Very few sales of game - looking for advice

[BinaryMoon]

Gun Wing (http://www.binarysun.co.uk/free-games/gun-wing/) has been on sale for a month or so now and hasn't reached the sales amount we were hoping for. I wasn't expecting the game to sell bucketloads. I have sold games before so I am aware of the realities of selling a game. I'm also aware that shooters tend not to sell as well as other genres - however having had 3000 downloads I was expecting at least a few more sales by now.

So, over the last few weeks we have been working on a new version. Changes include


We are implementing gameplay changes based upon a conversation we had over on the2bears - http://www.the2bears.com/?p=903 - this is to try and balance the difficulty on the harder levels
We have implemented a new level select menu to make things more interesting looking - http://www.binaryflash.com/clients/eridani/gunwing_menu.jpg
We have added "cutscenes" after every boss fight to give some sort of story progression - http://www.binaryflash.com/clients/eridani/gunwing_cutscene.jpg
The help now displays during gameplay rather than before the level


What I want to know is if there are any other obvious things you think could be changed to improve the game and, more importantly, conversions. Anything you can think of would be much appreciated.

[TimS]

Here's my notes:

1) - the download size is fantastic. Very tiny.

2) - I thought that the "run game" checkbox at the end of the installer was broken, but it had in fact popped the game up UNDER and IE window that was open... might want to throw a SetFocus() call in there.

3) - To invalidate the above entirely -- you really should make the game go fullscreen by default. I think people are used to having games they pay for go fullscreen and everything else is windowed, but I could be wrong.

4) - The art for the main menu... well put another way... there needs to be ART for the main menu. Some words in a column seems pretty sparse.

All of the above completely evaporated for me when...

5) - right when I started getting into it... and WAAAAY too soon. I get a "demo finished" or some such message, and the game ends. My advice, for what it's worth: Give an hour demo. If that's too long of a demo for your game, then your game is too short. I'm not entirely sure how many waves I got through... but if the game has 50 waves, it's too short in Normal difficulty mode. I feel like I could've reached wave 50 in 40 minutes or so. Don't punish players for choosing the default difficulty level! If I had played through a slowly ramping in difficulty full-hour demo, and especially if I still had say... half of the weapon upgrade slots that I had never seen... and if the enemies continued to get more interesting (as they did nicely in the maybe 10-15 minutes it took to get through the demo)... I probably would've been one of those buyers that you're looking for.

Hope that helps and that I didn't overstate the main point...

-Tim

[Sharpfish]

I thought i'd take time to check it out as you are a helpful chap yourself (and can return the favour one day when I can't see the wood for the trees on my latest game ;) )

feedback:

I finished the demo on my first go in 5:03 (five mins 3 seconds). I killed virutally everything on screen and never died once. There was no challenge, at least on the default skill level, and it was made even easier by using the mouse (as I tend to). It was extremely simply to get around and kill waves. I admit on the last wave before the demo ended I had to start getting a bit tricky (ala geometry wars) but never got to experience any "one more go" feeling. If I could have felt that kind of challenge, ramping up, for another ten waves/20 minutes then i'd feel far more into the game.

I'd basically done it all in a very short time. 11 waves? And if there are 50 in the full game (I assume inc the 11 I had in the demo) I guess we could say that's 5mins X 5 = a 25 minute game begining to end? (even though later difficulty could make it nearer an hour - the player may not know/realise this and base it on the demo time).

I think 50 waves of a certain thematic environment/sub-plot, then another 50, then another, then a final 50 (4 areas with 50 waves each and different enemies/environments on each area) would feel more like value to me rather than a quick distraction.

I really liked the execution of the technical side, bullets felt powerful, everything was crisp, coding seemed good, graphics were tight if perhaps a little clinical.

I admit I didn't play with sound as I had music on my headphones ;)

So I suppose to me it feels though the game needs fleshing out a lot more, sub game elements, collectables, challenges... a good story? (sorry if I missed any of them but that's what I got from the demo).

It felt like a very well presented technical demo that needs more content. And possibly the control scheme needs some work to make it more challenging (I know, the pain of "having" to support a mouse in a shooter).

Obv keyboard is more challenging and feels more like a proper shooter, still missing something though.

I see you are sorting some of the issues as you mentioned in your post.

I have the feeling the game is probably far better than the demo is showing and therefore the problem is either with the demo not being involving/long enough or the game not allowing a longer demo (that stays somewhat interesting) so in that case it's simply a case of "more more more" of everything, content, waves, cut scenes, meta tasks... Then ram then down demo users throat in the upsell.

If you can get at least a 30 minute demo (based on average skilled players) while not giving away more than 10-20% of the full game it should feel a lot more tempting to buy for shooter fans.

Also some proper linking between the scrolling backdrops (earth/atmosphere looked great btw) to explain what's going on would help turn the shooter mechanic into a fully fledged game.

Hope this helps (if not, just ignore me ;) ), good luck with it, hope it turns out well for you. :)


/edit > I killed the 'boss' on wave ten before he'd even got 1/4 onto the screen from the left... i'm thinking overpowered weapons/underpowered enemies even though they are serving as easy tutorial levels?

[MiceHead]

What I want to know is if there are any other obvious things you think could be changed to improve the game and, more importantly, conversions.

I suppose it might boil down to this: As the player, I get the impression that I understand the full scope of the game just by playing the first few levels. I'm thinking, "this is fine, but I've played it before." It's not the difficulty or the control or the lack of story that are the problem (for me, at least). Is there something you could add that'll make the player think, "Neat! This isn't the way I expected gameplay to work. I wonder what comes next?"

The game looks nice; I think it deserves the extra TLC you're giving it, at any rate.

[kjm]

I havnt seen this game before, so decided to try it out.

Quick to download, which is always a bonus.

Easy to install and ran perfect first time.

Easy to get into and start playing.

Started on easy and finishd the demo on my first try in 5.34.

Tried the onslaught game, and lasted about the same time.

Then tried a normal game on extreme and lasted a few minutes.

Overall, i guess i played for about 15 minutes and after that time i felt i had seen all that the game had to offer.

The advert shown when exiting the game, didn't give me any reason to think i would be getting more from the game. Basically just more levels and more of the same.

The game plays very well, slick and fun. Well presented and the graphics are nicely drawn and displayed.

I thought the ingame Font let the game down. Some alpha fading on the edges of the Font would make it look alot better.

As a game, it's great short term Fun.

Short term as in about 15 minutes worth.

I might go back to this for one or two more games of the demo.

And theres the problem for me.
I don't see that paying for the full game would give me more from the game and thus make it worth my while purchasing.

I'm sorry this is a bit of a blow for you, as youve created a great shoot em up.


I feel that the demo shows all that the game has to offer. Theres no point in purchasing the full game as the demo seems to show it all.

Just my honest opinion. And it is only just my opinion. Others might disagree with me.

Hope your success increases.

KJM

[LilGames]

Can we ask how many sales out of 3000?

[Polycount Productions]

What I want to know is if there are any other obvious things you think could be changed to improve the game and, more importantly, conversions. Anything you can think of would be much appreciated.

Are you selling the game only through BinarySun website only, or also using other websites like BinaryMoon or portals?

While there might be things to polish in the game (as others have suggested), I think there might also be a problem with the audience. If you look at the list of your games on BinarySun website (http://www.binarysun.co.uk/games.htm), I can see there's like 5-6 match-three/puzzle kind of games, then Master of Defense (sort of a puzzle/strategy as well) and Super Gerball & Rocket Boards (that I *assume* are bit similar arcade type of games?). And then there's Gun Wing.

I'm not sure how fell that matches with the rest of the games. I might be completely wrong, but perhaps you are not selling the game through the best channel? Perhaps it could be sold through some shooter site (like they have at Reflexive (http://www.reflexive.com/index.php?PAGE=GameList&CAT=Shooter) )

You might also check out some shooter forums, and get player opinions from them. While we developers know how things should go, I've found it valuable to ask from those who are really your potential customers. (Bearing in mind that many developers have already reported the demo length being one element for polishing)

[Cartman]

I'm no expert on what makes a great game, but I'll give it a shot.

I played the game and see alot of potential in it. However it doesn't seem to hold me.

Some things that caught my eye were:

1. When you shoot an enemy ship it would show 1, or 2, or 3, etc. This is not like most games. People get excited about lots of points when they shoot things. I would probably remove the points from being displayed.

2. The same ships appearing seemed repetitive.

3. I found that I could sit in one spot and maybe only have to move once or twice to get through a level. Not very challenging.

4. The stats screen had alot of great information, but it seemed pretty plain to me. Maybe it should have some fun colors, an animation or two. Maybe an alien ship flying by. Something.

If I come up with some other ideas I'll let you know. Hope your sales increase.

[Indiepath]

I've made this suggestion before and I still think it would add that "something extra" - Take away the predictibility of enemy waves, currently the game is far too easy, you just know where the enemy is going to come from next and in what pattern. Also speed the game up, make the player move like a spaceship rather than a overloaded Sopwith Camel.

[Maupin]

I've played this game before, and gave you my comments then.

I agree with other comments in this thread that the demo is too short. In particular, it ends in the middle of a wave, with enemies still onscreen, which feels a bit unfair.

There's not much variation in the demo, so potential customers are unlikely to expect that by paying for the full version they would get anything more unique or cool than what they have already seen.

[BinaryMoon]

These comments are great - I think there are issues when you make a game with getting too close to the project and not being able to see the problems.

The comments on the length of the demo are interesting (and seem to be the biggest issue). I've played the full version many times and didn't give much thought to the demo difficulty. We shall talk about ways to improve this. The same goes for variety of enemies and difficulty.

We're talking about tweaking the menu graphics and text to try and make things more fun/ exciting (prettier at least). Same goes for the purchase screen. These things will be addressed.

Please keep criticising - thanks.

[Andy]

We're talking about tweaking the menu graphics and text to try and make things more fun/ exciting (prettier at least). Same goes for the purchase screen. These things will be addressed.

Pardon Moon/Sun, I'm afraid this has no any connection to current game problems.

This was mentioned correct on lack of game content. This is not really the lengh of game demo but lack of expections for more content in the future levels. Gameplay has huge problems of game mechanics in general. It's just not fun to play. You got no enough gamelpay elements to play with inside the main game flow.

Edit: Oh! Nice graphics btw But just has no enough sense in it.

[BinaryMoon]

I appreciate that the graphics aren't the core problem, but they are the first thing you see so I see no harm in tweaking them. I am well aware that the demo limitations are the big problem.

I don't understand your comments about the game itself. From what I can interpret you are essentially saying the game sucks?

[jimflip]

Might as well add my cynical old tuppence.

No hook, a very familiar pattern, think probably why more modern shooters just got bigger and flashier so that you would want to see what came next...i.e. bigger explosions, bigger enemies, and of course bigger weapons...but still masking a tired format...my personal favorite was Parodius, where the element there was the weirder, you never knew what would be next or why?

Any way back on topic, there was nothing that interested me in playing after I was dead the first time.

Additionally not enough attention to detail, the font might as well be courier, very dull....ohhh wow a got 1 point for blowing up that ship, and the 1 was in the dullest font with minimal animation or anything else to add pleasurable feedback, to be honest I thought the 1 meant something else at first cos one of the most basic things is to give high points to things.

I think you have the basis there for a decent game, just need to add polish and I always recommend play testing. Get a load of people and record how they play it and ask them questions....was it fun? Would you play it again if it was free? Why not? etc

Personally I think $20 is too much, I'm probably on my own here but I generally think Casual games are over priced.

Best of luck,
Jim.

[Andy]

From what I can interpret you are essentially saying the game sucks?

Moon, "game sucks" this is how stupid peoples here would say ( like that Andy always annoying here :) ). I'm trying to figure out why it sucks. So I'd recommend you to pay attention to this part of my previous comment: As a player you got no enough gameplay elements inside main game process to play with. You just haven't paid enough attention to game DESIGN of it.
I could convert this in a couple of different recommendations - add bonuses to catch, try to rotate the spaceship, check different options of spaceship movement, add some "shoot in a row" bonuses, etc. But this is really impossible task - this requires amoun of efforts to work out such recommendations and even more to implement and check them at your side.

This is why just:
Try to check and correct game design ( game mechanics ) in the first turn. You can't imagine how dramatically some tiny changes in this area could change the game in general. Including sales.

EDIT: Not to offend you somehow but just to transmit my impression from current version. I wouldn't play more than two-three waves of game in its current condition even if it'd be free Flash game. This is how you are far from appropriate result. (I played all waves of demo btw).

Hope this helps and Good luck!

[BinaryMoon]

Andy - I didn't mean it in a nasty way. I was simply trying to work out what you meant. I am aware that your approach to critique can be abrasive but I suspect part of that comes from English not being your native language. Now you have explained what you mean I am in agreement.

As I mentioned in the first post we are working on making the game more enjoyable (see the first bullet point) - I only mentioned difficulty but we are tweaking lots of things to try and make things more interesting. Hopefully these changes will pay off.

[Andy]

Andy - I didn't mean it in a nasty way. I was simply trying to work out what you meant. I am aware that your approach to critique can be abrasive but I suspect part of that comes from English not being your native language. Now you have explained what you mean I am in agreement.

I wasn't meaning to please you with my English Moon. :) But I'm happy I was able to transmit at least some of my ideas through my dumbness and laziness.. :)

[cliffski]

the game doesnt have enough style or personality. I was shooting what looked like geometric shapes. that's dull. Let me shoot aliens. You need to put more effort into the design, graphics and animation of your bad guys.
Having lots of flashy efefcts is what shooters are partly about. I dont expect an rpg or a tycoon game to impress me visually, but with a shooter I do.
I reckon you could massively raise your CR by putting serious work into the graphics. If you do the art yourself, there is no extra cost to you.
I always find after I improve my graphics, that I look back on the old stuff and think "what was i doing trying to get away with this?"

[Pelican]

I liked the look of the screenshots, so tried the demo. And it feels, frankly, a bit dull. The effects are nice (sometimes masking bullets for a while though).

As also mentioned above, the floating low-value scores don't add to the excitement. For a start, I'd suggest adding a zero on the end of all scores, and only do the little graphic score effect for bigger enemies, and then make them more "meaningful" scores, like 500, 10000 etc.
You could still award separate (invisible) values for increasing your power-levels. And do a bit more this way to help a player who's just been killed.

Speaking of weapons, when playing, I got distracted by the TV and got killed, reverting to a poor weapon, and it meant I couldn't actually kill some of the enemies at that stage before becoming overwhelmed. As a result, I couldn't power up my weapon quick enough for the next lot of bigger enemies. On my first game I finished it straight through with 100% hits, but on my second (which I played to give feedback) when I wasn't paying so much attention, the negative feedback situation came into play - it gets easier for a good player, harder for a poor one. I'd definitely look into this if I were you.

Overall though, it was really mostly a question of waiting for the waves of enemies to destroy themselves in my stream of bullets, and therefore wasn't really exciting.

The enemies themselves aren't that inspiring (though the backdrops were nice). It seemed to me a strange mix of rendered visuals and strange red vector type enemies.

Andy's right - the game design needs some attention. The whole thing feels quite slick but the gameplay is lacking. I think it could be a much better game with just a small amount of extra work to make it feel more dynamic - maybe use the idea of different coloured enemies, maybe at the end of a wave, giving power-ups you can pick up. Or alternatively, have certain enemies drop tokens which you can use at the end of a level to buy different weapons? There are many possibilities.

There is no way I'd pay for this game as it stands, though the pretty visuals induced me to try the demo. That sounds exactly like the problem you're having generally. To me what it ultimately lacks is gameplay.

Incidentally, jimflip I love Parodius too, in all it's various incarnations.

I'll stop rambling now, before I start agreeing that $20 is too much for many casual games etc. etc.

[rmedtx]

Great game BinaryMoon,

Definitely Full screen will be better.
Great graphics, pretty solid controls, beautiful particle effects.

[indiemaker]

I had weird visual artifacts with the game.

Are you using PTK library?

THere's a big delay between screen update and input. So that the screen lags behind the input.

[RinkuHero]

What I want to know is if there are any other obvious things you think could be changed to improve the game and, more importantly, conversions. Anything you can think of would be much appreciated.

For one, you could add punctuation in the cutscene. ^^ I don't know about anyone else, but when the writing of a game is doesn't include any punctuation and has strange capitalization (why is Fire capitalized there?) it turns me off from a game.

[zoombapup]

I've just given it a play, meant to last week but never found the time.

I think everyone's right, doesnt feel like there is enough "value" there and it does feel a bit light in the interest department.

Everything just feels like its half-way there.

I agree that killing doesnt feel like it gives you enough reward, the enemy patterns are a bit dull (as are the enemies).

I also wanted more in terms of ship customisation. Given shooters have been around a hell of a long time, I feel like you should look at them and see what you bring to the table thats above and beyond any others?

It could be a style as Cliff mentions, or a particular themetune or graphic content, or a new innovation in gameplay.

I'd say overall "needs more work". But then I doubt shooters actually make any money anyway.