ContributionsPostmortem

StaalMedia’s Flooded Village

June 12, 2013 — by Mariia Lototska

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ContributionsPostmortem

StaalMedia’s Flooded Village

June 12, 2013 — by Mariia Lototska

Yoeri Staal founded StaalMedia as a freelance webdeveloper. While finishing his MSc in Computer Science, Yoeri developed the innovative puzzle game Flooded Village in his spare time. New to the game business, Yoeri has an idealist’s passion to produce original and high quality games.

Flooded VillageGame Design

Early in 2012, I was finishing my master’s thesis in Amsterdam. In my spare time, I worked on a little Flash game prototype, where the player draws a river to connect houses to a source of water. I enjoyed digging on the beach and studying the path of water through the sand as a kid, and hoped to trigger that same feeling in the player. Only a few drastic changes were made in the game; most of the final mechanics were already in the very first prototype. I posted the prototype on Flash game website FGL, where other game developers were able to review and criticize the game. The response was better than expected. People played for a while, eager for more levels, and began telling me to publish the game. No matter how good you think your concept is, show a prototype to other people, and you will discover if it’s viable.

Flooded Village Level
“I enjoyed digging on the beach and studying the path of water through the sand as a kid, and hoped to trigger that same feeling in the player.”

Rather than fill the game up to a certain number of levels, I created more levels than necessary, then cut the ones that were the least fun. This resulted in optimal quality. Level design was pretty tough, because there is only so much you can do with a limited number of tiles. Personally, I hate clones with a passion, even the highly polished ones. To test your own originality, try the following: Write your game concept down in a single sentence. If that sentence also describes an existing game, think of something new. For example, the sentence for Flooded Village is “Dig rivers to flood a village.”

“To test your own originality, try the following: Write your game concept down in a single sentence.”

A few more things were changed in the game. At first, the game was called Village Flood, which I mistyped one day as Flooded Village, and that name stuck. An experienced app developer would probably have called it “Flood the Village” to sound like other popular apps. Another major design change was replacing the houses with trees. It made more sense for them to be trees, but in the end, there were no houses in this village. To compensate, I put three houses into the game logo.







Forming the Team

The team that created Flooded Village consists of only three people, and is completely virtual. I have never met the other two in real life. I did all the design and development, then hired an animator and an audio engineer to polish the game to professional standards. After all the programming was finished, animator Ionut Ghenade (better known as PixelChunk) overhauled all the graphics in the game. Rather than dictate what to do, I asked him to draw his vision of the game in one single painting. A few elements from this sketch made it into the final game, including the bird and goat, which add absolutely nothing to the gameplay.




Sketch
“A few elements from this sketch made it into the final game, including the bird and goat, which add absolutely nothing to the gameplay.”

The game was now very polished, but still completely mute. Sound effects and music are widely available and free to use, but Flooded Village is one of only a few Flash games with a dedicated audio engineer on the team. Dan Millidge voiced all characters and recorded all sound effects and music himself. He created a unique and consistent atmosphere, with everything from birds to pirates, water and wind. From this game onward, I treat the Flash games I create as high quality works, even if the players see them as throwaway products.

Future and After Future

Flooded Village was finished; now it was time to earn some money. We did this through the FGL auction system, selling advertising rights to a sponsor. The bidding process started slowly, and even though many developers were eager to see the game, sponsors seemed scared to buy something difficult to classify. Eventually, I had a choice between a bid where I would keep the ad revenue, and a significantly higher bid, but without ad revenue. I emailed the first sponsor (BigDino), who then raised his bid to match the second. It was easy to accept the top bid with additional benefits. A few months later, I pitched BigDino with the idea for Flooded Village Xmas Eve. The semisequel was sold even before the team was reassembled. This was three weeks before Christmas, and we managed to create and launch the new game within 10 days. This new creation included replacing all the artwork and audio and adding new levels and game mechanics.




Santa Pirate Flooded Village Xmas Eve
“The semisequel was sold even before the team was reassembled.”

Sequels can be one way to improve a game. In the first Flooded Village, players were unable to destroy blocks of ice. Playtesting showed that some players at least clicked the ice, hoping to break it. I used the ice destruction mechanic in the semisequel Xmas Eve (which featured a lot of ice), changing one of the basic rules of the game. Changing a basic rule means you have to rethink a few designs, but opens up more design space. Some levels from Xmas Eve would be impossible if inserted into the original. Contradicting variations on a game mechanic should be delayed for sequels, to avoid confusion. For example, if the next Flooded Village features a switch that flips based on a timer, rather than a mouse click, that game will not include a switch triggered by a mouse. Flooded Village had mouse only controls from the start, with redundant keyboard controls just to speed things up (like restart and back to menu). It’s a lot of work to change a control scheme to fit on a mobile device, so mouse only controls are much better fit for porting. And yes, the Flooded Village port is already in development. 

Networking

Innovation Showcase Casual Connect Kiev
Casual Connect Hamburg

One thing all business tutorials and guides for entrepreneurs have in common is a chapter about networking. I never realized its true potential before entering such a network. On just a regular day, I received an email from Yulia Vakhrusheva asking for Flooded Village to be featured in the Innovation Showcase of Casual Connect in Kiev. My first response: Where is Kiev? The capital city of the Ukraine, outside any map of Europe I usually see. It took me a few weeks to take the leap and fly to the Ukraine. It was a life- and mind-changing event, to meet other developers and people related to games. Networking helps in finding the right people for a job and getting more exposure for your product. It also boosts your confidence and creativity, as you get in touch with many different ideas and methods. Create your own flow, but take others along for the ride.

For more information on Staalmedia, check out their website. Keep an eye out for Flooded Village on mobile!

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Mariia Lototska

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