Great Little War Game

[Wom]

In theory we might have scored out of this financially, so it's a win-win for everyone.

I only say in theory because I think the google checkout server is overloaded as we've not seen any figures for the last couple of days!

Don't want to give you false hope, but the Swiftkey guys told that they made about 2,3 million downloads just on the day of the sale. Now if i just can find the source for that info..

 

[RubiconDude]

Wow!

I'd obviously expect something like that to have more general appeal to the masses, but I'd settle for a tenth of that no problemo!

 

[jerofld]

2.3 million downloads x $0.10 = $230,000

Considering that the guys who made SwiftKey probably wouldn't of had so many downloads otherwise, yeah...I think that is a pretty good haul.

That's assuming Google doesn't take a cut, before taxes, etc. But still...

Edit: Another advantage is that it totally changes the top paid app list in favor of the apps that are 10 cents these 10 days. Which will still give them good positioning after the 10 days.

 

[komicer]

Already got the game before the 10c deal starts. Never regretted it. Wonderful game even if the hard campaign is really hard...

 

[iwillfearnoevil]

bought for 10 cents to play on my sprint epic 4g (samsung galaxy s) and it works great, very pleased and entertaining. well worth more than a dime!

 

[nyydynasty]

just picked up this game and its really fun to play. thanks for this game!

In theory we might have scored out of this financially, so it's a win-win for everyone.

I only say in theory because I think the google checkout server is overloaded as we've not seen any figures for the last couple of days!

even if (lets say) 1000 people pay $0.10 for this game, you definitely didnt lose money because most of those 1000 people probably would not have bought the game at full price (but decided to because it was only 10cents). Nevermind the fact that each person who plays it, pulls in 1 other person. So 1000 people @ 10cents = 1000 more people at full price.

win-win for everyone.

 

[RubiconDude]

I hope you're right on the secondary knock on

 

[gen-e]

Excellent level of support from the Rubicon boys.
Ticket in, immediate response and with the right solution - Nice!

As suggested earlier needed to do a clear data / clear cache but then also a reboot. Straight into Market and voila success.

Thanks to RubiconDude as well.

Did I mention how stunning the Gfx look on the Samsung - awesome work.

Didn't work for me..... I am using 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab, Android 2.2
Also brought the Great Little War Game by Rubicon Development

Any other ideas?

I brought another 10cent app yesterday and it worked... What is going on with this "insufficient space" error message? I have hundreds of MB available!!!

I can't find any support threads for Android Market related to this either...

Update: I have sent an e-mail with log + screenshot to Rubicon support, waiting for reply..

 

[RubiconDev]

Hi Eric,

Sorry to hear you're having problems installing the app!
Clearing the cache/data from the Market app works in a large percentage of cases.
Can you also see if you have a "Download manager" in your list of "All apps" and clear the data from there? It's also important to reboot the device after clearing these caches/data.

Give that a go and see how you get on.

Thanks,

Steve.

 

[RubiconDude]

Ah, I wondered why I couldn't register "RubiconDev" as my user name...

 

[gen-e]

Hi Eric,

Sorry to hear you're having problems installing the app!
Clearing the cache/data from the Market app works in a large percentage of cases.
Can you also see if you have a "Download manager" in your list of "All apps" and clear the data from there? It's also important to reboot the device after clearing these caches/data.

Give that a go and see how you get on.

Thanks,

Steve.

This did the trick, reset both "Download manager" and "Market" somehow allows me to download and install the app. I don't understand why there is such bug in Android market when the app size limit is like 1GB and it has problem with 25MB app..

However, in the process, seems like Android Market allowed me to purchase and paid for the same app THREE times!!! And somehow it manage to say I didn't purchase the app and reject my download when transaction was already completed many hours ago!!! Now, there are THREE transactions of the same app, for Great Little War Game on my credit card.

Google's Android Market seems to be doing a pretty bad job to manage this purchases. This is my 2nd purchase on Market since ever and this is not a good experience. Not looking forward to make more purchases unless I really want the app. Shouldn't Google have fixed these sort of bugs long time ago?? (Hoping to see the 2 extra transactions canceled soon without me doing anything.)

Anything you can do about this or I need to raise a complain at Google to fix their system?

 

[gum]

Thanks for this. We've had a few complaints about the lack of a tutorial, but from my perspective there is one so I don't know what else to add.

If you'd be so kind as to mail me at paul@rubicondev.com with specifics about what you found confusing, it would help immensely for a future update.

What exactly do you mean when you say there is a tutorial from your perspective? I just tried the game out, and as far as I can tell there is no tutorial whatsoever. Some question marks pop up from time to time that I can click, but the amount of information I'm provided is really inadequate, and they teach nothing about the interface.

I'm a decently experienced gamer, but I'm still a little confused about some things. What exactly do those percentages indicate when targeting an enemy and what causes them to change? Why do I sometimes do more damage and sometimes less, is damage decreasing as I take damage? What does it mean when a guy gets promoted other than his health is restored?

There are a number of things about this game that are pretty unintuitive and could really use a tutorial. There's no way to save your shot and shoot when an enemy comes in range, correct? It took me a bit to figure out the ammo, shots left to shoot, and fuel.

 

[RubiconDude]

You are correct in that there is no word "TUTORIAL" written on the screen, but the first few levels are it. When you click a man you see a window pop up with a bunch of petrol cans showing, that empty out as you move. etc.

"What exactly do those percentages indicate when targeting an enemy and what causes them to change?"

I'm trying not to be facetious here but can you not take a reasonable guess? Honestly I didn't get that this stuff wasn't obvious enough. What you really want is a manual I guess.

We tried to design this game such that no manual or dedicated tutorials were needed, as lots of people hate tutorials and reading manuals. Clearly we failed here.

 

[Slug]

Just noticed that there are two separate GLWG topics, so I've merged them to make life easier for the devs.

Hi

I wondered why I couldn't register "RubiconDev" as my user name...

Allow me to introduce you. Paul, meet Steve.

 

[gum]

"What exactly do those percentages indicate when targeting an enemy and what causes them to change?"

I'm trying not to be facetious here but can you not take a reasonable guess? Honestly I didn't get that this stuff wasn't obvious enough. What you really want is a manual I guess.

We tried to design this game such that no manual or dedicated tutorials were needed, as lots of people hate tutorials and reading manuals. Clearly we failed here.

I would have guessed it was chance to hit. It is not, as I have never seen a miss.

It seems to be damage on hit, but I have no idea why the numbers seem to change from the limited time I tried it.

 

[RubiconDude]

Different units do differing damage to other types of unit, plus the core power they deliver is reduced by how damaged they are.

This is pretty common in most of these sorts of games. I'll try to work something out for a next update though.

 

[RubiconDude]

This did the trick, reset both "Download manager" and "Market" somehow allows me to download and install the app. I don't understand why there is such bug in Android market when the app size limit is like 1GB and it has problem with 25MB app..

However, in the process, seems like Android Market allowed me to purchase and paid for the same app THREE times!!! And somehow it manage to say I didn't purchase the app and reject my download when transaction was already completed many hours ago!!! Now, there are THREE transactions of the same app, for Great Little War Game on my credit card.

Google's Android Market seems to be doing a pretty bad job to manage this purchases. This is my 2nd purchase on Market since ever and this is not a good experience. Not looking forward to make more purchases unless I really want the app. Shouldn't Google have fixed these sort of bugs long time ago?? (Hoping to see the 2 extra transactions canceled soon without me doing anything.)

Anything you can do about this or I need to raise a complain at Google to fix their system?

Steve can probably sort you out a refund, but again this is not our problem so we could live without the thumbs down icon.

Yes, android market really is this bad. (And it's not even google's fault aiui, but the carriers with their tinkering.)

80% of the complaints we get at support are like this: "It says there's no room to download but I have two exabytes of ram". We have to field these but really it's nothing to do with us. Please bear with us, because this is so prevalent we can be a bit slow clearing them all. I can assure you we're more annoyed about it than anyone!

19% is "internal market error" which costs us money and stops a customer getting to buy the game at all.

The remaining 1% (if that) are people with actual problems to do with our game, which we try to address as quickly as possible.

 

[gum]

Different units do differing damage to other types of unit, plus the core power they deliver is reduced by how damaged they are.

This is pretty common in most of these sorts of games. I'll try to work something out for a next update though.

Okay, thanks for the explanation. I guess I'm not hugely experienced with these types of turn-based strategy games.

It may be common in the genre, but my inexperience with the genre may be why it strikes me as a little surprising that a rifle would do less damage when fired if the holder is injured.

 

[RubiconDude]

I guess it represents the chances of missing. Rolling a die and getting a good hit or a complete miss based on injury level would be more physically accurate, but would be far more annoying and difficult to strategise with.

 

[elucid]

I found your game very fun and addicting... at first. The easy level through the 20 missions were fun, albeit a bit, well... easy I thought (or rather was hoping), that the strategy of the computer would get more sophisticated in the medium level. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Instead, the rules of the game where changed to give the computer an advantage without it getting any better strategy. I was disappointed but it was still fun to play. Then I move on to the difficult level and again the computer has an even larger advantage (enemy soldier can kill your men with one shot???). It is not challenging, it is unplayable. This seemed like a cop out because you couldn't program the computer to be any smarter

If the computer had an advantage with more men, vehicles, or more mine fields, then it would be challenging, but making the rules different for the computer than the player just defeats the whole strategy.

Sorry for the rant. I did like the game and rated it 5 stars, however I felt it was capable of being much better.

 

[RubiconDude]

It gets those advantages also - their prices are cheaper.

Sorry you're not impressed with the AI not getting brainier with the difficulty level, but there aren't any games even in AAA pc/console that do that. If we could make the AI smarter without slowing the game down, we'd do it for all difficulty levels.

 

[liquidmonkey]

What exactly do those percentages indicate when targeting an enemy and what causes them to change? Why do I sometimes do more damage and sometimes less, is damage decreasing as I take damage? What does it mean when a guy gets promoted other than his health is restored?

i just bought this game and its awesome, however, it does need some explanation.
to be fair, much is intuitive BUT some things are not at all, such as the ??? above that were never properly answered.

right now i'm on a beginner level, the first one with boats, and i'm trying to get to the island with oil things on it but i can't. is it meant that way? i know it says u need to use a beach but then why can't i capture the other oil things? am i stuck with oil 150 bucks each turn?

the whole healing / resupply could be explained better too. i had no idea u needed to wait a turn for it to happen until i did it by accident.

this is often a mistake by programmers and makers of games who assume everyone knows what it means or just take for granted that its so easy as they are the ones who designed the game.

the animations, gameplay etc are great, but i'd suggest a small wiki page for explanation. u could even let the community do it, just give them somewhere to start.
and if ur gonna make many games, a gameWIKI will be a step forward for your company.

 

[RubiconDude]

Not a bad idea at all, thanks.

 

[elucid]

It gets those advantages also - their prices are cheaper.

Sorry you're not impressed with the AI not getting brainier with the difficulty level, but there aren't any games even in AAA pc/console that do that. If we could make the AI smarter without slowing the game down, we'd do it for all difficulty levels.

I was being too harsh. I finished all the medium missions without much difficulty, but I can't finish the 2nd mission on hard at all. The jump in difficultly is enormous.

It would be far more playable to get fewer men / minefields as the difficulty increased.

 

[RubiconDude]

I know exactly what you mean - it's the nature of that second map that makes that one so very hard. Once you've done it, the rest aren't so bad.

You can imagine how adept I am at the game, but iirc it took me 48 mission days to complete level 2 on "ridiculous" difficulty. The rest of the maps were just normally ridiculous.