This cat will appear cute on the first look but quickly she will turn into a bad ass shaman. As you progress with the game you will get powerful suits to push your Attack and Health up. Here are the first 2 Item Sets which you will be able to purchase for Mushrooms gained in battle. Im still try to figure out what the metaphor for the shop will be, something like a jungle dress store?
Look at me! How powerful I am!
There will be 10 sets in total, my challenge is now to make each of them look cooler then the previous ones.
And will try to push this the limit!
Update: 11.12.13
I will gonna list all sets as I finish them below each other as part of this post. Except the last 3 Sets which I want to keep secret. This costume goes more into direction „girly“, the plan is to also target them as Audience, so I have to limit my dominant nerdy male energy to get some cute stuff done.
Shaman Games
All my games are influenced by shamanism which fascinates me.
I see direct connections between shamans and artists, which both have the self commited mission to dive into the deep hidden realms within us and bring something back into the material world in form of a paintings, psychological insides, music, movies or video games.
A tool to reach the very depths of our own minds and its hidden chambers is the usage of psychodelics.
To show where this post is heading to lets quickly look at the word Psychedelic.
The term „psychedelic“ is derived from the Ancient Greek words psuchē (ψυχή – psyche, „mind“) and dēlōsē (δήλωση – „manifest“), translating to „mind-manifesting“.
In some way you could say anything that the human mind has produced is psychedelic, it was taken out of the imaginary spaces and with the rational problem solving mind as tool we manifested the dream object into this dimension.
I do not judge if the external manipulation through substances is good or bad here and instead write down some good sources for inspiration if you are interested in what some of this psychonauts brought back to us.
Terrence McKenna
I’m heavily listening to Terrence McKenna on YouTube, which was a psychonaut or modern shaman. Which means he researched altered states through the consummation of psychedelics, such as Psilocybin through Magic Mushrooms and DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) through oral ingestion in form of Ayahuasca(8 hours duration), or stronger in effect and short in duration (max. 15 minutes) by smoking it.
He talked heavily about the human conditioning and evolution and had his own theory to the humans rise of intelligence due the consume of magic mushrooms, within times where we as a species had to adapt to new environmental conditions.
A very great mind, a source of inspiration and research for my next title. You can find plenty of his videos.
But this one has some nice lines of him in one shot.
Jason Silva A young futurist, with a great energy which brings the word psychedelic into context to technology.
He has a small sum of powerful videos in his youtube channel „Shots of Awe“. Also got his own show now on National Geographics called Brain Games.
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First In-Game Results coming out of my Research
So here are some direct results out of their influence. I will add some of the psychedelics into my game as consumables and spells.
Setting of the Game
My Main Character will be a shaman as in the previous game but this time in form of a cute cat to bring some contrast into it.
Super Mario Mushroom
The In-game currency to buy new clothes which will make you stronger, is the Amanita Muscaria.
Which was used by berserkers before they went to war to boost them self and bring them into a reckless state.
The Shaman Cat also wears a small bundle of these mushrooms, the idea behind is that she eats them as source of her magical power. You may realize that this was also the one mushroom used in Super Mario which made you bigger. One of the listed experiences tripping on this mushroom type is that your osberved proportions change, everything around you becomes smaller. Due its beautiful appearance it was also the one mind-altering Mushroom that got the most attention in fairy tale stories. How ever, this mushroom counts more as an deliriant than a psychedelic and has high potential to intoxicate you, and is not recommendable for real life usage.
For a unexplainable reason digital cartoon cats will not take any harm from them.
Upcoming Magic Spell The Jungle brew Ayahuasca, which contains DMT and sends you through a near death experience where you might face your inner demons, to come back as lighter personality.
This is the number one psychedelic associated with shamanism in the rainforest and will be added as next Spell into the game, the spell will create a pot in front of the cat and deliver magical energy over a time period.
Here’s a Video post mortem of „The Sha Man“ with a quick look into the game salad version of it. It was the first time I did a spoken video so I was kind of nervous. Don’t Judge me!
I do it for the cats
Since we all know cats made us develop the internet so they can push their egos by making us spread videos of them online, I want to jump on this Trend, since it just doesn’t seem to stop..
A shamanistic Cat
Here a first Screenshot of my most recent project. Going into direction „cute“ combined with a touch of magic and action, thats the goal for my next creation. The female hero will be a cute cat, whose boyfriend get’s stolen by an evil Grandma. The cat will make herself on the way to save her love…
So I officially stopped investing time in promoting The Sha Man(iTunes) and see it as a first step which I had good learnings off.
It will stay in the Developer Portfolio in iTunes. So when ever I create a Success It will benefit from that and maybe get some Attention too.
The new project Here a list of what I will do different and what I will do the same.
What I will do again:
I will be using Gamesalad to develop the Game and take 3-4 months developing time.
I will do my own Graphics, Sounds and Music and the same Core Gameplay again.
Marketing wise I will create a Twitter, Facebook Page and contact Youtubers for Gameplay Videos since I see them as an existential minimum if you want to be successful in the online world.
What I will do differently: The Game will have a clear understandable level by level Progression Layer not as detached from each other as I had it with The Sha Man. As a new addition the Game will have a simple Narrative structure to give Player additional Motivation/Reasoning to progress. Overall I will go for a less „nerdy“ Game Setting and go a little bit more into the girly direction. I will change from full Price Game to In-app purchase model including an In-game Currency.
The end of the game will be left open for more Content, so I can patch new Content and over longer time create a News stream which I can push through Marketing Channels.
The next Game will get a real website,a one Page Website for the Game, like a business card with all links (iTunes, Blog and Social Media) this enables to practice search Engine Optimizations.
My Girlfriend has taken over a lot of PR Work and has created lists with cooperative press Partners. And another list where you can get cheap paid Reviews. We will send Promo Codes and Information to the press 2-3 Weeks before Release this Time. Additional I got a Tip of a Gamesalad Community Guy which suggested prMac for Marketing which I also will use.
„Ditched! This sweet puzzle game is coming soon to your iPhone!“
Production history
Since a little over a year I have been working with two friends of mine on a puzzle game for a younger audience. It stars a cute sheep and squirrel in a sugary world. We worked on it in our private time after our regular jobs, so it took a while, but it is now coming close to being released.
Software
The game has been built in Construct 2, not in Gamesalad which I do my games with…
…and for one very good reason:
It has a polygon editor for your 2d Graphics, which lets you paint in the bounding box with single points and achieve a much more complex and accurate collision model than with Gamesalad.
But I also have to mention that the community and the tutorial material around Construct 2 is very weak compared to that of Gamesalad. Also, it seems much more difficult to actually release the game to the app store, which we can hopefully manage to figure out.
The Game
The goal of the game is to get the sheep out of different ditches which he repeatedly falls into every level. For this challenge you have the control over a mechanical claw, which you can move through varying ditches with different gameplay puzzles and timing challenges: Magnets that make you stuck or repel you away, grumpy crabs that will cut the sheep or the claw’s wires, and even magical firebreathers which will burn you if you’re not careful!
There are 3 different worlds, each with a bunch of levels to play:
– Bubblegum Barn
– Sugar Shore
– Cupcake Castle
My Role in the Team Initially I was supporting the concept phase of Ditched, but slowly I slipped more into the business-, PR and marketing roles. I also helped drive the development forward by mentally supporting the developer with his work.
Hey guys.
Here a Statistic directly out of my iTunes Connect Account showing the Amount of Downloads.
Note this is my Release Week.
In total around 30 Downloads. 18 Paid 12 through Promo Codes (for free).
Conclusion: Thats pretty poor but nice too know. So what can I learn here…
Theres a few Reason I can come up with:
1.) 250 Games get released per Day accordingly a statistic from October this Year.
Specialy as close to Christmas as now their are much more Releases as normal. All kind of Marketing Channels are affected through that, since they have an Overload on Work to do and are more likely to ignore the little Indie Developers Apps.
2.) The Name „The Sha Man“ auto-corrects to „The aha man“ and is a pain in the Ass to search for.
Additionally this removes the random Chance to get found since it will always auto-correct them away from my App. Something to check before the next App.
3.) I did start with the Marketing too late. I basically started with it on the release Day, definitely to late. If possible I will try to achieve a little hype before my next App.
4.) The Price. The pure Fact that it has one, seem to be a no go. There is no more Chance to sell Full Price Apps without having a Fan base behind you that waits for it. People want them Free and Pay a lot of Money for In-App purchases. That’s nothing new, I knew it but didn’t put this Business-model into Place because I wanted my first Title to be as easy to publish as possible. To learn about the whole Process first.
Result: Since Players can’t try and they don’t know the Brand it will be coldly ignored by the Users. The next Game will be free to play with in-app purchases so I get at least more Downloads and reach a bigger Audience before I block my Content by Prices.
Hi guys! So I released my first mobile Game „The Sha Man“ about a week ago. I and my Girlfriend tried our best to give the Game some Attention.
Marketing/Promotion Steps: Facebook: Created a Facebook Page, with Diary like Content and Screenshots, we started with that around 1 Month before the Release. After I reached around 43 likes via my own Friends I decide to boost the Page via the Facebook Promotion Option.
I quickly learned that you get the cheapest (most rapid like rate within paid time frame) from India and the Philippines. But their actual interaction with the Page Content equals zero. (almost as they get paid for it, or are bots?) So I guess if you want to use this Feature than target iPhone relevant Countries like United States, Germany, China, Switzerland….
I put in around 200 Euro and reached 2165 Likes within 10 days.
Twitter: My Girlfriend created a Twitter Account and started to follow relevant Players, in order to get their Attention to us. This led to around 50 Followers from which 2 re-tweeted „The Sha Man’s“ Release, that was cool.
Youtube: I Created a Youtube Gameplay Video, simple Screen capturing.
Additionally I contacted like 12 Youtuber’s which review Games or do „let’s play’s“, two of them responded to upload some uncommented Gameplay on their Channel. One of them actually did. See here!
Websites and Blogs(Press): We wrote to around 20 Blogs and Websites such as Pocketgamer and Toucharcade (big players). Not one wanted to do an unpaid Review when they even responded.
Forums: We wrote our Promo Text and Links into different Game Forums. This kind of worked once we learned that they want Promo Codes to access to the Game for free. You can create 100 of them for each Version of the Game in iTunes Connect. A valuable Marketing Step.
Software Community: I created a Topic for my Game on http://gamesalad.com. I’ll got 250 views and nice motivational Feedback, of a very supportive and active Community. After that I created a second Topic with 10 Promo codes, within 2 days 7 where taken and proper Feedback given. That was encouraging and insightful! I handed „The Sha Man“ in for GameSalads Game of the Month. ( Not yet ended) But it looks like close to Christmas the amount of Games produced within the Community trippeled and some of them are very strong Competition.
Blog: I started to write this Blog. Not only for Promotion but to provide an authentic Experience from a Indie Game Designer.
Live! I was developing and meditating a lot the last 3-4 months, the Result is a Mobile Game called The Sha Man.
It went through a lot of Iterations during the developing Process. I changed Setting/Locations from a underground jail to a colorful Jungle, over painted Graphics millions of times, cutting Game Features out of the Game even if already perfectly running. The Sha Man Its time to clean your soul! The Sha Man is coming!
Slip into his role and battle through a horde of inner Demons. Good reaction and well timed actions are needed for success.
Gameplay:
Demon after Demon appears in front of you. Block their spells and use the available time in-between to get your own attacks off. Unlock Mini-Games by reaching the next Goal Score. Solve the Mini Games to get more Spells for your Shaman.
Gameplay Footage
Features:
-A window to a colorful unique World
-Defeat the shamans crazy inner Creatures
-Pure Skill based gameplay every move matters
-Master a set of Magical Mini-Games
-Learn new Spells and become more powerful
David Zobrist 
