Salt & Pepper: A Physics Game (coming soon)

iamcartez

Salt & Pepper is a physics-based puzzle game. The goal is to draw a pathway for the salt and pepper to reach their bowls. When enough salt and pepper has reached their bowls, a star will appear. When all bowls have a star, the level is complete.

Release date will be May 29, 2014 or the week after as I am working on the few issues such: the game is too forgiving, the bowls collision and the path going crazy on iPhone 5S with 7.1 installed. Feedback, complaints or dislikes are all welcomed...

A few promo codes are available.

XP9HYMEY9XKL

MX4PAFTA9PJH

6HEAKJ6H66JE

NEE4FMJ3XJ64

JAKKY6MXHPXE

Y6FJNMELPJYW

FJMNPPEATLML

N9PL6YYLEAPJ

KL3WYTWJ6YXM

bjandthekatz

Reminds me of sugar sugar.

iamcartez

Yeah I ran across sugar sugar halfway through making this game and was like crap, well... guess I'll make my version easier since sugar sugar make me smash my phone.

AngryBoi

Looks fun

JSproject

@iamcartez took FJMNPPEATLML, thank you! I like the clean design and the game mechanics. Played through the first 8 levels in a few min - It's a fun little puzzle game for sure, actually a winner in my book

I realized fast that the best tactics is to draw a "U" to collect e.g. the salt and then focus on getting the pepper done first before returning to the salt. If you want to make it harder you could introduce a time limit in regards to how long a certain drawn shape would hold up. Another way to make it harder would be to drop salt & pepper from more than one location each (maybe you're doing that on later levels?).

iamcartez

@JSproject said:
iamcartez took FJMNPPEATLML, thank you! I like the clean design and the game mechanics. Played through the first 8 levels in a few min - It's a fun little puzzle game for sure, actually a winner in my book

I realized fast that the best tactics is to draw a "U" to collect e.g. the salt and then focus on getting the pepper done first before returning to the salt. If you want to make it harder you could introduce a time limit in regards to how long a certain drawn shape would hold up. Another way to make it harder would be to drop salt & pepper from more than one location each (maybe you're doing that on later levels?).

Thank you! I'm happy you like it... And it does get harder after level 20 or so and also the Salt and Pepper will drop from different locations after 25... I have an update that will be available before I release the game that will have more instructions and fix a few of the issues such as the bowls collision and a draw length limit will be introduced to make it a little more challenging.

iamcartez

Pre-release update.

a. There are no time limits on any of the levels.

b. The draw path is no longer unlimited as many people told me that the unlimited drawing made the game... too easy.

c. The salt and pepper will stop falling after their bowls are filled on all devices. This helps with memory issues on older devices.

d. The side and bottom collisions on the bowls are better and no longer requires the salt and pepper to be dropped in the center.

e. The draw path will no longer create random lines when multi-touching or swiping across the screen 2 times faster than the line is created.

f. Up to 300 x/y coordinates are now saved in a table in preparation for a potential undo button.

g. Modified a few of the earlier levels to make them less frustrating.

h. Modified the bowl behaviors in Hard mode.

i. Level 1,2,3 is easier now for the beginners.

j. Level 1 is now more of a starter level as it shows more information and rules.

k. The achievements are easier to get as there is a four second grace period to allow the salt and pepper to start dropping.

Mid-June Update (so far):

a. Added 6 more levels.

iamcartez

Salt & Pepper is out!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/salt-pepper-a-physics-game/id877067549?ls=1&mt=8

iamcartez

natzuur

Cool game man, congrats on the feature @iamcartez

iamcartez

Thank you very much!

BazookaTime

Congrats on the success, that is a huge accomplishment!

iamcartez

Thanks man. I could go for any more support I can get from the community. I've been up all morning on social media doing this marketing stuff and it's hard work... Like it's so repetitive.

My goal is to be Mr. ASO around here so I'll post my numbers chart.

That red spike is about an hour after Apple updated the App Store.

8bitninja

@iamcartez‌ Cool game dude! Really like your art style. What did you have to do to get your game on the popular list of the appshopper app?

iamcartez

Hmmm I have no idea what appshopper is lol... I'll be downloading it now to find out.

iamcartez

No idea how I got on that list but I'll take it. I think they got some apps from TouchArcade's listing though.

8bitninja

Yeah, I think they do have some connection with TouchArcade. So, how'd you go about getting listed on TouchArcade?

iamcartez

Message sent!

JSproject

@iamcartez again, great game! I'm currently at #1 position on Game Center with 108 points - wonder how long that will last, hehe. Five more hard levels left to enjoy... Your game reminds me in a way of the good old "Lemmings" classics. You deserve every bit of success with this game, very well done!

Another minor suggestion for a future update in order to make the experience even better: "Salt & Pepper sound ON/OFF". That sound gets annoying (quite fast) so I turned "SFX Off". What I personally would prefer would be to have the button sfx and level success sfx ON.

@Socks & @Armelline I'm guessing you guys might enjoy this game also, check it out (as should everyone else for that matter).

iamcartez

Aw man thanks for that. And wow 108 points already.... I'll probably work on the Salt & Pepper sound issue in the June or July update.

I was wondering since you are about to beat the game, do you think the levels are too easy? I have an update that will lock the line after about 8 inches of drawing as this was the original plan.

8bitninja

Awesome, thanks for the tips @iamcartez‌

JSproject

@iamcartez you're welcome! I would need more levels now :P. Didn't play yesterday but I'm still dominating with 113 points at #1 I see (would have thought there would have been a couple of other people up there by now). Second place has 78 points atm.

Anyways, overall it was pretty easy (but hey, maybe I should not be the judge off that considering..
The hardest levels were without a doubt the ones with the moving pepper platforms which moved out off the screen (thus adding a time constraint to the level). I enjoyed them/that element of the game though.

iamcartez

A few more levels will be added later this month. And this week I'll start on the July update. There will be a few changes but nothing drastic, basically the line will not be unlimited anymore, better collision, and other annoyances fixed.

JSproject

cool beans, keep up the good work

Skyrocket_Entertainment

How many downloads you have so far? i see you #116 on top paid, US store now.
Amazing......
@iamcartez‌

iamcartez

Well this game was a huge success for me. Received over 3,000 downloads in a week, last week thanks to being #15 on the Games Homepage and #19 on the iTunes Homepage in 3 big countries.

Thanks GameSalad, if it wasn't for y'all (Texas slang) I would still be making ugly calculators in Xcode.

BazookaTime

Congrats, great numbers!

beefy_clyro

Congrats man! Any marketing put into it?

jamie_c

Cool, good for you!

cyborg_sam

Amazing!!! Congrats!!

iamcartez

Originally it was just dozens of tweets, facebook posts, instagram pics and a few fiver gigs...

Then I saw I made the homepage and the marketing happened on its own. I put about $500 worth of ads from Facebook, Twitter and iAd to gain faster momentum and made it to the overall top 100 in the US... After the week was over, I was off of the Best New Games category list and I lost the momentum.

Facebook and Twitter, I targeted people that simply enjoy physic games.