A club game app that helps niche operators run games

Also filed under Games & fun

1. 0361

   Phantom Words: a word game that went free to boost downloads

   When launching Phantom Words, I made all past games, including Zyl, free during the launch week (they still are free ICYMI). This resulted in a spike in downloads so high (2000+) for Zyl, it even beat the downloads I got from the App Store feature (1000+). Felt as if Zyl was the game launching this week, not Phantom Words. Some interesting insights from the data, hope someone can find this helpful: - @AppRaven is not just an amazing source of downloads, but a great community too. It is primarily meant for game developers, but it has apps on there too. It only works if you actually participate in the community there though. - If you make your paid app/game free, and it has no in-app purchases, it is eligible to be made available in China. Usually publishing to the App Store in China is impossible, especially as an indie game developer. - Making a paid app/game discounted, or free makes it appear on several websites that feature giveaways or discounted apps/games. Use it sparingly though: if you discount your app every week, that would likely only work once and get you blacklisted on these websites. Attached: some screenshots of download numbers and app/web referrer sources for Zyl this week. Funny that I got some downloads through Camera and Notes apps 😂

   @fleonus · Games & fun

   

   @fleonus

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2. 0349

   A videogame site that grew into a resume piece

   thinking about shutting down a site I made for a videogame when I was 16-17 years old. got it up to over 100k verified users in a couple years, it was attacked by russian hackers and DDoSers, script injected, shown on a Twitch livestream by Lirik many years ago around 2014 and collapsed my website from traffic which initially helped it take off and taught me about query caching, firewalls, docker, php, laravel, bootstrap, etc. it did its purpose it landed me my first job in tech before i graduated high school. spent my entire summer break when I made staying up until 4am coding it and learning how to protect it, advertising it on steam forums, etc. good times. but it's time to shut that puppy down its now an outdated project and resume piece. godspeed

   @cubeqube · Games & fun

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   @cubeqube

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3. 0293

   Where is Mr. Kim?: a moving village hidden-object game

   Where is Mr. Kim? I built an entire village just to lose one guy in it [**Where is Mr. Kim?**](https://whereismrkim.com/) I shared it yesterday, and it somehow **passed 85k views**. Think **Where’s Waldo in Joseon-era Korea**, except the village keeps moving while you search. You’re looking for Mr. Kim. Straw hat, teal sash, nowhere useful to be. 🇰🇷 The demo has one map. I’m planning more maps and eventually a full Steam release, and I’d love to hear how this first little village feels to play. If you find Mr. Kim, please ask him to stay put. I still have a game to finish.

   u/cooperai · Games & fun

   u/cooperai

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4. 0290

   Report Card LoL: grades your social media profiles

   I made free Report Card generator for your social media (fun experiment) Watch demo with 🔊 on Hello Everyone 👋 I made this fun Jev experiment called Report Card LoL. It will give you grades based on your social media profiles. 100% Free, No login, No email required. Stats so far: 500+ reports are generated and they are fun to read Create yours and let me know if you have any feedback :)

   u/notifyShivam · Games & fun

   u/notifyShivam

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5. 0284

   A desktop game about trying to break a Nokia 3310

   Break a Nokia 3310: your only job is to break it. You get Windows XP, a Minesweeper mine, and ILOVEYOU GAME LINK: [https://fundrstudio.com/games/](https://fundrstudio.com/games/) I made this. Our last game, The Layoff, hands you a team of eight and a budget cut. 24 managers have hit the number so far, and 13 of them changed their list after Legal flagged it. So this one is dumber??? It's a Nokia 3310 lying on a Windows XP desktop, and you have everything on the computer. Your only job is to break it. The phone fights back: \- the Recycle Bin can't delete it: "It is being used by another person or program." \- End Process on nokia3310.exe gets "Access is denied." and does 2 damage \- ILOVEYOU is the real one, LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs, and every picture on the desktop becomes a script \- the same thing twice does 70% of what it did last time, so there are 16 of them \- below 65% it dodges about half of what you throw at it, and sometimes refuses to be thrown \- it plugs itself in and charges back up while you watch \- at 50% Windows blue-screens with the stop code NOKIA\_3310\_STILL\_WORKING Then it gets a turn. That part I'll let you find. At the end you get one of 15 titles (Untouched? Carried by a Paperclip? Never Picked Up?) and a report on what actually ends a 3310, which isn't anything you did. Heads up: \- None of it touches your computer. The viruses are drawings; nothing downloads and nothing runs. \- Not affiliated with Nokia or HMD. The phone is drawn without its name on it, and it never plays the ringtone. \- No signup. The only thing sent anywhere is an anonymous tally of how far people get. \- It works on a phone: the handset's own keypad is the controller. On a keyboard it's WASD, J, Space and K. \- It just launched, so I don't have real play times yet. The desktop half takes a couple of minutes; the rest depends on you. Challenge: post your title and time. Speed Dial means finishing it on the desktop, before it gets its turn, in under 75 seconds. It can be done.

   u/aeshieru · Games & fun

   u/aeshieru

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6. 0281

   Memory: matching-pairs game with five ways to play

   I’ve maintained the same iOS memory game since 2012. It just passed 16M downloads. I’m Clément, the solo developer of Memory, a matching-pairs game for iPhone and iPad. I first put it on the App Store in 2012, and I’m still building it myself. The rule is unchanged: flip two cards and find a pair. The big rebuild now gives it five ways to play: Classic, a 30-second Time Attack, two players on one device, an online duel, and an Educational mode that can pair pictures with words or words across two languages. I tried to keep the small boards welcoming for children while making the large ones genuinely hard for adults. The app is free to download; all five modes and the Animals pack are playable without buying anything. There are ads and optional card packs. Version 4.2.1 is live now. I have no launch team or budget, so honest feedback would help a lot—especially whether these modes feel like one coherent game or too many ideas around a simple rule. App Store: [https://apps.apple.com/app/id502626661](https://apps.apple.com/app/id502626661)

   u/Relative-Benefit-984 · Games & fun

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   u/Relative-Benefit-984

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7. 0236

   A game priced like a SaaS app with subscriptions

   Made a game, pricing it like a SaaS app - over $1k in revenue, so far. I've made like 10 apps in the last 2 years, for my latest I had an idea for a game and have been building it for the last \~5 months. Launched it a few weeks after starting building it. Initially priced it as a one-off payment on the app stores of £4.99. I'm in the UK, so I do all my costs & pricing in £'s, but the app stores convert it into the relevant local prices. I got something like 150 sales, it was paid only, no free usage. Not bad, but I realised that I would need to keep getting new users every month in order for it to pay for itself, just to cover costs. I switched it to a subscription (already paid users got to keep lifetime access, they saw no change) at £3.99, but I don't think anyone signed up. I'm in a AI founders WhatsApp group so I shared some stats about my game and asked for advice on pricing. Someone who works for a well-known tech company sent me a long voice note with advice on how to price: * monthly, yearly & lifetime price * experiment with different amounts of free usage to see what converts best I did basically exactly what they said as I have no reason to have an opinion otherwise. I guess the three different pricing tiers create anchoring. Now, I've had something like 10 people subscribe, mix of monthly & annual, and I think 3 people buy lifetime purchases. The monthly price is still £3.99, the yearly is £24.99 and the lifetime is £69.99, which means that people are paying more for my game than a AAA title like Grand Theft Auto, which is pretty cool. My game still doesn't cover its costs, it has quite a lot of AI generation in real time and heavy server loads for rendering programmatically generated maps, based on the real world. But, it is forecast to cover costs and I've done basically no marketing, apart from ad-hoc posts online. I'm spending my time improving the game: adding new features & fixing issues. But, it seems to be going well and I have a community of players giving me feedback. I have never built a game before and have zero experience of working in the game industry, but I have a pretty good knowledge of what is possible with technology, e.g. mobile cameras, GPS, APIs, AI, and have a good intelligence for what is fun, I think. I don't take advice from how traditional games work really and just priced it how I wanted to and it seems to be working.

   u/StressAgenda · Games & fun

   

   u/StressAgenda

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   3 weeks

8. 0207

   A logic puzzle site with global leaderboards

   I launched an ad-free logic puzzle site in May (~200 daily visitors). I just shipped v2 with global leaderboards and got 30+ signups(no paywalls) in 48 hours.

   u/Honest_Year_708 · Games & fun

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   u/Honest_Year_708

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