Sales alone will not work. People need to know what the game is and also get over the first impression they get from the screen shots. If it was not for TA forums I would have never bought it myself.
Loving the game but sine the update I have had it crash 3 times after beating a stage. Then starting the game back up leads to the next screen bypassing any rewards or experience gain. Running on iPod touch 4th gen, latest firmware not jailbroken.
Sorry about the crashes. I am going to try to get them fixed as soon as possible. If it crashes after a battle and when you restart the game it skips your reward, just exit your campaign and load it again and it should give you the reward. I think you are right. It seems a lot of people say they were skeptical of the game based on the screen shots, but once they played it they like it. After the improvements that were in the 1.1.0 patch, however, I am not really sure how to further improve the screenshots short of contracting a professional to draw some better images for me. Are there any parts of the screen shots that you would say look especially bad? The first sale definitely did help, though. Though, perhaps with better screen shots and maybe a better description a future sale could work out even a bit better.
I find it interesting some people said they were not interested in this game, initially, based on the screen shots. Most SRPG fans know there is only a limited number of original SRPGs for IOS devices to start with and most of them sell based on good core gameplay (with a good battle system) and not just fancy graphics. People who were marginally interested in this would get hooked based on the gameplay from your demo. Looking again at the screen shots, perhaps you could put more details (textures) into the battlefields?
I think this is a better approach than changing the screen shots. Let people hear about the game. You want that in the worst case you get what last class hero had .... Which would be good anyhow. Better than not being known.
why in skirmish, Not all the characters is displayed?? i wished there was a whole list of characters to explore and choose from it . we can try the characters and know its skills so that in campaign when they appear to choose from it or another character we choose it. i mean they are very limited!!! Also we may include the Evil characters to choose from in skirmish mood that would be awesome.. Also if possible we can make them possible in a campaign to play with evil will be a nice thing !
I unlocked priest for example it doesnt show in skirmish... I want all characters avaialbale in skirmish for reasons i stated above!
Well, I unlocked the Monk and Champion so far, after four matches in multiplayer/skirmish. I can play them both in skirmish (vs. the AI) with no issues. I don't know what is wrong with your version.
you unlock characters in campaign as i did or you unlocked them in multiplayer and skirimish?? i mean i unlocked priest at end of act 1 but it never appeared in skirimish
I finally picked this game up on sale, and I must say that I am really enjoying it. I'm usually not one to play TBS-style games. But as others have mentioned, the game is crashing on me. Always seems to be at the end of battles, though I swear I got it to crash in another way, but I can't remember how. Also, I'm currently playing through the campaign on Easy, and after finishing all of the selections in "The Glade" (Act 1), I have found that I'm stuck. I'm presented with the "Gate of Bears" which requires a blue key, and the "Gate of Progress II" which requires a gold key. However, I have no more battles to select, so I don't see how I can acquire a blue or gold key. Hopefully I'm missing something here, but could it be that a crash caused me to lose out on collecting one (or both) of the keys?
Sorry about this. The crash after battle must be losing the gold key that you would have normally got after one of the battles (though there are never enough blue keys to open all blue gates). It is an even worse crash than I though. I have gotten my hands on crash reports from a few people now, so if all goes well I should be able to have an update submitted in a day or two. In the update, I will have to make it go back and count how many keys you should have, given the number of gates you have opened and the battles you have beaten, and give you keys if it finds you are missing some. Otherwise a lot of people will be stuck. Thanks for pointing this out, btw. Otherwise I probably would have ended up making a patch that eliminated the crashes but still leaves people stuck with no keys
That might not be a bad idea! Though, admittedly I always have a hard time drawing the ground. I can never get it to look right. It might be a big improvement to not use the same image for every obstacle on the battle field, but rather, have a variety. I actually do have a twitter account for Staunch Defense / Tactical Warrior. It is just that I usually forget to post to it. I also don't have that many followers. Is it common for games to have a facebook page? Yes. The characters and items in the draft pool are random each time. They characters are selected from among the types of characters you have unlocked.
Well, I have eliminated the crash that happens after battles. It turns out ,it happens when you earn an achievement but openFeint was turned off. This means that in the interim, while waiting for the patch to be live on iTunes, you can just log into openFeint and the after battle crash will stop happening. I am having a bit more trouble tracking down the crash that happens upon equipping/unequipped/bartering items. Hopefully, I will be able to fix it and submit the patch by the end of tomorrow.
you have a twitter? definitely post more. that'll get you more followers. Also, facebook pages are very good. The majority companies/games have them. it's a good tool to promote games if you do it correctly.
now that tactical warrior is out, I think it would be wise to change the twitter to something reflective of you as a dev, not @staunchdefense.
Hi everybody...I have yet to read the whole thread (read only the last 9 pages or so) but, after finishing the (pretty extensive) lite version I would like to give the dev some opinions, in particolar about the 'visibility' problem. First thing: I love the game...I'm no particular fan of TB tactical RPGs, but I finished almost any campaign of Wesnoth and some other games....for some reasons (probably the perfect balance) I found the game super FUN, the lenght of each fight just perfect for the device, the music really good, the graphics a bit bare but I like the colors used and overall I appreciate that (more on this later). After work I'll surely buy the full version. SAID THAT...I was NEVER aware about the game, and I pratically 'live' my digital existence on iOS related websites. By pure chance I clicked on this thread, by pure chance it was among the thread on the front page...the screenshot style all of a sudden captured my attention (I must be the only one), then I read on and donwloaded the lite version...only THEN I was hooked. So imho there is a little media exposure problem...I know this is true for every solo indie dev out there, but as others said, I would like to point out that a more massive Twitter spam could help (I'll do my part re-tweeting everything). And change the Twitter name for sure. Other simple things....while the game is crisp, the icon is not and the fonts used are a bit blocky. The game does not rotate with the iphone. More ground objects variation could help surely and this game SCREAMS for asyncronous GameCenter multiplayer...CO OP or skirmish. Now a personal note/question: while I find the game very good, the lite lacked a general pourpose. I fought many animals just for the sake of it...why? If was really fun and despite the absent graphical personalization, I grew fond of my men and started calling them by their names (this is really a STRONG point, considering the bare graphical approach, so the dev really achived something here just with the gameplay) but I honestly missed some background story. Is there any story to follow in the full version? Thanks for making it, anyway. From now on, even if I discovered you by pure chance, I'll monitor every future game you'll make.
The 1.1.1 update is now submitted to the Apple! It fixed the equip/unequip/barter crash, the after battle crash and the bug in the temple area. Also, as an additional boon, I chanced upon the "bottom row" bug while testing the update and I believe I have fixed it! Yeah, that true. I am not sure if I should change it to @Jamvert or to my actual name though. Thanks for the feedback Pitta. When you say that unlike the game the icon is not crisp, do you mean the iTunes icon or the one the shows up once it is on your iPod/Phone/Pad? The full version doesn't have a story. In retrospect it probably wouldn't have hurt to put one in, as long as it was reasonably concise.