So you probably have never heard of iOrnament. It's a quiet little artistic canvas for drawing mathematically inspired artwork (you'll get what I mean after you buy and install it). I felt this app and this interview is important because it shows how having a unique intersect of programming and expertise in a niche subject matter, can lead to success.
How old are you? What's your professional and educational background?
I'm 52 by now. I'm a math professor but always have done a considerable bit of implementation. My research background is on geometry. Over the years I worked on several software projects of different scale. I love visualization and during the last few years I became really thrilled about questions of UI and UX design.
What technologies/frameworks did you use to build iOrnament?
Large parts of iOrnament are written in ObjectiveC (using Xcode). The visualization parts that are performance critical are written in OpenGL ES.
How long did it take to build?
Difficult to say. Actually the origins of iOrnament date back to 1986 were I wrote a similar program for symmetry visualization on an Atari for a public exhibition. Over the years I had related projects that were used in various maths exhibitions. The app iOrnament started as a kind of design study. The first proof of concept implementation worked after two weeks. However, it took six months until the first release was ready. All implementation in parallel to my "daytime job". I never count time when implementing and most of it happens at night.
How big is the code base?
The current release is around 2.2MB self written sources. And there are tons of graphics materials and explanation texts. The first release was only 650KB.
How much lifetime revenue (gross) has the game generated on iOS?
All in all around $50K (US)
During the sale and development of iOrnament, what was one of your happiest moments?
There were several. I always love when I receive artwork from users that use the app in a way that I never thought would be possible. This is an incredible feeling, every time when it happens. In the hands of the right people your app can do more than you imagined. Also direct contact to some of the users can be very rewarding. I got to know really incredible people through the app: artists, craftsmen, other scientists, musicians.
Another happy point was realizing that the average rating of iOrnament is within the very top of the scale. I first scanned the Education App Store (80000 Apps at that time) in 2014 and discovered that from all apps with more than 200 ratings iOrnament was among the Top 25 apps with respect to rating (even Top 10 in my home country). This feels good.
Your saddest moments?
The absolute down point was when I realized that a (well tested) version immediately crashed on many US devices. I got 12 1-star reviews in two days. At that time I was with my family in a very small B&B place close to Oxford with an almost non-existent internet connection. In a memorable night shift and with the help of a user in the US I managed to create an update and submit it to the App Store, in a kind of internet-slow-motion session paired with panic :-)
Another issue of constant sadness is the impression that Apple does not get aware of small independent productions even if they are extremely well rated.
What tips do you have for those that are just starting with programming and game development?
First of all try to have fun with your project. If you enjoy it others will most probably enjoy it, too. Try to find a topic for your app that is unique and original. I guess even a simple idea can be quite successful if it is genuine and well done.
I also think trying to imagine a potential user and how he/she behaves when interacting with your app is an important step in development. If you want to survive on the App Store an important step is to avoid obvious flaws of the App. Users, can be very friendly but they also can be incredibly rude (in ratings and reviews) if they are disappointed. So avoid disappointment.
When it comes to programming I recommend to avoid unnecessary complexity. Do not over-optimize. Focus on one problem at the time and solve it. Try to create code that is readable even in ten years from now.
We may have a couple of project managers reading this interview. Any tips for them with regards to managing a project/interacting with developers?
Well, iOrnament is a one-person project. However, I very often observe that the different parts of a development team are having their fights in my brain (sounds schizophrenic :-) ): The developer in me says "more features", the marketing person answers "release soon", the UI designer says "keep it simple", and the manager says "shut up, all three". All this, no matter if in one person or distributed to many persons is important. I guess it is relevant to have the various aspects of a project in mind and to understand the different points of view. My personal view is that in project development you need many pragmatic compromises. More features may not always make a program better. The task of the manager is to understand the specific problems of the different parts of the project and to find a healthy balance.
Also, we may have a couple of ad men reading this interview. Any tips for them with regards to marketing a game?
I'm by no means a marketing or sales person. However, what I very much enjoy is contact to real people. iOrnament is a kind of living project and I have the impression that part of its (moderate) success is that I try to keep an honest and close dialogue with iOrnament users. This partially shapes the project. For instance the idea for the Ornament World Exhibition came from a series of e-mails with a user (thanks Anne L.-P.) who send me her creations and I thought: Wouldn't it be great to share this on a larger scale. The latest release is a reaction to users asking for more pro-aspects in the app.
I somehow believe in initial fluctuations. In this philosophy you must try that the first appearance of your app is as good as possible so that it creates a kind of positive chain reaction. It is like lighting a fire with one rod in a dark room :-) I mean that serious.
You went for a premium game as opposed to a game that was free with IAP. Why?
There are only very few steering mechanisms for an independent production with only little to no marketing budget. One of these steering aspects is pricing.
iOrnament alternates longer paid periods and short free periods. Prince drops and short free periods can (if well announced) attract many new users. If the app is good, users hopefully leave good reviews on the App Store which cause a sustain effect for the paid periods. I have the strong impression that with the alternation of short free periods and long paid periods all in all one can reach more users than with each model solely. Currently iOrnament has around 500,000 downloads.
Given hindsight is 20/20, would you have done anything differently with regards to building and selling iOrnament?
Life is life. You make mistakes and if you try to avoid them you will make others. I really enjoy that iOrnament is a process, an unplannable road – living. If I knew how to write the ultimate sales pitch letter to Apple I would write it, but I simply don't. If I knew in advance that one version would crash in the US, I would have not released it. But I didn't. Perhaps the one thing I have learned in the meantime is that it is great to have beta testers. I had a crowd of 40 people testing the latest release and this really was extremely helpful.
iOrnament has a good bit of 5 star reviews. What's your secret?
If I knew it, it would reproduce it :-)
First of all good ratings do not necessarily correlate with many downloads. I have another app out there, that I also like a lot but which is way less successful (so far :-) ) than iOrnament. It has also pretty good ratings but much fewer downloads.
If you try to be listed with 5 stars this is a close to impossible undertaking. (There is a little arithmetic you can do: Being listed 5-stars means you have an average rating of 4.75+ this implies that every 1-star rating must be compensated by 15 5-star ratings. Every 2 star rating by 11 5-star ratings and so forth). So there are two important things. Firstly create a good app that relates to the heart of the users. Secondly give no reason to complain. For this it is also sometimes reasonable to leave out some features that may create the desire for even more. There are some reviews of the kind "The app is great and it would deserve 5 stars, but I only give 4 since I also want blablabla". It is good to avoid such situations.
Another point is to honestly connect with users. As I said I like the contact and in an unmeasurable way this helps a lot. It is no shame for an independent developer to ask people to write honest reviews (never ask for high ratings this is unethical in my opinion). Trust in the strength of your product and let the users decide.