I haven't done anything significant for the last couple of months due to work, children and COVID. Hopefully, I'll be back working on apps and games later this year. I have some new ideas and I can't wait to try them out. However, what I need right now is relax and sleep, so that's what I'm going to prioritize. Other things will have to wait.
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
June Updates
Just a quick update on what's been happening during the last two months.
I took on a new side gig, which deprived me of virtually any free time. I've been polishing Coins: an app in which you can explore various cryptocurrencies and keep your wallets. I thought it was going to be an interesting experience that would teach me new skills, that I wouldn't be able to learn in my day job. I did learn a couple of things, but overall, I'm becoming more and more miserable because of the lack of free time. I'm going to cut down on the number of hours I spend working on Coins starting this week, which should give me some relief.
Other than Coins, I haven't done much. I finished a nice Flutter course on Udemy. I liked it very much, except the fact that some of the lessons were targeted at absolute beginners (e.g. explaining how for loops work or what OOP is).
I will start working on a simple Flutter app displaying a list of events for children. My wife has been running a newsletter putting those events there, but I think that an app could be much easier to use, since you'd be able to filter only those events that interest you instead of trying to pick them from a very long list. I want to use Flutter, because I can easily make an iOS version as well, and perhaps a Web version too.
I took on a new side gig, which deprived me of virtually any free time. I've been polishing Coins: an app in which you can explore various cryptocurrencies and keep your wallets. I thought it was going to be an interesting experience that would teach me new skills, that I wouldn't be able to learn in my day job. I did learn a couple of things, but overall, I'm becoming more and more miserable because of the lack of free time. I'm going to cut down on the number of hours I spend working on Coins starting this week, which should give me some relief.
Other than Coins, I haven't done much. I finished a nice Flutter course on Udemy. I liked it very much, except the fact that some of the lessons were targeted at absolute beginners (e.g. explaining how for loops work or what OOP is).
I will start working on a simple Flutter app displaying a list of events for children. My wife has been running a newsletter putting those events there, but I think that an app could be much easier to use, since you'd be able to filter only those events that interest you instead of trying to pick them from a very long list. I want to use Flutter, because I can easily make an iOS version as well, and perhaps a Web version too.
Wish me luck with my future endeavors.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Quarantine updates
I've been sitting at home with my kids for a several weeks now and it's been a difficult time for me, but a couple of interesting things happened that I want to share with you.
First of all, Blobby Volley got featured in an article on GamesKeys as an underrated arcade game to play. I never contacted them, so it was a nice surprise to find out that people liked my game. I recommended Find a Way to them as well and they might write about it in the future.
I bought Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo when they were 50% off. They should help me make better icons and graphic resources for my apps.
People have been writing to me regarding my apps. I made a couple of bug fixes in Unity Ads Stats because the numbers were incorrect in some rare cases, as one of my users pointed out and helped me track the issue. Also, a couple of months ago I made a small app for my brother-in-law, who is a forester. It was supposed to help him count trees and estimate their volume. I made a simple prototype and published it on Google Play as a beta, so that it was easier for him to install. As it turned out, someone else found the app, started using it and came back to me with feedback. I couldn't help myself and I implemented some of the suggestions. Perhaps it's a sign that I should polish it a bit and publish a final version?
When it comes to the promotion of Find a Way, I didn't do anything new. I'm still considering paying a small amount for ads on Google and Facebook, just to see how they work and how many users I can get with them. It's hard for me to start though, because I don't even know where to begin.
I also forgot to mention that I started working on a new app for my wife. She has a Facebook group and a newsletter with events for children and parents. I was thinking that the app might be useful, because browsing and filtering Facebook events or emails is very inconvenient. I already made a small prototype using Firebase Realtime Database. It looks promising but I'm not sure how to add events to the database in a user friendly way, so that non-technical people can do it.
To sum up, I had a rough start into the quarantine, but I've managed to organize myself well enough now to be able to put in some hours into my apps. I still get very excited about them, to the point where I can't sleep. I might be spreading myself thin though, with all those little changes and improvements that I do to all of them. And I'd like to improve controls in Blobby Volley too. We'll see what I'm actually capable of soon...
First of all, Blobby Volley got featured in an article on GamesKeys as an underrated arcade game to play. I never contacted them, so it was a nice surprise to find out that people liked my game. I recommended Find a Way to them as well and they might write about it in the future.
I bought Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo when they were 50% off. They should help me make better icons and graphic resources for my apps.
People have been writing to me regarding my apps. I made a couple of bug fixes in Unity Ads Stats because the numbers were incorrect in some rare cases, as one of my users pointed out and helped me track the issue. Also, a couple of months ago I made a small app for my brother-in-law, who is a forester. It was supposed to help him count trees and estimate their volume. I made a simple prototype and published it on Google Play as a beta, so that it was easier for him to install. As it turned out, someone else found the app, started using it and came back to me with feedback. I couldn't help myself and I implemented some of the suggestions. Perhaps it's a sign that I should polish it a bit and publish a final version?
When it comes to the promotion of Find a Way, I didn't do anything new. I'm still considering paying a small amount for ads on Google and Facebook, just to see how they work and how many users I can get with them. It's hard for me to start though, because I don't even know where to begin.
I also forgot to mention that I started working on a new app for my wife. She has a Facebook group and a newsletter with events for children and parents. I was thinking that the app might be useful, because browsing and filtering Facebook events or emails is very inconvenient. I already made a small prototype using Firebase Realtime Database. It looks promising but I'm not sure how to add events to the database in a user friendly way, so that non-technical people can do it.
To sum up, I had a rough start into the quarantine, but I've managed to organize myself well enough now to be able to put in some hours into my apps. I still get very excited about them, to the point where I can't sleep. I might be spreading myself thin though, with all those little changes and improvements that I do to all of them. And I'd like to improve controls in Blobby Volley too. We'll see what I'm actually capable of soon...
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Find a Way: Promotion (part 2)
Here's what I did so far to promote Find a Way:
- I published a post in three Facebook groups:
- I created a post on Reddit in AndroidGaming
- I wrote to several review sites such as:
- Android Games Review
- Pocket Gamer
- AppsPirate
- Android Apps
- AppSpy
- Droid Gamers
- possibly some more that didn't answer me
The cost of getting a game reviewed was ranging from $89 to $3000, so I decided that I wasn't ready to spend such a high amount of money. Especially that I wasn't sure if it would get me any results. Facebook and Reddit posts brought me around 10 new downloads. Perhaps if my game was more graphics heavy, then it would be easier to showcase it... however creating such a game would take me years.
I'm slowly running out of ideas as to where I could still promote Find a Way. I'm considering investing a small amount of money in Google and/or Facebook ads, just to see how they work and what kind of returns I could get from them.
If you have any other suggestions of what I could still do to get more downloads, please let me know.
I'm slowly running out of ideas as to where I could still promote Find a Way. I'm considering investing a small amount of money in Google and/or Facebook ads, just to see how they work and what kind of returns I could get from them.
If you have any other suggestions of what I could still do to get more downloads, please let me know.
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Find a Way: Promotion (part 1)
Since my new game Find a Way is not doing well on Google Play, I decided to take action and try to promote it in various ways, letting you know about my results. Here's what I've done so far.
I published the game on itch.io. I'd been publishing early prototype versions there even before the game got published. I did get up to 8 visits during the first week of the game's presence there and then it dropped to around 1-2 visits per day. Also, a large part of the visits seem to come from the blog anyway...
I submitted the game to the Indie Games Festival from Google Play. I don't think that I could ever win it but I thought that it might be a way to get more eyes on the game. So far, I'm not seeing any significant results from it, but the submission phase is still in progress, so perhaps some traffic will come later.
I submitted the game to Unity Connect. You don't know what it is? Well, I didn't either. It's a portal created by Unity to showcase projects and look for gigs. There aren't any analytics there but I don't think it brings many people to the game.
I didn't take any more serious steps to promote Find a Way yet because I've been trying to improve it a little bit by making the ads less intrusive, fixing some minor bugs, and building it with Unity 2019.3, which has some tweaks. I'm almost done with all the changes I wanted to make and I'll start reaching out to various online groups and review sites to see if it helps in any way. Stay tuned for more updates.
I published the game on itch.io. I'd been publishing early prototype versions there even before the game got published. I did get up to 8 visits during the first week of the game's presence there and then it dropped to around 1-2 visits per day. Also, a large part of the visits seem to come from the blog anyway...
I submitted the game to the Indie Games Festival from Google Play. I don't think that I could ever win it but I thought that it might be a way to get more eyes on the game. So far, I'm not seeing any significant results from it, but the submission phase is still in progress, so perhaps some traffic will come later.
I submitted the game to Unity Connect. You don't know what it is? Well, I didn't either. It's a portal created by Unity to showcase projects and look for gigs. There aren't any analytics there but I don't think it brings many people to the game.
I didn't take any more serious steps to promote Find a Way yet because I've been trying to improve it a little bit by making the ads less intrusive, fixing some minor bugs, and building it with Unity 2019.3, which has some tweaks. I'm almost done with all the changes I wanted to make and I'll start reaching out to various online groups and review sites to see if it helps in any way. Stay tuned for more updates.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Find a Way: Results so far
It's been more than a month since my game Find a Way was published on Google Play and itch.io. So far it has less than 100 downloads and it doesn't seem that it's getting any traction. I wasn't expecting it to be super popular but I was definitely hoping for more than this.
The game itself turned out quite well and I'm proud of making it. It has some good ratings on Google Play (most of them are from my friends and family though). I'm frankly not sure why it's not getting at least a couple of downloads a day. It's not that people play it and don't like it - there's just nobody even discovering its existence.
I'm not getting depressed about the results though. I think that I might still be able to make it work somehow. My thinking is that I just didn't spend enough time for marketing.
So the plan now is to try a bunch of techniques to promote the game. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of ideas that I could use, e.g. contacting review sites, posting it on game-related Facebook pages, posting it on Reddit, perhaps even paying for some traffic.
I'm going to perform a series of experiments trying to see which techniques work and which do not. I hope it can be interesting to you as well. If you have an idea you think I should try, please let me know.
I'll keep you up to date on my actions and their results. Come back in a couple of weeks to see how I'm doing. Wish me luck!
The game itself turned out quite well and I'm proud of making it. It has some good ratings on Google Play (most of them are from my friends and family though). I'm frankly not sure why it's not getting at least a couple of downloads a day. It's not that people play it and don't like it - there's just nobody even discovering its existence.
I'm not getting depressed about the results though. I think that I might still be able to make it work somehow. My thinking is that I just didn't spend enough time for marketing.
So the plan now is to try a bunch of techniques to promote the game. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of ideas that I could use, e.g. contacting review sites, posting it on game-related Facebook pages, posting it on Reddit, perhaps even paying for some traffic.
I'm going to perform a series of experiments trying to see which techniques work and which do not. I hope it can be interesting to you as well. If you have an idea you think I should try, please let me know.
I'll keep you up to date on my actions and their results. Come back in a couple of weeks to see how I'm doing. Wish me luck!
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