Hi Miller and Sharp…
Thanks for checking out Riddenhurst and I’m glad to hear you like it.
Any advice?
Well…brace yourself because these aren’t easy to build…at least Riddenhurst wasn’t. The bigger the story, the bigger the endeavor. It seems to never end on the development side.
So first advice is…keep scope simple but engaging. And make it expandable. If the game takes off…then you can update it regularly and keep it going. If it flops, you can tie it up and move on to the next one.
Second point to make is that our most negative feedback is with regard to our navigation. Many hate it and get lost and confused. So my advice is…make sure you navigation is as ABSOLUTELY as intuitive as possible.
Third point is, make sure there are optional hints. Many gamers want to go on an adventure but they want their hand held along the way being spoon fed the story. While others want it as challenging as possible. So to find more success, you must cater to both.
Last point…make it engaging. By this I mean it needs to be fun, beautiful AND as interactive as possible. The adventure gamers are HARD to please and Big Fish has placed the bar high in this genre and the adventure gamers are very used to their style. So if you break the mold…it has to count…otherwise they will rain hate down on you in your reviews.
Adventures are hard to do. They almost all need database integration (and advanced API) and they have a LOT of linkages and details to track. There is a TON of room for errors/crashes…such as missing waypoint links, incorrect data tracking, etc.
So that said…they can be profitable…and fun to make. We aren’t making as much as we hoped but sales have picked up after our last release to a respectable level. We are getting about 50-60 downloads a day on average since Christmas. Before that…it was about 15-25/day (after the initial release bubble).
I’m not sure if I will do another one anytime soon. They take a ton of time to build and if they flop…you can’t get that time back…but you could say that about any app. The haters tend to hate hard on adventures if they don’t like them. You will either get 1 star or 5 stars in your reviews. The gamers tend to love or hate you.
So good luck with your adventures. Keep them simple but fun and I’m sure you will find some success in there. Adventures seem to be a bankable genre if you can satisfy the appetite. Also…I read in a Big Fish article that 60-70% of adventure gamers are women…so keep that in mind.
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