[GAME] Sniper Strike « cocos2d for iPhone

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[GAME] Sniper Strike

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Started 2 years ago by DonomaGames
Latest reply from DonomaGames

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DonomaGames
Member

Hi everyone,

I'm finally in the last stages of finishing up my game. It's a combination of fast paced action gaming style with the satisfaction of a sniper rifle.

No video yet.

OpenFeint integration with leaderboards and achievements.

Dev notes:
Originally using cocos 6.x, upgraded to 8.2. No spritesheets and gets about avg 40-42fps. Using 9.0 trunk, it bumps the FPS by a couple. As I'm already close to finishing this, I'll release with 8.2. Runs fairly smoothly on iPhone 3G. As per advice of Apple tech talks, I now "pre-warm" all textures and the random stuttering when text is first shown is now gone.

Posted 2 years ago #
Tim
Member

Looks pretty kewl. I like the detailed tracking of the hits ;-) Looks like you've got quite a few elements of the framework in use. Can you expand on the pre-warm comment? Is this preloading?

thx

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

According to the OpenGL session, he advised that you should draw all your textures before the actual game play. Even if it's just 1 pixel off the screen somewhere. Before this, I was sometimes getting a very slight lag when I showed the first "HEAD SHOT" text (BitmapFontAtlas). I don't think it happened every time though. He advised that the loading screen or main menu would be a good place to "pre-warm" the textures by drawing a pixel of each of it somewhere.

Posted 2 years ago #
badawe
Member

@DonomaGames good work man! This adivice of pre-warm textures is amazing, really this one thing i ever want to know. why this is necessarly!? And you do some removeTexture? How this work for you?

ps, can you explain how is the process of aprove?

How much days all review process take? How many days "in review" status take?

Congratulations man!

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

So I looked at my notes and the term he used was "warming the textures" not pre-warming as I wrote. I don't know the technical aspects of it, but the first time the texture is rendered probably incurs some penalties possibly causing hiccups in frame rates if you do it in the main render loop. I was at the same session last year (OpenGL session 1 and 2) and this was one new bit of info I picked up this year.

I don't remove textures until the player loses. Then I clean up everything and return to main menu.

I haven't submitted an app in a while so I don't know the review period especially around the holidays. My last one took 10 days.

Posted 2 years ago #
goldplated
Member

Looks good I will definitely check it out.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

Video Trailer now available!

Posted 2 years ago #
goldplated
Member

Nicely done. Looks good. I definitely would love to look at the source code to something like that...

Posted 2 years ago #
alecsRO
Member

@DonomaGames congratulations on your game. Could you perhaps give a short review of the main concepts in Cocos2d that you used and how they relate to what is shown in the demo. Also your game looks really good and polished, it would be great if you could tell us a bit about the process of creating those beautiful graphics (do you make them yourself, did you hire an artist, what was used to crate them, how they fit whit Cocos2d).

Thanks, and I really hope you will take the time to post a short reply because everyone on this forum (especially us newbies) can greatly benefit from the success of others.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

I always hire a professional to do all the artwork. I've had a great working relationship with a firm for over a year so they do all my artwork. Everything is 2d.

Music comes from a musician in the UK with a lot of his work appearing in TV shows and movies on BBC.

GUI/etc:
*Standard cocos stuff here.
*Comprised of multiple layers. Main GUI is one layer, background another layer, then the enemies/structures are on a layer in between.
*BitmapFontAtlas for majority of the text that appears in the same. Used Hiero to create the atlas. (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:labels)
*GUI layer has highest priority so TouchDispatcher sends touches to there. If not claimed, then it'll send it to the world layer where I use the touch to move it around. Aka, moving the scope around the world.

Enemies:
*They all now fit onto 2 sprite sheets of 1024x1024 with room to spare. They are uncompressed so that takes up a good chunk of memory.
*CCAnimation/CCSpriteFrameCache. (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:migrating_to_0_9)
*I have a simple function to pick which of the 4 directions should be shown.
*Memory constraints so I only have 4 directions per enemy for a total of 14 enemy variations. I can probably increase that to 18 with the available space on the sprite sheet.

Buildings:
*All fit onto 2 1024x1024 PVR compressed sprite sheets.
*Placed onto the background at load time.

Background:
*PVR compressed 1024x1024 texture.
*Tiled background so theoretically unlimited scroll area.

Load screen:
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/2242

Achievements:
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/1551

Optimization:
*Last week, I upgraded to cocos2d-trunk right around when the beta was released. I was optimizing the memory footprint so I had to get zwoptex in there after the anchor point issue I had was fixed. (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/3364) Saved me at least a meg in memory thanks to the trim function.
*Also I was setting PVRTexTool to generate all mip map levels for no reason so I got rid of that and saved 100k on each texture. You can zoom in the game but only zoom in not out so no point with mip map levels.
*I stuffed all my irregular shaped PNG files into the unused sides of the main GUI texture to save some more memory.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

Submitted it Monday and it was approved today! Amazing turnaround.

Game is now available!

Video Trailer
http://bit.ly/SniperStrikeVideo

App Store Links:
Paid: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=338209245&mt=8
Lite: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=347955681&mt=8

Posted 2 years ago #
goldplated
Member

Just purchased it and will post back my review.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

I wasn't expecting Apple to approve it so quickly. Unfortunately I'm going to be unavailable until after Christmas, but will check back asap. Happy holidays everyone!

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

I got a couple of promo codes left so figure I just throw it up here.

Y9N4PJW64J6A
NMJAEAM7R67N
KMPYWYTFT6E3

Posted 2 years ago #
imrank1
Member

@DonomaGames

This game is awesome! Congratulations! Do you mind giving the name ( and website ) of the graphics firm you worked with? I'd be interested in contacting them for some graphics work.

Thanks

Posted 2 years ago #
Tim
Member

I took nmj and followed up with a review. Good graphics and sound. I found arcade mode a bit difficult in that some of the characters look too similar. Massacre mode was fun though.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

@imrank1

Sure, the firm is Enroc Illustration. (http://www.enroc.com/). Nicolas is an excellent project manager that I have worked with for more than half a dozen projects to date. Except the GUI for Sniper Strike (I did it myself in photoshop), all the graphics in my games are done by the firm. You can see some of their work on my site (www.DonomaGames.com). Feel free to send me an email if you'd like more details.

@Tim
Thanks for leaving a review! I appreciate it!

Posted 2 years ago #
goldplated
Member

I like the game overall and now that I have played it enough to get the feel of everything. I agree with Tim that the arcade mode seems to be difficult however protect the flag is fun.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

Sniper Strike has been featured on the New & Noteworthy tab in the games section!

The first time ever that one of my games is on the list. I'm ecstatic!

I also want to just note that I'm donating 100% of the proceeds on Jan 20th for Sniper Strike to the American Red Cross for the Haitian relief efforts. There are a ton of great apps also participating on AppRelief.com and IndieRelief.com. I hope being on the new & noteworthy section will help bring a big donation to the charity.

Posted 2 years ago #
bdittmer
Member

Can you keep us updated on how this impacts your sales numbers?

Posted 2 years ago #
Codemattic
Moderator

Doodle Army too - at least 25% of new and noteworthy is cocos2d based!

Posted 2 years ago #
Stuart Carnie
Member

@DonomaGames,

what sort of $$$ can one expect to pay for an artist? I understand it depends on the work, but for a game like yours?

Cheers,

Stu

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

@Stu

I sent you a PM about the details. Generally the cost structure differs from firm to firm partly on where they are based and on experience. Someone based in London or Tokyo is going to be more than someone based in Belarus or Buenos Aires. I suggest getting as many quotes as you can. I've gotten more than half a dozen quotes before picking the firm/artist.

Since I've worked with Enroc for almost a dozen projects already, I knew the quality I was going to get for what price and didn't bother shopping around.

@bdittmer

I'll wait a week and post some stats.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

I said I would come back after a week and report on the effects of New & Noteworthy and here it is:

Compared with the same day previous week.

Tue: 913.04%
Wed: 856.25%
Thu: 647.37%
Fri: 825.00%
Sat: 505.88%
Sun: 1223.81%
Mon: 280.33%

On Saturday, I tried to shoot for a higher ranking on the chart by dropping it to 99c. The result was that I made a lot less money and only moved up in rank about 5 spots that day so I ended the sale late Saturday night.

By Tuesday, Sniper Strike was still on the section, but had been bumped to the right by 15 new New&Noteworthy games.

As compared to the week _before_ Sniper Strike landed on New & Noteworthy.
Tue: 360.87%
Wed: 309.38%
Thu: 226.32%

So the drop off was sharp as expected.

During this entire period (pre and post feature), I was also doing a little bit of advertising. The advertising costs has been subtracted out of the figures above.

As far as absolute numbers, I'm not going to post it here. But I've had a game in the past make as much as Sniper Strike made in a week in just 2 days. Different game, different genre, and different time.

I've covered the cost of art & music. So from this point on, I'm recovering labor costs. Overall, I'm happy with the results. Just last October, I wasn't sure what to do with this game. So to go from being stuck at a dead end to this point has been a really pleasant surprise.

Posted 2 years ago #
DonomaGames
Member

Version 1.2 is now available.

If you already own the game, grab the update from iTunes now!

v1.2 contains:
4 new maps (DLC)
11 new characters
new options
new equipment
and more

All DLC content is being provided FREE for a limited time only. So grab your update now!

Winter

War-Torn City

Forest/Favela/Winter/War-Torn City

Posted 1 year ago #
DonomaGames
Member

In collaboration with FreeAppADay.com, Sniper Strike is free today!

No reason not to get it.
Download Sniper Strike now!

Posted 1 year ago #
DonomaGames
Member

Some stats on the FreeAppADay.com campaign:

*About 700k downloads over 6 days.
*Highest rank: #3 overall
*Highest d/l per day: 140k world wide
*Additional promotion: none.
*Required OS: OS 3.0
*DLC monetization method: TapJoy SDK
*DLC items: 4 maps + 1 "extra boost" (10,000 extra credits to start the game).
*Money earned: $800
*Number of 5* ratings = 1500+
*Number of 1* ratings = 4900+
*About 150k user sessions today

DLC was doing pretty well at about $200/day until I rushed out a patch that broke "inverted controls". Over the weekend, with the controls broken, it dropped to $50/day. I realized I'm in the minority using the default controls. With the update approved on Monday, DLC is picking up again to about $100/day, but I am rapidly dropping out of the top rankings. Sitting at #16 and dropping quickly.

Not counting labor, I'm still in the negatives with this campaign. New art costs money and the FAAD campaign cost money. My original plan was to switch it back to paid after a few days, but with the success of making it free, I may keep it as free as a loss leader.

All in all, although I'm not nearly as successful as other titles, I'm still quite happy to have reach this stage. I've learned a lot from this experience with a lot more to learn.

Posted 1 year ago #
Codemattic
Moderator

Why did you go with TapJoy for DLC as opposed to Apple's?

"*Number of 1* ratings = 4900+" brutal bastards, but par for the course with free games.

Posted 1 year ago #
DonomaGames
Member

It was very easy for me to implement. The whole GUI was preprogrammed and there's a web interface to deal with all the virtual goods. So I just slap on the SDK and make the call to the virtual store and that's about it.

Apple In-App purchase is far more flexible and you can customize the graphics. But the minimum is 99c. With Sniper Strike, I split it up into smaller chunks so players can buy individual maps.

This may have been a mistake. Maybe it would've been better to just bundle all the maps together instead of allowing a la carte. But doing so would mean 99c, 30c to apple and 70c to me. With 4 maps + "Extra boost", if a player buys them all, it's $1.25 to me.

Tap Farm & Tap Fish also uses the TapJoy. I need to study those successful applications to make the most out of DLC.

Posted 1 year ago #
DonomaGames
Member

After getting rejected multiple times for orientation related issues, my update has finally been approved!

Universal app that runs on both iPhone and iPad.

Posted 1 year ago #

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