Hi @all, We are in the final developements stage of our first game and now is the turn of icon design. We have achieved a good result(we hope), but your opinion will be more than welcomed. Thanks
Good effort, it could probably use some shininess effect. Maybe a tad bland though? A little more colour in there wouldn't hurt either. What type of game is it? Perhaps you should look at games which are similar and see how to make your icon stand out from theirs I've noticed a good icon can help to make a very good impression and help with sales (our Puzzle Moppet game icon is a very good example of that unfortunately, sales have been terrible )
Not a bad icon, but I have some feedback: My impression after seeing this icon is that the game might be a card / tile based game, where you put different tiles together to form a landscape. You've shown terrain rather than a character, so I assume the land is more important than any controllable character (if there is one). Personally, I feel like there's too much emphasis on the wooden background ...and you're not trying to sell wood. If this is a tile-based game, then showing two tiles might convey that better. I also agree with the above feedback that it looks a little flat, with muted colors, rather than exciting. The icon needs to encourage people to buy the game.
I agree with Red1, the wood is taking up a lot of real estate in the icon. My first impression, without knowing anything about the app, is that this is some kind of board game with terrain tiles. If that is what this App is about then you have succeeded. If you are trying to send another message or if it is a board game but you want to convey a little more info about it in the icon then let us all know and maybe we can help out.
Really thanks for yours feedback! Yes, the game is a boardgame and the tile are more important than the characters. Now i'll try to add more emphasis and some "aggressive" color.
I'm surprised no one else has said it, so I will: Carcassonne. Anyhow, it looks great...but I mean it REALLY looks like Carcassonne.
I'm a great player of Carcassone, maybe one of the best iOS games(naturally also the real board game), but our game has a TOTALLY different gameplay. This is only a tile from pirates theme, waits to see our steampunk theme! The similarities may be due to the fact that both games feature the hand-painted tile... Thanks
Hi Johan! What's the game called? Might help to know. A good test for an app icon is to add your proposed icon to your website as a .ico file, then save a bookmark to your site on your phone. It's an easy way to get the icon onto your phone desktop. See what it looks like small, and next to other icons. Does it stand out? Or does it fade into the background? You need a really strong, eye-catching image to grab casual browsers on the app store. And I say this from experience. Our first icon: 20,000 downloads. Our second icon: Over 1m downloads. It's not all down to the icon, but I think that once we started to catch fire, it made a big difference. While I think your icon gets across the subject well, I don't think it will shrink well, and I think it'll struggle to pull in non-board game fans. I'd go for something a little more, well, iconic! It's not so much about representing the game, as selling your game.
@BigIdeas Thanks for your feedback! Now we'll try to add some color, remove some wood and "abstract" more. The name? Dedaloop!
Take inspiration from Apple: keep it simple. Start with the simple root idea, then and something special. I woud definitely remove the square-within-a-square look. And detail and clarity of theme and purpose.
One trick I use when looking at icons and graphics. Take the 512x512 and shrink it down to the size that it'll be used on a standard screen iPhone or iPod. How much impact does it have? Can you see any of the detail at that size? Show it to people who haven't seen it before and ask them what it is? If they can't recognise what the icon is, it probably needs more work. It is possible to have very detailed icons in a small size and still know what's in them - Pocket God is a great example of that, but generally keeping it simple and making it striking is the best option.
Great suggestions here. The square-within-a-square is a good candidate for removal. Try to figure out a core element of the game - if there is a protagonist (and they are of a simple design), they might look good (the same goes for a main "enemy," if there is one). Assuming it is different from Carcassonne but also a board-game, I'd maybe think about including something core to that - like for D&D, I'd make an icon maybe of a D6 with a dragon on one of the sides. So think about what elements feature prominently in the gameplay.
