Cricket Words Mid-Mortem

[teoma]

You could communicate your game better. I go on the appstore, I see an icon that's a chalkboard with a x in a circle. The game is called "Cricket Words". What does a chalkboard have to do with crickets? How are words involved? I'm confused, onto the next game. (one of the other 80 games submitted THE SAME DAY)
http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/

You have about 500 milliseconds to sell the game to me. Say something simple, and show a picture of that thing.

Cut the Rope (it's a rope, you cut it)
Angry Birds (it's birds, and they're angry)
Doodle Jump (it's a doodle, it jumps)
Plants vs. Zombies (plants fight zombies)
Cricket Words (???)

Add in a cute character icon that fully communicates the theme of your game. People's eyes are drawn to faces more than anything else.

Compare your icon and screenshots to Hanging with Friends. Which one would you buy?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cricket-words/id468205701?mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hanging-with-friends-free/id440786655?mt=8

You have a great game so far, you just need to get people past the "icon barrier". Once you get alot of people to download and play it all your time and hard work spend on development will start paying off.

[jeremy.provost]

Originally Posted by Bigmac1910

the screenshots in iTunes, look incredibly dull, like a blackboard with chalk, reminds me of school. (Not fun).

I hate to keep going back to this, but do you feel like Words with Friends looks a lot better based on their screenshots in the Store? I guess they do the thing where the screenshots aren't purely screenshots but incorporate informational stuff. I don't disagree with your point, though. Do you have any suggestions on how to make the screenshots better without actually changing the game? Or is the suggestion basically just "your UI is dull so you need to change everything"? No offense taken, just honestly trying to narrow it down.

If you look at other successful apps, they are colorful, have particle FX and stars flying everywhere etc. While one thinks that a word game shouldn't need it, from my perspective that is exactly what is needed. So that even costumers who are not into these kind of games, (like me) will at least download and try it, just because it looks fun and maybe even enjoy it.

Interesting point. Again, it seems like there are some very successful word games out there that don't do this sort of thing. Words with Friends for one. SpellTower is another that comes to mind. I actually think SpellTower is a very nice looking game but it doesn't have this sort of stuff.

Another thing would be advertising, I know that some developers don't believe in it, but how will people find your app if they don't know it exists.

Our problem is that we always kept delaying. We could always convince ourselves to wait one more version and then one more version. Does anyone have experience in advertising in Words with Friends? If we're going to do it we really want to put our money somewhere that it'll find us a very specific audience that matches our prospective audience.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to leave this feedback.

[teoma]

I hate to keep going back to this, but do you feel like Words with Friends looks a lot better based on their screenshots in the Store? I guess they do the thing where the screenshots aren't purely screenshots but incorporate informational stuff. I don't disagree with your point, though. Do you have any suggestions on how to make the screenshots better without actually changing the game? Or is the suggestion basically just "your UI is dull so you need to change everything"? No offense taken, just honestly trying to narrow it down.

Your UI looks great. It's just that screenshots of the UI alone don't communicate how fun the game is to play. The Words with Friends marketing very heavily emphasizes the social aspect.

Like, take this screenshot here:
http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r1000/110/...320x480-75.jpg
Compare to the similar promo still from Words with Friends:
http://a5.mzstatic.com/us/r1000/060/...320x480-75.jpg

Having photos of real people would help, especially if you add in text saying "Play up to X games with all your friends" or some such thing.

Play up your USP, especially if you're advertising on Words with Friends. Like this:

In order to avoid the cheating that is rampant in Words with Friends (one of our main gripes with that game) we added a timer. Once you start your turn your letters are revealed and you have 45 seconds to make up to 3 words max.

Say that^^^ But in less words. And show a picture of it. Think of all the ways your game is better than Words with Friends (or other similar games), and have a picture for each of them.

[Simengie]

I looked at your game and I have a few suggestions.

Icon
While a lot of people would get the circled X as a cricket score your version looks like rat balls. Yes I had to stop and really look at it to get what it was and I play dart cricket all the time.

Short Description
This is the first two line-ish of your description that shows in iTunes without having to be expand anything. This is the must be right text to have any chance. Quotes about addictive told me nothing. In short you are wasting that first impression after people get by the Icon.

Using quotes as openers comes off as lazy. It says I will just use was others have said about the game vice us telling you what it really is about. You are better off using your limited Short Description to capture people yourself.

Screen Shots
People are correct in saying that after Icon and Short Description that people go to your screen shots. They may be of game play but the game play looks boring. So this is where the promo style art at 960x640 with a smaller screen shot and text. Maybe a character with text bubble telling you what is going on. At least the first two screen shots need to POP! at people as they are again the ones for Portrait that are visible without having to scroll.

No matter how good your game is you have to get people to click install. And that can be as simple as Icon, Short Description and First Screen Shot. Otherwise you can try pulling teeth.

My experience with Icons tells me that just changing the Icon can double or triple downloads. I Re-ordered my screen shots so that my high energy fast action ones were first on one game and doubled the downloads on it. Got writing help for a game description that I was struggling with and again saw downloads go up.

And lastly, Keyword optimization to improve discover-ability.

[jeremy.provost]

Originally Posted by teoma

... screenshots of the UI alone don't communicate how fun the game is to play. The Words with Friends marketing very heavily emphasizes the social aspect.

...

Say that^^^ But in less words. And show a picture of it. Think of all the ways your game is better than Words with Friends (or other similar games), and have a picture for each of them.

I totally see what you're getting at. Very good suggestions. And fortunately something that can be corrected relatively easily. Thanks for your help.

[jeremy.provost]

Originally Posted by Simengie

I looked at your game and I have a few suggestions.

Thanks for taking the time to look and give feedback.

While a lot of people would get the circled X as a cricket score your version looks like rat balls. Yes I had to stop and really look at it to get what it was and I play dart cricket all the time.

I laughed pretty hard on that one. Yes, we could use a better icon. We were actually discussing this tonight before I read your post, but I guess that seals the deal.

Short Description ...

Really good point. Actually, I don't know how I didn't notice this earlier. In fact, I have already gone into iTunes Connect and removed those two lines. What's left could still be written better, no doubt, but at least it's improved for the moment.

And lastly, Keyword optimization to improve discover-ability.

Here is what we currently have:

cricket, cut, throat, dart, cheat, words, build, multiplayer, friends, with, word, friend, social

I think I heard that you can leave out plurals now. Is that true?

[teoma]

It may be just me, but I personally have never heard of Cricket (the dart game) before seeing this thread. I had to look it up on the Wikipedia. (I'm not sure whether or not I should be embarrassed by that... I'm from New York, is Cricket popular here? )

Even if you keep the exact same gameplay, some rebranding might help you reach a broader audience. (i.e., people who don't know what Cricket is, but who love social/word games)

[teoma]

Oh, and I've said this already, but FACES. Try and find an excuse to put pictures of faces everywhere you can. Photos of people, cartoon characters, anything. People's eyes tend to focus on faces and relatively disregard other types of visual stimuli. Showing people (or cartoon characters) having fun playing your game will go a long way in making your game look fun.

[jeremy.provost]

Originally Posted by teoma

It may be just me, but I personally have never heard of Cricket (the dart game) before seeing this thread. I had to look it up on the Wikipedia. (I'm not sure whether or not I should be embarrassed by that... I'm from New York, is Cricket popular here? )

Cricket is popular amongst people who play darts ... so probably not very popular.

[teoma]

Yeah, by making the theme of your marketing "Wordgame with Cricket Rules", you're making a Venn diagram of "people who play darts" and "people who play mobile word games". It's going to be a smaller market than just "people who play word games".

Instead of emphasizing 'cricket', it would help if you emphasize the benefits of your product over others, like 'no cheating', 'fast paced, edge of your seat gameplay', ect. Then do everything you can to communicate those things - with your game art, your icon, your screenshots/marketing pieces. Even take small things that make your game marginally better than others, and really blow them up for your marketing.

Like I said, your game is great so far, but you deserve alot better sales than you're getting now.. you just need to reach your market a bit more.