eiswuxe Reply:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:44

@Jade,

1. I have no experience with PhoneGap so far, so I cannot recommend it (or NOT recommend it)
2. I don’t understand that question :/
3. People are talking about HTML5 for quite some time now. I thinks it’s worth checking it out and see if it fits your need when creating games. I myself will stick to frameworks/engines like Corona or Unity for the next time.

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Jade Reply:
March 17th, 2012 at 02:29

@eiswuxe, Thanks for your reply so quick.
The second question is means:
The route of learning games art.

Thanks very much!

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eiswuxe Reply:
March 14th, 2012 at 11:48

@tang,

I’m not sure if this is a serious question or not, but I’ll answer it nevertheless:

I currently use the corona SDK from ansca (http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/) which is programmed using LUA. But I also have worked in the gaming industry for several years and learned a lot about programming, graphics, (level) design and sound/music. Plus, I have been creating my own games since I was 12.

So… Yes, you can make a jump-start and create apps fast and easy nowadays. But that alone does not let you create a good app. It’s a lot of “learning by doing”.

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eiswuxe Reply:
March 6th, 2012 at 06:35

@shiyiwan,

So now I know where all the chinese spam came from…. maybe it was not spam at all :D
Good to know.

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eiswuxe Reply:
March 5th, 2012 at 09:11

@brad,

I create all of my graphics by myself. Most of the time I search for real images of things I want to paint. Then I use them as a background in a vector-art program (corel draw atm) and then draw the outlines with my tablet.

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eiswuxe Reply:
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:26

@brdma,

I myself had not problems with LUA so far. It took some days to get used to it (I used Java and C# a lot before, as well as ActionScript3). It surely lacks some sophisticated stuff from C#, but it absolutely fits my needs.

As for Bloo Kid, the “conversion-rate” from free to paid was about the same rate as it is for my in-app purchases. So for my apps it does not seem to make a difference which model I pick. If a user wants to get the full version, he does not mind to download another app.

As you can see from my reports, most of my money comes from iOS. I dont know how my apps would SELL on android if I made them paid. Chances are that I would sell as much as I have inapp-purchases on iOS. But with the current model of “free with ads” on android, I would not be able to make enough money only on android.

I started developing Corona with my Samsung Galaxy S, which is still my only Android device and the only one I do testing on. I will buy an android tablet soon if my income stays this high. But I have some friends with other android hardware that do some testing now and then for me, mainly phones. I am not able to test on tablets that often :(
I bought an iPod 4th gen as I started developing for iOS. After many complaints that Bloo Kid would not run on older iPhone 3 and iPod Touch 2nd gen, I had to buy a 2nd gen iPod touch as well. Its insance that these things still cost nearly as much as 4th gen!
After my first success, I made the step and bought an iPad. So on the iOS side I now have enough devices to test. On Android I will buy a tablet soon. But for the start I think its sufficient to have ONE device for each platform. Corona makes you “view” your app as an iPad, so that was a good benefit for me to see how the graphics would look like and which parts of the screen would be cropped on the iPhone if I make the images fit for the iPad.

I have quite some support issues, mainly in the support section of my website, but also per email. Most of the complaints were about my puzzles freezing on the iPad though. Its roughly about 1-2 support-requests a day.
I think that a good support is crucial to prevent bad reviews in the appstore. Plus, I want all of my users happy. Its impossible to achieve this, but I’ll keep on trying :)

iOS is more time consuming. Many android users are surprised to see that I really answer their support questions. But iOS users really demand an answer. It reflects the attitude that users have towards apple and google :D

I made exactly ONE version of the graphics which are used across all platforms. It would cost me too much time to make multiple variations. I always create the graphics with the iPad resolution (1024×768) in mind. So on the iPhone, it looks the same but the edges are a bit cut off, and on android it scales.

Sorry if I did not go that much into detail for the answers. If there is still something that you want to know, just ask. I will answer it then in my next income report, so that everyone gets the info!

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 17th, 2012 at 16:13

@mila,

Of course there is adobe photoshop and adobe illustrator. Those are more or less the adobe equivalent to corel photo paint and corel draw. But they are way more popular.

Then there is GIMP which is completely free. I bet there are many other free image tools out there, just google around a bit to find them.

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 09:41

@Aaron,

Since this has been asked several times now I will include the answer to this question in my next income report. So stay tuned :)

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 18:08

@Greg Hluska,

it’s as stressful as it is fun =)

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 18:03

@Merlin,

I mainly used http://www.innovatty.com/twitter/IDRTG/ to spread the word about my new apps. The only real “marketing” I did was that I took about $500 I earned with inmobi ads which I then used to start an own ad campaign, also with inmobi. So ads for my apps got displayed in other apps.
The impact was rather meager. I noted a slight increase in download numbers, but not as much as I had hoped for $500 bucks.

I think most users find my app by searching for “puzzle” or “kids” or “toddler” or someting similar. Search-results for “toddlers” (with s at the end) contain all my “… For Toddlers” apps under the first 25 results. At least in the german appstore.

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 13:53

@WJG,

I did not have that much of experience in vector arts as well. Its all learning by doing. I started composing graphics for “Farm For Toddlers) out of basic shapes. Circles for the eyes, head and body, rectangles for the legs etc.

There are minimalistic art styles that still look good. Like in “Another World” or even Minecraft.

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 13:49

@Adnan,

Sorry, I oversaw that twitter message.

I have indeed a quite profound background in making games, since I worked in the german video-gaming-industry for the last years.

But the recent apps that I made, that kids apps in particular, are not quite as complex as most of the games I worked on. So they dont need that much of programming skills or that much of balancing and polishing. Most critical was the interface design (if one can call it that way) to make sure the apps are easy to use.

Most helpful was still testing with the target audience (my niece and nephew, 3 and 5). They provided the best feedback.

So most of my experience was rather subordinate.

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 11:26

@Cory,

yupp :)

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eiswuxe Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 10:24

@Alessio

you are right, I forgot about that legal stuff. I will write a separat blogpost about that in the near future, since it’s too much information for a comment and it has a better visibility for other people that are interested in it. I think I will include it in the income report for january, so you need to be patient for two weeks :)

cheers,
Jörg

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