Continued from Part 1

 

The conclusion of our exclusive look at indie iPhone development. The real-life success story of Rhock & Rholl Studios is a must read for any indie development team.

Storm Attack [App Store]

Storm Attack Lite [App Store]

 

 

The Release

4 months, too many Mountain Dews, and countless Team Fortress 2 sessions later, the day of reckoning was finally upon us! We were exhausted from a full week of last-minute tweaks and obscene amounts of testing, but we were ready.

We set up a screen-share/voice chat during submission (cute, yeah?), double-checking each other to ensure no mistakes. When it was over, I kind of expected a wave of relief to wash over me. A wave of something certainly whapped me square in the face, but it definitely wasn’t relief.

It was worry. And more stress. Even playing through Mega Man X 1 & 2 the next day couldn’t fully calm me.

A word of wisdom to current iPhone devs: marketing is not something to be left to the last second! While we were good about doing some market research early, I should have been out in public towards the start of development, as the limited pre-release hype came a little too late.

But let’s get to the goods. “How great were the first week of sales, Mike? You’re writing this for an app site after all, you must be rich!”

I wish. Our sales were flat-out depressing. From everything I’d read, and everything I’d seen, this was normal, especially as the App Store continued to get more and more crowded. My hope was that we’d be the exception, that our game would be so good that it’d buck the trend. I should have known better. I’ve learned a few things from trading stocks – the greatest lesson?

“Hope” is a 4-letter word.

Regardless, I did have a plan – a few reviews in the works, some ads out there – but I *knew* that we were in trouble. Big trouble.

I’ve got a friend who works at a restaurant. A few days after release, during a visit with my family, I told my parents that I was going to apply as a wait assist and hopefully climb my way up to server, as they make pretty good money off tips, although the work is tough. Reality was finally here. No more delusion juice for Wiizy. Time to face facts – your dreams ain’t gonna come true, boy.

But not so fast. Something was about to happen, something that I know I will remember for the rest of my life, regardless of where we’re at a month from now.

The next day, I was plopped on the couch, working on some marketing stuff. All of a sudden, Sean hopped on AIM, dropped an expletive, and told me that we’d been featured by Apple!

Sean’s not one to lie. I yanked out my iPod and tuned my interwebs to iTunes. Sure enough… Storm Attack was featured on two separate lists! This was too real to be a dream. I felt my vision go a little fuzzy, and briefly thought that I was going to wake up. Luckily, I was in fact conscious. This had actually happened. Out of hundreds of recently approved apps, Apple had chosen to feature an indie game developed by two kids who had been friends since junior high. We were unbelievably fortunate. Now, we were ready to Rhock & Rholl.

Sales immediately shot up. Press reviews started trickling in. The common theme – “Crazy fun, crazy addictive.” We’d just caught a break. An enormous, gargantuan break.

The Present

It’s been a few days since we got featured. Storm Attack has now broken into the Top 100 Arcade and Puzzle games in the US and other countries. As I write this, it’s #56 in Puzzles, #93 in Arcade (US store). It’s been steadily rising in both, although the Arcade category seems to be a tougher nut to crack. Sales have continued to rise every day. We’ve got some more reviews coming out soon… and hopefully even more that I’m not aware of at this point.

Still, I have yet to recoup the initial investment. Barring some catastrophe, however, I’m pretty sure we’ll hit that goal in the near future.

 

The Future

We’ve begun drawing up plans for an update to Storm Attack, with the major features being two new games modes and an advanced difficulty setting. Other goodies planned as well… but I’ll let you use your imagination.

Further out, the future for Rhock & Rholl studios is murky at best. We’ve got some ideas for new games and even more enhancements to Storm Attack… but at the end of the day, we still need to eat and pay rent. So the question becomes: Can we really make a living off iPhone games?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m guessing we’ll find out in the coming months.

 

The Take-Home Point

This thing began as a shot in the dark. I’m gonna start sounding melodramatic and a bit cliché, but everything I’m about to say is true. Storm Attack really was the last chance at a dream. Regardless of how it turns out, I’m glad we did it, and proud of what we put out there. I wouldn’t want to go through my life wondering what could have happened – I’d rather do it and find out. While things are definitely looking up right now, it’s still possible that everything could collapse in our faces… but at least we took a shot!

Mike
Rhock & Rholl Studios
support@rnrstudios.com

If you’d like to comment – your message will be redirected to my account, and I promise to respond!

 

Fun Facts!

Sean specifically requested to be taken out of the design credits, but don’t let him fool you – he definitely had his hands in the design cookie jar!

Storm Attack was not the original name for the game. The original title was Block Buster, which was later changed to Block Storm. Both were no-go’s due to trademark reasons. Honestly though… I’m happy we settled on Storm Attack – definitely the most intense of the three!

I love video game music! The Java version of Storm Attack primarily used music from the Mega Man and Mega Man X series, with a few songs from the F-Zero and Metroid series. Additionally, we had some sound effects from Sonic the Hedgehog and EverQuest (EQ players will no doubt remember the “DING!” sound that played at level-up – that was our old Full Clear sound!). Obviously, those audio pieces couldn’t be put into the commercial version. While I was shopping around for the iPhone songs, the guiding theme in my head was “Could these be used in a Mega Man game?” – I think it worked out pretty well.

I get a lot of comments about how awesome the in-game music is. I had tons of issues trying to figure out the best and most cost-effective way of procuring songs. You’d be amazed at how expensive some of this licensing stuff can get. I eventually stumbled upon GMP Music (http://www.gmpmusic.com) through a Google ad. Yes, I’m plugging them, but they deserve it. They’ve got loads of awesome music, and the licensing is dirt cheap compared to other services.

I attended the University of Minnesota, graduated in the spring of 2009, and was the manager for the men’s track team during my entire 6-year tour. Yes, the manager… not fast enough to be on the team… but I did drop a 49.83s 400m – get off me. The track guys gave me a ton of support, and provided me with my first layer of market research. I knew I had something good going when we’d be sitting in airports and I’d hear somebody say “Hey Wiizy, can I have your laptop? I wanna play your game…” They were part of what kept me going, and they’re still a part of it today.

Michael Weissenborn from indie developer Rhock & Rholl Studios has decided to give iPhone Achievements an exclusive inside look at game conception and development. This real-life success story is a must read for any indie development team.

Storm Attack [App Store]

Storm Attack Lite [App Store]

 

 

The Bear Market

My entire life has revolved around never having a real job. My latest ploy was trying to make it as an independent stock trader.

It was a chilly Minnesota day in early 2009. Like many others, traders or not, I had just given up another small fortune in the market. When I crawled into bed to cry myself to sleep (okay not really, but I was pretty depressed), I *knew* my quest to make it as a professional trader was done. Pro traders make money – they don’t use it as kindling day after day.

I had a few months left until graduation. Reality, it seemed, was setting in. And it sucked. Kinesiology majors generally don’t have the most lucrative job prospects… couple that with a dwindling job market, and you’ve got a kid with a problem. I needed something to cling on to. I needed another dream to chase, so to speak, if for no other reason than to delude myself a bit longer.

I’ve been a gamer my entire life. I must have been around 5-years-old when I turned in one of the most epic gaming moments of all time. My dad had taken my brother and me out to a pizza place. I took mine with pepperoni and green olives. Delicious.

Pepperoni and green olives don’t taste too good when they’re half-digested and marching up the esophagus. Long story short, I planted my own pizza-topping garden on the floor that night. No matter, when I woke up the next morning, I was feeling much better. Nintendo was beckoning from the basement. I scurried downstairs to load up my favorite NES game at the time, Pro Wrestling.

No computer player dared stand in my way, lest they face the wrath of Starman. Unfortunately, mostly for the unsuspecting NES, a new wave of vomit was about to be let loose. I unleashed the full fury of my stomach all over the console, but it didn’t matter. I was focused. Determined. I kept on playing. While the NES was covered in a silky-white… something – don’t ask me how pepperoni and green olives turns into a white coating – I’m pretty sure I still managed to get the pin.

I was a gamer. A true trial by bile.

 

 

I’d dabbled with creating my own little games every now-and-again, but never anything too serious. It was time to change that. I knew this iPhone thing was getting pretty big, and it was fairly easy for indy devs to get in. As I lay in bed that night, I started formulating a plan. My stream of consciousness that night follows:

“What would be fun and make me some money? Puzzler, Tetris-y games are always fun, and those have mass appeal… Hmmm, what could I do there? How about a game where squares fall from the top, and you have to drag them around, and you can tap on a block to destroy all the same-colored blocks around it? And maybe the blocks fall faster every minute? Yeah that sounds fun – roll with it, Wiizy (my affectionate nickname from the track team)”

On a cold winter night in Minnesota, in the darkened confines of my 1-room apartment, Storm Attack was born. Some good was gonna come out of that miserable bear-market beat-down.

 

The Coders

I wanted a quick prototype to see if this idea was gonna be any fun. Having not even looked into what I needed for iPhone development, I loaded up my Java editor and started cowboy coding. For those not familiar with programmer lingo, “cowboy coding” refers to writing code with little to no thinking/design beforehand. It works alright if you’re on your own with a small project… but you generally end up with a riddled mass of code that doesn’t make sense and looks like it got into a fight at the flagpole with the meanest kid in school. Think 3-year-old after 10 Mountains Dews, armed to the teeth with finger-paints.

A few days went by. I hit up my buddy Sean, now graduated and two time zones away. He got out of college in 4 years like a good boy. It would take me 6. We’d talked in the past about possibly making a game, but nothing solid ever surfaced. Basically, I let him know that I had a sweet idea, and that I’d talk to him in a few weeks once I had it fleshed out. My first obstacle was making a successful pitch to Sean, as he was busy living his life and working on his own educational algebra program. I knew this thing would not happen without him.

As the weeks went on, I found myself having trouble putting work into the game… because I just sat around playing it. I took that as a good sign. Java Storm Attack v1.0 was finally sent to Sean, who seemed pretty impressed. As I kept fine-tuning, he eventually accepted the offer to “port” it to the iPhone. I say “port” because the final product would be much more. I had no idea, but life was about to get substantially more stressful.

 

The Gnomes

As the school year faded and that dreaded “reality” nonsense started creeping in, it was time to chug some more delusion juice – time to get the truckin’ on the iPhone version!

One of the first things I had to do was form a company. Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s a single-member LLC (me), but it looks cool to have a company name. I have my brother the lawyer to thank for helping with the setup – thanks bro!

But I needed a name. I didn’t want some random nonsense. I wanted something with a story.

Sean and I have been on-and-off World of Warcraft players/addicts ever since release. One of my fondest memories of college was getting up early on release day and driving out to EB Games with Sean to pick up our preorders. Yes, that was one of my fondest memories – unfortunately (fortunately?), my college days would not have made the script for Animal House.

Anyways, during one of our on-again periods, Sean decided that we should make gnome warriors named Rock & Roll. Unfortunately, either both names were taken, or the name filter was being fickle. We skirted the system by making some simple spelling changes…

…and Rhock & Rholl were born.

Together, we were the terrors of Warsong Gulch, Rhocking & Rholling our way to victory. None could withstand the fury of two frenzied gnomes wielding axes twice their size. Not even the Taurens.

So that’s the story behind the name. Two little gnomes trying to take over the world – decent metaphor, yeah?

 

The Transformation

So it was time to hunker down on the actual iPhone development. I recall telling my family that Sean was a genius (he is) and that he could have the port done in “like a week.”

Turns out I’d eat that statement rather quickly.

The iPhone version underwent a pretty substantial transformation from its Java roots. In addition to all the general stuff we added/changed (The Java version had no Row Clears!), the iPhone brought with it a few unique challenges of its own. For example, a computer affords pixel-perfect control via the mouse. Block-grabbing is very accurate. You don’t have that luxury on a touch screen. Consequently, the answer to “What’s the optimal block size for the iPhone?” was a pickle that took us weeks to solve.

The true pickle, however, would be the online leaderboards. We both knew that we wanted… needed… online high scores. How to implement them was another story. Would we need our own servers? How much would they cost? How would we deal with hackers? It felt like a separate project in itself.

Enter AGON Online by Aptocore, at the time a budding social networking service for iPhone games.

I want to stay away from shameless plugs, but these guys deserve a shoutout. If you’ve ever played an AGON-enabled game, then you already know that the end-user experience is great. The interface is clean and simple. Same deal from the development side. Crazy easy to integrate, equally easy to tweak things as needed. Add to that a courteous, thoughtful, and blazingly fast support staff – our request to move Storm Attack to the production servers was literally answered within 15 minutes – and you’ve got a winning combination. The AGON team members deserve mad props for their creation!

So we were set. This thing was actually gonna happen.

 

Concluded in Part 2