After being stuck in the house with an ill child over the weekend, I set myself a challenge of seeing how quickly I could put together a “Spikes” style game.
36 hours later, we’ve hit release on Google Play, a real testament to the power of Corona!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guardsheep.games.spikes
Congrats!
Did Spikes in 5 hours. Took me 8 hours for “Stay In The Line”. Completed Timberman and uploaded to iTunes last Friday. Timberman took 16 hours. Started with Physics on Timberman and that was a bad start. Switched to transition.to() for the tree chop mechanic in the end.
Now the killer question is: Will Apple reject my cloned apps? They did reject my Flappy app “back in the day” as I was capitalizing on an existing name. Of course, the original Flappy was pulled and eventually my cloned Flappy was accepted.
We’ll see what happens. Still, if any Corona devs are interested in purchasing Timberman, Don’t Touch The Spikes or (soon to be completed No brakes - another physics challenge for the track!) please pm me.
MAS1
Amazing how such a simple game can get so high in the charts, my version probably took around 8 hours development within the 36 hour window (including the minor graphics assets and sounds). I suspect this title may become the next “flappy bird” as far as the app stores are concerned!
After my last few clones (Emoji Guess, Everyone Dies and Don’t Hit the Spikes) which were an exercise in bulking up the portfolio and testing the waters with selling the source code through Chupamobile and Sellfy, I’m looking to work on an original casual title next based on an idea I’ve had for a little while - watch this space!
Really good job Ian Webster. Good to see that someone can create a clone of this with Corona SDK in such a short time.
I have played Flappy Bird and the original Don’t Touch The Spikes. People are amazed at the number of downloads aka popularity of these simple games. but rather than criticize them, i have been trying to analyze why they are so appealing. I really believe game devs could learn so much from them, rather than think ‘oh! these are just stupid games for morons.’
Don’t Touch The Spikes is beautifully designed, sheer minimalism and graphic constraint which just screams class. We have have skeuomorphism for so long. People enjoy simplicity of design and layout. The choice of fonts are just perfect too - something devs don’t always pay attention to. The game mechanics are so damn simple and no long paragraphs of instructions are necessary. It’s an international game understood by all. Yet it’s fiendishly difficult. After dying, you get an instant try again - no pausing, no annoying screens and distractions. The background colours change as you advance through the challenge. The actual bird design is so simple, your kid could probably do it. Looks like someone from Fiverr was paid to do this Vector graphic.
Flappy Bird is similar in concept. But it’s a naive pixel style which again, is so appealing at a time when hyper realism and 3D is all the rage.
Okay, i must be boring you all by now.
Good luck and try applying those aspects to your own unique game and start getting a few million downloads.
After being stuck in the house with an ill child over the weekend, I set myself a challenge of seeing how quickly I could put together a “Spikes” style game.
36 hours later, we’ve hit release on Google Play, a real testament to the power of Corona!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guardsheep.games.spikes
Nice game! I’m interested in how you got so many downloads on google play. I’m stuck on 7 for my game so far, a few weeks after releasing. And my game took months and months… The irony 
My game: http://bit.ly/1qAcXvL
The Spikes app was originally only posted to the Play Store so that potential source code purchasers could see the app in action before making a decision and the only publicity I gave the app was via this forum. Oddly I’m now seeing 500+ installs and 20,000+ Ad impressions per day. Absolutely no idea why…
I had a similar issue to you releasing my first game (Cupcake Cascade) which took 6 months to develop and despite pushing the publicity as wide and far as possible saw only a trickle of installs for the first few months. It’s now picked up, however even with good reviews and 13,000 installs of the free version, this has only translated to 23 installs of the paid version!
I came to the conclusion that paid apps just don’t work on Google play and tried an Ad supported model, however revenue was still very small compared to the amount of work required to develop an app. I finally tried selling my source code via Chupamobile and whilst I’m never going to be able to retire (or give up the day job!) this has seen the best results by at least a factor of 50 in terms of income.
It’s definitely an odd market with a large degree of luck required. The next step I’m going to try is to add links to my other apps into Spikes to see if I can drum up a little more interest.
Good luck with Puzzle Jumper - looks fantastic!
I agree that it’s amazing how popular minimal design and game mechanics have become over the past few months - the one that really amazes me is Gameloft’s incredibly simple snap game Dizzy Fruit.
I’ve developed a concept that hopefully captures this zeitgeist and I believe is unique which I am working on at the moment. Will be interesting to see how it goes!
Wow, that’s the most original marketing idea i have ever heard 
I’m really happy to see a fellow corona dev getting some downloads. We deserve a break, right?
It’s funny how the simplistic games are really taking over now, but also great for us, as they are a lot quicker to make.
Might even take a stab at making a small simple game myself, for a laugh.
Thanks for the kind words regarding Puzzle Jumper
Congrats!
Did Spikes in 5 hours. Took me 8 hours for “Stay In The Line”. Completed Timberman and uploaded to iTunes last Friday. Timberman took 16 hours. Started with Physics on Timberman and that was a bad start. Switched to transition.to() for the tree chop mechanic in the end.
Now the killer question is: Will Apple reject my cloned apps? They did reject my Flappy app “back in the day” as I was capitalizing on an existing name. Of course, the original Flappy was pulled and eventually my cloned Flappy was accepted.
We’ll see what happens. Still, if any Corona devs are interested in purchasing Timberman, Don’t Touch The Spikes or (soon to be completed No brakes - another physics challenge for the track!) please pm me.
MAS1
Amazing how such a simple game can get so high in the charts, my version probably took around 8 hours development within the 36 hour window (including the minor graphics assets and sounds). I suspect this title may become the next “flappy bird” as far as the app stores are concerned!
After my last few clones (Emoji Guess, Everyone Dies and Don’t Hit the Spikes) which were an exercise in bulking up the portfolio and testing the waters with selling the source code through Chupamobile and Sellfy, I’m looking to work on an original casual title next based on an idea I’ve had for a little while - watch this space!
Really good job Ian Webster. Good to see that someone can create a clone of this with Corona SDK in such a short time.
I have played Flappy Bird and the original Don’t Touch The Spikes. People are amazed at the number of downloads aka popularity of these simple games. but rather than criticize them, i have been trying to analyze why they are so appealing. I really believe game devs could learn so much from them, rather than think ‘oh! these are just stupid games for morons.’
Don’t Touch The Spikes is beautifully designed, sheer minimalism and graphic constraint which just screams class. We have have skeuomorphism for so long. People enjoy simplicity of design and layout. The choice of fonts are just perfect too - something devs don’t always pay attention to. The game mechanics are so damn simple and no long paragraphs of instructions are necessary. It’s an international game understood by all. Yet it’s fiendishly difficult. After dying, you get an instant try again - no pausing, no annoying screens and distractions. The background colours change as you advance through the challenge. The actual bird design is so simple, your kid could probably do it. Looks like someone from Fiverr was paid to do this Vector graphic.
Flappy Bird is similar in concept. But it’s a naive pixel style which again, is so appealing at a time when hyper realism and 3D is all the rage.
Okay, i must be boring you all by now.
Good luck and try applying those aspects to your own unique game and start getting a few million downloads.
After being stuck in the house with an ill child over the weekend, I set myself a challenge of seeing how quickly I could put together a “Spikes” style game.
36 hours later, we’ve hit release on Google Play, a real testament to the power of Corona!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guardsheep.games.spikes
Nice game! I’m interested in how you got so many downloads on google play. I’m stuck on 7 for my game so far, a few weeks after releasing. And my game took months and months… The irony
My game: http://bit.ly/1qAcXvL
The Spikes app was originally only posted to the Play Store so that potential source code purchasers could see the app in action before making a decision and the only publicity I gave the app was via this forum. Oddly I’m now seeing 500+ installs and 20,000+ Ad impressions per day. Absolutely no idea why…
I had a similar issue to you releasing my first game (Cupcake Cascade) which took 6 months to develop and despite pushing the publicity as wide and far as possible saw only a trickle of installs for the first few months. It’s now picked up, however even with good reviews and 13,000 installs of the free version, this has only translated to 23 installs of the paid version!
I came to the conclusion that paid apps just don’t work on Google play and tried an Ad supported model, however revenue was still very small compared to the amount of work required to develop an app. I finally tried selling my source code via Chupamobile and whilst I’m never going to be able to retire (or give up the day job!) this has seen the best results by at least a factor of 50 in terms of income.
It’s definitely an odd market with a large degree of luck required. The next step I’m going to try is to add links to my other apps into Spikes to see if I can drum up a little more interest.
Good luck with Puzzle Jumper - looks fantastic!
I agree that it’s amazing how popular minimal design and game mechanics have become over the past few months - the one that really amazes me is Gameloft’s incredibly simple snap game Dizzy Fruit.
I’ve developed a concept that hopefully captures this zeitgeist and I believe is unique which I am working on at the moment. Will be interesting to see how it goes!
Wow, that’s the most original marketing idea i have ever heard
I’m really happy to see a fellow corona dev getting some downloads. We deserve a break, right?
It’s funny how the simplistic games are really taking over now, but also great for us, as they are a lot quicker to make.
Might even take a stab at making a small simple game myself, for a laugh.
Thanks for the kind words regarding Puzzle Jumper