Am I doing something wrong? I am currently working to promote my game in various ways suggested online, so things might change, but even without promotion, I was expecting that , with 150 million iTunes accounts, more people would buy my game at launch.
The name of the game is MathFall. It's priced competitively against other games of similar genre at .99 cents.
Description:
Who said doing math isn't exciting? Probably many have, but now you can prove them wrong with this game! Get the number on the ball close to zero by bouncing it on triangles and through numbers.
Don't let the ball touch the bottom of the screen! Keep an eye out for helpful power-ups...and watch out for power-downs. Will you be able to achieve the supreme rank of Math Genius?
Features:
Physics based pulse pounding gameplay.
20 premade levels of increasing difficulty.
Random level generator for infinite gameplay.
Intuitive controls.
Four Math operations.
Dynamic level environments.
Am I doing something wrong? I am currently working to promote my game in various ways suggested online, so things might change, but even without promotion, I was expecting that , with 150 million iTunes accounts, more people would buy my game at launch.
The name of the game is MathFall. It's priced competitively against other games of similar genre at .99 cents.
Description:
Who said doing math isn't exciting? Probably many have, but now you can prove them wrong with this game! Get the number on the ball close to zero by bouncing it on triangles and through numbers.
Don't let the ball touch the bottom of the screen! Keep an eye out for helpful power-ups...and watch out for power-downs. Will you be able to achieve the supreme rank of Math Genius?
Features:
Physics based pulse pounding gameplay.
20 premade levels of increasing difficulty.
Random level generator for infinite gameplay.
Intuitive controls.
Four Math operations.
Dynamic level environments.
To be honest, your description well explains the features/functions of your app, but never really gets your audiences "attention". I noticed you have "Who said doing math isn't exciting? Probably many have, but now you can prove them wrong with this game!" which attempts to "grab" the audiences attention. I've noticed that it's best to make your topic sentence exciting, and gets the reader "pumped".
Also, please also remember that may users of the App Store are young. Therefore, many may not know what "Dynamic level environments" actually means.
When creating an app, think like Apple does with their products: Easy to use, simple, useful, and exciting.
I'll try re-writing your description for you. Please note that this should not be your final description, it's just to give you an idea.
Quote:
MathFall is an exciting game which combines a super fun game with Math problems. With MathFall, Math is finally fun and exciting!
With Mathfall, Math finally becomes exciting, grabbing players attention and holding it as they battle their way through 20 exciting levels. Every level is unique, and is more difficult than the previous level.
For those who want a never-ending exciting adventure, a brand new random level generator has been added, completely free of charge!
The objective of Mathfall, although exciting, is very simple: Get the number on the ball close to zero by bouncing it on triangles and through numbers.
Don't let the ball touch the bottom of the screen! Keep an eye out for helpful power-ups...and watch out for power-downs.
Features:
20 premade exciting levels, each level more difficult than the previous.
Random level generator for an infinite amount of fun!
Easy to use, and simple controls.
A total of four unique Math operations.
Dynamic (random) levels, each level being unique.
What are you waiting for? Start your exciting journey today, for an extremely low price of $.99!
I can guarantee you that this description will get you more sales than your last description.
Honestly, making a description is one of the hardest parts of creating an App (for me). I edit my description well over 100 times, each time I take note of how sales differ and write down notes.
I've noticed that having a testimonial, or a quote from a customer review saying your app is great (and briefly explaining why) will get you the most downloads. Customers listen to other customers more than the seller himself most of the time.
A few things come to mind that you are doing wrong:
* Your app is in the ultra-competitive Games category instead of the far-less-competitive (and more fitting) Education category.
* Your icon is, well, not good.
* Even after reading your description several times, I'm still not sure what the gameplay is.
* The screenshots don't demonstrate what you actually are doing in the game.
* The graphics just aren't that good--super jaggies everywhere and the text is far too small. If you're going up in the games category and don't want to be absolutely buried by high-quality titles, the graphics need to be better.
1. You are obviously a programmer trying to design a game (get a designer)
2. Your game involves math (bleh)
3. You have a doodle game (meh)
4. Your art is ugly even for a doodle game (get a real artist for real graphics)
5. The description as others already mentioned.
Sorry to say, but if I look at your game, I really don't think a second about buying it.
A graphic update would be already a huge help.
You want to sell that game for kids, so they can discover the fun of math. Make graphics cute, which appeal to kids. Forget doodle time....is already out.
and btw: I look at your screenshots and it looks super complicated and confusing with all those maths and geometry stuff. And I am 42 years old....imagine, what a 10-14 years old sees looking at those pictures...
__________________
Last edited by Promo Dispenser; 06-13-2011 at 05:28 AM.
I don't believe a secondary category does any good. Try educational as first.
That's right, the secondary category is typically used if the primary category isn't available in the a specific country.
Many countries don't have "Game" categories (I believe it's due to restrictions on buying games online due to game ratings...but I could be wrong). In those cases, your app would go into the secondary category instead.
Sorry to say, but if I look at your game, I really don't think a second about buying it.
Thank you for the candid remarks Promo Dispenser. I will try to improve the graphics, make them more colorful and appealing.
Using Cocos2D I am a bit limited in what I can do with polygons inside the draw function, but I found some openGL code online that allows you to fill said polygons.
I'm really not too sure what to do about the backgrounds...
I'm in the same situation as you with my Math game called Math Crash!
It's been on the app store for almost a month, and has had about 5 downloads.
I'm quite disappointed, I guess the 'Mathematics' market is just flooded.
(I'm still hoping that Math Crash gets noticed somehow .) I really like your game man, don't give up! Go Math Fall!
I think the same things said above apply to your situation. You're trying to compete directly (via the Games category) with not only a huge amount of games, but a huge amount of highly-polished, mass-appealing games. You were just washed away in the tidal wave of games.
If the graphics were a bit better and the category was Education instead of Games, you probably would have seen a different result.
One more thing that many of the single/indie developers on this board often do. When you decide that you're going to produce app X, you have to do a little bit of research beforehand. Ask yourself the following questions:
Are there other apps similar to your idea (almost always a yes)?
What are the other apps' shortcomings?
What differentiates yours from the others?
Are the others extremely successful?
What category are you going to compete in?
What many have found is that you want to find a niche that is poorly served by the current apps available. You can make an extremely healthy living off of apps that never make it into the overall top 200.
I had an idea for app that I just completed and saw that there are a handful of similar apps, but they have serious flaws. They have a fair number of reviews (which means a healthy amount of downloads), but many of the reviews pointed out all the flaws. It's a great way to determine what your app and do to differentiate itself from the competition.
I suggest:
- Try to enhance the artwork, starting with the app icon, it is the first thing users see, and should be as pretty as possible.
- Localization, your app is an education one, it can appeal to other markets for educational purposes.
I have the same question. With the massive update coming, will I gain a benefit relaunching the app?
I don't think so. Relaunching helps only when you have many negative comments, or when you removed in-app purchases. This is not the case.
It used to be that upon launch you got some additional exposure in the "recent" list, but novadays there are so many things launched every single day that this exposure gives you almost nothing.
As for the design - either find a designer, or get a book on design (there are plenty on Amazon). Just filling the polygones won't help.
Also, as others mentioned, good icon sells. Just as like with programming, there are tutorials around the web on creating good icons. Use them, don't try to reinvent the wheel.
As for your screenshots - their main failure is that I can't understad the game from them. The screenshots, in your case, should've arrows and clear descriptions on what's happening. And please - at least fix it so there is no sad face on the first screenshot
When it comes to marketing - if your game is good, people may notice it after reading a review. The problem is - reviewing portals get so many good games submissions, that they won't take their time to test your game (mostly because of the poor quality graphics). Perhaps you may find a different handle - like educational magazines etc?
You mentioned that you're planning to release a free version. Please - before you do that, add an AppiRater to your game and make it free for a couple of days. This should give you a download spike (once you bring an app to 0, some specialistic sites tracking sales will tweet about you etc.) - and some of that happy customers will give you positive reviews (but only if you have AppiRater, or equivalent).
Finally - ask yourself. How may people find your game? In app store it's either Top25 list (forget it for now), or search (do your keywords work? did you test them?). If it's neither, then there is no way anyone will find your app, hence no sales. You're selling a lemonade in a basement of an empty building, with lights out, and you're wondering why nobody comes.
update (graphics,tutorial,icon,screenshots,category,descr iption) submitted last night, waiting for review.
Thanks again to everyone who made suggestions, and keep your fingers crossed
6 days, only a handful of buyers :(
Linear Mode
