First Mobile Game Finished - Now what?

Hi Guys,

Long time lurker, first time posting today.

I've always wanted to get into game development ever since I was a kid but It was pretty hard for me to get started in something and stick to it without getting discouraged by not knowing how to do it properly. Four months ago I jumped right into the deep-end of Unity and Game Development without knowing much about Code and even less about Game Dev as a whole. I started with something really silly and learnt as I went and soon after that I realized that I had actually made something that gets a good response from close friends (but still very basic in its entirety).

Fast forward to now, I spent all my spare time putting personal pressure on myself to finish what I started and I managed to successfully publish it to the PlayStore. It's a pretty good feeling to have something you made from start to finish finally be available for people to see/rate/enjoy.

The Game is Cosmic Melon and can be found here on the Android store.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anulphaStudios.CosmicMelon
(Keep in mind its my first game ever made so it's probably not the best thing you've ever played :D)

So My question is now what? With everything on the interwebs today - Traffic is the most important thing to have if you want to get any kind of interaction, but with so many mobile games being churned out today, how do you get people to see your game?
With the exception of paid advertising which I have tried, and it's kinda working but I feel there has to be another way. Of course it goes without saying that If you've made something EXCEPTIONALLY MINDBLOWING - You won't really have to do much advertising.

Things that I am considering:

Manually reaching out to app reviewing websites.
Asking those Youtubers who do video reviews of mobile games.
Generally just optimizing advertising campaigns.

So yeah as my question stands, What options do mobile game devs have in terms of pushing their games to the public more effectively?

By the way: If anyone feels like playing a fun toilet game and does install Cosmic Melon, any feedback here would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Razz.

Comments

  • edited
    What options do mobile game devs have in terms of pushing their games to the public more effectively?
    I haven't played your game. But you describe it as your first game, and I can't tell all that much from the 3 screenshots on the Play store. For the sake of argument I'm going to assume that Cosmic Melon doesn't stand out in the mobile game landscape, apart from devoted melon fans and their intersection with Android owners who enjoy light on content arcade games with high scores and starfield backgrounds.

    I'm really not trying to be harsh here, but there isn't a lot you can do if your game doesn't stand out in some way or spark some interest on its own.

    Youtubers will only pick it up if it excites them or they think that their audience will enjoy seeing them play it more than all the other games they haven't already tried. They are autonomous agents, they will act in their best interests, and those of them that have public email addresses receive a shitstorm of emails about games that developers want them to know about everyday.

    Review sites will review it if it seems relevant to their audience. Again, they aren't going to put in the effort to do a review if the game is something their audience are going to want to know about.

    You can post information about your game on forums dedicated to mobile games, or post on Reddit forums where people would be interested. But the traction you get is going to be proportional to how interested the people are who come across your game's promotion.

    It might be good experience trying to promote your game. But you're in the same boat as thousands of others right now. You have to make a game that the people who come across it will excitedly tell their friends about, because all the effort you spend on promoting your game is only going to be as effective as the chance that your promotion will be shared with others.

    You really can't get around the fact that your game has to be great first. Even a free game has to be more worth someone's time than whatever else they might have spent that time on.

    The thing I'd suggest you do is make another game. And this time try get feedback on it from fellow developers as you develop it, so that you can guide your choices based on feedback. Every game you make is one step in the direction of making awesome games. Each time aim higher, or lower if you have to, try different approaches, figure out what players want, and learn what your limitations are, and keep refining your craft until promoting your game feels effortless.
  • Hi Evan,

    Well noted

    Thanks for the advice - I'll start on something else.
    Thanked by 1dislekcia
  • edited
    Should you wish that your game gets on YouTube attempt to approach smaller channels, in most cases they won't be getting many games to review/play so they will most likely cover your game. Even though they may have a small amount of subscribers, those loyal to that channel could pick your game up and should they enjoy it, tell their friends. In the end you could perhaps gain a few new players, which is not a lot but the more channels you approach the larger your player base would become. This shouldn't prevent you from approaching large channels either but I believe smaller channels are the way to go i order to promote your game.

    Just a side note will this be released on IOS?
    Thanked by 1Razz
  • The biggest benefits I've gotten from most of the games I've made has been learning from the feedback I've received.

    In the last few years I've tried to make it as easy as possible for people to pick up and play my games/prototypes, and the feedback I've gotten from this community has been, and still is, invaluable in shaping my understanding of game development.

    It seems like developers who post games that are already published to mobile rarely get much feedback. Installing a game on a mobile device is one extra step that people who might potentially leave feedback have to make. And on top of that, folks are less inclined to leave feedback on finished games than on games that are still in development and show promise.

    Videos are also helpful in engaging potential players.

    Again, the people here can be quite helpful, but are also looking to spend their time in the most rewarding way. Some of them leave feedback, but they do so more on games that interest them, and more on the games that are easy to leave feedback on (because the developer asks easy questions, or they understand that kind of game).

    A lot of the developers who visit here don't leave feedback sadly :( (but that just means if you want feedback you've got to work for it, fortunately it's less work here than on the Play Store, because this community is united by wanting other South Africans to succeed).
    Thanked by 1Boysano
  • Totally, I agree with the fact that no one feels like giving feedback on something that is already published if it doesn't interest them, especially if it's for mobile because they've got to go through downloads and installs (even though something that is published IS the easiest way to get a prototype to someone's device) but also they'll probably feel that since its published, not much is going to change besides a few bugs. On the contrary I've seen games on mobile look absolutely horrible - and when I go back to the app 6 months later it looks like a completely different game, so nothing is set in stone.

    But anyways, The point of this discussion was never really about feedback because I know what a mission it is to have to go install something just for feedback - that's why I said, if someone WERE interested and they DID install and jam it then feedback is totally welcomed.
    Wakintosh said:
    Should you wish that your game gets on YouTube attempt to approach smaller channels, in most cases they won't be getting many games to review/play so they will most likely cover your game. Even though they may have a small amount of subscribers.
    Thanks, that's what I had in mind was just to approach small channels - at some point, like you said some of the loyal followers might pick up the game and tell their friends which could be likely.There is currently like a small friends group in the US who are jamming it for fun every now and again to outscore eachother and one of them emailed me and asked if there was a way to track scores better. From that, I made a Scoreboard using the Facebook SDK - so if there is a small group like that, there are bound to be more, Who Knows.
    Wakintosh said:
    Just a side note will this be released on IOS?
    Well I was never really planning to but I had a few people asking. Since I'm deving on a windows machine and I believe you need a machine running OSX to be able to build Xcode to any iOS devices (Correct me if I'm wrong) and I don't really have the resources right now to buy a mac of any sorts. Android was more like a dry run to be honest.

    But nevertheless thanks for the comments, I am working on something else with the above in mind and hopefully I'll post some Easy-to-pickup-prototypes in the future.

    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
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