Lava Monkey
Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Apps/Lava Monkey
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| Lava Monkey discussion thread. Please leave your feedback here. |
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| Would love some feedback! :D |
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| Hi. So I went to the Play Store and did a search for Lava Monkey, the search returned 250 monkey games and yours was not in that list Not sure if I am a good source to be giving feedback on games as when it really comes down to it I don't play that many, kind of ironic. I have had a Xbox for years and my brother has given me multiple games and the number times I have played any of them this year is about 5 if that. ( so please take my review with a very heavy grain of salt ) Just from the shear # of games out there for me to actually go out and get one , there must be something about it that gets my curiosity up. KeepeeUp that is also posted on here., might have typo'd that which I do a lot, got my curiosity up and when I clicked the link to his page the extra eye candy -- spinning graphics etc continued to get me curious about his game and continued to draw me in. Now even with the extra eye appeal of KeepeeUp's game if I had not seen the post to it off of the Monkey Site would I have even found it to down load it. Probably not ... With thousands and thousands of game out there the chance of it even get picked up is probably like the lottery ... So to me with a choice of 250 monkey games that it initially displayed , and if yours would have been in the list, my chance of downloading it would probably not have been high. Why ? There are tons of platformer/jumping games out there and quite a few very similar to what your initial screen displays -- (and that was just searching for monkey) . So just from that your game wouldn't have gotten a fair chance to show me what it had. Seriously please take my comments with a heavy grain of salt, I have not even created a game fully at all yet so you are way past me. So to get your game I came back to the Monkey site and directly loaded it from the link here. The initial graphics looked ok, trees, grass etc.and music was nice. (but no real eye candy that separates it from other basic platform games) To me the platforms were a pretty basic block platform, seems like there could be a bit more jungleness to it -- vines branches hanging off platforms etc ( can not really comment that much about it because I never got passed the first level -- having to deal with so many ads up front did not encourage me to try to go on and see what the next levels had, I am not saying this to be harsh only realistic about if I would continue playing a game or not) As far as the controls, had a bit of a hard time figuring out how to use the controls. It seems straight forward but I found myself falling off the platforms way to much. Sometimes when I would fall off the platform it went quickly back to the main screen and activated either the facebook or twitter app that I had not intended to do. Then when I died it brought up adds frequently and the video ads especially -- I understand the need for ads but just from my perspective this is too much up front. I can't even give your game a fair review. Once I got into the ads it was difficult at times even getting back to your game. I would have liked to have really gotten in to a few levels to see what your game was about , but so many ads and video ads chewing up my band width is not a way to keep a game on my system if it is that way from the very first screen. Like I said this is my opinion and I was not able to give your game a fair review because I couldn't get past the onslaught of the initial ads Rod |
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| more Followup -- again please don't take this negatively I am trying to give you my honest feedback if I would first download the game coming across it without ever knowing anything about it in a google playstore search and then after loading it and giving it an initial play and seeing if I would keep it on my system. So many ads and especially video ads up front really distracted from wanting me to pursue the game further. I really think for any game I download if there is much more than the minimal add banner displayed during game play (which seems ok to me) and an occasional link to more in depth ads -- after I complete a couple of levels that it ok. But much more than that and my chances of keeping the game around very long unless it is really addictive is not very strong. |
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| I agree too many ads and you even show one just after the splash screen... I like the game and it plays nice and smooth... one thing which annoyed me (apart from the ads) was when you are jumping and a platform appears with spikes where you are jumping, it seems a bit unfair. |
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| Must be the reason erebel55 got banned from Google Admob and AVG Antivirus says "Lava monkey is known for lots of ads". He still does not understand and is looking for advertisement alternatives. Nobody likes ads, whether on TV or in games. It is just annoying. People pay for good stuff. Throwing tons of ads at them doesn't make the game any better, the opposite is the case. |
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| There are ads and ads. The AdMob issue as reported was different, but it could be that Google's attitude was affected by the way ads were presented, I don't know. I think probably nobody really minds banner ads. Static click-away interstitial ads are probably okay IF not too often - they are a bit annoying but that can be a selling point for the pro version. Also, banner ads are a poor fit for arcade-style games - too easy to hit by accident (which AdMob obviously object to), and you can't stop in the middle of jumping around to click on one. So interstitial is probably necessary for those. Video ads, though... now you're verging towards 'enraged delete' territory... |
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| No, this has nothing to do with why Google banned me from Admob. My game hadn't even been released yet... I was banned because my wife clicked on some of the ads while she was testing it.. I'm not sure the average phone gamer will think an ad every 8 deaths is too much. But yeah, I will look into trimming the ads down even more. Really, I don't think that matters tho because I'm not getting enough downloads regardless. Also, I do offer a remove ads options... So if you don't want to see ads but you want to support me, then purchase that. And to find my game on google play you have to search lavamonkey without a space or "lava monkey" with quotes. Google has a stupid searching algorithm that searches each word separately when you don't use quotes. So you will just get the most popular monkey games, which obviously isn't mine :/ |
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| therevills do you have any suggestion for fixing the spike spawning issue you had? |
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| hopefully you take my comments as constructive -- you asked for feedback to make game improvements. 1. I understand the purpose of ads, the big point here and it appears to be confirmed by others as well is there has to be a balance. Like I said before I have not even created game one so not sure what is all involved in getting ads to work and how much control you have over them. If I get hammered with too many ads up front the chance of me deleting the game before I get a chance to play it is pretty high. 2. Looking at your Google/Twitter/Facebook links has some great stuff showing off your game. Getting hit with so many ads up front leads to frustration and a very heavy lean to the delete option before really having a chance to determine the true playability of the game. And it look like it is a nice game. So to me your shooting yourself in the foot up front there. Again just 'my opinion' but I think you can see there are others that confirm that. Glad to hear your looking to reduce that. Draw me in enough to get me addicted before you really slam me with ads :) -- Not sure you have that much control but from downloading and playing other games I think there is a balance point that can be made. 3. Controls -- not sure if fully explained myself there. If you look at the placement of you left movement and jump spots they correspond with the location of your twitter and facebook link buttons and when I would die and still had finger touching apparently long enough to when it transitioned back to the main screen, it triggered one of those actions and I did not even intend to do (at that time) . So might want to give thought of moving the twitter and facebook trigger spots higher ... just my thought 4 Anyway glad to see your getting some responses now and hope you take it all as constructive. |
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| therevills do you have any suggestion for fixing the spike spawning issue you had? Maybe a couple: * Do the collision check for the spikes when they are fully opaque * And/or do the collision check for the spikes if your player is falling |
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