5241

And for me, I slap it in the Want list on Appshopper and wait. I probably have 10-15 games that I picked up for $.99 on sales that I have yet to play. Sure it is just $2, but pissing away $10-$15 on $.99 games I might not get to is better than $30-$45.

I am not being cheap, just pragmatic.

5242

I do that too. I bought Aralon recently when it hit 0.99, even though it’s very far down my backlog list. Kind of contradicts what I said earlier about not being price sensitive, I know.

5243

BTW, I’m playing Tiny Heroes on my ipad, and it’s great. Loving every minute of it, and I really like how they’ve tied unlockables to achievements.

I don’t even mind the fact that it’s a zoomed/iphone game - it’s just that good.

5244

Maybe I’m the only one, but with iPhone games on the iPad I actually tend to play in non-zoomed mode. I guess I’ve grown slightly allergic to seeing those blocky pixels.

5245

It looks great, but I don’t usually like defense games. The real exception for me was Army of Darkness. Anything more frantic than that and I’m going to be in big trouble.

What I’d love is a game derived from the unholy union of this and GSB where you have to carefully choose your emplacements then hit play. Somebody please get to work on that?

5246

Tiny Heroes is indeed a great little game, and it’s not very frantic at all. So far it’s rather more sedate than Army of Darkness, actually.

5247

My coworkers at PikPok just released Monsters Ate My Condo, via Adult Swim. I’d try describe it, but it’s indescribable. It’s a tribute to everything that’s incomprehensible and Japanese.

h ttp://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/monsters-ate-my-condo/id459489208?mt=8

5248

Haha! The fat lady is awesome!

5249

Really? Huh. I guess I’ll give it a shot then.

5250

I did the same with Aralon after almost getting it at $4.99. I am not price sensitive either, but with Appshopper and frequent price drops, my backlog can stay at the iTunes store until which time I catch up or it drops to $.99.

5251

As mentioned before I like AppMiner. It also has a wish list. Normally I don’t mind paying 1 or 2 dollars for a game. But the 5 to 8 dollar range is a bit much for a game that I’m not sure that I’ll like. That includes photography apps and the like. I put them on the wish list and wait for the price to drop. It’s saved me some decent amount of money in the long run.

5252

I’ll pay $5+ for an iPad adaption of a board game, if only cos I know picking up Small World or Puerto Rico would run me ~$40 in the store.

Otherwise, there’s not much for which I’ll pay more than $.99.

Which is an attitude that I suppose is bad for developers, but it’s good for me. There are plenty of things I want that go for $2.99 or $4.99, but I can accept that I don’t need them and if I just toss them on a wishlist and wait I’ll eventually get them cheap. Or if I don’t, I’ll survive.

5253

Is Grand Prix Story any good?

5254

Wow. They are churning these babies out now.

5255

I just got this email today:

We have had quite a few questions about whether or not the game is included in any reward levels, in particular the Midorian Ambassador level. We do have an item in the FAQ, but it may not have been attention grabbing enough.
So, to be clear: NO levels of endorsement include a copy of the game. Why in god’s name did we do this?
First, the iTunes store and Android marketplace. Success on mobile markets is basically measured by one thing - sales. It’s very difficult to get your name out there if your not in the top 10 or featured areas of the store. We think we may be featured for having a great game, but we can’t guarantee that. So the one thing we can actually (somewhat) control are sales, in particular at launch. Our early, day 1 sales are going to be a gigantic factor in getting us on the list. If every one of our fans, who we love to death, had the game already, we wouldn’t make any sales and probably not chart - so we are counting on our fans to help us move up. If we were developing for PC (and you can probably assume we will eventually), we would have a similar approach as Minecraft - just sell the game digitally. But the mobile market is a different beast.
This leads us to our second point - kickstarter. Kickstarter is not a digital storefront - it is a platform for generating funds to get projects on their feet. We love the idea of giving posters, t-shirts, cool rooms, buttons and all that stuff, but really our goal is to generate enough liquid capital to be able to pay for things like music, additional developers and sfx. These things are bonuses and rewards - and we did calculate the math before any of these things went up to make sure that we would still generate positive cash flow, which was the goal. If you pledged to us to obtain a copy of the game, we would recommend and encourage you to wait for our launch and make a purchase then.
We have done our best to offset this by offering all DLC for the life of the game to you for free. And with the way mobile markets are, this can be very valuable. On top of initial sales, success in mobile is determined by content updates - and we have a robust plan for this. Expansion packs, new missions, new races and lot’s of other surprises. We are confident your early investment into Star Command will “pay off” in the long run.
In closing, our intention was never to mislead. If you feel slighted, please, accept our sincere apologies and feel free to pull your funding with a guilt free conscience. We hope that you will support us at launch.
As always, we appreciate your support and really do love our fans and their enthusiasm level. We would never want to exploit that or take advantage of your generosity.
Cheers,
The Warballoon Team
TL;DR: Sorry if you thought you we’re getting the game, return your funds, it’s all good

It makes sense. And obviously it was an issue. Doesn’t change things for me. And I doubt it will make people change their minds about donating. But stranger things have happened.

5256

Tiny Heroes just dropped to $0.99. It won’t let me buy it though, the App Store is saying “That item is currently being modified.”

5257

Speaking of Tiny Heroes, anyone managed to 3 star rat race yet?

I really enjoy the game, it’s of course a close cousin of Plants vs. Zombies, but for me the downfall of PvZ is that it never really got challenging.

5258

Speaking of upcoming Kickstartered games, Zombies, Run! is a pretty neat fitness app notion. Clearly zombie fatigue has not affected the surplus of donations it’s racked up.

5259

Haha. I just came to post that. Bought it yesterday. Sorry, Peter, I haven’t gotten that far yet. Is that one of the challenge maps? I’ve only done the first one, which I managed to barely 1-star my first try.

5260

I’m definitely suffering from zombie fatigue, but this looks great.