Tap Ski Extreme (And some app marketing discussion)

[MrEmo]

Hey everyone, I am proud to announce my latest game is available now on Google Play!

Here is a quick 30-Second trailer of the gameplay:

Originally inspired by the classic windows game SkiFree, I wanted to make it a little more fast paced and intuitive, and blend in some of that rage-inducing Flappy Bird kind of difficulty

The game features all original pixel-art graphics and audio work that is reminiscent of Super Nintendo games of the 90's.

If you like the music, you can stream it on SoundCloud here:
http://soundcloud.com/fathoms-pixelcake-games

You can find it on Google Play using the link below:
http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fathoms.tapski

Please download it and share! Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks to MonoGame and this great community I have been able to do what I have always wanted to do with my life (make games)

[AlucardGames]

Very nice, I like the Gir character!

[MrEmo]

Thanks mate!
iOS version is still under review but will be online soon!

[RocketRonz]

Great game. Has that Flappy "just one more go" vibe to it and the extra characters are excellent. I've added a review on Play (Chill Monster) and given it 5 stars.

Feel free to check out my game Finga Ninja if you have a spare moment, it's also available on the App Store

[MrEmo]

A quick update:
Tap Ski Extreme has completed the long and painful process of getting approved on the AppStore! If you love iOS you can now get it here:

Paid Version or Free Version

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@RocketRonz Thanks for the input! I downloaded your game too and I really liked it. I actually looked for it on my iPad too but I didn't see it so I'm assuming you only released on android

Anyway it was really fun haha I liked the challenge. I can just barely make it past lightning though! I need to practice more haha
I left you a review as well, you will find it under my name (felipe mullen)
Good luck with your game!

[RocketRonz]

Thanks for that. Finga Ninja is available on iOS but I set the build target to iPhone only in Xamarin as I didn't have an iPad to test it on. A bit annoying really as it will automatically scale up and should work fine. I just didn't want to risk waiting a week in review for it to crash on an iPad and be rejected, the joys of submitting to the App Store

[AlucardGames]

Just bought it on my iPhone, It's a good game and I can easily see I'm going to waste time when I should be working.

My only concern would be the music, even though I like it very much perhaps it only appeals to the retro gamer. But then the game is retro stylish so that might be the right thing to do. I don't know, just a thought.

I'm impressed! I hope it's doing well

[AlucardGames]

I can see your game is doing well in Sweden! (I'm Swedish)
It's currently 19 in sports!

How do you feel about the Free version? In my dogfight control, the free version gets more downloads of course, but only about 3-4 times better. I'm thinking about removing it actually.

[MrEmo]

@AlucardGames wow thanks for the support mate! I'm glad you liked the game! I had to put out an update to support iOS 7 (I totally forgot to check the minimum build number) which fixes a couple minor things, so make sure you get it! Took 10 days for apple to approve the update... >_>

Thanks for the input on the music. I guess I was just trying to make some hyper music to get people energized when playing the game haha, but for my next one I should probably have some more variety.

Getting downloads is tough! It really is. I was waiting for the update to go through so I can finally do some marketing. Marketing is really important....

To date, these are my stats:
iOS - Paid: 7 downloads (lol)
iOS - Free: 137 downloads
Android: 873 downloads

So at the moment, I have been scavenging the web for sites that do app reviews and adding them to a huge excel spreadsheet.
Then, I am going to submit review requests to each site one after the other, and see where it takes me.

You have an interesting point about whether the free version is worth keeping. Once I get the ball rolling on iOS, I am going to see if it really is worthwhile. Seems there are a lot more paid apps on iOS and more people are willing to pay for them

[AlucardGames]

Don't get me wrong, I like the music!
I've been going through some of these:
www.appbattleground.com/2013/10/26/best-app-review-sites/

But I don't think any of them has picked up the game so far.
I'm trying to get some attention on Twitter and Facebook right now, with varying results.

My stats are:
iOS Paid: 44
iOS Free: 514
Android Paid: 2
Android Free: 10

Android ... facepalm

But most of these are from the first week, I now get 1-2 paid downloads per day.

[RocketRonz]

Interesting to see that it's not just me having trouble getting noticed. I have 3 games on iOS and Android, a paid one, a free one with ads and a free one with no ads, my stats aren't great:

Chaos Influx (paid, 69p): iOS 16, Android 40
Finga Ninja (free, ads): iOS 57, Android 45
Alpha Blitz (free, no ads): iOS 77, Android 14

I also sent emails (twice) to about 20 review sites for Finga Ninja. About half of them replied, offering marketing or paid reviews. No-one reviewed it, I doubt any of them even downloaded it

[AlucardGames]

Thanks for sharing your stats.
I really wan't to know if anyone ever got any attention from these app review sites, that didn't already have a successful app.

One youtuber called Jane Jones actually included Dogfight Control together with 4 other games. Didn't see any difference in downloads unfortunately.

I believe we have to work the social media harder than the app review sites (who reads those small ones besides developer who try to market their games anyway)

I have a facebook page for my app and the reception has been enormous so far, 2 likes!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dogfight-Control/1510861815832875

[RocketRonz]

Yep, I agree with that, social networks are definitely the key. My Alpha Blitz game got 60+ downloads on iOS for the first day which may have been down to MonoGame retweeting me.

I think we need a bit of luck to get on the radar though, eg. A random front page on a high traffic site. My strategy is to get as much (decent) games released on both platforms as possible and hopefully one of them will get noticed.

I'll probably email some more review sites on that Holy Grail list and maybe catch someone in a good mood, fingers crossed

[MrEmo]

Yea that's really interesting. I'm going to take a look at that "holy grail" list and see what happens. And you're right, a lot of those sites are only seen by fellow developers, although that is better than nothing.

So I ask myself, what sites do people browse often and share often on facebook? huffpost and the verge come to mind. I'm sure getting a review or mention (with a link) on one of those sites would be a pretty big deal.

What I really want to know, is how people reach millions? 0_o
I mean, honestly, there are some terrible games out there, and I look at them and they have tons of downloads. Is it all just marketing or what?

I put out my first android game while I was in school a couple summers ago. It's called paper runner. It's absolutely terrible though! Full of bugs, very amateurish (all in written in java) BUT I made a decent trailer for it, and I think the keywords for the title were very good. It made about 80,000 downloads in the first couple months and then died out, but I never marketed it for one moment.
Why did that happen? I've been trying to figure it out ever since haha

[RocketRonz]

80,000 downloads, that's pretty impressive. Check your stats to see if there are high download figures for particular countries, your game may have been featured on a popular website in a country with a high population for a few days.

I've looked through that Holy Grail list and a lot of those websites are targetted more at apps or offer some kind of pay per review service. I've started a new topic so others can contribute their marketing / review site findings.