Race to Your Dreams ? The Birth of Retro Racer X
Do you ever get nostalgic about the games you used to play as a kid? Well, three years ago I decided to make an IOS game based on an old car racing game I played as a kid in 80?s. Like all of those early games ? this one was very sophisticated at the time, but in reality was nothing more than a little console with a few buttons and a LCD screen. There was a race car that you controlled while trying to avoid other cars while you raced. It just fit into your hands and used little button batteries.
This was before Gameboy and when Atari ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 were just introduced. Hand held video games where pure exotica! It was worn out so there was no more branding on it. My friends and I played this relentlessly for couple of years, until it broke down. I remember playing it for hours without stopping; I remember the smell of spring afternoon and my mam?s kitchen deep in my nose. This was actually my first computer obsession, out of many to follow. Before that I didn?t even know I could concentrate on something for that long.
For last 3 years I have this vision in my head of how this game should look like. In the meantime my personal life and my professional life got complicated. I was so frustrated at work that I could not do anything about my dream of me becoming a developer. I started the game couple of times but I was not getting anywhere, even though I?m fairly good with all kinds of different programming languages (yeah modesty is my virtue) but somehow I did not find the time to finish it. My work became unbearably stressful for me and that really helped me make the choice that I needed to make. I decided that I would resign my work and follow my dream.
I made a plan to dedicate all my time to my family and to my little boy and to follow my dream. I had couple of trips, went to visit my brother to the US, got my thoughts back in order and finally started with completing the coding for my game.
I was reading a lot on the net about all kinds of stories and advises about game development. The conclusion being that no matter how good your game is, the marketing is what sells it. A good thing since retro games were hot ? and mine was a VERY retro game!
I started learning about social media marketing and have started on growing my networks. I have connected with all my friends, my colleagues the people I have met. My game will be free and I will try to make some money with posting ads in my game. No InApp purchases - no nothing. I did some very extensive research online about the algorithms of App Store Search and their optimization. I was carefully choosing my keywords, name and game description. I went so far that I even taken into consideration the current competition, the #10 apps and their keywords calculating the traffic they generate on App Store.
Finally on 8 of August my game was approved on the App Store. It is called Retro Racer X: The Time Machine Supercell SG1.
I have started my dream with a very limited budget and I have no room for paid advertising. I will try doing by myself what I can and I will use all my friends and contact to support me in my effort.
I expect this to be the beginning of my success story. (I?ll let you know how things go!) , I hope you will see a Self-employed developer can make a solid game business out of $3000 and a lot of work and mind invested.
I will kindly ask you my fellow Networkers to install my game, and to try and play it. Show it to your family and children maybe they will love it as we did, as I did when I was a kid. Don?t forget to rate it and review it.This project is to show that no insane amount of money invested, no black holes use on App Store no bots used just decent idea a lot of work from a man following his dream and social media networks can make it happen in the Free Game world.
Thank you all for your support
Do you ever get nostalgic about the games you used to play as a kid? Well, three years ago I decided to make an IOS game based on an old car racing game I played as a kid in 80?s. Like all of those early games ? this one was very sophisticated at the time, but in reality was nothing more than a little console with a few buttons and a LCD screen. There was a race car that you controlled while trying to avoid other cars while you raced. It just fit into your hands and used little button batteries.
This was before Gameboy and when Atari ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 were just introduced. Hand held video games where pure exotica! It was worn out so there was no more branding on it. My friends and I played this relentlessly for couple of years, until it broke down. I remember playing it for hours without stopping; I remember the smell of spring afternoon and my mam?s kitchen deep in my nose. This was actually my first computer obsession, out of many to follow. Before that I didn?t even know I could concentrate on something for that long.
For last 3 years I have this vision in my head of how this game should look like. In the meantime my personal life and my professional life got complicated. I was so frustrated at work that I could not do anything about my dream of me becoming a developer. I started the game couple of times but I was not getting anywhere, even though I?m fairly good with all kinds of different programming languages (yeah modesty is my virtue) but somehow I did not find the time to finish it. My work became unbearably stressful for me and that really helped me make the choice that I needed to make. I decided that I would resign my work and follow my dream.
I made a plan to dedicate all my time to my family and to my little boy and to follow my dream. I had couple of trips, went to visit my brother to the US, got my thoughts back in order and finally started with completing the coding for my game.
I was reading a lot on the net about all kinds of stories and advises about game development. The conclusion being that no matter how good your game is, the marketing is what sells it. A good thing since retro games were hot ? and mine was a VERY retro game!
I started learning about social media marketing and have started on growing my networks. I have connected with all my friends, my colleagues the people I have met. My game will be free and I will try to make some money with posting ads in my game. No InApp purchases - no nothing. I did some very extensive research online about the algorithms of App Store Search and their optimization. I was carefully choosing my keywords, name and game description. I went so far that I even taken into consideration the current competition, the #10 apps and their keywords calculating the traffic they generate on App Store.
Finally on 8 of August my game was approved on the App Store. It is called Retro Racer X: The Time Machine Supercell SG1.
I have started my dream with a very limited budget and I have no room for paid advertising. I will try doing by myself what I can and I will use all my friends and contact to support me in my effort.
I expect this to be the beginning of my success story. (I?ll let you know how things go!) , I hope you will see a Self-employed developer can make a solid game business out of $3000 and a lot of work and mind invested.
I will kindly ask you my fellow Networkers to install my game, and to try and play it. Show it to your family and children maybe they will love it as we did, as I did when I was a kid. Don?t forget to rate it and review it.This project is to show that no insane amount of money invested, no black holes use on App Store no bots used just decent idea a lot of work from a man following his dream and social media networks can make it happen in the Free Game world.
Thank you all for your support
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