HARDKOUR [Android][IOS][WP8][Free]

So, I've finally finished something... this is my flappy bird inspired game. While it's nothing like flappy bird, the inspiration came in the form of simple controls and restart on gameover... however, its not easy like sunday mornings... ha

[marketing speil]

HARDKOUR is a Parkour styled runner where you play ahead of time, put your moves in before you get to the direction cubes by tapping the left or right side of the screen.

The more moves you put it ahead of time, the faster your player runs giving you a faster better score. If you have a great memory and quick reflexes, you are gonna love this.

[/marketing speil]

Its currently on android/iOS/WP8

Sorry I dont have any screenshots handy, but here's short video that will cover all your wtf does it look like/how do you play it needs.

Video:

IOS: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hardkour/id919039360

ANDROID: http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fingerbait.hardkour

WP8: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/hardkour/dde22aa1-264c-4c7f-a0cb-282babf179ee

Cheers
JL

 

Looks excellent. Definitely give you credit for making something different than the normal stuff we see again and again.

 

Cheers man.. hopefully something different gets a whole bunch of downloads

Its quite interesting though... this is the first android game I've released, and its been on the store a few weeks already, however I havnt mentioned its availability anywhere yet (was wanting to do a few iterations of changes/testing stuff) and its been downloaded over 100 times.. although im not sure how they calculate that figure.. but getting any downloads spurs on more development

 

I am very impressed, I like the fact that you have to think on your feet. I would put it in a similar category to the impossible game and temple run. But it has a completely different feel and uniqueness, I hope it takes off. I am commenting just from watching the you-tube video. will have a look at it on the Google play store now and let you know my thoughts .

 

Thanks ReeRoo..

After you've played it a few times, it can become as much about remembering the sequence, the benefit being you can put as many moves as you can remember in ahead of time. I know about the first 40 now (most of the time at least) and it races through them. Currently my top score is 115 (although during testing I deleted that score), so currently some random person has top score of 85.

 

Will flick a free upgrade to full version when it comes out if you let me know your name as well. No full version as of yet but its coming. Cheers

 

Have to admit that looks pretty cool

 

Well done. It looks pretty well executed. The animations are fun as well.

 

Thanks. Spent a lot of time (dragging my feet a bunch because I couldnt come up with a system I liked) on that animation. ahah. Was my first serious look at mechanim.

iOS and WP8 versions have been submitted to the store... just got to wait for them to process

 

That was quick... hardkour now in WP8 store.

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/hardkour/dde22aa1-264c-4c7f-a0cb-282babf179ee

I cant find it when I search for it, but the link shows its up, so might take some time before you can find it by name

 

congrats! looks fantastic. I really like the idea, what about placing some particle effects as fog color interaction in the background, maybe it pops up some nice effects to the aesthetic.

 

the plan has been to get it on all platforms, then start putting improvements if it gets enough downloads to warrant more effort, however I still have a handful of things im planning for it regardless of downloads.

Multiple colors for the entire game/Achievements
Going to put a new game mode in, running segments 25 per round.
Expand game length. Target is 500-1000 depending on progression of players

busy times ahead!

 

Um.... wow..... unique! really surprised me!! Finally, something I might keep on my phone for more than a week......

Animations are great. Did you do them?


Btw: Downloaded your game and rated 5 stars. I really really like it actually hahahah. Also make the intro a bit shorter. I want to get into the action faster. Great work

 

Thanks appreciate the rating (with a comment even!) re: the name thing, it has a minimum length which has confused a couple of people, so I might lower it.

Didnt do the animations, theyre an asset pack from the store. Just set up a big state like tree using mechanim to drive it all.

The intro is shorter if you can remember the moves ahead of time. The more moves you enter, the faster the game plays :_)

 

loved the game, but cant help but notice, the little to no sound effects? or in game music?
was this done deliberately to create a certain feel or will it be added in further updates?
a arced style soundtrack would fit this game really well! besides that, amazing game! love it!

 

Havnt made a final decision on sounds for the game yet. Im a person who has his phone on silent 99% of the time and find game sounds annoying, so thats really why I havnt put much in the way of sound fx in. I would say ill put some in at a later point.

Thanks for the feedback

 

This is cool. James, you're not just a pretty face!

 

Looks wonderful and a great name. So good to see something unique and different but also stylish and polished.

Only criticism: took me ages to figure out that I had to put two names when it asked for my name. Otherwise, I didn't get the right arrow.

 

Thanks Valette, the only thing that annoys me about the name is that I googled it when I first came up with it, and it returned no results, so thought I had an original name, what I didnt notice was that google changed my search phrase... now when I search for hardkour, theres a whole bunch of hardkour parkour stuff out there. doh!

Re: the name, yep thats caught a few people out, reducing the name length to 3 chars min in a future update (it even caught me out once)

 

Sorry man but your game is awesome.

 

Nice game.

 

I like the gameplay but the character is too small

 

Thanks apple, thats not anti-competitive at all..

• 3.1: Apps or metadata that mentions the name of any other mobile platform will be rejected

So because I show windows/android icons in my leaderboards, the app got rejected... /yawn

 

And now on Apple store!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hardkour/id919039360

 

Not bad, kinda fun actually.

But it really needs a beat. And maybe some flashing lights. Definitely a beat.

 

Thanks R.Lindsay. Yep ive been hearing that a lot!

Big night for my game (well, biggest so far), 127 new iOS users since release. not bad for a day. Fingers crossed those numbers keep up.

 

No longer the master of my own game.

Someone topped my high score with 181 pts..

 

sorry about that

 

hah, its quite good, I havnt been able to test that you can get that far in my own game

(well, without having the dude automatically jump)

 

Update release for Android. Includes IAP to unlock custom color (for the entire game) and removal of ad's

IOS update will follow

 

New Version out on Android! New version has also been submitted to Apple Store & Windows Phone store.

Features include:
+ Music and Sound Effects Added
+ Updated intro sequence to include extra jumps + onscreen cues
+ Introduced Life System - You can now make 3 mistakes (note: all lives expire at 50 pts)
+ Added best score to Leaderboard screen

Also Some Official Reviews!!

IndieGameMag - http://indiegamemag.com/hardkour-a-fast-paced-parkour-retro-runner/

App Apes - http://app-apes.com/2014/12/hardkour/

Also got an email from Microsoft today advising me they plan to feature HARDKOUR on the windows phone store!

 

Congratulations!

 

I downloaded and played it and there is one thing I would alter. You display the arrows on the top of the screen, but that doesn't really give any information to the player. You can't look at it, because if you do you're done. I would rather see the arrows on the course turn a different color or disappear when you tap them correctly.

Also, grats on the Microsoft phone.

 

Thanks for the feedback fluzing.. I would consider lighting up the arrows, but it would require too many changes. Since its all physics based, I actually dont know the order of the squares, its just a case of you hit the wrong direction, you lose, if you hit the correct direction, the physics throws the player in the correct direction and the course runs through.

The feedback at the top is mainly there so the player understands the concept of how to play, most of the time, the only thing the player is actually looking at is the sequence of arrows approaching (so all that time I spent making the animations fluid, while important, means nothing to the player because they never notice! - well, should I say, they would notice if the animations wernt there though!)

 

I tried to make sense of the game....when I finally did I got my hands on it pretty quickly.
I love a choice of art style - looks simple but hardcore.

IMO instructions were unclear to me so it took quite a while to get a grip on this game.

I've written a review on my blog btw

Check it out: https://appgoodies.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/hardkour-review/

I am also addressing one bug in a game and some feedback on improvements.

 

Thanks for the feedback elmar. The game play is pretty simple, but hard to describe. Im guessing you're on ios? I released an update that hopefully makes it a little clearer on how to play, but its not out on ios yet.

Also the spped thing is intentional! The more moves youput in, the faster he runs. So spamming left right will speed him up. Think the max timescale is 5. Every cue'd move increasing it by 0.1.

Thanks for the blog post though. Cool writeup and glad to hear you liked it (once you figured it out)

 

Looks really cool, amazing..

 

Thanks

I was using Android device actually to play your game.

 

Arr cool.. did the cues help?

 

Kinda....I had to use my intuition mostly to figure out your game : P

 

Looks great (especially the smooth animations)! I'm still bad when it comes to left-right-left-right, but getting better

 

iOS update out today (finally)...

Update includes:
+ Music & Sound FX
+ Changed Intro Sequence (includes some on screen cues)
+ Added 3 lives allowing players to make 3 mistakes (all lives expire at 50 points)
+ Added Best Score to Leaderboard Scene

 

Also, If you're thinking about downloading it, you should do it sooner rather than later, the next update will change the pricing model. Going to make users pay for having the full length map (first 85-ish moves will be free). Reason I'm saying get it now, is because when I update it, I'm going to give all existing users a free upgrade. Figure that's only fair.

 

Very cool. Challenging and unique. Always enjoy seeing something new and refreshing. Congratulations!

 

Thanks Jaqal... Hasnt been everyone's cup of tea based on the handful of 1-star ratings I received lately.

Think those are from ppl that expected the game to play differently (reaction, rather than putting your moves in first).. A dev mate didnt like it at first, but after a while decided it worked well, so I think there's a mindset of how it should work.

 

Even GTA 5 gets negative reviews.. there are always a certain kind of people that will always find something to complain about. If a critique is something you can use to improve your next game, all the better- if it's not... it's just those people... assuming they're human at all... wait O__o

 

yep every game gets negative reviews. Im just concerned im not getting enough positive ones to offset the negative ones

 

What all have you done on the PR side of things? Besides these forums of course.
I see you've linked some articles on your android page.

 

I used this service... http://www.androidb.com/110-app-review-requests/

Best $100 I spent. From that I got those handful of real reviews (unpaid). A lot of the sites that were submitted to responded with a request for money to buy a review.

My downloads jumped up quite a bit from those reviews. Nothing earth breaking, but still got something from it.

Obviously never any guarantee youll get anything out of it, as the sites your game is submitted to still have to want to review it, however the guy also sent me back a large amount of quite helpful information.

 

Good to see a legit service out there! Will bookmark that sucker.

Really like the game idea by the way, big fan of the 'think ahead' style.

My only suggestion when it comes to your reviews is to change your attitude a bit. Best to not reply at all to the suckers, trying to politically tell them they are wrong will only feed the fire. Just throw on a pretend smile and roll with the negative reviews. If you keep updating and caring about your content, it'll come around. Good content doesn't drown under bad reviews. Unless you push it that way. Don't feed the trolls.