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The iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch Gaming |Thread4| NOT Doomed

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Two interesting games have appeared on the app store: Angry drums HD (Japanese?) and Frederic resurrection of music HD. Angry drums strangely look like taiko drumming game on consoles. Is it the same game or a cheap ripoff? I think I might buy Frederic, but when I try to it says that I don't have enough storage, which is weird since I have 1.8GB available...

Angry Drums looks like a Chinese ripoff of Taiko no Tatsujin.
 

Vyer

Member
Yeah, the amount they've spent on it is crazy, but for a 99c game that's had as much coverage as that to have only made 140,000 sales (under $100,000 revenue, plus some from the DLC) seems shocking.
I think we're going to see a lot more stories from developers along these lines this year.

500-700 purchases a day seems like, had their budget not been so high, a pretty successful ongoing run.
 

dantehemi

Member
Making ground on my bike baron leader board assault, just passed dashkappei, gonna be in the top 5 very soon, then I will own my very own iOS gaff leader board!!! :) take that warrio
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Been trying to get into Final Fantasy Tactics but I think the game is too hard for me, I seem to get too many of my characters killed off and I just started!

A few tips:
Remember that position and height matters. You have a better chance to hit and will do more damage if you attack an enemy from behind. You should also try to protect your own behind. Height matters too; you can't use a melee attack if you are too far above or below the enemy.

If you people get low on health, get them out of there. Take it slow. Don't waste any turns, if one of your characters can throw a rock or something, even if it only does 5 damage, it's still worth it. Abilities that help you have higher movement are very useful. Abilities that help you counter attacks are very useful.

The Monk is the earliest power class. They can do huge damage, their equipment costs will be lower, they have melee and range attacks, and they have a heal option. Most of your units should be offensive.

Typically you have 5-7 units. It'll generally be 3-5 units plus a guest or two for plot battles. If you're going to have 5 units, make 3-4 of them offensive. Magic is underpowered fairly early. Vary up peoples jobs.

Random battles scale to your level, story battles do not. If you want to get overpowered, keep your level/EXP low and your job points high. Fighting an easy random battle, killing all of the enemies except one fairly weak one, and then throwing stones at your own guys and healing them is a good way to farm JP without farming EXP. Other abilities like, for example, "Yell" are very useful. Any ability someone can use to buff themselves is a good way to grind and a good way to use otherwise useless turns.
 

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Here's a cheery story to start off the thread:

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Whale+Trail/news.asp?c=36980

£250,000 to develop and market! Wow.

That seems like a very large amount for that sort of game. I can only imagine that they spent too much on advertising when the ROI for advertising on iOS is really, really poor for a 99c download title. They invested way more than they should have for their chosen monetization model.

By comparison, a similar game, Mighty Fin, was created locally here in NZ by 3 guys over the course of 4 or 5 months part time. They probably spent closer to £30,000 getting it to market, if that. Mighty Fin hasn't had the same success as Whale Trail, but their threshold for recouping and becoming profitable is a lot less and arguably a lot more likely.
 
Pulse is my favourite rhythm game. The presentation is wonderful, the songs are great and plentiful, the difficulty ramps up nicely and it's the only one I've played that makes me feel like I'm playing an instrument rather than tap-miming it.
 

Fjordson

Member
Ready for a whole year of quality iOS gaming. So glad I got a 4S for Christmas (upgraded from a 3GS).

I went back to play some GAF recommended games that I missed. Bloody addicted to Super Stickman Golf and Flick Kick Football. So good.
 
If you buy the elves expansion in Hero Academy do the ads go away?

Yes. May want to act soon though becomes that sale is supposedly going down by the end of the day.

damn I've been playing Hero Academy basically nonstop for about 3 hours and my 4S is about to die after a full charge. (Brightness 60%, WiFi on, Notifications on) Is that about normal? =/
 
Yeah, the amount they've spent on it is crazy, but for a 99c game that's had as much coverage as that to have only made 140,000 sales (under $100,000 revenue, plus some from the DLC) seems shocking.
I think we're going to see a lot more stories from developers along these lines this year.

The problem is that the tales of success of some iOS games make people believe that making a million seller is easy. But the market of iOS, because of the lack of further information of most of the target (not everybody with an iPhone read TouchArcade), is very polarized.

The games that reach the top can stay a lot of time, because the word of mouth and a big percentage of the users that only check the top20 (of sales) in order to decide what game to buy. But a lot of good games are ignored.

If someone believe that 140k sales are low, think about what other good games like Mage Gauntlet or Dungeon Raid have sold, never entering in the top20.

The covering that you can see in web pages don't affect iOS userbase as much as the userbase of gaming consoles. Most of the people that buy iOS games (specially the target of cute endless runners like Whale Trail) never entered in a game page.
 
That seems like a very large amount for that sort of game. I can only imagine that they spent too much on advertising when the ROI for advertising on iOS is really, really poor for a 99c download title. They invested way more than they should have for their chosen monetization model.

By comparison, a similar game, Mighty Fin, was created locally here in NZ by 3 guys over the course of 4 or 5 months part time. They probably spent closer to £30,000 getting it to market, if that. Mighty Fin hasn't had the same success as Whale Trail, but their threshold for recouping and becoming profitable is a lot less and arguably a lot more likely.

At £30k to develop, that's still over 60,000 copies at 69p/99c which need to be sold just to break even.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
As others have said, sounds like a seriously mismanaged budget. It's a fine game, but there's nothing about it that seems any more "premium" than any other $0.99 auto-runner.

Also, I think it's funny that they would say that their one failure means that anyone else who makes a "premium" iOS game would also fail. Maybe they should make a follow up called "Sour Grape Trail."

yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they do on android. There's a lack of great games there, especially in the genre.
 
At £30k to develop, that's still over 60,000 copies at 69p/99c which need to be sold just to break even.

iPhone is not the developer paradise that a lot of people think. Blame the userbase that think that 2'99 (or even 0'99) is way to high, and most of them simply wait until the game get into freeAppADay.
 

Gaaraz

Member
Basically use the wings - they're active for 30 seconds I believe? So if I don't die within the 30 seconds after activating them I just kill myself before they run out. Then just make sure you don't die during the cooldown period. Rinse and repeat. It gets quite a bit easier to get that many points after levelling up all of the powerups (especially the magnet). Just have lots of wings on hand and try to use them when you see danger coming up.

The 1 million without powerups, means 1 million without powerups :p so no boosts or resurrections, and make sure to kill yourself after getting that 1 million - if you pick up a powerup afterwards you won't get the achievement.

This is superb advice, thanks so much! :)
 

Phreaker

Member
Not sure when it went on sale but Scramble with Friends is 99c (was $2.99).

One thing I don't get...it costs a token to play a match and you get a token every 10 minutes, even if you bought the game? Probably not a big deal since you start with 16 (?) and I don't think I would play that many games in 10 minutes, but seems kinda weird.
 
iPhone is not the developer paradise that a lot of people think. Blame the userbase that think that 2'99 (or even 0'99) is way to high, and most of them simply wait until the game get into freeAppADay.
Don't blame the userbase. Blame the publishers that conditioned us to expect price drops days after release.
 

Chopper

Member
Has anyone completed Extreme 13-3 in Run Roo Run (HD). I simply cannot reach the double jump. What am I doing wrong?
 

Nelo Ice

Banned
iPhone is not the developer paradise that a lot of people think. Blame the userbase that think that 2'99 (or even 0'99) is way to high, and most of them simply wait until the game get into freeAppADay.

Speaking of which what notable games have gone free thanks to freeappaday? I don't mind paying .99 cents but I haven't really noticed any big name games go free thanks to freeappaday.
 

Milla

Neo Member
Ready for a whole year of quality iOS gaming. So glad I got a 4S for Christmas (upgraded from a 3GS).

I went back to play some GAF recommended games that I missed. Bloody addicted to Super Stickman Golf and Flick Kick Football. So good.

Glad to hear it! :)
 

AIRic

Member
Just played through Frederic : Resurrection of music HD on my IPad on normal mode and I must say this game is a real gem! It's a music game that use chopin classics remixed for different style of music. The gameplay is very challenging, it's like a guitar hero with more notes since you play on a piano. I would say easy to play, hard to master type of gameplay. The notes are registered with great precision and given a score according to your timing. For example, on one song I didn't miss a note and still got a relatively poor score. Musicality!

There's a well made story that actually made me laugh a couples of time. Specially the Otaku reference in the Japan stage. Chopin is a charming character and the story is worth watching with the high quality art style of this game. The songs are very catchy and modern, but not in a bad way. There's only nine songs,but they are all incredible.

Overall, I felt in love wit this musical adventure. It's truly one of a kind experience. I don't regret trying it out for 2 bucks and will definitely try to get better at this game. Frederic is a must-buy to me.
 

GeekyDad

Member
Finally got around to checking out the original Samurai: Way of the Warrior. What a great, little samurai-themed beat'em-up. Wish the second game controlled like this one, as I'd nabbed it up right now, but this is a diamond in the rough for me.

Still debating whether or not to get Dungeon Hunter 2 now or wait for another sale. I see it was last priced at $1. Hate to shell out $7 and it get knocked down in a week or so.
 

Dingotech

Member
Speaking of which what notable games have gone free thanks to freeappaday? I don't mind paying .99 cents but I haven't really noticed any big name games go free thanks to freeappaday.

Zombie Gunship was free one day, probably lots of other big games as well, I just can't remember them off the top of my head.

Still debating whether or not to get Dungeon Hunter 2 now or wait for another sale. I see it was last priced at $1. Hate to shell out $7 and it get knocked down in a week or so.

As much as I hate to confirm the tight-arse nature of iOS device owners just wait for it to be on sale again.

Dungeon Hunter 2 has been on sale for $1 more often than it has been full price.
 

Nelo Ice

Banned
Zombie Gunship was free one day, probably lots of other big games as well, I just can't remember them off the top of my head.



As much as I hate to confirm the tight-arse nature of iOS device owners just wait for it to be on sale again.

Dungeon Hunter 2 has been on sale for $1 more often than it has been full price.

Not gonna lie that's pretty much what I'm gonna do, gonna milk any gift card I get and I don't plan on paying more than .99 unless I really want the game or if the game just wont go down to .99.

edit:Of course I don't mind waiting for free too since they go free so often and I have plenty to play as it is.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Making ground on my bike baron leader board assault, just passed dashkappei, gonna be in the top 5 very soon, then I will own my very own iOS gaff leader board!!! :) take that warrio

You guys are passing me only because I don't have all the updates and new levels... Yet :D

Congrats! :)
 
Zombie Gunship was free one day, probably lots of other big games as well, I just can't remember them off the top of my head.



As much as I hate to confirm the tight-arse nature of iOS device owners just wait for it to be on sale again.

Dungeon Hunter 2 has been on sale for $1 more often than it has been full price.

Civ Rev went free one day too.
 
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