DevelopmentExclusive InterviewsGame DevelopmentIndiePR & Marketing

Party Hard: Community-Driven Updates

September 16, 2016 — by Orchid

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DevelopmentExclusive InterviewsGame DevelopmentIndiePR & Marketing

Party Hard: Community-Driven Updates

September 16, 2016 — by Orchid

The Ukrainian team of Pinokl Games team was working on a huge ambitious project of Mecha Titans and some other casual and family-friendly games… and then got tired of that all. They unleashed their darkest thoughts and participated in Kanobu Game Jam with Party Hard, a game of a bloody massacre at a noisy neighbors’ party at 3AM, or “third-person urban conflict simulator” as they describe their creation.

The bloodthirsty theme found a response in the hearts of Casual Connect Europe 2015 critics, having brought the team the Critics Choice award in Indie Prize. The team recently celebrated the 1st anniversary of Party Hard launch, having scored numerous other awards and gaining a massive creative fan base. Pinokl Games’ marketing manager and producer Alina Husevyk shares the most noticeable learnings of the year.



For the year the game is out there the devoted players have created lots of content around it. The team agrees it’s really hard to pick something particular. “Lots of fan art, hundreds of levels our players have made in the workshop, even some cosplay, and of course some dancing in the streams”.

OF Steam and Dialogue

The team was ready for negative feedback since the very beginning, due to the game’s controversial theme. But the gamers happened to be more accepting and open-minded than expected, and welcomed the mechanic and setting, which resulted in 90% positive reviews on Steam.

We managed to change about 5 - 10% of negative comments to positive through simple advice and tiny fixes.

“Which is really good”, Alina explains. “We try to analyze the negative feedback and start a dialogue with our players. We managed to change about 5 - 10% of negative comments to positive through simple advice and tiny fixes. Of course, if someone just says they don’t like the game, we don’t bug them. Good reception on Steam is one of the main things many players pay attention to before purchasing, so this is the aspect we try to take care of”.




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The devs emphazise on fun being the key to their success.

Fans’ creativity is sometimes expressed in the most hilarious ways, and for Party Hard this happens to be… the game’s main musical theme used in the official channel of PornHub. “Looks like just a coincidence, but people in the comments have instantly recalled where they’ve heard that tune, and made some fuss”.

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Party Hard has caught the attention of cosplayers

People Just Want To Play

During the same year Party Hard has caught the attention of numerous internet celebrities, like the infamous PewDiePie. The Pinokl team agrees: it just happened that way, and sees the fun element of the game being the key factor.

“Here’s the good example with PewDiePie the youtuber. At the game jam he didn’t pick the game for the review given out as a prize, but when it became popular - he noticed it’s fun and streamed it, having first tried on Twitch, and then posted as a Let’s Play on YouTube”. The fun component of Party Hard has proven to be the biggest advantage when the devs ended up with streamers and Let’s Players asking for permission to stream the game! “We get lots of feedback and millions of views! We haven’t paid anyone for streams, even though some people did ask for a payment - we even heard the number of $15 000, while the channel had just a few dozens of followers. Of course we said no”. As for their own profit, the team reveals they have fully covered the development costs, and the game now supports them completely.

“Steam is heaven”

The Pinokl Games team is currently focused on developing and supporting the project, as well as keeping supporters engaged and amused with new content and fun updates. Alina shares one of her joys made possible thanks to Steam and TinyBuild: “Steam is heaven. And we almost stopped doing marketing. No more those things of traffic, ARPPU, CPI and other nightmares we previously had to deal with on a daily basis. The wonders of communication with the press, Twitch and streamers - this is all on Alex from TinyBuild. All we need to do now is make a cool game and react to gamers’ feedback”.

If people spend a lot of time in the game, Steam’s systems automatically put the post up.

The team assures they don’t have any creative blocks when it comes to ideas for updates: those usually come from the community. The Steam players are very open-minded, and submit a lot of well-detailed suggestions. “All we have to do is choose what most players approve and evaluate how hard it will be to bring that idea to life. It’s also useful to hang out with the game’s fans at conferences as well as to listen to advice from other developers. And sometimes it’s like - something comes to someone’s mind, the whole team likes it - and it goes into development”.

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The dev team implements lots of features based on community’s ideas.

The studio is still based in Ukraine, but the majority of audience (as well as the game setting!) is in the USA. So the postsoviet-space mentality of downloading pirated copies instead of paying for games doesn’t really bother them. However, the devs admit that “…pirated copies exist, but they’re everywhere where this is common. We encountered it in the very beginning, when our Flash build has just been uploaded for the game jam, and when the contest was over, the game had been dragged around sites all around the world. We didn’t protect it in any way”. Actually, anyone can check out their downloads geography stats, and “there’s nothing unexpected: mostly the USA and UK”.




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“By the way, Russia has 14% downloads according to our stats, while just 7% in Steam. So about a half of all copies launched from Russia are pirated”, they comment.




a month to rewrite from Flash in Unity

Emphasizing on the usefulness of Steam as a platform and community, Alina explains that “if people spend a lot of time in the game, Steam’s systems automatically put the post up. Of course frequent updates and occasionally discounts help keep the popularity up and making new sales happen”. The team also sheds some light on the upcoming update: more possibilities for Twitch streams viewers, new characters and featuring of workshop levels.

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Players keep playing, and Steam puts the game up due to this.

The Party Hard game has changed a lot since the initial “messy Flash version”, as the devs call it, made for the game jam. Back then it took Pinokl Games 3 days to make it, then they noticed the game getting a lot of attention, and decided to polish it up. And rewrote the whole thing in Unity within a month. “This exact build was the full-scale level that we brought to Casual Connect 2015 in Amsterdam. After that, for instance, we rewrote the pathfinding a few more times. A hard piece of work was the workshop - that was where we greatly iterated the collisions and created the levels editor”.




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Party Hard has evolved a lot since the initial Flash version.

The Pinokl Games team agrees that participation in Indie Prize is a cool opportunity to show off the game and get valuable feedback. “What is more, it is a way to get into Casual Connect for cheap. We had been attending the show for the last 5 years, so already knew our game would be totally different from all other games. Was it a good or bad thing? Turned out to be good!”

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It was Amsterdam 2015 when Party Hard won the Best Game In Show and made the final publishing deal with TinyBuild. “The award inspired the team and also caught the attention of the press! I think one should apply no matter what, it’s an invaluable experience!”

 

The whole Pinokl team confirms it makes sense to apply for Indie Prize even if you think the game is just for laughs. “All you need for it is a build as bug-free as possible! It is the participation in the showcase that will show how fun the game can be, or what you should pay attention to”. At Pinokl Games the common opinion is the main thing is for the team to like the game. “You should believe in it and be its fans - and then things will fall into place, like a puzzle”.

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Orchid

Orchid

Orchid is a content manager at Casual Connect and the developer editor for Gamesauce. Orchid loves kittens and all things super cute.

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