It could be weekly or monthly, with a mix of new games and classic gems that maybe aren't so well known. I'd tolerate a fair amount of advertising or sponsored content in the newsletter as long as it was clearly labeled.

The key thing for me is quality. I think that's true for many (extremely) casual phone gamers. I'd much rather get 1 outstanding recommendation per week/month than 10 of varying quality. And I know game enjoyment can be somewhat subjective, but there are still some games that are generally well-done and broadly appealing to fans of a genre. If the top recommendation is a racing game, I might skip it. That's okay. I don't need a new game every week or even every month. I just don't want to waste my time sifting through bad games or games that start fun but quickly ramp up the IAP pressure.

HumbleBundle kind of fits this niche, but I found their volume to be too high. And frankly, I don't want to buy a bunch of games at once. I think I'm less of a gamer than their target audience.

I wanted to say that I developed Rocket Renegade [1] for iOS. It's an 80s-inspired arcade shooter, with elements reminiscent of Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaga... and, of course, it contains bosses.

I wrote all of the code, and I composed the soundtrack as well. The bitmap graphics were done by game designer Daniel Cook, who released them under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

I believe that it fits all of your requirements: the quality is high, the gameplay is fun, it runs rock-solid at 60 frames per second, the music is awesome, and it's a POP game (Pay Once to Play); no IAP, no ads.

It's essentially a straight-up, gun-for-your-highest-score-classic-arcade-shooter.

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rocket-renegade/id955229059?...

I was kind of hoping for some power-ups, like a faster shot rate or scattershot. Those might be present, and I just didn't get to them yet, only made it to stage 3-x on first attempts. I also wish the stages had more variation, might feel too repetitive after a while – though that might happen later also.

Anyway, for $0.99, I'm definitely not complaining. It's a fun game and definitely an example of what I'm looking for. I'd personally be willing to pay more, in the $4.99 range, for a game like this, especially if it had some the variation features I mentioned above – but I might be unusual.

Unfortunately, there are no power-ups, and the levels do repeat after the boss level (although the game does become progressively more difficult). Those are definitely great ideas for the next iteration of the game.

Thank you, again. It means a lot to me.

I play(ed) a game called Sky Force 2014 that would have benefitted from a prestige mechanic.

As for your game-play issue, try off-setting your finger on the screen, away from the actual ship. That is to say, I made it so that you can actually have your finger anywhere on the screen to control the ship (i.e., you don't have to have your finger directly on the ship to control it). That will help you as you're trying to navigate through the asteroid field (and the other levels as well)!

Thanks again!

Could you please take a look at my game:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drone-invaders/id1047158768

Powerups are there. :)

The reason IAP became so big is because there was a huge race to the bottom in pricing in mobile, $1 isnt sustainable, so everyone was forced to find alternate revenue streams. If apple got rid of free and <$5, the average quality of the app store could be so much higher

I spent 3 months building Hipster CEO and its made me approx $40-45k (as well as leading to other projects). Not a bad return for 3 months work.

Each version improves existing games in the arcade and/or adds new ones... you can play your 20 coins/day first, then buy extra if you choose... there's no reason that model couldn't work quite well.

We didn't even make the development cost back. We actively fought against the idea of IAPs and trying to hook whales, even though it would have been easy to introduce mechanisms to do it (on the hardest level it's almost impossible to beat).

[1] iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/za/app/fleet-of-one/id580453079?mt=... Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=za.co.polymorp...

https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/space-shooter-t...

[1] https://developer.apple.com/spritekit

Again, thank you for taking the time to play and provide feedback. This was my first game, and it's clear that I have a lot to learn!

Most of what they cover is buy-once. IAP in their covered games usually takes the form of optional DLC or as a way to buy the game outright after trying the initial levels. When they occasionally review a F2P game, they take the side of the average consumer and discuss how intrusive (or not) the IAP is.

Please check it out, you're precisely the type of audience we are aiming for: http://playellipsis.com

Regarding curation, aside from places like TouchArcade, there are occasionally nicely curated video lists of best new premium games like these from Gameranx:

- January: https://youtu.be/Nuaj_ti5MtA

- February: https://youtu.be/aTQO0_bhuUI (disclaimer: we're in this list)

- March: https://youtu.be/oreE8YX5jQI

They stopped making those videos sometime last year.

Here's a compiled list of their featured apps: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cnARmaoMH-ZzAHCmaqkBus3r...

If I could:

* Filter out any apps or games with microtransactions.

* Filter out any apps or games with ads.

* Filter down to apps with at least x downloads or ratings.

* Choose how the content is sorted.

I feel I could find things that I'm actually interested in. As it is at the moment it feels random whether I'll find something I'd actually want to download.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/2ggaqp/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wp.wordbox

http://i.imgur.com/p8OnlG8.png

I guess one would monetize that by soliciting advertisements and featuring particular games?

Clearly you do not know who is Nolan Bushnell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell

Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain. Bushnell has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Nations Restaurant News “Innovator of the Year” award, and was named one of Newsweek's "50 Men Who Changed America." Bushnell has started more than twenty companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry.

I would argue that he knows who Bushnell is better than you do. What you posted in no way invalidates what you quoted from the parent post. Yes, Bushnell started Atari. Since he sold, he's done...golly, I'd have to go look it up because all I remember is a string of forgettable (duh) games that he put his name on because "founder of Atari".

Bushnell has started more than twenty companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry.

Okay, sure. How many are still going, and how many didn't completely sink the money of the respective investors?

I get that Bushnell is a smart game guy, but IMO Atari was a lightning strike he's been trying to replicate ever since.

On the lighting only striking once though you are certainly off base. Chuck E Cheese was big in it's own right and I'm sure you have heard of at least one of the other companies he started; it's called Pixar.

Yes, Bushnell created what probably became a part of Pixar, but calling him a founder is pushing it.

No doubt though he is a smart business man with multiple ventures under his belt. I do believe he really has a passion for what he does as well; the fact that he is still doing this in his 70s when he surely has plenty of F-You money says something about his passion for this industry.

And, no, Bushnell had nothing to do with Pixar, which had been around for 4-5 years at LucasFilm before CEC sold off Kadabrascope to Lucas in a fire sale. Pixar started with Ray and Catmull.

The Atari 8-bit series (400/800) had a significant chunk of market share in the early 80's. Not among the top three, but there were so many incompatible platforms in those days, and Atari 400/800 was one of the more common and well-supported ones for sure. http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/4/

Then, the ST didn't do so hot in the US, but here in Europe it was a well-known platform, nearly as popular as the Amiga. Roughly 75% of sold Atari ST's were sold in Europe.

Most famously, nearly every recording studio you'd care to name would have ST's in the control room well into the 90's and in some cases early 00's, due to their built-in MIDI capabilities.

Edit: hey Ross, if you're out there, it's been 20 years, I still remember the good times!

Please do!

The problem I've had with mobile games has been discoverability. The app store's recommendations have been useless and the featured/top grossing/most popular games are just the ones that make the most money via in app purchases.

And for some crazy reason, fewer and fewer games have actual screenshots in the screenshot section of their store page. Instead they opt to use that space for simple adverts ("best game ever!", "build 30 kinds of city!") and pictures of cartoon scantily clad women in armour. I'm sure there are many great games that I've just refused to play because of that crap

The frustrating thing is that I'm more than willing to pay $30+ for a game (up front, not in IAP to keep playing), but games that are worth that are rare and other players willing to pay it are rarer.

Some great games I've found (I mostly like RTS): Auralux, Mechcom, God of Light, Castle Raid, Anthill (so good!), Galcon, Plants vs Zombies (1, not 2), Swords and Soldiers, geoDefense.

I also recommend Solarmax2.

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer Neuroshima Hex

Both play really well on small screens and the IAP for expansion packs have been worth it.

Ascension multiplayer can also be played over several days and you can multiple games going. So take a few turns, come back later when your opponent responds.

I believe NS hex is the same but I'm not very good yet and have not tried.

Orbital, Spelltower and 80 Days are other favorites of mine.

You can't because the discoverability is terrible and the various app stores just care about raw sales, not quality. So that means that devs who want to make quality games never get noticed and that's a major disincentive to produce such games. Mobile gaming doesn't have the tech press, steam-like reviews, etc other gaming has. Its a lot of impulsive buyers feeding a market that delivers crap because crap is good enough for them.

This is like asking where the chess table at a casino is. The casino and the people who go there have no interest in chess. They just want you to toss your money into a skinner box, which is what freemium games are.

Google and Apple could fix this, but prefer to lean towards the 'popular' discoverability than the 'quality' discoverability. I think they're wrong and have turned mobile into a ghetto in so many ways - its not just games, but obviously they prefer this method, which I imagine is more profitable. See the recent reports on how freemium games are powered by 'unicorns' who pay vast sums of money for in-game purchasing, all of which Google and Apple get 20-30% of.

jwcooper did

> Mobile gaming doesn't have the tech press, steam-like reviews, etc other gaming has.

I was going to say [citation needed], but then I just literally googled "mobile game reviews" and hit two matches at the very top: http://www.polygon.com/games/mobile/reviewed and http://toucharcade.com/

> This is like asking where the chess table at a casino is.

Ballrooms A through C: http://www.vegaschessfestival.com/schedule/

The reality is that app store discoverability is terrible and p2w and other freemium games dominate sales. These types of sales demotivate devs and publishers from treating the mobile world like consoles or PC, where very good games exist and are easily found. This is a solved problem almost everywhere else? Why is it such a massive problem on mobile? When HN-level people are asking "Geez where are the good games," then you have a problem. If they're struggling then Joe User absolutely is.

You're right that there's a problem there, but while it's a problem that ideally needs solving, solutions do exist, and so do quality games.

Their weekly roundup of new releases, including trailers for each, is another avenue for being able to quickly peek through what's out there - any that pique my interest, I'll open in a new tab, and see what further screenshots or user sentiments are to be found.

http://toucharcade.com/

I've mostly discovered them over time by recommendations from people, or from discussion boards or sites that cover games, or even when they get featured by Apple in the app store.

It's amazing that app discovery is so difficult to solve for the big app stores.

Last week I spent 20 minutes on the google app store and at the end almost everything was "free" games with p2w

As a side note, I actually did throw my phone because of a F2P game. Expensive bad decision.

Of course the founder of Arcade games should remember that most arcade games were designed to take the maximum number of quarters from the users. There is nothing wron with designing around market conditions.

More than most other mobile games with good touch controls, the Zen Bound games really took advantage of the tactile nature of current mobile devices and their touch interfaces.

Aside from the mechanics, they were also pretty relaxing, while some of the levels managed to be simultaneously challenging while remaining completely passive. A very gentle and non-frustrating form of challenging that not many games manage to achieve.

I don't think Zen Bound gets enough praise as a game that is unique both from a gameplay perspective and how well it relies on the interface of the underlying device.

The guy who made Braid has similar talks, comparing mobile games, arcade games and 90s syndicated sitcoms. They only keep you entertained long enough to insert another coin or make it through a commercial break.

The good mobile games, like you've mentioned, focus on creating a good engaging game without micro-transactions. They earn less. Games with micro-transactions have like a 70% ~ 80% drop rate when you get to the point where you need to pay to make the progress non-painful. That remaining little group is their revenue. Occasionally you get a "whale" that will drop $500 ~ $1000 or more on a game!

I knew game developers who talked about this. It kinda makes me feel sick. Either they have a lot of money, or they're just compulsive. In the later, you're taking advantage of people in the same way casinos take advantage of gamblers. "Whale" is a term used by both industries.

Fuck in-game purchases.

He actually sounds like someone you'd meet on HN, he was lonely after moving to SF for a job, that's how be got into the game:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/technology/master-of-hi...

The marketplace has pushed prices down so low (sub $5), in-game purchases or advertisements are the only way they can make a living.

If Google/Apple cared about their developers, they would force a minimum price. This way, it wasn't a race to the bottom. The end result is either large companies using the games as a loss leader, hobbyists that are releasing games and not getting compensated, or what we see now: games slapped with tons of advertising and in-game purchases. Personally, I would rather just see a higher priced game so I don't have to deal with the spammy tactics used now.

Now these platforms monetize from selling users to developers. Acquisition rates are as shady as they are exacting- you compete for the same users as the top 10 games, who have advertising budgets the size of small countries GDP.

Besides, if they put a minimum price in, they would have to start real curation of the platform. That goes against profiting off developers spending for users, and their percentage for users paying for the game.

I would not mind seeing a common micro transaction model that all such games could subscribe to so as to remove touch points to a persons credit but also give some assurance of trust and security.

However, IMO many people are simply have different expectations. Mobile has plenty of processing power, but poor controls which is a real limitation preventing a wide swath of what people think of as video games.