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Someone do me a favour and check out the description text on my new game release and possibly suggest a better one! I'm not exactly great with words to describe games and everyone who has seen this pretty much says it's a pretty bad description. Ta! Oh, and I've included some promo codes as incentives (no free version yet)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snake-revolutions/id497176920?ls=1&mt=8
Promo codes (Universal app):-
9Y996K7W66AH
FJAHT73EF6W6
KJPHPTLWJYAP
RYL7NN4PFPLL
NWHNAJAKF6MY

Also for WebOS (currently only on Touchpad and no Android love yet until I fix my tablet). Note Promo codes start 09/02/12:-
https://developer.palm.com/appredirect/?packageid=com.teamgates.snaker
UK Promo code (10 users) : 8f2cfe6c-4d97-45b2-925b-33cc547e81eb
US Promo code (10 users) : 7f357b26-5d4d-4b7c-a72e-3478fef0cc55

Cheers

The description is decent for a fuller explanation of what it is but it's just too long - what you have now should be the larger explanation of how to play etc. but you need a snappy hookline that summarises it to begin with (i.e. a one line description which draws attention)

As a potential player starting with the "Avoid the yellow walls..." I simply did not read the rest of the block: the text is too dense for what should be a brief explanation

I would structure it like this:

<Snappy hook> (Rubbish example: Snake Revolutions: the rapid snake game with coiling rotating movement!)

<Breakdown/explanation> (A more brief description of the rules as per what you have now. Do them as bullet points or something so you could glance over them very quickly)

Hmm. Yeah I think the hook is a good point. And the bullet point idea will look a lot neater. Great, ta!

Anybody else got any good ideas for a hook? Want to make it as catchy as possible really. Will then bung it in the next update.

Anyone get a chance to play it BTW? Would be grateful for some creative criticism!

Cheers

I bought it and played with it, but I die pretty fast (within 5 seconds). Maybe I'm not grasping the concept!

You bought it? Did the promo code not work?

Yeah, it's supposed to be pretty tough. I wanted to chuck people in at a more frantic pace from the off compared to Snake. It's supposed to be a one minute game really. In and out. Perhaps I should have done a tutorial (help screen is a bit spartan).

If you use the turning the screen mode then it's quite tough, but whenever I gave it to people to test they thought it was cool so I made it the default. You can tilt it to turn or if it feels better for you then turn the device more like a steering wheel. Most people find it easier to use the touchscreen mode. If you then put one thumb on the left of the screen and one on the right then it's much easier to play. The nearer you touch to the centre of the screen then the less of a turn you make. I find it easiest to place thumbs nearest the outside of the device (left and right) and never use anywhere else on the screen. So I'm turning as fast as I can but it's the best way to stay alive until around 2m when a slight controlled turn might be better to slide through the middle of blocks.

To avoid dying for a while then don't run over the red boundary lines. The blue ones in the middle are just there for show. If your timer hits zero then you die, so top it up with the blue pills. They will also make Snake longer and increase your score by 100k. Don't run into yourself obviously. The purple pills slow you down for a while and nothing else. The white pills reverse your controls for a bit, which is why you should avoid them unless trying to edge out the top score as they give you 50k (no help on the timer though).

Apart from that a yellow block falls every 100k. Avoid them too!

And thanks for buying my game! Don't forget to review!

Cheers

I am a huge snake fan

This is just damn cool.

Thanks! I think it works pretty well. Once I get it some coverage on review sites then if it does ok I'm thinking of a multiplayer mode. Very Tronlike.

Cheers

Apple app descriptions tend to be more geared towards the typical cheesy, marketing-oriented ads you see on TV infomercials. You should have a catchy one or two liner description right at the top, and then go into some more detail concerning the controls and whatnot below. Something like this might work:

"The classic snakes game is back and better than ever!"

"Snakes the way it was supposed to be! Fast-paced, non-linear, and most importantly, addictive!"

"Tired of the same old snakes game? Snakes Revolution brings a whole new "twist" to the classic you know and love."

P.S: Goodluck with the app, Im developing an iPad app myself right now.

They look more like it. I will use something similar once I get an update going. Did you try one of the promo codes? If so what did you think of the game?

Cheers

I didn't even notice you gave promo codes, but $0.99 is nothing. I would never not buy a game that someone I know made! As far as I know the promo codes wouldn't work for my Canadian account anyway!

I finally got the concept when I switched to the screen controls. The default controls are very tough, you're right! This is really cool! What language did you use? AppGameKit?

About the app description, I have a hint for you. Mention your competitor's games in your description if their games are remotely like yours, especially if their games are popular. People doing searches for the other games will make your game come up too I'm pretty sure that my game's description mentions Scrabble and Crosswords, so I got a lot of people finding my game that way.

I also noticed you use a company name instead of your name. Did Apple actually ask you to provide proof that you have a business? I used my own name but I would have rather used Automaton Games, but when I submitted the app the wording sounded like they would ask me to provide a copy of my business license or something like that. And I had to get a US TAX number too. This was back in early 2009, so it could have changed by then.

Good luck! Maybe we can advertise each other's games somehow

Oh before I forget, I noticed you link to other games like Angry Birds inside your game. What is that for?

Yes Apple requires proof that the business exists if you opt to get a business developer account instead of the normal individual developer account.

They do however allow you to switch to a business account from your individual account when you're ready, and from what I understand this transition propagates all of your apps with the new business name information, although I may be wrong on that one.

P.S: Wow, I didn't realize so many TGCers were making the leap to iOS. Then again I suppose AppGameKit has something to do with it .

Aw, thanks mate! Should really have used the promo codes though (think they are ok for anywhere) considering it's unlikely I'll make any money off it at this rate. If I can get it on a review site then maybe...

No. I wanted to. Really wanted to considering I've used DB since 2000, but the lack of 3D stopped me. I've done a few tech demos in DB over the years which pretty much mucked around with revolving a 3D screen to look like 2D (I wrote a Cybernoid clone that rotated the screen in DBP). But using AppGameKit limited me to totally 2D so that was out of the window. When AppGameKit gets 3D I will probably pick it up. I used GLBasic. Also because it can compile to WebOS which I have a couple of devices on (any chance of AppGameKit doing this? Would be easy as GLB only took a few weeks to full convert over).

Yeah I do a bit, but maybe not enough. Just a bit worried about breaching copyright or somesuch. Will update the description when I have an update.

No. I said it was me. But there was another bit if I remember rightly that you could call yourself something different. Basically just a label. So "Team Gates" shows at the top, but my name appears near the app size if you notice.

Actually I can. My shop (bit naff but I'm updating the code as we speak) links to an online file so I can update it any time. Give me the name and the link and I'll add it Judging by my downloads don't expect a huge improvement

Ah just noticed you noticed Angry Birds Heh, reason I listed other apps was several reasons. One was because I only have 2 apps so it looks stupid. The second was because my shop code goes a little wrong if there is less than a page of items. It's to do with the inertia code. I couldn't be bothered to fix it considering it works on a list bigger than a page.

It's the future. So many things I wrote in DB over the years to just give up on. But the prospect of being published drives you on. And iOS and other mobile markets are the best way it seems. GLB has been going for years for the PC but when someone did a survey a little while back on what plugins people wanted the vast majority wanted iOS ones. Then Android (quite far back). PC stuff was not really mentioned. Interestingly the GLB author then decides to devote loads of time to writing GUI plugins for some reason that will (apparently) only work on PC/Mac/Linux devices with no apparent move for mobile devices. Dropping the ball there a bit methinks...

Cheers