I’m not going to beat around the bush, sales have been poor. With this in mind, we’re changing the way we do business. The first change is simple, the price is going down. The cheapest we can go is £0.79 / $0.99, as of today that’s how much Boonce is.

The next change is to put adverts in the game. There’s a free version going through the approval process with Microsoft right now.

We’re going to continue supporting Boonce. The third deck has had its elements and levels designed, as soon as the art is ready we’ll release version 2.0. Then we’re going to work on the fourth deck.

You now have the option to buy Boonce at a really cheap price, and if that’s not cheap enough you’ll soon be able to get it for free. Try it out, it’s a good game.

Update 1.2 went live yesterday. We’ve changed the unlocking system this time. Now, you no longer need to beat the ten of a suit  to open the two of the next suit. All of the twos are open from the very start of the game. There are a couple of bug fixes too.

Then there’s a bug fix which I buggered up. Meaning that the Ace of Hearts in the Playroom Deck is unplayable. It will crash your game if you try to play it. I was warned about it, found the bug, and fixed it. Somehow it’s still there. It’s the Ace level which is a homage to Space Invaders, and the bug is that a space character has found its way into the text file which makes the level. Literally a Space Invader. Sorry for not fixing it properly, I shall get into my tank and blast it away once and for all before the next update.

We’ve submitted an update for Boonce today. Not a new deck yet, it’s only been out a few days. From a little bit of feedback that we’ve received, it’s clear that sometimes people don’t notice that they’ve unlocked new suits or decks. Once this update goes live, the unlocking message will change from a simple sprite into a flashing sign. A minor change, but it should pull people’s attention to it.

In case anyone’s playing and they haven’t noticed the signs so far, I’ll restate the unlocking rules here. When you beat the ten of any suit, the next suit opens up. When you beat the Jack of Diamonds, the next deck opens up.

There was also a different message error. If you reach the three of Clubs in The Lab, a popup lets you know you’re at the end of the trial. This was showing even if you were using the full game, though it didn’t stop you from playing further. With the update, it will only show if you are playing the trial.

We’d love to hear from trial players, by the way. Is it satisfying? We think it’s quite large, offering a lot to play without having to pay.

Boonce has been certified by Microsoft! It should be on the Marketplace by this time tomorrow, I reckon. Obviously, I’ll post with a link when that happens. In the mean time, here’s a video Ed made tonight.