Making a Hit Tower Defense Game: A Top App Dev Interview

Marketing and Advice

Kingdom Rush has expanded into other Realms!

Kingdom Rush has expanded into other Realms!

A lot of indie developers struggle to get their games noticed and most of them never make it, can you tell us how you managed to stand out of the crowd?

Well I guess part of the credit goes to the fan base. Releasing on flash allowed us to create a huge fan base, because the game became very popular. On top of that we worked with publisher Armorgames that promoted the game to the whole audience of its game portal and made a marketing campaign.

All those factors, combined, helped the game stand out and become feature by Apple on release… then, gladly people on mobile liked the game as much as they did on flash so word of mouth and good reviews did the rest.

Kingdom Rush has been in the Top 100 spot in the App Store during almost its entire lifetime, can you share any tips or tactics you used to achieve such feat?

I think keeping the game on the top 100 is because we never stopped working on it. We kept on updating and improving the game, and we noticed that every time we made an update the game would go up back in ranks… people would get back to the game to see the new content, sometimes we got featured again, so there was extra exposure… and that brings new users. So updating and improving the game was key on keeping it in the top 100.

What advice do you have for aspiring games developers wanting to get into mobile game development?

Well lots of! But most importantly to make a game that they would love to play! Do not try to make the next big thing, just do your own thing, put a lot of love into it, have fun doing so! Making a good game is the most important, the rest, will come on its own.

Where Would You Like To See This Series Headed?

And that concludes our first Top App Dev Interview. A huge thanks to Alvaro and the entire Ironhide Games team for contributing!

If you are an app developer with a hit app or game in the top 100 in the App Store, we’d love to hear from you! Please drop us a note anytime.

At this point, we’d like to ask you where you want to see this series headed. What sorts of things would you like us to ask about in the future? Are there any requests for particular developers you’d like to hear from? Please join the forum discussion below!

We hope you enjoyed this interview, and that you take Alvaro’s advice to heart and build a game you would love to play!

Note: Do you want to learn how to make a Tower Defense game like Kingdom Rush? Check out our How To Make a Tower Defense Game tutorial, written by this very same author of this article! :]