SUDOMATIK Mini Killer Sudoku - Released Jan 2017

We have recently launched our third self-published game - SUDOMATIK Mini Killer Sudoku.
It is currently available on Android, as well as Windows 8 and Windows 10 - Phone, Tablet and PC.

The Windows version (normally $2.99) will be promoted for FREE via myAppFree on 25 January.
https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh440sx
The Android version is free and is monetized using video ads.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.orangespicegames.sudomatik

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Game Overview:

Mini Killer Sudoku offers the same mental challenge of a regular Killer, but in a smaller, more convenient format.
The objective of the game is to complete the grid using only the numbers 1 to 6.

RULES:
* No repeat numbers in any column, row or group.
* The values in each group must add up to the group total in the top left corner of the group.

TIPS:
* Use the group totals to determine what the number combinations are.
* If you get stuck, tap the clue button (light bulb icon).
* Some group combinations are unique. For example, a group of two with a total of 11 can only be made from the numbers 5 and 6.


Reception thus far:

Its been 2 weeks since we launched on Google Play and the Windows Store. As a paid game on Windows, getting traction has been extremely difficult. Admittedly we have spent less effort promoting this title so far, and are working on ways to improve this, with programs such as myAppFree.

Downloads on Google Play also have been also been rather unimpressive, though It is interesting to note that the majority of downloads are from the East, with Japan, being our biggest market. Offering a Japanese localized version is perhaps an opportunity for us to learn from the potential results of such efforts.

Another interesting aspect of the game on Android were the session times - anything between 45 and 60 minutes!
That's pretty impressive for a mobile title.

Players are rewarded three games for every video they opt-in to watch. It might be too early to tell, but so far players seem content that this is a fair value exchange, often watching two or three videos in succession.

Clearly we have a lot of work to do regarding the marketing of the game. As usual, getting exposure remains to be our single biggest challenge. We are planning to release the game on more platforms, so we are hesitant to spend more time promoting the title at this point.

Also, we have had very little direct feedback or constructive criticism on SUDOMATIK so far.
There may well be space for improving the game play, design, animations, effects and sounds.

As always - we would appreciate any comments or feedback from the MakeGamesSA community.

https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh440sx
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.orangespicegames.sudomatik

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Comments

  • Looks pretty polished!

    I'm sure there are many many sudoku games out there competing so it might be really hard to find a slice of that target that's already sick of all the sudoku games that they've already played.

    I'm iOS only so can't try it.

    When you say "regular Killer" I'm guessing you mean a previous version of the game. What's the actual difference, and does it matter? I ask only because including something like that in the intro means nothing to anyone who hasn't heard of the previous game, which confuses people.

    In terms of feedback, I haven't even heard of this game before today (I may have missed it before) so I'm not sure if we've seen it here in a pre-release format, when it is actually still viable for feedback to be included into its development? It is easily far less encouraging to see devs asking for feedback after a game has shipped. (of course updates are always possible but it's naturally much better to give and get feedback before release)

    In marketing, have you approached various media before the game was done? Post on the big forums like SlideToPlay or TouchArcade or such? If so how was reception there? Marketing should really happen way before the game is released.
    Thanked by 2pieter Oneil_CT
  • I gave the game a quick try, and it seemed to work fine on my ageing S2 Mini.

    I would also just like to echo what @Tuism said, that getting feedback earlier rather than later is always better. And even though any suggestions can be patched in, you only get one launch. Something to keep in mind for your next game ;)

    I would have liked some sort of a tutorial stage. I know the rules are described in the questions menu, but teaching by doing is a much more powerful tool. Also I would have liked starting out on a much smaller grid, then work my way up to the bigger more difficult grids. The 6x6 grid just felt a little intimidating to someone new to the mechanics.

    The full screen "You've made a mistake" message confused me, I can appreciate that there will need to be some shuffling of numbers as you try out different combinations, but the game was telling me that I've made a mistake, even though I was obeying all the rules. This confused the hell out of me, as I thought I was misunderstanding something.

    The popup message mid game asking me if I was having fun felt obnoxious. I was still on the first stage, struggling to figure out if I'm playing the game correctly (exiting to the main menu a few times to read the rules again). This is maybe a question best asked after I've successfully completed at least 3 or 4 puzzles.

    The interface is fine, though being able to swap numbers on the grid by clicking and dragging would have made things feel smoother. Erasing by double tapping, or dragging of screen.

    I saw a quite a few other titles on the Play Store very similar to your game, and even though your graphics were better than most of them, that alone wasn't enough to make it stand out. In fact a lot of them had more features. However I wouldn't try to compete in a market this saturated. Sure if you throw Bejeweled levels of polish and juice at it, together with Candy Crush style features you would definitely get noticed. But those cost a lot of time and money.

    Honestly, I think your time would be better spent coming up with your own unique puzzle mechanics. People are always looking for new and interesting puzzle games to play, and those who come up with them are rewarded. Go check out games like "Steven's Sausage Roll" and "A Good Snowman is Hard to Build" for inspiration. You can also check out our very own @francoisvn 's work, he's a very talented puzzle game designer.
    Thanked by 2Tuism Oneil_CT
  • Thanks very much for your comments @Tuism @pieter
    Much appreciated!

    Please allow me a little time to respond in detail to both of your comments individually :)
  • @Oneil_CT How are the downloads going? I saw it being promoted on WindowsCentral, and would be interested how much that (plus giving it away for free) helps.

  • @Tuism Apologies for my delayed response - its been pretty crazy lately!
    Your feedback raises some good points .

    Tuism said:
    I'm sure there are many many Sudoku games out there competing so it might be really hard to find a slice of that target that's already sick of all the Sudoku games that they've already played.
    I agree that 'Sudoku' is a rather saturated market - which is why we made the strategic decision to make a 'Killer Sudoku'. These puzzles are considerably more difficult to make and therefore you will find fewer competing 'Killer Sudoku' games on the stores. A quick search on Google Play and Microsoft Stores reveal less than ten alternative 'Killer Sudoku' games.
    Tuism said:
    When you say "regular Killer" I'm guessing you mean a previous version of the game. What's the actual difference, and does it matter?
    A regular 'Killer Sudoku' is usually a 9X9 grid using the numbers 1 through 9.
    Our game is a mini version of that 9X9 format - played on a 6X6 grid using only the numbers 1 through 6.
    Tuism said:
    I ask only because including something like that in the intro means nothing to anyone who hasn't heard of the previous game, which confuses people.
    I understand that this might be confusing for new players. We will work on improving the description - thanks for pointing this out to us. Additionally, we are busy working on a YouTube tutorial that will be accessible from within the game - assisting new players to understand the rules and offer several strategies of solving these types of puzzles.
    Tuism said:
    In terms of feedback, I haven't even heard of this game before today (I may have missed it before) so I'm not sure if we've seen it here in a pre-release format, when it is actually still viable for feedback to be included into its development? It is easily far less encouraging to see devs asking for feedback after a game has shipped. (of course updates are always possible but it's naturally much better to give and get feedback before release)
    To answer your question - no, we did not elicit feedback during the development cycle of the game. I agree: in normal instances, this is the preferred approach and I only encourage other devs to follow this advice. In this instance, real world factors and outside influences gave us little choice but to rush development and release the game in as little time possible.
    Tuism said:
    In marketing, have you approached various media before the game was done? Post on the big forums like SlideToPlay or TouchArcade or such? If so how was reception there?
    As stated previously, we did not go all-out on marketing. Our efforts included participating on the PreApps pre-launch platform and community. I think we sent out around 20 press releases to various outlets (not the ones you mentioned - adding them to my list now). We made use of social media, handing out customized promo codes on Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Google+, Pinterest, Imgur on launch and also contacted any relationships we had forged on the release of our first title, WORDFIX. We have also just finished participating in the myAppFree 'free for the day' program. I will elaborate on the results of such in the next day or two, once all the stats are in.
    Tuism said:
    Marketing should really happen way before the game is released.
    Agreed. Marketing is a huge investment of time and the earlier one starts, the better.

    A sample of our promo code that we were handing out:
    image
  • @pieter Thanks for trying out the game out on that S2 Mini :) Glad to know it works well on the Gingerbread OS.
    pieter said:
    I would also just like to echo what @Tuism said, that getting feedback earlier rather than later is always better. And even though any suggestions can be patched in, you only get one launch. Something to keep in mind for your next game ;)
    For the sake of not doing a copy paste - please see my response to @Tuism in this regard.
    As stated, I completely agree with both of you and echo your sentiments exactly.

    However, and perhaps to open this up further to other mobile devs on the forum, there are some interesting points to consider when releasing to mobile platforms vs other platforms, like Steam:

    - Mobile titles are generally smaller in size, which allow for more regular updates.
    - Releasing updates regularly is recommended and is even considered a best practice.
    - Hardware, OS, memory requirement and screen resolution fragmentation all stress the need for a 'live testing' / 'soft launch' phase - this is critically essential before announcing your 'big launch'.
    - Listening to player feedback and involving them in the game's evolution can help foster a community of loyal fans.
    - With millions of titles available on the mobile stores, making even a little splash with your 'Big Launch' is immeasurably difficult.
    - Generally most of the mobile titles on the store have very long acquisition curves, often taking months before reaching a critical mass.
    pieter said:
    I would have liked some sort of a tutorial stage. I know the rules are described in the questions menu, but teaching by doing is a much more powerful tool. Also I would have liked starting out on a much smaller grid, then work my way up to the bigger more difficult grids. The 6x6 grid just felt a little intimidating to someone new to the mechanics.
    I would agree with your thinking here. We actually considered a tutorial stage on a smaller grid, but the effort and time required to put this together steered us in the direction of rather doing a YouTube tutorial that will be accessible from within the game. This should help new players to understand the rules and offer several strategies and techniques of solving these types of puzzles. The video may even serve to help as another acquisition channel for us.
    The tutorial stage is not yet off the cards though, as we wholeheartedly agree with your 'teaching by doing' philosophy.

    pieter said:
    The full screen "You've made a mistake" message confused me, I can appreciate that there will need to be some shuffling of numbers as you try out different combinations, but the game was telling me that I've made a mistake, even though I was obeying all the rules. This confused the hell out of me, as I thought I was misunderstanding something.
    I am including a pic for those following the thread.
    image
    I understand the confusion that this be might causing. But, basically, there is only one possible solution to the puzzle: The game checks the puzzle after a set number of moves to determine if any of the blocks are incorrect. The player may well have made a simple mistake, and normally no pen value should go into the puzzle until you are certain that the number is the correct one. The puzzles are solved using basic arithmetic and logic, so guessing numbers will never work. Making one mistake so early in the puzzle only leads to a further series of incorrect assumptions, making it impossible to solve thereafter.

    We can remove the popup, but we feel there is real value in the message it is trying to communicate. We can try reword the message displayed in the popup or refrain form using the words 'incorrect' and 'mistake'. Not really sure how best to word this - any suggestions are welcome. We can also change this to a modal popup, but it will still take up a large majority of screen space.
    pieter said:
    The popup message mid game asking me if I was having fun felt obnoxious. I was still on the first stage, struggling to figure out if I'm playing the game correctly (exiting to the main menu a few times to read the rules again). This is maybe a question best asked after I've successfully completed at least 3 or 4 puzzles.
    Agreed. This needs to be fixed. A small bug that is checking against 'games started' as apposed to 'games completed'. - Thanks for the heads up!
    pieter said:
    The interface is fine, though being able to swap numbers on the grid by clicking and dragging would have made things feel smoother. Erasing by double tapping, or dragging of screen.
    This is really an interesting point and something that I would like to elaborate on further. I like your idea, however, dragging things around the screen limits one-handed game play and also has the effect of increasing player hand/finger fatigue.
    Lastly, fans of Sudoku and Killer Sudoku have become used to a standard way of interacting with these puzzles on touch screens. Deviating from the expected norm here would probably frustrate and even annoy veteran players. My first rule of UX is remain consistent to what people expect and intuitively understand. We have had a few requests to allow the user to choose which pencil marks to delete (currently an all-or-nothing approach) as well as the ability for the game to remove redundant pencil marks from the active row and column when 'inking' in a value. Both of these changes will be part of our next update.
    pieter said:
    I saw a quite a few other titles on the Play Store very similar to your game, and even though your graphics were better than most of them, that alone wasn't enough to make it stand out. In fact a lot of them had more features. However I wouldn't try to compete in a market this saturated. Sure if you throw Bejeweled levels of polish and juice at it, together with Candy Crush style features you would definitely get noticed. But those cost a lot of time and money.
    First, a copy-and-paste of my answer to @Tuism - "I agree that 'Sudoku' is a rather saturated market - which is why we made the strategic decision to make a 'Killer Sudoku'. These puzzles are considerably more difficult to make and therefore you will find fewer competing 'Killer Sudoku' games on the stores. A quick search on Google Play and Microsoft Stores reveal less than ten alternative 'Killer Sudoku' games."

    To further elaborate on the points that you added, we did extensive research into all our competitors' games, identifying both positive and negative features. The resulting feature list is a long one and I will spare everybody the boredom of highlighting each of them here. Using this list we made sure our game includes all the best features and none of the pain points.

    One specific feature we guarantee, and one that gives us a competitive edge, is that each puzzle has only one solution.

    This is a crucial feature, and although this is a requirement of all Sudoku-styled puzzles, it is one that is seldom respected in the mobile market. This common problem in other Sudoku-styled games originates from the use of generators or just poor puzzle design. It's a make-or-break issue, as some veterans will not return to a title with this flaw.
    pieter said:
    Honestly, I think your time would be better spent coming up with your own unique puzzle mechanics. People are always looking for new and interesting puzzle games to play, and those who come up with them are rewarded. Go check out games like "Steven's Sausage Roll" and "A Good Snowman is Hard to Build" for inspiration. You can also check out our very own @francoisvn 's work, he's a very talented puzzle game designer.
    Essentially, I agree with the sentiment of this statement. Indeed, breaking new ground can open the door to new territory. This was not the goal on this game and, in fact, something we we wanted to avoid. Limited time and resources meant that improving on something that's already well-known and widely accepted would be the best use of our time. We have taken our fair share of risks recently and purposefully chose something that we felt that we could improve upon, something that we knew our users would understand and ultimately appreciate.
  • When I get my access again in a few months I hope I remember to buy and download this! It looks and sounds good! Hope things go well. The points raised are all good (without even attempting this game)
    Thanked by 1Oneil_CT
  • Thanks for the support @edg3

    @roguecode - sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Also had some similar questions from @dislekcia . I will be putting something together for the forum regarding the results of the myAppFree campaign. Just been waiting for all the stats to filter through.
  • In response to @roguecode and @dislekcia questions about the success of the myAppFree program we recently participated in, I have prepared a little report on the campaign.

    The campaign was for the Windows versions of SUDOMATIK Mini Killer Sudoku - PC, Tablet and phone
    The game normally retails for $2.99 on this store.

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    Goals

    The main goals of the campaign were to increase visibility, improve awareness, jump-start activity on the store, and hopefully get some positive reviews and personal recommendations.

    The campaign

    We arranged the campaign to run on the 25th with a lead up time of around 10 days.
    The campaign officially ran for one day only, but with buffer on either side, it was more like 48 hours.

    On the day, Windows Central also covered the campaign with a brief overview of the game written by George Ponder, who also wrote a review for WORDFIX - our first title.

    http://www.windowscentral.com/sudomatik-todays-myappfree-deal

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    The article on Windows Central also sparked interest on other sites like nokiapoweruser, as well as a few micro news sites, blogs, tweets, reddits and Facebook posts from around the world, including in Russia, India, Vietnam, Russia, Portugal, Italy, Spain and China.

    Overall, the general coverage of the campaign was good.

    The numbers

    Over the 48-hour period, SUDOMATIK received a little over 2800 downloads from 96 countries.
    The top countries being: United States, Italy, Brazil, France, Germany, India and Russia.

    70 percent of the downloads were for phone, which makes sense since the myAppFree program is for the phone platform.
    So far out of those downloads, we have received 21 reviews of which 18 are five-star ratings. Hopefully, a couple more will follow in the next few days :)

    Beyond the downloads, SUDOMATIK got a boost on store visibility in the 'New and Rising' category. Our store search ranking increased dramatically - ranking 2nd for the term "Killer Sudoku" and 10th for the term "Sudoku". In general, our overall web presence has also benefited.

    As an added bonus, the Android version of SUDOMATIK got a small bump in downloads and a slight visibility improvement, despite the campaign being Windows only.

    Final thoughts

    I personally felt the campaign was a success in that it achieved all its goals.
    However, how this translates into actual sales remains to be seen.

    Can I recommend the program? - If your platform target is Windows Phone and you are trying to improve visibility and gain some traction on the store - then yes, I can.

    Many thanks to everyone who showed their support.
    Thanked by 1edg3
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