Match-3 Game: Recombustor

So my first ever “finished” game is done and on the market but the downloads are real bad. It really couldn’t be any worse as it would then be negative.

Though I think it’s a good game and good software in principle, but I lack feedback. So maybe you wanna look at this thing:

The game can be found on the market here.

I would really like to hear what you are thinking and especially why I haven’t been getting any downloads except for friends.

Great Game. Really Really well done! I added a five star comment for the game to do my tiny part in your promotion.

Suggestions are to rename the game to make name similar to established games that are like it so you do better in searches.

Other suggestion is to spam your game description with key words to make it show up in searches. I usually add a line at the end of my description like:

Similar to: connect four, crystals, blah, blah, blah

Otherwise you will just need some luck to get the game seen especially since the just in section is now gone.

Regards

Thank you for the rating :slight_smile: - I will have to think about how to reshape the description … I think I am a better coder than a marketer (in other words, I suck at it…).

I really like the game idea and the implementation of the gameplay. Very well done! Five stars from me too :slight_smile: But somehow I don’t get along with the rest around the game. The backbutton for example does not bring me back to the main menu. After the “schön gemacht” dialog the game exits!? And when I start the game I choose “freies spiel” at first because I want to play and I don’t want to know the story behind. But at this stage I have no clue how to play. A tutorial would be cool.

In my opinion the game has the potential to be successful. But the structure around the game needs some improvement.

To make it more popular I think the suggestion from seedload to rename the game makes sense. No one will ever search for the current name. Think about keywords you would search for if you would like to find a game like yours. Put these words in your description and the most important keywords in the title if possible.

Good luck with your cool game!

Thanks Wolfgang - I (and others to my knowledge :wink: ) agree - the game play is anything but self explanatory from the start and needs some playing around before getting it.

The back button is working on my phone but I am relying here on the android OS for going back to the previous activity. Does it behave differently on different OSes? I could overload the back button to show the activities that are to be chosen next. Maybe even just jumping to the next stage? Would maybe make sense when the level is done…

Do you think it makes sense to let the player start at the first level just right from the start when firing up the game for the first time - bypassing the menus all together on first start?
Hmhmhm. I’ll be thinking about renaming the game as well as introducing a simpler start.

I think there’s a lot how I could improve the game (not to mention extra elements in game design … for example I’ve been toying with the idea of having “radioactive” molecule isotopes that when a certain time has passed would turn adjacent molecules radioactive as well, making it important for the player to clear these molecules first - stuff like that would make it more interesting…) - however, my problem right now is more to make the game being seen at all - I am already happy that people on this forum give me feedback - hasn’t happened before on other forums.

I’ve updated the version now - I don’t rely on the android activity stack anymore but instead enforce opening certain pages when pressing the back button. I hope that resolves at least the issue of going back from the game.

Also, I modified the rendering a bit, if you encounter problems, let me know :wink: (I am using alpha testing additionally to alpha blending, in theory, alpha testing should be cheaper and should reject pixels earlier in the rendering pipeline).

I’ve just tried this out - great game, with lovely graphics. Have added my 5 stars !

I second the comments about the name and keywords in the description - I’m sure this will do well once people know about it.

My problem to get in the game, simply was that I choose “freies spiel” instead of “story”. “freies spiel” sounds more like getting in fast. Starting the game with “story” introduces the user to the gameplay and everything is fine :slight_smile: Renaming “story” to “spiel starten” (in the German version) would make it clear for me.

The update solved the activity stack issue.

Adding it to my download list. Will try out the game soon :slight_smile:
The screenshot looks nice.

I want to make a post on Android games on my blog next year. If I like the game it will be in the post :wink:

Fun and addictive game. Gave you a good rating on the market.

Very nice mate. Got stuck into this on the tube this evening and it’s engaging. It feels sufficiently different to any other matching puzzles such that I actually had to pay attention.

Couple of things:

  1. Have I missed a mechanic somewhere? I can’t see what defines whether you’re rotating the three objects clockwise or anti-clockwise. Frustrating when you want to go one way but it’s offering t’other.
  2. The achievement popup covers the rotation button and lasts a little long so if you’re in the flow of doing a few moves it gets frustrating.

Other than that I’ve got no criticisms. Really liked the art style and the menus as I started the game, and the mechanics of the puzzle delivered to that same standard.

I like the game!
My longest chain is 748! :smiley:
Too bad you have no global leaderboards. That would make it more fun to get the longest chain.

I just cannot get past level 9. How must I dissolve a row of 6 molecules?? :S

748 is quite outstanding … similar to my max. A global scoreboard would be nice in deed, but I hardly have resources (=time) to implement that… though I want to.

About solving 6 molecules in a row, the solution is to use a cascade, assembling a line of 6 molecules of the same color. It’s quite tricky. But almost all levels after stage 10 are much more complicated than that :wink: … I could have made more levels with more repeating stuff (do now x chainlength, x cascades etc) - but I felt like I want to make puzzles that are fairly unique.

I am glad you like it though ;). Should I ever get more than 1k installations, I’ll start implementing an online scoreboard for sure.[hr]

about 1: I should maybe make the twist tool more visible in terms of rotation direction … the rotate button shows the twist direction as well btw. Could make it as a future improvement.

about 2: Yes, that achievement thingie is complicated to display in a non disturbing way. Any suggestions for improving it? Btw, you can collect achievements in numbers as well - like having multiple counts of chains of length 100 etc. I just don’t display it ingame (which should be improved as well maybe).

I agree with Martin, global leaderboard is a must in this kind of game (maybe usage of OpenFeint?), if you want to have people returning to your game and competing with each other. Also sounds effects are a must have. This is half a product, but still very nicely done. Gave it 5 stars, keep the good work.

I have no idea how and why exactly, but last night, over 300 new installs happened - pretty weird, I am unsure whether it were the last 10$ of the admob campaign or if it was something else.

I think a scoreboard is more in my favor than sound effects :wink: - sound effects annoy me more often on mobile phones than they impress me…

But I’ll see how to get something done with my limited resources.
About the scoring - I want to have it cheatfree, therefore, some though must be spent on it, otherwise it’s worse than having one in my opinion. I know how to do it basically, but it’s some work to set it up.

I hope players will be kept busy with the tricky levels I’ve designed until I have finished score boards or something similar.

About sounds, yes I agree, sometimes they are annoying, or simply you’re in the situation in which you want them off. Still, let the user decide if he want them or not. Besides the devices we’re building upon are more like mini computers and not the phones and just imagine not having the sound on the regular desktop pc.

Minor update for tablet users: http://quakatoo.com/2012/01/recombustor-1-11-released/

I rendered the artworks with twice the size and now it looks also great on tablet systems. If you have a tablet, let me know how it feels for you!

My total income from ads so far is 3.88$, … could be worse :wink: