Ask YC: Feedback on our new app. | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Feedback on our new app.

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15 pointsmattmaroon16 comments

Given what we learned from our last app and what we gathered from the many of you we've talked to who built them before, we decided to try another. Your feedback was helpful last time, so I thought I'd ask once again.

It's a football game in which you build up the best team. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Do you have any demos or other ways of seeing or learning more about the application without the use of a facebook account?

Not really, sorry. If it takes off, we'll probably make a front end for the web and OpenSocial though.

MUCH BETTER! Using Mob Wars as a template was a wise choice.

Still the invite component needs to be pushed harder. You aren't enforcing team size requirements for running missions and you aren't rewarding people for building rosters of real players.

OH, and you forgot to put in Offerpal. This is a great game for Offerpal. :)

I see you do reward $10 per hour per fan when you buy a hat logo deal. Not very obvious though and encouraging them to get more "fans" when they buy the hat deal would good. :)

Ah, good thinking. You also get paid more when you play games, which I should also make clear. Maybe I'll put a description in the fan page, and also in the challenge page.

Thanks for the advice.

Oh, there'll be a commissioner section coming soon. We'll even let people buy star athletes and such.

Seems cool. It does get a bit repetitive after a while though. I also see a blank screen when I click on "Fans" and "Front Office"

How does having a higher level affect anything? I can train players and get more equipment but in the very end all I have to show is my level and standings?

Some thoughts:

- If you create your team from your friends, let them contribute to their "player" somehow

- Potentially have some type of tournament/playoffs

- Potentially have actual games that can be used to upgrade skills. Pay a certain amount of your money to play a game that can increase your QB passing either 1 or 2 points depending how you do. That will add some more interaction. Or you can have the user just opt for the safe approach and get the minimum or average.

Are you still seeing blank screens? That shouldn't be happening at all.

Higher levels unlock more items. You can see that on the Office page, but maybe we should make that more noticeable. We'll have more things too once we integrate some future features.

At the very end, much like Mob Wars, you'll have various virtual items and such. We'll probably mix in achievements and trophies and the like you can win. I should think more about that stuff.

Interesting thought about the friends, I'll try to think of that. Might be a really good idea if we can come up with a good implementation.

Tournaments are in the plans.

We've got some other unique forms of training coming up. I'll think about that though.

Thanks for all the great ideas.

I'm able to see all the pages now although I wasn't able to over the weekend. I could see the unlocking feature now but without the office page I wasn't able to see anything - only what the other teams had bought.

I've got another idea for you that may make things pretty interesting and may not be too hard to implement depending on the way you are handling the game simulation now:

Display the results of the game (similar to a game cast type of feature). It would be interesting to see how well the various players performed and how the skill investment has paid off.

I have no clue how you handled the simulation but if it's using standard football rules I imagine you randomly choose a play, then randomly choose the player, then randomly calculate the odds of success based on the player's skills (as well as QB if passing play) and the skills of the opposing defense.

I tend to be more data driven than most but this seems like a pretty interesting feature to me. It will also get people to stay more on the app instead of going somewhere else while the energy/stamina regenerates.

I like the concept. If it does whats advertised and without too many bugs it sounds like something a LOT of sports buffs would like. So it looks like a good idea with a lot of potential... beyond that I have not yet tried it myself, but I intend to.

Thanks. Please tell me if it lives up to its promise.

The hardest part is the game mechanics, pricing stuff, payouts, etc. Making it so people can advance, but not so fast that they get bored. Making them want to come back, but still giving them some stuff to do now.

It's a tightrope and has made me appreciate Mob Wars and other video games more.

I'm curious - at what MAU level will the game "break even"?

What do you mean by that?

Monthly active users, what level do you need to reach to meet your revenue goals, if you have any. You don't have to answer, I'm more interested to know how you've thought about it.

Oh, I don't really know. It's too soon to tell what expenses will be like for it, but they should be pretty low, and I think that if the game becomes popular we can monetize fairly well. I've heard some revenue numbers typical for a game that make me think 100k of them would be pretty profitable.

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