I’m happy to announce that Text Zedventure is now available for purchase on Windows Phone 7, complete with a trial mode and three chapters that featured in the Xbox Live release last year, as well as a redesigned interface to suit a mobile orientation and touch-based input.
Download it here for 79p / $1. Full press release below:
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CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED TEXT-ONLY ADVENTURE HITS WINDOWS PHONE 7
March 23, 2011: Now available on the Windows Phone Marketplace is Text Zedventure, the acclaimed text-only adventure that debuted on the Xbox Live Indie Game service in early 2010.
In this text-only adventure, you must escape a city ravaged by a mysterious infection. Explore a deserted residence, train station and shopping centre in three unique chapters with multiple endings. Each chapter is designed for replayability, where a single choice can lead to a dramatically different outcome.
It can be purchased for (£0.79 / $1.00 / €1.00) from 17 regions worldwide, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. A trial mode is available.
Here is what critics have had to say about the Xbox 360 version:
“Matthew Reynolds’ moody little masterpiece is surprisingly pacy for a text game… This is far more gripping than it should be.” Official Xbox Magazine UK
“Short but enviably sharp, with a streamlined interface and evocative visual design… It’s a relic, certainly, but a charming and very literate one.” Edge Magazine
“There’s a solid understanding of what makes adventure games work here – the story fills out pleasingly as you follow the breadcrumb trail of options, and the simple presentation fits extremely well with the grisly story – playing through the game is a surprisingly tense experience.” The Guardian
“Yet despite its simplistic, bare-bones nature, Text Zedventure creates the kind of tension and atmosphere that most games fail miserably to conjure up… But it’s gripping and there are some interesting situations and dilemmas that really made me stop and think about my next decision.” Gamesradar.com
Download link: http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=a3da6e7b-0132-e011-854c-00237de2db9e
Text Zedventure was created by Matthew Reynolds. To learn more about Text Zedventure, visit www.crazyreyn.com. Please contact crazyreyn@gmail.com if you have any further questions or comments.
…is excellent. Truly astonishing. My review at DS explains why.
Another round-up of press coverage for Text Zedventure INCOMING!
The Guardian (you can also read it online here)
Podcasts
Interviews
Reviews
First of all, sorry for how horribly late this is: I’ve had a very busy few weeks with work and so on. The good news is that we get a look at TWO months of sales data, including the May charity period. So how has it faired? Very well, I’d say:
May
Trials: 4858
Purchases: 1185 (70% Save The Rhino, 30% Microsoft)
Purchase/Trial Ratio: 24.39 %
Funds raised for charity: £539.99 / $794.66
Very pleased with the sales for the opening month, chalking up hundreds of sales per day in the opening week, most likely due to promotion on the ‘New Releases’ and subsequent reviews from publications. The downward decline as hype dies down is expected, although there are little bumps at the end, which I may attribute to a Twitter giveaway promotion and additional push with publications with five days to spare.
June
Trials: 282
Purchases: 162 (45% developer, 30% Microsoft, 25% charity)
Purchase/Trial Ratio: 57.45 %
Funds raised for developer: £47.39 / $71.86
Funds raised for charity: £26.33 / $39.92
Whether it’s due to less exposure or the charity period drawing to a close, there’s a huge drop in numbers. Not only that, but the graph is all over the place: there’s no pattern or trend going on. The only notable event in this month was GamesMaster magazine covering the game, which was alerted to me on the 17th, and apart from a sudden spike there’s nothing to say it had an impact. If anything, sales were probably down from then on.
The good news overall is that people are still purchasing the game, and that the conversation rate is pretty high at 57%, over double what it was for May.
Funds for charity
Want to see the funds flutter their way to Save The Rhino? Well, er, tough, because it’s already done. Check out this lovely, is perhaps useless screenshot for May:
And here’s June’s stuff, along with an additional £40 in contributions from latecomers:
When you couple that with my fundraising from the marathon (£825) that’s a whopping £1391.32 raised!
Summary: Sales weren’t astronomical, as expected, but I’m really pleased with how it’s gone. Just under six hundred pounds – or over eight hundred dollars – is a total not to be sniffed at, and it’s gone to a great cause. 25% of sales will continue to go to the charity each month, so I’ll be doing occasional updates on how that goes. I expect sales to slowly creep down, but fingers crossed it remains consistent.
And the fact that over 5,000 people have downloaded trials of the game is quite frankly mindblowing – never expected that many to be interested in a simple text-based game. Thanks everyone who has shown interest so far – you’re all super.
It’s now less than five days until the end of Text Zedventure’s charity launch promotion, where all profits from sales of the game go to charity Save The Rhino. Five days!
I can happily confirm that the game passed the 1,000 sales mark last week, meaning it has raised over £450 / $650 in funds – well ruddy done everyone!
It would be great if we can keep this going until the end of the month, so please spread the word as much as you can to raise more funds for charity.
To help things along, I’ll be running a contest on Twitter to give away two codes each day between now and May 31. To enter, simply retweet the following:
‘RT to win one of two copies of charity game Text Zedventure each day between now and May 31 http://bit.ly/asmQ5d #xblig’
I’ll be giving away the codes to two random users sometime between 10PM and 12AM BST. You can retweet to enter each day, giving you a possible five chances to win a code.
Furthermore, if you want review codes for giveaway opportunities on your website, then get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.
I’ll be posting stats next week when the promotion ends to let you know how things go. Thanks, and good luck!
