HARDKOUR post-mortum

News & General Discussion
1

Not sure the best place for this, so I’m leaving it here… Its written for reddit, so you have to read all my witty words and stuff as well.

Well, its been just over a year since HARDKOUR was officially released on Android, iOS, and WP8… so I figure its post mortum time. I was going to wait until I got an updated iOS version out, but I changed my mind since its dragging on! Skip to the end if just just want the numbers.

So what is HARDKOUR?

Hardkour is a parkour themed platformer that requires the player to tap the left/right side of the screen to match the upcoming arrow cubes. The catch? You need to put the move in before you hit the cube.

You can queue up multiple moves (and you will need to get past some of the vertical sections) which will speed up game time. You can queue as many moves as you like, making the game run faster.

The level format doesn’t change, so the sequence of moves will always be the same. This is a combination memory/reflex game, although reflexes wont get you far. This seemed to be a negative point when it comes to how gamers want to play. Ill talk about that later.

FUN FACT: The top player of all time managed to beat the game in less than 60 seconds. Its an impressive feat because the player would have known the bulk of the moves ahead of time and would have involved frantic screen tapping from memory. That player played over 500 games. There are currently 187 moves in the game.

What went well

I got downloads. Seems like such a small thing, but its not. Getting downloads is huge, its everything. Without downloads there is no point. I’ve always had that mindset that downloads are more important than profit. Although profit would certainly be nice and keep me interested in improving what I’ve done.

I got two website reviews without paying (well, sort of).

I used a paid service to submit my game to a whole bunch of sites that accept review requests. You can read more details about the service I used here:

http://www.androidb.com/110-app-review-requests/

From that, I got a couple of articles on game review websites including IndieGameMag, and App Apes. This was pretty awesome, and definitely gave me a bump in the downloads department. What the long term effect was is hard to say. The downloads I get (which average about 40-100/day on Android) are most likely to be organic. It seems easier to get downloads on Android, but harder to earn money.

The service was great for me though, as it gave me a large list of contacts that I can use for subsequent games, and he gave me a lot of good advice (which I mostly ignored - well, not ignored, I just didn’t go through with all the suggestions - not because they were bad, just because there was always something else to do).

I recommend this service if you’re getting started and have a semi-decent game on your hands. Don’t bother if you just threw together a flappy bird clone.

These are the articles…

http://indiegamemag.com/hardkour-a-fast-paced-parkour-retro-runner/
http://app-apes.com/2014/12/hardkour/
http://app-apes.com/2014/12/app-apes-top-30-best-indie-games-2014/

Got featured on Windows Phone Store

Im going to use the term featured loosely! By featured what they meant was Hardkour would show up under the new and rising category. While this gave me a big boost on Windows phone, the total downloads is obviously still a long way under Android.

What didnt go well?

Players want a twitch game

One of the big complaints I see in the ratings is that people are confused or dont like the control system. Players expect something different to what I made, so they dont like the game, and I suspect dont give it much of a chance. I hope to resolve this with a new tutorial level, but I suspect that wont quiet the beast. Ill probably need to do a reflex version… I’ve dabbled with the idea.

Mo Money, Mo Problems.

Or something. To date, I’ve made a grand total of $160 ($130 through advertising, $30 through IAP). I enjoy writing games (most of the time), but I really want to get some extra income from them. I didnt get on this bandwagon because of flappy bird. I got on because when I was a kid I wanted to be game programmer. I gave up on that for most of me development career because until the last 5 or so years, it involved some heavy engine programming which I’m not interested in.

I have a regular programming job that pays well, but not well enough when I think of my small human and wife at home. When you take into account the amount of money Ive invested in this hobby… yeah that ain’t pretty. Its worse if I account for my time (think 200k worth of time at my market rate). Obviously this hasn’t all gone into this game. I’ve been dabbling for years and most of that time went into my somewhat stalled passion project. That’s a story for another time though.

Ad Providers

When I released HARDKOUR, I didnt think about this too hard. I found a provider with a Unity SDK and integrated it. The ads looked nice, but there was some things I never considered until recently.

I noticed that the Ad provider I was using didn’t refresh all that often. Its all very well serving 700 ad’s per day, but if its the same 4 ad’s over that period, you are not maximizing potential Ad Profit. Over a period of 3-4 days I saw the same handful of Ads displayed over and over (in fact two weeks later, I’m seeing those SAME AD’s!) The updated version has four providers integrated and I rotate between each so i’m getting a good variety. It also means I have fall back if the fill rate drops off. Mediation is probably a good way to go, but for now I want complete control of display orders/etc.

Ratings

There are two ratings brackets that seem to be important in Google Play. 1-star and 5-star. I’ve got my share of both, and to start with, I took it personally. How can you not? Its your thing, someone tells you it sucks, you wanna tell them their mum sucks (because I’m a giant kid with attitude of course).

I initially responded to some of the 1-star’s - sometimes with underhanded remarks, but after a while I just stopped caring (mostly), cleaned them up and carried on. I think this is the best approach. I honestly feel that people will give you a 1-star rating just because they can. Its a power thing perhaps. Unless a game is a true POS, I don’t think it deserves a 1-star.

But then I don’t think Hardkour is a 5-star game either. I would consider Hardkour a 4-star if anything. I’m not saying its bad, I’m just saying its not amazing.

There is one rating that came through recently that did annoy me…

“Just over He wants money to keep short-lived” 1-star

When I think of those 13 IAP sales, I don’t think of myself as greedy for trying to get $2 out of someone who wants to keep playing my game. If I was making $20-50/month, I would probably be spending more time improving the game, but I’m not, so it seems like a waste of effort. The thing about this also is that you can play the game right to the end without the IAP. Its

Here are some of my favorites I picked out…

“I know how to play”
“Broke my screen and… It took 2 days to fix. I HATE THAT GAME.”
“The game It stupid”

Its not all doom and gloom though, here are some 5 stars!

“The Best I love this game so much I can’t stop playing this badass game” 5-star
“This is best bro”*
“This game is amazing Its so fast but yet so slow, whoever made this game, thankyou”

Faked IAP

It could be the implementation I used for handling my google play services, but I had around 40 or so ‘faked successful IAP’ orders logged to my database. That’s another potential 40 sales I missed. Gosh, that would have tripled my IAP profit :frowning:

On the bright side, I can easily cancel these orders and the game will go back to free mode.

Take that filthy pirates!

Download Summary

Android: 27,000
Windows Phone: 3114
iOS: 654

The stats say it all. The game has done moderately well on Android and Windows phone, but was a real miss with iOS. This is not uncommon as being the most lucrative market, you either swim or you’re a brick.

Hardkour was a brick. I cant tell you what creates a successful iOS app, because I’m still yet to release something that makes a dent in the iOS market, but looking at the quality of games, I would say I havn’t released trash, but its obviously not treasure either.

Although if a single popular video blogger picked it up that could completely change. It seems this is an important step to becoming a viral sensation in the iOS market.

Android Ratings Summary
5: 189
4: 32
3: 34
2: 19
1: 92

iOS
Not enough to show any :frowning:

Advertising summary

Approx: 500-700 / day
Total: $135
Total Ads Served: 145,000

Anyway. If you havn’t tried it, please do… I think its a fun little game with potential.

UTUBE:

DROID: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fingerbait.hardkour&hl=en
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/hardkour/id919039360?mt=8
WP8/8.1: Microsoft Apps

12 Likes
2

Thanks for the recap James, always nice to hear how other indies are doing with their games.

3 Likes
3

30,000 downloads!!!

It’s just too bad that 30,000 downloads doesn’t mean $30,000. What has the app market come to? There was a time when people made money off these games, now people just make games that are as fun as the games people used to make that used to make lots of money.

Great job, man.

4 Likes
4

I hear that! If I made a dollar/download I would be very happy. Id probably be much more focused on finishing more games as well.

2 Likes
5

That’s the part I don’t get or like about the mobile market. It just makes no sense to me that you make a game and based on your rating you should have about 20,000 people who really enjoy it (consider it 4 to 5 stars) and yet you make an amount of money that seems like maybe a few dozen people play your game. Even if only 1,000 people are true fans of the games you’d think you should have made $2,000 at the least. This mobile market seems to be training folks to expect to play games for free. To think that games are basically worthless as far as the players themselves actually paying for their enjoyment playing. I dunno I just think it is a bad thing.

2 Likes
6

Thank you for sharing.

7

Thanks for the insight. I’m currently downloading to check it out. Be interesting to see if the post mortem produces any spike.

It’s not just the mobile market. It’s the entire digital market. Google is free. Facebook is free. Products like Unity are free. Browsers are free. Most web services are free.

It’s no surprise that games are expected to be free too.

(Incidentally the revenue is about consistent with what I’d expect. 1-2 dollars per 1000 plays)

3 Likes
8

Great sharing :slight_smile:

9

Are you running any analytics on the game to see how far players are getting before quitting?

I’ve just downloaded the game and stopped playing after 5 minutes.
I understand the concept of pressing the right side of the screen before getting to a right arrow, but when I get to jumping up the wall, that’s what get’s me every time.

When I bounce onto a wall on the left, which has a right arrow, I tap the right side of the screen just before it, but I still lose a life. I tried not tapping before it, and I tried tapping left. No matter what I do, I lose a life at this point. I tried this about 10 times and couldn’t get past it.

Its certainly not obvious what I’m doing wrong here, and many players might quit at this point (I did).

But other than that the game looks really cool and the animations, art style etc looks good.

I’m not a fan of the sound effect for scoring a point, I think that could sound more ‘rewarding’.
But the other sounds and music seem to fit in fine.

Greg

10

Tap the sequence earlier. As in before you get to the climb.

From memory the sequence is right x 10 left right left right x 5 and so forth.

11

Ok, that isn’t obvious though.

12

Yup. That’s a key take away from the game design. Even knowing this in advance I still got caught up in trying to spam the keys. And trying to time my hits to match the character movement.

13

I am getting the impression that a lot of us are either just starting out, or have only made one game. We shouldn’t be too critical of ourselves on account of our game(s). Maybe we all just need to remember that to find any success we will have to make more games. Can’t expect a homerun on your first time up to bat.

2 Likes
14

To add a little more feedback (after I got the hang of pre-tapping the sequence), I found the difficulty curve way too high after the first wall climb. I would liked to have seen a few simple walls (like you did in the very beginning with the 3 tap to jump sections), and then slowly ramp up the difficulty.

Right now it seems once the walls start, things just get way too hectic too quickly.

You must remember for you as a developer, the game seems so simple and easy, but for new players, it can be daunting, so always err on the side of easy gameplay in the beginning and ramp up things from there in a gradual manner.

15

That’s true for sure. Heck I’d not even go for homeruns period. Just focus on 1-base hits and keep expectations more reasonable. Definitely though the more games made the better. Not necessarily released but made. I’ve made countless games over the years and released maybe 6 of them total.

I still think the mobile market is just weird. $1 to $2 for 1,000 plays? Surely I cannot be the only person who sees something wrong with that picture. Maybe it is because I grew up with 25 and 50-cent arcade game plays. And people can’t say “well these mobile games are no good people don’t enjoy them so that is why they are not worth anything”.

Because although I personally do not like mobile gaming a case like James shows about 60% of the people who tried his game like it. Based on 60% of those who bothered to leave a rating giving it 4 to 5 starts.

So, if you take that for 30,000 downloads which we can basically see as about 30,000 people we end up with about 18,000 people who probably enjoy the game. And just in case I am way off we can cut out 15,000 of them in one grand slice and end up with probably 3,000 people who really like the game.

In my mind making a game that is providing some good entertainment for 3,000 people is worth way more than $160. If 3,000 people rented a movie from Redbox just to get on average 2 hours of entertainment they would spend at least $3,000. And in this case for an item they do not even own and need to return tomorrow or else be charged again.

It makes me think @Kiwasi is correct in that people really are just viewing digital stuff as being near worthless even though they are actually getting satisfaction from spending time with such digital products.

Actually even I value physical products more than digital but not to this degree where I think a “premium” game is one that costs a whopping 99 cents. Something is just wrong with the world is my conclusion. lol

1 Like
16

Thanks for playing and trying it out all. Its a tough game for sure, and the input/learning curve is definitely something that I think has put people off. I need to do a tutorial scene. I’ve released two games ever, and both times I didnt bother putting in a guide on how to play… both times im pretty sure it has bitten me in the ass.

You wont like the fact that a 12 year old was the first to beat the game ;)… It seems kids are a lot better at it, but they have to be around 10+. I had my two nephews play it early on. The older one loved it, the younger one said (and I quote). “that sux”… haha.

Because I wrote it, I have a good idea of the sequence. It gets kind of easy once you know the sequences and the tricks… ie, that first vertical section, I know its 5 up, which is 7 taps.

The lives are kind of pointless in the game. Once you have input several incorrect moves, they will all disappear quickly. I considered changing it so each life loss makes your guy invincible for a few seconds and clears all your moves, but im not sure how well it would work, and it might not pan out if youre in the middle of a vertical section. Im also not convinced its worth the effort considering the returns, but that could one of those situations where changing it turns it into a popular game.

I still intend to release another version with an integrated tutorial to try and improve player experience.

Another thing I’ve decided I probably need to do is put a link to rating the app in the store into the game. I suspect this is why I have low rating counts. Although I want to make sure it has a nice tutorial so im not getting a huge influx of 1-stars because people either didn’t like or couldn’t understand the mechanic. Another common problem was people reading left to right, so they would be putting all the lefts before the rights in the vertical section.

I’ve also considered breaking the level up into chunks of 25 points, and making them individual challenge levels.

As for analytic’s, I have some but not many. I mainly just capture the number of games a user has played (and top score). I recently purged my db, so lost all the old data (not too worried), but atm, I can tell you there are 300 players that have played over 20 games, 113 over 40 games.

1 Like
17

It looks like a niche game, you should have made it for steam because even 3k sales is 30k bucks. they say with IAP only 1…3% of people pay anything for it, so in order to make any money with that model you have to have millions of downloads

Doesnt look worse then alpharunner and that sold 12k units at $4 a pop

http://steamspy.com/app/387840

18

Whats funny is someone with a moderately big youtube channel could make more money doing an LP of the game then he made developing it

1 Like
19

I don’t think you need an actual tutorial. Well designed games often integrate the learning aspects into the early levels instead of having a separate tutorial level. Look at Super Mario Brothers for an example of this, where the first level forces the player to learn basic gameplay aspects without a bunch of text and a dedicated tutorial level.

1 Like
20

wow. this makes me sad. I never really considered putting hardkour on steam… thought nah its too basic… but now im thinking… is it reallllly too basic?

This is also a sad truth!

Yep thats true, but with hardkour you restart at the start every time. Mario was different, you always progressed on to new levels. I would have to know when the player needed guidance and pop up tutorials mid game which i just dont think would work that well with the flow of the game.