At the moment every 7 days more than 100’000 users are downloading my apps, every month I get around 400k to 500k downloads.  Here is a chart how my downloads developed during the last months:

So the big question is: How did I manage it to improve my downloads so much without any marketing and advertising.

Well, the popular app stores like iTunes, google Play or amazon are complex, very dynamic ecosystems.

It’s very hard to make good predictions. Often you’ll hear things like “Make a quality product and you will make money!”.

I’m very sorry to disappoint you but in my experience this is NOT true.

I’ve seen so many developers that worked hard on their game for many, many months. They created a fantastic end result. They released their amazing game and…… NOTHING happend. No Downloads. And “no downloads” equals to “no revenue”. So sure, quality is important, but it doesn’t guarantee you anything.

With this in mind I choose another strategy. My assumption was: Make more apps and you will get more downloads.More downloads = more revenue.

So with this in mind I focused to improve my workflow and tried to cut down the development time of my apps. I don’t want to get too technical but what I’ve mainly did to achieve this was:

• I’ve created a “framework/codebase” for fast prototyping and developing games (reusable components, cross platform, data driven, a scripting language for easy customize existing games/components, tools/editors that integrate well into the workflow)
• An easy workflow with lots of automation to create, maintain and publish an app as well as maintain assets and marketing material (description, keywords, screenshots, icons, resolutions for different stores etc.)
• Re-Skin existing apps for another target audience (with no or less coding involved)

The page has a lot of good articles on apps for kids, so make sure to have a look at it.

It was the best app start I’ve ever had and people seem to LOVE this little gem.
Here is a short demo song of how this app sounds. Get ready to be blown away:

And here are the first user reviews I received:

As you can see, some users complained about the virbation feedback and it’s already fixed in the current version.

This is especially true for Captain Backwater. Believe it or not: The first email I got from Emmanuel (artist of Backwater) with the idea for pirate themed puzzle game was in April 2005 (!!!). Emmanuel attached some cheesy scribbles, here is the original scan:

We had tried out some early gameplay mechanics in two or three prototypes. But nothing seemed to work out. Our game design was poor. Back then, Emmanuel worked with different looks and cel-shaders. After a few weeks (or probably one or two months – can’t remember) we stopped working on Backwater.

In 2007 I had a new idea for an interesting puzzle gameplay. I started to work on it with the “old” graphics from Emmanuel. This time for Nintendo DS, but progress was slowly as I started my new job at Gameforge. When I finished the game in December 2010 JoWood was interested in publishing it, but one month later they went bankrupt. What a great timing!

This was the point when I decided to restart the project for Win, Mac and Linux. I’ve done it using BlitzMax and my own Horizon-Framework.

Everyone I showed the game in the early stages loved the gameplay. Towards the end of the project I stumbled over a blog post from Andra Dogaru. She did an amazing pirate ship, so I asked her if I could use her graphics in the menu section of my game. Andra was excited and even overhauled her work. The result is fantastic I think:

So, what’s next…?

I’m currently very busy with finishing the Linux version of the game. After that, I need to do a free, playable demo version – which is my most important marketing instrument for my direct sales. I also try to get the game into the big casual and indie portals.

I also have already received some feedback from customers. They love it, but they also found some small issues I should fix in an update. I also want to add more languages to Captain Backwater. At the moment, the game is available in german and english. If someone of you is interested in translate it to your native language, please contact me.

1. Follow Captain Backwater on twitter or become a fan of his facebook group.
2. All followers/fans will get a personal message at sunday evening (CET).
3. You play the game and you will have a lot of fun being a mighty pirate on treasure hunting.
4. If you have suggestions, ideas or problems you send me a message. (I will take every single reported issue or idea very serious!!!)

Oh, and by the way: Did I mention that ALL beta testers will get their name in the credits section of the final game? Imagine for a few seconds: YOUR name in a damn COOL game! True story!

To be honest: This will be the best game I’ve ever made and I’m already very proud of it. But I really need your help to make it even better.

Now it’s your turn:

• Follow Captain Backwater on twitter.
• Become a fan on facebook.

It’s a real good feeling if a product, where you worked hard on the last half year, finally goes live. We already got a nice review on Inside Social Games. If you are on Facebook, give it a try a let me know what you think!