Tardy Posting!

Yes, I know, I have been quite tardy in posting updates.  It is a struggle when there is so much going on in the world, and updates funnel through slowly.

Yet - while I might not have been busy on the blog, we have been very busy behind the scenes with a great new update on its way.  The Shop has finally arrived!  I have to say, I'm kind of excited!  Now there is a reason to want to Save up your Bacon!  Yep, you can now exchange your bacon for upgrades just for your pig!

Here is a sample of the artwork that has been developed along the way:

Now your pig can be as cool as you are - lol!

We'll see what happens here, but it does change the way the game feels, and I like that.  It gives it something a bit extra.

Oh...and then there is the "Golden Pig"...but more about him later.

The journey continues...

AG

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Ideas...ideas...funny how it works...

When working through things that might make a game more compelling, you can just see such a range of options - it becomes hard to know how to prioritise.  Everything costs time and money, and you can never be sure what the outcome is going to be once you have finished.

For example, currently, Save My Bacon (have you got your copy yet?) is a 5 min or less game for most people.  Some people can break the 5 min barrier, but it isn't easy.  I guess the question is then, do we need to add capability to allow the user to let the game go longer?

At what point does development stop?

For example, falling objects that slow the pig down, or something that doubles your force for every tap?  Are these things that make a game better?

I'd be interested in what people think!!

The journey continues...

AG

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Oooh...some more little tips that might help!

More tips after a good day investigating way to promote #savemybacon

Twitter

If you are an IndieDev, send a tweet to @AllGameBot - This bot will follow and RT.  Nice little tool actually.

Further, another tip if you have a blog like this one is to turn on Google+ comments.  It is under the Google+ item in the left menu and, if you also automatically post to Google+, you'll have a way of pulling together all your comments into one place!

Ok, so it is cheating a little, but it works.  In this strange game called Marketing, I'll take what I can get!!

The other thing worth noting is to tell people to RT.  If they don't they probably weren't going to anyway, but if they do, you might have just picked up a new RT that you might not have otherwise gotten.

That said, I have only found that this has limited success!! :)

REDDIT

The other interesting thing is Reddit.  This "subreddit" is an interesting way to join more with the online Indie community.  There are lots of good hints and tips here and I'll do what I can to test and share them!

http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/

One thing about reddit - you have have an account more than 1 week old or you cannot submit a new post.  You can comment to others, but not submit one of your own.

The journey continues...

AG

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Making it Sticky - Part 3

It has been an interesting week.  A lot of what I have shared about making our app more sticky has been history that occurred prior to today.  I was very happy with where we were at, and I was just waiting for the next version to be completed.

But then, after speaking with the team I was asked, "what achievements do you want?"

Achievements? Oh, here is me thinking our 3 great new initiatives would be perfect and now we are talking about achievements?

Well, of course, on reflection, it was obvious - we needed some Achievements...

So, just what are achievements?  In app game play, this is where you earn a 'badge' or a label that is related to an achievement, and in this instance, it was all about scores.  Get so many points in a single game, or so many cumulative points, etc. and you get a certain achievement.

Again, it is off to the brain's trust - the kids - to come up with a great ideas.  It wasn't long until we had everything from the "Amateur Chef" through to the "Big Bacon Theory"!  There are a heap of score based Achievements now ready to roll.

Soon, we'll start other Achievements based on events, like having 3 pigs at once, but for now, they are limited to score based only.

One thing that I noticed was that I was starting to generate documents all over the place.  I really needed to start to put some decent processes in place.  I created a spreadsheet with a few tabs - one for the Shop, one for Achievements...and I am guessing there will be more coming soon...

I think, if we do it right, we are on the right track to make this app considerably more sticky than it is right now - and then the marketing will start in earnest.  I'm still just trying to construct the right approach to it.  When we do start, I want to make sure the product has a great chance to succeed.

I hope you like where we are headed with this!

...as usual, any suggestions, please feel free to comment.

The journey continues!

AG

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Bugger...the Impact of Changes

One of the ongoing challenges with any kind of development is always the changes...whether they are changes that you request, or changes that are forced on you, the only thing constant is change.

I have described a number of changes that we are looking to introduce, but this time, this one was thrust on us.

We use the Unity3D engine for coding.  With the new release of iOS8, Unity was also upgraded.  This has caused some issues with our current code base.

Oh well...need to work through them - Unity is easily the best platform we use to develop in and making the tweaks required is a small price to pay for such an awesome development tool.

Despite the bumps along the way...

...the journey continues...

AG

Making it Sticky - Part 2

You know, I was proud of the fact that we had come up with the Shop and Hose concepts.  I have to say, the High Score thing was still a bit of a surprise to me...I kinda thought that it would be easy - and it isn't that it is hard, but it is more time consuming than I expected.

The decision on the High Scores was to integrate with what the App Store and Play Store already had.  It wasn't ideal, but it was useful and I am expecting it to work pretty well - that one is sorted.

But the Shop and Hose were a great idea, just for our little pig.

The Shop - we figured in that original brainstorming, that it would allow you to do things like:

• Change the colour of the pig
• Maybe wear a Hat
• Maybe even a mustache

And that was about as far as we had gotten.

Now that we are thinking about actually coding it...well, that is a different thing.  Now we need 'real' ideas!

I called the kids together ('the brains trust') and we came up with a bunch of stuff, everything from polka-dot pigs to pigs in those googley-eyed glasses.  There was a pretty cool range of stuff that we came up with.  Thinking about it now, there is probably not enough, but we'll see what it is like when it pops out the other side!

Then the Hose.  This was a little different.  The idea is that you can buy a pack of 5 Hoses with real money, or you can save up your bacon and buy them one at a time.  The Hose will douse those deadly BBQs for a couple of seconds and let your pig survive a little longer.  Not too sure how this will play out, but I like it in concept.

So - now you know what is going to be in v2.0 (High Scores),  2.1 (Shop) and 2.2 (Hose).  I think it will help to increase the stickiness of the game.  It will give you something to strive for.

I hope you like where we are headed with this!

The journey continues!

AG

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Making it 'Sticky' - Part 1

The first release of "Save My Bacon" (you can get it by clicking on a link at the top of the page!) was there for a few reasons:

1. To test the process of releasing the app
2. To start to get some traction on 'age'
3. Because I didn't really know what to expect or what to do, so I wanted a chance to learn (hence this blog...)
4. And I didn't really want to spend too much money at the start - I wanted to see if we could create what we had envisaged

I think, from my perspective, we have achieved (1) and (4).  I think (2) just happens over the course of time.

As for (3), it is fair to say, that is a daily learning. This is even further reinforced by the fact that this is a very part time effort for me at this stage.

I am happy with the game play so far, but I know it isn't sticky.  What is the reason people want to keep playing?  What is the driver that makes you think about starting it up and having a bit of fun?

At this stage, it is a great way to waste 1 - 5 mins.  Beyond that, not even I have that much of a reason to play.

Hmm...we guessed this might be the case.  v2 is definitely in order.

At the time of working through the app, the kids had determined that there should be something to 'spend' your bacon on.  Useless but fun upgrades.  We marked out a few of these as possible options. We also marked out a couple of little 'tools' to help the game play.

And of course, we need a proper high score table!!

So, v2 scoping was pretty high level, but it was a start.  There is something to this...as a result, development is currently underway to get these mods introduced into the app.  I'm thinking that we should be able to release the High Scores version this week.  It will be v2.0.

This will be followed by v2.1 (the shop) and v2.2 (the hose).  These mods will definitely help...but will they be enough?  I don't know.  But it will be a start.

What do you think?  What else is needed to make a simple game addictive?

The journey continues...

AG

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