

 Review My First iPhone Game - wushupork
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker-free/id473306271?mt=8

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dpcan
I played the free version, and here are my initial honest opinions:

First the good IMO:

1) The graphics are very nice.

2) It's simple in that you can just press Play and play. I like that a lot.

3) It's very smooth and feels polished.

4) The game idea itself is very interesting and made me want to play.

Here are the things I had a problem with:

1) I didn't know how to control my cards by dragging when I first started out.
I tried tilting and touching in different spots. But got it figured.

2) It felt like it started super slow until I learned to drag the cards down
into place.

3) The first time the dynamite showed, I was a little upset. I was playing a
fun game, now there are these strange things happening. It would be nice to be
able to turn this off.

4) It got super hard really fast. I started playing strictly based on symbols.
Hearts, Spades, Clubs, Diamonds. I couldn't mentally chase down other poker
hand possibilities once it stacked up a little.

5) The controls got tough because it was as if I could sometimes drag cards
upwards, sometimes I could not.

6) I'm on a iPhone 3GS, and it crashed every time I tried to play the "Levels"
mode. I would touch 1, and it would boot me out to my home screen.

=====================

In the end, number 4 above is what stopped me from buying the game. It just
got so hard so fast that I couldn't find a way to get any form of long-term
enjoyment out of the game. The Levels didn't work, so I didn't get an
opportunity to try them, but hopefully I will someday.

I wish you the best of luck, I'm just one opinion, and the big thing to
remember with these mobile games is not to jump to the code and graphics every
time someone says something bad. I used to do that and it turned out that the
loudest people were the biggest complainers and all the people that liked the
game quietly like it. I now prefer to keep my happy customers happy because
the unhappy people aren't coming back anyway - for me anyway.

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wushupork
Hi all,

My friend and I recently released our first iPhone game called Outlaw Poker.
It's basically Tetris meets Poker. We would love your feedback and see what
people like and don't like about the app.

The free version is linked here: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker-
free/id473306271...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker-
free/id473306271?mt=8)

If you happen to like the game, there's a paid version here:
<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker/id473289162?mt=8>

The difference being the free one is ad supported AND the ad takes up a row
which means less playing area.

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andymoe
It's a good first go but gameplay could be better. It's hard to make five card
hands and a bit slow moving. Maybe any hand over two cards should disapear.
Also dragging cards down from the top I often hit the pulldown screen in iOS5.

The important feedback is about your launch. You are going to be better off
not having a pro and free version. Ship one free version. Do in app purchases
to remove ads and try and get some kind of other in app purchase in the game
(levels, other/card games). Preferably try and get consumable in app purchases
in there too. If people want to pay give them that opportunity.

Finally, you are leaving SEO juice on the table by not implementing game
center and iPad view controllers. Both of those things get you in categories
on the app store that are smaller overall than the general listing. Also,
entertainment is usually the best category to publish in for these types of
games. Always, always release on a friday - having the app in the new releases
list over the weekend helps and it's hard out there for a pimp.

Order of things I would fix:

1) Add game center (very easy)

2) Make it a universal app (iPad view controllers) it's not as much work as
you think.

3) In app purchase and dump the paid version. No one is going to download that
in significant numbers anyway - when you have a large install base you can
maybe promote a paid version but it's just not worth it most of the time.

Hope this helps.

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GavinB
Looks cool. I'm downloading now, but is there any chance of an ipad version?
The art looks like it could be great with a big screen.

Edit to add comments on the game itself: Overall nice look and feel. The
motions are nice, and the movement is very responsive.

A few suggestions: -I wasn't sure of the rules when I started. How good a hand
did I need to create? Any five cards is technically a poker hand. -I'd suggest
using the four color playing card system--diamonds are blue and clubs are
green. Much easier to identify flushes that way. -The text on the main menu
sign looks a little funny, like something is off with the anti-aliasing. It
could just be an artifact of playing on an ipad in iphone mode.

I did like how the instructions popped up the first time each new playing
piece appeared. That helped get me started. One sentence of text with each
pop-up wouldn't hurt.

Overall this looks fun! Best of luck to you guys.

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dennyferra
Congrats! How did you manage the graphics? Was it outsourced, did you hire
someone? Can you give any details? I've built a few apps but I'm always
lacking on the design side.

~~~
wushupork
So I was the design guy. My partner Ben did all the coding. For the graphics,
I didn't necessarily start from scratch. A lot of it was stock, but heavily
modified to the point that you probably wouldn't recognize some of it.

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tolmasky
I like the concept a lot, kind of like dr Mario for poker, however one
interaction issue made it very difficult for me to keep playing:

In ios 5, swiping down brings down the notifications window. Half the time I
was trying to drag the cards down from the top I ended up bringing down
notifications instead. I know a few friends who are dealing with similar
issues in their games. Perhaps just moving the cards down a little would help?

~~~
wushupork
Yes, this was made pre iOS5. I think we will need to tweak it a bit to handle
that.

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barranger
Haven't had a chance to test it out, but how is it different than Poker Smash:

[http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Poker-
Smash/66acd0...](http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Poker-
Smash/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025841089c)

~~~
wushupork
I did see Poker Smash after I came up with this. So Poker Smash cards seem to
rise up and you switch positions of cards to make hands. My game is definitely
more along the lines of Tetris or Dr Mario where stuff falls down and you have
to rotate that specific set. I hope that makes sense.

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matthewj
Looks good. I like that the paid version has additional playing space as well
as removing the ads. Seems to help make it more valuable.

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Wachtendonk
i think my dreams came true. i love tetris and poker. now i get to play them
both at the same time.

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danso
Looks cool, such a natural extension of the match-type games that I'm
surprised this is the first time I've seen such a thing.

~~~
wushupork
Yeah this came out of my desire to play such a game but couldn't find one.
Definitely one of those scratch your own itch type projects. Now I can play
it.

