[Game] BLOCKOBAN « cocos2d for iPhone

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[Game] BLOCKOBAN

(36 posts) (12 voices)

Started 2 years ago by jptsetung
Latest reply from jptsetung

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jptsetung
Member

It's almost completed and I've just uploaded a trailer on youtube. Feedback on the trailer is welcome. I wanted it to be fast but maybe it's too fast ?

Here are the features :
* 920+ high quality hand made levels (designed by the bonuslevel.org community during 2 years)
* 3+ skins
* A solution is provided for most of the levels
* 5 categories (kids,easy,medium,hard,big maps)
* Unilimited undo
* Random map generator (5 difficulties)
* Time attack mode (5 difficulties)
* Save/Resume state (when quiting the game or answering a phone call)
* Management of 6 local players (skin settings, scores, level progression, save/resume game)
* Exclusive soundtrack
* Online (Flash based) level editor ( http://www.bonuslevel.org/games/game_blockoban_4.html )
* Plus+ enabled

Here is the trailer :

Posted 2 years ago #
mobilebros
Moderator

Wow looks addicting, nice job.

Posted 2 years ago #
Steve Oldmeadow
Administrator

I must admit I was a bit dubious about a Sokoban game before seeing the trailer. That looks awesome though, looks like there are some nice twists.

Why did you go with Plus+? I know Moonlights was OpenFeint.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

I'm also dubious about how this game will work on the store because it's the opposite of a tower defense game or a zombie game, which are the best sellers. But I wanted to try this kind of game anyway so here it is :). Its strength is the 920 levels, which means days, weeks, months of gameplay (if you really want to solve all the levels).

I've selected the Plus+ network because most of the beta testers I'm working with, wanted Plus+. There are 2 other reasons I selected Plus+ :

1) Plus+ is not only a social game network, but also a quality label. Players know that a Plus+ logo on a game is synonym of nice quality. The Plus+ team selects the games they want to work with, and they review your game before you can submit to Apple (luckily, they review the games much more quickly than Apple does).

2) The SDK is much more lightweight than the OpenFeint SDK. I don't want to reach the 10M limit that forces iPhone users to be connected to Wifi before they can download the app.

Posted 2 years ago #
bradparks
Member

hey @jptsetung! Blockoban looks great! Good work.... I'm especially interested in the levels/level editor.... I assume from browsing bonuslevel.org that you are "jp", right:

http://www.bonuslevel.org/users/profile_1.html

So it makes sense of course that you can use the Flash levels/level editor from your own games (Moonlights,Blockoban) in the iPhone versions of your games...

Never having seen BonusLevel.org before makes me wonder the following:

- Just say someone here wants to build games using BonusLevel.org's editors/community for their iPhone only game... Would that be allowed?

- I assume you've rebuilt your Flash based game engine in the iPhone, and it just uses the levels you've created for your Flash stuff, right? But are there any tools (e.g. haxe or something like that) that you're using to simplify this process of writing a web and iPhone version of the same games?

Thanks!

Posted 2 years ago #
Codemattic
Moderator

Blockoban is a fun game - and the touch/swipe interface will make even more sense than the click/drag interface.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

@Codemattic, yes it plays much smoother on the touch device than with a mouse. That's also a reason why I ported this game on iPhone.

@bradparks, yes I'm jp on bonuslevel. Yes why not using the BL api and community for an iPhone game only. For BLOCKOBAN, the editor/game is the same for Flash and iPhone version because the gaemplay is identical. For Moonlights, I created an iPhone only editor because the gameplay is different from the web version.
I didn't used haxe but I have a couple of objective C classes that allows to download a level saved with the web level editor, decompress it, and unserialize it. If you decide to make a BL level editor for your iPhone game, I will share this objective C code with you.

Posted 2 years ago #
bradparks
Member

@jptsetung: Thanks for the info.... I'm going to talk this over with the other guy I'm working with and see what he thinks.... thanks again, and congrats... looks like you've been doing game dev for quite some time!

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

BLOCKOBAN just got approved by Apple (11 days). It's free (try&buy). I will PM promo codes for full version for those who are interested in it.

http://bit.ly/iblocko

Posted 2 years ago #
donahue.dylan
Member

http://toucharcade.com/2009/12/30/blockoban-a-great-puzzle-game/

Great game and congrats on the touch arcade review.

Posted 2 years ago #
jd
Member

Great job on this "lite" version - the heaviest lite version I've played perhaps:) The tutorial is excellent and without it the game would be frustrating to learn on the fly. Everything about the game is well done. The only thing is, there are so many levels that some people may be satisfied enough without upgrading. I guess you'll find out how well conversions go. Please let us know how it goes.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

Yes I'm in an unknown territory with this game. I'll keep you informed.

As I have my own promo codes system (in app purchase doesn't provide promo codes), I've decided to try something new on the app store, a 1000 promo codes giveaway. And the buzz is working fine, in less than 24h 500 promo codes haev been consumed ( If you want some : http://www.bonuslevel.org/blockoban/promo_0.html ) . A new marketing technic for those who rely on in-app purchases.

Posted 2 years ago #
Tim
Member

Kudos for the unique approach to get the game out there with the in-game promo codes. Like JD, I'll be interested in hearing how well this converts.

Posted 2 years ago #
bradparks
Member

congrats on the great promo idea.... seems to have worked great... i'm not really a puzzle game type of guy, but I think it looks nice, plays well, and presents well... i do think that you should put a menu item for "full version" on the main screen, as it took me a minute or so to find it... I thought it'd be under "more", but of course, it's under "play".... but putting a "full" link on your main screen might not be a bad idea....

I think your promo code idea is great for reviewers too... I, and I'm sure others, were concerned about giving out promo codes to the my app to just anyone, as apple only provides so many, but you've opened my eyes to the fact that I can just use my own system to generate promo codes, and I don't even have to worry about any promo code "limits"... thanks!

Posted 2 years ago #
bradparks
Member

also, just fyi, i noticed that on the bottom of your blockoban page:

http://www.bonuslevel.org/blockoban/

You have a bullet that says:

# Soon on the app store

Which I'm sure should be deleted!

Posted 2 years ago #
Matt Rix
Member

Yeah please keep us posted on how this does on the store. The puzzle game I'm currently developing is similar in quite a few ways. You've done a lot of the things I would have done with my game if I wasn't working on it in my spare time!

I'm afraid of going the in-app purchase route because of losing the massive number of iTouch users who are still in 2.2.1, but I think you're taking a great approach. It could work really well for you.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

Here are some figures from the weekly report about the game :

20974 downloads
175 conversions

>> a conversion rate of about 0.85%

You need an insane number of downloads for this kind of model. I hope Apple will feature the game somewhere in iTunes.

Posted 2 years ago #
bradparks
Member

Thanks for letting us know about how it's going... Makes me think that you should have a "Tell a Friend" option that, if you tell say 5 friends, lets you get the game for free.... or something like that... since you've got your own promo code system in there, it'd be easy to do that... but they'd have to send the emails through your own server for you to be able to track it.. food for thought!

Posted 2 years ago #
crazygoodpro
Member

I was wondering how you integrated Plus+ to work with cocos2d. I am having trouble adding Plus+. Here's the error:

Command /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/usr/bin/gcc-4.2 failed with exit code 1

I would really appreciate it if you could help.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

@crazygoodpro, that's difficult to to help with these elements, but cocos2D is not related with this problem. There are people in the plus+ team dedicated to help you implementing the SDK, yuo should contact them.

Posted 2 years ago #
Matt Rix
Member

I'm guessing your conversion rate is so low right now because you're giving people a TON of levels for free, so they're still probably not done them! I'd say give it a couple more weeks and then maybe they'll want to buy the full version :)

Posted 2 years ago #
plasticpower
Member

I see your game is featured now under "hot new games" section!
Congrats! It's actually right next to my game, that's how I noticed!
That makes two of your games featured that I know of.

Something you might like to hear, by day I work at AT&T and I had personally seen several customers come in with Moonlights loaded on their iPhones. Very cool!

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

I've just found it, it's on the UK store (but not in the US), that's good news!

Was it just featured today, or the last week? I didn't noticed any burst of downloads in the UK last week. Did you noticed more downloads for your game ? Which game is yours by the way ?

Yes I like to hear peolpe are playing some of my games, that's the best reward.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

It is in the US too, but you have to scroll to see it.

Posted 2 years ago #
plasticpower
Member

It appears to have just been updated today. Yes, you do have to scroll a bit on the phone. But I don't think it's fully updated yet. I see no difference in sales either (my app is called "Earthling"). I know for a fact this happened today (at least for my game) because at first I saw it in iTunes but not in the App Store. And looking at my iTunes Connect report that just got posted, I haven't had any additional sales (there were sales, but just the usual numbers).
Here's a screenshot:

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

Great, thx for the screenshot and congrats for being featured as well. I had thougth hot new games where only featured on iTunes but that's great being featured on the iPhone store too!

Posted 2 years ago #
plasticpower
Member

FYI that's in the US app store. Hope we both see a boost today! Did you check your reports for 1/11/10 yesterday? I didn't notice any difference but it was probably because it just got featured in the evening.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

Yes I checked for 1/11/10 and there is a small increase. I expect a nice boost today as the game went up in the charts.

Posted 2 years ago #
plasticpower
Member

I checked mine today (12th) and I have about a x10 increase as well. It's not a whole lot, considering my benchmark was set real low to begin with. I hope it picks up a bit.

Posted 2 years ago #
jptsetung
Member

For me it's about 3000 more downloads a day (for a free app) being featured on this spot. I guess the one at the top of the list of "hot new games" is getting much more (no need to scroll).

In terms of revenue (for me), it's really not a lot and I'm afraid Blockoban will be a big failure on this side. Now, I need to think and learn a few lessons from this. Grrr...

Posted 2 years ago #

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