Show HN: My side project iOS game just hit #3 in the Finnish App Store | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My side project iOS game just hit #3 in the Finnish App Store

gymnastickgame.com

8 pointsaparadja9 comments

So, I feel like I'm a little bit out of my league. I read the book "Surviving the App Store" and decided to follow its strategy of releasing an MVP in the App Store as early as possible.

Today, I woke up to see it at #3 in the paid apps for my country's overall Top Chart, #2 in games and #1 in its subcategory.

A publisher has now approached me about publishing the game. I have no idea about the pitfalls. If anyone here has any experience, I'd love to hear any pointers.

Congrats, and the game looks really cool!

I'm curious: how did you market your game? What made you go in the top charts?

Finland is a rather small market, so friends & family were probably a big influence to get it off the ground. (Seems that it only takes some hundreds of downloads to reach the top spot.)

I also started threads with promo code giveaways in TouchArcade and Reddit, and emailed reviewers.

With those as a base, it got some initial visibility and then bloggers/reviewers started asking for promo copies.

Your landing page is 100% on point. Explains about the product in the first second. No hassle, not too much fluff.

Awesome stuff. Congrats for reaching #3.

Thanks!

Wow, that's what I call elegant and minimalistic design - both the landingpage and the game footage itself. Are you planning to release it for android too sometime?

Thanks! It's built with Swift, so I'll have to see how far it goes in the App Store first before porting it. Finland alone is not a huge market, so it's hard to tell.

Pretty neat game. I commend you for not integrating ads or IAP. I went the same route with my iOS game.

Was it a financial success? And care to link to the game?

In a way I feel like saying no to ads and IAP is a noble goal, but not the financially smart one. I was OK with it for this one, because this was a hobby/passion project that I wanted to make for a long time. I didn't want to ruin my baby with filthy ads, profits be damned.

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