6/22/2011

Great feedbacks

I really appreciate everyone's feedback! They're all great.
I wish I had more time to work on this.

お客様からのフィードバックがかなりいい。バグ報告も親切にしてくれます。
日本人向けのゲームを作ったと思ったんですが、アメリカとイギリスにもかなり人気なので以外でした。
時間があればまだまだアップデートを続けてます。

3/28/2011

Version 2.1 submitted

I managed to crank out some of the best features. Eyes twitching and stuff. I would prefer not to make the game any more complicated for this isn't my main goal. User feedback is the main drive at this point. I'm going to start enjoying the time with my wife and son from tomorrow when they get back from Japan. :)

V 2.1
New feature!
- Buy your own house to store items
- Forging weapons and armors
- Wands will replenish MP occasionally

Fixed
- Background music (e.g. iPod music) is fully supported
- Increased the size of players' character icon so it's bigger and fits better
- Adjusted store BGM volume
- Fixed problem of level stats window not showing up after beating the game
- Fixed Facebook crash
- Other fixes

しゃあーーーーーっ!!ないすなフィーチャーができた!!明日から奥さんと息子が日本から帰ってくるのでまた当分アップデートする時間がなくなる、と。(^^)もう疲れたー。

新機能
- アイテムを保管できる家を建てられるように
- 武器と防具のアイテム強化
- 杖はたまにMPを回復

修正
- バックグランド音楽(iPodなどの)のフルサポート
- 自分の写真をもうちょっと大きく見えるように調整
- 店のBGMの調整
- ラスボス倒したあとに窓がでない問題を修正
- Facebookが壊れてたのを修正
- その他

3/11/2011

Tsunami

Donating my money to Japan after the devastating disaster.
My wife and 3 month old son was in Japan, got hit by 6M, really close from the origin. Luckily I was able to speak with them after 16 hours. Inside the house was shattered, no electricity, no water.
You can donate here:
http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000&s_subsrc=RCO_FrontPagePanel

日本に寄付。妻と子とビデオチャットを始めた瞬間に地震がきてそのまま一瞬でビデオがフリーズしました。16時間後に連絡がとれたのでほっとしています。寄付はこちらからできます:
http://volunteer.yahoo.co.jp/donation/detail/1630001/index.html

3/08/2011

New version sent

Dungeons & Such 2.0.5 is sent to Apple with these update:

- New item: Hi-Potion.
- Item capacity increase from level 20.
- Heal magic effect increase by little.
- Support for playing background music like iPod app.
- Some monsters flee.
- Higher dungeon level will yield higher weapon bonus from treasure loot.
- Deep sleeping will give you penalty instead of sleeping forever.
- Fixed bug where monsters stays strong after wandering.

Recently, I've been getting great feedbacks from users and they're all awesome. Sometimes I get angry email saying there's some bugs, I need to fix them!

2.0.5アップルに送った。
ー 新アイテム:ハイポーション
ー 持てるアイテムの数がレベル20からアップ
ー 魔法ヒールの効果を少しアップ
ー  iPodなどのBGMに対応
ー あるモンスターの中には逃げるものも発生
ー ダンジョンレベルによって武器についてくる攻撃力アップ
ー 深い眠りにおちるとペナルティ。。その者、死す!
ー バグ修正:さまよった後に町に戻ったり死んだりした後にダンジョンへ戻ってもモンスターが強いのを修正

最近お客様からのメールが増えて動機もアップ。動機戦士。日本の方はRPG暦長い方ばかりでなかなか痛いところをついてきます。がんばるぜよ。

3/07/2011

Game Design


At the time of writing, Dungeons & Such 2.0.4 is at 4 stars and up from over 120 reviews.
From what I'm seeing in App Store, that's not too bad. Gotta make it better!

今の時点でDungeons & Such 2.0.4は120件以上のレビューで4星以上ゲッツ。なかなかよろしいんでないの。まだまだがんばるぜい。

3/06/2011

Upgrade & debugging

I've received emails from no more than 20 customers so far. It's good amount. I enjoy their feedback, a lot of them positive, some are bad (for me). The emails really get me going. I'm fixing and upgrading my app so I will get fewer negative feedbacks.

今のところ20人弱のお客さんにメールをいただいてる。ポジティブなメールであったり、ネガティブであったり。残念ながらなおせてないバグにひっかかってその理不尽さで怒ってメールをくれる。早くなおさないと。。!ポジティブなメールはかなりやる気がでます。

2/23/2011

Increase in downloads

OK, the increase in downloads didn't come from any of the review sites, but from sales in prices: Dungeons & Such went from $3 to $1, Typing Sebastian went from $1 to free. Both got about 200 - 300 downloads a day for about a week of the sale. Sales and downloads went down each day, but it was still a HUGE impact for me. $3 and $1 seems like they are both "coffee price", but it was big enough to make my sales 100x better or more. Of course, there are a ton of websites and apps that keep track of apps when the prices drop, but still!!! This was some experience for me, and all developers should know this. Or perhaps I should keep this a secret :P

レビューサイトからの売り上げはほとんど見えなかったがバレンタインセールをやってから100倍近くの売り上げが見えた。D&Sは3ドルから1ドルに、Typing Sebastianは1ドルから無料に一週間の期間実行した。びっくりするわ!!(笑)コーヒーの値段だけやけど、70%オフとか無料とか、言葉に力があるのか。自動化されたサイトやアプリでもピックアップされるからいやでも宣伝されるからそこから自分のアプリが発見される構造になってるはず。おもしろいなぁ。

2/18/2011

Review sites

Dungeons & Such is reviewed on some good sites, PocketGamer and AppBank!

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/Dungeons+%26+Such/feature.asp?c=27608

http://www.appbank.net/2011/01/13/iphone-application/209445.php

I can use more exposure!

2/17/2011

Motivation

My motivation has been static until now. Ever since I put the app on Valentine's Day sale for $0.99 USD (70% off), I have had VERY positive feedback. This is mind blowing for me. $3 vs $1 apparently is a huge deal. I can't imagine it's that of a huge deal for an individual for just a couple of bucks. I have been following twitter's search for "Dungeons & Such" and voila, there were over 30 posts after the day I put the app on sale. There's so many automated systems where it tracks the app when it goes on sale. I also changed the app description to say it's on sale as well.
I should post more complete info next week.

今日まで動機が落ちてた。でもバレンタインセールを実施して以来、アプリの状況がかなりよくなった。売れ行きもよくなったし、二人からフィードバックがきた。今のところ69個のランクのうち4/5星をもらってる。そーふぁーそーぐー。
近々総合でまとめを書くか。

1/20/2011

Lite version update

Dungeons & Such Lite is updated to have the same code as the current full version. Currently version 2.0.3.
Good tutorial on how to make a quick lite version: http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=2098
Current lite version will only let you go down to 14F.

Dungeons & Suchのライトバージョンが更新された。現在バージョン2.0.3。ライトバージョンをはやく作りたい方はこれをご覧あれ:http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=2098

1/13/2011

Review posted at AppBank.net

http://www.appbank.net/2011/01/13/iphone-application/209445.php

Great news! Yesterday, app has posted at one of the most popular review site in Japan, appbank.net! Link is above. I love their site, and I'm very very happy to see my app on their site.

AppBankでDungeons & Suchがレビューされました!リンクは上記。AppBankさんのページは毎日かかさず見ているのでかなり嬉しいです。こうやってつながっていくのは楽しいな。

1/03/2011

Marketing

So I had my game out for almost a year now, 10 months. I sold enough that I probably made less than $6 an hour which is less than what I was making in high school. Wow. I don't think my game sucks that much which comes down to thinking about how to go about letting people know about my game. Marketing.

During the college years, I actually thought about making my degree in Business Marketing because of this reason, but it just wasn't my line of sight. I enjoy creating things, almost to an addiction. In fact, it's past addiction. Every day, I have to be making things, it be drawing, programming, cooking, thinking and learning about new ideas.
But you know what, nothing gets out there if you don't put it out there. That's why I must market. I have to put on a different hat and think about my tactics.

I've been thinking about this. My solution for now: Contact review sites, send out press release, integrate social interaction within the game. Not to mention "Make an awesome game", which is probably the toughest part.

When I released my two iPhone games, I had zero years experience of game industry. Whenever I applied for one, I got rejected. It's like there's no way of getting into game industry unless you know someone from there. It was really annoying. That's how I got to teach myself how to make games in Flash and iPhone. There's no way to sell sugar water without any marketing.

要するに、おもろいゲーム作りはなかなか難しいこっちゃ。
ゲーム業界経験ゼロでiPhoneゲーム二つリリースしてもまぁ売れんわな。まぁまだまだがんばれる余裕はあるし、やるか。やれるとこまでやればいい。やれるとこまでは死ぬまで続くし、いつか報われるかな。
作ってから考えようとしてたマーケティングとやらに精を出してみる今日この頃。砂糖水はマーケティングなしでは売れんしな。