Yesterday, the App was downloaded 40 copies in paid version and was not making any money in free version. Therefore, I removed the free version from store. Received a mail about that in a few hours from a user. Felt bit guilty about it. And, someone put a 1 star review and brought the ratings down, and he/she did not bother about writing the reason. I should be worried.

It has been 5 days since I put the update of iOS version in the review queue and there is no sign about it being reviewed. Therefore, I pulled the current version from sale. It is not fair to have it more than this many days.

Working on the ‘A Silent Wood’ update at night times, while chasing a deadline coming this friday at work, feels stressful. I missed 2 gym sessions continuously and I am already feeling very bad about it. To add to my problems, I have a family dinner tonight. Keeping everything at balance is tough. But, I am determined to release the updated version this weekend. 

I’ll keep this blog updated about the sales and other news. Thanks for reading.

Download: A Silent Wood

I changed the name of the App from ‘A Dark Room’ to ‘A Silent Wood’. Because, I was notified that the name is being trademarked and waiting for the final files. It is something like Redhat. Redhat is open-sourced and you can release your own version of it. But, you can not use the name RedHat in your version. Though I was aware that It might take a long time for these trade marking procedure, I did not want to use the loopholes.

I decided to change the name, because I had already started to feel really bad about it. To be fair, that name doesn’t belong to me. I don’t want to earn bad karma. I could already feel the evil inside me.

Therefore, I changed the name and started to promote as ‘A Silent Wood’. App received good reviews and currently had approximately 250 downloads on paid version and 200+ in free version(google play). Free version made about $5 in ads. I received few mails and reviews which complained about grammatical mistakes and spelling mistakes. My English knowledge is very low and I am the only one who does the play testing. I find it very hard to publish something with no error.

I work full time (not in Game Industry) and game development is my hobby. I want to see lot of people playing the game and want to see more good reviews.

So, currently I am adding new elements and story lines to the game and hoping to publish that in the google play store.

I am expecting the iOS version of the game, which is totally disconnected from ‘A Dark Room’  to be released anytime soon. It has been 4/5 days already in the review queue.  iOS version has made around $150 from ads so far. So, I believe it will make $200 before it dies off.

If you are reading this, please checkout the next version this weekend in google play, it will have my own story and more elements added to keep the player engaged.

Download : Paid Version

It totally sad to see my app in google play ranks (top selling new 25th) and not selling many copies. 😀

Free Versions of ‘A Dark Room’ is now available in both Apple Store and Google Play.  It is 99% equivalent to the original version of it. We just removed the part where all your villagers are enslaved. We think it is good that we forget the dark past sometimes.

You should be enjoying the awesome sound effects and leaderboards which are additions to the original game. If you are stuck somewhere, feel free to flick a mail to ambusedu@gmail.com Or you can comment here.

We are thinking about removing ads in the update following the next bug fix update. Hope you will have fun.

Enjoy!

5 weeks back, I saw a game in top of the charts in ios app store. It looked horrendously ugly based on its screen shots. I accused the developer of doing dirty tricks to get to the top of the charts and moved away. Next week, I check the charts and to my surprise the game was still there. The rating were all 5 stars. The iphone users must have gone mad, I thought. I googled “a dark room”, which was the name of the game and it directed me to an online game.

It was during office hours, so I was playing that game between work, and after a while, I realised that I couldn’t concentrate on work anymore. Totally shocked, I started searching more about this game. To my suprise, I found out that the code is open sourced under public licence. I pulled the code, read it and began to port it to android to play it on my good old Nexus 7. I asked my brother who lives in another country to download the game on his iPhone and send me screen shots. (my iPhone 4 is dead after iOS7 update 😦 ) That night he sent me screen shots and explained me how attractive the game was and how it differed from web version.

After 40-50 hours spread evenly over the 4 weekends, I managed to finish the game for Android. I played it thrice and found it interesting every time I played it. The game even surprised its own porter. I salute the original web version creator for creating such a magical thing.

The game gave me a weird feeling of travelling through the human history in just 1 hour. There were few lines about slavery. My programmer mind wanted to keep it. But, I removed it eventually. [ I watched ’12 years a slave’ 3 times and wanted to go back in time to shoot all those slave traders.]

If you really want an immersive experience:  A Dark Room 

Thank you.