Kaiju Big Battel: Fighto Fantasy - Now available

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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

Looks like it varies based on Android version, even though all of their documentation just says "100 MB is the current limit." I wrote to a support line at Google and got this answer:

"Additionally, APK files have a maximum file size, based on the Android version your APK supports:

100MB - APKs that target Android 4.0 and higher (API level 9 or higher)
50MB - APKs that target Android 3.2 and lower (API level 8 or lower)"
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Post by TMC »

That makes sense... although we do now "target" Android 8.0+. I think the answer you got from the help desk (wow! I'm amazed you got a reply from Google!) must mean "APKs that support Android 3.2 and lower". So I guess you're going to have to get James to build the .apk with the minimum supported android version bumped to API 9. That's trivial, it just requires editing a config file.
Last edited by TMC on Wed Dec 05, 2018 10:53 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

The game's YouTube series is still in production and posts every Tuesday through Friday at 1pm EST (with last week being an exception) for those interested. We're currently up to Part 20 and flexing around in Boston.

Click below to see the full playlist:

Kaiju Big Battel: Fighto Fantasy Gameplay Playlist

Alternatively, here are the first four episodes if you want to watch them independently:

Episode 1:

[yt]mKFXgRhwcnQ[/yt]

Episode 2:

[yt]zrxnVnFs1R4[/yt]

Episode 3:

[yt]oap7gJypXCo[/yt]

Episode 4:

[yt]dmtdiK2Tr48[/yt]
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

TMC wrote:That makes sense... although we do now "target" Android 8.0+. I think the answer you got from the help desk (wow! I'm amazed you got a reply from Google!) must mean "APKs that support Android 3.2 and lower". So I guess you're going to have to get James to build the .apk with the minimum supported android version bumped to API 9. That's trivial, it just requires editing a config file.
I was trying to do this tonight, but I couldn't find where I am supposed to change the minimum api. I thought I remembered seeing it in AndroidAppSettings.cfg, but nope! all I see there is AppSettingVersion=17

I do see a minSdkVersion line inside project/AndroidManifestTemplate.xml so I can try that, it I am really just guessing.

EDIT: okay, when I change that and rebuild, I can see that the change propigates to both project/AndroidManifest.xml and project/AndroidManifest.xml so I am cautiously optimistic that it was the right file to edit :)
Last edited by Bob the Hamster on Fri Dec 07, 2018 2:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TMC »

Yes, that's the one.
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Post by The Wobbler »

It worked and the game's up on Google Play now! https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... land.kaiju

For anyone who hasn't uploaded to Google before there's a fun survey they make you take about burps.
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Spoonweaver
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Post by Spoonweaver »

How are sales going?
Is it safe to say this is the most successful OHR game to date?
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Post by TMC »

Sales don't get better after launch day :(

Speaking of which, what about the physical CD cases?
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Post by guo »

https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-explains- ... r-to-find/

I thought of Kaiju when I read this.
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Post by The Wobbler »

Spoonweaver wrote:How are sales going?
Is it safe to say this is the most successful OHR game to date?
It's sadly not even my most successful OHR game, it's performed way, way worse than C. Kane did (and cost a lot more to make). I'm just hoping to eventually break even at this point.
TMC wrote:Sales don't get better after launch day :(

Speaking of which, what about the physical CD cases?
The first batch (which was just 10) sold out right away, I made a bigger batch but it hasn't really had any impact yet.
guo wrote:https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-explains- ... r-to-find/

I thought of Kaiju when I read this.
Yeah, I released in the middle of this and that was really unfortunate timing.

I'm looking at Steam alternatives to see if it can do better there. I put a few games on Itch.io and they haven't had a lot of downloads but they've gotten a lot of views. The store front it creates for your titles is nice too: https://super-walrus-games.itch.io/
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Post by TMC »

Yeah, actually making people aware of the game is really difficult; C.Kane got so much coverage because of the gimmicky concept.

You made a bigger batch of CDs and sold them at another Kaiju event? I was asking whether I could buy one.

How come you only uploaded the Windows version to itch.io?

I see you recently gave an interview, which I just stumbled across:
https://www.indiehangover.com/interview ... o-fantasy/
Last edited by TMC on Fri Dec 14, 2018 6:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by The Wobbler »

TMC wrote:Yeah, actually making people aware of the game is really difficult; C.Kane got so much coverage because of the gimmicky concept.

You made a bigger batch of CDs and sold them at another Kaiju event? I was asking whether I could buy one.

How come you only uploaded the Windows version to itch.io?

I see you recently gave an interview, which I just stumbled across:
https://www.indiehangover.com/interview ... o-fantasy/
The weirdest thing to me is that Walthros still gets more monthly downloads than anything else, even though I haven't promoted it in literally more than a decade. The Amazon version gets like 400 downloads a month and I really don't know how. It's free, but other free stuff like Horse Game and Ghost's Towns get maybe 4 or 5 downloads a month.

The physical version is available on Ebay, I tried listing on Amazon but they gave me a hard time - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Kaiju-Big-Batt ... 3421234288

I should add the Mac and Linux versions to Itch.io but honestly the traffic those would get is so low that it's not really relevant. Among my current games (including all the free ones) the Mac versions account for about 1% of my downloads and Linux versions are 1% of 1%.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Walthros gets 400 downloads a month on Amazon? Nice!
I wonder why. I'll never understand the search algorithms the game sites use, but I'm sure the reason it gets so many hits is there's a key word cluster in the description that gets searched a lot.
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Post by The Wobbler »

It's even weirded because it uses the same text on Google Play, where it gets around 10 downloads a month. I'll never get how these algorithms work either!
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

No one knows exactly how Amazon's algorithms work, but there is heavy speculation that Amazon is more likely to "promote" content that is already popular than content that isn't selling (or getting attention). I think Walthros is getting 400 downloads a month because Amazon knows it can, and it is probably putting it higher in the search results than your other games as a result. I'd suspect the main reason your other games are getting any downloads on Amazon is because people who download Walthros are likely looking up your profile to see if you've made anything else they can play (assuming they're all linked to a single profile). I can tell you that books on Amazon work the same way. That's why marketing is so important. If you wait for word-of-mouth, it may never come because your first buyer doesn't know how to find you because Amazon stopped pushing you to the top of the search after the first week, likely because sales were lower than what they would consider good.

I'm not sure how Amazon handles free content over paid content, but it's a business that wants more money, so it's going to push the items that will give it more so it can make more. I suspect freebies have the same priorities because your "also boughts" and any other paid products linked to your game have a higher chance of being clicked on, which can lead to a sale, than if your game receives no traffic. (This is also how affiliates make most of their money.)

As of now, Walthros is #14,784 in all free games (out of over 200,000), and #634 in role playing (out of over 4,000). That averages out to the top 10%. I'd think Amazon wants to keep it there.

For comparison, according to Amazon's ranking, Kaiju Big Battel: Fighto Fantasy is ranked #10,344 in all paid games, and #283 in role playing. It sounds like it should be doing better based on those results.

If you actually search through the RPG results page, however, you'll see that Walthros shows up on page 9 of the featured results, after a crap-ton of princess games and very few traditional RPGs, and Kaiju Big Battel doesn't show up until page 12. So, there's probably something in that, too. It's also worth noting that Kaiju Big Battel is the first game, or one of the first games, priced at $10 in the search. So, for premium games, it's near the top. I think that's pretty good.

Amazon is the king shark of commerce, and all other rivals, including Google Play, have a crumb's share of customers. Google Play dumped their e-book program a few years ago because most buyers shop for e-books on Amazon, which currently holds nearly 70% of the total market (and over 40% of the total book market among all distributors). It's reasonable that your Amazon sales or downloads will be higher than in any other market, unless all of your marketing points to another source, or the other source does better to naturally promote your work.

At the end of the day, products need a continuous stream of attention and purchases (or downloads) to stay afloat. When it tapers off, it sinks, and Amazon isn't in the business of issuing life preservers.

If any of us want to sell our games and do well at it, we have to market, but we also have to pay attention to the trends they fall into. Walthros and Kaiju Big Battel both trail behind eight pages of non-traditional RPGs (about princesses). That also says something about the apps and games market.
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