New name, same game

"... and then there's an extra P thrown in there with a shovel to make it more unique."

The last 8 months it's been a bit quiete here - and for good reason.

After releasing The Graveyard update back in April last year, I needed a long break from game development.

I put a lot of work into that update, tried to get it off the ground. Wrote to lots of review sites (and got nearly zero response), posted in forums and ran a few compaigns with Apple and Facebook ads, which did drive some downloads, and then I came to the conclusion that Tapporcry had to be renamed.

Why? you may very rightly ask and there's several good reasons for this. Sit back and let me explain.

1. The name was too weird for Apple

My game would not show up when searching for obvious keywords such as "tap" and one would have to write "tappor" before it would appear. It's common knowledge that the title is important when it comes to App Store search and my title was not working in my favor and not doing it's job. And the "tappor" part sounded too beer or brewing related.

2. The name was too weird for people

When people asked about my game they always seemed surprised by the name and more than once I found myself spelling and explaining it. "Eeehem! Listen really careful now (teeth grinding), the game is called T A P P O R C R Y - as in Tap or Cry ... and then there's an extra P thrown in there with a shovel to make it more unique. It's like, if you don't tap the scary monsters you might end up crying out in pain .... just like I'm in pain now trying to explain this to you (brain pulsating)."

3. Hard to communicate in ads

A picture with angry monsters and text saying "Tapporcry" wasn't communicating the gameplay well. Changing it to "Tap or Cry" made it look so much better and seemed so much easier to understand.

So - the decision was made and the name was changed. Uploaded a new version to Google Play (easy), uploaded a new version to Apple - and then it got rejected! (sigh!) Now what! Turned out my game didn't include Apple's, newly introduced, ad tracking dialog and this would not be a quick fix.

And that's where I got really tired, lost my last shred of motivation and left it. Since then, it's had close to zero downloads and there's absolutely no interest.

Slowly, after a long break, I began looking at some code and what it would take to implement Apple's dialog. Got it fixed over a few days and here we are. The game is now officially titled Tap or Cry and it feels great to have finally wrapped that up.

Hopefully this will help increase its discoverability and, who knows, maybe a few confused App Store searchers will stumple upon it. Seeing some daily organic downloads would sure be uplifting. I'll also give the Facebook ads another try.