I think it's great the way things worked out. I wasn't sure if there was a bias against GameSalad games, but now I know for sure. It tells me not to bother sending them exclusives in the future. Also, Touch Arcade was given the opportunity to provide exclusive content for their readers. They refused. I don't think this is bad marketing on my part. I think it's Touch Arcade that was unprofessional. 1 - Why not check out the story? They could have said something like... "Hey, exclusives are cool, but how do I know that this is not another lousy GameSalad game?" 2 - Why ignore developers in general? They could write back to keep the site friendly. People write to me all the time asking for promo codes or to beta test. I usually write back right away. 3 - Why discriminate against GameSalad? Instead of frowning on the software, maybe they should have the foresight to see how a community of thousands of people can be beneficial to Touch Arcade. What did Hodapp accomplish... disappoint some site visitors, state bias against an entire community of developers and miss out on an exclusive story. This site was offered and exclusive. The response was delayed and rather unfriendly.
Eh, I guess we'll agree to disagree on this one. I'm sure TA gets thousands of emails every day, about all kinds of terrible games that some 12-year-old developer thinks is worthy of their front page. TA is basically the main site for iOS gaming now, and to answer every single email, even with just a "Not interested," would probably take a while. I can write what I feel is a really good journalistic article, but it'd be foolish of me to get mad when I send it to the Wall Street Journal for publication and they don't write back. Discriminations are made because something has given you the reason to hold prejudice. If most, or all, gamesalad games are terrible, then that's why they have said bias. I think you have to prove the bias wrong BEFORE someone can remove said bias, no matter how many people are involved. Finally, I don't see Hodapp's response as negative. He didn't say your game is terrible, he merely said they do not have the time to write up a piece on it, and that you should take your exclusivity elsewhere, if you were truly interested in said exclusivity. For all we know, maybe they DID view your stuff and decided they didn't like it. In that context, wouldn't his response now look better than to say "We saw it, we think it's terrible, and we're not interested?"
I guess more than anything else I'm not really interested in this whole super-secret screenshot thing. It just seems unnecessary, especially with how fast the App Store moves. Get your game out there, get people interested, and if it's cool the press will follow. I think the only reason this thread has grown as large as it has is because how much you're leading everyone on with vague details, so naturally they want to know more, much like how for some reason there is an entire six seasons of LOST. Anyway, to answer your points- 1. I didn't respond to your original email because you send it to tips@ not exclusives@. I've got entirely different email filters to handle different kinds of emails, with things sent to the exclusive address bumped up to the top of my priority queue. Since you sent your request in with the standard tips@ email it got filtered amongst all the thousands of other emails we get and I've spent the last week and a half in the midst of a cross-country move so I didn't actually see it until after you started posting in threads I was already following. 2. As I mentioned in threads before, I'd need a full time personal assistant to reply to every email we get. I try to respond to all exclusive offers, but if they don't get sent to the right email address they can get lost in the shuffle of press releases, iTunes receipts, and other random emails. 3. Most GameSalad games are not good. This isn't really anything against GameSalad, but it's generally safe to assume that if someone was serious about developing an iPhone game, they'd go the extra steps and use one of the many existing game engines that allow further customization than a basic game creation studio without being locked into all the weird things GameSalad has pulled over the years. As far as providing content for our readers is concerned, frankly, we're overflowing with things to write about. Currently I've got a staff of one full time writer and five freelancers (with more on the way) and they're all busy constantly with all the goings on in the world of iOS gaming. It's not like someone is sitting on their hands waiting for an exclusive to roll in. Furthermore, just something being "exclusive" rarely makes it interesting, especially on the internet. This isn't the age of magazines where if we score a killer exclusive we'll get prime shelf placement for the entire month while all the competitors try to catch up... No, online, an exclusive just nets a [via TouchArcade] at the bottom of the article, assuming of course it's interesting enough for anyone to reblog. It's in your best interest to get as much information out there as possible about your game, to everyone that might even be remotely interested. It's not like you're selling a photo from the paparazzi here, you're trying to get people to check out your video game.
OK, that's cool... but you could have told me that sooner. You didn't like the super-secret screenshot thing. I didn't like the lack of responses. Since you did respond (nice post!) I'll post screenshots here — probably by tonight. If you want to turn that into a front-page article, that's up to you. I didn't know there was a separate email. Well, maybe this is the exception to the rule. GameSalad has done some pretty stupid things, but overall the software has moved forward. I think there's lots of potential here, which is one of the reasons I made BOT... to show that you can make professional looking apps with the SDK.
I really can not agree with this more... I thought that getting my music out to certain people in select groups would be the way to go, but it really wasn't... I remained unknown for YEARS AND YEARS... Then finally, I said screw it, and threw everything I could everywhere I could, and got noticed by a couple people... Now... I'm still pretty unknown, but my music gets out there... Unless you're already VERY well known... or make a super polished, super accessible (I guess would be the right word... in music terms, a 'pop song'), AND get exposure EVERYWHERE you can possibly think of... chances are your game isn't going to do very well. There's a couple of games that are on my top 10 list for all iOS games, and they have 10 or less reviews in the appstore. I know you're trying to 'market' your game the right way... but really... only the people in this thread, and people who may follow you on twitter or facebook will know about this game... send everything you feel comfortable sending to everyone and everywhere you can... it's the only way you'll have reasonable sales these days...
OK, so I said I'd release screenshots tonight. I intend to do just that. But before I do, here's an important to note the screenshots don't show cool things like Parallax scrolling or misty clouds in motion. Also, some things might change. An example is the equipment menu. I'm probably going to add quest icons to the top-left of TANK. So, I'll start with the repair shop. At the repair shop, TANK can restore his health, save progress and purchase defensive items. Just like explorable areas, Portrait Mode and Landscape mode is supported. This is the equipment menu. It's activated by touching the health bar in explorable areas. From this menu, one weapon and one defensive item can be selected. The options are also available here... activate Game Center, adjust sound and music volumes. Also, the five upgrade are displayed on this screen. I intentionally left it blank, as I don't want to ruin the surprise just yet Also, those dots in the shot move. It's a starfield. So OK, this is actual combat. TANK is shooting at a Robo Wasp. The contrast is not off in the picture. That's the clouds. The misty clouds create a feeling of a barren world. This mountain pass is an outdoor area. The gun in use is the standard Machine Gun. To show off something more fancy, it's the Laser / Night Vision combo. This is the sword in action. That was a Robo Wasp. Now it's in pieces, each traveling in a different direction... with a fiery trail behind them. Now you have a better idea of what BOT is like. You can click the pictures to see Retina Display quality graphics.
cool I like ambitious indie games. You could at least release a teaser shot though I spoke too soon. Screenshots look pretty awesome.
The screenshots prove my expectations wrong... (yeah, I was expecting less...) Spoiler If anything, the menu graphics look a bit 'too' simple
I've been following this for a while and naturally I was expecting the same old crap that we usually see produced with GameSalad, while hoping to be proven wrong. The screen shots look great, a lot better than I thought we'd see! Looking forward to this for sure now!
Hi all. This is my 1st post on this thread, i have been following this game for some time and am also a dev using GameSalad. I just wanted to say that GameSalad has a fairly bad rep and this is understandable, there are a lot of games rushed right out the door, mostly by younger kids. Having said that, there are some serious devs using the sdk and in the right hands, GameSalad is actually a very powerful engine! We have some really strong devs within the community who have had some decent success stories and achieved very high chart rankings! Photics has clearly put a lot of time into this game and the screenshots look great, I wish you the best of luck with this Photics and I look forward to playing it. A great game is a great game, regardless of the engine it was built with. Thanks
I kept the menu graphics simple because I don't want to obstruct the game. The Gold Bar is designed to shrink based on the amount of digits. In the screenshot, it's at the most extended. While testing, I set the game to start with 100,000 gold. That's a lot of Gold for BOT. As for the Equipment menu, it looks better when you have weapons / defensive items to choose from.
