My jigsaw game.

[agamemnus]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ri.jigsaw.free



Made it all myself...

Check it out!

Here is the full description:

Embark on an African safari with this incredible jigsaw game! A variety of Africa's land critters (plus the flamingo, crowned crane, and ostrich) await your assembly.

Fun for the whole family -- toddlers, kids, teens, and even adults will enjoy this relaxing safari jigsaw / jigsaw safari puzzle game.

* Uniquely random puzzles: jigsaw pieces are procedurally generated. Even with hundreds of pieces, no two will be exactly alike!

*12 colorful puzzles and three difficulty levels for you to explore. The Premium version offers 48 different puzzles and four difficulty levels.

* Win 36 unique trophies, or one per difficulty level! View your trophies in the trophy room or in a banner above the playing area. The Premium version offers 192 trophies, with 146 unique trophy graphics!

* Gather one to three medals for finishing a puzzle at speed... different medals per difficulty level, from bronze to gold. Keep track of your best times, per puzzle and difficult level. Unlock a bejeweled medal in the Premium version.

* Never lose your place -- puzzle progress is saved after each piece move!

* At least one animal vocalization or related sound effect per animal species, which plays on the puzzle load or on demand in the options screen.

* Use the pinch-to-zoom gesture on the puzzle area to zoom in on puzzles with many pieces!

* One-of-a-kind "Basket" feature. Categorize your jigsaw pieces (e.g.: by color or appearance) in separate tabs before solving the puzzle!

* Dynamically shaded 2.5D jigsaw pieces enhance your puzzle experience.

* A variety of graphics settings to toggle. Play with a minimal UI, hide or show the category sets, hide or show the timer, add or hide outlines, toggle piece combination, and more.

This free version, supported by ads, provides 12 different jigsaw puzzles for you to explore. Support this game's further development (and more puzzle games like this!) by buying the premium version, with 48 different puzzles, bejeweled medals, and 146 unique trophy graphics!

For anyone who is on iOS: I plan to get it on iOS if I can make any $... meanwhile, if you want to play but can't, send me a PM and I will link you to a private web version of the game!

[agamemnus]

Bueller. No jigsaw game fans tonight...

[GGT]

Sorry, I don't play jigsaw puzzles via computer apps. But even if I did....this looks like solicitation, which is against forum rules.

[RandBlade]

Solicitation? He's not a prostitute LOL . May be advertising but I think we can be a bit more relaxed about it when its a genuine forumer doing showing off something he created and not a spam bot.

Ag: I'll check it out later. Not my cup of tea but may be something my wife might enjoy.

[Flixy]

I'll give it a go later

Also, in totally fine with advertising about things you actually made yourself.

[Khendraja'aro]

Indeed.

[Flixy]

Alright, I tried it (the free version, since I'm a cheapskate )

Pretty fun, and works pretty well. Not really my type of game, but I can see myself finishing a few puzzles on the bathroom in the near future I only noticed some of the features after reading the full description, so I haven't tried everything yet. I did notice two issues: on my phone (Xperia Z), the loading parts (for example when the puzzle is loading) while the text fades, it lags incredibly during that. Could be a problem with my phone though. And puzzle pieces being too close to the edge can be somewhat annoying since touching the side of the screen while an app is fullscreen can also show the status bar, or the back/search/home buttons. But I haven't tried zooming in for those pieces yet, that might solve that already.

If you want to make the game harder, you could change the procedure for generating pieces, some have somewhat weird shapes, which actually makes them easier to place them simply by looking at the edge of where you want to place it.

[agamemnus]

Alright, I tried it (the free version, since I'm a cheapskate )

Pretty fun, and works pretty well. Not really my type of game, but I can see myself finishing a few puzzles on the bathroom in the near future I only noticed some of the features after reading the full description, so I haven't tried everything yet. I did notice two issues: on my phone (Xperia Z), the loading parts (for example when the puzzle is loading) while the text fades, it lags incredibly during that. Could be a problem with my phone though. And puzzle pieces being too close to the edge can be somewhat annoying since touching the side of the screen while an app is fullscreen can also show the status bar, or the back/search/home buttons. But I haven't tried zooming in for those pieces yet, that might solve that already.

If you want to make the game harder, you could change the procedure for generating pieces, some have somewhat weird shapes, which actually makes them easier to place them simply by looking at the edge of where you want to place it.

Thanks for trying it. I'm working on reducing the load time and fixing the horrible lag at the start.

"And puzzle pieces being too close to the edge can be somewhat annoying since touching the side of the screen while an app is fullscreen can also show the status bar, or the back/search/home buttons."
Hmm. On my Note 2, the status bar needs a pull down action from the top. On Hard and Insane (Insane is in the premium version) there is some empty space on top by default. There is also a different mode (minimal UI off) which adds a title bar to the top, but switching between that and the minimal UI on mode (the default mode) is a little buggy.

Regarding different piece shapes -- one thought I had is to offer (yet another) option to change what kind of pieces you get... I may add this in the future. My piece generation algorithm can generate a variety of piece types...

[agamemnus]

I made an update to the game - now 18 images instead of 12. (and some extras/bug fixes)

[agamemnus]

The premium version is no more. No one was buying. *glares at the room*

The current version has 40 free and 40 "for gems" puzzles. 80 in total.

I also have a challenge a friend feature, but no one is using it. I spent three weeks on it. ._.

Edit: and it should lag less or not at all for you now Flixy, unless you're using certain versions of the Tab 4.

[RandBlade]

I don't mean to be rude but the best way to get a purchase is to fill a void or do something better. I'm not sure what your unique selling point is. There are lots and lots of puzzle games on the market.

[agamemnus]

It has some unique features (edit: mainly the border changing colors, the pinch to zoom, and the piece generation algorithm, but there are many). You'd have to play other jigsaw games, and then this one, to know.

I don't want to get into an argument. I was just pointing out a fact. (edit: and mentioning my update)

[RandBlade]

I'm trying to be constructive.

[agamemnus]

I understand. But, there are a lot of aspects to this. About 30% of the users who sign in via Google Play binge play. Like, 10-30 games all at once. So, they like it.

My current hurdle is finding the right audience. I am too far down in Google's (automated) rankings to get very many natural installs (from search), and so I am paying ad networks for installs. My current concern though is getting the user from the install to the in-app payment, and there are a lot of points to consider, including whether the users are too young to have any sort of money (hard/impossible to find an ad network that will give me people of a certain age) or whether they understand that the option exists (many of my users are French). The fact that only a few people installed the premium version (basically other programmers mostly) despite that I had a very visible link in the free version (or I thought, anyway) has me seriously thinking about priorities...

[RandBlade]

The problem that you have is that there is a very transient nature to a lot of freemium game players. Unless you can get people addicted to your game what a lot of players will do is binge play one game, then download a new one and move on. Never paying.

Just because people are binge paying doesn't mean they should or even ever might end up paying. Many will take what they can get for free and then find the next one - and there's plenty of fish out there to play with in the arena you've chosen.

[littlelolligagged]

Rand is probably right - there are too many free games to pay for them.

If you want to make money off an app, make some sort of productivity app that is worthwhile, that fills needs that aren't already.

If you're really attached to your game and want to keep trying with it, consider redeveloping it for Windows phone instead; I actually really like my windows phone, but most of the apps for it are total garbage (I'm not actually the target audience for a puzzle game, though, if it were a word game I'd be all over it).

[agamemnus]

Windows Phone is difficult to develop a game for. There are few plugins for developers. I haven't even started getting it to work on iOS... the game is playable on a web browser, and I could probably add ads to it there, but I am concerned I will lose rank on Google Play.

My game is done in Javascript (the reason it runs on the web), but running it inside an app means I can access many features I normally can't, mostly to do with limitations of the fragmented Android version system, forced 3d acceleration, audio without having to do a guesture movement, and so on.

In terms of word games I was actually considering making a hybrid jigsaw/word game early on. Here is the gist of it... I don't know if this will work; let me know what you think:

* On the left, you have your jigsaw puzzle. On the right, you have a scrabble-like area.
* When you put a jigsaw piece in place, you will get a letter that you can place on the right. You only get the letter if the piece outline (where it should go) is highlighted/glowing with the appropriate letter. The glowing letters appear and disappear.
* Each puzzle has a set of words you can get extra points for, matching the puzzle content.

[Khendraja'aro]

If it's already running in Javascript, it should easily run on Windows Phone with few modifications. That's one of the two language options when creating a Windows app (the other is C#).

[agamemnus]

I see. I will take a look. I will still need to re-code some plugins for Windows Phone, even if it's in Javascript: my game runs on something called Cordova (with Crosswalk), meaning the Javascript code runs on a standalone Chromium web browser, and device access code is called from the Javascript code, but is written in either Java or Objective-C.

P.S.: is there a way I can add a link without it being turned into a "[url]" automatically?

[agamemnus]

Rand? ^^.

Anyways.... added IAPs. Got one purchase yesterday from someone I don't know, in France. Covered half my ad spend yesterday...

[agamemnus]

Some new and old screenshots.

[agamemnus]

I just started advertising on Facebook a few days ago. 97% female according to the stats.

[Aimless]

I just started advertising on Facebook a few days ago. 97% female according to the stats.

Catfish

[Loki]

Maybe you should hire Kate Upton to do your ads.

[agamemnus]

Maybe you should hire Kate Upton to do your ads.

Catfish

I see. I don't actually have a social feature quite yet.

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By the way, we (the royal we) are adding South America soon. Probably another 60 images.