So, how is it going?

It’s been a while I didn’t write here!!

Truth is I was busy as hell. And Cat Killer is one of reasons why.

To be honest, there are so many things to say about the game that I don’t know where to start.

Let’s summarize the key events to remember since the release of the game (Jan the 11th):

Youtube Reviews

Probably one of the first thing that happened was that lots of people actually tried and reviewed the game without any marketing from me.

Right after the release, Pocket Gamer tested the game and made the following video:

The content was quite harsh but really accurate. So from there, lots of changes were made to the game (the joysticks I introduced in previous posts are an example). Even if some changes were in my mind, I didn’t expect early reviews of the game. That’s probably why we should always prefer closed Betas instead of “throttled” releases! I learnt my lesson!

Since then, many other videos were made. The game was featured in many tops!

Some streamers had fun testing it!

Ohayoo contest

Ohayoo (from ByteDance, makers of TykTok) organized an Indie Mobile game and proposed me to submit Cat Killer there.

Surprizingly, Cat Killer ended in the top 10! More info here.
Well, the good thing about this is the prize ($1500) will serve to do some marketing anytime soon.

Also, Ohayoo did some User Acquisition for the game to monitor a bit the performances of the game before eventually proposing a deal.

Sadly the game didn’t perform well there. The retention seemed quite bad. And they suggested me to look for blocking bugs in the game because according to them it might have been the main reason for people dropping on Cat Killer early.

Performances on low end devices

Most of the bad reviews I received were initially pointing out lags and crashes. I didn’t consider them at first because the overall ratings were really good. I took this seriously when Ohayoo decided to not invest on the Game.

That’s when I started to check on the Android Developer Console what devices people who were complaining actually used. Most of them used what we often call “low end” devices which are simply smartphones that have low technical specs. Truth is those devices are actually quite decent, but it all depends on the requirements of the game.

I purchased a used Xiaomi Redmi 9A (2Go or RAM) as some players had. And as some of them mentioned the game simply crashed.

It took me 2 weeks to resolve the issues, optimize the graphics and finally get a version fully running on the A9. Since then, I didn’t get any bad review for performances.
Sadly, the side effect is that the graphical quality really dropped.

My takeaways:

• Forget about testing your game with your high end device (last iPhone or last fancy Samsung Galaxy). It’s a bad idea and it represents only a small percentage of what people actually use on the market.
• Optimize on the go, not at the end (obvious, I know).
• Get different devices to test.

4. Discord

I created a Discord server when I launched the game. Not so many people joined BUT it doesn’t take much to have a positive impact. A player named “Feat Bunny” tested the game a lot and completed the 30 levels. In the process he shared many bugs and improvement ideas. This definitely helped making Cat Killer a better game!

Finally

At the moment, I’m preparing a new release, taking into account some feedbacks a gaming company was willing to share with me for free! Then I’ll do some UA by running some campaigns on Instagram or elsewhere. I hope the game will keep attracting more and more players. Oh, and the multiplayer mode is work in progress.