Advice: how to improve my iPhone game?

Hi. This looks cool. Maybe have a mixture of things to shoot. Maybe hearts come down with bubbles also. Some other things. Maybe a bonus package that gives u 10 pts

 

"Gold and Coal" as I call it.
Every game needs a reward and a punishment.

1. Throw some Ruby red apples in there that extend your time. If you hit them, you get a little more time on the clock.
2. Throw some broken hearts in there that take away points from your score. Same color as regular hearts but with a crack down the top to center.
3. Rock shaped hearts that break your arrows and take away arrows from your quiver.
4. Make these so that they are defined but require that second look to make sure. Don't be cheap and make them just a degree or two lower on the color palette, but a rusty heart shaped rock that is iron rust red with some grey compared to a red heart next to a ruby red apple that looks almost heart shaped coming down together should make a player have that "wait a second" moment!

-art direction: bubble the shapes to give them and sense of dimension. As it stands the hearts look flat but with just a little time editing the art assets you can give the hearts a more rounded, bubbled pronounced look that will be visually pleasing

-pastel up your palette: it is a simple game with simple design but that doesn't mean it has to look it or take a lot of time and effort to make it look better. Proper use of popping colors goes a long way!

-Background: need I say more? You need something that not only moves and flows but also looks good to the eye but works to give the game a sense of motion as well. A moving background can even work to make a game feel more challenging just because of the varying eye acuity needed to track what they need to pay attention to and what can be used to distract them.

Good luck!

 

Or the contrary, you can strategize and hinge on luck and play well past the 60 seconds, and keep yourself in the game far longer with some calculated shots while keeping an eye on the score, the time and the objects falling! Of course this might take your original design concept in the opposite direction you intended the game to end when the player runs out of arrows. You could still stick with that design. You could also go in the opposite direction and have it so that it takes several seconds to regenerate an arrow, so the payer can opt to go for a item that scores a bonus (leap-frogging off the bubble bonus idea of the other poster) or hit the object that gives them more arrows. So a player can pluck away his arrows rapidly, and then bite nails waiting as the seconds tick by for his once good arrow to restock. Heck you could have a limit of say three arrows restock, over a course of say 3 seconds per arrow (any additional and they have to either have them at start or earn them as bonuses through the session they play)! Just throwing ideas at you...


In any case, make sure you write all your ideas down, flesh them out and try to establish a design doc. Basically, if you can establish all the rules and play your game with a pen and a piece of paper and some math, have all of your objects, goals and in game mechanics and entities established clearly, then you have yourself a design doc.


Asking for ideas is a great start when stuck, but ultimately you want to make sure you take all those ideas and have them in one place to reference to so that when you look at them, you know right away they work with the direction of your game or not! Again, good luck, you can do it!


Edit: as an aside, I have worked in the video game development and pen and paper RPG industry as well (past tense). When you start asking about gameplay on a mechanics level, the hamster wheel starts squeaking!

 

It's such a basic game wi little content.. What you see is what you get and people can see that by the screen shots. The gameplay clearly doesn't evolve much.. And after just one flick of a finger you've already seen everything the game has to offer.
I'd suggest winning players over with comedy instead.

Can you allow the users to upload a photo of their ex boyfriends face to shoot instead of the hearts? If your using game salad I would probably assume that's impossible to do.l but I can imagine alot more people would be interested in the game if you added some sort of novelty like that to it..

Maybe instead you could just have a bunch of pre selected imagines that players can choose. Like pictures of certain things/people that people might want to shoot. Though that might infringe copyright.. That's why uploading your own photo would be good.


If that's not possible just make the graphics a bit more polished to start with.. Graphics are immensely important. And I wouldn't pay for a game if I could see that in the screen shots... I wouldn't download it for free either, but Im not into those types of games so I'm sure others interested in the genre would though.

 

It wouldn't be bubble with a heart inside it would be like bubbles as something you can shoot with and then hearts as something else you could shoot. I was just suggesting other things you can put in to shoot at rather then just hearts

 

The comment on a design doc wasn't meant as a jab or sleight; I just want to make sure you know I wasn't trying to be snide or insult. I have just seen quite a few young and new developers who have no idea about making or even having a designs doc, which is why I am quick to mention it! Sorry if that may have came off as assuming; I just wanted to forewarn!, not chastise! Unfortunately, there is no formal class that I know of that teaches one how to make them, or at least none when I was doing this, so it is something one has to learn, and definitely helps keep a team on track when working with others! Again, glad to help and good luck!

 

No problem. Glad to help