“Freeze!” and 100% Indie (Guest piece)

“Freeze!” and 100% Indie (Guest piece)

Andreas von Lepel is the developer of Freeze!, an award-winning puzzler arcade game and a Corona SDK App of the Week winner. In Freeze!, a doomed hero tries to escape from the evil forces holding him hostage, and he needs you to to outwit his captors.

Receiving well over one million downloads, Freeze! won the 2013 Indie Prize Europe award, was featured in the App Store in 149 countries, and has received glowing reviews from players around the globe. As an indie developer, Andreas writes on the evolution of Freeze!, from his development journey with Corona SDK to his recent partnership with Chillingo.


Freeze! dev headshotMy name is Andreas von Lepel, and I’m the creator of Freeze! – a physics arcade-puzzler that I published in 10 languages on Apple’s App Store, Amazon Appstore, Google Play, NOOK Apps and Samsung Apps. Freeze! was also featured by Apple in 149 countries as “New and Noteworthy.”

Freeze! climbed to the #1 position as a freemium game in 36 countries on iTunes, won the “2013 Indie Prize Europe” award and has to my surprise (and delight), received more than 1.3 million downloads.

If you’re not familiar with Freeze!, take a look at the launch trailer.

After Freeze! hit stores on November 30, 2012, lots of amazing things began to happen. I’d like to tell you about the most interesting.

Recently I was contacted by Chillingo and was asked to sign an NDA between Chillingo, EA, Samsung and myself. It regarded the launch of a new web portal for indie developers called 100% Indie. It launched just a few weeks ago and I haven’t been able to write about it, until now that is.

Chillingo asked me to write an article series about the development of Freeze! and I was, of course, happy to participate. After all, there aren’t many bigger names out there than Chillingo, EA and Samsung! I’m excited to share that the first part two parts of my series are now live, the first piece is about the development of Freeze!, while the second details my work with Corona SDK.

If you take a look at the image below, it will give you a hint about the things I write about in the first piece. It’s a comparison of the initial prototype of Freeze!, after two weeks of development, and the final game:

Freeze! image

I wanted to write in order to promote Corona SDK, because without it, the development of Freeze! would not have been possible. And while the first part of the Freeze! series covers lots of interesting tidbits about game design and prototyping, the second installment covers the work I did with Corona and the tools I used to make my game. And more active developers, translates to more income for Corona Labs, which means an even stronger SDK!

So, and what’s 100% Indie all about? Well, as I wrote above, I did publish Freeze! for Samsung Apps. This isn’t as easy as it should be – they have a review process that’s a bit complicated and though using Corona SDK is fine for publishing to Samsung Apps, I had to make a few tweaks and problem solve through some issues.

100% Indie is now offering a very attractive program: publish your game to Samsung Apps via the 100% Indie program, and if your game is accepted, (the Chillingo guys will have a closer look at the quality of your work) you will get 100% revenue for the first 6 month, then 90% for the next 6 months etc. Take a look at the nice conditions and of course, by working with Chillingo, you have a bigger chance of getting some app store promotions by Samsung as well.

Now read my first two articles about the development of Freeze! and have a good laugh at the problems I faced and the mistakes I made (thankfully I was able to correct most of them). Also, read about my experience working with Corona SDK as well as other tools, and then get back to coding to create some great games!

Andreas von Lepel, Creator of Freeze!

inna
5 Comments
  • Maximilian Weber
    Posted at 13:12h, 25 March

    This seems to be interesting. I am going to publish my upcoming game to Samsung Apps as well. Might give it a try 🙂

    Greetings from Germany!

    • Andreas
      Posted at 01:44h, 26 March

      Hi Maximilian,
      it’s definitely worth a try, and mybe Chillingo likes your game – would be a nice option for distribution if you can work with them.

      But don’t forget to use daily build #1030 for the Samsung Apps version, because that build is the last one that supports the “mute” ( that the app goes into silent mode when “mute” is activated for the phone ). Samsung insists on this when they review your app.

      From build #1031 on this “mute” feature was removed again, because Google Play doesn’t like it – so please use this one or a more recent daily build for your Google Play version. 🙂

      Best,
      Andreas

      P.S.:
      If you want to contact me to talk about your game please use the contact form on the website for my game “Freeze!” ( frozengun.com )

  • Chris
    Posted at 02:39h, 26 March

    Hey Andreas. What a great read about the process of your game! Especially with the background you have!
    I downloaded the game when I saw it in the AppStore mostly because I like the Art-Style and support other developers as much as I can 😉

    It seems that Samsung Apps / 100% Indie might be a good opportunity, even though it’s a bit awkward to see that Chillingo recently features “Rolling Hero” – a spinoff of your game..

    Wish you the best for further projects!

    Grüße aus Hamburg nach Hamburg 😉

    • Andreas
      Posted at 04:21h, 26 March

      Thanks Chris!

      I of course looked at “Rolling Hero” and it’s in fact a very old game you can find on lots of Flash-gaming-sites. It seems to be an slightly updated version with much improved art – maybe after seeing “Freeze!” the developers of the Flash-“Rolling Hero”-series decided to bring their own game to the mobile market.

      It’s ok for me, lots of reviewers ( on site like AppAdvice.com ) wrote about the similarities to “Freeze!” – and that it really is no “Freeze!” without a “Freeze!”-button. 🙂

      Best from Hamburg, too,
      Andreas

      • Chris
        Posted at 05:29h, 26 March

        Sure – haven’t checked if the game had a background.

        And yes, no Freeze! without the Freeze!-Button 😉 Still I like this old FilmNoir-Look better than the Candy-Look, but that’s only my own preference.

        Hope you’re working on the next big thing!
        Thanks again for the great read.