EDIT: 05 Apr 2017

Cluckles' Adventure will be releasing on Steam on 10th April 2017 (PDT).

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EDIT: 02 Jan 2017

Cluckles' Adventure is now on Steam Greenlight. Help me out and vote if you'd like to see the game on PC.

Note: Cluckles was successfully Greenlit with 725 yes votes (60% of the total vote) after about 12 days. Thanks to everyone who voted!

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EDIT: 31 Dec 2016

Cluckles' Adventure is now available for download on Android and iOS.

GooglePlay

AppStore

Website (itch.io): www.littleadventuresgames.com

YouTube: Cluckles' Adventure Gameplay Trailer

Please post any feedback / comments / bugs in this thread.

I'm specifically interested to hear about:

-What device and OS you are using.

-How is performance on your device?

-What do you think of gameplay in general? Is the game engaging, boring, too hard, too easy?

Please let me know your thoughts and impressions.

Drawing tablet for me. I dont mind using the mouse for quick edits but if I have to do anything more than a 5 minute touch-up, I'd much rather use the wacom.

If you can post a capx I'd have a look to see if I can see what's going on.

I haven't had any decent games with 50.000+ downloads yet, so my numbers are not really a good model.

Every 20-30$ I earn from ads, I earn about 1-2$ from an IAP to remove those ads. Nearly all those games had endless levels so the players don't really 'finish' the game. I'm sure a quality game will earn way more with IAP, in the form of currency or in-game-items.

But like I said, I don't have any popular games with a lot of dowloads so I can imagine that a good game will earn more from IAP.

I only recently started experimenting with Rewarded Interstitial Video's too, looking good so far, but I can't give any numbers yet.

Thats interesting. Sounds like you easily make more revenue from ads than from the IAP to remove them. I had thought the revenue from each would be more even.

Yes Ive heard that IAPs are a profitable way to monetize, but for my current game I am not aiming to add that level of complexity. I'm following the advice to keep my first game as simple as possible, I think for the first attempt its more important to just try to finish something, try to make it a good game, with good mechanics and fun to play, get it out there and try to generate good reviews and a following. Then afterwards, ill try to make future projects with in-game currency and IAPs for upgrades etc. Thats the mid - long term plan anyway.

saiyadjin Well, I haven't settled on a name for it at the moment. Still thinking about that. Its a simple platformer where you burn through the levels, dodging obstacles, killing enemies and collecting items. Levels will be short and fast, but as the game progresses the difficulty ramps up, hopefully making it challenging.

So basically I missed this post.

I swapped over to using the new XDK proj format and I am now getting 60fps and <50% CPU usage on my iPhone5 with iOS builds from XDK!

Super happy with this!!! Onward to make 60+ levels for my game!

Hey tunepunk, on a completely unrelated topic for a second, did you notice our user names are similar? All we need is to find a guy called 'codepunk' and we could team up together and make a game studio called 'GamePunk' Ill do art, you do tunes, codepunk does the code.

Maybe we'd need 'marketingpunk' too.

For that type of short game i would probably just sell it cheaply let's say 1-2$, nobody is gonna feel ripped off from a couple of hours of entertainment and no annoying ads. Most marketplaces have option to try the game first or refund within some time if you don't like it.

Or .... you just release 2 versions which I've seen some do. One free with ads, and one for a small fee without the Ads. Release one without ads first, if nobody buys it, release a free version with ads.

Anyway, I'm not sure what would best fit your game, but my guess is that you would earn a bit more by just charging for it.

Ok so it sounds like the style of game I am making isn't really long enough to benefit too much from ads. So I should focus more on trying to get a one-off payment... either by Option 1: to remove ads from an otherwise free game OR to make it a paid game and charge a small fee right from the start. In both cases I would charge either 0.99c or 1.99c.

I do option 1 in all my games, but don't show too many ads, 1 every 5 min or so, or only on certain events

Hi Wishy. So you've had success with Option 1? Would you mind if I ask you some questions about your experience? I totally understand if you dont want to give away specific numbers, but just answer in general terms?

-How much do you make from ads versus IAP to remove ads? Do you make more from ads or more from the fee to remove ads?

-Roughly what % of your players bother to pay to remove ads? Like do most players finish your game in the free version, without bothering to pay to remove ads? Or do you find most of your players actually go ahead and pay the fee to remove ads?

Thanks, only answer if you feel like sharing

if you are new on the market and you want to collect players for your games - option 1. maybe even start with no ads games / no money games to get some people to play your things. also marketing yourself around helps. once you have at least 100 000 players on each game.

add ads. then add ingame items. then maybe make a pay once game (with ingame shop, no ads)

...ignore fully option 3....

Yes its my first game so I have no following whatsoever!

I dont think I could give it away for completely free at first. I want to generate *some* income from the game initially, even if its only a small amount.

And yeah.. Option 3 might have the potential to annoy players and generate bad user reviews. Like, I think Id be annoyed to buy a game and then find I had to pay again to get rid of ads.

Option 1 for sure, but depends the lifetime of the game.

Are you sure about the ads model for the game? How long does the game last? How many levels? From what i heard, short games that you finish very quickly generally does better if you just sell it at a fee. Games that last long or has MANY levels usually does better with ads/IAP. If you plan on constantly updating with new levels etc, ads can also be good.

Ads usually pays off best for games that players play often but little with longer lifetime, ie. Candycrush, Angrybirds. If someone finishes your game in a few days or a week then deletes it Ads/IAP usually is not a very good monetization.

No Im not sure about the ads model at all. Ive only just started thinking about monetization.

Its a very simple platform game and I'm aiming for something like 60 - 80 short levels. Each level might take between 30secs to say 1 - 2 minutes roughly. With levels getting longer and harder as the game progresses.

So ads should be an ok way to generate income I hope.

It sounds like Option 1 has more support for a first game. Seems like in the beginning its more important for a developer to just get as many players as possible.

I think the trick with Option 1, would be to set it up so that the ads aren't too intrusive so the player doesn't delete the game on first play or something, but by the time they get half way through the game, the ads eventually become annoying enough that, the player opts to pay to remove them. But by that point you hope that the player likes the game enough to pay, and keep playing...

Im wondering what the best strategy is when it comes to game pricing and utilizing ads with mobile games. Im considering the following alternatives:

Option.1

Full game is Free, game has ads, in-app purchase (e.g. 0.99c) to remove ads.

Option.2

Lite version of the game is Free, only has 25% of game's levels, free version has ads.

Full version of game is e.g. 0.99c, has all levels, full version has no ads.

Option.3

Lite version of the game is Free, only has 25% of game's levels, free version has ads.

Full version of game is e.g. 0.99c, has all levels, full version does have ads, in-app purchase (e.g. 0.99c) to remove ads.

Ah that's what I'm doing wrong then. I'm not using the new XDK project format. Ok that's the first test tmoro morning.

Ok so WKWebView does work with Intel XDK as well? I read in the construct2 release notes for v224 (I think?) that Ashley hoped to get WKWebView working with XDK 'soon' but at that point it only worked with PhoneGap. So I wasn't sure if that had been achieved.

Hmm I wonder what I'm doing wrong in XDK? Are there any tricks to get WKWebView working in XDK?