Hey folks,
Haven’t really posted very much on these forums so here goes! My name’s Ciaran, I’m actually an animator working in kids tv production but I’ve been playing with Unity for a while now and released my first game a few weeks ago. It’s an industry I’d really like to get into more, it can be frustrating as hell, but so far I’m loving it. Below is my first game, and also a few words about my experience and what I’ve learned from making it.
Circle Square - Fast Paced Reaction Game
Links!
Free Version
Full Version
Facebook
Website
Description: A simple, reaction based game. Goal is to either get the highest score, or in the paid version; to beat the challenge.
Looking at the screenshots you can tell it’s very simple, but you’d be surprised how tricky and frustrating it can be! If you see a circle, tap circle. If you see a square, tap square. The tricky part is that next to the shape will be text which is there to try trick you into selecting the wrong shape. Players seem to fare best when they take their time and play without any distractions around.
My Notes
I wanted to make something really simple to begin with. It’s my first game so I didn’t want to go for something overly ambitious and end up never finishing it, so tried to think of a simple idea and add a little twist to it. It was more about learning how to make a finished game, and to get it on the app store.
Monetizing: I first released a paid version, with no ads or in-app purchases and set it at just $0.99 which I thought was fair enough. I had an idea to include a bonus “Challenge Mode” in the full version, which has a much quicker reaction time and has a little more to it than meets the eye. If beaten the idea was to award the very first player to do so a percentage of the earnings, (perhaps naively) thinking this would help drive sales. Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case (so far) and I would advise against spending the time to do this, the time could probably be better spent on other aspects. It prize still stands though, so far nobody has beaten it!
Eventually I got around to releasing the free version above, and only included rewarded ads to give you an extra go as I didn’t want to be bombarding players with ads. The main hope for the free version is to give players a chance to try out the game and consider buying the full version which is linked from within.
Marketing: I totally underestimated how hard this would be! It takes so much time to post and write about your game. I’m no salesman so in future I think I will definitely get help from someone who knows how to sell on how to write about it. Also, have a free version for people to try.
Feedback: So far feedback has been quite positive. Ratings on the app store while few are good, and feedback from other forums has been great so I’m happy that people have enjoyed it at least!
Sorry for the long post, but maybe it will be of use to another member! If you have any other feedback for me or any questions I’m happy to chat about it
TLDR: First game, feedback good, marketing hard. Sales low but overall happy with it!
