Short Circuit is Coming to Android
3/27/2017
Following hot on the heels of my release of Droplets, I expect to be finally releasing Short Circuit for the Android soon. I don’t plan on using advertisements to support Short Circuit, instead I plan on selling the full game for no more than $1.00 USD. Since I know that people aren’t as likely to spend their hard earned money on a game that they haven’t gotten to try, I am also planning on releasing a demo that will give players access to a small selection of levels for each static game mode. There will be two static game modes, classic and advanced, and they have the same levels that were present on the xbox. That means that up to this point the android version is a direct port of the xbox version, with only a few changes to make it compatible with the android device. But I won’t be stopping there. I have one more game mode that I want to add to the game, that will be called “Continuous”. When you select the continuous game mode, you will first be brought to a settings screen where you can specify your desired PAR, grid size, and other options. Then when you click “Begin” the game will use the settings you chose to randomly generate game levels for you, and as you beat each level it will generate another one using the settings you specified. You will also be able to specify that certain settings be progressive. Settings that you indicate are progressive will start at the level you specified, and will slowly raise up towards the maximum value every few levels to increase the difficulty as you progress. This mode is not currently complete and will not be included in the initial release. Continuous mode will not be included in the demo, even once it is completed, making this a paid only feature. For now, however, I have to figure out how I want to release the demo/full games. I currently have two options. First, I could release the game as an unlock-able demo. That means that the game will have one in-app-purchase option for unlocking the full game. The second option is to release the demo separately from the full game. All that said, I would like for you to give me your opinion on the matter. As a consumer, would you prefer if I released the game as one executable with IAP to unlock the full game, or would you prefer that I released the demo seperate from the full game, thus eliminating the IAP all together? Please respond using the poll on the front page.
Both options have their own drawbacks. For instance, there appears to be a slight social stigma attached to using In-App-Purchases(IAP) which could cause many people to not even try the demo. At the same time some may get annoyed when they try a demo then have to download the full game separately. Using the IAP option could allow the user’s progress in the demo to carry over to the full game, but doing the seperate release option could give the game a little more visibility in an already overpopulated marketplace.