Kiddy Bees published on App Store and Google Play

lvkdev

Hi All,
I have launched my new game for young children called "Kiddy Bees" on the App Store and Google Play. It is my first game made with Gideros, first game on App Store, second on Google Play.
Huge thanks to the Gideros team and everyone in this forum for being very helpful.

The app is available on both App Store and Google Play.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lvkdev.busybeebook
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kiddy-bees/id735011505?mt=8

I would love to hear your feedback/comments.

lvkdev

I have also uploaded a promo video on YouTube. (again unable to post the link here)
Thanks to @bowerandy for your blog post on making better app videos. I used the same technique for my video.

ar2rsawseen

Hello @lkdev seems like a nice kids game and video is also great

You weren't able to post link due to your low rank on the forum, just stay with us and be more active and you will get there, for now I've inserted the links for you, just pm me if there is something wrong with links

And usually, if you ask for feedback, it would be great also to share some promo codes

hgvyas123

Kongrats

lvkdev

@ar2rsawseen, Sorry - my bad.
Here are a few promo codes:
W7LA74TYKJXJ
L3HENMFMEAX9
TJ443ERJ6794
RWWE4T6RHYJA

And thank you so much for filling in the links.

lvkdev

@hgvyas123 - thanks.

talis

It seems really well designed and entertaining application for kids. I liked the drawings and animations.
Well done and KongoRatz!!

Mells

I will try it later today.
Congratulations for the release!

I'm working on a very similar kind of app for kids and it's always interesting to see how others have done it before you do.

ar2rsawseen

Actually quite great app.
The first impression was not so good, the main screen can get a more graphical polishing (looked kind of cheap, but on the other hand, kids usually don't care ), but once getting passed that there are very quality mini games.

I have a son (3 years old) and while some of the games can be a little too complicated (especially that he does not know English), some of them he grasped quite well.

His favorites were animal noises, counting stuff, finding egg and getting ant to the sugar (although he can drag and drop stuff on ipad since he was 2, dragging ant still proved kind of challenging with the friction between walls, which is a good thing).

He did not really understood the concept of continents and planets. So it depends on your strategy, either you create all games for similar age (then those maybe be too complicated?) or you create range of mini games for different range of children to fit lets say from 3 to 5 years.

The only thing my son asked me is, where is the last minigame, as there is an empty place for it, he was kind of disappointed it was missing

But all in all, it seems you are on the right track.

lvkdev

@talis - Thank you.

@Mells - Thank you and Good luck with your app too.

@ar2rsawseen -
Thank you very much for the detailed and honest feedback. I really appreciate it.

First of all, my apologies to ar2rsawseen junior; I will make a new mini game and add it up as soon as I can. And I'm glad he liked some of the games.

Yes, I agree with you - the first page of the book is quite boring. I was focusing so much on the mini games that I did not think too much about the first page. But as you say it would create a bad first impression. I will think about how to give it a good graphical make-over.

My strategy is to make the app usable for all kids in the 3-5 year range. I intentionally made some of the games more challenging than the others so that there will be something in the app that every child would like. Initially, I planned to keep a "settings" tab which will allow parents to turn on/off some of the pages. But I did not go ahead with that idea because I hope that as the kids keep playing with the app again and again they will become more familiar/comfortable with the difficult ones. My daughter is 3 years old as well that this is what I observed by getting her to use the app. She was my main "beta-tester".
But I do understand what you are saying and I will keep my ears open for any more similar feedback and think about what needs to be done as necessary.
Thanks once again..

bml

Congrats on the release and thanks for the promo code.

My four year old was able to play and navigate the entire game. The clock game confused her for a few seconds, but she figured it out. She loved the butterfly from the insect game. It kept her busy for about 15-20 minutes.

I agree with the previous comment about the main screen needing polish and would add that a lot of the space on the main screen is wasted on stuff that isn't fun or important to the game. The book graphics have a 16-bit look to them. I would prefer something colorful and animated with some strong call to actions.

The find-it games are very well done. Voice work is good. The clock game is slightly confusing. The space and map games need more game play and interaction. The astronaut shakes slightly. The map looks fuzzy to me and the icon for the map game is distorted. This was on an iPad 4.

The cursive typeface was difficult to read and sometimes too small or on top of something that made it more difficult to read. I think for children a simple all-caps typeface would work better. Maybe something that looks hand drawn to keep with the book theme.

I think overall the game needs more game play and some game mechanics to encourage replaying as well as connect the games together.

Good luck,
bml

lvkdev

@bml,
Sorry for late reply - I saw this post just now.
Thank you for taking the time try out the app and give your feedback.

I am working on giving the main page a new look, and will take your suggestions into consideration.
You've said "The book graphics have a 16-bit look to them." - Can I check with you if you are referring to the book's front cover (before opening) or the book background image(after opening) or the buttons on the "Choose an activity page"?
I am using Inkscape, and find that when some image is rotated, scaled and then exported to bmp, the lines are jagged. Not sure what to do about that. Any advice on how to avoid the jagged lines will be very helpful.

Reg the astronaut, I meant to keep him "floating" about in space. ;-) But it probably came across as "shaking". Every 30 frames I'm moving him up and down by 2 px. I will try adding a tween to make the movement smoother.

I could not spot the distortion of the map icon on iPad Retina simulator. I will probably have to grab hold of a real device to check it out.
Noted your points on game play and mechanics - will look into it.

Thanks once again for the valuable feedback.