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.
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.
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 :)
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!
We finally made it through Apple’s review process with Chuck the Ball LITE. In case you hadn’t heard, Apple is a little inconsistent when it comes to approving LITE versions of apps. Anyway, it’s here now, so what are you waiting for? Go get Chuck the Ball Lite and see what you’ve been missing.
Version 1.2 of Chuck the Ball is almost here. We submitted the update to Apple today, so it should arrive within the next few days. Once again, almost all of the features in this version are based on community feedback. The biggest feature is a built-in level editor that allows players to create up to 99 custom levels. We’ll be accepting levels from players and featuring them in future updates so start thinking of some great level designs.
After much consideration, we have decided to release a free, LITE version of Chuck. Our decision is based on two things: First, Chuck is a great game and we are convinced that if people play it, they will want to buy it. Second, the number of LITE version success stories increases daily. Here’s hoping Apple releases a more elegant solution to try-and-buy. Look for Chuck the Ball LITE in the App Store before the end of the month.
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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! 
Version 1.2 of Chuck the Ball is almost here. We submitted the update to Apple today, so it should arrive within the next few days. Once again, almost all of the features in this version are based on community feedback. The biggest feature is a built-in level editor that allows players to create up to 99 custom levels. We’ll be accepting levels from players and featuring them in future updates so start thinking of some great level designs.