Version 1.2 Android Beta

I just sent Kent and Matt the hopeful version 1.2 for Android.  It has these new features and more:

-- Can buy binoculars that give you increased view range

-- Touching net or monster on Google map gives you an info window

-- 20% of the time on Legends page there is a message asking you to rate the app.  It goes away if you ever click the link.

-- New Rawr sound on startup (created by Matt)

-- New monster catching trumpet sound (purchased on Audio Jungle from same user as New Level sound)

-- Can find chests of coins.  Plays a "magic" sound when you get them (also purchased on Audio Jungle)

-- Better formatting on Monster Details page

-- After you buy silver or binoculars, they'll disappear from the market list

-- Allows for future In app Purchase of Unlimited Nets

-- Some changes to make registration easier

I'm hoping to release it on July 1st.  Then we'll figure out how many chests of coins to generate. Then Apple version can be released shortly after, maybe August 1st.  Then more promotion!

Server release - Badges and View Range

This week I released a new version of server code.  Most changes won't be noticeable until people upgrade to the next phone version, which should be ready in a few weeks.  Even then, you can't force people to upgrade, so there will always be people using older phone code with new server code.  So it seems like there is no harm in releasing the web changes earlier than phone changes.

One change that takes effect immediately though is new badges.  New badges are calculated on the server and their images are stored on the server too (until they are built into the next phone version).  So we've got all kinds of new badges, a few shown below.

But first, here is something funny/stressful that happened with the release.  One of the changes was to return the user's view range from the server.  This is to enable different view range(s) if the user buys Monster Binoculars.  Since the circle on the map has a radius of meters, I made the view range in meters.  But my distance calculations on the server were in kilometers.  I thought I should be consistent and change everything to one or the other to reduce the change of mistakes.  Of course when doing so, I introduced a mistake.

What happened is I changed the pickup tolerance (the range that you have to get within to be close enough to catch the monster) to meters, but I still had the distance in kilometers.  So it was basically checking that if your distance from a monster in kilometers -- say 0.1 kilometers -- was less than the pickup tolerance in meters -- 100 -- than you caught the monster.  So people could catch monsters from 100 kilometers away!  That is, monsters at your level, and it actually only gets them in batches of about 5 KM, so really it was within 5 KM.  But right when I tried out the new version, I caught 4 monsters simultaneously.  I realized what was happening right away and fixed it before anyone else caught a big batch.  Then I deleted mine to be fair in the leader charts.  Thank goodness I caught it right away or I could have had a mess of data on my hands.

Some new badges, below:

Game Sound Effects

We've all been thinking a lot lately about sounds for the game.  The first version of the game has two sounds -- a siren-like noise for catching a monster and a trumpet call for a new level.  One user gave us feedback that the siren is not a great sound if you're in a car, and we had to agree with that.

So Matt made a "Rawwwr" sound that is really good and we were planning to use instead.  We liked it so much, we thought "let's make more monster sounds"!  One per monster is quite a lot, but we started giving it a try.  Matt made some good sounds, but we couldn't really agree on what monsters they matched with.  It was seeming like it might be even more work than we already knew it would be.  So then we thought maybe we could make one sound per level, like a sound for trolls, a sound for vampires, etc.  Even that was tricky because monsters at other levels wouldn't have a consistent sound.  It would be weird if you hear some strange rodent noise when you catch a Vulture, or a bird noise when you catch a rabbit.

Now I think we're going to make a new musical sound for catching a monster and use the "Rawr" sound when the map appears, kinda like a "Hello", which is consistent with our web site.  That should be in our next version, which I hope to have ready in a couple weeks.

In-app purchases so far

We have had three people spend 8.99 on 1000 coins.  That's our most expensive option.   It seems like a good ratio that of the 80 people playing, 3 went straight to spending 8.99.  And we've had a couple 0.99 and 1.99 purchases and a 3.99

The bad news is that one of those users sent me an email that he is "concerned about the longevity of the game" considering he has already spent his 1000 coins and thinks its too much to keep paying. Honestly, I thought the 1000 coins would last longer.  

So we're thinking of a few changes.  First, we're going to make an even bigger coin package. Second, we might make an unlimited nets package.  Third, I might drop the coin price of the special items.  Right now, the Medusa mirror costs 300 and the silver 200.

But anyway, the purchases are encouraging!

Upcoming Monster Cache Releases

It's been about 2 weeks since our Monster Cache promotions at Planet Comicon and it looks like our momentum on the sign ups from the show has ended.  We're at 71 users on the Legends board now, so that makes 29 new Legends that caught monsters after the show.  Lots more people than that downloaded the app and registered though, they just never caught a monster.

One of the things we learned (or actually already knew, but it became even more clear) is that we should make the sign up process easier, specifically with requiring people to verify their email accounts.  The point of the email verification was so that people couldn't refer fake accounts and then sign up with the fake account to get a referral bonus.  So now we're not going to require account confirmation unless you've been referred by someone else.  Once the account is confirmed, both users will get a bonus.

So I'm going to work this weekend on an immediate Version 1.3 release for Android and iPhone:
-- simplify registration process
-- fix android 4.1.2 bug with map
-- new monster sound (got good feedback that current siren noise was scary while driving, so Matt made new sound)
-- Monster Binoculars to let you see further on map
-- new In App Purchase pricing
-- some new badges
-- info windows for monsters that shows their Level

The new In App Purchase price changes are motivated by one of our new users who bought our $8.99 package of 1000 coins and used them way faster than we expected people would.  Still not sure what the new price offerings will be, but we're going to make some even higher ones.

Then in two months or so, we hope to release a version that has:
-- a unique sound per monster, or at least per level.  That will be a big but hopefully fun task, probably for Matt.
-- users can find piles of coins
-- (maybe) users can place statues
-- try to improve database performance on finding monsters

Then once I'm convinced the database performance is okay, I'll make some monsters in Europe :-)

Planet Comicon

Planet Comicon was this past weekend.  Above is a picture of our booth, with Hellzapalooza (a horror novel) booth on the left and Jeff Balke (comic colorist) on the right.  It was great meeting our booth neighbors and all the visitors to the booth.  And it was fun seeing all the costumes and other exhibits at the convention.

As far as results of our promotional effort....not as much as I'd hoped, but not bad!  We entered people in a raffle for 4 prints of the monsters if they downloaded the app at the booth.  Based on raffle tickets, that would be 45 downloads.  But actually, we got about 41 downloads on Android alone (from 47 to 88) and 34 on iPhone, for real total of 78 on the weekend.  A lot of people took our business cards to download it later, so I guess that accounts for the extras.

Most if not all of those people registered accounts, as I can see them all in the database.  There are 22 new people on the Legends board since Friday, so 56 of the people who downloaded this weekend haven't found a monster yet.  That kinda surprises me, but then again, people may not have time to go get a monster right when they download it.

Nobody bought any of the prints that we made, so that was a bummer.  But then again, that wasn't our main goal.  Mainly we wanted to publicize the game, but I thought of printing the cards as a way to hopefully get some money back to cover the booth expenses.  Didn't sell any, but I'll be sending some to the raffle winners (we picked two).

By the way, total iPhone downloads appears to be about 140, and 88 for Android, for grand total of 228 downloads so far.

Google Ad Words

Today I started the Google Ad Words ad for Monster Cache.  That means that it will be running during the comic show.  I really didn't want to do that because I wanted to be able to tell how many people signed up as a result of the comic show vs. how many sign up as a result of the Google ad.  Now it might be hard to tell them apart.  But the reason I did it now is because Google sent me an offer for a free extra $150 credit if I signed up by this weekend and then spend $50.  That seemed too good to pass up.

One thing I did to try to tell marketing efforts apart is I added a feature to accept promotional codes as the Referral Code.  Before, Referral Codes were just for other people. Now I can make one for a marketing campaign, so as long as people use the code when they register, then I'll be able to tell how they heard about the game.

The way Google Ad Words works is you "bid" on how much you will pay if someone clicks on your ad.  They give you a suggested bid based on what other advertisers are paying for the same key words, and my suggested bid was $0.85.  So that's approximately 250 clicks for $200.  Hard to imagine that we would make $200 back from 250 people, but for now its just about getting people to use it, and hopefully word will spread from there.  You can also set a max spending amount per day, and I set mine at $3, so that means it should run for at least 60 days.

I've been disappointed that nobody new has shown up on the Legends board all week.  And also paranoid that something was broken.  So 2 nights ago I asked my neighbor to sign up.  She did and caught 1 monster, so now we have 38 on the Legends board.  There are actually 138 records in the table of registered users.  So what's going on with the other 100?  Many of those are our test accounts.  But lots of people sign up and then never catch a monster.  Makes me wonder if they don't understand how to play it, that you have to actually walk to the monster.  And some people start the registration but never finish it by clicking the link in their email.  In some cases that's because they incorrectly entered their email address, like with an accidental space added.  I think I'm going to work next on a way to resend those emails if I can tell where the typo is and fix it.