planets or asteroid belts or orbiting space stations with battles on floating space platforms. Instead of Fire Potion it's Thermal Detonator, instead of Daring Strike it's Ion Canon, etc. It's purely a look-and-feel change, but you'd clean up. I understand that would take a fair amount of effort to do this, but the new re-skin could be sold as a completely new app. If you made a few tweaks to the campaigns or gameplay eventually, you'd even get most of the people to buy both. -- As for the near term, here are my suggestions for IAP that people would likely buy if they liked the game: 1. Advanced Training / Spartan Upbringing - $0.99: Every new recruit gets +2 skill points. This is sticky across any new campaigns, so every time you start a campaign, every time you get a new warrior, they have an extra two skill points to allocate. 2. Equipment Specialist - $1.99: All warriors now have 3 equipment slots. Same rules apply to only having one of each kind, but now you can actually have one of each type. Naturally this will make equipment at a premium (especially if you're rebalancing skills), which leads to the following: 3. Raise the Dead - $2.99: Allows you to replay each battle in an area, but experience earned is diminished and chance of winning the prize is also reduced. Perhaps subsequent plays of a battle offer only 10% of the exp and only a 10% chance of earning the key/item/warrior/exp. While this would affect balance somewhat, it would significantly increase gameplay by not only allowing people to try to win more items, earn enough keys to open all the gates in an area, etc. Probably you'd want to lose keys when you leave an area. -- People don't like an update where the only new things are IAP, so I'd suggest you make the following quick and easy changes for all, for free: 4. Have the option to stay in an area. It frustrated me that I wasn't able to finish all the battles in an area before leaving, as more than one of them prompted the "if you play this battle, you won't be able to come back". 5. Open up an "Elite" mode upon completion of Hard. Make it so difficult that people want to buy the IAP to make it a *little* easier, but not so hard that they have to. Fans of the game will appreciate the challenge. I really think an update that brings those changes would really increase your revenue, while at the same time not require a huge amount of effort. You may even be able to offer the app permanently free if there's a decent uptake of the IAPs. You'd certainly get a lot more people willing to try it out. Of course, if you really want it to take off, start making some robot sprites. I hope this feedback helps!
Freemium might work, but I recall you said you only had a few thousand people buy your game for just .99 to 2.99, since launch (which is dirt cheap for a TBS/SRPG game). I would wonder what percentage of the people downloading for free would buy any IAPs over the long haul. For me personally, I don't bother playing freemium games (as I like the full product from the start) and almost all of the games I like are not freemiums. I would suggest offering two versions. A freemium version for people who might like your game (and hopefully buy some IAP) and also a full version for the fans who love the genre. Just my two cents
its sad, i've bought both this and stanch defense at full price and felt like i got a great deal both times. it sucks that such great games can go unnoticed while it seems that almost everybody on earth is jumping to buy the newest version of angry birds, that took no inspiration to create. If you make IAPs for tactical warrior, I would be totally excited and buy every one just to support you, but i can see that its a business, and if its not worthwhile for u do so, then you wont. i like all the ideas for iap that are listed a few posts above, especially the extra point one, but more levels or heroes would be what i would be most interested in. hope you decide to make more content, but i will surely buy any other game you put out (except freemium, cause i refuse to play any of those) You understand what makes a game good, the gameplay, not shiny graphics and no depth! keep up the good work, and your be rich someday!!
Gladius was great. I kinda wish I still had it. Its hard not to like a game where "Merry Jig" is a combat skill The current collaboration I am working on is planned to have a future themed(though I don't know if it will be robots and space) and be largely based on Tactical Warrior. It will also have a real artist instead of me fooling around with GIMP and paint.net, so it will hopefully look a lot nicer. I will admit, however, I hate those types of IAP. The types where you just pay to be stronger or gain some big advantage. I much prefer having IAPs that just have new content, sort of like miniature expansion packs. I am not a huge fan of freemium either, but I think it may be easier to get by doing it. When we do freemium on the project I am curerntly working on, it isn't going to be the annoying type of freemium where you do things like pay money to make you building build faster and things like that. It will more or less just be that the base game is free and there are expansion packs that are paid. The idea of a freemium and just a straight paid app isn't that bad at all. I think the best way to package that would be to have a regular which is the freemium and then an HD version which is a universal app and contains all IAP but comes at a larger price. Depending how our current project is looking for time in a week, I might consider making an HD version like that. Well, if I do an IAP for Tactical Warrior, it will almost definitely be a content type of IAP. I just don't feel that good about a lot of the other types. I think what I will might do is, once there is a lull in my current project, release a character/start-party pack for Tactical Warrior. This is a pretty small risk, since I think I can finish it in not much more than a week. This means taht even if it fails badly it is not that big a blow to me. Then, based on how many that sells, I will be able to estimate whether I can afford to work on a level pack or not. Right now I am thinking a good size for a starting party pack is probably 2 new classes and 6 new parties.
I understand your preferences, but it may not be what makes money. I think you mentioned that you had about 60,000 downloads of the game. What percentage of those do you suppose never finished a campaign? None of them will ever buy your content add-on IAP. However, some of those people might have paid to have a bonus or edge in the game. New content IAP adds playability, but there's really only an incentive to buy after the bulk of the existing playability is exhausted. Using myself as an example, I've just started the Medium campaign after finishing the Easy one. The gameplay (especially for a solid strategy game such as this) really is different on subsequent difficulty levels. Replaying the same mission on a harder difficulty can require entirely new tactics. It really isn't the same. I'm hopeful, but I'm not even certain that I'll wind up finishing the game on Hard. If I don't, I probably wouldn't bother paying for a new campaign (aside from a desire to help out). There's no need for new content for a very, very long time. iOS gamers are very clearly fickle. Trends have very clearly shown that they pick up a game, play it a lot for a brief amount of time, then move on. These type of gamers, the ones that are not in love with the game, will abandon the game when they hit a pay-wall for more content (if not before). However, as some very successful freemium games have shown, people are very willing to pay some real dollars in order to gain an advantage, or 'speed' their play through a game. I'm no fan of freemium, but it certainly works. I think you underestimate the value of the type of IAP that you can purchase to gain an 'edge' in the game. It draws on gamers' desire to, once they've pretty much exhausted their interest in a game, to cheat at a it for a while, extending their play-time. If you can find a fine balance between IAPs that give a bit of an edge, without breaking the balance, I think you'll have a lot of sales, even to the people that only play the game for a few hours (which I imagine describes the vast majority of the people who have downloaded Tactical Warrior) Naturally, these sort of 'instant benefit' IAPs do not preclude the existence of 'extended play' IAPs. Those are a great idea. The rub is that they'll pay off far less frequently, yet require far more effort.
The character/start-party pack IAP, may or may not be popular among your current fans. However, it will probably make it harder for this game to gain new customer. Personally, if i am browsing for new games, and i read in description that a paid-game require IAP for starting party, i will stop reading and go to the next game. Free game + IAP is okay. But a paid game is expected to have most basic stuff included already. A whole new campaign might be acceptable, but even that might be better off being a new game (Tactical Warrior 2). Don't pollute a paid game with IAP. You will lose potential customer.
Since I was one of the 60k that DL the game for free and greatly enjoyed it (unlocked almost every achievement), I will gladly pay IAP for additional campaign or anything just to support.
Sorry it took me so long to reply. I know the sort of "cheat" or "power up" IAPs might be an easier way to make money, but I don't know if it will sit well in my conscience. Personally I tend to dislike that kind of thing in games, and I think I would be somewhat irritated if I payed money upfront for a game and it still had things like that in it. That means if I add something like that to my game, I am not sure if I am really doing to others as I would have them do to me, or as other people put it, I don't think I would be making a game that I would want to play. This is probably the biggest thing that makes me hesitant to release IAPs, but I don't know if many people think like this or not. I can't afford to make a Tactical Warrior 2 at all though, so I figure this is one of the few options that I do have. Thanks for the support IAP is looking pretty likely, once I have spare time. It will probably be the character pack to start with. Possibly having a beast master/animal trainer and a ranger type guy, though nothing is certain.
There are plenty of popular games that had up front costs AND IAP. Galaxy on Fire 2 and Highborn for examples.
It appears that I, once again, find myself on the opposite side of an issue from Rockchurch. I'm hoping this time I can avoid irritating him... I buy a lot of games, and whenever i come across one that I enjoy that has IAPs that extend gameplay (such as campaigns) I always pay to unlock them right away, just so I can own the whole game. I know I'm not alone in this odd behavior as I have had this conversation in previous threads with other gamers who do the same thing. My point isn't that IAPs should be limited to gameplay extenders. For me, the litmus test is one of permanence. I have purchased the mighty eagle in Angry Birds, Ur Steel in Companions, maps in Palm Heroes 2 Deluxe, campaigns in Highborn and Galaxy on Fire II, and cosmetic upgrades in Disc Drivin'. However, I have never, ever purchased anything consumable with real money; and I never will. Whatever you decide, just make sure it sticks around indefinitely and I'll gladly scoop it up; especially because I stumbled across Tactical Warrior when it was free and am itchin' to support this great game.
I bought this game day one to support the dev and hoping that universality would come later. I know the appstore quite well and figured this game would likely get upgraded at some point so took a punt. Having got a ton of other stuff to play I defered to those other games feeling it would be a better experience on the ipad and so decided to wait, to keep an eye on my updates for the happy day. Every time the updates appeared I have been slightly disappointed by the absence of either retina or universal additions. Would it really be so much work to improve the graphical fidelity of this game? I like it just enough to keep waiting (hopefully not in vain) for the upgrade. I understand the dev has never promised this but like I said you have to be crazy to bring a game like this to the store and not want it wearing it's Sunday best...surely?? I would probably not buy a sequel if this one does not get the treatment. I feel that for fairly basic looking game like this visuals ought to pop a little. Polish.
I am glad to hear this. This is fairly close to my own views on IAPs. I do apologize for the lack of retina display. At this point, however, I think the most viable thing for me to do would be to release a separate HD version of Tactical Warrior. In the process I could then also add retina graphics. It is something I am considering for the future, though not something I am sure to do.
Finally getting around to digging into this game and the AI is very good. In fact, I am getting my butt kicked on "easy" levels. I have a question, though... Why do I continually need to rest between attacks while the computer manages to attack every turn? Is there a basic attack that I am missing, because all of my visible attacks are often all greyed-out.
