Arctic Smash Has Just Been Selected As Game Of The Day In The Appstore

Pleasure!

 

hey again, where can I get this program from?

 

http://switchr.imagility.io/?ref=producthunt

 

awesome app! thanks again for your help! @Eageron

 

Exciting! Congrats!!!

 

thanks @Xoctrebla

 

No problem! All credits go to @adrogdesigns!

 

@Benfont nice to see your game in top charts of my country. But ratings are very low. there are 50 rates in Russia with average 2.6. The main reasons are: 1) ads freq, 2) boring gameplay.
As I understand the main reason for featuring was art (it's great) and winter theme.

 

It's amazing to see how far this has gone with this feature. Congrats again. One question I had, did you pitch your updates to Apple or did only an initial pitch for the release?

 

hey @Christoph I was just in the forum and you sent this - many thanks for your comment.

I have not pitched Apple for this game, ever. I released this game before even knowing you had to pitch Apple for a feature. And I figured that they were never going to feature an update so I never did it for this game.
My theory is that somebody in the team that takes care of approving the apps, saw the latest update I did, liked the game and send it over to the guys that maintain the App Store design. But that is just pure speculation.

I understand what you are trying to ask - what did I do to get this feature? and to be honest I am not sure, but I can tell you a little bit more about the game and why does it look the way it does right now. Maybe it can help you.

Arctic Smash was a completely different game back in 2016 when I first released it.
It had multiple game modes, several UI, over 9 levels, language selection and a story. I worked really hard on that version, but people did not like it much. I remember I sent it to a lot of publishers and they all said no (some of them did not even reply to my emails). You can check the original trailer of the game here:


After releasing it, I kind of left the game alone in the App Store without updating it much, until September 2017 when I first pitched Voodoo. They really liked Arctic Smash and they wanted to test the retention. But in order to do so I had to do a full update of the game (make it more casual)
So I removed all the game modes except for the skii, I polished the main menu and the game over screen, I removed the amount of obstacles, I made the game easier, changed the music, added a new logic to the gameplay, I made the character smaller and polished the game in general - trying to make the game as casual and chill as possible. (the game went from like 80mb in size to only 11mb)

So after doing all the changes I just mentioned, the guys at Voodoo liked what I did and decided to test the retention of the game so I released this final update.
Sadly the game did not get the numbers they were looking for and no deal was signed for the game so I kept it under my iTunes account.

And that bring us to now - Arctic Smash has been featured as game of the day in almost all the countries and it has reached the number 1 spot in the free games / adventure category in over 42 countries and it has no sign of slowing down. People are still playing the game, and in some countries, it is actually at the retention levels Voodoo wanted.

Of course nothing is perfect - I have received some negative feedback due to the respawn button I put in the game over screen.
Some people believe you have to watch a rewarded video ad every time you play. But iTunes now gives you the option to reply to the reviews, so I have been spending a lot of time replying those questions and to my surprise some people change their reviews after you explain that to them.

For example look at this review:

"That is what the game is about... 30 second ads after each game, game that can last less than the ad itself. So, if ads are your thing you should definately get this game... " Later edit (AFTER MY REPLY): the dev is right, the 30s ads appear only if you want to continue the game after you crashed (at least for now) So it’s not that bad as i initially suggested. Updated rating and will update it again if ads are being introduced...

so sure @justforward I have got some bad reviews, but I am working on changing them with good customer service

Anyway, I am going to send a full report of downloads and the full list of countries where the game has been featured once I get the time to do so.

I hope this helps you Chris,

Cheers
Jonathan

 

Hi!
Congratulations for the success of your Game!
I have tried to remove ads, but there is a bug in your game.

I have tried a few times and also restarted!

Maybe you have the wrong id?

 

hey @Wapps1 yes I am aware of the issue - thanks for letting me know tho.
I am releasing an update this same week that will fix that and other bugs.
thanks for playing the game!

 

@Benfont Instead replying every player that claims, try to find a way that every player understand how it works, look at Ketchapp, Voodoo games and see how they have done and do something similar, because only a few people leave reviews, others may be just deleting the game. You have a great game, continue to polish it!

 

Wow. Thats some good insight. Like a peek behind the curtain.

 

Hey @Benfont could you please share any download stats when your game was “game of the day”?

The first minute that category came I wondered how many downloads can you get if you are featured there.

If you think it is something you shouldn’t share, I completely understand.

 

hey man, so far Arctic Smash has got around 320.000 downloads since it got featured as game of the day in early January, but that figure is not accurate as the game got featured as game of the day today as well in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.
The game has been rotating around the globe as game of the day since, so I am not sure when this is going to stop.
But so far, 320K downloads in my case, according to App Annie. I hope this helps you @Tarsier Games ,
Good night!

 

Thanks @Benfont for sharing! Congrats on that much downloads, I wish you to rotate around the globe and it never stops.

 

Cheers! @Tarsier Games

 

Congrats! I saw it in Singapore App Store too

 

thanks! @alienflaky