While I appreciate that early adopters got the best deal, I find it difficult to dispute that a price bump after each update will cost more in sales numbers than what the price increase would make up for. 3 sales at $4.99 is more lucrative to Rocketcat than say, 2 sales at $6.99 after the next update, and in my opinion, the ratio would be considerably more lopsided than 3/2. It seems $5 is a major tipping point for prices in the App Store, and I base this off of recommending (ok, pushing) Wayward Souls to my friends, and getting several "yeaaaah I guess I'll pick it up" reactions at the $5 price point, to 2 "6 bucks for an iPhone game?....Nah, I'll pass" reactions since the first update. I've already got the game so I'm fine one way or the other with whatever happens from here, just giving some feedback to Rocketcat because I know this pricing model is a bit of an experiment for them.
Yea and those negative reactions could go up as the price goes up. Its an interesting experiment but I'd hate to see the game make a wrong turn considering how much entertainment value they've given me, not saying that'll happen because what do I know lol. Its a good selling point at first, but will that selling point really last? It is a good way to getting people who are on the edge to buy, to buy it. I would say that the iAP system would be better, but I am not even sure if that whole free iAP to early adoptors system even exists, though I do feel that I've seen it somewhere. But if it does, it'll too push people who are on the edge of buying it, to buy it. And at the same time it'll be more friendly to the casual AppStore buyers. Just some feedback as well kinda bored and nothing to do today, so why not spend some time on TA lol Edit: ayee that last sentence rhymed
Hi all. Quick question, i've just beaten Diamond with the Warr, and i was wondering if the game is gonna register it and gimme my hard earned medal once the hotfix is available. Please don't tell me i have to do it again Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but i grew a few white hair and i like my natural color.
We're seeing if we can get this in for the second update. We're not doing this. I wonder what they'll say when it gets to 8 bucks. Since this has come up a few times, here's a long explanation of pricing: It's a pretty crappy pricing experiment if we arbitrarily stop raising the price like we said we would. That is, if we were afraid to raise the price and didn't, we'd end up never knowing what happens when we raise the price. Will probably look at the actual numbers more a couple weeks after Update 2 hits. That said $5 seems like a pretty good release price for games on iOS now. Sadly, this really limits what we can do on the platform. This is a big reason for us moving on to making PC games first, then porting whatever makes sense to iOS. The alternative I guess is making much, much smaller games than we usually do if they're iOS first. It's sadly not really a sustainable business plan to sell huge, in-depth games for $5 when one-button runners sell for $3. The price gap is too narrow to justify all the extra work. May as well make the one button runner. This is a lot of the reason for doing the pricing experiment, and probably a lot of the reason why no one that has good business sense makes very big games for iOS (unless they're ports).
As much as I love your guys' games, I think the iOS market just isn't suited for your works. If you can't fully explain the game in 10 seconds, it won't catch on like wildfire. The irony is that the bulk of your games have too much depth to become chart busters. I'd imagine other platforms would be more appreciative of your efforts. Just my thoughts.
Is that so? I'm kind of the opposite, if a game has too little depth and plays the pay-to-win strategy, I won't even bother. I'm not saying your argument is wrong, I just wander what the iOS platform users generally think, anyone care to share his/her opinion?
I absolutely agree, and I think I speak for many of us when I say that I'd basically pay whatever you were asking for a game like Wayward Souls, exponentially greater than a paltry 5 bucks. Hell I just paid $14.99 for Shovel Knight on my Nintendo 3DS, am extremely satisfied with my purchase, consider it money well spent, and would play Wayward Souls over it any day of the week, for what that tells you. Unfortunately, though I may speak for many of US (those who enjoy your works enough to subscribe to internet threads about them), I know I don't speak for the casual "Angry Birds crowd", who will scoff at anything over a few bucks (or worse yet, free). I understand that it's important for the integrity of the pricing model experiment to stick to your guns, it's just that I'd like to see Rocketcat flourish on the App Store, and fear the "hardcore" iOS crowd may be too small to justify making huge epic games that require massive amounts of work to create for a cost of anything other than "iOS prices" (basically anything over 5-6 bucks). I really (really) hope the iOS gaming public proves me wrong about this, and that the pricing model is a rousing success, right up until the final update. Time will tell, fingers crossed.
From what I can tell, Touch Arcade users aren't the ones companies like King and others on the top 50 grossing are aiming for. They're after the people who mostly only pick up games that their friends are playing. They'll give the game a try, and after around 2 minutes either drop or latch onto them. I figure most users here would disagree with my opinion, but in reality, most of the money spent on the app store doesn't come from gamers who look at gaming websites, it comes from the ones who play because a friend showed them/is playing the same game. Once again, this is just what I presume.
In response to the buffing, I've only played as the Warrior and Mage since the update, so I'll only comment on those. Warrior: The lower amount of shields feels more appropriate than before. Now there's somewhat of a risk to wasting your shields. I'd still pick the Thorned Heart over the other ones in any situation (except for foghting Amaranth) because of its mobility. Maybe I would use the stronger/bulkier shields more often if I could cancel the shield, rather than having to stay in one spot and attack to dismiss it. Mage: The standard staff got worse with it's energy increase, so I try to get rid of it ASAP. I choose the Silver Eye over the other staffs, but Salamander's Breath is a close second. My preferred swipe combo is still Tremor Garb/Tome of Storms. The ability to charge while running on low energy was appreciated, as well as the new swipe sensitivity for abilities. No control issues whatsoever for me after the first update.
I don't know if it is a general case, but some of my friends jailbreak and play cracked games. I still think it is the main reason for the trend that developers produce free game with IAPs. It is frustrating for both the developers who want to make decent games and hardcore players like us.
Tablets are getting more powerful year after year though. Shouldn't the market for larger, deeper games expand as the devices become more capable? That said, I enjoy Rocketcat's games enough that I'd follow the studio to whatever platform they release on.
I don't why but I still can't beat the Catacombs with the Adventurer? Got pretty far on the labryitnth with the warrior, SpellSword and Cultist but haven't gotten past floor 16-17ish. Also for some reason I always do really badly with the Mage in the Lab. Not sure why exactly probly just her low health and the fact I suck with her(but nowhere near as bad as the Adventurer :/) A few minor things still bug me... Cultist - Gords jagged teeth is so short I really don't think it's worth it.. Also her green stuff just doesn't seem to do anything. Belt of the Trickster is way too OP... (BtwI still don't get the point of the the invulnublae for 2 seconds thing? Doesn't seem long enough to really make a difference esp with all her other great sash upgrades) For the Adventurer I think some of his torch junk is meh(maybe I just don't know how to use it) His upswipes are descent for the most part. But If I don't get one of his sword upgrades by room 4 I'm not getting anywhere with him.(even then I still suck...lol) SpellSword - I dunno only bad upgrade Imo is the one that grants longer stuns by you(I think) find al this pretty worthless but it's not that big o deal cuz all his other stuff is great. Warrior ... I dunno mainly his swords...I don't think I ever picked anything other than the skullhack(the second slowest one) Rogue - I don't really notice the increase in speed with the oiled things.. Mage - I really like all her staffs, most of her swipes.. Problem with her I guess getting too many up&down swipes rather than items..(when you have full swipe moves I think it should auto give you an item) And last but not least ill mention it for the 3rd time..I wish the Twins worked like the mages staves, shooting 2 at full charge and 1 with less.(Guess I'm the only one still wanting this...)
I'd like to share my thoughts about the game after the update. I had some difficulties wrapping my head around the nerfs, since this is not a competitive game nor it has leaderboards. The first coming to mind is the lowered number of shield charges, which is somehow compensated by the chance to not use them. The second, and the one i can't really appreciate much, is the higher cost for Mage's standard staff charged attack. This, put together with the slower energy regen really doesn't add up in my head. I know she seems OP as the only true ranged class, but still. Third, but this is on me, i can't really seem to make the Rogue work. Really, i think i'm not getting its correct playstyle. Also i think it is not able to dash through Temerators( caped guys with plenty of HP, did i get the name correctly?) because every time i try it just stops in front of them ready to get stabbed in the face. Anyway, i managed to beat Laby with the warr, helped a lot by what i consider the best setup for my playstyle: Skullhack II(?), Reduced damage from both sources II and Thorn shield II (sorry if i can't remember the names, it would be nice to have bestiary/tools encyclopedia to consult in the extra menu). Thanks to Jackmule, i reached the boss by myself, but was to scared to waste the opportunity and looked up to the final boss battle video. And thanks Rocketcat because of this game, it's just great. About the pricing, i think that many "halfcore" gamers see pixels and turn away thinking it's a "little" game. I love the graphics in WS but i guess many think polygons are more expensive. I wouldn't change WS pixels with anything else, but i may not be majority. I never am.
Good to hear. Try out the Mirror Shield now. Level II is the same weight as the Thorned Shield, and reflection is now as strong as Thorned II is, but for magical projectiles. So they're very similar shields now, it's just that Thorned is for melee and gets the lightness bonus first and Mirror is for magic and starts out stronger. This is why I'm debating whether or not to give thorned an extra max durability or even two... I think the anti-melee property may be more handy overall? Also possibly buffing Obsidian to 9, with 3 shields per pickup, just because thorned's "hit for 15 damage" is probably nicer than Obsidian's long slow for most circumstances. People that won't pay over a dollar for a game don't want complex games, is the thing. So it's kind of a moot point. The problem with making Free/$1-2 stuff like everyone else is that it's really not a good business plan either. Mostly because the chance of success is so low, it's basically a lottery when you release a game that way. For every ANGRY BIRD there's what, 100,000 $0.99 games that made maybe 500 bucks? Possibly more, just a huge graveyard of failed games. Tablets have been strong enough to support games like this for a few years now. Hell, Wayward Souls runs on an iPod Touch 3g apparently. No one makes big games because the price points that are demanded totally don't support the development of big games. Small price points really push development to specific genres, mostly casual stuff, super simple arcade games, or Facebook style games. You need to get the huge mass-market numbers to support the low price points. This is the reason for the entire Games section of the App Store. I had a recent (like a week ago) moment of clarity and cancelled the followup to Wayward Souls, until we can do it on PC. Doesn't make a ton of sense to do a followup on the iOS platform, when we could instead charge more of PC while giving it co-op multiplayer. Then we'd simply port it to iOS, and that way we could also charge more for it on iOS oddly enough. It's like how they got away with charging $10 for FTL... never would have happened if that game was on iOS first, people would have demanded it be $3 or something. Two more "iOS first" projects may happen from us: 1. Brandon may be doing a kind of practice game for Mage Gauntlet 2. Open world where you need to roam around and find new equipment thats let you reach new areas. Would use the Wayward Souls engine, but modified to support backtracking and without the randomized elements. 2. There's this JRPG+roguelike+card game idea I've been wanting to do for years. Really thinking about doing this with contractors I hire that since Wayward Souls did well enough for me to afford that. Also because I played recent JRPG and card games that both disappointed me. I'd probably go for $5 for the above, then never change the price for them. Catch being that, if locked to that price, we wouldn't do content updates for them. If either were popular, we'd just make spin-offs instead. Especially with idea #2.
I'll give the mirror shield a shot. Most of the hits I take with shields is from melee attacks, so I'd say the thorned shield has a better bonus. I don't know what the mirror shields max durability is, but if it's 9 or more (and has the same mobility as the thorned shield) I'd choose that instead. If it has a durability of 7 or 8, that'd be a tough call between the two. The slow for Obsidian is really good on some enemies, but what keeps me from using it is its weight. If it was at 9, I'd consider using that as well.
Cultist: 2 seconds of invuln means you can use it before taking damage, to nullify that damage. With everything else, there's still circumstances where you can get hit. Might look into Gord's but I dunno, it's mostly that way because it gives you more crit chance on a character that already has a ton of crit chance. Adventurer needs some rebalancing still. His torches will change a little in the next update. Spellsword seems fine. Warrior seems fine since everyone likes different weapons he has, though looking into his shields. Rogue Oiled Bands definitely work, but it's not super noticeable until II. I never got the Twins suggestion because that's not really how the Mage staves work either. Unless you just mean the dagger throw should take less energy, but that kind of messes up the point of the Twins. Never liked 3d/polygonal games in this style. It just makes the screen harder to read quickly. Warrior shields were nerfed in durability because it was too mindless, and because there was nearly no point in upgrading your basic shield. In exchange, his swords got stronger *and* his shields also got stronger in their effects. Well, at least Mirror and Obsidian did. Looking into his shield balance now, may end up making Thorned 1 durability higher (maybe), Obsidian 1 higher (to 9, for 3 shields a pickup) and Stonebeard 1 higher (to 12, for 4 shields a pickup). Though I'd probably make Stonebeard a little heavier if I did that. Rogue will get a little bit more buffing next update. She might become the strongest class though. The mage charge staff attack also does more damage now, equal to her increase in energy. Her ice staff behaves like her old charge attack, except also has a slowing effect, so consider checking that out. We didn't slow down energy regeneration at all, except we removed the charging-up bonus. This is because you can run while charging now. Without the "stay in place" penalty, if we kept the charge-up bonus in the game would be like Megaman. That is, you'd always be holding the attack button down, there'd be no reason not to.
I have never been a PC gamer, but I absolutely support this idea. There's a reason why there are so many experimental pricing structures in the App Store, and that's because no one of them has shown to be the most consistently successful for anything other than well-advertised FTP/Facebook games, geared towards the casual crowd and monetized through in-game ads etc. I would hate for you guys to spend a ton of time creating a game, only to release it and have it get lost in the sea of shovelware that is the App Store market, and sell a handful of copies to the TouchArcade crowd. I wouldn't blame you then if you decided that iOS was for the birds and moved on. Tapping into the PC market would mean exposing your games to a broader range of gamers, who would likely follow you over to iOS when you decided to port. Not to mention that you could conceivably charge considerably more for your games that way, since the idea that PC-first/console-first games deserve more of the players' money is a fairly accepted concept on the App Store. Something I've been wondering for a while, is if you've ever considered bringing your games to the handheld (3DS/Vita) market since those platforms seem to be opening up to quality indie developers much more recently than in the past. I'd absolutely love to play games like Mage Gauntlet and Wayward Souls with physical controls on a handheld, and I'd be willing to bet I'm far from alone on this. Plus it seems that indie games on those platforms seem to enjoy success at much higher price points than their iOS counterparts.
Thanks for the answers. About the shield, i can't complain. I managed Lab so, being a mediocre gamer, it means that it is balanced to be manageable. I actually dare to think that Warr is almost perfectly balanced, i wouldn't change a thing. About the Mage, i still wish she had a slightly faster energy regen or a slightly lower charge cost, but i think she is generally an excellent choice as it is. The Rogue. I think i understand the philosophy behind her, so i won't suggest to add a long/mid range ability to her. Would it be too OP to let her stack crate items? I mean keep the four slots, but letting her, say, be able to hold 2 or 3 poisons or stealths in the same slot. Maybe a Forge upgrade that guves her a backpack. About the 3D, i agree. I was voicing a possible thinking of the many graphics whores around the world. Looking forward for updates and your future work. And please, if you start working in PC first, keep the Mac owners in mind! P.s. Will i get my Lab medal with the hotfix or will i have to suffer and bleed again?
