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App Audit on a New Game

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App Masters18:30Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

A casual game gets found by borrowing the search traffic of famous names, like movie titles and sports teams, and by looking current. Nobody searches for casual games directly, so name and icon do the work.

Key takeaways

  • Nobody searches for casual games by type, so a game needs another way to be found. 6:00
    • Steve has no public data yet and calls his naming approach a test.
  • Naming a game after a popular movie or sports team borrows that traffic. 6:15
    • His game Galaxy Jump targets Guardians of the Galaxy. Such terms have good volume and low competition, since only sticker apps for the movie compete.
    • For a bird game he suggests Cardinals, Orioles or Falcons. Keywords like Arizona or St. Louis go in the Spanish Mexico localization.
  • A flat, modern icon lifts downloads. 14:15
    • A gradient brush background feels like 2011. Steve's client got 19% more downloads on Google Play from a flat icon alone.
  • Fresh visuals and tuned gameplay keep a casual game addictive. 3:08
    • Aim for a balance of irritation and relaxation. Steve suggests a faster bird, a more 3D pixelated look, and a reaction when the bird dies.
    • Testers asked for breadcrumbs worth different points and seasonal backgrounds, which add depth to the game.
  • A solo developer can drive early downloads cheaply. 8:38
    • Make one in-app purchase free for a short time. Few players use it, so it costs little.
    • With a budget, use influencers. Without one, pitch Apple through its form and a LinkedIn contact. The studio name matters little.

I think everything is moving flat, like you should just make it flat.

Steve Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 Polishing the look and feel of the bird game

The game is close to ready, but its art style sits in an awkward middle and its controls and background need tuning.

  • The bird's art falls between flat and 3D. 1:55
    • It reads like the cartoons the players grew up with.
    • Pixelated 3D, like Crossy Road or a 3D Flappy Bird, is where the market is heading.
    • Modern cartoons are more polished, so a younger audience expects more.
    • The bird not flapping its wings for most of the play looked odd at first. Steve decided it works.
    • The developer confirmed the childhood-cartoon feel was intended, and still watches cartoons himself.
  • The controls and background are the next things to tune. 3:40
    • One tap sends the bird high, and a couple of taps reach the top of the screen.
    • Getting used to the controls takes a while.
    • The gradient background could become a plain sky.
    • Steve had the Voodoo interview in mind. Voodoo made Paper.io and Snake vs Block, which was around number seven in the charts.
    • The icon needed little. Steve expected more feedback, liked the bird, and said it looks better on a bigger screen.

5:55 Naming the game after something famous

Borrowing a famous name is an untested idea, and it will be judged by switching the keyword off and watching downloads.

  • Removing the borrowed keyword after launch shows whether the name drives downloads. 7:27
    • First check how well the game ranks for the Guardians phrase.
    • Then drop that phrase from the optimization and watch the ranking and downloads fall.
    • Nothing else changes, so any drop in downloads comes from that keyword.
    • Galaxy Jump was once Cosmic Jump. A developer asked Steve to help publish it, and he renamed it.
    • The subtitle is tuned for the Guardians phrase too.
    • For the bird game, Steve suggests bird-related titles such as Rio.
    • The game launches in a few weeks, and Steve plans to report the result.

8:15 What a solo developer can do alone

Without a team, store optimization and a free-purchase promotion are the cheapest ways to start.

  • App store optimization and a pay-to-free campaign are the two things to do alone. 8:38
    • The developer asked about social media. Steve pointed to store optimization first.
    • Steve likes a coupon model, such as a purchase free for two weeks.
    • It is his favorite campaign.
    • Players who grab the free purchase mostly never use it.

9:15 Studio name and launch timing

A studio name is a small detail, and the first launch is close.

  • The studio name barely matters for discovery. 9:46
    • It only counts if Apple still indexes company names as keywords.
    • Steve thinks Apple now uses exact match only, but isn't sure.
    • The developer's current name is a word meaning foreign or alien, and he wondered if a different spelling would help.
    • Steve calls it one of the small little details that won't make or break a company.
  • Launch is planned for the beginning to middle of August. 11:05
    • Before then he will expand the graphics and add backgrounds.
    • A few testers are already giving feedback.
    • One tester's feedback is already being built into the game.
    • The testers' ideas are meant to put more beef in the game.

12:17 Fixing the icon

The icon looks dated, and a clean change in contrast and style would fix it.

  • The brush-style gradient background reads as old. 13:20
    • It looks like a Photoshop brush. Steve's own first app in 2011 had the same look.
    • Orange against blue already contrasts well, so keep strong contrast.
    • Steve's client resisted changes to his Google Play listing during soft launch. Steve asked him to trust the test.
    • He compares it to the glossy 3D box look that was hot around 2013.
    • His advice: use one flat color, or just drop the brush.

15:08 A one-person build

The developer made everything himself, and this is his first serious commercial game.

  • Art, voiceovers and music are all his own work. 15:11
    • The background whistling is a placeholder melody.
    • He plans to hand it to a real musician.
    • He is a graphic designer by trade, with web design, character animation, book and calendar layouts and logos.
    • Design for books and calendars differs from design for entertainment, so the audience's taste is a different genre.
  • This is his first game made to earn money. 17:56
    • An earlier game on Steam made a little money.
    • Now he is getting serious about it.
    • Steve asks to be kept posted on how the launch goes.
    • The call ends with both agreeing to stay in touch.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young and a listener (indie game developer), Host of App Masters and app marketing consultant, coaching an indie game developer and graphic designer. A coaching call that audits a new casual game, Fly Bye Birdie, covering game feel, icon design, naming a game after movie titles and sports teams for search, and low-budget launch marketing. The standout result is a 19% download lift from changing only a game icon to a flat design.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript421 lines
0:00

coming up is a coaching call where I give feedback and at marketing strategies for a listeners new game your mind will be blown away with so many great content including addicting game elements game design and how to name your game using popular movie titles and sports teams stay tuned I I don't according my questions okay okay yeah that's cool I have a few questions about you know what basically was your opinion of my game just want to pick your brains as you're out there you're making things happen for people to apps and games and you kind of know the marketing field and everything just want to see if I'm on the right track with this and what I need to do to get on track my boss first off just about the design style were you able to check out the game at all yeah we've got it up right now so awesome Wow look good on your phone aha okay um yeah just starting with the design skyline oh I

1:21

listened to your podcast you talked about how the design is important and just trying to see if it fits on par you know so here's what I tell you the I think I can't remember a slab Weaver does this but this is why design is so hard for me to define as I'm playing your game it's I think the bird would flap its wings for most the pound well actually I get what you're trying to do here because I thought like a bird should normally flap its ring but I get what you're trying to do so now I like that no I like it so far so good the thing that I would say is is there a way to make the bird look more 3d ish right it looks like somewhere in the middle like not completely flat and not completely like 3d I think we're moving towards more like pixelated so I think that little flavor would help if you're thinking about that like like across the road 3d or like a flappy bird 3d you know like pixelated type of stuff that's how I

2:32

would do it right there right now it feels like cartoons that we used to watch when were kids yeah yeah alright so it does feel that way right now I don't know if that's what you're going after yeah that's essentially what I was looking for um I still watch cartoons today so he said what we used in larger items when you strike still watch those oh right like if you look at their animation because my kids off watch all that stuff - and it's like they got up a little bit more than what we're used to so yeah if you're younger market if you're targeting the younger market I might try to upgrade the graphics that way the gameplay wise I think I'll make the bird faster faster really okay you know I want it I was just talking to somebody who interviewed today of Voodoo games they did paper i/o they did snake vs. block which is like number seven and the absol right now and I was talking about casual games and addictiveness and

3:30

there is this fine balance of irritation and relaxation that you're gonna find I like I think it are relaxing right now okay now I think more faster speed ignores it and the controls are taking me a little bit long good for me to get used to so I have to tap just to move up but then a couple of tapered taps and the bird is pretty much up to the screen it goes pretty yeah yeah so I don't know that's a big deal but like one tap and if I'm in the middle of screen I'm pretty much very like high pop to the screen so then blasting is the background I don't know maybe play around with that a little bit more it's just a gradient stuff I think I might have just a normal like sky background sorry but yeah and then the all that is fine like I thought this is me nitpicking and giving sure feedback but the icon I would focus more on that oh okay I do to add my yeah like when you when you sent me that link

4:39

hey let me see if I can grab it - it's me yeah actually it looks better on this screen a little bit more they did but I would focus I like how it's coming out the bird I do like that but okay yeah you know what I like it for some reason I thought I was going to have some more feedback for you for the icon but I do like the way you're headed with okay I think it's good okay cool I'll see more than interest gets these because when I first started I found my phone I'm seeing where the intricacies when I see it on the web right now this should be well I guess you can't do one for screen one for phone doesn't make sense directly yeah I mean I wouldn't worry too much about actually now that I think about it okay okay so you're the small I'm going to mix our II yeah go for it go for it here's a small little different details that I notice so when your bird dies and this could be a beta version right so

5:39

you probably still work out when you're bright nothing happens to it I yeah so alright they just drop just ops right yeah should something should happen to it that's the little little details Oh doesn't look it but other than that the last thing I would say for you let's you want take it somewhere else is I'm testing out different ways of naming especially for games because a lot of times for games like nobody's really searching for our types of games casual games so this I don't have real data yet so I don't share this publicly but what I've been testing around is trying to call it something similar to something else so for example I would say like one of the games i'm releasing students called galaxy jump and that's only because it was called cosmic jump before i didn't develop it developer came to me and said hey can you help me push this game oh sure let's publish it and i'll use my connections just so forth so i

6:39

called a galaxy jump we named it because i'm targeting galaxy of the galaxy of the guardians oh okay yeah and so I am optimizing like the subtitle and everything else for that particular phrase and what I'm looking at is they tend to have good traffic volume below competition because unless they create a sticker app for the movie launch it's just not something that you know so I'm looking into more of those type of terms and for you bye-bye birdie maybe there are there are really a lot of terms like Rio you know like things through like is there a different birds related thing that you might be able to capitalize on because it's going to be a part of your app name anyways so yeah okay well I did I don't have any results right now right now with this game I do want to play around with it and see like after it launches how much like are we were able to rank really well for galaxy of the guardians if so you know I wanted

7:42

to see the traffic volume and then because it's mine I'm just going to remove it I wanted to wrap it remove God start stop optimizing for guardians of the galaxy and we'll see the ring drop and I want to see what happens to the Downloads then I can report back like oh yeah this strategy does work you might not think it's related but because we're ranking really well nothing else changed besides this keyword and that dropped the downloads are X percent so that's the test I'm running right now well okay when the game launches in a few weeks yeah yes that's great okay um another question I had you know just far as when doing marketing like what could I do on my own as far as any social media or anything like that any ideas that I could do I'm detective ASO stuff then you know my favorite campaign is the pay to free campaign so if you make one of you net purchases for free and get pressed for

8:45

on App you can drive downloads that way cost-effectively you're not really giving up anything besides making one of your net purchases free and not everybody even takes advantage of the free in app purchase anyways right well so I kind of like the coupon model okay you know free two weeks and then you're like yeah I'll come into the store and you probably never use it or something like that right right so that's one of the things that you can do on your own the ASO is something you can do on your own like an app being the other things that might be the most beneficial would be if you got a little budget you know I would consider influencer marketing to drive the downloads if you don't then I would then look at like if you want to try to pitch Apple about this you know like I've shared in the past fill out that form that they want you to fill out now try to find somebody to LinkedIn be the hack that yeah so

9:37

just try to find somebody through LinkedIn do that yeah look for apps or managers of games yeah yeah sure okay up so I had one last question and this might be related I don't know what do you think about as far as studio name right now I'm going by V no games Vee and oh right and maybe some easy a different way of spelling no V no the word that means foreign or alien okay okay I don't know yeah like went around the world on that one but I was thinking about you know what are some other games is that a good name odd doesn't matter even um it would matter in that well Apple I don't know if they're still indexing the company names as much anymore that's the only way it would matter right like if you wanted certain keywords but I think they're only doing exact match now I believe don't quote me on this might be all completely wrong about this but I do know that they did index before I don't know if there's

10:49

going to change with I was 11 but that's the only time would matter the only small little details that aren't going to make a break your company okay oh cool that's all I had this is a great advice what do you find you launch the game hopefully in the next couple of weeks I want to launch a beginning of all this and you know some are the beginning of August or around middle of August so we're in there and I'm looking to you know expand the graphics a little bit add some more backgrounds and stuff like that take a look at some of the changes you've given me got a few people testing it for me they threw me some feedback so what's been their feet so far um someone is already going to implement it having different you know the little birdie goes through and catches breadcrumbs so somebody that hey give me some other kind of breadcrumbs you know some different colors and different works so there are different

11:54

point values of breadcrumbs um somebody mentioned having different other backgrounds like have a summer season have a fall season have a winter season you know that sort of thing I thought that was a great idea yeah um just some things to put more beef in the game yep yeah yeah good idea for you being yep those look in your video a little thumbnail and there's a red thumbnail maybe call it Cardinals or Orioles Orioles or you know I'm getting net like Falcons things like that by bike or something like that because one of the other strategies I like to use with movie titles is also like sports teams and because you're you can then optimize for certain sports teams so you may call it Cardinal and then have Arizona or st.

12:48

Louis in your keywords and there'll be in the Spanish Mexico localization if your honor doing this on Iowa's they'll help you rank really well for these keywords oh so it could be like the Spanish Mexico localization would be like oh by by Cardinal of st. Louis yeah right so okay that would be another thing that should probably help you with that the I remember what the what I was going to think about the icon I did I just I mean it's just a personal thing so I sure for me like that gradient thing did you did you great this icon yourself yeah it looks like a Photoshop brush like I've done this too ah my old I've done this on my old like one of the first apps I created had that same background uh-huh yeah and so I think and that was like 2011 and so I guess where I'm trying to get at is like things have changed things evolve like a line of mine there's a video that I'm about to have already created where I

13:50

share like get this icon is we was getting download he's like I'm doing really well Google Play man like don't touch my Google Play listing kazoos in soft launch like okay fine I won't touch it but as I think your icons like a little bit off man like it feels mm just feels 2011 it feels like 2000 I want to say 1513 where like you know for a box you know the box 3d remember that yeah yeah really hot I was like it feels that way man I think everything is moving flat like you should just make it flat and so we created that with Glavine designer and as I hate can you create something flat here's where I what I think it should look like so we did a and then I showed the different icons in the video but we increase downloads by 19% so he's already doing pretty well in Google okay I did by 19% just with the simple icon chain so that's all I did I was like just wow if it trust me if I lose I lose

14:41

but just trust me on this let me see how it goes and so that worked and I think what I would suggest for you is maybe like just go flat like try find something that is contrast well and I think the orange contrast well that blue yeah but just make it flat just lose either you know like lose it all leave it make it okay in one color or just just lose that little brush that you might be yeah okay okay I'll definitely check that out did you design everything in the app yeah yeah I did everything um only thing that's going to be different I don't know if you play the whistling that's in the background that's just a tip track okay now again I put the volume down since we were talking but yeah so I I did the whistling to kind of come up with a metal e melody for it I'm gonna give it to a real musician to kind of help me question out a chance check out the whistling it's terrible nice nice nice Dean get the O then say like my

15:50

favorite vapor SEP I did all the voiceovers and stuff yeah yeah yeah that's what you got to do when we get it done yeah miss Karen so you're you're a graphic designer by trade yeah yeah I start off a graphic designer um we'll go to some web design and now I'm doing some freelance graphic design and illustration and trying to put an app out trying to put a game out know what do you know any design I've been doing a lot of character animation for different clients and as well as you know your regular graphic design layouts for books and calendars and things like that not fun a little bit a little bit of logo design to because your overall graphic design great cool very cool yeah here I'm talking about designing to a graphic design Acula really no no no it's good it's good because you know you think about how people want you know their calendars to look and their coloring books to look but you know it

16:57

it can be a different story when it comes to you know the general public wanting something for entertainment well that's a different it's a different genre I guess you get a different feel just kind of kind of learn it you know give any kids you know I guess all wedding ring know yeah what are we yeah yeah married but no kids so thankful in fact I'm glad we were able to talk at this time because my wife is out she's doing something else so it's not okay cool yeah yeah I don't know I said it it's going a Lorenzo oh I'll kill it so watch that one so on that's awesome anything else I can help you it oh that's good I think I'm good man this is a great start and some great feedback I really appreciate it the last thing I would say is like this is your first game right that you created that's oh yeah there's a first one I'm going to do commercial majorly commercially um I got like I said I got a game on Steam that

18:09

made a little bit of money but it's what I'm really trying to be serious about it okay nice yeah see well keep me posted let me know how it goes absolutely stay in touch all right sounds good all right thanks Anne all right thanks T appreciate it yeah bye all right bye