When I initially launched iCombat in April, I decided to wait on releasing a lite version to first see if I could manage to get up the charts without one. My fear was that a lite version would cannibalize my potential user base if I accidentally put too much of the game’s “secret sauce” out there for free. Looking back, I realize now I was so afraid to get the feature mix for the demo wrong that I irrationally avoided the option much longer than I should have.
And while part of my hesitation had to do with my optimism about iCombat’s potential and my marketing ability, it also had to do with the fact that I rarely buy full versions of games (although I do occasionally). After just launching my lite version yesterday I can say that my concerns about the lite version were misplaced and might have cost me quite a bit in lost income. Below are my main takeaways from having waited on launching the lite version and why I think too many indie iPhone developers wrongly steer clear of lite versions:
- Know your Apps Core value and its core user: This sounds douchey but it really is harder than it sounds to have the discipline to know the profile of your core user and then choose that feature you think will resonate most. For example, if you are making a game it is easy to think kids and adults will like it and they will all get hooked on the game play AND the graphics AND the story equally. Odds are your app will not resonate with everyone, and one salient feature will be the hook so the sooner you figure it out and admit it to yourself the better. You may be wrong, but better to know your target than water down your strategy by pursuing too many angles. Needless to say once you have your app’s core value outlined it will also be that much easier to design your lite version.
- The App store is not a lemonade stand: The App store is one of the largest, most seamless content delivery platforms ever and when it comes to pricing most of us fail to understand just how fundamentally different this is from anything we have ever seen. As a result we apply our personal conceptions of scarcity, value or what it means to transact with someone to something that is totally different. If you have released an app you will agree that pricing decisions or the debate about a lite version are often more emotional than rational. I am sure more than one developer has though “I don’t want to give it to someone for free when I worked 3 months on it every night after work while my wife was screaming at me because I was never around.” That would be okay to think if you toiled on a model airplane or a painting for that period and were selling the one unit you had created, but in the App store you can divide that effort across 40MM+ people so who really cares if 5MM users get your app for free if in the end 250k of them buy it? Read more…
For anyone interested in creating an iPhone app but wondering where to begin, I think the best thing you can do is just sit down and lay it out. I have always been a big fan of whiteboards and as of late the huge Post It Easel Pads but these are impossible if you travel a lot and are of limited use when trying to collaborate over long distances. The answer for me has been to use Balsamiq, a tool that allows you to quickly create mock-ups of both websites and iPhone apps. With Balsamiq I can work through the mechanics of how an app should work, and visually see the flow from action to action.
In previous posts I have suggested to first time app developers the importance of creating proper specs when planning to create an app. I think mockup tools like Balsamiq are even more useful than making great specs and writing out usage scenario examples. Not only does it help you better develop your idea but it also gives you the ability to share your mockups with other people instantly. For example, if you are thinking about outsourcing development or are talking to other team members, Balsamiq will let you share your mockups and convey clearly what you want to do (for info on how to protect your idea with outsourced developers read this post). And by visually demonstrating the flow of how you want your app to work developers will have a much better idea of what you are looking for. This will pay off in terms of the quality of developer you manage to get and it will also improve the accuracy of the time and budget estimates you get from developers.
Even if you plan on developing the app yourself, you can benefit from working through the fuzzy parts of your idea. A mockup tool will give you the simple tools you need to work through EVERY aspect of your app structure before you begin the development process. This is important because it can alert you to fundamental flaws in your idea or logic before you put the time and effort into building it.
In addition to the sketches of the iPhone and its main interface tools you also have sketches of dozens of buttons, switches, icons and other items that you can customize. For example, when you drag an iPhone image to the drawing area, a box pops up where you can select whether to include the status toolbar at the top, change the orientation, the background look, etc. You can even drag call out boxes into the picture as well to insert commentary about your mockup. Check out this video for an example of what is possible.
Balsamiq includes a free trial version so you can test it out today…give it 5 minutes and you will see how quickly you get the hang of it.
I posted to Twitter about this but think it deserves mention here as well since it is such a great resource for game developers. Ngmoco’s blog is short but incredibly dense in high quality advice from successful and experienced iPhone gamemakers. The most recent posts aren’t so heavy on design advice but if you go to earlier entries you will find some awesome entries about game design and development. The best post was from Kristine Coco titled With doing comes learning that gives some great insight into what works and what doesn’t for geographically distributed teams as well as for certain aspects of game development. As an aside, Kristine will actually be giving a talk this year at the Game Developers Conference on working with external teams (clearly a topic important to me as I work with a team in the Ukraine!) titled I Say Green, You Hear Purple: Avoiding a Game of Telephone When Working with External Teams. While I cannot attend unfortunately, it sounds like the ngmoco website will be posting the talk and slides after the presentation on their blog (update: see slides here). Read more…
Below is some advice from Taras Filatov, the lead of the team I am currently working with in the Ukraine. His advice is great if you are thinking about developing an application and are currently looking for developers (either locally or abroad):
1. “I need a simple iPhone app done…”
A lot of iPhone job posts at Odesk, Elance, RentACoder start like this. This is somewhat similar to the typical “I need a simple shopping cart solution” post we often see in the web development section. It might be interesting for you to know that when your ad starts like this there is a very high chance that it will be disregarded by developers or their sales teams that check the website. This is because developers in most cases find the requirements for something stated to be simple as oftentimes being actually very complex software: with bells and whistles, using GPS location, chat, camera, social networking functionality and a website to support the server functionality. All of this is just assumed to appear out of the blue built by the same developer.
Typically, there are no specification documents and the job poster has a general, unfinished idea of what he/ she thinks is a “killer app” and they want the developer to do the rest of thinking. It is also common in such cases that the author did little or no research into what is possible with iPhone SDK and after a discussion it may well turn out that implementing such functionality is impossible at all (except for jailbroken devices) so it turns out to have been a waste of time to even sign all the confidential agreements and begin discussion at the end of the day. Read more…
I have noticed on a few developer forums like this one that there are a decent amount of people who are looking for guidance as to how best execute their ideas. Most often these “idea people” are berated by the hardcore developers in the forums, written off as little more than a symptom of the iPhone app store hype. While no doubt there are a decent amount of Trism or iShoot wannabes who give the rest of us a bad name, I am writing this post for those of you who think you have something good and are actually serious about getting your product developed and following through. While I am still working on my 1st app, and have no idea how it will do in the App Store, I can tell you that I sat on my idea for a good 6 months so I have a pretty good idea of how hard it is to get started and where the pitfalls are.
Read more…
When I started working with the development team abroad, they suggested we use Basecamp to stay in synch. I had heard of the company 37 Signals but had never used any of their products so I was really blown away once we got the project up an running. The service includes a message board, shared task calendar, To Do List, a writeboard, and file sharing service and an easily to manage contacts list.
Basecamp screenshot
The team put all of our milestones into the system so now I can go to Basecamp, review the list of upcoming milestones and leave files and comments that I think are useful for the team. Once you upload or insert a new comment you have the option of notifying specific group members which is great because it avoids spamming those people who are not relevant to the update.
I think this software is really a brilliant way to manage a geographically separated group of people where transparency can obviously be difficult and it is hard to get clarity around what each person is doing. I seriously recommend Basecamp for anyone collaborating on not just software development, but anything that could require getting a group of people on to the same page.
I started by posting a local (Philadelphia) advertisement to Craigslist and also by going to oDesk and posting an advertisement looking for an iPhone developer. My ad on Craigslist was straightforward and I offered both a salary while in development but also a portion of the returns. I got some good feedback and received inquiries from individuals, local iPhone development companies but also many international development firms. Initially I was interested in finding something more like a partner with technical skills to work with and share the return. This quickly proved to not be an option.
I still don’t think it is a bad deal to offer a developer: 1) an application idea, 2) a salary, 3) a flexible schedule, and 4) a portion of the returns. I wasn’t able to find anyone experienced, however, with enough interest and skill to really dive in to the project. While I am sure this is a symptom of the high demand for iPhone developers and my lack of being able to find / convince anyone locally (I only posted on Craigslist so wasn’t exactly scouring the city), it was still surprising how few serious inquiries I received. Let me just add, as someone who is learning the iPhone SDK, I was amazed at how little most developers who reached out to me knew about developing with the iPhone SDK.
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When I decided to create my application idea by going with international development it took me quite some time to figure out the best way to do it. I’m pretty resourceful at finding what I need on the web so when I couldn’t find any advice on the topic I decided to document my process for others thinking about outsourced development.
Being new to programming and having just started to learn the iPhone SDK I felt time pressure to get my app idea out to market before someone else beat me to the punch. I thought about the trade off between time, money and certainty of getting a launchable product and decided that I should invest the money necessary to get a working version into the App Store as quickly as possible. That way I could also put more time on designing the game as well as the marketing.
Read more…
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