Bliz Studio - Trixel Rocket Devlog 10
Here is the 10th devlog for my indie game Trixel Rocket. Here is what's happening since I have launched the game last week. Updates to game, etc... Download Trixel Rocket now on the iOS App Store FREE — https://buff.ly/2oBkkKN
Trixel Rocket had been live for a little over a week when this devlog was recorded, and it is a candid post-launch report: a surprise early release, broken features, a wave of downloads and featuring, and a plan to fix the game's biggest complaint. Here is what happened and what other devs can take from it.
The launch that happened a day early
The game was set to release on the 18th, but the App Store pushed it live automatically on the 17th - while a newer, easier build was still sitting in Apple's review queue. That improved build shipped on the 18th, but by then the first day's players had already met the rougher version, and a lot of the bad reviews sitting on the store trace back to it. If you are launching your own game, treat an automatic release date plus an update still in review as a dangerous combination.
Broken leaderboards and in-app purchases
The build that went out on the 18th shipped with a non-working leaderboard and non-working in-app purchases - a genuine miss on Jerry's part. Version 1.2, released the following Tuesday, fixed both. Two of the ships still were not working at recording time, and that one was a problem on the App Store side rather than a bug in the game, which made it all the more frustrating.
The good news
Despite the messy start, downloads poured in and Apple featured the game in New Games We Love in 27 different countries. For a solo indie title with no publisher, that level of visibility in launch week is a real success, and it put the game in front of a lot of players fast.
The fix for a game that is too hard
The most consistent feedback from players: the game is too hard. The plan, decided the night before this recording, is a major update that restructures progression into three main tiers of levels - a genuinely easy opening series, a middle series that is a little harder, and the existing levels as the top difficulty. That means building new levels and modifying current ones to fit the easier tiers, and some of the logic to make the tiered progression work is already in place.
What is next
Beyond the difficulty overhaul, more updates are queued, including things that will let players participate in the game's development. The takeaway if you bounced off the launch version: the progressive-difficulty update is the one to come back for. Feedback by email, comments, or social media all reaches the developer and genuinely shapes what gets built next.
