

Review My App: Hearts Net (multiplayer iPhone card game) - allenbrunson
http://www.platinumball.net/hearts/

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tibwolf
Up until I bought Hearts Net, Hearts Solo was the best hearts game for the
iphone out there (UI aside).

If you want to try and get some more exposure, maybe try getting some blogs to
play your game.

Gizmodo, for one, has weekly "best of" posts for apps, so you could give that
a try.

[http://gizmodo.com/5459997/this-weeks-best-iphone-
apps/galle...](http://gizmodo.com/5459997/this-weeks-best-iphone-
apps/gallery/?skyline=true&s=i)

~~~
allenbrunson
hey, thanks! i agree, the user interface for hearts solo leaves something to
be desired. me and my friend steph spiffed it up a little for hearts net. i
think she's going to do another new "theme" for hearts solo as well, so i can
release a new version of that.

are you one of those people who likes to shoot the moon a lot? i tried to make
the robots a lot more resistant to that this time around. the number one
complaint i heard from my really good players was that it was too easy to
shoot the moon.

i think my best marketing leverage at the moment is that hearts solo has been
downloaded 30,000 times. about 5k of those were upgrades when i released
version 1.1.0, so that's 25k unique users. when i release a new version, all
25k of them will get notified by the app store downloader. i'm going to try
charging 99 cents, and see how many of them go for it.

~~~
tibwolf
I rarely intentionally try to shoot the moon, rather it happens when the
robots give me something like a Q, K, and A of spades and I roll with it.

I do have one suggestion for the UI; in landscape mode the buttons at the
bottom seem too large. Can you shave the text and have just the icons or have
an option to hide them completely in any mode other than portrait or
something?

~~~
allenbrunson
'the buttons' at the bottom are part of a UITabBar, which is provided by the
UITouch framework. i can't change their size, it's fixed to be the same for
all apps. the tab bar is pretty deeply embedded into the fabric of the app, so
i cannot yank it out when the phone rotates to landscape mode.

there is a smaller type of toolbar i could put down there, but if i have it do
the job of a UITabBar, that's a violation of apple's human interface
guidelines, and i wouldn't be surprised if they rejected my app for it.

i agree that landscape mode doesn't work all that hot, but there's not a lot i
can do about it. there's just not enough pixels to go around. that problem
goes away when i port the game to iPad (heh).

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gatorolaw
Dude, you really lost your goodwill with your upgrade. You gave people a free
app and now you sneakingly have stolen it back. I know you want to make money
for your hard work but this way trashes your rep completely. You had really
good reviews and could have start charging. A grocery store that increases
traffic and word of mouth doesn't try to take back the free stuff after it
gets the traffic and goodwill. You could have updated to advertise your new
games but you used it steal back what you gave away for free. It's looks like
a bait and switch and your rep may never recover.

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allenbrunson
Hey guys,

I am one of those programmers who is clueless about marketing that we get so
often here. Suggestions for improving my website, iPhone marketing in general,
iPhone game marketing in particular, or other comments are welcome.

I worked really hard to make WiFi multiplayer games work well. This is best
tested if you and a friend try it. If it doesn't work for you, I'd like to
know why not.

Some anecdata: this app was approved for sale in less than 24 hours!

Here's some promo codes for your trouble.

RXXKXJXMJ6PR 749TRELXYAMH YPMA7J9MRK9K WTXPP76R6YRJ

