8 ms·

Show HN: A game I've been working on for the last year is out today

165 points by savethejets 13y ago

alecsmart1 13y ago
It's not available for iPhone :( any reason for that?
- iSloth 13y ago
  I would guess the screen size is too small for 4 people to play at once.
  - bennyg 13y ago
    Would be cool to have a 2 player or 1 player option for iPhone in the future though.
- antonius 13y ago
  Seeing how the game accepts up to 4 players total, I'm guessing the screen factor played a role.
benzor 13y ago
Fellow (mobile) game developer here, congrats on the launch! Can you tell us about the development cycle for this game? Were you alone, did it take a year full-time, etc? I'm curious.
- akg 13y ago
  I would be curious as well. What is your marketing plan? I also released a game a month ago after working on it for about a year, but soon realized that it is very tough to break through the noise on the app store and get your game noticed. What has your experience been with this? I see that you are doing pay-up-front model. I'd be curious to get your sense of why you went with that as opposed to the freemium + IAP model. I also released as a paid app initially, it almost seems as if there is an expectation that games should be free to try and then either progress via upgrades or IAPs.
  - savethejets 13y ago
    The game was all developed in my spare time. Mostly through staying up really late after work. This was the first time I've gone out and tried marketing one of my games, and I've learned a ton. The number one thing I would recommend is to get eyes on the project as early as possible. I'd hit up TIGSource and start posting a dev log as soon as you can. Be sure to take it out to local events, and definitely start showing other game developers. The game took a lot longer to make than I was originally planning for, and a lot of that was due to some design decisions that I struggled with. However when I took it out and started showing some local developers they had tons of ideas to help contribute, and actually helped me through the problems that I had been stuck on. As for the pay model, The whole reason I made this game is because I love to make games. I don't think there was really any strategy behind the monetization. I just put it out there for a couple of bucks. Honestly I expected this to come out and maybe a few people play it, and then I'd be onto my next one; to me that was totally cool. Actually this morning I had posted a thread on touch arcade and I got 1 response about how a mom had played the game with her daughter and they both had fun. Really if all the game amounts to is that, I'd be happy. So far though I've been pretty humbled by the response, and all I can say is thanks!
    - ronyeh 13y ago
      If your only goal is to have people play it and have fun, you should make it free but have In-App Purchases. Many more people will end up downloading your game, and it may spread better that way (since it's multiplayer). Now the question is how do you make money with IAP? Maybe keep some awesome game modes locked? Unlock them by getting enough coins (e.g., 100K). You can do this by playing enough, by sharing the app with friends on FB/Twitter, or by purchasing coins through IAP. Good luck!
Mithrandir 13y ago
Main site (link in the description is not working): http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
sciguy77 13y ago
Looks great. Reminds me a bit of Space Team. I'm loving all these new collaborative games coming out.
danpalmer 13y ago
Looks good. I'm wondering why you highlight "Only on iOS" as a specific thing on the screenshots?
- Mithaldu 13y ago
  At a guess: Many iOS developers have a severe case of blinders on and don't communicate on their websites that their software is iOS only, ever. This does not only affect games, but also productivity software. The end result of that is that in the best case, a person gets to really like a product after having spent time on the marketing copy and when trying to figure out how to buy it for their platform find that they can't and end up despising the company. In the worst case the company uses some intermediary to sell the software, like humblebundle, which means the person can end up paying for the software, only to be told that they can only get an itunes version. I don't know if that's the reason they do it, but in either case i applaud them for it.
  - pchristensen 13y ago
    It's also a sign to fans of the Apple aesthetic that it's more "Apple-y" than cross-platform products. See Tapbots vs Evernote for an example. For people that value that aesthetic, "iOS only" is a positive signal.
- CaveTech 13y ago
  Because true iOS connoisseurs like to know that the developer didn't sell out and support those other platforms.
- jheriko 13y ago
  its not official but apple will dick you over on a number of things if you ship on other platforms. most specifically the highly valuable 'being featured early on the app store'. from what i've heard they have a secret internal policy of checking to see if you shipped on android before doing that... one of their submission rules is not to mention other platforms in metadata - i'd also take that as a hint that "we like exclusives" - my interpretation of that is that you can't say "also available on Android" - for example. this is not fresh news either, a quick google on the subject reveals a long history of people moaning about this particular problem... if you are shipping a game and do your homework then you will know this.
lowglow 13y ago
Congratulations on the launch! Putting a product out there takes chutzpah. Cheers! :)
ced83fra 13y ago
I love the fact that it's not a 'I am alone, let me play' game. Apps that encourages people play on the same device are a lot better than any others !!
jheriko 13y ago
well done. finishing and shipping a game is no small achievement.
QuasiAlon 13y ago
Good luck! Let us know when the android version is out :)
antr 13y ago
On the App Store: I wished Apple allowed to upload demo videos of the apps, games could really benefit from such medium. Screenshots sometimes aren't the best way to communicate/sell software.
- lmacsen 13y ago
  Why you don't put in description a link where people can see that demo videos?
- euphemize 13y ago
  This gives you a pretty good idea of how it looks (video on page) : http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html
- taude 13y ago
  I haven't used App Store in awhile and appreciate the ability to view videos on the apps in the Google Play store
cocoflunchy 13y ago
Looks great! I'm also building a multiplayer-on-the-same-device iOS game, but I plan on adding a single player mode too. Are you not worried about being multiplayer only? I'd be afraid to cut a large portion of the impulse purchases this way (I won't buy it unless there is someone who can try it with me right now).
CyrusL 13y ago
Cool game! I just set http://www.asteroids.com http://www.asteroids.com to redirect to your app store page for the next couple weeks.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- digitalboss 13y ago
  If there was Hacker News Gold, I would've give you some for that excellent gesture. edit: typo
- staticfish 13y ago
  What a domain! You're a cool guy, guy.
- jheriko 13y ago
  props for helping the guy out.
- lowkeykiwi 13y ago
  The simplest gestures are often the best. Well done.
- guiambros 13y ago
  While the gesture is noble, you may end up hurting him/her in the long run. If media start linking to your domain rather than to the appstore page, he'll have broken links and lost pagerank if/when you decide to do something else with the domain. Having said that, what a great domain!
  - AznHisoka 13y ago
    Plus if somehow Google thinks asteroids.com is a spammy domain (for whatever reason), it'll now be associated with his game.
    - clamprecht 13y ago
mion 13y ago
Nice, concise and direct description. Great choice of graphics and screenshots too! Really nice work
callmeed 13y ago
Haven't had a chance to play yet–BUT it looks great and I'm excited to try it later today. Multi-player, single-screen iPad apps are a favorite for me and the kids. For the record, our favorite such apps are: Stratosphere, King of Opera, Achtung, and Raiding Company. I'll report back later tonight.
bazzargh 13y ago
Hey just in case you've not noticed... apple is linking to http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash/ http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash/ from the game description, which is 404ing on your site (should be http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html)
- savethejets 13y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I've added a redirect to the proper page!
akoumjian 13y ago
This is actually the first app for iPad that has actually made me want one.
egypturnash 13y ago
Here's some critique of your presentation in the App Store: - Why is there a pause symbol in the middle of every screenshot? - Terrible layout on the corner banners in the screenshot. Play head to head Against your friends! [large top margin] Play with up [no leading between this line and the next] to 4 players on 1 ipad [no bottom margin] - Random placement of text next to the circles in the 'How to Play' screen. Why aren't all of those lines of text centered above/below their circles? Be consistent. And when I click the link to your website, hoping for maybe a video of the game in action, I get served nothing but "Cannot GET /AsteroidSmash/". Wearing my "random browsing of app store hat" my reaction is "okay I'm moving on to another game". ---- After finding the webpage for it and watching the video: Wow this thing looks confusing. I have absolutely no idea what's going on from the video. Blue things moving around in front of a blue background with no contrast of any kind, and four fingers rapidly tapping. And a couple of blocks of text that're close enough to being centered that they look amateurishly off-center.
- rockdiesel 13y ago
  EDIT: Nevermind. I just saw the second part of your comment where you said you watched the video. ------- "Why is there a pause symbol in the middle of every screenshot?" It looks like it is part of the gameplay. If you watch the video on his website, you can see the pause symbol right in the middle of the screen while gameplay is going on. http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html
- ketralnis 13y ago
  I really wish Apple would enforce that the screenshots had to be actually screenshots. The markings like in this one make it worse, but it seems like more and more popular games are just putting marketing images there and not bothering to include any game play.
  - girasquid 13y ago
    They used to enforce that, but then relaxed the requirement a (year?) ago. Since then there's been a lot more marketing shots instead of screenshots showing up in app listings.
ndemic 13y ago
Congrats - releasing is definitely something to be proud of! Not sure if you want feedback but IMO - the text banners on screenshots feel a bit too low quality and detract from the actual screenshots. Always hard to get this perfect though!
dlsym 13y ago
I really like your 8-Bit graphics approach! But I am a little bit disappointed, that you did not include Bootstrap somewhere.
jmckib 13y ago
Just bought it and played a round by myself (wife promised to play a game with me later). Seems simple, but fun. I can immediately see it would be even more fun with 3 or 4 players rather than 2. I haven't deeply explored the game yet, but having an AI and the possibility of unlocking additional weapons/upgrades would be exciting. Also, I'd love to have online multiplayer or team play (me and a friend could get online and play against another two-player team).
mgkimsal 13y ago
The music reminded me of Gyruss, one of my all time favorites... :)
jonny_eh 13y ago
This would make for a great port to the OUYA.
adinb 13y ago
You need to post a thread on the Touch Arcade forums & also let Eli Hodapp and company know about it. Exposure on TA is a great way to get noticed and get good feedback. Edit: found an existing thread for your game, though it would really help if you posted in the release thread to let everyone know your story and that you're actively soliciting feedback. http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=209686 http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=209686
hkmurakami 13y ago
Really cool game! One quick question before I enthusiastically throw you my money: It the music 8 bit too (like in the video)? :)
- savethejets 13y ago
  Yup! Actually I also released the soundtrack for free/pay what you want here http://codeherdstudios.bandcamp.com/album/asteroid-smash-ost http://codeherdstudios.bandcamp.com/album/asteroid-smash-ost
hboon 13y ago
Tip: If you haven't, every iOS/OS X developer should sign up as an iTunes affiliate http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/ http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/ and use affiliate links. It is more or less transparent unlike other link wrappers. E.g. a link to the same app with my affiliate account will be https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asteroid-smash/id730150968&at=10l4TP&ct=hn https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asteroid-smash/id730150968&a.... (no you don't have to click on it) There's just 2 additional values. The key thing about this is you can use the campaign tag to track click throughs. It's not about the affiliate revenue.
- ronyeh 13y ago
  Wow, this is truly a pro-tip. I had never considered it before. Thanks! Plus, if someone buys something from iTunes/AppStore shortly after clicking your link, you end up getting 7% commission.
banachtarski 13y ago
Do you not know how to take a screenshot on an ipad?
shn 13y ago
would you report revenue. I always wonder how much people are making from these games. Of course if you don't mind.
kirualex 13y ago
Kudos to you for completing your game !

165 points by savethejets 13y ago

alecsmart1 13y ago

It's not available for iPhone :( any reason for that?

iSloth 13y ago
I would guess the screen size is too small for 4 people to play at once.
- bennyg 13y ago
  Would be cool to have a 2 player or 1 player option for iPhone in the future though.
antonius 13y ago
Seeing how the game accepts up to 4 players total, I'm guessing the screen factor played a role.

benzor 13y ago

Fellow (mobile) game developer here, congrats on the launch! Can you tell us about the development cycle for this game? Were you alone, did it take a year full-time, etc? I'm curious.

akg 13y ago
I would be curious as well. What is your marketing plan? I also released a game a month ago after working on it for about a year, but soon realized that it is very tough to break through the noise on the app store and get your game noticed. What has your experience been with this? I see that you are doing pay-up-front model. I'd be curious to get your sense of why you went with that as opposed to the freemium + IAP model. I also released as a paid app initially, it almost seems as if there is an expectation that games should be free to try and then either progress via upgrades or IAPs.
- savethejets 13y ago
  The game was all developed in my spare time. Mostly through staying up really late after work. This was the first time I've gone out and tried marketing one of my games, and I've learned a ton. The number one thing I would recommend is to get eyes on the project as early as possible. I'd hit up TIGSource and start posting a dev log as soon as you can. Be sure to take it out to local events, and definitely start showing other game developers. The game took a lot longer to make than I was originally planning for, and a lot of that was due to some design decisions that I struggled with. However when I took it out and started showing some local developers they had tons of ideas to help contribute, and actually helped me through the problems that I had been stuck on. As for the pay model, The whole reason I made this game is because I love to make games. I don't think there was really any strategy behind the monetization. I just put it out there for a couple of bucks. Honestly I expected this to come out and maybe a few people play it, and then I'd be onto my next one; to me that was totally cool. Actually this morning I had posted a thread on touch arcade and I got 1 response about how a mom had played the game with her daughter and they both had fun. Really if all the game amounts to is that, I'd be happy. So far though I've been pretty humbled by the response, and all I can say is thanks!
  - ronyeh 13y ago
    If your only goal is to have people play it and have fun, you should make it free but have In-App Purchases. Many more people will end up downloading your game, and it may spread better that way (since it's multiplayer). Now the question is how do you make money with IAP? Maybe keep some awesome game modes locked? Unlock them by getting enough coins (e.g., 100K). You can do this by playing enough, by sharing the app with friends on FB/Twitter, or by purchasing coins through IAP. Good luck!

Mithrandir 13y ago

Main site (link in the description is not working): http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

sciguy77 13y ago

Looks great. Reminds me a bit of Space Team. I'm loving all these new collaborative games coming out.

danpalmer 13y ago

Looks good. I'm wondering why you highlight "Only on iOS" as a specific thing on the screenshots?

Mithaldu 13y ago
At a guess: Many iOS developers have a severe case of blinders on and don't communicate on their websites that their software is iOS only, ever. This does not only affect games, but also productivity software. The end result of that is that in the best case, a person gets to really like a product after having spent time on the marketing copy and when trying to figure out how to buy it for their platform find that they can't and end up despising the company. In the worst case the company uses some intermediary to sell the software, like humblebundle, which means the person can end up paying for the software, only to be told that they can only get an itunes version. I don't know if that's the reason they do it, but in either case i applaud them for it.
- pchristensen 13y ago
  It's also a sign to fans of the Apple aesthetic that it's more "Apple-y" than cross-platform products. See Tapbots vs Evernote for an example. For people that value that aesthetic, "iOS only" is a positive signal.
CaveTech 13y ago
Because true iOS connoisseurs like to know that the developer didn't sell out and support those other platforms.
jheriko 13y ago
its not official but apple will dick you over on a number of things if you ship on other platforms. most specifically the highly valuable 'being featured early on the app store'. from what i've heard they have a secret internal policy of checking to see if you shipped on android before doing that... one of their submission rules is not to mention other platforms in metadata - i'd also take that as a hint that "we like exclusives" - my interpretation of that is that you can't say "also available on Android" - for example. this is not fresh news either, a quick google on the subject reveals a long history of people moaning about this particular problem... if you are shipping a game and do your homework then you will know this.

lowglow 13y ago

Congratulations on the launch! Putting a product out there takes chutzpah. Cheers! :)

ced83fra 13y ago

I love the fact that it's not a 'I am alone, let me play' game. Apps that encourages people play on the same device are a lot better than any others !!

jheriko 13y ago

well done. finishing and shipping a game is no small achievement.

QuasiAlon 13y ago

Good luck! Let us know when the android version is out :)

antr 13y ago

On the App Store: I wished Apple allowed to upload demo videos of the apps, games could really benefit from such medium. Screenshots sometimes aren't the best way to communicate/sell software.

lmacsen 13y ago
Why you don't put in description a link where people can see that demo videos?
euphemize 13y ago
This gives you a pretty good idea of how it looks (video on page) : http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html
taude 13y ago
I haven't used App Store in awhile and appreciate the ability to view videos on the apps in the Google Play store

cocoflunchy 13y ago

Looks great! I'm also building a multiplayer-on-the-same-device iOS game, but I plan on adding a single player mode too. Are you not worried about being multiplayer only? I'd be afraid to cut a large portion of the impulse purchases this way (I won't buy it unless there is someone who can try it with me right now).

CyrusL 13y ago

Cool game! I just set http://www.asteroids.com http://www.asteroids.com to redirect to your app store page for the next couple weeks.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
digitalboss 13y ago
If there was Hacker News Gold, I would've give you some for that excellent gesture. edit: typo
staticfish 13y ago
What a domain! You're a cool guy, guy.
jheriko 13y ago
props for helping the guy out.
lowkeykiwi 13y ago
The simplest gestures are often the best. Well done.
guiambros 13y ago
While the gesture is noble, you may end up hurting him/her in the long run. If media start linking to your domain rather than to the appstore page, he'll have broken links and lost pagerank if/when you decide to do something else with the domain. Having said that, what a great domain!
- AznHisoka 13y ago
  Plus if somehow Google thinks asteroids.com is a spammy domain (for whatever reason), it'll now be associated with his game.
  - clamprecht 13y ago

mion 13y ago

Nice, concise and direct description. Great choice of graphics and screenshots too! Really nice work

callmeed 13y ago

Haven't had a chance to play yet–BUT it looks great and I'm excited to try it later today. Multi-player, single-screen iPad apps are a favorite for me and the kids. For the record, our favorite such apps are: Stratosphere, King of Opera, Achtung, and Raiding Company. I'll report back later tonight.

bazzargh 13y ago

Hey just in case you've not noticed... apple is linking to http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash/ http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash/ from the game description, which is 404ing on your site (should be http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html)

savethejets 13y ago
Thanks for the heads up. I've added a redirect to the proper page!

akoumjian 13y ago

This is actually the first app for iPad that has actually made me want one.

egypturnash 13y ago

Here's some critique of your presentation in the App Store: - Why is there a pause symbol in the middle of every screenshot? - Terrible layout on the corner banners in the screenshot. Play head to head Against your friends! [large top margin] Play with up [no leading between this line and the next] to 4 players on 1 ipad [no bottom margin] - Random placement of text next to the circles in the 'How to Play' screen. Why aren't all of those lines of text centered above/below their circles? Be consistent. And when I click the link to your website, hoping for maybe a video of the game in action, I get served nothing but "Cannot GET /AsteroidSmash/". Wearing my "random browsing of app store hat" my reaction is "okay I'm moving on to another game". ---- After finding the webpage for it and watching the video: Wow this thing looks confusing. I have absolutely no idea what's going on from the video. Blue things moving around in front of a blue background with no contrast of any kind, and four fingers rapidly tapping. And a couple of blocks of text that're close enough to being centered that they look amateurishly off-center.

rockdiesel 13y ago
EDIT: Nevermind. I just saw the second part of your comment where you said you watched the video. ------- "Why is there a pause symbol in the middle of every screenshot?" It looks like it is part of the gameplay. If you watch the video on his website, you can see the pause symbol right in the middle of the screen while gameplay is going on. http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html http://www.codeherdstudios.com/AsteroidSmash.html
ketralnis 13y ago
I really wish Apple would enforce that the screenshots had to be actually screenshots. The markings like in this one make it worse, but it seems like more and more popular games are just putting marketing images there and not bothering to include any game play.
- girasquid 13y ago
  They used to enforce that, but then relaxed the requirement a (year?) ago. Since then there's been a lot more marketing shots instead of screenshots showing up in app listings.

ndemic 13y ago

Congrats - releasing is definitely something to be proud of! Not sure if you want feedback but IMO - the text banners on screenshots feel a bit too low quality and detract from the actual screenshots. Always hard to get this perfect though!

dlsym 13y ago

I really like your 8-Bit graphics approach! But I am a little bit disappointed, that you did not include Bootstrap somewhere.

jmckib 13y ago

Just bought it and played a round by myself (wife promised to play a game with me later). Seems simple, but fun. I can immediately see it would be even more fun with 3 or 4 players rather than 2. I haven't deeply explored the game yet, but having an AI and the possibility of unlocking additional weapons/upgrades would be exciting. Also, I'd love to have online multiplayer or team play (me and a friend could get online and play against another two-player team).

mgkimsal 13y ago

The music reminded me of Gyruss, one of my all time favorites... :)

jonny_eh 13y ago

This would make for a great port to the OUYA.

adinb 13y ago

You need to post a thread on the Touch Arcade forums & also let Eli Hodapp and company know about it. Exposure on TA is a great way to get noticed and get good feedback. Edit: found an existing thread for your game, though it would really help if you posted in the release thread to let everyone know your story and that you're actively soliciting feedback. http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=209686 http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=209686

hkmurakami 13y ago

Really cool game! One quick question before I enthusiastically throw you my money: It the music 8 bit too (like in the video)? :)

savethejets 13y ago
Yup! Actually I also released the soundtrack for free/pay what you want here http://codeherdstudios.bandcamp.com/album/asteroid-smash-ost http://codeherdstudios.bandcamp.com/album/asteroid-smash-ost

hboon 13y ago

Tip: If you haven't, every iOS/OS X developer should sign up as an iTunes affiliate http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/ http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/ and use affiliate links. It is more or less transparent unlike other link wrappers. E.g. a link to the same app with my affiliate account will be https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asteroid-smash/id730150968&at=10l4TP&ct=hn https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asteroid-smash/id730150968&a.... (no you don't have to click on it) There's just 2 additional values. The key thing about this is you can use the campaign tag to track click throughs. It's not about the affiliate revenue.

ronyeh 13y ago
Wow, this is truly a pro-tip. I had never considered it before. Thanks! Plus, if someone buys something from iTunes/AppStore shortly after clicking your link, you end up getting 7% commission.

banachtarski 13y ago

Do you not know how to take a screenshot on an ipad?

shn 13y ago

would you report revenue. I always wonder how much people are making from these games. Of course if you don't mind.

kirualex 13y ago

Kudos to you for completing your game !