CrazyCrab (finally) jumps into the App Store!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47347784/cr...e_851x315a.jpg
CrazyCrab takes you trudge in remote islands in search of his eggs, and he is really excited about it! Once started CrazyCrab doesn't stop, only an obstacle can make him change direction. So try to keep cool to help him in his unusual quest.
Those pesky eggs wedged themselves everywhere: under the sand, among the rocks, deep in a cave and even atop a pyramid! The clock is ticking, so don't linger.

Show off your platforming skills, and see you in the top rankings!

What awaits you:
★ More than 50 levels of increasing challenge
★ Colorful graphics and varied settings
★ Easy one-touch gaming
★ Game Center rankings
★ Universal application (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad)

Screenshots and trailer available on the mini-site: http://oliverpearl.com/crazycrab/home.php
iTunes/App Store link: http://glob.ly/3BC

Looks very nice! I'll check it out once I've upgraded to iOS5 (which means I've got to upgrade my Mac to OS X Lion!)

Thanks Kevin. I have made iOS5 as the minimum OS requirement because I was told that upscaled apps were not guaranteed to run on earlier iOS versions. The game's native resolution is 720x480. I'm hoping that most users did the upgrade.

I should say this looks very good! you got some pretty awesome graphics there. gonna download it today :)

thumps up!

Yay finally! Love this game! Downloading now and will get you your 5 stars. Got my Mum to download it too, looks and runs great on her iPad 1, I figure even she can play this one.

Cool graphics, cool music, very smooth yet challenging !
How did you do for supporting 2 languages, english and french ? Are there 2 different apps, one for french and others in english ? Or is there a way in MMF to recognize the default language of the device ?

Et hop 5 petites étoiles sur le store français !

Reasonable graphics, but from the trailer the gameplay looks mind numbingly repetitive.

Thank you all for your support, I really appreciate. <3

@Daidy, the extension called "iOS" written by Clickteam has an expression which returns the user's preferred language. I use it at first launch and set my app language accordingly (and the user can later change it via the options screen). It's only one app, and I have all the UI elements in two versions, english and french.

@Adam, I somewhat agree with you. I was asking myself if I should make a shorter video. :) But the levels have some variety in gameplay, some require über platforming skills, others require thinking.

How are sales?

iTunes Connect still shows me the sales from Aug 2nd which was the day of soft release: 9 units. I can't go further than this date.

EDIT: Manos did not have any review/note on the french App Store. I solved this. ;)

Thank you my friend, of course you can expect a 5 star review of CrazyCrab the moment I get on my Mac, I love that game :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Olivier

Thank you all for your support, I really appreciate. <3

@Daidy, the extension called "iOS" written by Clickteam has an expression which returns the user's preferred language. I use it at first launch and set my app language accordingly (and the user can later change it via the options screen). It's only one app, and I have all the UI elements in two versions, english and french.

---

Thanks, I didn't saw this expression.

Looking at the gamecenter leaderboard it seems you've done well for a little fun game like this! What advertising methods did you employ here?

I agree with you, with more than 500 score entries in the leaderboard of island 1, the sales must have been good. But looking at the numbers in iTunes Connect, it doesn't seem to be the case: 08/02: 9 (soft release), 08/03 : 66 (official release date), 08/04: 18, Total: 93. I don't understand, granted I have distributed almost all the 50 promo codes, but this does not really explain the low sales vs. the higher number of scores.

What I have done to promote the game: Submit for review to about 30 websites, Social announcements (FB, YT, Twitter), CT/IndieGamer forums announcements, Newsletter to my subscribers, Ads at my own website. Right from day 1 I emphasize on the low introductory price of tier 1 during August. I have yet to see a single review of the game. I hope that the sales don't fade away from now on, otherwise CrazyCrab will be a stinging commercial failure for us. Claws crossed!

Remember three things -

1. Game Center adds up quickly, whilst iTunes connect only shows up until midnight last night.
2. Pirates still use Game Center.
3. If several users share an iDevice, they can all play on the game signed in to their game center.

About 1000 of my game center users are unaccounted for, a good number pirated the game. It's a shame Apple don't link game center to account purcgases or something.

Thanks for the heads up. How can you tell that 50% of your scorers are unaccounted/pirates?

Just from comparing numbers on Game Center to number of sales in iTC. Not 50%, I have about 5,200 users on game center and I've made about 4,100 sales, so I just put two and two together. I don't know how many of them are sharing iDevices etc. but I don't think it's particularly common that several people use Game Center on the same device.

Do a Twitter search for Crazy Crab, see if somebody's uploaded it at a pirate site or something.

Yeah, CrazyCrab reaches 1118 score entries in leaderboard 1! :D And barely exceeds 100 sales. :( Amazing. How does piracy work with iOS? I have to make some research.

That's insane, to think it's been pirated that much.

Searching for CrazyCrab IPA I found this: http://apps.su/program/50259/crazycrab.html

The thing is though Olivier, there's not much to sell the game I don't think. Personally I think Crazy Crab would do better as an ad supported free game - I'd put it out for free and put iAd and Mobclix (via extension) ads on the map screens (everywhere but gameplay). It's an addictive as hell game so it'd probably make MORE money this way as people would download it because it's free, but keep playing, granting more and more ad revenue. On top of that you'd have the advantage of going from paid to free, which gets picked up by thousands of bots which then tweet it to millions of followers. I did it with Cow Boom! and it drastically increased the number of players. If I had kept marketing it or if it had been a better (less dumb) game with levels (therefore more ad impressions between the levels) I think it'd have brought in some decent ad revenue. You have the advantage of only about 100 people who get an update which puts ads in, so you don't have to account for too many angry people.

If it gains you a large number by being free you could then build a bunch of extra levels and features and sell them as in app purchases or something.

Problem with games like Crazy Crab is that you're competing with millions of other games like it, simplistic and basic, and hoping for people to just take a risk by paying their money for something they don't know if they'll like. With my platform games they're much more specialist, filling in a niche for people who know they love this stuff. Generally the simplistic games need to be freemium to get any kind of success nowadays.

CrazyCrab doesn't deserve so few sales. Indeed, it's very discouraging to spend much time on iOs development when there is so much piracy... It seems the same day one app reaches the app store, there is a pirated version somewhere. How could it be ? And it's only 0.99 $
You seem to have well worked on the marketing aspects, and still have few sales, I really don't understand the logic of the app store...

Couldn't agree more with DistantJ. Oliver, I seriously think launching it as a free app would be a good decision as there are so many other games like it that are already free, with ads or in-app purchases etc. I wish you all the best of luck with future sales, and will be purchasing it as soon as I get an iTunes card - Looking forward to playing it myself! :)

I don't find CrazyCrab so much basic, 50 levels must be quite a lot of work and a lot of time. Probably, launching it with only 15 levels and sell the rest as in-app purchase would have made no differences in the first days. But how to know in advance ?

I think releasing apps is always going to be a bit of a gamle. Make sure you know your audience, and more importantly - make sure THEY know it exists.

That's very interesting, thank you very much for those insider tips Sam. So I'd have to search for "something .ipa" when looking for pirated iOS software, that's good to know.

I don't like the idea of turning the game into free + ads, I take much care of my paying customers. And what a bad publicity if angry customers spread the word.
Maybe I could launch a free "lite version" with ads, IAPs and custom ads for the paid version. The current implementation of iAds allows us to display banner ads. That' already good, but is there also a way to display fullscreen ads now? I already asked for this months ago.

@Daidy: a very special thank to you for your great review in french. <3
@WhatPixelYouOn: thank you too, you're encouraging me :)

It might be in the Mobclix integration which you can find in the iOS Exporter owners' lounge. If you do the lite version, I'd cut down on the number of levels but still leave enough for it to be addictive, and call it 'Crazy Crab Free', as when you use the word 'Lite' now people often go 'oh it'll limit me too much' and skip it.

I meant to ask, in this game, sounds change pitch. I wasn't able to use the "set channel frequency" when I last tried, have you come up with a workaround or has it been enabled in more recent builds?

Congrats on the game Oliver!

On my games, at launch I have the user select the preferred language. Always between Portuguese and English. Then if the player chooses to switch around at a later time, they can do it in the config window.

I change the pitch of a sample which works in bee in a Bubble, did not try it on a channel but ok in samples.

Do you do that after or before playing the sample?

After, I have it on a loop. I also change the volume.

I change the frequency of a channel (not the sample), and I do it right after the play channel action. Otherwise it won't work.

A little update on the sales. At the time of writing: 157 sales, 1896 scores.

To those who have bought the game, please post a rating/review. Apparently starting from 5 ratings, the App Store will display an average rating which could help boost the sales.

It should definitely be freemium IMO because you don't have the marketing money to turn it into a successful game in it's genre (too much to compete with!). At least consider a Lite version.

However I'd recommend contacting smaller reviewers with a more specialist audience with promo codes, as they are more excited to review what they receive and they get to more of a niche audience. Elly at AppChat I would highly recommend getting in touch with (YouTube channel AppChat, @appchatofficial on Twitter) as she gets a huge number of views on her videos but is also great to chat to. Tell her FreakZone Games sent you ;) There's also PhoneCats (YouTube channel phonecatss, @phonecats on Twitter), he doesn't get a massive number of views (usually only a couple of hundred on vids for small-time apps) but his videos are always really entertaining. If you get a lot of plays on the Flash game, stick an ad for the iOS version on there (get Crazy Crab on your phone!). Sites line Indie Love focus on underappreciated indie games, give them a shot. If you have more than 50 followers on Twitter, join #IDRTG and get chatting to them about how a very popular Flash game has undersold on iOS but met with lots of piracy, it could be an interesting subject to get you a lot of retweets and attention. There has to have been some interest in the game for it to have been pirated, but not enough for the people in the store to buy it.

Is there a topic on TouchArcade with an appinfo tag? Their app picks up on those, perhaps mention how it's been out-pirated, get a discussion on piracy going, stir 'em up a bit. If a topic with an appinfo tag is popular it will appear in the 'hot new apps' section in the TouchArcade app, and when stuff appears there the TA staff play it.

Thank you very much for your help Sam, I'll let you know what it gives soon.

Hey Olivier...just to say that I bought you game and me and my sister just loved it!

amazing.....I rate the app 5 stars and I posted a comment....

Best regards

Ah...I forgot to say....maybe it's better in your next update you change de big jump system from hold touch to double tap touch.....it's a little hard to do the big jump holding the touch, it was a little confused.....I think the double tap touch it's will be better. Well, this is just a tip.....

best regards...

Thank you very much paobrasil, much appreciated. Your suggestion is interesting, I never though about implementing double touch for high jumps. The problem is that by doing that I would lose the analogic jump feature: the longer the touch, the higher the jump. But maybe I don't understand correctly what you mean.

And thanks to DistantJ too for your rating.

I don't think that you will lose it, quite the contrary, the player will have much more control about the height of the jump, the player can touch to first jump, wait for the crab reach the maximum height of the first jump then touch again to do the double jump....of course this happen very fast, not slowly like seems when reading here.

See this example: http://www.clickteam.com/creation_materials/tutorials/download/Platformers.zip

to jump in this example you need to tap Z...double tap Z and you will have a double jump.....

Best regards

Just tweeted "Wonderful #iOS game by @OliverPearl ruined by piracy! 1000+ players, but almost no sales! Help an indie: http://bit.ly/QTFsBb #IDRTG PLZ RT!" to Indie Developer Retweet Group. Will probably lose a lot of my IDRTG points by getting it retweeted but hopefully this should get you some sales. Perhaps we can turn this around.

Yeah Twitter just warned me about that. I don't know what that #IDRTG group is and why you would lose points, but thanks a lot Sam! :D