Mr Buzz - Preview

Discussion in 'Game Showcase' started by Phill Mason, Sep 25, 2015.

  1. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    Thanks Bud, hoping to spread this one across multiple platforms to give it a fighting chance.
     
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  2. heathclose

    heathclose Miniboss Boxer

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    drop the dough to remove them!
     
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  3. heathclose

    heathclose Miniboss Boxer

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    been waiting for this!!! so this is epic @Phill Mason ... sweet graphics, love the use of sound, the metal wires moving in that giant circle has some awesome metal sounds on wake...the rotate and move mechanics are really neat... the checkpoints are really cool...this is a class act dude....cant wait to get farther...ill be dropping dough on the ads for sure...

    my only complaint is that i have to stretch my left thumb a long way over on an iphone 6 plus to go fast or faster than the falling balls rolling on the wire... if the joystick was 20% or 30% more sensitive, I think I wouldn't be contorting so.. something to consider for larger screens... ipad might be really hard to play holding the device instead on a lap...
     
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  4. JoeWilson

    JoeWilson Avid Boxer

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    This is fantastic. downloading this one now!
     
  5. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    Thanks for the feedback @heathclose, it's really interesting to read what you said about the sensitivity, as it's changed from a very sensitive version during Bet testing, down to this version, as folks found it way too sensitive and died way too often. For sure the slower control made it more stable and yes, you do have to drag your finger across the screen to gather a decent amount of speed, but I'd been through the settings a 1000 times and just needed to get it out there to get some user feedback.

    My fear is, it's still too hard, even though I've made so many parts of it much easier, but we'll wait and see. I can always make future updates easier still. I too hate video ads, but also wanted to see how folks responded to them in there every 4 or 5 deaths or so. If I get hammered for it, I'll move to static ads. Thanks again for the feedback.
     
  6. JoeWilson

    JoeWilson Avid Boxer

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    Hey @Phill Mason ... I just downloaded it.. and got through the tutorial fine, it was super easy... got all the way to a wire scene where there is a blue wire piece, a green wire piece, and I believe another blue piece. The pieces move and I can get past the first fine, but the sensitivity seems too light, trying to speed up fast enough to get past... but it just might be me on my first couple of tries.

    The game is GREAT. Lovely art! If you have time to go over some of the cool things you did... the sparks flying when the crane-saws hit the floor is classic! I love the smoke and thanks for telling a bit about that!

    Thanks also for explaining how you got the character together so that the wire passes in the middle!

    Over all I hope you get some traction for this one - you deserve it!
     
  7. heathclose

    heathclose Miniboss Boxer

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    Maybe 10% is all it needs... Be interesting to see what others say...
     
  8. heathclose

    heathclose Miniboss Boxer

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    So, here's something I love... Most games I can't put on my tv and play by looking at the tv because the delay is deadly, but with mr. buzz, I can put it up on the AppleTV and play by looking at the tv... Well so far anyway... I LOVE that!!
     
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  9. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    Hey @pilotjoe and @heathclose I was thinking last night about what you said about getting past the coloured wires in Mr Buzz really quickly and it dawned on me that you're probably trying to fly over them really quickly before they move - when the actual design was for you to approach them slowly to activate their movement, so you can safely move past. Can you confirm if this is what you're trying to do please? Cause if so, I need to make it clear with text prompt or something, as I'm pretty sure you won't be the only ones trying to do this. Thanks.
     
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  10. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    That's great to hear @heathclose I actually tested a handful of my scenes doing exactly this as I plan to port this to Apple TV too and it's a great way to see everything in more detail, not to mention, easier to play on a bigger screen, great feedback bud, cheers.
     
  11. andreas_kviby

    andreas_kviby Avid Boxer

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    You have to change DL=0 to DL=1 when inserting images from Dropbox. It stands for Download true or False and if not changed it will not download the image just link to the preview of it on dropbox and that won't do it.
     
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  12. heathclose

    heathclose Miniboss Boxer

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    yah, i approach it and then go as it rolls the spawns, I'm getting better at stretching my thumb straight, but the main parts that I have difficulty with the speed is the rolling balls... but I'm also thinking that, if it was more sensitive... the times like that curved wire might be way more difficult because that takes some finess... maybe the balls themselves are too fast, OR maybe I'm just being a crybaby... maybe it's perfect the way it is and part of the difficulty is straight thumbing some speed... Like you said, I'm sure you tested it incessantly for the right setting...
     
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  13. heathclose

    heathclose Miniboss Boxer

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    that is good to know!!

    test it...
    [​IMG]

    boom
     
  14. Christoph

    Christoph Miniboss Boxer

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    Will have to check out this new version. Congrats for publishing it!

    One of the hardest parts of making a game is like with every creative process: the distance to your own creation. I catch myself hundreds of times moving some elements. Sometimes it seems too fast, sometimes it seems too slow. At night suddenly everything is just too fast and I already know I shouldn't make any changes at all to the physics or controls because I'm biased. That's why I did Trump VS The World because I needed something much more agile in the making. And still with this copy I needed a complete month to complete. The other game I have in the making is just insane. I don't want to recall how many times I changed the colors or the speed. Sometimes I'm sure that even BB is moving values with each update. My friends always ask: why don't you release it already? And I probably should. I'm very envious to other developers here on the forum who release each month a game or only need 2 weeks for one to finish. I simply can't do it. But we probably should...
     
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  15. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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  16. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    Totally agree @Christoph, it's extremely hard to let go of an app when you've invested so much time into it and also when you know you can constantly make it better. But, there comes a point when you have to remind yourself that it's totally worthless, sitting on your hard drive and there's nothing quite like real-user feedback to put more fine polish on your game.

    It's funny, because Mr Buzz was one of the first BB apps I found I could really gain some production-mileage with using BB V1.3.5, as this was a real stable version for me, so I fleshed it out with loads of levels at the time, but everytime a new version of BB came out, I'd test Mr Buzz in the new version and get stuck with bugs etc or something that did work, not working in the newer version, so I'd work on a new game each time to test out new features etc, so in my mind, Mr Buzz became an old game to me, which was dangerous, as I thought I'd never get it out.

    You know that feeling you get, when all your new stuff is your best stuff and your old stuff sucks, well I slipped into that pit for several months and didn't want to get back into Mr Buzz, but now I'm glad I finally returned to it, gave it the much needed polish it required and just got it our there. Whatever you're working on, it'll never be finished in your mind, but let it go, so others can tell if it is or not :)

    Keep on Shipping.
     
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  17. Tarsier Games

    Tarsier Games Avid Boxer

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    Hey Phill,

    I've downloaded your game and I really love your graphics and effects.

    I have only one problem. The video ads on every 4th game over are frustrating. I think that most of the players would get bored because of that and delete the game.
     
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  18. heathclose

    heathclose Miniboss Boxer

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    So remove the ads... Isn't that point of them being on the thin line of frustration? To motivate the removal of them? 4 isn't bad... 1 is bad and gets uninstalled, but 4? I don't see any ads on mine because I see the value of buying the full version ... How much time and work did he put into the game? 100 hours? Divide what he's asking for ad removal by 100 and beggars make more... I'm not following the recent complaints i see... Maybe the remove ad button isn't prominent enough and that's the real problem, I put a remove ads on the game over ui so it's there as soon as they've seen "one too many" ads...
     
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  19. Tarsier Games

    Tarsier Games Avid Boxer

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    4 is excellent, but I'm not speaking about frequency. Its the video ad that is making it boring. It doesn't have a skip option, so you need to watch the entire video every 4th time you die. I would go with a mix of static interstitial and sometime a video.
     
  20. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    Thanks for the feedback @Tarsier Games, much appreciated. Regarding the ads every 4th Game Over, I'm simply watching the big boys and testing, just like anyone else. Most of the big publishers have ads every 4 times you die etc, so I'm following that. Back in the day I'd put 1 ad on start up, 2 ads on main menu and one on pause, shop and game over (Aah Happy Days), but that doesn't work anymore for reasons you've pointed out, people are fed up with it and will immediately abandon it.

    Perhaps it would be a good test to see how static interstitials go every 4 time and have a video ad pop in every 8 or something like that. I'm all up for testing and finding the happy balance between healthy user retention and good monetization. As @heathclose mentioned in his post above, the whole idea is to strike that balance of user being into your game, but would ideally like to get rid of those ads, so they have to be shown enough times to warrant removing them right? Thanks for removing them by the way Heath :) I'll test some more in the next release, cheers.
     
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