Tag Archives: mobile games

Stay in Touch, Scholars!

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Hello everyone! I had a great time visiting the Scholar’s Academy in Rockaway, NY today. It’s an awesome school! Jack and I were here back in January to teach the high school computer science students all about the joys of making video games. Today was their career fair, so I met students from every high school grade level as well as 6th – 8th grade. Thank you for welcoming me into your school!

An informal survey suggests the most common questions were “how did you do this?”, “what did YOU do specifically?,” “how much money did you make”, and “what degree would I need to do this.” Fortunately, all of those questions and more are answered on this blog! Just go back to some of our old posts. Also we might not have actually covered the college angle here…

This blog post is mainly to let said students know how they can follow Game Revenant for more news about Where Shadows Slumber, as well as testing information for future games. Due to school rules, no one was allowed to take down the students’ info for use in an email list or anything. So I told them to follow us and look out for this blog…

Follow us on social media!

Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // This Blog

Receive email updates:

Fan List // Tester List

Buy the cool hoodie I was wearing:

Spreadshirt

Frank, wearing a Where Shadows Slumber zip hoodie.

I enjoyed talking to you all about Where Shadows Slumber, my indie experience, and how to become a game developer. Please feel free to ask me anything, anytime – I’m honest to a fault and I’d love to take your questions. (That goes for anyone else who’s reading this) Leave a comment below or reach out using the platforms above! It never hurts to ask [^_^ ]

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

Help Wanted: PAX East Panel!

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I come bearing good news, and apologize for posting this blog so late in the day. Jack and I are doing a panel at PAX East 2019 all about Where Shadows Slumber. If you read our recent tell-all about the company financials, you already got a taste of what we’ll discuss. This blog post is actually somewhat of a plea for help, though. Read on…

First: See You at PAX East?

Jack and I are definitely attending PAX East this year, though we haven’t figured out the exact details yet. It’s one of the biggest shows in the U.S.A. and it’s within driving distance, so we can’t miss it. Recently we applied to be part of Playcrafting’s booth at the show. It’s not a sure thing (since we could get passed over) but we’re optimistic. Playcrafting has been so good to us over the years, so it would be an honor to represent them and the NYC game scene at PAX East. Remember, kids: #HobokenCountsAsNYC

Even if that doesn’t work out, we’ll probably pay for a booth way out in hell. Some booth spaces at PAX East are just plain terrible, but it’s better than sitting at home doing nothing that weekend. Besides, we’ve got a panel to run! Speaking of which…

The Panel

We submitted the following talk to PAX East, and it was formally accepted yesterday:

What Do Premium Games Really Make?

Saturday, March 30th, 1:30 pm in the Arachnid Theater

Description: Everyone knows Monument Valley made a zillion dollars, but how well do other premium indie games perform on the market? How much money do your favorite games make? We’re baring it all as we discuss the financials of our game Where Shadows Slumber (a PAX East Indie Showcase 2017 Alumnus) and speak openly and honestly about the state of the market.

It’s an uncomfortable topic to talk about, for obvious reasons. We’re pretty nervous that it might make us look like failures (since we just recently hit the breakeven point, but haven’t made profits) or frauds (since we really only know our own story + haven’t done much research yet, so we lack data). That’s why we need your help!

If you or someone you know is a developer, contact us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com. We’re looking for indie game devs who don’t mind showing off their financials and letting us show the crowd. It would be good to have more than just our numbers on screen.

We also could use more panelists, so hop on if you’re coming to PAX East! Dan Butchko of Playcrafting is a tentative maybe right now, along with Jack and myself. Obviously, if you’re an indie dev or a community organizer, this panel is a free way to tell a room filled with people about your project. What do you have to lose?

Just be ready to bare all – I don’t like keeping this stuff a secret. My mission statement for this talk is something like “customers ought to know how games do, so they realize that the games they support with cash will reproduce and the games they don’t will fade away.” Still working on that. And no, you don’t have to agree with me to be on the panel. (Jack probably doesn’t even agree with me!) I think if we debate on stage it might actually be fun for the audience. We can sort everything out during the Q&A at the end, too.

So, to wrap up:

  • Email me if you are 100% coming to PAX East, you have knowledge on this topic, don’t mind revealing embarrassing things about yourself, and want to be on this panel. Do it ASAP!
  • Leave a comment if you know of other devs who have already made their financials public besides Monument Valley!

We’ll Always Have Boston

Are you going to PAX East? Comment below so we can meet up at the show! (We’ll look like those guys above, only more jaded and edgy) Please attend our panel as well, to show your support for premium games and indie developers.

We hope to see you there!

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

Upcoming Patch: Review Requests

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In a patch that will go live later this week, we’re adding a small pop-up window to the game that asks the player if they would take a moment to review the game. I would have put this update through last week (Jack finished this feature a while ago), but my laptop was on the fritz and I just got it back this morning.

I realize it’s a bit odd to talk about a patch before it goes out, but I wanted to explain our thought process behind this addition. This patch will be a bit different than the others. We’ve just been fixing bugs for the past few weeks, but this is an addition that might rub people the wrong way. Read on if you’re an indie developer, because this totally affects your business…

 

No one likes “barriers to fun.”

Why We Didn’t Launch With This

Jack and I spent a long time working on Where Shadows Slumber. During that time, the user interface went through quite a few iterations. The “user experience” was even more important to us than the interface itself. We always asked ourselves what we wanted the player to feel when they first opened the app, or when they opened the app after closing it, or when they returned to the app after not playing Where Shadows Slumber for a few days.

One of our core principles was “don’t annoy the user,” and we took that very seriously. For you old-timers out there, did you ever notice how our free Demo jumps right into the first Level straight from the Splash Screen? Or did you notice how the final version of the game goes right into the Level 0-1 title card after the Splash Screen? We tried to take out as many “barriers to fun” as we could to make the experience as painless as possible. I think we did a great job! So far I’ve only seen one complaint that the game “has no Main Menu,” and that was on a 5-star review. So it wasn’t that big of an issue after all!

Anyway, when the topic of review requests came up, we weren’t enthusiastic about the idea. Sure, every mobile game does it – but we were worried it would annoy people so much, they would give the game a bad review, and say something like “too many pop-ups!!” People are weird. You never know what might set them off.

But it’s a classic Catch-22, because if we don’t ask for reviews, we might not get one at all. Less reviews & ratings mean that our game won’t become popular, which leads to less downloads, and the app goes into a death spiral. Furthermore, right now people who don’t enjoy Where Shadows Slumber have a lot of motivation to leave a bad review. But people who did enjoy the game have no motivation to leave a positive review. Think of it this way – when is the last time you left a great review for a restaurant you love? Have you ever done that? But I bet if you had a terrible experience at a restaurant, you couldn’t wait to go outside and write all about it on Yelp. It’s human nature to ignore the positives in life and let negative experiences motivate our actions.

Our old Demo got a ton of ratings (6,000+) compared to our final production release on Google Play. I realize that version was free, and it’s been out for two years, but I think a review request also had something to do with it. The problem is that the Demo’s review request was at the very end of the experience after the last Level. I don’t really want people to have to beat the entirety of Where Shadows Slumber before they get a message asking them to leave a review. Instead, we’re putting the request towards the middle of the game.

Overall, I’m pretty optimistic. If we get this feature in before the next time Where Shadows Slumber goes on sale, and then drive a lot of downloads / installs with that sale, we might get a nice review bomb to bring us higher up the charts.

In conclusion, we’re hoping this addition:

  • Won’t annoy people too much
  • Will lead to more ratings overall
  • Will increase the rate of positive reviews to negative reviews

Wish us luck! Better yet, wish us 5-stars…

 

Eat an entire megaphone, as shown above. (No chewing!)

Make Your Voice Heard!

Once this launches, you probably won’t even notice it. Jack set a timer that’s pretty lengthy, so it’s rare that you’ll be asked twice or three times to review the app. Besides, if you haven’t done that already, what are you waiting for?

But seriously, if you have any comments or concerns, leave a comment on this post or on Facebook! We want to know what you think. Especially if you have any marketing ideas for us, because we want to do everything we can to get Where Shadows Slumber out to the whole world.

See you next week! A financial update article is in the works, so you won’t want to miss out. Keep your eyes peeled on this blog…

 

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store.

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

The Reddit Roundup

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Now that our game has launched on Google Play, I’m making the rounds on Reddit showing it off to as many communities as possible. Do you have a Reddit account? Would you mind giving these posts a boost?

I realize this is kind of scummy – the whole point of Reddit is that the community decides what to upvote and downvote based on their hive-mind interest. But… we’re part of the community too, right?

Also, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to brag about how popular our game is on the /r/IndieGaming subreddit after posting just one GIF. Read on, and thanks in advance for the help!

 

 

Boost These Reddit Posts!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to upvote the following posts:

/r/IndieGaming – My friend (dev) and I (art) made a game where shadows change things

We did really well here already. Shout-out to Grant for recommending we post here and giving me advice about how to get on the top page. My initial post was boring, long, and corporate – we shortened it to basically just a website link and let the game speak for itself. Nearly 5,000 people viewed this, and it only cost me a few minutes of my time. I’ll have to come back to this sub more often!

/r/Gaming – New mobile puzzle game where shadows change the environment

This post was dead on arrival, sadly. For a community as large as /r/Gaming, you’d expect more upvotes and comments. I doubt your help will get us on the front page, but you’re welcome to try. The front page of this sub is usually gaming memes or really popular titles.

/r/AndroidGaming – [DEV] Where Shadows Slumber (Creepy / Puzzle / Adventure) just launched on Google Play!

This one didn’t do too badly, though I was hoping for more from a sub with this many subscribers. Plenty of comments though!

/r/IndieDev – Our indie team made it to Google Play! [Where Shadows Slumber]

Solid engagement here from a community that I confused with /r/IndieGaming. This sub is all about the developers, and the process of making games. People seemed to like our trailer!

There’s more where that came from. Comment below with your favorite subreddit – if I can somehow tie it to the game, I will. Next up, I’m going to post rainy GIFs to /r/ImaginaryRain and see if there’s a snow subreddit too. (I’m not kidding! Tell me your favorite subreddit and I’ll work a plug in somehow. As long as it isn’t a NSFW subreddit…)

 

 

BONUS: Robert Adams of TechRaptor Reviewed Us!

We met Robert a loooong time ago during Playcrafting’s Spring 2016 arcade event. He’s kept in touch with us all this time, eagerly awaiting the game’s release.

I feel bad that it took so long to get a build out to him, but he’s on Android instead of iOS. So when our game launched on iOS first, it took a while to get him a copy. Now that we’ve released the game on Google Play, he published his thoughts on TechRaptor. Here’s a sneak peek:

Where Shadows Slumber is a game that I’ve been following for some time. I first saw a tiny poster with intriguing art at a Playcrafting event and got to talking with one of its developers. Since then, I’ve anxiously followed the game’s progress and was finally able to get my hands on the final release. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely.

Check out the full review here:

Where Shadows Slumber Review – Colorful Cliffs & Dark Depths

Thanks for your patience all these years, Robert! We hope you enjoyed the game [^_^ ]

 

We have some cool marketing stuff in the works right now, but nothing to announce yet… stay tuned, and thanks for your support!

 

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store.

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.