[GAME] Alien Outpost using Cocos2d featured in "Hot New Games"

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[GAME] Alien Outpost using Cocos2d featured in "Hot New Games" - promo codes

(12 posts) (8 voices)

Started 2 years ago by nicholasrbb
Latest reply from Aurigan

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nicholasrbb
Member

Hey everyone,

It took me over 4 months and countless hours but I finally got my first app released to the app store. I first started by creating my own 2d engine. Being a computer engineering student creating the engine wasn't going to be an issue, time was. Then I found cocos2d which really speed thing up.

Anyway, my app Alien Outpost was released on thursday of last week, and sales were weak to say the least. But I spent a majority of the weekend promoting my app every where I could think. And the most obvious placed slipped my mind, the cocos2d community!!

So, I could really use some support!! Being independent developers I'm sure you all understand! Anyway I'll post some promo codes and ask that if you are lucky enough to redeem one please give it a good rating and review. Thanks in advance!

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You can also check the game out at http://www.newislandinteractive.com/alienoutpost

or on the app store in the "Hot New Games" Section

Or a direct link http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=335520831&mt=8

Posted 2 years ago #
imrank1
Member

Congrats! Looks really cool! Do you mind sharing how you promoted the application?

Thanks

Posted 2 years ago #
nicholasrbb
Member

Not at all. Basically if you just google "top sites to promote you iphone app" you will get a list of sites that you can summit your app for review. Also there are some sites like prmac.com that let you create an old fashion press release.

But what is really important for us Indie developers is word of mouth. Start some social community groups (facebook and twitter) and just invite everyone you can think of and get them to invite everyone they know. And ask them to rate and review your game!! That's very important.

There is some speculation on releasing a lite version of your game. A lite version is in the works for me now.

Posted 2 years ago #
jd
Member

Looks sweet. Congrats. You don't have any reviews yet though right?

Posted 2 years ago #
jd
Member

Just played the game about 4 times. It's very very hard, especially when super fast missiles come out of nowhere and hit your base and that's after I upgraded the laser and the base. I think you need to make different difficulty levels and make an easier one because I can see people complaining it's too hard. Maybe I'm just THAT BAD, but I was doing well with what upgrades I could afford. You have a split second to shoot those missiles with a swipe motion while getting pummeled by the ball things below. Other than that I like the game, sounds and graphics.

Posted 2 years ago #
blackmouth
Member

Nicholas,
What was your development time and number of people working on this game?
It looks good, and I would love to try it out at some point.

Posted 2 years ago #
Osiris
Member

Yes, Believe JD - Customers are MERCILESS about a game being "too hard" ! :)

Posted 2 years ago #
nicholasrbb
Member

Yeah, I was kind of worried about that. I think the reason is that when I was balancing the game I was getting better and better, so the games first few levels were getting way too boring, but I've passed it several times and a friend of my also passed the game after several tries.

We really wanted skill to play large part, just like old school Arcade games(specifically Donkey Kong). But you are probably right, and making levels of difficulty shouldn't be too hard to implement.

And blackmouth, It was a team of 3, one graphic artist and two programmers. It took us about 5 months working outside of our dayjobs. I'm a computer engineering student so I have a pretty good handle on OOP but had to learn Objective-C. The other programmer works mainly with databases so he had a small amount of knowledge about OOP let alone Objective-C. I had alot of fun making it, It was worth every minute of my time.

Posted 2 years ago #
jd
Member

I figured that's what happened - you get too good at your own game:) My game on easy is way too easy in my opinion, yet many people lose easily.

I would get an easy difficulty in the app store soon because it would be a really fun game. You want to get that in review to deal with any bad ratings.

It's also not obvious how to switch weapons and use the special. I figured it out after the 2nd play.

Good luck :)

Posted 2 years ago #
redsky
Member

hey nicholas,

i just picked up the game on the app store. first off, good job. i play a lot of "defense" games and i have to agree with jd that this one is hard. like, harder than Chinese algebra. i barely passed wave two on my first try. i like the music, too. makes me think of the matrix for some reason.

i would like to be able to shoot some of the aliens projectiles down. it would have contributed towards my survivability :)

Posted 2 years ago #
javy
Member

I have to agree with the game looking nice, playing great, but being way to hard.

It should be easy, at least for the first few levels.

If I see a game on the app store with many reviews saying it's too hard, I won't buy it unless there is a lite version to test first. It sucks to pay for a game that I can't play because the game is too difficult.

Posted 2 years ago #
Aurigan
Member

We found the same issue in developing our first game (Twitch Origins) in that as we developed it we got to be much better than the first time player and earlier levels because too boring. Our game has a per-level speed-up thing going on so what we did was to implement a 'custom game' option where you could choose to start at level 1-9 if you wanted to.

hardcore players get to start at a speedy high-points scoring round, new players get the hand-holding intro they need.

Posted 2 years ago #

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