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The iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch Gaming |OT2| Part II

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you know I had been tempted to give Free-App Hero some money when they went down to 99 cents but I couldn't at the time (was really broke) but I don't think I ever will now

they seriously think an app that provides not that great reviews of free apps is worth $4? I'll stick with the web *rolls eyes*
 
Dungeon Raid is so good. I don't normally like these games, but it's amazing and perfect for a hand-held - imagine Puzzle Quest, but good.

Real Racing 2 is okay... honestly I prefer the first, the driving in it just feels a little better to me.
 
played some NFL and FIFA HD ... damn, those games have potential but their framerate suck ass. please do something against this, EA. a little more polish and everyone will be happy.
 
Blablurn said:
played some NFL and FIFA HD ... damn, those games have potential but their framerate suck ass. please do something against this, EA. a little more polish and everyone will be happy.
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I'd honestly prefer Madden NFL Arcade on iOS than a full Madden that falls short on the platform.

You know that PES 2011 is a universal app, right?


whitehawk said:
And yeah, now I just destroyed it.

0:30:16

what bitches
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Ah you punk ;) time to aim for a sub 30sec time. I'll get #1 somehow :)
 
Gamecocks625 said:
I'd honestly prefer Madden NFL Arcade on iOS than a full Madden that falls short on the platform.

You know that PES 2011 is a universal app, right?

Ah you punk ;) time to aim for a sub 30sec time. I'll get #1 somehow :)
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I think all score attack games should have this challenge feature, it's brilliant. Minotaur Rescue could use it for sure (try to beat my score on Solar Survival! :P)
 
Wispin HD!!!!!
5BYwI.jpg
 
Mario said:
I kind of top out around 5k-6k but here are some tips that get me that far

- you should be linking swords and skulls. As you note swords don't do anything on their own, but they quickly become absolutely necessary once you get about 50 turns in.

- attack monsters the turn they appear where you can because they won't get the chance to attack. Strategically there may be reasons like picking up shields or clearing the board in the hope of bringing in more swords, but as a general rule hit them first.

- I used to be conservative, and try to hoard stuff, but I find I get much further when making as big a combo as possible, even if that means linking swords that end up being overkill. This tends to turn over the board faster, leads to bigger combos of shields/gold/skulls and means you can make more progress in a shorter number of turns.

- I always get rid of the health potions early on by as much as I can even when I don't need it. The monsters hardly damage you early in the game, so you are better off getting rid of them in the hope of killing more skulls and collecting more gold/shields when you are the least vulnerable.

- Skills I have found useful are Teleport as a "get out of trouble" panic button, Enchant Item lets you power up your stuff faster than you otherwise might for "free", and Banish/Exorcise for when you are caught with a bad playfield when a troublesome boss turns up. I'll usually take the stats upgrades over any other skill because I find the rest only useful in specific circumstances.

- My leveling up choices depend on what options I have early on. But generally I like powering up damage, defence, health in that order and strength, luck, dexterity in that order. I take the poison and spikes options when offered, and am also fond of regenerate early on (I power up spikes and regenerate where possible).

- I consider each set of upgrade options carefully, and try to avoid losing stats bonuses I had previously picked up in order to get dfferent bonuses. Generally if you pass on an upgrade option like this for a particular item, you'll be offered something better which retains the earlier bonus within the next couple of sets.

- The most dangerous boss in my opinion is the Rally boss who changes swords to skulls. Not only does this generate more monsters attacking you, but every turn you lose a sword which dimishes the ability to kill him further. You need to deal with this guy fast. I also can find the Fire boss a pain, depending on the way the playfield is set up.


I'm probably doing something wrong there and the poster who said they hit 35k should come forward with their strategy, but the above should regularly get you to between 3k-5k.

Hope that helps.
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Thanks so much for taking the time to type out those tips. That helps a lot!
 
Worms HD, Pix'N Love Rush DX, Pro Zombie Soccer Apocalypse Edition iPad all on sale for $0.99



Worms HD looks interesting but a lot of reviews seem to agree the controls are pretty bad. Anyone here have it?
 
AstroLad said:
damn congrats to the wispin guy (who is a gaffer right?) for getting it featured like that
Click to expand...

Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
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that's awesome. i do have to give apple credit too for really looking at true indies to feature instead of just going with whatever EA/Zynga/GameLoft game is new
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
Click to expand...


Awesome-congrats!
 
my current top 10 im playing (and i recommend for anyone)

drop 7 (just got back into this great game...152197 high score)
angry birds (currently working on world 3)
mad skills mx (fun fun game)
league of evil (wow!! great controls, fun game)
kami retro (looking forward to spending some serious time with this)
tiny wings (been spending alot of time on this currently at 24X...need to get 34 sec fever)
battle heart (great controls, fun game ...need to put more time into this)
gravity guy (really fast and fun)
pix n rush (trying to do all cursed rush)
cut the rope (havent touched it in a few days...)
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
Click to expand...
I'm curious how much sales have gone up since you were featured as Game of the Week.
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
Click to expand...

well deserved MrCheez. glad to see independent developers succeed!
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
Click to expand...

your game is awesome, I play it all the time and it gets better with each title update. job well done and congrats. It's one of the few games I actually took the time out to review.
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
Click to expand...
Congrats, dood. Great to see it's a smaller team instead of some EA nonsense.

Definitely curious about whether sales shot up.
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
Click to expand...

Yeah that would be really interesting. Congrats man!

As for the game itself, I play on iPhone and I love the idea of the game but I suck horribly at it. Would there be a possibility of adding some kind of easy mode to it?
 
dantehemi said:
my current top 10 im playing (and i recommend for anyone)

drop 7 (just got back into this great game...152197 high score)
angry birds (currently working on world 3)
mad skills mx (fun fun game)
league of evil (wow!! great controls, fun game)
kami retro (looking forward to spending some serious time with this)
tiny wings (been spending alot of time on this currently at 24X...need to get 34 sec fever)
battle heart (great controls, fun game ...need to put more time into this)
gravity guy (really fast and fun)
pix n rush (trying to do all cursed rush)
cut the rope (havent touched it in a few days...)
Click to expand...

That's a really good list. The only two I've not tried from that are Kami Retro and Gravity Guy... maybe I should download them since our tastes seem very similar. Also glad to see you enjoying Pix n Rush, that game was surprisingly good for an iOS platformer, I think I liked it even more than League of Evil.

You may also enjoy The Blocks Cometh. It's got a real LoE vibe to it (even have the LoE character in it) and after the first patch it controls and plays great.
 
Kuran said:
What does it do? Thinking of buying it as a showcase title for iPad 2.
Click to expand...

Guessing it would bring the textures up to be on par with the iPhone 4, and probably runs at a solid 60fps instead of 15-30.
 
MrCheez said:
Haha yep!

Thanks guys :) It came as quite a shock to us yesterday (we're a small team, with Wispin being our first release). The way it works is: Apple calls you up a few days ahead of time and mentions they *might* be interested in featuring your game in some promotional capacity and they ask for various layered artwork. Well, the dimensions they requested were square, so naturally I assumed we landed one of the smaller spots (which was still exciting).

So yeah, yesterday came as a pretty big shock! I'd be happy to share more of the experience with fellow GAFfers soon, including sales and so on, if anyone's interested (and I've also been meaning to finish up that 'making of' blog from weeks ago..) But anyway, thanks again.. we're feeling more motivated than ever :)
Click to expand...
Bad ass, man! Congrats!

I'm one of the buyers too...fun game!
 
Minsc said:
Guessing it would bring the textures up to be on par with the iPhone 4, and probably runs at a solid 60fps instead of 15-30.
Click to expand...

Is there that much of a difference? I've got it on my itouch but prefer the screen real estate on the iPad, so I never even fired up the smaller version.
 
Robert Ashley said:
I played five games of Dungeon Raid in a row last night, and my score went down with each game. I hate myself. Thanks gaming.
Click to expand...

I still can't beat my score from my very first game!

Thanks to Mario for the tips!
 
Wow, thanks for the very kind response and support, guys! Seriously, GAF rocks as always.

As far as sales go: we were featured sometime in the afternoon yesterday, and yesterdays sales came in at about 9 times higher than the day preceding it. (With the game having launched 3 days prior, and the first few days of launch for smaller titles like this tend to be considerably high compared to your average day later in the life cycle). Weekend sales also tend to be much higher than weekday sales, so obviously we're all eager to see how that goes. The iPhone version saw a bit of a boost yesterday as well, actually, though it's sales are currently much lower (having been out since November).

A few other iOS development insights: App Store sales are so unbelievable top-heavy in regards to ranking that I guarantee it comes as a shock to every single new developer. If you achieve visibility in the app store, great, but if you're not showing in the ranks be prepared for very low numbers.

Almost all our sales spikes have been directly related to Apple's in-App Store promotions thusfar. (The iPhone version was featured under 'new and noteworthy' and then 'what's hot' for a number of weeks). I firmly believe that marketing and spreading the word are very important (and spent a significant amount of time and effort doing so), but those efforts have all had comparably modest results. (However, there are many other resulting factors to indie marketing as well, such as making new business contacts, immersing yourself in and getting to know the dev and gamer community, and hey, potentially even catching more of Apple's attention than you would otherwise).

It's been a great experience so far overall (and getting even better with our recent good fortunes), but definitely an uphill battle all the way through. I'd still recommend it to aspiring indies looking to get into the app store (especially if your primary desire is just to get your work out there and have people actually PLAY your game - we have to remember that "getting published" has never been so easy for an indie and it's an amazing thing), but I'd be very careful about assuming big numbers are easily attainable or anything close to a guarantee. (If you're one of those aspiring indie peeps, feel free to PM me and I'd be happy to chat about the experience more)

To finally get slightly more specific about our profits: it's just enough for us to finally go full-time with something we've all dreamed about for a long time. Which, yeah, is amazing :D

Jedeye Sniv said:
Yeah that would be really interesting. Congrats man!

As for the game itself, I play on iPhone and I love the idea of the game but I suck horribly at it. Would there be a possibility of adding some kind of easy mode to it?
Click to expand...

Thanks man! Although I'm always keeping a close eye on the balancing act that is difficulty and accessibility, an easy mode isn't really planned at this time. Some quick advice I'd give that might help: try sliding your thumb around the color wheel as if it were a joystick rather than tapping (this is a quicker and more efficient way to change colors), always keep an eye on Blaargs (the bigger, fire-breathing Bloopers), and finally make sure to go for as many 3-color combos as you can to achieve speed boosts. :)
 
Hey MrCheez, don't forget, lots of new iPad owners today so they'll be looking for a fun game to show off their iPad 2. Great timing, huh? Now get to work on optimizing it for iPad 2 :)
 
Superfrog said:
Congrats, MrCheez, and thanks for the interesting details! Even though I'm not a developer (I do work in the industry, though) I'm always highly interested in reading development/marketing insights and stories, especially on new, indie-friendly platforms like the Appstore.

Speaking of this, the developer of Trainyard made a few interesting blog posts on iOS development, too:

Trainyard: The Story So Far

Trainyard: The Week That Was

How To Price Your Game

Doing Lite Versions Right
Click to expand...

And while we're at it. Everyone should get Trainyard. Game is absolutely amazing and clever.
 
Full disclosure: a friend made this

Octopult merges octopi and helicopters on iPad http://vimeo.com/20915968 I don't really keep up with the iPad games but it looks like it would be someting I'd want to play. It's going to be finished in a couple months I think.. I'm sure they'd love some feedback and stuff if you have any.
 
Thanks Superfrog. Yeah, Trainyard is awesome, and I am familiar with Matt Rix and those blogposts. His story is really cool, IIRC it was 7 months of slow sales before his game took off! I read these during our own development, so it was quite inspiring :)

Bboy AJ: Ohhh yeah we know :) Unbelievable timing.. pretty much has us on the edge of our seats
 
Kuran said:
What does it do? Thinking of buying it as a showcase title for iPad 2.
Click to expand...

This is Infinity Blade on iPhone 4:

5245576516_5341a98f10.jpg


This is Infinity Blade on iPad 1:

5244973357_2403f6d9cf.jpg


See on the armour how the iPhone 4 version has better lighting? Now the iPad 2 version will have the same improved lighting.

Not sure what else would be changed at this stage.
 
Guys I need help (sorry for the crosspost)
Since I've updated to 4.3 yesterday, my iPad's 3G connection works for 3 minutes and then just dies, I need to manually switch it off and on in general settings but it dies again in the next few minutes.
Top left it keeps showing a 4 bars signal and my carrier's name, but it doesn't react (bars diminishing and such, it looks stuck) nor show the circle "data loading" icon and it says "no cellular data network" as soon as I try to get online.

FUCK, FUCK, FUCK
I was supposed to sell this damn thing on monday.
FUCK
 
Dash Kappei said:
Guys I need help (sorry for the crosspost)
Since I've updated to 4.3 yesterday, my iPad's 3G connection works for 3 minutes and then just dies, I need to manually switch it off and on in general settings but it dies again in the next few minutes.
Top left it keeps showing a 4 bars signal and my carrier's name, but it doesn't react (bars diminishing and such, it looks stuck) nor show the circle "data loading" icon and it says "no cellular data network" as soon as I try to get online.

FUCK, FUCK, FUCK
I was supposed to sell this damn thing on monday.
FUCK
Click to expand...

On the plus side, if there's no fix it should still be under warranty, no?
 
Anyone pick up Undead Island? It is a side scrolling action game where you take out zombies with a NINJA! This is the twist I like to see but not sure if it is any good!
 
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