∞ Marco's Definition of Success
After the self-employment penalties in taxes and benefits, I’m probably coming in under what I could get at a good full-time job in the city, but I don’t have to actually work for someone else on something I don’t care about. I can work in my nice home office, drink my fussy coffee, take a nap after lunch if I want to, and be present for my family as my kid grows up. That’s my definition of success.
Probably lots of indies share this same definition of success, though some started from an overnight multi-million dollar dream.
My Story with Mailbox
Dropbox is promoting Mailbox, so I thought, why not give it a try. At least I could earn the extra 1GB.
I downloaded and opened the app, first step was to sign in with Dropbox (to get the 1GB space). After tapping the Sign in button, I got a nice little notification from Dropbox saying my space was increased 1GB. Good news!
Then, however, this happened:
Tried again, same. Then I had to tap Cancel. It started to Unlinking:
Why did it try to unlink if the link was not successful at the first place? And of course it failed:
The End.
∞ A Game Usability Review of Triple town
Triple town is a mobile puzzle game by Spryfox that has kept me addicted for quite a while, despite the free to play time limiting features. In this article, I will introduce the game’s strength, then walk you through some of the usability issues that would be worth fixing to make the experience even more enjoyable.
A great review.
∞ Hamburger Menus Are Terrible
What happened when a hamburger menu is removed:
Customers used the app more frequently: the number of sessions more than doubled!
They spent more time in the app: session time increased 70%
We ultimately saw more customers return, with a 65% increase in daily active users nearly overnight.
Honestly, I didn’t see the hamburger menu was harmful as I use it constantly when it is there. After reading redbooth’s post and playing a few apps on my phone, I slowly see why it is a really terrible design.
∞ Monument Valley in Numbers
Two take aways:
- It costs a LOT of money to make the game: 1.4 MILLION DOLLARS!
- Revenue from China is significant (1/3 of U.S., and it will grow much faster than the U.S. market in future.)
∞ Overcast's Number of Active Users
In the footnote:
For those wanting percentages, Overcast currently has about 100,000 monthly active users and 37,000 daily active users, according to Crashlytics Answers.
The ratio of daily / monthly active users here is very interestingly high.
∞ A 21st-century Kid Plays Through Video Game History in Chronological Order
What happens when a 21st-century kid plays through video game history in chronological order?
This is extremely useful to understand the generations of gaming. A must read.
How to Make a Hit App
Be the first is not how you make a hit app:
Even the first iPhone was a piece of crap…
∞ Monument Valley Expansion
At this time, the team was completely exhausted. For the past few weeks, we’d been working weekends and late into the night to get the expansion up to the standard of the original game. Every spare moment we had we were fixing bugs, polishing visuals, and streamlining the experience.
Hard work by the team. Go buy the expansion!
∞ Leading Unity into the Future
Unity’s new CEO is answering questions on the forum:
As for Unity, “democratizing” to me means putting the developer first.
As for democratizing… to me this is about recognizing that developing a great game is hard, and then even you pull it off, having your game discovered, installed is also hard… and earning a good living on all of this is very hard. David, Joachim and Nicholas recognized this early, and put Unity squarely in the camp of supporting developers in the journey to help them make the best games possible. I intend to ensure that remains true and also help developers find audiences for their games.
Read that thread if you are interested in John’s thoughts on Unity. My take: Unity is definitely expanding its services beyond the game engine, and it will become big.