Releasing an iPhone game: Whack-a-Kitty three weeks later | Hacker News Reader

Releasing an iPhone game: Whack-a-Kitty three weeks later

alexc.me

31 pointsalex_c30 comments

I'm sorry that the (very creative and funny) name for your app is causing people to troll here. I think it's an awesome name, and I honestly may not have clicked through to read your article had the name not caught my attention.

I'll pass along some good advice I've heard: Acknowledge and accept suggestions, ignore the haters.

So does anyone have any actionable, constructive advice for alex_c in promoting his app store app?

Here are a couple of things I can think of:

* Make some friends on Twitter; give out free copies using App Store promo codes

* Submit your game to the various iPhone game review sites

Name it Pet-a-Kitty: no more disgusting tone, plus a wider audience would actually like it.

What is used for event data?

http://www.localytics.com/ and custom events.

Maybe I'm over-sensitive, but the game sounds like it makes light of animal abuse.

So very, very not cool.

Maybe I'm over-sensitive You are. But worse, you didn't watch the video. Why would you try to comment on something you're not going to even try to examine?

As another comment pointed out, the game's just a play (haw) on the Whack-a-Kitty youtube video. The game looks only slightly less adorable. It's also showing how even any game, even those as brutally simple as this, require * ton* of attention to graphics (which I'd hope would be obvious. A proper game requires even more attention to gameplay, but that rant will wait).

If you -honestly- think the concept alone makes light of animal abuse, what do you think about FPS's?

I won't get into a long debate, because I doubt it can be constructive (I had a longer post, but it wasn't going anywhere), so I'll just leave it at this: I disagree.

It seems you're not cognizant of the impact and impression a name like that can give people.

Take some social responsibility. And be prepared to deal with concerns like mine as long as your game has that name.

Completely regardless of "social responsibility" or "over-sensitivity" or anything like that: what effect does that name have on sales/downloads? I wouldn't think it'd be good.

And, yes, that's "unfair" since it's a play on Whack-A-Mole (which I've never heard complained about)... are moles more OK to whack than kitties? Still, that's the way the world works, and I wouldn't have used that name for my own game for that reason alone.

Well, for what it's worth, this thread was the first "complaint" about the name. I expected that to happen on YouTube first, but it was actually HN - go figure.

It's really tough to separate the name from all other factors influencing downloads, but I haven't seen any evidence it's hurting.

I think the name is pretty effective, for a few reasons: the most common reaction when I tell people the name, by far, is genuine laughter. I'll take that over polite interest any day. The name is descriptive, anyone who knows what Whack-a-Mole is can make an educated guess about this game (although it's probably cuter than they would expect). And yes, it is a tiny bit naughty - no one ACTUALLY wants to whack a kitten! - which is what makes it memorable, without crossing into offensive or controversial for controversy's sake (at least for the vast majority of people).

Do you have suggestions for other names? I can't think of anything good - "Tap-a-Kitten" or "Tap-a-Kitty" sound a lot more bland and unremarkable. Lots of R-rated names I can think of, but that's the last thing I want to get into in this thread :p

Here's my only suggestion: rename it "Whac-A-Kitten". Drop the "k", throw in a couple of hyphens.

Might not be enough for the most vigorous of offense-takers (nothing ever will be in this arena), but it at least partially mitigates that visual symbol "whack". And is a more direct reference to its progenitor, anyway. It 'feels' more like a carnival game to me than "WhackAKitty" does.

Edit: maybe also change "Kitten" to "Kitty"? I'm not sure why that sounds a bit more palatable to me - maybe because "kitten" only ever means a juvenile cat whereas "kitty" can mean several other things? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty

Whacking any kind of animal is not cool.

But I wonder, with all the creative possibilities in the universe, why would someone design a game around abusing kittens?

Watch the video. It's based on a Youtube clip of someone gently prodding adorable little kittens back into a box with a very soft mallet. No abuse here, and a valid enough inspiration for a quick game.

> But I wonder, with all the creative possibilities in the universe, why would someone design a game around abusing kittens?

They didn't. Maybe you should actually look at the game sometime.

I guess even in the startup communities, making money is paramount to ethics.

Or to answer your question: To make money.

Animal abuse is usually illegal, and especially to target an animal that is regarded as a pet makes it more the inhumane. However, there are plenty of games that promote violence in our culture, but do we need yet another one? I don't think so.

They are free to make it, but they also take the responsibility of releasing it. Perhaps from a corporate stance, it may be about social responsibility. However, I mean personal: do you honestly think that putting that forth in the world will result in anything good? Most likely, it will come back to them in one bad form or another.

Or, to make a point, how about further games to sell:

   Rape the bitch
   KKK Kross Alley
   Stone the Adulterer
   Spics Kikes and Pikeys
   Skinhead adventures
   Hitler's Easy Bake oven

I mean, if we dont take responsibility for our own actions, who will?

You are simply extending the argument to ridiculousness to make a point. What about the game angry birds? It features suicidal birds with bombs strapped to them that you fling into buildings to kill pigs.

It's a stupid, highly overrated game for sheeple.

That was arrogant, but to make you happy, why don't we just call this game a "highly overrated game for sheeple" too and let it slide?

Are you one of those people who believe GTA makes kids steal cars, or that sonic the hedgehog makes kids run into walls and try to loop around their ceiling?

"sheeple" Oh, you're just trolling. It's more fun if you keep it subtle.

Do you object similarly to Whac-A-Mole? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whack_a_mole I presume that's what Whack-a-Kitty is based off of.

As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I don't think it's a great name for a variety of reasons, but it's a bit of a stretch to say a guy that's got an app with a tone-deaf name is being irresponsible and to suggest to him that he could also make Rape-the-Bitch.

You must immediately go sue Chuck-E-Cheeze for their Whack-A-Mole games. Those are way more realistic -- you actually physically hit it!!

I'm assuming you're at least as offended by every single first person shooter.

Yes, you are being overly sensitive.

The site isn't loading for me, but I'm guessing it's a reference to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_udqEp_YR4

My server seems to be choking... not sure why, since server load isn't particularly high, I'm messing with caching to try to get it under control.

And yes, you are absolutely right - the game is based on that video.

Did you disagree with Bonsai Kitten[1] for the same reason?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten

Hey.. no one stopped them from making a Whack-a-human iphone game! All they do is eat, sleep and shit. They don't even roll over and play dead. No! They want you to pet them - but not all the time! no.. only when they want you to pet them! Its about time we had our little revenge! Even if it was only in electronic / imaginary form. Viva la revolucion! Viva!

Didn't enjoy Lemmings as a kid either, eh?

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