Puzzle Dungeon Post Mortem: A week Since Release

Puzzle Dungeon was released last week on iPhone. There's been 7 days of sales and 1 bug fixing patch, and it's been quite eventful.

Rewind to last week. The day before the game is due for release. Apple gives me last minute notice that the app has been approved for sale on the day I wanted. Initially I was ecstatic. The day I wanted was a significant date for me, A Family Anniversary, I was so glad I made it. Then the horror of cramming PR hit me. I had 24 hours to send Codes, press releases and try and get the game out there for people to see.

With help from a friend and long term industry insider who helped massively, I got codes and PR out to 27 outlets. Out of those, 1 ran a review, and 1 ran an article almost copy pasting the press release. The Review scored 3/5 which i considered fine for my first venture into the iOS game market. that's 65% on metacritic (jokes!).

Then came the launch. Without any live sales data, I resorted to checking the in game leaderboards to see who was playing and tracking the progress of players. I was happy people were buying and playing.

Then on day 2, I saw some rough sales figures, and was shocked! Nearly triple the amount of people i had imagined (based on leaderboards) had purchased. That says that 2/3 of people who purchased my game don't use GameCenter to log in.

Unfortunately, Official sales figures and the like are under NDA, but I can say that I'm more than happy with how my first game on iOS, and 3rd public game release under my name, sold in the first week.

So, what went right? The vision of the game matched the market. A simple Puzzle game that is intuitive, and people recognise the mechanics right off the bat. It appealed to several demographics and was created using the skills I am confident in.

What went wrong? I wasn't prepared for marketing. A developer should work hard to get their work noticed..

Also, the day 1 bug, didn't help. despite working fine on every iOS device I tested on, the Puzzle Dungeon app store download had a bug preventing people from viewing the tutorial or DLC page. A patch has since been issued, but people could have seen this, and instantly dismissed the game.

To conclude, I was quite happy with the sales and end product. Now I look forward to the community competition, the Christmas DLC and working on a new project.

It's Been A Long Road...

If you go to my homepage now you may notice that it has changed. It's now promoting my upcoming project Puzzle Dungeon which is coming soon to iOS...hopefully.

I say hopefully because its currently "waiting for review" where it will spend, as I understand it, 4 or 5 days before Apple accept it onto the App Store. 

Apple's iTunes Connect is infinitely better than the Create.MSDN method for setting up payment information and banking details. For example: On XBLIG the developer had to submit W-8 tax forms, by post, to the U.S. but with Apple it was as simple as selecting the country and type of company you are. 

On a side note, I had to go the Microsoft Developer Network to get my IBAN number as I couldn't remember it, and saw that recently sales of Synesthesia Amnesia have tripled in the last 2 quarters and if that trend continues through Autumn I shall have another pay-out at the end of the Quarter. 

If all goes to plan Puzzle Dungeon will be out on the 10th October, a date of personal significance to me. From the date of it being accepted to the App Store through to the 10th I will be on a tiring campaign to get the game noticed. I'm researching how to go about this as I am not a PR person and I am British therefore humble and not used to selling myself or product. 

My Plan is to give away some games I have steam codes for with a "Quote & Retweet" competition on Twitter along the lines of "Follow @lanerobertlane & RT that Puzzle Dungeon is out now for iPhone http://URL.co.uk to win a copy of [blank] for PC" as well as regular Plz RTs. 

I'm also going to send a few select e-mails to iPhone app/game review sites such as Touch Arcade to see if I can drum up interest there as well as send review codes. 

Is there anything else, realistically, to do?

I like this game I've created. I find it fun, challenging and nostalgic. I can envision it doing well, if people knew about it. 

Incidentally, here's a link to the project page: Puzzle Dungeon

and if you're press reading this, how about taking a look at the press kit

So, I'm ramping up full marketing mode now, It's been a good couple of months working on this project and now it's time for the world to see it. Wish me luck!