Changed Perspective. My game IS successful
Community Forums/Common Room/Changed Perspective. My game IS successful
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| Hi folks. Those who've been here a while will know I put a lot of effort into a game called Star Dancer in 2015. For a long time I'd had mixed emotions about its level of success. Some of you have made a number of strong criticisms of it I know-which is easy enough to do. But I now consider the game a resounding success. I've been playing mobile games for years and there arena couple of things that make me pleased as the developer of Star Dancer. 1. I still play it a few times a week after 2 years. For a mobile game that's almost unheard of for me as most games I uninstall after one partial play through and I always rate them. Star Dancer has kept me engaged as far as space combat games go for two years. 2. There are players who enjoy the game. Most of the users on the blitz forum dont like it and that's fine. My metrics show that 80 percent of players are not engaged. But about 12% are highly engaged by the game. That's actually a lot. I may not have a huge installer base but there are a handful of players who love the game. 3. This morning I have a player who as we speak has fought five battles, 3 campaign and two quick battles, who has made full use of the AI settings, who has played for over an hour and thoroughly enjoys the game. 4. There are a handful of players who fought 30 to 40 battles. I'd say they enjoy it. 5. I had a youtube reviewer review the game and give it a high rating back in November 2015. Very pleasing. I'm proud of my effort with Star Dancer and despite a number of nay sayers about it, it has truly thrilled me to bits. I love playing it still and there is a small number of players who enjoy it almost as much as I do. |
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| please post the video review.. |
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| That depends on how you determine what success is. So, it can be either personal satisfaction about been able to deliver game, or how it plays or simply put...money... Thats more/less all about it. And whichever pick is yours, thats what matters. Personally, I slowed down my enthusiasm about games, because of ratio time spent/money earned out of it. Actually, I earned a lot from outsource works I have done for consoles. But I left it because, as much as it pays, its a constant race with time. Instead, I returned to things I did professionally before (electronics/firmware design), and im beating up some nice money doing that while have a lot of time available. I guess you do not living out of games selling, so non money satisfaction/success makes sense. |
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| Instead, I returned to things I did professionally before (electronics/firmware design), and im beating up some nice money doing that while have a lot of time available. Good stuff, I've a love for electronics / software integration myself, although I confess to not having done too much in the way of software and hardware design since my bicycle speed measuring device with magnetic tape, schmitt triggers and a slice of coding within blitzbasic2.1 to display the data. Happy Days indeed.... All pre-GPS - which makes things so 'easy' by comparison. |
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| I'm proud of my effort with Star Dancer and despite a number of nay sayers about it, it has truly thrilled me to bits. I love playing it still and there is a small number of players who enjoy it almost as much as I do. Great your getting some satisfaction from your project, that's what matters and keeps you coming back for more. |
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| Review there you go hardcoal...nice eh. |
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| Looks neat. Wish it wasn't just for mobile though. |
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| Really like the style. |
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| "to be successful" is vague and meaningless, successful about what ? If there are a few players who appreciate your game, and if your main goal was to make a game which is appreciated by a few players, you can be happy about the results... A good gameplay is partly a matter of taste, however i think that a good gameplay is better if it is easy to understand / easy to play, it will be more accessible (and less frustrating) if it is easy to understand what is going on, what are the goals, and how to controls/interface with the game. Always keep in mind that not everybody knows what you know, hence the necessity for help screens/hints... |
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| Success is the quantity of people who like it. If you had like million downloads i would call it success. The money factor is another issue, but its not an indicator of success in this case. |
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| Actually hardcoal and remid you are on a semi right track. @hardcoal and remid. I defined success when i built and released the game in 2015 as acquiring 15 thousand paid users. Not a million. I would have considered it a financial success had i had that many. Even ten thousand would have been 'ok'. I based my estimates off similar types of games in the play store that had those kinds of results. My estimates to my thinking seemed fair and reasonable. Over time i learned to revise down my measure of what i called success based on the reality i saw. Instead now i am merely happy when i can see through my metrics a player gain satisfaction from my game. The meyrics are detailed enough that i can sense when a player enjoys it. So my metric for success has come down from 15k users to whenever 1 user every few months really enjoys it. |
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| I really like some of the 3d ship design you have. Would be great to have your input and thought about the styles and concepts you use? |
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| What i find funny, is that with the same theme, and the same "assets" (meshes and textures and effects), i would make a completely different game (like starlancer) So, as i said, concerning the gameplay, each his own tastes... |
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| @AdamStrange: ships were purchased from turbo squid all by an artist called AngryFly. He has a collection of over 100 ships. I looked for those that fitted together well since many of them were unique. I designed with a ww2 theme in mind..allies, germans, japanese, russians and italians. Originally it was supposed to be ww2 in space with no alien races just different human themed factions. Most of that idea doesnt come through in the final design very clearly but if you look hard enough you can get a sense of it. The free version had just the allies and german factions. The full had all of them. |
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| very interesting. I can see where your money went now. thanks for that one. it gives me a concept to think about. Checking out AngryFly's stuff there are image of the untextured models showing very low poly and the general make up which is brilliant |
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| Matty did you use Blitzmax-NG and miniB3D - oppenB3D ? This looks good and the gameplay is interesting. With 15 thousands copy sold you can consider it a success I think. |
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| Thanks Flanker. Unfortunately I had 30 copies sold. 15k was my goal though. Fell a little short. I used java, php and wrote my own opengl shaders. Blitz3d was used for prototyping parts of it and generating explosion sprites which i posted my method in the code archives. |
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| Oh...I was at my parents on Saturday - they have a large TV that I can mirror from my phone...boy I love running my game on their TV - looks and sounds so impressive on the big screen....pretty amazing...nothing on mobile looks quite as cinematic as this...I'm pretty amazed by the quality for mobile....I'm heavily biased though! |
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