Topic: IOS App game RatLife completed and live on Itunes!

This topic has 4 voices, contains 9 replies, and was last updated by Nat Weiss 151 days ago.

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December 16, 2011 at 4:13 pm #582
joeb	Well Nat it’s been about six and a half months since I conceptualized the idea for RatLife. Even now I still have the first drawings of the game similar to the scratchings you had for Quexlor. Looking back it has been one of the most amazing experiences; But also one of the most difficult. There were many many obstacles along the way, from door logic to item behavior to tweaking how items and enemies interacted with each other on each delta. Even working with a local artist for HD screenshots was a challenge. There is still room for so much more as the ideas always continue to flow, but a developer has to choose a cutoff point where they say “Enough! Let’s get 1.0 out there!” Most of all I appreciate the in-depth look at the code and best practices of the gamekit, which without it I wouldn’t have had a place to start and build what I envisioned. I owe you a Starbucks Nat. I live in the Los Angeles area, let me know if you’re ever in town :) Have a look, and if you like puzzle games give it a try! If you do please post a good/honest review and tell your friends or post a link on your social networking site. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ratlife/id488639984?mt=8
December 16, 2011 at 7:15 pm #2206
GPP	Looks awesome. well done joeb!
December 17, 2011 at 8:21 pm #2210
Nat Weiss	HIGH FIVE Joe!!!! I’m downloading it right now…
December 17, 2011 at 9:02 pm #2211
Nat Weiss	Hey I love it! The story scenes and music are rad. I like how you added so many interesting items that heighten the strategical elements, like the flute and the bombs. One note though, I got trapped in a pillar because my bomb went off and triggered it to rise. I’m sure you know how to fix it. :) Way to go!
December 17, 2011 at 10:39 pm #2212
joeb	Awesome I’m so glad you like it :D I did mention the pillar behavior to my main playtester and suggested a possible solution of a player relocation, but she though it was more challenging to allow the player to be ‘stuck’. Enemies too can be trapped in pillars, perhaps in a later version we’ll get into trapping them and using activatable spikes etc as weapons. For now, it’s the marketing that I’m worried about. A great game isn’t useful if nobody knows about it..
December 19, 2011 at 5:06 pm #2218
CyberGreg	Congrats! Quick note: it lists as 24.0MB, if there’s anyway you can get it down to 20 you may get an increase in downloads (20 being the cellular cap). Good luck in the store
December 19, 2011 at 9:27 pm #2219
GPP	would that involve Refactoring code or cutting resources?
December 19, 2011 at 9:45 pm #2220
joeb	CyberGreg you read my thoughts. Cutting some images and sound files might be a way to trim 4mb from the project. GPP – code/text is cheap in size and would only yield several KB of space, but trimming unused images and sound would be the biggest bang for the cut. Sidethought – .caf files are big space hogs, mp3 would be most ideal. Has anyone used mp3 instead of caf?
December 19, 2011 at 9:45 pm #2221
CyberGreg	Yeah, take a look at your assets, if you are using stereo sounds try resampling them to mono and see how much size you save. In the new kit you’ll see Nat is using pvr’s with Texture Packer to save device memory but they may also save on disk space. While .png’s load and look good, if you can get away with it a .jpg file can save a lot of disk space. I usually just sort my files by size to see what the biggest ones are.
December 19, 2011 at 10:52 pm #2222
Nat Weiss	As far as marketting goes, start by getting it listed everywhere you can: new game lists, strategy game lists, etc. While you are doing this, make a list of iphone game bloggers that might be interested in reviewing your game. Email all these people with personal, thoughtful messages and politely ask them if they would like a promo code to download the game for free and possibly review it. Not everyone will reply and of the reviews you do get, not all of them will be positive. Yet, every link to your game, positive or negative, will help your sales. Take it all in stride and use every bit of feedback you can to make another game even better than your first. Keep doing this for a year and you might not have to have a job. If the marketting part is too much work or you get lazy about it, then hire someone on elance to help you market <=$10/hr and <=8 hrs/wk. This is what I had to do.

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