Da Vinci Mystery: Renaissance. 1 million rubles for summer

In this article I want to share its modest experience in the field of mobile development. The numbers will be too.

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Intro

It all started in February 2012. It was during this period we with like-minded people began to create applications for mobile platforms. We started with apps entertainment for the platform android, which in the market, there were countless. Wanted to make the project more serious thought about entering the iOS market. In the summer of that year, with the money earned on the money is purchased a Mac mini and created a puzzle of the "DaVinci mystery". At this time our "company" has acquired the proud title of Planemo Studio. The idea of the app was based on mathematical and logical puzzles. Unexpectedly, our puzzle was a success, despite the fact that the top places are usually settled kazualki. A couple of weeks after launching our app was in first place in the "puzzles." But the income is not much affected. That all changed with the release of apps for the appstore. We have seen the same number of races yield the ios version was more somewhere in the 6-7 times. Autumn racing application again went to the mountain, which provided contact with tops markets for both platforms. It is worth noting that at the time this method of earning is considered as additional, and all members of the team was the main work, which undoubtedly affected the timing of the release, updates and quality of the implementation of the product. As time went on, along the way, we tested other platforms, other genres of games. Made some less successful projects.

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Da Vinci mystery II: Renaissance

This spring we began developing the second part of "da Vinci mystery".
The second part decided to add a more interactive component and to refresh the design.



We have carefully examined the content and selected the most interesting puzzles. All puzzles are sorted by difficulty and introduced a system of phased progress through the game. The most challenging tasks has been marked "boss", and to reach them, you must solve a decent number of regular tasks. Have also been added to standard gaming elements: achievements, revealing facts about the inventions of Da Vinci and the ability to repost mysteries in the social network. Every task is accompanied by graphic and text prompts, pushing the player to the correct answer.
The gameplay is "refreshed", thanks to logic mini-games (the game of tag and puzzles with marble matches).




We also added more "smart" control system of the answer entered by the player. It works on the principle "hot-cold", prompting, nudging the user towards the correct answer.
Besides all this, we have made a selection of different puzzles in three languages: Russian, English and Chinese. Thus, the total number of puzzles in the second part, approaching six hundred.



It should be noted that the localization of the mysteries of the Chinese language and attempts to enter the Asian market in what have not resulted. Chinese publishers rather sluggishly responded to the application, most likely this is due to the low popularity of the genre.



It is logical that music in the game should be a classic, so we chose a suitable style. Preference was given to Gustav Mahler. His songs allow you to feel the atmosphere of the game.

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Monetization and promotion

The main focus in terms of monetization we did on domestic sales. Our idea was to provide as much choice to the user. Every Amateur break down can be found in the game something different. Initially, there are about 70 riddles for each language that fully allows you to feel the spirit of the game. If you want more hints or it, we have the opportunity.
Promoted the game on their own, used a set of standard channels such as press releases, orders related to thematic resources and publications in support of developers on large portals dedicated to the mobile industry. Also, we were placed in thematic groups in social networks vk, facebook and twitter. In addition, we have accounts in all popular social networks and quickly notify subscribers about updates and plans for the release of new games. Actively communicate on the forums, respond promptly to messages from our users via e-mail.

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Result

The fourth of June "Da Vinci mystery: Renaissance" received a status of Ready For Sale on App Store. The results exceeded our expectations for the next three days we reached these results:
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• 1st place in the category of "Educational"
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• 1st place in the category "brain & Puzzle"
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• place 1 in the top grossing category "Educational"
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• 1st place in top paid category "Educational"
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• 2 in the top of all apps

And also won seats in the New & Notherworthy in about 150 countries in the categories of "Puzzle" and "Educational". In the best days the number of downloads in the appstore reached 30 thousand.








For android version, unfortunately, could not boast of such results. Some time the app was in the top new free on the first page and that was it. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we almost did not make any promotion on the android market, making all the bets on the profit from the appstore. The role played by the numerous crashes, the probability of occurrence of which could not be reduced to zero.
In the autumn expect new races boost associated with the end of the holiday season. There is a chance to get into the top 5 Russian appstore.

Total for summer total revenue from sales and advertising reached more than 1 million roubles (taking into account the first part of "da Vinci mystery"), of which 80% come from ios platform. In fact, given that we have several people, this amount does not seem exorbitant. Part of the income guzzle invests in equipment, software licenses, devices, promotion.






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future Plans

During the year our little hobby has evolved into a small Studio, now all the participants left most of the work and working on their products full time. The financial "cushion" allows you to experiment with different projects that we are going to release in the next few months. Now the priorities are logical games and puzzles.

ios version
android version

In connection with the update pro version will be free until tomorrow!
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Article based on information from habrahabr.ru