Owen's Odyssey, now on Android and iOS!

Owen's Odyssey

Owen’s Odyssey is the story of a boy, while on a journey, taking refuge from a storm in a dangerous place – Castle Pookapick. A castle where spikes, saws, fire, falling rocks, lava and creatures try and end him. It’s a crappy place to take refuge. It’s okay though. He can float past dangers using his trusty propeller hat.

There's a demo here! http://www.owensodysseygame.com/demo/

Available now!

Get the Game

- Google Play
- iOS
- Facebook
- Twitter

Screenshots





Gamplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smp49cnCHLg

Commentary

This is my first game, heck my first post. I lurked the forums and Googled for the answers to my questions. I heard about Stencyl through an article posted on Kotaku at the beginning of the year. Long story short, this amazing tool has allowed me to accomplish something I didn't think possible. Thanks!

Nice going with the game, it looks great!

Thanks a lot! Owen is based on my kid, so making this has been really rewarding.

Wow, I really like the graphics! 
I try it now!

The graphics were the fun part. The coding, not so much. But like I said, once you start to get the hang of Stencyl, you can accomplish a lot.

Hey man, just wanted to tell you that I saw an article in a games magazine I like to read and your game is in it - I didn't know if you were aware of it so I just wanted to tell you here
Anyway it's like a "Games of the week" (mobile games) article but be warned that it is in Danish! (You have to scroll down the page to see it) http://www.gamereactor.dk/artikler/263054 - Good luck to you, I hope you get more downloads!

Thanks for the tip! Also, I added the iOS link to the original post. I'm experimenting with a free, ad-supported version on Android, and a $1.99 version on iOS (at least for now).

I was wondering why my Android installs jumped! It's been doing alright on iOS so far. The game got mentioned on Touch Arcade last week, so that's probably why. http://toucharcade.com/2014/12/10/new-iphone-games-coming-tonight-41/ I don't really know how they came across it as I haven't really done more than tweet about it, as well as some light Facebook marketing.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was piracy. I knew the game would be pirated, but not at the rate it is right now (like, only 1 in 4 players registering scores on the leaderboard are using legit copies). I'm of two minds about it - it's getting the word out, but it's kind of a drag that so many people are playing it for free. But, those people probably wouldn't pay for it anyway.

How are you finding out about pirating? What do you use?

I wouldn't know at all if I didn't use Game Center Leaderboards. The number of scores logged and the number of sales don't match at all.

After I suspected tomfoolery, I Googled 'Owens Odyssey ipa download' and a bunch of results popped up for direct links to download a cracked version of the game. Most likely loaded onto jail broken phones, but I don't know much about that.

EDIT:
I found it odd that Apple would allow pirates to use Game Center, but I guess they do. Very old article, but I guess nothing has changed: http://www.redmondpie.com/pirated-iphone-apps-dominate-leaderboard-on-ios-game-center-case-study/

I wouldn't know at all if I didn't use Game Center Leaderboards. The number of scores logged and the number of sales don't match at all.

After I suspected tomfoolery, I Googled 'Owens Odyssey ipa download' and a bunch of results popped up for direct links to download a cracked version of the game. Most likely loaded onto jail broken phones, but I don't know much about that.

EDIT:
I found it odd that Apple would allow pirates to use Game Center, but I guess they do. Very old article, but I guess nothing has changed: http://www.redmondpie.com/pirated-iphone-apps-dominate-leaderboard-on-ios-game-center-case-study/

I was about to say, I know a few people that don't use Game center.

I didn't use it at all until I started developing the game. I mean, you can't get really exact numbers because their are people who don't use it that purchase a legit copy. But wow, there are almost 600 scores logged - I have not sold that many, that's for sure!

Knocked the price of the iOS version to 99 cents. It seems to have been the wise choice. I did some Twitter plugging that also included a link to the Android version and saw a significant rise in BOTH installs. Hopefully I can sustain that over the holiday.

Also, I would like to thank the Stencyl crew for the link on the showcase page.

I was roaming the forums to find some Android games that were made with Stencyl, to see a proof of concept, and started playing Owen's Odyssey. It is a great game with good mechanics and the controls are very intuitive. I have found my completionist nature and the need to collect all the coins is causing me to die a lot more often so I haven't ventured into the further levels yet, but I am looking forward to getting there. I imagine the retention is quite high, as the first thing I did on day 2 during some down time was open and play OO.
Could I ask how much time it took to develop this game and how much coding went into the final product? It's great to see what you have achieved with Stencyl and has helped motivate me to use Stencyl over Unity for now, as I learn to make games.

The secret to the game is to beat the Time Targets - that yields that most extra lives! In general, collect as many coins as you can while striving for those Time Targets will yield more success. Also, if you beat the game, a level select will unlock on the main screen, allowing you to collect at your hearts content.

I read an article on Kotaku early in the year about developing your own game, so after reading about and trying Stencyl, I decided to set a personal goal of finishing a game by the end of the year.

So off and on, I'd say I started in March and finished in November. That wasn't 24/7 of course. It was mostly on spare time and early in the mornings. I dug the 'visual coding' style of Stencyl, but it was still slow going because I've never coded a thing before (outside of HTML/CSS - I'm a graphic designer by trade). I understand the basic 'cause and effect' concept of programming, but any code syntax would make my head explode. Stencyl helps you with that.

Stencyl helped a newbie make a video game for his son. That's pretty rad. Give it a go!

Thanks for the insights, it's a massive achievement to attain your goal. I really hope it is a success no matter what size. I'm definitely going to get stuck in and start making some prototypes, Cheers!