Synesthetic, the App Store and making a living

[Alex Dantis]

Originally Posted by Echoseven

If you had waited a month after the game was approved, the game would not have been featured on the App Store's "recently released" tab. Thanks to that, it's not likely to have been featured by Apple too. They choose games (mostly from that list) from either the current, or the previous week.

Hopefully that shines a little light on your situation.

Ouch. Somehow I never thought about that. Talking about shooting yourself in the foot.

@Bigmac1910 Thanks for the feedback. I guess it's a bit late to redo the trailer but for any future projects I'll try to remember what you said. Shooting trailers for tilt games can be quite a challenge. As for the fps problem: to me that video still looks incredibly choppy.

@ken1980 These are the reasons why I was afraid the press might ignore me, what surprised me was that even though they featured me (and most actually appreciated what I did) this didn't really translate into sales. Somehow I imagined if you get this far you at least break even. Now I feel like I dropped the ball right at the end.

[Wizardo]

I'm thinking the way the iOS store is now, it's really more of a lottery with slightly better odds. The good thing about development is that at least you're building your skills up and have something cool to show for your efforts. That should help you should you ever decide to freelance or work for someone else. But then again, maybe you'll strike it rich. So tempting.

Your game does look really cool though.

[Greyskull]

You mentioned Beat Hazard...Beat Hazard was available on Steam (and possibly XBLA; it's now also available on PSN and might have been before its iOS release) long before it arrived on ios. I won't go into details of your particular game at the moment because I haven't slept in a few days and I'm having trouble constructing cogent sentences, but there is a valuable lesson for indie devs/self publishers: if at all possible, don't develop an iOS game, develop a game, allow it to build a following, AND THEN port it to ios. Whether it be Steam, Dasura, XBL, Kongregate, what have you. Your game, if successfull on alternate platforms, will have a built in fan base; will already be known to the gaming world at large (if it isn't ****); will have been heavily play tested already; and, most importantly, will have a name at least some people will recognize as they browse the AppStore. Taken together, you can end up with a more polished, play tested and proven product that will have an edge in getting over the "hump", the first thousand or so DL's necessary for someone who isn't an obsessive-compulsive app shopper to notice that your game exists.

[MrBlue]

All is not lost.

Take the game, repackage, and rerelease.

1. Get another icon. Spend some money and get a pro to give you something awesome.
2. Incorporate features based on suggestions. You'll have to weigh if it's worth your time.
3. As suggested, use hip-hop or pop for your video trailer.
4. Re-release into the Entertainment category.

Alternatively, I'm not sure why you didn't put in a cute character and have it run along the path. It looks very sonic the hedgehog type game to me. Re-tune the graphics to get a more cartoony feel to it. Prominently feature the character in the game. This alone could get you a brand new game with relatively minor changes to the code.

The engine is the most valuable part here. At the absolute worst, you can license it to interested and more experienced parties who will get an awesome icon, redo the graphics, figure out the target audience, refine the sales pitch, and put it up on the store.

[RevolvingDoor]

I think that an ideal design has to be created in response to a need that the market has. It also has to be created around a revenue-generating strategy. "If it's good, it will get noticed" is a very outdated mantra.

You made what looks like a great product, but it has a much smaller audience than the textbook app store hit. In order to really enjoy the game, it seems like you would want to pay attention to both the sound and whatever is happening on-screen. That already rules out every kid who wants to play a game in class for five minutes because he's bored, everyone waiting at an airport/train station/etc. It seems like the best time to play this game would be when you're relaxing at home... But in that case, your game is competing against every other form of entertainment available there.

So, if you want to make profit with this game, you either have to figure out how to spread the word among the people most likely to buy your game, or sell the source code off to someone else. Sad as it may be, my next project will be designed around its marketing and plans for revenue generation, and not vice versa.

[p3gstudio]

Spending too much time on a game is just suicide, the market is so saturated now, and people just want more of the same, angry birds?. Look how many games even with a big budget for advertising had never reach the charts.

I also like to remember the case of "Temple run", they strove hard, I remember watching it's itunes page just with some few reviews when it was paid, and look at what it's now.

Only thing that I can say, is that for most of us, working one or two persons it's too difficult to perform all the functions required, sometimes you are so tired that even when you know your trailer or your banner or whatever is "not so good", you just want to check it as done on you list and move to the next thing, an that's not going to help you.

Sometimes you need to realize that things are not going to improve and move on, or stick to them and accept their consequences, good or bad.

[Alex Dantis]

@p3gstudio @RevolvingDoor Actually I would recommend every developer to steer clear of "cute" games. Disney, Rovio and a couple Chillingo studios have that market cornered. If you go on Audiosurf's forum there are about 10 threads where people ask for it to come to IOS. Personally, when I go on the subway, I plug my earphones in and tune-out and I'm sure there are plenty like me (I see them every time I get on the tube). I would rather target a niche audience with an original product than target an established market with something unoriginal (I bet if you add up the number of downloads for Agent Dash, Subway Surfers and TheEndApp, all of these great games with a lot of work put into them, you still won't go anywhere near Temple Run). I would also add that unless you have a lot of experience and a really good team you can't make a great game in under 6 months (but it would probably take much longer).

After reading your messages it appears that my two greatest mistakes have been waiting a month after approval (I still can't believe this is how the featuring process works) and not presenting my work in a good enough manner and to the right people. Maybe there's still time to fix these.

@Greyskull The problem is that XBLA is way to expensive (50,000$ just to release a patch) +you need to get noticed by Microsoft, I bet PSN has similar problems, on XBLIG you have even less exposure than on the App Store and I wouldn't touch Flash games with a 10 foot pole (very technically limited and not much chance to build something really new + again, a very saturated market + no chance at all to monetize until you port to another platform). Practically, we're left with Steam and the App Store and there are already two great music games on Steam. Also I would really like to hear your (and everybody else's) opinion on the game.

I was very surprised that a lot of people have said the game isn't "gamey" enough. I'm not really sure how I got here since games like Boost have practically the same game mechanics (except for flux mode which is a lot more complicated). I already know that I should give more feedback to the player when he gets good results (make the menus more "juicy") but I think there is more to this so if anybody could please explain and maybe give some suggestions I would be very grateful.

[RevolvingDoor]

When I'm talking about products that the market wants, I definitely don't mean that you should limit yourself to "cute" games. What I mean is, this is a mobile market. You have to think in terms of players with iPhones.

When are they going to play your game?
How much attention will they want to dedicate to your game?
What span of time will they typically dedicate to your game?
How often will they run your app?
Will they want to invest any money beyond the admission price, and if they will, is there an easy way for them to do so?

In short, who are these people that you are trying to sell to?

Your game probably works perfectly for the player who wants to tune everything out and listen to music on some sort of trip, but who else? How do you inform ALL of those music-loving subway riders that your game exists, or, failing that, how do you broaden your audience?

Being an indie developer in this day and age means that you should try to anticipate these things, IMO, and build your game around them. Starting with a great idea, trying to make a great game out of said idea, and expecting that sales will just sort themselves out is way too risky.

[Connector]

Synesthetic Game Analysis
By Connector, August 5th 2012

Market Analysis:

There are two similar games out there in the market, Boost 2 $1.99 and Supersonic Free with hd version at $1.99. Synesthetic is $1.99.

All games are similar 3d motion runners with the ability to use itunes music; Synthesthetic has more music visualizer aspects than the other games.

Release Analysis:

Released on July 18, 2012 for $1.99. I saw game previews on two major websites (I think it was appadvice and toucharcade, but I don't remember). So publicity was pretty good for a small indie project.

No mention on Apple's news and noteworthy which was a killer. If this game was released 30 days after approval, and this was a factor in not being in the top lists, it is a shame. That would have totally hurt the game sales on this game.

A positive for the game is that it has a lite version. This game really needs a lite version because it is not a typical arcade game.

Game Notes:

Game has very nice graphics on my new ipad. The music integration is good and game concept is very sound.

Recommendations:

1. Change the game icon. On my new ipad, the icon is not retina, and the graphics seem very low resolution. The track line looks too thin like a string, and words "lite" look almost hand drawn, not professional.

2. The track is way too bumpy. I couldn't figure out if the track moves according to music, or it is designed that way, but I think the track feels right now like a rough rollarcoaster. In fact, I almost get motion sickness playing the game. Boost 2 and supersonic are totally smooth, with Boost 2 being the winner for smoothness and perception of speed.

3. The name is too hard to remember and spell. Even after typing all this, I can not still remember the spelling which is killer in the appstore since it is hard to search anyway there. It is too late to change your name, but I would think this would play a factor in people finding your game.

4. When playing the lite version, first time played with a default song, after that I couldn't figure out how to play the default again. It seems to force me to use my itunes library. Don't know why this happens, but I know on Supersonic, the default music plays much better since it is synced more with the game. Maybe your lite version should have a time limit instead and open all songs or modes.

5. Change this game to landscape mode. It is hard to play a motion game in portrait mode on both the iphone and ipad due to how you hold them. It would be nice to play this game in landscape mode.

6. Maybe make the music visualization more like Beat Hazard with the background glowing and flashing, then the way it is now.

7. There are 2 color schemes now. It would be nice go have two more, one a 3d vector one like Supersonice, and a black and white with some color one.

8. Probably should lower the price to 99 cents. Both Supersonic hd and Boost 2, run at $1.99, and I hate to say this, but I enjoy both more. While I think the graphics in this game are better, due to the above points I think the other games are better. This game has a lot of potential, but if developers want to price their games at the same price, they really need to make sure their games are almost twice as good since the existing games have an advantage already with a good reputation..

Conclusion:

This game has a lot of potential with some game changes and price reductions. I love games like Boost 2 and Supersonic, and I am usually first in line for games like this. Hopefully, some of these comments will help, and I'm not trying to beat a dying dog with a dead stick, cause you seem kind of down right now.

Good luck with your game, and keep at it, don't get discouraged.

[Alex Dantis]

Originally Posted by Connector

1. Change the game icon. On my new ipad, the icon is not retina, and the graphics seem very low resolution. The track line looks too thin like a string, and words "lite" look almost hand drawn, not professional.

Are you sure about this ? All the graphics are at retina resolution (including the icon), I've checked and double checked. As for the rail it's supposed to take up most of the width of the device (in portrait) otherwise you wouldn't see too much (and it wouldn't look like a rail anymore).

Originally Posted by Connector

2. The track is way too bumpy. I couldn't figure out if the track moves according to music, or it is designed that way, but I think the track feels right now like a rough rollarcoaster. In fact, I almost get motion sickness playing the game. Boost 2 and supersonic are totally smooth, with Boost 2 being the winner for smoothness and perception of speed.

The game syncs with the music. Bumpy music=bumpy track. This is the game's main feature and most seem to agree that it works well. Neither boost nor supersonic do this (Supersonic actually falsely advertises this).

Originally Posted by Connector

4. When playing the lite version, first time played with a default song, after that I couldn't figure out how to play the default again. It seems to force me to use my itunes library. Don't know why this happens, but I know on Supersonic, the default music plays much better since it is synced more with the game. Maybe your lite version should have a time limit instead and open all songs or modes.

There is no default track. There is only a tutorial song so that you have a chance to practice a bit before choosing the most intense/bumpy song in your library (like everybody else does). Your music is supposed to take center stage here. And again Supersonic does not sync with the music.

Originally Posted by Connector

5. Change this game to landscape mode. It is hard to play a motion game in portrait mode on both the iphone and ipad due to how you hold them. It would be nice to play this game in landscape mode.

Unfortunately, I've already tried to do landscape support and it didn't work at all. The two possible outcomes were: either a fat guy on a tight rope (you would either clip through or hit most obstacles) or a very zoomed in pov in which case the rail would take up most of your view and the lack of visibility would make the game unplayable.

I appreciate your feedback and I hope I don't sound overly defensive. The simple fact that we are having this conversation means I messed up somewhere. Hopefully I'll manage to improve it with future updates.