Category: gameborgs

Game a Week game 1, week 1

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I decided to make a game a week. The rules are:

No how far along the game is I have to move on after the week is over.
No matter how far along it is I will at least release it as beta to the public when the week is over.
I can still go back and improve it as long as I’m also working on a new one during the week.
The timer restarts on Monday.
Try and make a a variety of games instead of doing the same thing over and over.
Must release on at least android and html5

I’m thinking making a game a week will force me to get better at all aspects of game making, especially if it means people seeing my terrible games. It will force me to get better and not be as embarrassed by them.

My first game is Sooap Drop. It’s a typo but I thought it was kind of funny to not fix it.

Suspended from Admob

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So I got a 30 day suspension from Admob..

Here’s the wall of text email I got:

Hello,

We recently detected invalid activity in your AdMob account. As a result, we’ve temporarily suspended your account for 30 days. During this time, no ads will be served on your mobile applications.

Why was my account suspended?

We found that you have clicked on your own AdMob ads in a non test-mode setting, which is prohibited by the AdMob Program Policies.

We understand that you may want to know more about the invalid activity we’ve detected. Because this information could be used to circumvent our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with information about specific account activity, including any apps or users that may have been involved.

This is a one-time, non-appealable suspension. After 30 days, we’ll automatically re-enable ad-serving on your account.

If you need more time to identify and stop the invalid activity, please remove your AdMob ad code from your apps to prevent ads from being displayed.

Please note that if any additional issues are found in your AdMob account in the interim period of suspension, your account may be permanently disabled even before the suspension period ends. Please review our list of top reasons for account closure to help you understand the possible reasons that publishers may have their accounts disabled.

If your account is found to have invalid activity in the future, it will be subject to additional penalties, and may be permanently disabled.

How does the suspension affect my payments?

You will be eligible to begin receiving payments again once your account generates sufficient valid traffic.

As a result of the suspension, we are withholding the unpaid revenue in your account and refunding the balance, along with Google’s share, to affected advertisers. In addition, once ad-serving resumes on your apps, we will hold any future payments for 30 days—you will earn revenue during this time, and, provided your account remains in good standing, that revenue will be paid in the next payment period.

 

Fair enough, I guess I did click on them a few times while testing and I’m only losing out on about $20. I didn’t get any warning though and the email is saying I can get BANNED at any time with absolutely no warning. I’ve read horror stories from people saying they lost their account with much more money than I had. I think what I should of done would  have been to have test ads enabled. I think I had them disabled because I thought that it would enable test ads on every device, but I think you can put in your device ID and it will show test ads only on that device. I switched from AdMob to AdColony which was easy enough. It’s not like I was putting in thousands of clicks a day and making thousands of dollars. It’s was only a couple clicks while testing. It seems harsh.

I think even having someone play on the same network as you on their device  count against you because it’s on the same IP.

I switched to  AdColony because it was the first ad network I found besides AdMob that Gamemaker has an extension for heh. I haven’t seen anything about people getting suspended from AdColony. They seem less closed off compared to AdMob( from the tiny amount of experience I have with  them) I probably won’t hit the threshold($100) for getting a payout for a while anyway.

 

So what I learned is:

Don’t click your own ads
Read the terms of service
Set up test devices with test ads
Don’t even have friends click on ads

 

Amazon android store

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I uploaded the game to the Amazon Android store.

I uploaded it in the afternoon and by the time I woke up it had already been “reviewed” and went live. From what I can tell it gets virtually tested on a number of different devices and all the Amazon devices.

A few fire tv devices got excluded, I think that’s because they don’t have motion sensors. Which is good because I don’t want to get reviews saying the game doesn’t work.

I’m still improving the game and trying to get more people to play. I’ve learned a lot already though for my next game.

Minigames Universe 1.0.1 Update

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9/12/2016

Made a lot of changes based on user feedback

-Shortened abount of time snowmobile takes
-Removed time clock on polar bear fight
-Sea shell level only takes one “listen” instead of 5
-Made the save the tree level shorter and a bit more difficult
-Increased lawn mower speed and decreased amount to grass required
-Can wood chop at any time now
-upgraded Balloon appearance.

 

Day 2

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So I’m one day out from the accidental release. The problem I’m having is visibility. The only way to get the page seen seems to  be by linking the game directly to people or typing the exact name in. I think if I would have done more advertising and I was established this wouldn’t be as much of a problem. As it stands the game doesn’t show up at all in the play store search. No one can play it if they don’t know about it. My ultimate goal is to have it be the top result when searched. Being on the front page would be huge. I’m learning SEO and marketing on the fly and I’m throwing out tags left and right.

I’m trying to get people playing it to get reviews in. Even bad reviews would be nice so I could get feedback. I got one of my friends to play it so I’m going to go over with pen and paper to take notes.

The screen recording app I used left stuttering in the video which looks terrible in the trailer. It makes it look like the game isn’t optimized well. My phone is “old” so maybe if i record in 720p it will perform better.

Play here now