Don’t Launch a DDOS on Your Own Website!

A month or so ago, I wrote a new ‘games and news HUD’ and loaded it into most of my deployed games. This operates by downloading a small package of news text and game logos from my webserver, and displaying these inside the game. The idea is that I will be able to notify people playing my older games, when a new game is released, without the need for any update of the older games on their appstores. This is particularly important on the iOS appstore, since change approvals are taking more than a week at the moment. The hope is to be able to co-ordinate as many downloads as possible as soon as a game is released.

Now.. Let’s Break Stuff! seems to be going a bit viral (especially on the Android); downloads are going up at a rapidly increasing rate in some countries (most notably, Italy, but also Spain and most recently, France). This is great, of course, but last night I checked in on the processes on the server, and Apache is taking a much bigger chunk of the CPU than it normally would. Nothing too alarming yet, but it’s averaging about 5% of CPU, when normally it wouldn’t even register. This is fine, but not being an expert on viral growth-curves, I can easily imagine this ramping up to what is effectively a DDOS attack within a few days, if the iOS downloads follow the trend I’m seeing on Android.

So I quickly removed the ‘games and news HUD’ from the Let’s Break Stuff! game, and sent the new version for approval on the iOS, BlackBerry and Android appstores. For once, Google’s total disregard for quality, copyright, or common decency (i.e., their lack of any approval process) is a good thing: the Android version was changed almost immediately. There’s a slightly tense wait for the next week while Apple do their thing though! On the one hand, a game going viral is of course the ultimate goal.. but on the other hand…

Let’s Break Stuff! – Update

Let’s Break Stuff! has been live on the Android store for about a week, and was just released for iOS last night. Downloads on both the BlackBerry PlayBook and the Android have been good, so I’m hopeful for the iOS too, although each platform does seem to offer its own “challenges” in terms of getting some visibility.

The low numbers of apps on the PlayBook means that a game can get easy visibility, although the low number of devices out there means that only moderate success is really possible. Some other companies have used the lack of competition on the PlayBook as an excuse to raise their prices and take advantage; this seems really bad form to me so I have avoided doing that. On the Android market (Google Play) the “new app” status and listing in the “new app downloads chart” that each app gets for a month is a great idea, as it gives some visibility for a reasonable length of time before being released into the big hostile pond that is the main app store. I think it may be tougher on the iOS, since an app starts to get swamped with newer ones immediately upon release. Well, we’ll see…. :-)

(Long) Tails and Online Games

The last 4 games, all small ones, that I have completed for mobile devices are all stand-alone single-player. Block Rockin’ was mostly an exercise in getting to know the Shiva game engine, but also a fun little physics-based block breaker. Mars Defender was really an outgrowth of some experimentation with spaceship models and testing out of some roleplaying ideas in Shiva. Afterburn 2150, perhaps the graphically most impressive of the games (but also perhaps the one worst received by players), was the result of some playing around with rail-shooter concepts and tilt-based game controls. And Let’s Break Stuff! was really an attempt at making a more broadly appealing casual game using Shiva’s excellent physics engine as well as some nice 3D models from Dexsoft that were really begging to be used. I would classify Mars Defender as a minor success, probably for its unique and quirky little story coupled with retro gameplay, while early indications are that Let’s Break Stuff! will be the most successful of the lot, judging from its reception on the BlackBerry PlayBook and Android.

Sales of single-player mobile-device games really tails off fast though, from what I can see. Mars Defender has already slumped to a trickle, only 6 months after release. The development effort involved makes a poor trade-off versus what I have seen with Darkwind, which is still going strong after 5 years. Admittedly, Darkwind is a very different beast, but I’m increasingly convinced that online games are the thing to do. Mobile online games are also relatively under-represented on the app stores, and at the same time mobile broadband is ubiquitous. Sure, there are some successful town/farm/empire-building games, and a few ‘lite’ MMOs. My son is still convinced that my High School RPG concept, which mixes Roguelike play with resource-based strategy, is a good one. I have also bought a really nice pack of zombies from 3drt.com, and I’m playing around with these and some ideas about multiplayer co-operative turn-based survival games.