Ok, so it’s not really that big of a deal, but we spotted Chuck on Apple’s App Wall at WWDC.  If you look closely, you can make him out in this blurry photo.

Chuck is on sale for the lowest price to date.  Head over to the App Store and grab Chuck for only 99 cents.

The latest version of Chuck the Ball (full and LITE) are available now in the App Store.  Now you can listen to your own tunes while playing.  Also, due to popular demand, we added a bunch more easy levels to the full version.  For the full list of enhancements, see our previous post.

Enjoy!

The latest version of Chuck adds:

• 30 new easy levels
• 15 user-created levels
• iPod compatibility
• Improved instructions
• A couple minor UI improvements
• Sounds in the level editor

We submitted Chuck v1.3 to Apple last night, so we expect the next version to arrive in the App Store on Monday at the latest.

Congratulations to the winners of our level design contest who each earned a $15.00 iTunes gift card.  The winners levels are featured as levels 1, 2, and 3 in the new Fan Levels section.

Today we had a huge surprise when our friends and family presented this sweet cake to us.  They made the cake to celebrate Chuck’s recent success.  I still can’t believe how much effort went into this.  My favorite thing about it is Chuck’s head complete with stars and 3d eyes.

So, you’ve guided Chuck through a bunch of levels. You’ve gathered stars, avoided spikes, moved boulders, sunk marbles, and skated past black holes. It wasn’t always easy, but hey, you’ve got some mad finger-swiping skills.

- BUT -
Do you have what it takes to mastermind
a part of Chuck’s journey?

Makeshift Games is calling all Chuck fans to see who can create the coolest, cleverest, or most unique levels. So tap into your creative side to see what you can come up with. Once you create a level you can be proud of, post a screenshot of it in this thread on the Touch Arcade forums (or email it to lev...@chucktheball.com).

Our ten favorite levels will be featured front and center in the next Chuck the Ball update.

They’ll also be put up for a vote Tuesday the 10th on the Touch Arcade forums where the top three will score their creators a $15 iTunes giftcard.

The contest ends Monday at 8pm (Pacific) and is open to anyone who can redeem a US iTunes gift card.

Are you game?

I think I’ll be try to be another resource for new iPhone Devs by sharing our experiences with Chuck.  We’re just stumbling around in the dark as much as everyone, but here’s what we know so far.

Here’s a graph from mobclix (link) that shows our Ranking in the Games > Action section of the App Store.  It’s not directly related to downloads, but it does offer a good generalization of Chuck’s popularity and placement within the store.  Higher obviously = much better.

To give the graph some context let me give you some corresponding dates:

• 1-20 – 1/26 - Did nothing… just declining sales as we move farther back in the “new releases” category in games > itunes > puzzle/action
• 1/26 - We’re featured in the “New & Noteworthy” of just the Games section in iTunes.
• 1/30 - We released a “Lite” version. Which initially saw 2000+ LITE downloads for days 1 & 2, but only a slight increase in sales for regular Chuck.
• 1/31-2/3 - nothing really changed. This is pretty much our rank/sales if we just hung out on the games homepage of the store.
• 2/4 - We’re featured by Apple in the “New & Noteworthy” for the entire store which includes the iPhone store as well… The jump in sales is actually higher than the rating jump, but honestly not as much as I had hoped.
• 2/5 - Day 1 results of the Sale. Moved the price down from 2.99 to 1.99. 

On Sale Day 1 we did see an increase in downloads but of course a decrease in profit. The good part is that the app now shows up on alot more of the “top paid” lists within the game category pages on the phone.

We put Chuck on sale mainly just as an experiment to see what’ll happen.  We’re  hoping that an increase in ranking will lead to an increase in placement on the store… which will lead to an increase in ranking… placement… ranking… placement…

We’ll see how day 2 goes now that the placement is a bit higher

I’m also not sure how long we get to hang out on the featured list, but we’ve already moved down 3 spots so I think it’ll be short lived.

We do have some banner ads starting next week so hopefully that’ll coincide with our move to page 2 of the featured list.

More to come…

We were featured on the App Store starting tuesday.  It’s been an interesting ride so far seeing what the response has been in terms of sales and rankings.  

Recently over on the Touch Arcade Forums  there was a discussion on what the heck to do when you’re app gets featured on the store…  Do you lower price? Try for rank? Ride it out & hope it goes big on it’s own? 

Here was my reply:

We are going through the same thing with Chuck the Ball (itunes) and it was a really tough decision.

 

After reading a BUNCH of blog posts from other devs we decided to take the opportunity to lower the price…. but only to $1.99.

 

We didn’t go with 99c even though we’d probably get more sales because we want to avoid having people that really have no business buying the game be attracted to it just cause of the price. If those people do buy it, hate it, and give it a bad review then it’ll probably hurt us more in the long run.

 

We’re testing the waters to see if it works. Ideally we’d like to see our profit remain (or grow), our rank to grow, and our rating to stay high.

 

In today’s app store climate it’ll be quite a trick :)

Chuck the Ball goes on sale today for just $1.99. Now you have no excuse. Hurry over to the App Store and get your copy today.

The stars have aligned (pun intended) and Apple has featured Chuck in the App Store.  We are super excited to see so many people play our game.  Player reviews of the game continue to be overwhelmingly positive and Chuck maintains a strong 4.5 rating.  Go Chuck go!