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Puzzle game Neo Angle. Continuing development history and release in Appstore



Greetings to all! Almost half a year has passed since the publication of the first part (as well as its release on Google Play) , in which I described the story of the emergence of the Neo Angle idea and its reincarnation from the portal flash drive in a mobile game on Unity. During this time, much has changed, so I would like to talk about the following points:


Google Play Summary
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So, let's start by not having a MacOS device on hand (to build a build for ios), I aimed at the market for android devices and decided to conquer it on my own. Having chosen a seemingly simple and logical monetization scheme: the first 14 levels are free, and pay $ 0.99 for the other 25. I thought the scheme was perfect, since the player is provided with enough free levels to get a feel for the gameplay. In fact, it turned out quite differently, so as not to be unfounded, here are the statistics of the players' progress:


That is, of all the players, only 12.5% ​​passed the demo version, and even less went to the paid version, and most of them are pirates. By the way, there were no pirates until I published an additional paid version of the game on Google Play (hoping to get at least the top paid puzzles, haha).


View of the window with a slide show of paid levels, which was shown to the players after the demo version.

I promoted the game with all my strength during the first month after the release: I wrote articles, sent a press on media sites, social networks and YouTube, spamming on forums. Obviously, I did not achieve the proper result (about 4 thousand units) . For all that, I didn’t want to give up, because the feedback from players and reviewers was very positive.

After a month and a half, I reconciled with my helplessness to raise a wave among countless android games and began to carry out attempts to find a publisher. I was published on publisherwanted , which provoked communication with several publishers. I didn’t have to choose too much and I signed a contract with Dropout Games .

Further I will describe what changes were made during the cooperation:

  1. I almost immediately deleted the game from Google Play and I was told to forget about it, because Appstore and Steam became the main goal
  2. A prerequisite was to increase the number of levels from 39 to 60-70
  3. New tutorial, rebalance game design
  4. Preparing a new press, a new icon, a new trailer
  5. New sound design

On the first point there is nothing special to tell, so I will go straight to the next one.

Levels

Honestly, having spent a month and a half to create the first 39 levels (which is a lot, because it becomes quite difficult to pass the levels after the 15th), it seemed to me unreal to do almost as many more at the request of the publisher. Moreover, the more levels, the harder it is to come up with something unique with an interesting passage. Therefore, I started with the introduction of a new game element.


New item - moving platform


Platform Usage Example

This greatly simplified the task of developing, combining game mechanics with a new element turned out to be more than 70 levels . By the way, the sum of the levels took more than 2 months of work (almost full time).

Tutorial

Even before the release on Google Play, I reworked the tutorial several times, I really wanted to keep the interface simple, so I avoided using texts and prompts. But after the beta test, which was initiated by the publisher, it turned out that the players did not fully understand the basic principles of mechanics. I emphasize that it was beta testing that helped to identify the main shortcomings, although the statistics collected from the android market showed trouble spots in the gameplay. Thus, I once again redid the tutorial: I added more interactive learning levels, and I had to use hints and localize them (since there are not many texts, we translated them into 10 languages). Surprisingly, this decision did not affect the simplicity and conciseness of the interface.



Advice: if possible, conduct beta testing not only among friends and acquaintances, as I did initially, but collect a sufficient number of independent players (via forums, social networks, conferences, etc.), even if you cannot sit next to look at their progress, but collect a large amount of useful information in a written report. In this regard, the publisher was very useful for its social resources.

Presskit

On the Internet a large number of sources with information on how to correctly compress. Therefore, I focus on what went into ours and what changes were made:













You judge which option is better, but the new one clearly looks more attractive, although it does not so reliably reflect the gameplay.




I would like to emphasize that I underestimated the forces that need to be spent on preparing graphics for release, so I advise you to think about this as early as possible, since at the end of development this is much more difficult.

Soundtrack

Initially, I used a track that was written to order for my old flash game, it fit well in the 80s style with a cosmic sound. However, its length is only 3:30, and during testing, the players complained about the obsession and repeatability of the music. Therefore, by hiring a composer and spending a month of time, we got a 12-minute atmospheric composition. I myself would not bother about it, having a good 3-minute track in my hands, but I don’t regret the result, here the publisher played its part!

Total

We planned a release date in the middle of June, and it was released on August 3, which I consider to be a good result. Totally, I have already spent more than 8 months on development from the beginning to the end, starting in March I started working with the publisher. It took a lot of time to polish the little things: animation, sound effects, interface.

In general, I am satisfied with the work with the publisher, because I learned a lot and realized a lot for myself, although I often had to argue and defend my point of view, but this is a normal working process. Of course, the main indicator is the financial side of the issue, but it is too early to judge this. I hope the result motivates to continue this hobby. I am currently working on a version for Steam.

Thanks for attention! I am happy to share my experience and I am ready to answer your questions.
Who are interested in the game, type in the search for Neo Angle in the Appstore .

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/335058/

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