Proto-Tap: My Quick 3 Week Project Out for Free on Google Play!

amaximov

Just released my second Gideros game!

After seeing the success of a game as simple as Flappy Bird, I decided to focus on making simpler games with shorter development cycles but that have high replay value and "addiction." Here is my latest creation, Proto-Tap!

It's free on Google Play and will be available on the App Store next week!

Can you beat my highscore of 42?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intoitgames.prototap

Hope you like it! Feedback and reviews are much appreciated

hgvyas123

Kongrats currently i am out of data connection in my mobile so cant download game will try later to beat your highscore

amaximov

You can find me on the Google Play leaderboards

jdbc

Funny game although you should fix when user wants to exit using back button or allow to go back to first menu for rating.

I got 23 for the moment.

How did you get this glow effect on shapes and fonts?

talis

Nice game, Kongoratz. I was just gonna ask the same question about glowing effect

amaximov

@jdbc and @talis : Thanks! First of all, all the glowing objects are Bitmaps. I didn't try using Gideros 2.0 Alpha with shaders just yet. Instead I made them in Inkscape with a really simple process.

1) Make a rectangle (Or whatever shape you need) and set a white stroke at 95% alpha. I usually use 20 point stroke.

2) Duplicate

3) Set the copies alpha to 100%, increase stroke width by 50% (In this case up to 30), set the glow color you want for copy, blur by ~25 % (You may wish to play with this), and move behind white stroke.

3) Done!

Problem with this is my package size increases if I want a lot of different colors so I might try using a single white glow tube bitmap for every shape, and a single white glow bitmap and tint it using setColorTransform(r, g, b).

Hope that helps

jdbc

What about power-ups to reduce speed, shields to protect ship or larger hole to improve gameplay :-)

amaximov

@jdbc those are some good ideas I'm thinking about shield, a "boost" that would basically shoot your directly through a bunch of barriers (maybe 15 or 20), double points, and a "slow-mo" powerup that you could activate during a tight situation.

Power-ups are good because they add a bit of depth to games so I'll be thinking about this actively!

acalatrava

I'm new in Gideros game development. I just completed one simple game (http://tinyneo.com) and I just saw yours and I can say it is great and addictive!

I'm interested to know about ad revenue. What ad networks are you using? How they work for you? Thanks!

amaximov

Thanks @acalatrava! Here's the run down: I'm currently using AdMob(banners & interstitials), iAd (banners), Tap-for-Tap (banners & interstitials) and Chartboost (interstitials)

Out of all the networks Chartboost offers by FAR the highest eCPM and revenue. I released my game on the App Store yesterday, and earned almost 20$ from 770 impressions with a 25$ eCPM! Now this isn't typical but a 5$ eCPM is a definite safe bet on the iOS side of things. I'm sure things are good with Chartboost on Android but the numbers are probably twice as low. That's just my prediction as I don't use Charboost for Android.

Reason for that is Chartboost has one little caveat. They only pay you once you make over 300$. Basically what that means if you make some money off your app and then it doesn't get any traction, you will be waiting a long, long time to reach the $300 point. However if your app is getting lots of traffic, Chartboost is EASILY my #1 suggestion for interstitials.

Tap-for-Tap interstitials are also ok but get no where near that eCPM. Around 2 for iOS and 1 on Android. However a month ago they were having issues with not detecting installs for iOS apps and ignored my support requests regarding the issue so I would be cautious with them.

Finally for banners, iAd is my favorite provider getting me an eCPM ~ $1.50. iAd often has poor fill rate so I make sure to back that up with AdMob banners with a refresh rate of 120 seconds to maximize my click-through-rate so that Google sends me higher paying ads (I heard that low ctr causes Google to send you lower quality ads). AdMob eCPM on Android side is ~$0.80 and probably higher on iOS but unfortunately I don't yet have data on that.

In summary, here is my order of preferences:

Interstitials: Chartboost > Tap-for-Tap > AdMob

Banners: iAd (iOS only) > AdMob >= Tap-for-Tap

Oh and one last thing, in case one of your providers has problems, I recommend adding a JSON formatted configuration file on your server that your app can download on startup to determine what ad networks to use for that session. That way you can change the ad network you are using whenever you want. Just make sure that your app is able to handle JSON parse errors and such things.

Here's an example from my server:

http://api.intoitgames.com/apps/prototap/ads/configure-1.0.php

I wrote that really quickly so excuse any spelling mistakes and feel free to ask me any more questions