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AppGameKit/AppGameKit Studio Showcase / Happy Chick - Platform Game

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Funnell7
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Posted: 12th Apr 2013 00:00
We have released an update for both the Lite and Full version (links in original post). The changes are as follows;

- Chick can now take a hit before being killed.
- 'Hearts' have been added to the levels which will replenish Chick's health.
- Allow Rotation (180 degrees).
- GetResumed() - App is paused when resuming from background.
- Heart Particles.

Things are going well so far, downloads are steady (for the lite version at least). AdMob is pretty good too. What I like about it the most is that the reporting seems to update once every hour or so, which means I can check regularly to see if people are actually playing... Very exciting I must say!
xCept
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Posted: 12th Apr 2013 05:58
Quote: "This is actually a lot easier to manage than my original menu, as everything is loaded once. Previously I had to create/delete sprites on the fly."


Makes sense. I developed a similar 'sliding' transition effect for an app I'm porting from iOS, but I do the on-the-fly sprite loading and manual positioning of each--now I kind of wish I would've just gone the view offset route.

Quote: "Things are going well so far, downloads are steady (for the lite version at least). AdMob is pretty good too. What I like about it the most is that the reporting seems to update once every hour or so, which means I can check regularly to see if people are actually playing... Very exciting I must say! "


Very good! Out of curiosity, can I ask how you came up with the $1.05 price for the full version? I see a lot of unusual prices on Android apps since they give you the freedom to do so, but am wondering if there's some math or reason behind them? I've always favored the "psychological pricing" theory, where if you make a product a penny less than the next dollar people will be more inclined to buy it. (More reading here).
Funnell7
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Posted: 12th Apr 2013 11:59 Edited at: 12th Apr 2013 12:06
Quote: "Out of curiosity, can I ask how you came up with the $1.05 price for the full version?"


We are based in the UK, so we set our app price at £0.69p (using the '9' psychological pricing theory) and this converts to $1.05 which is done automatically by Google Play. I suspect this is why you see a lot of unusual prices...

Having said that, I thinks its possible to manually set different prices for each currency, I think I'll change the US to $0.99...

EDIT: Yep, you can change different currencies individually. It is now $0.99 in the US (or it will be in about 2 hours)... I wonder if this will now appear on all of those 'Price Drop' sites, hmmm...
Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 13th Apr 2013 09:28 Edited at: 13th Apr 2013 09:34
Noticed the automatic update to the lite version on my phone yesterday. The hearts are a nice improvement. And the availability of the hearts on the levels is a good way to control difficulty.

BTW, I like the way you have an easier path through the levels but you have to make some harder jumps to get the eggs.

Now, if I just had bigger buttons it would increase the precision of my landings.



BTW, one thing that makes prices even weirder is VAT. In Europe different countries have different VAT and I think you pay the VAT of the developer's country. But if you buy a game outside of EU you pay no VAT. If I buy the game it's apparently 7 SEK even, the standard lowest price. Some games are priced like 7,20 etc.

Funnell7
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Posted: 15th Apr 2013 16:47
Thanks DA. Managing difficulty is definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm a bit worried that we may have taken it the other way now and made it too easy...

I wish more people would rate it and leave a comment so I could get a feel for what people think. I read somewhere that people have stopped rating apps as much on Android since you can no longer remain anonymous...
Digital Awakening
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Posted: 15th Apr 2013 21:06
Quote: " I'm a bit worried that we may have taken it the other way now and made it too easy..."

You have to make it scale. Personally I am not sure that you need the harts on the levels. Just being able to take one extra hit makes a big difference. At the same time it is nice to have something else to pick up. And you can have less hearts in later levels to make the game harder.

Quote: " I read somewhere that people have stopped rating apps as much on Android since you can no longer remain anonymous... "

That probably means that fewer people give bad ratings for silly reasons.

Funnell7
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Posted: 20th Apr 2013 23:53
Made a minor update to the lite version... We are trying to encourage people to rate our app, good or bad! Getting feedback seems near on impossible... Anyhoo, the below screen shot shows the 'Rate Me' nag...

Funnell7
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Posted: 25th Apr 2013 16:20 Edited at: 22nd May 2013 16:19
We are at that dreaded stage where we need to create more levels, noooo... I find creating levels so difficult, but I can't put it off anymore...

To make life a little easier, I thought I'd create a very rustic Level Editor. This allows me to create the levels and then save them out to a .txt file in the required format...

There's still lots more I'd like to add to this, which I will hopefully get a round to at some point. But at the moment, I just wanted something to speed things along, rather than having to create raw text documents which was very time consuming... Here's a video of it in action...



Here's what I would eventually like to add;

- Ability to Load Levels back in
- Add Enemies
- Ability to test the level

In the very long run, I would like to add the level editor to the game so people can create custom levels and upload them for others to rate/play ...

Now..... Who would like to design me some levels!
Funnell7
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Posted: 3rd May 2013 00:05
I am having a rethink about the game play of Happy Chick and wanted to get your opinion...

We really wanted to create an old school platform game where once you have lost all your lives, you must restart from the beginning... However, I think this style of play is no longer considered the 'norm'. With the likes of 'Angry Birds' etc, the general game play seems to be that once a level is complete, it remains unlocked indefinitely...

Now I appreciate Angry Birds is not a platform game, but I'm thinking about taking this same approach with Happy Chick. What do you think, do you reckon this will work?

The playability of a game obviously makes or breaks it so I'd really appreciate your opinions... Many thanks!
Naphier
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Posted: 3rd May 2013 04:52
Players are definitely used to having their progress saved.
I would advise against resetting their progress.
I've seen some games that have an arcade mode like this, but you can still hop out and choose from the level's you've beat (and the next higher level).

If you really want to have something like this then the game should have items that can be obtained to make the later levels easier. For example, if you try to play the last level of Stardust HD without playing any earlier levels you don't have the powerups you need to beat the level. It may be possible to beat the level without those powerups, but it is really difficult.

If you have a mechanic like that built into the gameplay then it is a much more acceptable penalty. dFenz does this (weakly) by resetting your score and weapon.

Funnell7
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Posted: 3rd May 2013 11:11
Thanks Naphier, I totally agree... I have actually already made the changes and am hoping to make an update today. I've received a couple of 'I died and had to start again, it's annoying' comments so I definitely think this is the way to go...

The only negative side to this I can think of is our impression rate will likely drop as people won't be playing as many levels. But that shouldn't really matter as its the 'clicks' which are important not the impressions...

Thanks again pal...
Digital Awakening
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Posted: 3rd May 2013 17:26
I really thought that's how the game works already. Didn't play that much. But your level selection screen suggest that progress is saved and that players can play any unlocked level. This way players can replay levels to try to get all eggs.

With the exception of rouge likes, people expect that they can retry when they die.

Funnell7
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Posted: 3rd May 2013 19:58 Edited at: 3rd May 2013 20:07
@DA, yeah it does (did) kind of do that. Like if you return to the title screen whilst you still have lives remaining, you can select any already completed level. But as soon as you lose all your lives, the game resets (locks all levels) and you start from level 1 again...

I've changed the style of play now though. I have completely removed the lives concept, meaning that you can play the level over and over until complete. Once complete it is unlocked and remains unlocked allowing you to replay should you want to find the other eggs...

I love how Google now allows you to respond to Reviews, it really adds that nice touch and keeps you in contact with the users/reviewers...

The update is now available should anyone want to try the revised version.
xCept
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Posted: 3rd May 2013 20:11
Yeah, you definitely want to unlock the levels as they play them. This also can act as a better incentive for them to purchase level packs down the road, because they'll have a sense of completeness by beating all of the existing levels.

Quote: "I love how Google now allows you to respond to Reviews, it really adds that nice touch and keeps you in contact with the users/reviewers..."


That is excellent, and something I have wished for forever with Apple but doubt they'll ever follow suit. Pretty aggravating to get 1-star reviews from someone who simply does not understand a feature, especially since there's no way on iTunes to respond to them to explain how to solve it.
Funnell7
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Posted: 3rd May 2013 20:39 Edited at: 3rd May 2013 20:41
Quote: "This also can act as a better incentive for them to purchase level packs down the road"


Good point...

Quote: "Pretty aggravating to get 1-star reviews from someone who simply does not understand a feature"


Yeah, I know what you mean, we got a comment from someone saying 'my java script ran out and I had to delete it'... I have no idea what they mean
Funnell7
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Posted: 18th May 2013 14:02 Edited at: 18th May 2013 14:02
Couple Updates...

The Level Editor is coming along nicely, we can now save and load levels. This has saved us sooooo much time when creating new levels, it so much easier... In fact, we've redesigned all the World 1 levels as I think they were too long and difficult before...

We have also removed the Full version and have instead, enabled the entire world 1 in the lite version and will be adding Worlds 2 and 3 as In App Purchases. I definitely think IAP is the way to go, managing one app is a hell of a lot easier than having to manage a Full and a Lite version...

Onwards and upwards...
Funnell7
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Posted: 27th May 2013 12:29
World 2 is now available for In App Purchases! I must say, AppGameKit is amazing and adding IAP was a breeze, I can't thank TGC enough!
Funnell7
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Posted: 11th Jun 2013 23:51
Haven't had the chance to do much over the last couple weeks as we have just had our first baby! He is amazing, and I am very proud to be a dad, just in time for Fathers Day too (in the UK at least)...

The little man gave me a few hours today so I threw together an Achievements Page. We have various different achievements, like 'Rich Chick' (collecting x amount of coins), 'Kung Fu Chick' (killing x amount of enemies), and a few others. Here is a screenie although this only shows them locked...



Also, I thought I'd share our AdMob stats, for those interested... We have racked up a whopping 500,000 (yes, half a million) impressions, and have currently earned... Drum roll please... $53.04!!! Whoop whoop!

In all seriousness though, these figures clearly aren't that great, but our impressions/revenue are increasing day by day so I'm hoping this will spiral and before we know it, we'll be millionaires
Naphier
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Posted: 12th Jun 2013 16:12
Congratulations on both fronts!
You've got a ton of downloads! Are you releasing to iOS? I had 10x more downloads through iTunes and believe it is well worth it. It also seems that iOS users are more willing to pay for content. I see stats of game sales and IAP for iOS is always much higher.

Unfortunately, I think that no one will become millionaires with AdMob. I wish there were more solutions, but it seems to me that IAP is the way to go to make any money these days. And that takes careful psychology.

If you're willing to share, I'd love to know how many actual clicks you had, because I've only had 2,200 impressions, but I've made $2.32. I've also had 36 clicks. I seems to only get revenue from clicks though. I have read in places that AdMob does not pay for impressions. Which means we're advertising for free...

Funnell7
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Posted: 12th Jun 2013 17:13 Edited at: 12th Jun 2013 17:14
Thanks Naphier! I have no problems sharing what-so-ever, here's a screen print of our last 7 days... As you can see our eCPM and CTR sucks, I think that's half the problem. Also, we are more than likely over doing it on the Ad Refresh (hence the high impression count), and we should probably tone that down a bit. What I find with AdMob, is that its all just trial and error... And you are correct, AdMob pays for Clicks only.



As for iOS, we'd LOVE to publish on apple, but I do not own a mac, nor do I have the funds to buy one. I have a really cheeky proposition for you though, how would you feel about creating the iPhone applications for us with XCode etc if we were to give you 'developer' access to our iOS portal? We would of course pay you for your efforts as I suspect we'd need a few test builds as well as the final build? If your interested, send me a mail and we can talk in more detail...
Naphier
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Posted: 12th Jun 2013 18:59
Wow you get a lot of clicks! But I guess that's what can happen if your game has a good replay factor and you've got so many downloads! Nice work!
Are you using the filters? If so would you be able to share what filters you have on/off?
I think that might help other devs see the value. Basically I had only game ads on in dFenz, but I think I reset it to allow all but age appropriate (er inappropriate).

I've sent you an email about iOS.

xCept
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Posted: 12th Jun 2013 19:30 Edited at: 12th Jun 2013 19:30
That is a really great number of requests and impressions. Way to go! The achievements page looks awesome.

In my case, I am making significantly more on iAds and iOS than Android--but my studies are not scientific and I think it really depends on the app. My most popular app on iOS includes both iAds and Admob, alternating randomly. Through Admob, it currently gets about 12,000 requests a day and $10-15 revenue at $0.72 eCPM. By comparison, the iAds get a similar request rate but earn 4-5 times that amount with a $3+ eCPM. I'm not sure if iAds are just more engaging or what, but they are clicked more often. I recently released a comparable app directly on Android with only Admob but it hasn't gained much traction yet and only brings in $2-3 a day (< 500 downloads).

(The app I speak of was not developed in AGK; unfortunately AppGameKit does not support iAds at least in Tier 1).
Funnell7
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Posted: 13th Jun 2013 15:42
@Naphier, yeah we've done pretty much the same as what you tried. The only ones we have enabled are 'Games' and 'Image Ads', everything else was off. I think the vast majority of the adds coming through are from the 'Image Ads' filter and with these you cannot include/exclude categories just yet. I think I may turn off the 'Image Ads' for a week or two to see if that makes any difference...

@xCept, thank you, I appreciate it. 12k impressions and $10-15 revenue is really good! If my revenue/eCPM was up there with those figures I'd be getting around $30 a day which would be amazing!
Funnell7
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Posted: 28th Jun 2013 23:13
I've been on a mission adding Happy Chick to a few other stores, it is now available on the following;

SlideMe - http://slideme.org/application/happy-chick
Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Funich-Productions-Happy-Chick-Platform/dp/B00DNWVZGK/ref=sr_1_3?s=mobile-apps&ie=UTF8&qid=1372450230&sr=1-3&keywords=happy+chick
Opera (Handster) - http://www.handster.com/happy_chick_platform_game.html?pos=1

I have created a different AdMob Site for each of these stores so I can easily check our revenue performance of each, and also mess about with the settings on each to see what works better...

My next venture is the Ouya! I received my dispatch notice today
Funnell7
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Posted: 6th Aug 2013 16:49
AdMob has recently been upgraded, and it now details things like % of ads displayed by category and % revenue earnt by category. This is really really useful for filtering out those which are not generating much revenue i.e. wasted ads!! I'm definitely gonna have a play with these over the next couple weeks! Will report back if this makes any substantial changes to our revenue...
Digital Awakening
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Posted: 6th Aug 2013 23:06
Thanks for sharing. And congrats on the kid

Alebrije
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Posted: 10th Sep 2013 00:10
Thanks for sharing Funell

I just download the app and had a nice time. I love platformers. I'll show it to my daughter as see enjoys this kind of games as well.

I have published a game of my own (Catastrophe Slide Puzzle) to the play store and, I'm not doing as good as you, but I have had almost 500 downloads [the free version of course ).

I have a few technical questions, I hope you don't mind me asking. What version of AppGameKit are you using for Happy chick? Is it T1 or T2? While working on my game, I haven't been able to get the background music fully working. I see that you have a working loop.

I tried every command, every possible solution I could find on the forums and unfortunately all I could see is that it is a known bug, and that I will be fixed on the next release. I use v107 T1.

If you are using the same, could you give me a few hints on what to check/modify/do to get the background music looping? It works the first time it plays, but when it does the loop, the app freezes.

Congratulations for your game, and thanks a lot for your attention

Classics games, modern wonders
Funnell7
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Posted: 11th Sep 2013 10:32 Edited at: 11th Sep 2013 10:33
Hello Alebrije, thank you for your comments. I'd be more than happy to help, although to be honest, I'm not doing anything special when it comes to playing music. I am currently using Beta 12, but have used 107 + several other beta's over the last few months and all seemed to work fine.

The first thing I do is create a global variable;



I then load the music file;



From here, I simply call the PlayMusic command at the start of my level;



I hope this helps you... Let me know if you have any issues.
Ian Rees
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Posted: 12th Sep 2013 11:16
Quote: "Note; I am using Wav's and not MP3's (I was using MP3's originally but due to licensing I had to remove them)"


Funnell7 - how did that come about? Were you asked to remove the MP3 format music?

Funnell7
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Posted: 12th Sep 2013 11:45
Hello Ian, I guess 'Had to remove them' is inaccurate, what I really meant was that I chose to remove them based on my research. I may be incorrect, but from what I understood, you need to have a license when distributing apps with MP3's. Here is the link which I am referring to;

http://mp3licensing.com/help/developers.html
Ian Rees
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Posted: 12th Sep 2013 12:11
Thanks Funnell7 that's useful. I'm using MP3's in my two WIP games so it's something I need to consider.

You've done a great job on Happy Chick Adventures.

Funnell7
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Posted: 12th Sep 2013 12:14
You're most welcome. Thank you for your kind words, I appreciate it!
Digital Awakening
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Posted: 12th Sep 2013 17:46 Edited at: 12th Sep 2013 17:47
Quote: "Hello Ian, I guess 'Had to remove them' is inaccurate, what I really meant was that I chose to remove them based on my research. I may be incorrect, but from what I understood, you need to have a license when distributing apps with MP3's. Here is the link which I am referring to;"


From my understanding it's the manufacturer of the device that has to pay the license.

Quote: "
I want to support mp3 in my products. Do I need a license?

Yes. As for practically any important technology (and particularly for publicly established standards), you should know that patent rights for mp3 exist. Both Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson have done important work to develop mp3 audio compression (before and after it became part of the ISO/IEC MPEG standards). This work has resulted in many inventions and several patents, covering the mp3 standard. Although others may also hold patents, Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson have an important portfolio of patents related to mp3.

Patent licenses under the combined patent portfolio of Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson are granted by Thomson exclusively.

In case your business does not involve the manufacture of relevant products, but importation or purchase of such products from a third party manufacturer, you are advised to check whether the manufacturer is duly licensed by us, as the trade in unlicensed products may expose your company to liability for patent infringement. Accordingly, you are advised to obtain licensed products only.
"


Naphier
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Posted: 12th Sep 2013 18:14 Edited at: 12th Sep 2013 18:16
http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/games.html



Unfortunately all game titles that make use of MP3s are subject to licensing fees, but only if you sell more than 5,000 units. I also assume this applies to if you distribute 5,000 units for free.


EDIT: changed "titles" to "units".

Note: Also musicians who distribute their music in MP3 format are subject to these types of licensing fees. Awesome sauce.

Funnell7
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Posted: 13th Sep 2013 15:14
Yep, thats how I understood it Naphier... Originally I had mp3's in my game, but as I was approaching 5000 downloads, I thought I'd better play it safe and remove them.

I managed to convert it to wav with Audacity, without a huge increase in size, so it wasn't a big concern for me.
Naphier
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Posted: 13th Sep 2013 16:51
Yeah we have an elaborate theme song for our next game and decided that it really doesn't add anything to the game (loading takes very minimal time and not much time would ever be spent in menu - and the song is not suitable for in-game). So we thought, it's not really worth the $2,500. We might change our minds after we make some money, but doubtful. Interestingly, I've not been able to find any info about licensing for video file usage. Also you could probably encrypt your mp3 so that no one knows that it is an MP# and if they crack the encryption, that'd likely be violating any EULA that you have on the game.
I do wonder how many people actually pay the fee.

Digital Awakening
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Posted: 13th Sep 2013 18:08
The fee isn't a huge problem. Unless you are releasing something for free or like a dollar. I can't convert my music to MP3, the file size would be huge.

=PRoF=
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Posted: 17th Sep 2013 01:57
I thought the same thing about mp3's a while back on the forums.

I was reassured otherwise though, hang on, let me find the thread...

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=192140&b=41

Naphier
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Posted: 17th Sep 2013 02:40
I think mp3licensing.com makes it pretty clear. As much as I'd like to believe it is not true, I am not able to do so without a source. "Möbius told me so" won't hold up in court...

Ian Rees
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Posted: 17th Sep 2013 10:09
I agree. MP3 Licensing applies if you have distributed 5000 or more copies. It seems the best way to go is OGG for Windows/Android and M4A for iOS.

We have hijacked Funnell7's thread - this is the Happy Chick Adventures showcase. I know the MP3 issue is an important one but perhaps we should start a new thread in AGK Product Chat

Sorry Funnell7. Keep up the good work Happy Chick Adventures is a great game that plays very well on my Galaxy S3.

Funnell7
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Posted: 6th Oct 2013 11:37
After many days of waiting (to be reviewed), I am very very pleased to announce that 'Happy Chick - Platform Game' is now available on the Apple Store! This is something we had wanted to do for so long but haven't been able to due to the lack of a mac. I cannot thank Ancient Lady enough for helping us out with this! You made it all possible and it was a pleasure working with you, we are eternally grateful

Here is the Apple Store Link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/happy-chick-platform-game/id709570884?ls=1&mt=8
Funnell7
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Posted: 7th Oct 2013 16:02
449 downloads in the first day That's a pretty good start...
Ancient Lady
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Posted: 7th Oct 2013 16:22
Yeah! Go Chickies!

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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tornado
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Posted: 7th Oct 2013 20:48 Edited at: 7th Oct 2013 20:49
Funnell7
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Posted: 4th Jan 2014 19:43
Having spent a lot of time playing Happy Chick over the festive period, it dawned on me how 'floaty' and slow Happy Chick plays... For that reason, I have spent a loooong time messing around with the physics to see if I can improve the play style and reduce the 'floaty-ness'.

I think I now have it where I am much happier with the game play. What worries me though, is that it may only be me that feels this way ha, and I may have taken it too far in the other direction.

Anyway, I have loaded the changes already (Android only for now) and eagerly await any reviews/comments. In the meantime, for those of you who tried out Happy Chick on Android, if you get a spare moment, would you mind having a little play and see what you think? It would be much appreciated...

On a plus note, we are approaching 50,000 downloads and should be there by Monday
Digital Awakening
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Location: Sweden
Posted: 4th Jan 2014 22:35
I really liked this change. I don't know if you have changed anything else since I last tried the game, it seemed easier. 3 things I would like to suggest:

1. Make the jump height change depending on how long the player presses the button. I keep jumping too high when collecting coins.

2. I would personally prefer a little shorter acceleration and deceleration. This might just be me. RTA has no acceleration at all.

3. An option for bigger buttons. I keep missing them

Funnell7
12
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Joined: 8th Sep 2011
Location: UK, England
Posted: 5th Jan 2014 20:17
Thanks for giving it another try DA, I appreciate it! I'm glad you liked it... A few things have definitely changed, we redesigned the levels amongst many other things.

I've never been very keen on having a jump height based on how long the button is pressed, I always find it a bit strange. Having said that, it is generally the norm so I may give it a try and see how it plays... I'll also play around with the acceleration and see how that goes...

As for the button size, the buttons are actually a lot bigger than they look. There is actually quite a lot of transparent space around them which is part of the button...

Thanks again DA, I appreciate the comments and suggestions
Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: Sweden
Posted: 5th Jan 2014 21:00
Quote: "As for the button size, the buttons are actually a lot bigger than they look. There is actually quite a lot of transparent space around them which is part of the button..."

Have you tried my game on a phone? I also have a lot of transparent space around the buttons and still I have made them huge. That's how big I like my buttons (And I also got variable jump height.) I think it's nice to offer options for the player. I got small buttons as an option. You could even have the variable jump as an option.

I noticed that when playing with the joystick you can get around the slow acceleration. Which I personally liked. But I can't play with a virtual joystick.

Funnell7
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Joined: 8th Sep 2011
Location: UK, England
Posted: 7th Jan 2014 13:29
Yeah I have tried your game on my phone, its excellent, and I see what you mean by big buttons

Quick question, how are you managing the variable jump height? I thought I'd give it a go yesterday but wasn't sure of the best approach. I mean, do you figure out how long the button has been held and then assign the jump height (I fear this may incur a tiny delay) or do you continually add additional height to the jump until the max height is reached, if that makes sense?

Also, from memory I don't believe you are using the Box2D physics so I would need to work out how to do this with physics. My first thought is the second approach, keep adding velocity until either the max is reached or the user releases the button?
Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: Sweden
Posted: 7th Jan 2014 21:45 Edited at: 7th Jan 2014 21:46
You don't have to make your buttons as big as mine, just an option to make them bigger than they are now. The size of my buttons means they are pretty hard to miss, even if you are playing the game for the first time. And since my game is about quick movement and fast reactions this really helps.

IIRC Box2D has some kind of force command. Just apply force upwards for as long as the button is held, and reduce the amount over time. Start with max force and drop it down to zero in like 0.2-0.3 sec. The max force and the way you reduce it alters the shape of the jump. You could even apply the same force over time and then cut it.

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