Once the game hit the App Store, some of our biggest opportunities for exposure came directly from the Touch Arcade community of iPhone/iPod gamers. By getting players interested in the game, word of mouth started early and we were talking directly to people genuinely interested in the game. We became active inside the communities that are enthusiastic about iPhone games. Prior to launch we tried different marketing ideas to get the game out there, but the simplest and most transparent seemed to pay off more than any amount of advertising or PR we could ever afford. One should never underestimate the power of a vocal community on the internet. Getting a community excited and enthusiastic about our game For a game with such a limited scope, getting the musical style right was a big win for us.ģ. We feel we hit something special here because we’re constantly inundated with requests for a Tilt to Live soundtrack. We thought giving Tilt to Live a more lively theme centered around swing and drums would help give it a more wide appeal. Most shooters tend to have a sci-fi or abstract twist to them so they tend to go with a techno or electronica type theme music. On the audio side, we went in different directions as well. Unfortunately screenshots didn’t do the game much justice, but once people saw the game in motion they tended to be pleasantly surprised at the polished feel due to us emphasizing more animations done with simple shapes. The game’s designs and textures were minimalistic and vivid, but the real polish came from the fluid animations of the simple shapes and UI. In an effort to stand out, we avoided the retro and neon look and feel of similar arcade games. With the game being an abstract shooter of sorts, we had a few decisions to make aesthetically. The weapons were just a fun and varied way to do the same thing: eliminate on the screen before they overwhelm you.Ībove: Screenshot of the early prototype of Tilt to LiveĪbove: a more evolved screenshot of the Tilt to Live prototype We introduced a few more weapon types, but it never complicated the user’s inputs. No complex game rules, no complex UI, options, or alternative inputs.
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Having friends and colleagues test it, it was clear we had a simple and fun game that people quickly understood how to play. We quickly had a prototype of Tilt to Live up and running on an iPhone within a couple days. Set on the idea of making a simple, small scope, novel game, the accelerometer quickly become the center of our attention. I decided to pick ones that I deemed not necessarily the biggest items that went right or wrong, but the ones I felt were the most interesting or least talked about. So many things went right as well as went wrong for us that I had a hard time picking them. In the following paragraphs I try to summarize our experience with conceptualizing, developing, marketing, and maintaining Tilt to Live over the course of the last year and a half. Tilt to Live catapulted us from part-time indies to launching a full-time business in indie game development in the span of a few short months rather than our original plan of several years. Little did we know, it would become our pride and joy and also our main platform. With the small form factor and less computing power than high end PC’s, we thought a smaller project quickly done on the iPhone would be a good start to get our feet wet in developing commercial games. We were ready to embark on that adventure, but decided to give the iPhone market a try before committing to a larger project. All at the same time struggling to maintain your name on your creations as you tried to distribute it to the biggest audiences while getting a minuscule piece of the pie. Prior to the iPhone, to make it as an indie you had to work tirelessly and in obscurity for several years, building up your user base at a glacial pace. The App Store and iPhone has changed a lot of once held beliefs since its release.
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