My 3rd app

WordHero was app #1 and continues to be profitable. This post is not about WordHero.
Anagram Hero was app #2. It did not do well, despite being a well implemented game/etc. I made the mistake of taking a game were there were 2-3 existing similar games but they only had 100-500k downloads… and I thought I could do better. This post is not about Anagram Hero either.

App number 3 is a Word Search game. Below are some details from the game.

Gamification mechanics:

  1. Experience points (increase a player’s level)
  2. Virtual goods
  3. Social Area (online forum)
  4. Tutorial
  5. Customization
  6. Access items (items allow unlocking of content)
  7. Levels (displays player state to others)
  8. Achievements
  9. Social ranking (leaderboards)
  10. Absolute ranking (leaderboards part 2)
  11. Random rewards
  12. Avatars
  13. Fixed/Variable rewards
  14. Power ups
  15. In game currency (one hard, one soft)

Every letter in the board will be usable in at least 1 word. Attached is a URL for a montage of 16 screenshots. If you are familiar with WordHero, you might recognize the function of some of them.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxoD3vVEZqOTY1g0WFJUdTRhWkU/edit?usp=sharing

I’ve discovered that an account sign up screen can cause significant bounce rate for new users. I now allow a guest sign up process where the user is still tied to a unique ID, but they can edit it once in the future.
This has really lowered the bounce rate and allows users to “sign up” later on if they want to.

Have you considered this approach @mind?

Wow, this game looks quite ambitious! Hope all the effort pays off and people enjoy the game

Yes, but… meh… extra coding or something :slight_smile:

This time instead of asking for signup straight away, I push the user through a tutorial, then ask them to select M/F character, and only THEN do I ask for name/email… at this point, I hope that there is enough emotional commitment that they don’t bail :slight_smile:

Ambitious was when I thought it would take 6 months… that was a year ago. There are a LOT of things that are now shown in that montage.

Some more details:

  1. Avatar builder
  2. “gachapon” (gacha) system of gambling with in-app currency/items to unlock additional themes and avatar features.
  3. Levelling system levels your toon up (max level = 20) and each level rewards items too.

<EVIL PLAN> At level 20, you have the option to reset your toon back to level 0 for an Achievement. At that point, you move to “Prestige Levels”.

That’s gonna be huge and great project:) Hope you will finish every feature you want. I also think that availability to log in as guest is worth to implement.

Almost 6 months since my last post about this project.

More than 50k LOC, excluding 3rd party code. 2400+ drawables

Currently in late Beta. Join https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106250553575767904557 for access.

Are u using GPS multiplayer feature in this?

App is now live: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhs.wordsearchhero

Nope… all Google App Engine (Python) + Google Compute Engine (node.js)

Nice, addictive just as WordHero was.

Been waiting for it for a while, you took a lot of effort to make this game, hope everything pays off

Will give it a try, best of lucks :wink:

I played it, very fun!, maybe some music is lacking?

Whats your user base demographics? or the demographics you are aiming? I fear the instructions and the avatar customization could be too much for 30-40 year old women?

BTW, our next game has a strong character customization aspect as well :wink: