Revenge of the Titans

[kappa]

Wow that's some really generous and gutsy security, especially considering that the pirate version will just be the demo + instructions to block the game in your firewall.

Are there any online exclusive features that only registered users get?

[princec]

Not in Revenge, no, it's a pure single player affair.

Cas

[princec]

Hmm, my server seems to have died. Again It's really not fun doing this sometimes.

Cas

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Riven]

Hmm, my server seems to have died. Again It's really not fun doing this sometimes.

Seems to work here.

[princec]

That's coz I just rebooted it  I wonder what'll kill it next.

Cas

[Mordan]

+1 for paypal

nice DRM

haven't tried the game. Is there a java webstart link to the demo?

[Mordan]

The best DRM is no DRM.  DRM only hurts costumers.

wrong. People stop doing good games and all flock to WOW crap farmville pooop

[kappa]

haven't tried the game. Is there a java webstart link to the demo?

yes, try the linux link which is a java web start.

@princec maybe you should market the DRM a little better by calling it something cool, like Anti-DRM or ADRM, Non Evil DRM, etc

[princec]

Well, it is the Coolest DRM Ever

Webstart

<edit>BTW, BMTMicro, our payment processor, take PayPal.

Cas

[Riven]

DRM has such a bad reputation, that maybe you'd be better of not calling it DRM, regardless of how great it is.


See CyanPrime's initial reaction, he's not the only one to think like that.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[ido]

It also hit hacker news:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1731135

-Ido.

[Mordan]

one of the best game in Java I have ever seen. kind of a tower defense with a mix of building stuff. nice twist. You want to play more and the campaign tutorial is great as to not overwhelm newbies.

the music and sound effects are key to the fun factor.

good job.

[ido]

one of the best game in Java I have ever seen. kind of a tower defense with a mix of building stuff. nice twist. You want to play more and the campaign tutorial is great as to not overwhelm newbies.

the music and sound effects are key to the fun factor.

good job.

Nice try, princec

[princec]

LOL I'm not that devious!

Interesting thread on hacker news. I don't suppose many people realise we do really only make $250 a month or so to share between me and Chaz, maybe our website looks a bit too slick? We've got to figure out this marketing stuff.

Cas

[ido]

An interesting point.

Minecraft's website (and even more so Mojang's) looks very "cheap" in comparison - nobody would mistake it for anything but a quirky indie game, even tho it is bringing in loads of money.

[ewjordan]

Hmm, my server seems to have died. Again It's really not fun doing this sometimes.

Sorry if it was the Hacker News link killing your server, I probably should have warned you before submitting - things almost never hit the front page there, so I didn't even think of it, but clearly this was an exception.

Hope you get a bit of a boost from the attention, let us know.

[princec]

Well, we've had 5 sales today, so that's a 100% boost

Cas

[ido]

One of these was me - I enjoy the game but I think it is *way* too hard!

I am normally pretty good at these kinds of games but even at the early levels i got really close to losing...

[princec]

I noticed Thanks!
You must be doing something seriously wrong! You know that you can click-and-drag to paint collects/builds/reloads?
And you need to put a LOT of factories down around crystals to make sure you've mined them all good and proper before the level ends.
And you don't have to spend all your money on research Skip it occasionally. Starting a level with less than $5k in the bank is hard work!

Cas

[ido]

Oh, I can place more than one factory per crystal? 

Also didn't know about the click&drag, will try it again now.

EDIT: ok, the game is easier now, but still harder than most tower defense games I've played

[CaptainJester]

I only dislike DRM when it is done badly.  Yours is great. Have no problem with it.  Also I gave you a digg.

ps.  Don't need a free registration, I am going to buy it anyway.

[princec]

Hurrah

Cas

[cylab]

Not in Revenge, no, it's a pure single player affair.

Cas

Make a online highscore and archievement stats for buying customers.

[princec]

As it happens that's a future idea (it was going to be in there originally but it's been canned due to time constraints). If it actually makes enough money to justify developing the hiscores function then we'll probably do it but right about now we're just itching to get on with another game now, one that might actually really make some money instead of pocket change. Which will be multiplayer. Haven't got much of a choice as I'm unemployed.

CAs

[ido]

Haven't got much of a choice as I'm unemployed.

Maybe put a "Support Puppygames" donation button on the homepage?

[princec]

I'm trying to think of various alternative options to actually selling games for fixed prices, without resorting to begging Stuff like bargain bundles, or get-free-games-with-RoTT, or pay-what-you-want, that kind of thing. A series of experiments will probably be afoot. When I've finished the pesky game anyway.

<edit>Fundamentally though RoTT is flogging a dead horse - it's never going to make proper money - we need to develop a game with built-in virality and sneakily insiduous addictive grind qualities like Minecraft if we're going to get anywhere.

Cas

[ido]

How about Merchandising?

Mugs, t-shirts, etc with titans & witty 1 liners on them or titan plushies, puppygames pens and so on - I am sure you can think of more.

[ido]

Fundamentally though RoTT is flogging a dead horse - it's never going to make proper money - we need to develop a game with built-in virality and sneakily insiduous addictive grind qualities like Minecraft if we're going to get anywhere.

Do you know what makes minecraft viral and/or addictive? Why it is so successful?

Because I don't.

It's a good game and I love to pieces, but I don't know how much (or what) we can take out of it when thinking about a "success formula".

[princec]

I've got a pretty good idea of what makes MC successful. Crucially it's not something that can be simply "copied", which is why it's going to be amusing watching all the people trying to copy it in the next 12 months or so

There are elements to the formula that are tried and tested though, so we'll be using quite a few of those ideas.

Cas

[ido]

Would you consider sharing the insight?