The Artgig Blog Has Moved!

When I started writing this blog in 2008 I apparently had considerable time on my hands, setting a high watermark of 91 posts (mostly about Arsenal FC) - a feat that I have not come close to matching since.

Over the last few years, as our Artgig Apps business has grown, the focus of my writing has shifted to life in the fast lane of indie app development.

So I've decided to move the blog (and you) to the heart of the action - the Artgig Apps website.

I hope you'll continue to follow along.  

We were skyping with Lis in Australia last night when this happened

Visit The Artgig Apps Blog

The Story of Mystery Math Town

Mystery Math Town, easily our most successful app to date, was originally conceived as a simple Halloween matching game to launch in 2012. Five months later in April 2013, our “Halloween” app hit the App Store with a front page “New and Noteworthy” feature and rave reviews. The success didn’t come entirely as a complete surprise. We had already released the popular Marble Math series of apps and we had been testing Mystery Math Town with kids, parents and teachers, so we knew we were onto something. For me, the “moment” came over Christmas break - my son, who was seven at the time, discovered a rough beta version of the game on my iPad and started playing...and playing...and playing.

Original Mystery Math Town concept art - simple matching

Working title: Scrollable Haunted House Logic Quest Environment With Doors/Elevators

I personally love Mystery Math Town. I love it because it is fun to play but I also love the story. The setup is simple, “Save the fireflies!” but on your journey you encounter the townsfolk of Math Town in the form of talking portraits and each of the characters reveals a little bit more about the town and the mystery you now find yourself trying to crack, along with some of their own individual peculiarities.

I spent some time writing screenplays in my 20’s and Math Town gave me an opportunity to try something cinematic with a kids educational app. My good friend (and Artgig Creative Director) Lis, designed the wonderfully atmospheric look of the game and managed to keep it spooky without getting scary. Lis illustrated all of the character portraits and handed them over to me to write their stories - all 27 of them. I have to say, I can’t recall working harder or having more fun in my entire professional career. It doesn’t matter if most kids never “get” that “Beans” McGuirk is highly suspicious of the cowboy, “The Outlaw” Jim McQuade (both apparently Irish), ever since his fedora hat went missing. And kids can certainly enjoy the game without ever tuning in to the somewhat one-sided budding romance between young robotics-engineer-in-the-making, Melody, and her Jack, who is more interested in beating Biff in a race, than Melody. What matters is the one kid who does get it.

iTunes screenshot concept with Melody portrait

In order to reveal the full story of Mystery Math Town, you must rescue the fireflies and collect all of the portraits in the game, which requires quite a bit of math. Alternately, you can just cruise through the initial level of play, tapping the portraits as you go and they will respond with one liners. My son kept going back to “Hank” (a crowd favorite), not because of the rich storyline but because he is just plain funny. Lis made Hank really easy for me - one look at his portrait and his prominent pompadour and I knew Hank wants to be Elvis. I imagined Hank as a guy who sees no value in math at all - all he really cares about is Hank: “I have so many fans, even a computer couldn't count them all, baby.” But the key to Hank is Steve - our Development Director, programming guru, resident drummer and as we now know, closet Elvis impersonator - he nailed the famous Memphis mumble with his voiceover and made Hank an instant hit, baby.

I mentioned backstory - all of our apps, except Shake-a-Phrase which is more of a utility app for story creation, have it to varying degrees. We like to discuss the backstory of a game even when there is no obvious intent to share it with the audience. Backstory is important for you to understand as a creator because it informs the decisions around the game you are making. I will leave you with the story of Mystery Math Town. Lis handed me a picture of Math Town, perched on the edge of the sea, and said something like “what do you think of this?”

Mystery Math Town

(1768-present)

As the story of Mystery Math Town goes, once upon a time, The Admiral (of Her Majesty's Royal Navy) became something of a specialist in hunting and capturing pirates. But one pirate in particular, known only as "The Ghost" eluded him. Eventually The Admiral chased The Ghost and his crew to the shores of what is now known as Mystery Math Town, and pushed the band of outlaws straight up into the hills, where they disappeared with their treasures, without a trace...until now.
Our ghost is the son/daughter of the infamous ghost pirate. The ghost pirate child is just hanging around town when the firefly mystery falls in his/her lap. Naturally friendly and curious, the little ghost is eager to help find and rescue the missing fireflies.
In the art collector challenge, the final painting you can collect to end the game is the infamous ghost pirate at the wheel of his ship with his little ghost by his side. It isn’t until you collect the final painting that the full story is completely revealed. 

We made a set of trading cards to tease the app prior to release

And that is the story of Mystery Math Town.

Happy Halloween.

Back to Bundles

A recent AppFigures article posed the question "Are App Bundles Living Up to the Hype?"

My answer - no.

We've had a featured app bundle, Artgig Family Math Pack (6 apps/$10.99), in the App Store since bundles were introduced over a month ago and sure, we've made some money, but the bundle has outsold only one of our standalone iOS apps, a lackluster iPhone-only title, in the last month.

Our 4 bundles all fall in the "Other" 20% with Android & Windows

I noted some early observations about bundles a few weeks ago in this post, when I realized the hefty file size of our featured bundle would be a rather large purchase barrier for some. But even then, I would expect there are enough people out there with some room on their iPads for discounted apps.

A couple of weeks ago, in a moment of inspiration, I deactivated our Classroom Fun bundle to make way for a new Halloween Math Mysteries bundle. You can create as many as 10 bundles but you can only have the same app appear in up to three bundles and we hit the limit. The Halloween bundle is also our smallest with just two apps and it's nearly a 2 for 1 deal.

App bundles only

I suppose the thing I like best about bundles is how easy it is to create them - you can literally create a bundle in a matter of minutes.

I know some kids app developers have experienced greater success with bundles than we have. I've also heard from developers who have pulled their bundles because they felt the discounted bundles were cannibalizing sales. For us, our combined bundle sales equal that of a single average iOS app.

How's that for hype?

App Bundles of Joy

If you’ve been to the App Store lately, you may have noticed some new bells and whistles (iOS 8 app preview videos!) and some search enhancements that should contribute to improved app discovery. Perhaps the biggest visible change for developers is the introduction of an entirely new product category - the app bundle. App bundles allow us to construct app collections to sell at a discount. We just have to name the bundle, drag and drop apps to appear in the bundle, and write a description - the rest (screenshots, keywords, etc) is automated. We were one of a handful of lucky developers to get picked for an App Store bundle feature. Our Family Math Pack includes 6 of our apps and it appears in two splashy features, “Introducing App Bundles” and “Kids App Bundles,” in the U.S.

Obviously, app bundles have the potential to significantly increase revenue. Thanks to bundles, some of our developer friends have reported doubling sales overnight. That has not been the case for us. When bundles appeared in the App Store nearly two weeks ago, our featured Family Math Pack was priced at $12.99. But after analyzing the first week of lukewarm sales and taking a look at what others were charging for similar bundles, we adjusted our price down to $10.99 (nearly 40% savings). We also went back and revised our bundle descriptions to include terms like “award-winning” and “discounted.” In hindsight, I think it’s most likely that our customers need more space - as in, iPad hard drive space. The 6 apps in our Family Math Pack require over 1GB to install and if you don’t have the space, you don’t get the apps. It’s also possible that our kitchen sink app collection for a range of ages (3-12) is not specific enough to trigger the “got to have it” impulse.

This isn’t to say bundles have disappointed. We are selling enough bundles to equal sales of an average single app. The very existence of bundles raises the likelihood that your apps will be seen. Even if a customer doesn’t purchase your bundle they may discover an app they wouldn’t have seen otherwise and that could lead to a sale (I have a hunch that this is happening with our apps) - and that’s the point, isn’t it? And if they really like that single purchase, they can always come back later to “complete” the bundle, at a discount.

Free Ride Tomorrow 9/5!

Imagine rolling up to the first day of preschool in a shiny new car, or a submarine, or a spaceship!

We obviously can't give each of you an expensive new mode of transportation but we can give your kids the ability to drive, fly and sail through a land of early math learning in our award-winning kids app, Drive About: Number Neighborhood - and tomorrow, for one day only, we'll give it to you for free.

That's right - Drive About: Number Neighborhood will be free on Friday, September 5th!

It's our way of saying thanks for supporting Artgig Apps and we hope you share this one time offer with your family and friends.

Back to School With Artgig Apps

It’s that special time of year, where everything smoothly and seamlessly transitions from the carefree summer of fun to the new school semester and a more "regimented" approach to learning.

We think Artgig Apps provide just the right amount of learning and fun.

Here are some Back to School updates to help prove the point:

For starters, we just updated Mystery Math Museum to include all new characters you can unlock in the Art Collector Challenge. You’ll earn a portrait for your gallery with each completed challenge, and you’ll want to hear what these quirky cartoons have to say. The update will be available in the App Store next week.

Stan, the rapping mummy, needs help. What rhymes with sarcophagus?

And you may notice a family resemblance in this photo.

We’ve also updated all of our app icons to include a little blue “Artgig” bug, so it’s easier for you to find our apps in the App Store and on your device. You'll see the new icons in the App Store next week, along with the Mystery Math Museum update.

Finally, we’re planning some App Bundles that will launch soon to give you the biggest bang for your Back to School buck!

One Month Later (After The App Store Feature)...

Alternate Title: The Fragile Psyche of an Indie App Developer

Drive About has good visibility in the Education category

Today I write with a sense of great relief.

While lounging at the local pool with my family yesterday, I made the mistake of checking my email.

What I saw nearly spoiled what was otherwise a fine summer Sunday afternoon.

My AppFigures daily report was shockingly awful - slashed to a paltry quarter of already soft early August sales.

It was, to put it mildly, a little scary.

You see, as a small indie kids app developer who bootstraps every single app we make, I always feel like the ride is just about to end in a horrific, fiery wreck at the bend just ahead.

It could be any number of things that leads to disaster - but the reality is, initial success is no guarantee of future App Store stardom.

We mitigate the risk some because we are developers for hire and we do a fair amount of contract work, so it wouldn't be a death blow to Artgig if the App Store blew up tomorrow.

But it would really stink.

And I would be sad.

Because I really like making apps for kids.

And as I sat there, staring at our measly Saturday sales, I could only wonder "Is this it? Is this the beginning of the end?"

I swallowed my fears and put on a brave face as I rose to join my carefree family who were frolicking in the pool, none the wiser.

This morning when I checked the sales reports I saw a big banner in my AppFigures dashboard explaining that the Saturday sales reports coming from Apple were broken.

I checked my iTunes Connect dashboard and indeed, the Apple reports showed that Saturday was in fact, just another average summer sales day.

I exhaled.

It’s not the end...not yet.

That's a long lead in on a slow news day to a follow up report on our Drive About: Number Neighborhood app sales.

We were featured fairly prominently in the Kids category when we launched in June.

And I was pretty pleased to see our localization efforts paying off in Russia, where we realized 11% of our total sales.

Since then, the download/sales trend has been like a lazy water slide.
 

And Russia? Well, the decimal has moved a little bit to the left and now it's only .11% of sales - not even in the Top 6 Countries.

 

Of course, the first week is always the best.

Drive sales - launch to now

But here we are, nearly two months after launch and Drive About is still hanging around.

App rankings - the 2 vertical lines represent the Awards won at the end of July

Drive won a Parents’ Choice Award and received an Editor’s Choice commendation from Children’s Technology Review at the end of July, which doesn’t hurt.

I can't find the app in any of the Kids category features now but we've had a nice spot in Education for the last few weeks and it's still a top seller for us.

We have some updates planned this month that we hope will give us a little boost as Apple launches their Back to School promotions.

So, Drive About and Artgig live to see another day in the App Store.

Drive About Awarded CTR Editor's Choice!

Well, it's suddenly turned into an award-winning summer for Drive About: Number Neighborhood.

We were positively thrilled to receive the news that Drive About scored 96/100 and received the coveted Editor's Choice stamp of approval from the esteemed Children's Technology Review (October issue).

Some kind words lifted from the review...

 "The perfect "back to school" app for any preschooler headed for Kindergarten."

Check out their comprehensive (and most excellent) video overview:

Drive About Wins Parents' Choice Award!

We woke to some good news today.

Drive About: Number Neighborhood is a Parents' Choice Silver Award Winner in the 2014 Fall Mobile Apps category.

It sounds like they really like the sea pickles.

Here's some info from the official announcement:

Established in 1978, Parents’ Choice Foundation is the nation’s oldest nonprofit consumer guide to quality children’s media. As a Parents’ Choice Award® winner, you’re a member of a very select group. Fewer than 25% of the products submitted receive any level of commendation. It’s an honor that doesn’t come easily; you should be very proud of your achievement.

Check out the complete list of Winners here.

All You Need is (Apple) Love - One Month in the App Store...

It's been about a month since we launched our latest kids app, Drive About: Number Neighborhood, and we were fortunate enough to hang around the App Store features the entire time. It's always good when your launch day looks like this:

  

 Even France showed us some "amour."

You never know how long the love will last though, so the Thursday App Store refresh becomes a major focal point of the week. The last app we released, Mystery Math Museum, was also featured at launch but was quickly moved to the back of the shelves. Drive About did double the business of Mystery Math Museum in the same sample time period.

Mystery Math Museum Launch October 2013 (iPad only) - 11/15 free promo

Drive About launch June 2014 (Universal iPad & iPhone)

It's really good to see our localization efforts pay off with substantial downloads in Russia, accounting for a little over 11% of total sales.

Tragically, the French "amour" did not translate to significant downloads - just over 1% of total sales. And our efforts to appeal to Brazil with a Portuguese version of the app fell flat - it's almost as though the entire nation was preoccupied by something else over the last month (we are investigating...)

Overall, I have to say I'm happy with the launch.

I was concerned about releasing the app in early June when most U.S. parents are transitioning from school to summer routines, but the results clearly demonstrate that all you need is (Apple) love.

Now, how to bundle that love for iOS 8...

FREE Alien Buddies Tomorrow 6/20

Start your summer with a splash!

Download our award-winning Alien Buddies app for FREE tomorrow - Friday, June 20 (normally $1.99).

Tell your friends!

(and don't forget your bathing suit)

A New Kids App In Town!

Drumroll...

We are happy to announce that our shiny new app, Drive About: Number Neighborhood, is available today on the App Store!

Drive About: Number Neighborhood is a delightful way for preschool kids to explore early math concepts with 9 mini games that provide engaging practice in core concepts like:

• Counting
• Ordering
• Matching
• Number Identification
• Number Writing

Give your kids a license to drive a variety of vehicles across land, sea and air in an environment that encourages free play, exploration and fun.

Drive About: Number Neighborhood is a Universal iPad and iPhone app with localized versions available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian.

Wish You Were Here - App Launch Promos

When we launched Mystery Math Town, Lis and I came up with the idea of creating a set of virtual trading cards to introduce the townsfolk ahead of launch. The promotion was a big hit on our various social media streams so we wanted to try something like it for our new Drive About: Number Neighborhood app.

For Drive About, Lis made a series of promos inspired by classic travel posters to count down the days to our Thursday launch. Here they are at nearly full size and suitable for framing (if you run a travel agency for yaks, sheep and cows).

They're quite brilliant - don't you think?

Drive About: Number Neighborhood Arrives in the App Store on Thursday, 6/12

That New App Smell...

We got some really good news from Apple yesterday.

Our new app, Drive About: Number Neighborhood, passed inspection and it's ready for sale.

But you can't have it yet.

Why? Because we set our launch date to June 12.

Why? Again, you ask.

As much as we'd like to just rush our app immediately into the App Store, it's generally wise to control your launch.

The app is technically approved and ready which means we have 100 promo codes to share with whomever we like (yes, you can download and play your app with a promo code before it is live in the App Store). We'll use this time to distribute codes as a sneak preview for reviewers who * we hope * will have nice things to say about our new app. We've also suggested that they coordinate their reviews with our planned June 12 launch. And if they want to share some kind words before the launch, we can use those quotes in our launch promotions and our App Store description.

You only have one shot at being brand new, so make the most of it.

Drive About: Number Neighborhood Arrives in the App Store June 12

The Morning After (Submitting The App)

I only wish Lis could have been here to share the moment

Just look at the joy, the unmitigated elation, captured in this freeze frame from yesterday afternoon.

This is the moment we submitted Drive About: Number Neighborhood to Apple for review.

It is the pinnacle of months of work and a roller coaster ride of emotions.

The road to the App Store isn’t all fun and games.

There were days of uncertainty and doubt on this journey and lets just say our first foray into localizing for languages beyond English has been...educational.

But now that we’re at the end of the road, and we know that we’ve made an app we can be proud of - it really does feel good.

We can’t wait to share it with you.

Stay tuned for a release date (and coming soon for Android!)...

driveaboutnumbers.com

The App Video Teaser (Drive About: Number Neighborhood)

We're getting very close to launching our new kids app, Drive About: Number Neighborhood, and I'm pleased to share the app video teaser with you.

The app video is a key piece in your marketing plan and should be prominently displayed on your website - especially if you're developing paid apps for Apple's App Store. Currently, there is no way for users to preview your app in the App Store so the video becomes the only way to give potential users a look at your app in action. If you're publishing to Amazon and Google Play, you can include your video right in the app listing (just make sure you're not flashing iPhones and iPads in the video).

We've created teaser videos for each of our apps and made them available on our YouTube channel for your viewing pleasure.

There are lots of tools available for making the app video. We typically use Reflector for app screen capture and we use Flash for compositing because it fits our workflow. 

We almost used an outside production service for the Drive About video because we've been so busy working on the app, but fortunately the stars aligned and this video came together really quickly over a weekend.

We like to use the app music to drive the picture (no pun intended) and we key off the natural hit points for emphasis, and I think this is especially effective in our Drive About video in a sequence about midway through at 0:40 where we swap the backgrounds to show the "world."

But the best advice I can give you is to plan ahead and use the tools and strategy that get the job done.

If we did our job, the video should leave you wanting more.

And check out our tips on how to Make Your YouTube App Video a Marketing Machine - it's easily our most popular post.

Stay tuned for Drive About: Number Neighborhood!

Marble Math FREE Friday, May 16

We've updated our award-winning Marble Math and Marble Math Junior apps so you can earn more marbles!

To celebrate, we're offering Marble Math for FREE this Friday, May 16th (normally $2.99)

Tell your friends.

Marble Math Free 5/16 For iPad & iPhone

New Marbles For Marble Math

We've been so deeply entrenched in the final stages of production on our latest kids app, Drive About: Number Neighborhood, that I almost forgot to mention a nice update to the award-winning Marble Math family.

We're set to release new Marble Math and Marble Math Junior app versions this week, adding new marbles to both games.

Now you can earn zebra, leopard, chameleon, parrot, python, peacock, cow and butterfly marbles.

Keep your eye out for the updates in the App Store this Thursday.

And stay tuned for a special Marble Math promotion this App Friday.

A Winning App Icon

A big and beautiful Drive About: Number Neighborhood app icon

You voted and we listened.

It is with great pleasure that I now introduce the winner of the Drive About: Number Neighborhood app icon challenge.

You also told us we absolutely had to find a way to get some numbers into the art so we made some adjustments.

Drive icon at standard viewing sizes

We really like icon and we're grateful for your help.

Today, we're making some last minute tweaks before shipping the game for beta testing.

If all goes well, we'll release the app in about a month.

You can sign up for our newsletter and we'll keep you informed as we get closer to launch.

Deciding On The App Icon...

We really liked this icon but the sheep looks like a hostage

We've reached a critical decision point in the app design process and we need your help.
It's a graphic designers ultimate challenge - how to sell your app in a single image that may be reduced to something that is smaller than a postage stamp, in a sea of miniature postage stamps.

When reduced, the sheep looks less scared but he also looks less like a sheep - too many details are lost

We've got a lot to say about our new early learning app, Drive About: Number Neighborhood, but we can't say it all in the icon - that's what your app description and screenshots are for.

Option 1A has a rolling country feel

1B adds a city vibe in place of the mountains

Do we focus on the driving, and emphasize the quality of the app in a rich illustration (1A and B)?

Option 2A - sometimes less is more

Or, do we simplify and go with a strong profile and underline the math (2A and B)?

2B - color makes the numbers more playful - but harder to read at a smaller size

Which icon would entice you to find out more about the app?

We want to make a decision in the next couple of days so let us know what you think and we'll share the winner with you next week.

Making Kids Apps (And Setting a Launch Date) Is Hard Work

Kid testing can take your app in new and exciting directions

You may think that making “toddler” apps is easy. I mean, really how hard can it be to to whip up some shiny things to catch the eye and sprinkle some ABC’s and 123’s into the app so you can slap an educational label on it? And that’s exactly why the App Store Kids category is so crowded with apps for ages 5 and under. For some developers, the illusion of a low cost entry point to the educational market is a big draw. But quality is not something that is easily achieved and kids are smarter than you think. The competition for your toddlers attention is fierce and that is exactly why it is takes lots of effort to make an app that stands out from the pack.

We toil, we toss, we turn, we sweat, we fret, we struggle, we test, we test some more, we change things (important things that we love), we analyze and we test some more - in short, we work really, really hard on every app we make so that kids will get something they want to play and adults get something they don’t mind paying for. This takes lots of time.

We spent the last year developing Mystery Math Town and Mystery Math Museum (grades 1-3) and client apps like World’s Worst Pet and Door 24 (grades 4-8) but for our next app we wanted to get back to our Alien Buddies roots and create something for preschoolers. Jim and I both have little kids at home (3 and 4 years old) and we wanted to make something for them. We also wanted to develop an app that could be localized for play in different parts of the world... and we wanted kids to be able to play it on tablets and phones for iOS and Android. We settled on a driving game where the child can explore a variety of landscapes in different vehicles and encounter early learning math activities along their journey. We started making Drive About: Number Neighborhood in December 2013.

There were lots of Skype meetings with each of us working from home during our winter snow days to decide on the app specifications and Lis went to work on look and feel. We set a target launch date of late April.

Our testing process begins with a pretty close internal circle until we approve the concept and then we work on things until we feel it’s in a good position to share with family and friends. We observe play and  record feedback and we go back to the drawing board to make improvements before the next round of testing. When we feel the app is ready to share with folks on the “outside”, we distribute it to our wider network of parents, teachers and kids. This Beta app review is a big moment in the development process and the user feedback we collect can shape the app in ways we never might have guessed. From this point we formulate a revised development plan to add the finishing touches for a final round of development.

(Cough) Remember our original April target date?

We just finished our internal family testing and it turns out kids don’t think like we do, so we’ve got work to do to make the game right for them. Today we’re aiming for an early June Drive About launch but who knows what direction the Beta observations will take us...

The only sure thing I can tell you is we’ll keep working until we get it right.

A New Kids App! (With Extra Sprinkles)

Can you spot the new app?

With the one year anniversary of  Mystery Math Town right around the corner, I’m happy to announce a new early learning app we’re working on.

It’s called Drive About: Number Neighborhood.

As you may guess, the game gives the 5 and under crowd a license to cruise (and some basic math skills practice along the way).

We were hoping to launch sometime in April but it’s becoming increasingly clear that that just isn’t going to happen.

In the world of client contract work, we’d never let a deadline slip.

But when it comes to our apps, we just can’t resist the extra sprinkles syndrome that would stop a client on a budget in their tracks.

We can’t help ourselves because the extra sprinkles are exactly what make our apps special.

In the world of client work, we like to spec things pretty tightly up front to limit surprises downstream.

We do the exact opposite with our apps. Our own process tends to be more of a creative free-for-all.

Have you ever seen a bunch of little kids in a bouncy castle? That’s kind of our approach.

Once we know which bouncy castle we’re aiming for we dive right in.

If we spend all of our time refining specs, we’d never get to the best part which is making stuff.

And adding sprinkles.

The bottom line - making kids apps should be fun.

Drive About: Number Neighborhood will be ready for beta testing in April.

Let us know if you want to join the testing team.

You can also sign up for our newsletter and we’ll make sure you don’t miss anything.

Burn All Kids Apps!

Maybe you've seen the Cris Rowan call to ban handheld devices for all kids under 12 in the Huffington Post recently.

It's hysterical.

We much prefer the level-headed rebuttal by David Kleeman.

But if you look at the shares on the page, it can't be denied - hysteria sells.

Hysterical

Reasonable

I was skyping with Lis in Australia last night, talking about our new app in development, and I think we may have hit upon a new educational paradigm.

What we're proposing is revolutionary.

The more hysterical, the better.

Let's scare kids smart.

If you get the answer wrong, the cute animal GETS IT!

I can see the series titles now:

Scared Smart: Identifying Shapes and Patterns

Followed by…

Scared Smart: Addition and Subtraction

Of course, I'm joking.

We like kids and animals too much to scare them.