The Stormglass Protocol: Learning From the Past and Creating Anew

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Contributions Development Game Development Indie Online Postmortem

The Stormglass Protocol: Learning From the Past and Creating Anew

March 3, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Previously the Managing Editor and Creative Director for The World of Chinese, Andy Deemer was recruited to work on The Stormglass Protocol. He shares the story of its development with Gamesauce.

The Birth of The Stormglass Protocol

Like many things, The Stormglass Protocol was born of secrecy, borders, and government lies.

I was running a propaganda magazine for the Chinese government in Beijing when I received a strange call from India. One of the founders of GameSpot — that celebrated and oft-disparaged website — had moved to India’s tech capital, Bangalore, and had a fantastic idea: a series of games and books about a secret school for junior secret agents — a Hogwarts for spies, perhaps — filled with gripping adventures, devious criminals, and terribly fun puzzles. The GameSpot founder was looking for someone creative to helm the operation. And he thought of me.

I had absolutely no experience in producing games or writing novels, but I’d worked alongside him at GameSpot for eight incredible years. My recent film, a chicken-zombie musical called Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, had been hailed by The New York Times as “perfect.” My photo-novella, Pyongyang Too, was about to be released in France. And Bon Appetit had just publicly mocked my recipe for Philadelphia Cheese Steak Ice Cream. So I must have been an attractive choice.

Oh, and the GameSpot founder was also my older brother. That may have sealed the deal.

And so, over a series of international calls, he convinced me to quit working for the Chinese government and outsource myself to India. After all, I’ve always wanted to make a game. And write a book. And live in India. I got to do all three.

Stormglass-1.0-some-of-the-team — Some of the Stormglass 1.0 team

The Original Failure

I arrived in Bangalore to an office filled with employees, computers, and even a resident stray dog: a playful mongrel with no name, but called “O.D.”, short for Office Dog. A team of twenty was already coding away, and within hours, I was whipping out storylines and adventures for the game. Some ideas were “Two San Francisco kids have disappeared — help track their kidnappers!”, “The drinking water at a New York high school has been polluted — find the culprits!”, or even “Catch a magician/confidence man in his lies!”

Stormglass-1.0-UK-video-shoot-2 — Video Shoot for Stormglass 1.0

We spent a year perfecting The Stormglass Protocol. It would be web- and subscription-based. In-game videos were shot on RED in a London studio using actors I’d hired over the web, with me directing over a flickery Skype connection. A fitness instructor in Boston developed a series of exercise assignments for kids, a Chinese factory manufactured secret agent Stormglass pens with hidden compartments and UV flashlights, and a Hugo award-winning novelist in Berkeley, Tim Pratt, wrote the first draft of a novel. All development was done in Bangalore. This was a truly international production.

Workdays were 10 hours, sprints were two weeks, and we documented in Jira, coded in Javascript, and tested with a crew of 8-12 year old kids — Stormglass agents — from a local international school. The kids- sorry, agents assured us this was the greatest game they’d ever played, more addictive than Skyrim or GTA. They adored the storyline and in review sessions, they gave Stormglass five stars out of five.

After a year of development, we knew the game was ready for the prime time. On November 6th, 2012, we pushed it live.

And there was nothing. Silence. Utter, painful silence.

Finally, with sick stomachs, we shut the Amazon servers down.

Sure, we could drive users to the site with Google AdWords and Facebook campaigns, but they never stayed long. When the ads were turned off, our analytics flatlined. We spent six months trying to fix gameplay, tinkering with the backend, modifying the UI, tweaking the stories. But it soon became clear we weren’t going to succeed. Days became more disheartened. Members of the team floated away to other companies and more secure jobs. Finally, with sick stomachs, we shut the Amazon servers down.

But this isn’t the postmortem for that original version of The Stormglass Protocol. This is the postmortem for Stormglass Version 2.0. And that didn’t fail.

The Return of Stormglass

The company had six months of operating cash remaining, and I had six months on my Indian residence visa and my apartment’s lease. All three ended on November 1st, 2013. That trifecta of timing seemed to give us just enough space to produce a great game from scratch, but we didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes we’d already made. So we started by brainstorming an entirely new game. Time was short, pressure was on, but we spent two full and very valuable days in an off-site. How can we reinvent Stormglass? I broke the day into individual brainstorms, paired brainstorms, group brainstorms, idea-generation challenges, and absurd physical exercises. The walls became plastered in layers of poster-pages, each filled with scribbled notes, golden gems, and some really truly terrible ideas. Yet we kept coming back to one seed: an iOS room escape game in fully-immersive 3D. Something that — as far as we knew — had never been done before.

Stormglass-2.0-brainstorming — I broke the day into individual brainstorms, paired brainstorms, group brainstorms, idea-generation challenges, and absurd physical exercises.

It would be filled with the same dark humor as my other work. We’d feature puzzles parodying Gilbert & George, Magritte, and even one level mimicking Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms (This was mere months before her real infinity rooms led to six-hour queues in New York’s snowy streets). In-game ads would promote Fracking (“It’s Like Hugging the Earth”), Affordable Laser Lobotomies, and — of course — Cheese Steak Ice Cream. There’d be Monty Python quotes, celebrations of classic b-movies like They Live and The Toxic Avenger, and subtle references to North Korea and Kim Jong Il.

However, we only had six months to complete it. To start with, I rearranged the team. Only one of us had ever worked in iOS before. Bijoy, a smiley, mild-mannered junior developer, was also the charismatic lead singer of one of India’s leading Christian rock bands, Cross Legacy. He’d spend all day coding, and then ride his motorbike across town to play a stadium show to tens of thousands of cheering fans. He became the dev lead, Javascript-diving into Unity.

Stormglass-2.0---Meiding-and-Bijoy — Meiding and Bijoy hard at work

For 3D, we were a little luckier. Meiding and Ebey both had experience. Meiding started out like every other man in his family, as a career soldier in the Indian army. But one day, Meiding decided to put down his gun and pick up Maya. I’d found him on India’s job site Naukri, where I was inviting potential employees to model and texture a vista of auto-rickshaws. Meiding took the challenge, and gave me something that looked like a photo. We hired him immediately. On the original Stormglass, he was a junior designer, but I loved his vision. I put him in charge of the game’s “evil prison-laboratory-office” aesthetics. Meanwhile, Ebey was just a kid, appearing out of nowhere. He was, and still is, a full-time student in 3D and filmmaking, but heard about Stormglass and sent me an unsolicited Hollywood-level demo reel. We didn’t need him, but we couldn’t let him go. So he agreed to juggle full-time work and school. I’m still unclear how he managed it.

Every week, we’d hold all-hands brainstorming sessions to establish room themes and puzzle-types: a game show, a dream room, a museum condemning Thomas Edison’s cruel business practices! And while the dev team was building the first two levels, and the 3D team was building the third and fourth levels, I’d be writing the descriptions and stories for the fifth and sixth levels. Almost every two-week sprint followed that process.

Stormglass-2.0 - Edison museum — One room idea was a museum condemning Thomas Edison’s cruel business practices!

Learning From the Past

To avoid the largest mistake we’d made with Stormglass 1.0, we didn’t develop for a year and then release a polished product. Instead, we pushed out a rough product with only three basic levels as early as we could. We didn’t have much time — less than six months now — and we needed to know what real users thought, immediately.

Fortunately, they loved it.

We kept a close eye on iTunes reviews, though, and modified the game accordingly. These were our focus groups. When users complained about the navigation — a valid complaint — we redesigned it and pushed out a new release. The next comment was about the puzzles being “too easy”, so we ramped up the difficulty.

Stormglass-Protocol-novel — I was still working on my novel, editing and rewriting whenever I had time.

This release-review loop quickly became circular. Fans realized new releases addressed their reviews, and updated their reviews with revised feedback. Two-star reviews became five-star reviews. “Too easy” became “Wow.” And most new feedback became three repeated words: build more rooms. We were building as fast as we could with two developers, two modelers, two modeling assistants, a designer and me! Still, we didn’t want the level of immersion — or the quality of the game — to suffer. We wanted Stormglass to have the dark laughs of Limbo, the obsessive confusion of The Room, and the snark of Infocom’s classic Hitchhiker’s Guide. Also, I was still working on my novel, editing and rewriting whenever I had time.

The Final Push

Our November 1st deadline was rapidly approaching. It wasn’t just a goal; it was the last day I could stay in my apartment and in the country. And, perhaps even more important, it was the last day we could afford to pay the team, and still give severance packages. With each release, and each sprint, I found myself cutting so that we could meet our deadline. Puzzles were removed. Characters were eliminated. Easter eggs I’d so loved when they were written, axed. But most of it made it in. Through long nights and dedication to the game, the team managed to fit almost everything in.

And, with one week to spare, we pushed. And the reviews started to appear….

“A definite must-have.” - JustAdventure.com

“A room escape puzzle game like no other. ★★★★½” - 148Apps.com

“Rich graphics, an immersive storyline, and puzzles that will have you turned upside down.” - iDownloadBlog.com

“The Stormglass Protocol… pulls the genre out of its stationary roots.” - JayIsGames.com

And, at precisely the same time, the reviews of the novel started to appear. And they, too, were great…

“Like a Bond adventure for kids… undeniably entertaining.” - Kirkus

“A brilliant twist on the classic theme of villainous world domination… a captivating read… ★★★★★” - ForeWord Clarion Reviews

“Action-packed and fast-paced… barrels along with a cheerful intensity and no shortage of middle-grade Bond-style adventure.” - Publishers Weekly

But time had run out. We said goodbye, the team and I. I didn’t know if or when I’d be back in India, but every member of the Stormglass Protocol 2.0 team — Bijoy, Dharma, Ebey, Krishna, Meiding, Uday, Varun, and Yagnesh — was a crucial part of the game.

In the Bangalore airport, with my visa expiring in just three hours, I checked in for my 2 AM flight back to San Francisco. Repatriating myself, I filled out the customs forms with a smile. I was, after all, using my hidden compartment and UV flashlight Stormglass pen. My spy pen. And my mission, of course, was accomplished.

The Stormglass Protocol is on iPad, and you can experience The Stormglass Protocol for yourself here. You can also purchase the Stormglass Novel here. You can see more of Andy’s traveling adventures on his blog and his weird eats on The Huffington Post.

Contributions Development Game Development Indie Online Postmortem

Company of Tanks: Bringing an Arcade Multiplayer Tank Experience to Mobile

February 26, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Based in Kajaani, Northern Finland, Critical Force Entertainment is the town’s first independent game company. Tim Spaninks was brought in as producer and lead designer to direct a young team in the development of a cross-platform game: Company of Tanks. In this article, Tim shares his experience of working with a fairly inexperienced team resulting in a very successful outcome.

Initial goal: a high-quality tank game for the mobile platform

When I was brought into this project, World of Tanks (which is a massive online game developed by Wargaming.net) had fairly recently become insanely popular and managed to open up a completely new market segment for a new sub-genre called tank games.

Anything put on the Google Play Store featuring the word ‘tanks’ seemed to gather up to hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of downloads, seemingly regardless of the quality of the game. Therefore, the initial goal of Company of Tanks was to “create something like World of Tanks for mobile devices” with a quality that would outmatch the existing competition.

From left to right: Ville, Lassi, Sampsa, Mikko

Sampsa, Mikko, and Lassi came to Critical Force Entertainment as interns, and managed to get a simple prototype up and running very quickly.
Right after I joined the team, we brought in our artists Ville and Thanabodi a.k.a. Viola from Thailand, and I knew we needed a change of direction.

Every Game Should Have its Own Identity

Right from the start, I didn’t agree with the mentality or the spirit of the project. Firstly, I believe that every game should have its own identity and bring a new experience to the player. It wouldn’t feel right to try to duplicate a game’s experience, even if it’s on another platform. Secondly, we were mainly developing for the mobile platform, which has a completely different target group and lends itself to different gaming experiences than PC and consoles.

Без названия3 — At first we were going for a more slow-paced, realistic style game

At first, we were going for a more slow-paced, realistic style game, but then decided to adapt the gameplay to the platform: the game would become faster and way more arcade-like to have shorter game sessions with more action. We also decided to change the visual style accordingly. The game was to become stylized to set the right expectations: it’s not a tank simulator and sure as hell isn’t a World of Tanks clone. This way, we would still appeal to a very large market segment aching to play 3D tank games, but at the same time differentiate ourselves from the competition in terms of style and gameplay.

It was now time to prototype, test, reflect, prototype, test, reflect, and so on to find the right way to make the game as fun as possible!

Без названия4 — The game was to become stylized to set the right expectations: it’s not a tank simulator and sure as hell isn’t a *World of Tanks* clone.

Saying No

Often in a game’s development, it’s the designer who says “Yes!” and the producer is who says “No!” to gameplay and feature suggestions. One of my toughest personal challenges in this project was to have to take both of these roles at the same time. Many awesome-sounding or even almost crucial features such as an in-game chat, friend lists, clan support, ranking lists, player stats, or simply the ability to completely customize your tank by drawing on it, placing emblems, etc. had to be put on hold or scrapped completely in favor of finishing the game on time. I was only going to be in Finland until mid-December, and the entire team would end up only working part-time on the game shortly after: we had to release a playable Android version before that time.

Prioritizing was essential, and through continuous debate and feedback, we were able to pinpoint what needed to be done to get everything ready on time. This often meant going for the absolute minimum viable options. No fancy customization and putting together your tank of parts collected throughout the game, but simply a very basic upgrade system.

Sometimes, it’s demotivating not to be able to make the game as awesome as you dreamt, but knowing that we could keep adding features and content after release and strive to make the game as perfect as possible is something that made it bearable.

Remember Who the Game is For

Без названия5 — Showcasing our game at the Northern Game Summit in Kajaani and DigiExpo in Helsinki was an extremely enriching experience

When we had our first playable version ready, we got some great opportunities to receive crucial feedback to pinpoint what aspects of the game we needed to work on. Showcasing our game at the Northern Game Summit in Kajaani and DigiExpo in Helsinki turned out an extremely enriching experience. I’ve learned a lot participating in the Northern Game Summit conference’s pitching competition. And winning the €5000 prize for the development of our game allowed us to speed up, acquire some needed licenses, additional testing devices, and invest in a custom-made soundtrack and sound effects.

The most beautiful moment of the entire project for me was at the DigiExpo 2013 event in Helsinki. A young kid picked up our tablet and immediately understood how to play, and got completely immersed in the game. At some point, he glanced over at his friend next to him with a grin and said “hyvää peli!” (meaning “good game!” in Finnish). This nearly broke me. This kid stayed at our booth playing the game for nearly an hour! When getting lost in the development process and reaching your deadlines, it’s easy to forget what you’re actually doing it all for. This was the moment when it became tangible for me that after all of our hard work, we were actually making this for someone. And that someone really loved our game! This is why I love my work, and those tiny moments make it all worthwhile.

Без названия6 — This is why I love my work, and those tiny moments make it all worthwhile.

The rest of DigiExpo was sort of a blur of wonderful moments with many people (mainly kids) playing the game. Besides providing us with a lot of feedback to pinpoint what aspects of the game needed work, it was a massive motivational boost for the rest of the project.

Player Base in the Beginning: No One to Play With

There was one thing throughout development that I was dreading the most: how are we going to get players? It’s known that it can be hard for smaller online indie games to gather enough people because nobody wants to play a game that doesn’t already have an established player base - which complicates things even more.

Before our Android build was ready, we decided to Beta test and soft launch our game on the web platform using Kongregate and Facebook. This would allow us to build interest and gather some players without any marketing budget and get some valuable feedback at the same time.

Без названия7 — There was one thing throughout development that I was dreading the most: how are we going to get players?

Testing the game on Kongregate revealed one massive problem: when a player wants to start an online match, he is thrown into a lobby to wait for enough players to start the game. Because we started out with a non-existent player base, as soon as someone tried to start a game, they found that nobody (or not enough players) was in the lobby, and simply disconnected. This led to a situation where there were continuously one or two players online who didn’t have enough people to play with.

Arguably, the biggest mistake made in the development process was the way we dealt with this. We figured that if we decrease the minimum player requirement to two and interest in the game would pick up later, the problem would vanish. Surely, when the Android downloads would start streaming in, the problem would fix itself? Well, it didn’t.

Shortly after the Android launch, we noticed the problem still existed, and released a patch changing it to a drop-in, drop-out kind of system that would throw the player immediately into an already running game. Thankfully, this worked and we now have an active player base!

Additional Tweaks

We’ve just reached over 240.000 downloads and with around 7000 downloads every day, the project has been a tremendous success for such a young team so far. Based on the numbers and received feedback, it’s safe to say that many people are playing and enjoying our game, which is a fantastic feeling!

In our eyes, the game is far from finished though. It’s lacking end-game content and goals to strive for. There are many features and content to be added and many in-game tweaks to be made. We’re working hard to implement metric systems to collect tons of data using various analytics plug-ins to determine where our focus needs to be. So far, we’ve basically been working in the dark, and shedding some light on the impact of changes we make will allow us to work more efficiently and improve the game where it counts.

In the meantime, we’ve applied for Microsoft & Nokia’s AppCampus program to be funded with €50.000 to create a Windows Phone version of the game with custom content for the platform. We plan to use those funds to further tweak the game and get ready for a later iOS release!

Contributions Development Game Development Indie Online Postmortem

The Flight of Kid Aviator: A Postmortem

February 24, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Kid Aviator is an endless flyer that launched on iOS and Android January 2014. It features Kid, a daring aviator-in-the-making willing to risk life and limb for his fans. The game was developed by two developers: Mattia Fortunati (programmer, designer and graphics rookie) and Claudia Perugini (visual artist and character designer), both hailing from Rome, Italy. Mattia shares their story.

A Lengthy Development

developer_team_photo — Kid Aviator Development Team

Kid Aviator was an interesting project for first-time developers such as ourselves. From start to finish, the development of Kid Aviator lasted more than two years, quite a bit of time for such a small game. Not only did we experience the expected false starts and ups and downs associated with a two-person team of first-time developers, but we were busy with school and day jobs. We only had time to work on the game in our spare time. Add to this the fact that Kid Aviator was built on a self-made game framework . . . and you get the picture.

It was also 100 percent self-funded. We invested our savings from our day jobs. We didn’t even start a Kickstarter campaign because it’s (sadly) not an option for Italian developers (Kickstarter only allows projects from the United States, UK, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand).

Dreams & Aspirations

We wanted to create a well-made, relaxing game, something that you could play in your spare time, during lunch breaks, or while waiting at the bus stop. We kept the game simple and full of personality. This was Claudia’s rule, and I’m glad we were able to stick to it. Kid Aviator was always meant to be welcoming and easy to learn so that players felt good playing it.

We also had a personal goal: to learn. Many teams around the world make great games year after year, but how do they do it? Our idea was to not take any shortcuts and pay attention to every single step: concept, prototype, production, testing, marketing, PR, all of it. Throughout development, we strengthened our writing, programming, drawing, interface, design, and polishing skills by asking for help and hearing war stories from fellow indie developers.

Kid Aviator's Xcode and iPhone simulator — Kid Aviator’s Xcode and iPhone simulator

Pushing ourselves to the limit, we often found each other performing several roles at a time. After encountering a big problem, we sometimes wanted to simply surrender and leave things as they were instead of fixing them. As an indie developer, you will be tempted to give up from time to time because you’re way too busy with a day job or other projects. It’s like raising a bonsai: with some discipline, proper scheduling, and doing just a little every day, you’ll slowly see your miniature tree grow to be a strong and beautiful specimen.

Finding the Core Gameplay

The endless runners genre is marred by clones of clones now, but two years ago, there was still room for innovative gameplay. We wondered what would happen if the player moved the obstacles instead of controlling the main character. To add some variety to the gameplay, we included objects that could be destroyed, along with power-ups. Back then, Kid would move automatically (and randomly) around the screen – like a lifeless roboaviator.

Then we noticed that every time our friends played the game, they always ended up trying to move Kid by tilting the device. We didn’t have tilt controls then, so we said, ‘Why not?’ We immediately put our friends’ feedback to use and added tilt controls. Thus, the dual control system (in which players control both the protagonist and the interaction with each object) was born. Clearly, player feedback and the use of hardware capabilities particular to mobile devices have helped us develop (and refine) Kid Aviator‘s core gameplay.

The Circus Setting (& Choosing a Title)

Kid wants to become famous. He’s like a rock star, with his audience numbers increasing each time he wins a medal. It’s not about Saving Private Brian (I guess only Ryan was saved!), avenging a long lost cat, or cleansing the world of all evil. Kid Aviator is about flying endlessly toward the sky and becoming a star.

handmade_sketches — Early Concept Sketches of Kid by Claudia

It’s an unusual choice, we know. This simple (and somewhat basic) concept—a cute Kid flying toward the sky and encountering random strange objects along the way—was born organically. As for the setting, we didn’t take long to come to a decision. After a quick brainstorming session, we chose a more traditional “human cannonball” theme for the game—and a circus setting was a natural fit. But the title didn’t come as easily: in fact, it took us two months to choose one!

We had a whiteboard that we scribbled on everyday, looking for inspiration. Some of the early titles we considered included To the Top!, Sky-Man, and Cannon Kid. Eventually, we fell in love Kid Aviator, a variation of Cannon Kid. However, we secretly called it “scaimen” (Italian transliteration of “Sky-Man”), and the game directory is still named “skyexplorer.”

Time to Tighten Up Those Graphics!

We’ve heard that graphics are the most important element in game development. An awesome icon and beautiful, hand-drawn characters are essential to success. This is only partially true. A great game needs deep, rewarding gameplay or it will just be an average game with AAA graphics. Just ask regular players. Most of them will say that graphics are important but “gameplay is king.” I find that the gameplay is the game’s soul and the graphics are its body. Gameplay is a direct channel between game and player.

At first, Kid Aviator’s graphics were no more than placeholders (and heavily inspired by The Powerpuff Girls). Once Claudia got her hands on it though, a revolution took place. She realized that falling objects would be more familiar to the average player—and after many sketches, she made a major decision: Kid would now be based on Mr. Driller instead.

Claudia was totally new to computer graphics, and Kid Aviator was her first experience mixing art and computers. However, in no time at all, friends and fellow developers introduced us to professional tools and gave us honest and constructive feedback. We love the result! Kid Aviator boasts “cute and warm graphics”—as it should be in an Italian game. The way the game looks is a perfect translation of the studio’s ethos, and it’s a little piece of the spirit of Italy that can be played worldwide.

old_graphics — Old Graphics (left) vs. New Graphics (right)

Visibility: Limited

What’s the point of making a game that no one will ever play? We knew that the game would be invisible without a good promotional push behind it. However, it would have taken years for us alone to learn the PR tools of the trade—and we would never be able to finish the game if we turned our attention away from development.

We did not surrender—despite the cold, calculating replies—and we finally found Novy PR

We contacted a number of PR agencies with a detailed message explaining our needs. It was our first time seeking PR help, and we expected professional replies, but we quickly realized that most firms were more interested in money rather than helping indie developers. We did not surrender—despite the cold, calculating replies—and we finally found Novy PR.

Novy replied in a professional, yet passionate way. They listened to us and were interested in our project as a whole. They were also affordable for our small, self-funded studio. Novy took the role of Kid Aviator’s cheerleaders, testers, marketing mavens, you name it. In hiring a PR firm, we weren’t trying to top the App Store rankings; we just wanted to avoid oblivion. Novy PR helped us avoid that.

Homemade Framework

Due to my work in development, I ended up becoming one of two core creators of RapaNui. An open-source, Lua, high-level, 2D game framework, RapaNui can be used with the Moai SDK when developing cross-platform games for iOS and Android. Initially created as a Corona SDK porting framework, RapaNui would eventually become a “college in a box” for me. I learned a great deal about both the Lua language and Moai SDK.

intellij-moaisimulator-screenshot — Kid Aviator’s Moai Simulator

Since then, RapaNui has grown and led to a job making an AAA title. Working 60 hours a week while still fleshing out RapaNui reduced the time I could spend on Kid Aviator. At the same time, it allowed me to port my game to RapaNui. Improving the framework for the AAA project would mean improving Kid Aviator‘s engine as well—and vice-versa. Kid Aviator is bound to RapaNui, but it took much longer to develop because we relied on this exciting, but ever-changing new framework. I definitely don’t recommend going the “non-standard” route like we did—especially if you’re an indie developer.

However, I was personally willing to accept the risk, and I’m really happy with the end result. I feel closer to Kid Aviator because I built so much of it with my bare hands, a feeling I lack with my other games built with commercial engines.

Dire Straits

We were moving along at a such a smooth but busy pace handling the (successful) open beta, we didn’t realize that iOS7 was right around the corner.

With November already taken hostage by two major console launches, we decided to slow things down and delay the soft launch to December.

Kid Aviator was approved and ready for sale when suddenly, we had to make it compatible with the new Game Center and status bar designs. This meant that we had to re-submit the game to Apple and postpone the soft launch and worldwide release. With November already taken hostage by two major console launches (transitioning to the next generation, no less), we decided to slow things down and delay the soft launch to December, planning the launch for January. This was a two-month delay that we could not have predicted.

The second issue was the “December Curse,” which played a big part in our poor Australian/Canadian/Brazilian soft launch. Although it was intended to test the game’s viability and help us smooth out the actual release, the soft launch yielded almost zero downloads—and we didn’t get the feedback we so desperately needed.

In hindsight, we were hitting the freemium wall—with big titles, all free, released with the sole purpose to attract players at the expense of more premium indie offerings during the holiday season. Would you download Dungeon Keeper for free, or Kid Aviator for $0.99? The AAA game is obviously not truly free, but many mobile players still don’t realize this in advance. Most will skip the paid title and try a free download, even if they eventually uninstall it after 15 minutes. Kid Aviator was not made to do battle against the frighteningly competitive freemium market, but we couldn’t re-design it to counter that threat. Our only resort was to hope for a strong launch.

Texture Packet and Physics Editor for Kid Aviator

At no extra cost, Novy agreed to pursue a pre-launch campaign in order to generate some buzz. We reached out to journalists ahead of launch, and a number of outlets requested promo codes and Android builds, which made us quite happy. However, we stumbled upon a huge issue when it was time to release the game on Android: a black screen, which was reported by a large number of Android users on launch day. Of course, we fixed it as soon as possible to avoid missing out on any sales—but we received a number of refund requests before we could submit a fix (fixing the Android build took two full days – 48 hours without sleep).

It turns out that the Android logcat had no errors. This was a sneaky bug because it would happen only if the game was installed from Google Play. We found a solution, thanks to friends who lent us their time and Android devices — plus the help of other developers who had experienced the same issue. It was a problem caused by the new resource path system added to Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean): the game could not find its assets. After we fixed the problem, our Android players were happy and satisfied.

A note on Apple’s approval process vs. Google Play: Apple’s approval process is notoriously time-consuming. However, having a professional QA team test your game on every single iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone gives developers much-needed peace of mind. At the same time, Google Play allowed us to upload a stable build within a few hours – versus a few days on the Apple camp. I guess both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses!

First Week: Reviews, Feedback, Downloads

Freed from a nasty black screen, Kid Aviator flew across the world, ready for the real challenge: the App Store and Google Play. During those crazy days when we were busy fixing the Android build, we still felt incredible relief and excitement because we were reading the early coverage for Kid Aviator.

Journalists produced well-thought reviews with mostly positive scores. The few negative reviews were still very honest and always included constructive feedback. Players and reviewers alike enjoyed the dual control system, core gameplay, cute graphics, and charming characters.

It seemed to us that Kid Aviator was invisible in both stores, and we don’t remember adding an invisibility power-up.

Users rated the game, recommended Kid Aviator to their friends, and contacted us with a lot of awesome suggestions. However, while we got great reviews on top sites like 148Apps, Cult of Mac, and AppleTell – along with communities like Reddit and Touch Arcade’s forums – download numbers were low. It seemed to us that Kid Aviator was invisible in both stores, and we don’t remember adding an invisibility power-up.

I guess this speaks to the dark truth of mobile development: the competition is beyond fierce at the moment-more like “dog eat dog, who then eats you.” Free-to-play took the air out of the room, making it very difficult for a game like Kid Aviator to get download numbers matching its quality. If this was 2011, we would be in the thousands of downloads at this point. But we won’t give up. After all the hard work that went into Kid Aviator, we’ll keep pushing to give the game every chance it deserves.

The Bottom Line

Developing an indie, self-funded game is difficult, stressful, and crazy—fraught with ups and downs—but it’s also challenging, illuminating, and satisfying. Just make sure to hold on and never surrender!

This is our journey, brought to you with absolute sincerity. We hope that it can be useful to others like many postmortems on the web have been useful to us. A hearty goodbye from Mattia and Claudia, the small team behind Kid Aviator!

The duo invites you to try Kid Aviator today and leave your feedback (invaluable for indie developers like them). You can also keep track of how it is going with the team on Twitter, Facebook, and their website.

Contributions Indie Postmortem PR & Marketing

Rocket Cube: A Side Project Becomes a Star

February 21, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Keitai is a five-people indie team from Taiwan, founded in 2005. They started with designing Java games for feature phones and have made various types of those and other apps. Keitai includes three main team members: Claire, the founder, Neil, the game producer, and Code Anonymous, lead programmer. In 2013, two new members joined the team: Ivan the programmer and Dani the business development professional. Claire talks about the development of their latest project, Rocket Cube.

At Keitai, we all have a great passion for games; not just playing them, but also making games that can entertain other people. We believe that as long as we keep ourselves devoted to making games, they will somehow come alive and enrich the world with lots of fun. In 2013, we continued our psycho process of game development while participated in several showcases. And we’ve learned a lesson from our game, which is “A game speaks for itself.”

A Game of Flashes and Strange Sounds for Developers’ Entertainment

There was actually another project we were working on, and most of our attention was paid to it. Rocket Cube was nothing more than a recreational project. In other words, we created Rocket Cube just for our own fun. What we wanted to make was a simple game that would bring us pure excitement.

The original design concept for Rocket Cube was to add more excitement to regular puzzle games. We decided to have cubes dropping constantly and stacking up, while gradually increasing the dropping speed. When the stacks build up to a certain height, strong warning sounds appear, making the player’s experience even more tense. Removing stacks of cubes in the same color by launching them, players get the exhilaration of destroying and surviving, which goes higher and higher.

At first, we developed the “1-minute” mode, where the player needed to complete an exciting and thrilling round of the game in one minute. We also added the speed-up button to increase the player’s experience of exhilaration.

It’s easy for all types of players to master the game because we’ve built Rocket Cube around the main mechanism of “touch to launch”. As players are getting accustomed to the increasing pace, the excitement grows, and tapping the “restart” button becomes irresistible.

Opportunity at Casual Connect USA: Rocket Cube’s Chance Showcase

The prototype of Rocket Cube was launched only a week before we set off to Casual Connect USA in July 2013, where we later encountered lots of trouble.

Of course, we thought it would be better not to showcase a game that didn’t even have a proper UI.

Of course, we thought it would be better not to showcase a game that didn’t even have a proper UI. We hoped to have our main project accomplished in time and showcased, but stumbled upon some technical issues. While Rocket Cube was still nothing more than a game just for our own fun, we asked some of our newly-met friends to play the prototype and give us feedback. We were so surprised that they liked it!

But our bad luck continued: I was robbed and the mobile device with the demo build of our main project was gone! You might think our journey to Casual Connect USA was doomed, but giving up is never an option for Keitai. We just didn’t want to think we had come all the way for nothing! At the very least, we could have fun. Besides, there’s always an alternative and anything can be possible. For us, Rocket Cube turned out to be that alternative, even though we still didn’t think it was ready, despite a recent upgrade.

“Since we had lost our primary weapon, a sidearm would do,” we thought. And the effect was fascinating! Some kept playing Rocket Cube for more than an hour, until the device died and needed recharging. Some invited us for a lunch because they loved the game so much. The just-for-fun game sent us a clear message through these new friends: “I would like to be seen by more people and be fully developed.” But we were still obsessed with “The Project”.

The Game that Makes People Want to Touch It

Now, after many versions, Rocket Cube has evolved a lot. I still remember the day we were testing a new version until 3:00 AM; all of us just couldn’t leave our devices alone! Even our business development guy Dani said, “I have never thought it could be this fun.”  Dani didn’t like Rocket Cube when he first tested the prototype, but changed his mind after playing the updated build. He is now totally excited about the game and hasn’t put his phone down since he installed the app.

We dared to bring our creation to Tokyo Game Show (TGS). The Asian gamer’s dream is to be a part of TGS, and so was ours. But you know what? We were still thinking of “The Project”! At the same time, we had noticed the potential of Rocket Cube and decided to give it a shot at TGS. And it worked! People kept telling us Rocket Cube deserves the opportunity. They launched rockets over and over and over. Rocket Cube makes people want to touch it, especially the “Restart” spot on its UI. At last, it is not just a simple cube, but a cube that turns into a beautiful one with heat and energy.

Keitai_TGS — Since we had lost our primary weapon, a sidearm would do, - we thought.

The Best Reward Comes From Something You Don’t Mind

Rocket Cube taught us some lessons. First of all, don’t be too focused on just one aspect.  If you are sticking to it too much, it might not help you at all. Due to the accident and unexpected network issues, we were not able to showcase our first mobile game on smart phones as planned at Casual Connect USA 2013. Rocket Cube, which was a test project at the time, stepped in and became the star. During the three-day event, we kept receiving positive reviews and feedback, which made us even more confident on speeding up the development plan. This is how something that you didn’t really pay attention to could happen to give you the biggest reward.

Secondly, make games that you really like and always keep that in mind.  We made Rocket Cube because we simply wanted a game that would let us have fun. The origin of Rocket Cube is just a simple concept. However, it brings pleasure. We think this is also a development challenge: to keep the concept simple from the beginning to the release, without too much decoration or exaggeration.

Last but not least, let your game meet people, so that you could receive feedback. Give it a shot and find out how functional your creation is, and let people know what you have.

Rocket Cube is available for free download from the AppStore and Google Play. It’s a full version that includes three gaming modules: (1) Infinity, (2) 1-minute and (3) Cube War, where scores of players with the same nationality are added together to compete with scores of players of other nationalities. In the next version of Rocket Cube, we’re going to add new modes with the element of “stillness”.

Keitai has recently launched Rocket Cube for Windows Phone 8, and is working on development rights for Sony PlayStation Vita. They also took part in Casual Connect Europe 2014’s Indie Prize Showcase.

Contributions Development Game Development Indie Online Postmortem

Rose: A Forgotten Movie Script Turned Adventure Game

February 20, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Cellar Door Interactive is an Israeli-based micro-studio consisting of Doron Kanaan, Leonid Haitov, and Saiphan Brunner. The studio is currently developing its first creation, a first-person episodic point-and-click adventure game named Rose. In Rose, the player acts as the protagonist, a 12-years-old girl who, with her brother and two friends, unwittingly gets stuck in the abandoned house at the end of their street. Doron shares the story.

The 80s: The Best Time to be a Kid

Contrary to popular belief, the 80s were a wonderful time. Trying to harness every bit of objectivity, I can say it was the best period in known history for being a kid. I had the most amazing childhood imaginable, and, aside from friends and family, I have to chalk that up to two forms of entertainment that stood out during the 80’s: adventure games and horror movies.

My love for horror movies and adventure games stayed with me through the years. When a combination of the two came along, I couldn’t be happier. Games such as Sanitarium, Blackstone Сhronicles, Dark Fall, and Scratches are among my absolute favorites. When it was time for me to decide what I wanted to study, filmmaking seemed an obvious choice.

When I started attending film school, I had one thing in mind – creating horror movies. As an aspiring filmmaker, I was influenced by the horror films I grew up on and the games I mentioned earlier. So it probably won’t come as a surprise that Rose actually started as a movie script. I attempted it as homage to the 80’s ‘kids in danger’ movies such as The Gate and The Goonies. I never got to film it though. Oddly enough, one of the most recurring criticisms I received on the earlier versions of the script was that the plot progression was more suitable for an adventure game than a movie.

I attempted Rose as homage to the 80’s ‘kids in danger’ movies such as “The Gate” and “The Goonies”.

Dreams Come True

Once I finished film school, I started a business with my wife, also a film school grad. We were creating corporate and marketing videos, and, as years passed, the dream of someday making a horror film became even more distant and unrealistic.

A few years later, I read an article about a game development program in a design school near my house, and the chips fell where they should. I may not have realized it back in my film school days, but in retrospect, it appeared pretty obvious that what I really wanted to make was an adventure game. I just didn’t think it was possible, since I didn’t have necessary skills. Now there was an opportunity to acquire at least some of those skills, and I wasn’t going to miss it, so I applied. After a few weeks, I felt that is what I wanted to do in my life.

The team showcasing Rose as their final project

I removed the dust from my script for Rose (and I mean literally removed the dust, since the only copy I had remaining was a hard one) and started adapting it to a game, which wasn’t a very hard task. I teamed up with two classmates – Saiphan Bruner (a 3D artist) and Leonid Haitov (a 2D artist), who shared my passion for adventure games, and together, we set off to this amazing journey.

Saiphan Brunner, Cellar Door Interactive 3D artist

A Working App with Bone-Chilling Bugs in 6 Months…But it Works!

The graphics department was all set, but I had no experience in programming or any other aspect of game development. While the program gave me the absolute fundamentals, I needed to know a lot more. I bought Sue Blackman’s book, Beginning 3D Development with Unity, and, armed with gallons of passion and motivation, set out to make Rose a reality.

doron kanaan working — Armed with gallons of passion and motivation, set out to make Rose a reality.

Six months later, we had an alpha version for the first episode, and it looked pretty good. Sure, my beginner’s programming skills caused a fair amount of bone-chilling bugs (which I managed to iron out), but it was working, and I was thrilled. Rose was our final project for the game development program, and during the showcase, we caught the attention of Oded Sharon, a seasoned Israeli game developer who’s done a thing or two, especially in the adventure genre. He suggested publishing Rose, and we agreed.

Taking the Ouya Plunge

Our romance with Ouya began almost as an afterthought. Oded was one of the backers who received the console prior to the launch and started playing with it, trying to get games he was involved in to work on the console. When he came to me with it, my initial thought was that Rose, a point-and-click adventure game, had nothing to do with a gamepad-based console. But at a certain point, I’m not even sure why, I decided to give it a chance. Implementing the Ouya SDK was easy enough, and, after a few days of fiddling with it, I had a working version of Rose for the Android-based console.

My initial thought was that Rose, a point-and-click adventure game, had nothing to do with a gamepad-based console. But at a certain point, I’m not even sure why, I decided to give it a chance.

I used the gamepad’s tiny touchpad for mouse inputs, and, while the whole experience was unintuitive and tedious (try controlling a mouse cursor on a widescreen HDMI TV with a one-inch touchpad, struggling to determine which cursor, the OS one or the custom one, you should pay attention to), it was working, and I was quite taken with the little gray console. We submitted the game to the Ouya market, and a couple of days later it was accepted. The demo for the first episode of Rose was in the sandbox. We were thrilled! It lasted about a week.

But then it turned out that people at Ouya made a mistake. They didn’t think two-mouse cursors were acceptable after all, and removed Rose from the market, suggesting we use just the OS cursor, and ditch the custom one. This was not an option for me, since in Rose, the custom cursor texture changes for each inventory item you want to use, and seeing the entire thing becoming quite a hassle made me think of giving up.

Taking Advantage of a System’s Strength Instead of Fighting its Limitations

I’m not really sure how the thought of changing the entire control scheme came to me, but I’m glad it did. It was one of those moments when you just know you’re on to something. I took advantage of the controller, and revamped the controls to use it properly, instead of fighting its weakness (the tiny touch pad). I decided to ditch the cursor entirely, and control the game solely with the gamepad: use the left stick for movement, the right one to scroll through interactive hotspots, and the buttons for interaction. It took me about a week, but it turned the game into a great experience on Ouya. It was leaps and bounds ahead of what it was before, even if I had to get rid of the second cursor. Now all I needed was to finish episode one, and start working on episode two.

I took advantage of the controller, and revamped the controls to use it properly.

When the Main Job Gets in the Way

Remember when I told you about my day job? Well, summer time is usually the most hectic when it comes to corporate and marketing videos, and the summer of 2013 was no exception. My days started to clutter up with work, and I didn’t have the time needed to properly finish the first episode. I became more and more frustrated. Starting up Unity became intimidating. What if I won’t remember how to do things? Luckily, I received a lot of messages to our Facebook page where people were asking when the full game is coming out. Some of them were quite angry with the fact that it wasn’t there yet, and I have to say it felt very encouraging.

November came, and my workload started to get thinner. I gradually went back to Rose, found a few things I wasn’t happy with (it always happens when you distance yourself from a project and then return, no matter what the medium is), fixed them, and started wrapping things up. I’m truly happy to say that the first episode is finally ready, or at least as ready as it will ever be. Now all I need to do is launch it.

If someone asked me about the most important thing I learned from this project, I’d use one of the most worn out clichés from books – If you want something passionately enough and are willing to put your heart into it, you’ll make it happen. I never thought this was true - until Rose. And I feel like the luckiest man alive for finding this out.

Rose is already available on Ouya, and is soon coming to PC, Mac, Android and iOS. The game also took part in the Indie Prize Showcase at Casual Connect Europe 2014.

Contributions Development Game Development Indie Online Postmortem

Spoiler Alert: The Challenges and Difficulties of Doing a Game Backwards

February 19, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Megafuzz is a Danish indie game studio founded in 2013 by Jeff Jensen. With their flagship game Spoiler Alert conceived at a game jam, they are all about passion, creativity, and fun. A genuine love for the game is their strongest foundation. Jeff discusses the ups and downs of creating Spoiler Alert.

When Everyone Goes Right, Go Left. Literally.

In true indie spirit, Spoiler Alert was born at a small Danish game jam in Viborg in 2012. I remember the jam’s theme had just been announced: “resistance”. As many jammers in the corners were discussing various rebel games, friction-based games etc., I had a slightly different train of thought. I was thinking of “resistance to mainstream”. And what was the most mainstream thing I could think of in a videogame? That you had to complete it! Why not uncomplete it instead?

The jamming was about to begin, and I still hadn’t found anyone with whom I really got along. I was about to go solo when a tall, calm guy approached me, introducing himself as Martin Pedersen, a graphics artist. I explained to him my idea for the game (a reversed Super Mario), and we made an official team. Discussing ideas of how to proceed with our game, we immediately hit it off, and there was chemistry unlike anything I’ve ever felt before with a game jam partner.

martin_jeff1 — There was chemistry unlike anything I’ve ever felt before with a game jam partner.

Internet and Phone - Connecting Developers

The game jam was a success to us; Spoiler Alert won first prize for best game, best pitch, and also received a Judge’s Favorite, as well as Audience’s Favorite award. A couple of weeks later, it also got mentioned favorably in the Danish newspaper, Politiken.

Martin and I felt that we had a fun game idea, and, with the response we’d gotten based on our little 48-hour prototype, we wanted to turn it into a full game. We still believed there was a lot of untapped potential in the gameplay. Armed with nothing more than the idea and intense passion to carry it out much further, we launched a full assault on taking Spoiler Alert from a game jam prototype to a full game. We live in different cities with a significant distance between us, so we have to rely almost exclusively on the internet and phone for communication. Facebook and Google Docs are among our favorite go-to tools.

martin_jeff2 — We launched a full assault on taking Spoiler Alert from a game jam prototype to a full game.

Making a “Reversed” Game

Even though I’ve worked on numerous small games before, this was my first serious project, as well as my first time working with a partner. As for Martin, it was his first time making a game. Period. So, neither of us was that experienced. On top of that, we were doing a rather unique game, with a lot of uncommon design-related challenges. Just wrapping my own mind properly around everything going backwards was difficult enough at times.

spoileralert_screenshot1 — Everything going backwards here

I remember making an entire boss fight, being satisfied with it, showing it to Martin who was also satisfied, and then we realized I did it going forward (like a “normal” game). We both looked at it without realizing that. Instead of swallowing his own fireballs, the boss was shooting them - just to name an example. This sounds simple and stupid, but it caught us both a few times before we really got used to designing everything in reverse-logic.

About midway through the project, we saw a handful of issues. First off, the game wasn’t suited all that well for handheld devices (which was a strong focus), because we made the levels fairly long (2-5 minutes). So we cut them up into smaller pieces, and added a lot more new levels. We went from having 30 long levels to 100 shorter levels.

spoileralert_image1 — From 30 long levels to 100 shorter ones

Also, there were virtual buttons; one for jumping and one for using your powerup. The problem was, that as you didn’t always have a powerup, 50 percent of the GUI was redundant and confusing. We discussed having the powerup button only appear when you had a powerup, but then became afraid people wouldn’t notice it. Also, we thought it would be inconsistent. We ended up removing virtual buttons altogether. Instead, tapping anywhere on the screen would make you jump, unless there was a fireball to catch, in which case you would swallow it. In other words, we made it context-based. This worked much better and was way more streamlined.

We’re Done! Oh Wait…

About eight months of development later, and we were done! Or so we thought. We were about to release the game, but were forced to wait a few weeks as I was in limbo with paperwork (I was registering Megafuzz as a company, getting it approved as a business at Apple, doing bank stuff, and many other grown-up things). These weeks let us take a step back and look more critically and objectively at our own game. We realized that, in the end, we just weren’t satisfied. We could do so much better!

1_OldVersion — *Spoiler Alert* before full re-development…

We chose to postpone release, and took Spoiler Alert back into full re-development. This was a long process, which extended into another 6-8 months. Things became much better; the graphics got a huge overhaul, many old levels were improved and new ones added, UI was animated, and, thanks to extensive testing, we found out that the game was way too hard and unfair. We spent a lot of time making Spoiler Alert more intuitive, and re-balancing its difficulty. I’d estimate that we’ve reduced the difficulty level about 10x since the first version. At least.

The Encouraging Impatience of YoYo Games

We were knee-deep in development, moods were high, but exhaustion was also there. Spoiler Alert was developed using GameMaker: Studio, and I would often use the game as a basis for bug reports to YoYo Games. I guess this is how they noticed the game, because we didn’t really advertise it, but, all of a sudden, I got an email from their PR manager. She said that she and some of her colleagues had been playing around with the game, and would like to include it in their (at that point, non-existing) official games showcase. This definitely gave Martin and me some extra fuel, and we were promised to be included in their showcase as soon as it went live a few months later.

Eventually it was there, and I was supposed to email YoYo Games some materials for Spoiler Alert so they could put it up. Even though I really wanted us to get in the showcase, I deliberately waited until the game was in a state I would be more comfortable showing off. I actually held off for several months after the showcase went live.

I guess they got tired of waiting because one day in November 2013, I saw a mention on Twitter that Spoiler Alert was now in the showcase. As we hadn’t given them any proper materials, it didn’t look its best, and we had not submitted proper info either, so the showcase stated that the game was out, and provided a dead link. Being honored and excited, we understood we had to hurry and send in some proper materials and correct information. Even though we were fast, in less than an hour after the game info went live, I received the first email from a user who asked why he couldn’t download Spoiler Alert, and said it looked awesome. It was a mess, but a fun kind of mess!

A Team of Three, Yet Two Have Never Met the Third

I mentioned this was our first real game, and we’ve learned a lot from it. Martin has obviously improved very much as a graphic artist, and we’ve both gotten a completely new understanding of what it means to make a game. It’s a fun, but long and tough process, and often it pays to over-estimate schedules and times.

One of the areas in which I’ve personally grown the most is my own “quality bar” - it’s been set much higher. I’ve spent more time than ever on small but important polishing-related things, and have learned much about trying to make the interactive experience as intuitive and foolproof as possible. I’ve also gotten significantly more experienced in level design.

I’ve learned a lot about working with a team - Martin, and our musician and sound technician Roland La Goy, who’s based in the USA. It’s been interesting to make a game with a team where most communication is virtual, and two of three people have never met the third person. I’m still amazed that this worked out well, but I’m just blessed with having such awesome people in the team.

Spoiler Alert will be available for download in February 2014, on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS X, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, OUYA, Ubuntu, BlackBerry and Tizen. It also won the Most Promising Game in Development award at Casual Connect Europe‘s Indie Prize Showcase.

Contributions Development Game Development Online Postmortem

Chainsaw Warrior - How Auroch Digital Saved New York (and in only 60 Minutes!)

February 7, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Auroch Digital is a video games development studio and consultancy located at Bristol Games Hub in Bristol, UK. As well as developing Chainsaw Warrior, they run the innovative newsgaming project GameTheNews.net.

Starting Chainsaw Warrior

When Tomas Rawlings, director of Bristol-based Auroch Digital, found himself with the opportunity to speak to Games Workshop’s licensing team, he jumped at the chance. A fan of the company since childhood, he approached them with an idea for an adaptation of their classic board game, Chainsaw Warrior.

Designed by Stephen Hand and released in 1987 by Games Workshop, Chainsaw Warrior was a single player board game that charged the player with taking on the role of the eponymous, cyber-enhanced warrior to save New York from a mysterious and malevolent entity known as “Darkness” and the accompanying hordes of shambling zombies. To win, the player must work their way through a deck of cards, with each card representing a room and most containing a brutal enemy, a trap, or some other disaster to overcome. In order to defeat Darkness, the player must use a wide variety of equipment, weapons, and armor to fight through the myriad challenges to reach him without succumbing to their wounds, becoming infected with zombie venom, or falling to radiation poisoning. To make it more challenging, all of it has to be done within a time limit - only 60 minutes!

The game was renowned for being punishingly difficult, as Tomas recalls: “This was the Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy of its day. Players didn’t want to buy the board game and run out of challenge at first play. The game has many ways to kill you and is unafraid to use them – which makes it all the sweeter when you finally win.”

Chainsaw Warrior 1 — “This was the Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy of its day.”

From Tabletop to Mobile

Having the game rules set out before you start might seem like an easy way to make a game, but adapting the established rules to a digital format provided a wealth of trials for the team. One of the strengths of the board game, its huge variety of equipment and enemies, provided one of the stumbling blocks for the digital version. Lead programmer, Johnty Clark, remembers the issue well: “The fundamental mechanics were very simple, we had a basic version of the game working in a few days, but most of our time was spent implementing special cases for all of the individual cards. Many equipment cards only apply to specific enemies or situations, and the interdependency between cards created lots of issues that we needed to solve.”

Chainsaw Warrior screen — “Many equipment cards only apply to specific enemies or situations.”

Where the game differs the most from its original incarnation is, unsurprisingly, the way the player interacts with the game’s mechanics. Lead artist Codey Dyer was responsible for bringing the interface up to date. “Taking a board game with a large board and hundreds of components and condensing it down to work on a small screen was an interesting process,” he says. “The step away from the traditional form to a digital form allowed us to automate a lot of the game systems and maximize the screen real estate.”

While redesigning the game, it was important to the team to be faithful to fans of the classic board game as much as possible. The in-game art was a combination of original and new artwork, keeping with the theme of an updated classic. This theme is particularly relevant in the fully-animated dice, a feature that has proved popular with reviewers and fans alike. “As rolling dice is such an integral part of the board game we wanted to make sure we got our system right,” explains Codey. “It was important to make each roll feel like a tactile, dynamic experience that mimics the anticipation and suspense of a real dice roll.”

Chainsaw Warrior 3 — “It was important to make each roll feel like a tactile, dynamic experience that mimics the anticipation and suspense of a real dice roll.”

While the original game is renowned for its difficulty, the decision to add easier difficulty levels to the game (the hardest setting on Auroch’s adaptation is actually the standard difficulty of the board game) was made to ensure accessibility for new players, and to reflect some of the suggested rules found on forums and user groups. “The extra difficulty levels add an extra layer of strategy for the player who wants a bit more control over their character,” adds Tomas. “In addition to making the stats less punishing, the player gets a chance to customize their starting loadout in order to try out different strategies before taking on the ultimate challenge of Hard mode.”

And Ever Onwards

Working with Unity allowed the game to be ported to different platforms with relative ease: the iOS release was swiftly followed by Android, and the team then turned their attention towards Steam. The appeal of publishing on such a ubiquitous distribution platform is clear, but to Tomas, the community aspect of Steam is just as important as its huge install base “The great thing about Steam is that there is a forum system automatically set up and easily accessible by everyone who plays the game,” he says. “We had access to a very active community that gave us lots of focused feedback, and it was really easy to respond and have an ongoing dialogue with them.”

Chainsaw Warrior 4 — “We had access to a very active community that gave us lots of focused feedback.”

Since the Steam release, Auroch have added iOS and Steam achievements, Steam trading cards, and a scoring system and worldwide leaderboards that allow players to battle not just Darkness, but each other. Plans are afoot to bring this to a head by challenging players to top the leaderboards for the chance to win a copy of the long out-of-print, original boxed game.

The Results

Auroch’s dedication to staying true to the punishing spirit of the original game has been well received, with critics describing it as “…an absolute classic…very true to the original…” (Digiboard Games Reviews) and “Perfectly judged, brutally demanding and almost impossible to put down…” (The Guardian). Tomas adds, “We’re really pleased with what we’ve created. The team has done an amazing job in creating a brilliant mix of the best of the boardgame with the possibilities of digital. I feel it’s both a fresh and nostalgic take on a classic game. We hope our fellow gamers enjoy facing the thrilling challenge of trying to save New York. Not all will succeed!”

You can get the latest news by signing up for Auroch Digital’s email newsletter, following them on Twitter, and joining them on Facebook.

Contributions Development Game Development Postmortem

World Basketball Manager Tycoon: A New Way to Play Old-School Manager Games

February 6, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Created in 1999, Icehole Games is a small indie developer of unique strategy games based in Greece. It is the oldest videogames company in the country. Mostly working on PC titles, their portfolio includes games such as World Basketball Manager Series and Us & Them – Cold War. Thanasis Triantafillou, Owner of Icehole Games, tells the story of creating World Basketball Manager Tycoon.

The Idea

WBM — The story of our World Basketball Manager series goes back many, many years in the past.

The story of our World Basketball Manager series goes back many, many years in the past. Back then, we were a bunch of gamers that loved to play old-school soccer manager games. But since basketball is a very popular sport in Greece and the national team and clubs have won many international titles, we always wanted to find and play a basketball management game.

As hardcore sport manager game fans, we already knew that basketball would be the perfect theme for such a game. After all, sport manager games are statistical simulators of the sport they represent, and basketball is a sport that statistics give a clear view of the game and why a team wins or loses. Compared to other sports, statistics and evaluations of a basketball game really matters. So we decided that it would be great to create a videogame that uses the same statistics that the real life professionals of basketball use in order to analyze a game and the performance of the players.

info — Compared to other sports, statistics and evaluations of a basketball game really matters.

Building the Team

As I said before, we were just a bunch of gamers with no experience in game development. We only had a good and a bad programmer in the team (I admit, I was the bad one). We also had no money, and Greece had never produced any serious commercial videogames at the time. So no other videogame companies or teams existed in the country to get help from. That meant the first big challenge was to create a team that would develop the game. With no money, investors, and gaming industry around us, we started to learn game development rapidly!

Later, with a part of the project developed in order to have something to show, we managed to find a small investor that helped us hire two more programmers.

Designing the Game

Sport manager games is a very old game genre, so most of the gameplay was already set and tested by dozens of similar games. Still, we had to reinvent everything that was already included in soccer manager games to work for basketball - from the transfers’ algorithm to the players’ psychology. We even had to create some things that had never been done before, like a real-time basketball match algorithm.

We had to reinvent everything that was already included in soccer manager games to work for basketball - from the transfers’ algorithm to the players’ psychology.

After many tests, we came up with an algorithm that is divided in game states, like All Around, Shoot, Rebound, etc., that uses the world average statistics of basketball and calculates them according to the players’ attributes involved in every state and the teams’ averages. The calculation of the world average statistics is not only for the outcome of each state, but also to where every game phase could lead next, according to the outcome and the world averages again.

For example, a three-point (3P) shot will go in or out depending on the following: the world average of basketball for 3P shooting success, the 3P skill of the player that makes the shot, and the marking skill of the defender if the team plays man-to-man, or the zone skill defense of the team if it plays zone defense. Also, all team and player attributes get modified by some factors, such as playing home or away, team cohesion, current score, time inside the game, condition, psychology, etc.

We also decided that the game presentation should be similar to Championship Manager 2002 match presentation, a game that we loved and thought of as the ultimate old-school soccer manager game.

Small World, Big Game

Whatever we missed in experience and resources, we made up in ideas and enthusiasm. We wanted to make the game as deep and realistic as possible while including ALL the serious basketball action in the world. To create such a huge game with no experience and no resources was the first big threat to our project.

main — We wanted to make the game as deep and realistic as possible while including ALL the serious basketball action in the world.

After many months of struggling, arguing, and some very nasty fights inside the team, we realized that we had to cut down our expectations a little. Even then, we still had a huge and deep game in our hands when we finished the game design, with non-linear algorithms and attention to detail which we hoped the users will notice and enjoy.

From the first minute of designing the game algorithm, was clear to us that WBM will have no luck without a very strong A.I. In basketball, the team coach constantly makes substitutions and changes in attack plays, defense system, and personal markings. So we needed an A.I. that could select the team lineup, create the most appropriate strategy, and find a way to counter a human manager’s plans no matter how many times he would change his players and orders. And, most off all, to be able to do that in the very deep and complex game algorithm we had already created to realistically simulate real-life basketball stats. Finally, we came up with a genetic algorithm that did the job so well that we had to make it a little dumber in order for the user to have a chance to win!

match — We needed an A.I. that could select the team lineup, create the most appropriate strategy, and find a way to counter a human manager’s plans no matter how many times he would change his players and orders.

The main idea was actually very simple. The CPU manager would generate childs. A child would be a combination of lineup, markings, attack, and defense orders. Then it would test each child inside the game algorithm and would select the child with the better results to apply in the actual game. If the CPU manager had a coaching rating of 20 (the best possible rating), he would generate all possible child combinations and would make the best possible selection. If he had a coaching rating of 10, he would generate only 50 percent of the possible childs and so he might miss some of the best combinations, and so on. This genetic algorithm proved to be a great success. We had generated the best child!

Creating the Biggest Basketball Database the World had Ever Seen!

The final game design was asking for a database that included more than 100 national and international club and national team tournaments: 1.100 teams, 20.000 players and 1.200 managers. Also, that would mean 30 characteristics per country, 25 characteristics per team, 51 characteristics per basketball player and 10 characteristics per manager. It immediately came clear to us that we would never be able to create this huge database without a lot of help.

The first thing we did was to start building an online community of game fans. We wrote the code for a data editor that the community would use in order to collect the data, as well as a localization kit for their use. In a magical way, WBM immediately became a community project and today, WBM includes the biggest basketball database the world has ever seen in a game and is available in 12 languages. We just can’t thank enough our community for all the help they have offered to the game!

world — The final game design was asking for a database that included more than 100 national and international club and national team tournament.

The Release and Then Some

WBM was first released in Greece and Cyprus. The users’ reception was amazing, and soon after, the game was released in Germany, China (in Chinese language), Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia. So WBM became the first ever Greek game to be published outside Greece, as well as the first Greek game available on Steam.

We release the first versions of the game without the tycoon element. Nowadays, sport management games have separated the sport manager and the tycoon gameplay as two different game genres. But the old-school management games that we loved always included a mix of manager and tycoon gameplay. So although we were already happy with the game and the reception from the users and the sales, we decided to add the element.

We already had departments in the game that also represented a building, like the Academy or the Medical department, etc. Together with the building upgrades, we added more elements of economical management, loans, and challenges. The result is a very interesting combination of game genres and a fresh look in sport strategy games. As the club owner, you must generate (or loan) the necessary funds in order to expand the club’s facilities, raise the financial level, and improve the team’s roster while still fulfilling manager duties. As a manager, you are in charge of the player’s training program and when the match day comes, you have to select the team lineup, create the most appropriate strategy, and find the way to victory by countering the opposing manager’s plans.

This version had a great reception. It renewed interest for many old players of the series, while attracted many new and more casual gamers. The fact that you can play the game either as a classic manager without bothering with the Tycoon aspect or like a Tycoon just by simulating the games or both, makes it a very versatile game that suits all sport strategy gamers. The game series found also some new publishers in Europe and was immediately accepted in the Steam store.

World Basketball Manager Tycoon is available at the official website www.wbmtycoon.com. Keep up to date with Icehole Games by following them on Twitter and Facebook.

Contributions Development Game Development Indie Online Postmortem PR & Marketing

Pretentious Game: From Flash to App Store Featured

January 6, 2014 — by Mariia Lototska

Keybol is a one-man indie game developer company from the Philippines. Bari Silvestre has made a bunch of popular flash games, some of which were showcased at game conferences around the world. Bari is now venturing into mobile, and his first big release happened to be a hit in the form of Pretentious Game.

Contest Entry Becomes Viral

The setting is about a blue block who is in love with the pink block at the other end of the screen

Pretentious Game started out as a small flash game created for Ludum Dare 23 accelerated game development contest. The setting is about a blue block who is in love with the pink block at the other end of the screen. He must reach her in any possible way, even if this means breaking the rules set for the game, or even introducing a new mechanic. The ending is also a bomb waiting for every unwitting player.

The game turned out to be a hit! It went viral and topped the Reddit gaming subtopic. I understood Pretentious Game was a hit not only among gamers, but also within the indie games industry, when it got showcased twice at Casual Connect and was featured at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and IndieGames. When the game was presented at the Indie Prize Showcase at Casual Connect San Francisco, it won the Director’s Choice award and was nominated for Best in Storytelling. Pretentious Game was also on the front page of big flash game sites such as Kongregate, ArmorGames, and Newgrounds.

The game was presented at the Indie Prize Showcase at Casual Connect San Francisco and won the Director’s Choice award and was nominated for Best in Storytelling.

The following chapters, Pretentious Game 2 and 3, were received positively as well, since the second one has a surprising ending, along with improved gameplay. The third part is interconnected and awes many players with how witty the whole story is.

I think the game gained popularity thanks to its story, but the gameplay wasn’t lagging behind too. Players liked the fun of solving new puzzles while discovering the whole story. They also found the title amusing, and some thought it was a sort of parody.

screen — I think the game gained popularity thanks to its story, but the gameplay wasn’t lagging behind too.

When Publishers Harbor at Forums

Since the reception for the franchise was overwhelming, I decided to port Pretentious Game to reach a wider audience. To promote the game, I needed a trailer to later post it to the TouchArcade forum. I found a very catchy tune at AudioJungle, and imagined a good trailer script with the positive reviews from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, JayIsGames, IndieGames and Mike Bithell himself - the creator of Thomas Was Alone. Rishikanth Somayaji, a developer I met at Casual Connect Asia, volunteered to make the trailer, and he did an awesome video with his own vision.

The trailer caused a brief discussion, and then Bulkypix, a French publisher, contacted me with an offer on that forum. They reminded me that mobile games need visibility to take off, and promised to help with that. Bulkypix was really giving me benefits, and I couldn’t reject their offer anymore. The most memorable thing in our discussion was when they told me what their Lead Programmer told them: “If we don’t take this one, we won’t take any game!”

After additional quality testing and 10 more languages later, the game was published on December 5, 2013.

The Friday When Bari Woke Up Successful

It was another Friday morning here in the Philippines, when I woke up and decided to check the Best New Games. Pretentious Game was one of them! I thought I was dreaming, I almost immediately thought of hitting the jackpot.

As for the reviews, they were great. I was overwhelmed to see my game in such prestigious sites as Touch Arcade, App Advice and Pocket Gamer. In a week, even more reviews followed. The players liked the game too: more than 1900 reviews averaging 4.6 on Google Play and mostly 4 and 5 stars in App Store.

screen 2 — “Concealing a deeper meaning, Pretentious Game is an enjoyable platformer with a touching message.” - 148Apps.

Here are some reviews:

“I really like this game.” 4/5 stars — Touch Arcade

“I instantly fell in love with its challenging charm.”- App Advice

“Concealing a deeper meaning, Pretentious Game is an enjoyable platformer with a touching message.” - 148Apps

“I can say that it’s refreshing to see something like this come along.” - Arcade Sushi

“ Pretentious Game is one of those rare games on the App Store or Google Play Store full of originality.” - Pocket Gamer

I thought App Store’s feature rotation after a week of success would bring the number of downloads down, but instead we had entered the US App Store top charts!

I believe it’s because of the review from Touch Arcade and a video of 10 Fun Mobile Games by VSauce. It’s amazing how much this contributed to the number of downloads and sales. I can say I’m now more eager to move further through the US market. In fact, we reached 110,000 downloads in 10 days.

Promotion: Festivals, Contests, Press and Direct Suggestions

I’m now pursuing the game even more, since I’ve heard from other successful mobile developers that the first two months are the most critical, because what is being done now determines how long the tail of downloads to come will be.

I’ve met with directors from IGN Asia to tell them about the game, and reached out to local media to promote a Filipino-made game in my own country. Pretentious Game has also been suggested for a possible feature in Google Play, and is in process of being included in a mobile Humble Bundle - Bulkypix met with Google as part of their weekly roadmap, possibly pitching the games eligible for feature promotion.

I had also submitted the game to IGF 2014 before it was released, and hope they’ll choose it as one of the finalists.

Kickstarter-Style Monetization: Useful, but Unclear

We’ve tried a different approach to monetizing the game: a “Kickstarter-style” of purchasing the full game for a bigger price in exchange for more rewards like wallpapers and soundtrack. It was also meant for players to support the developer if they wanted to.

It worked, bringing some extra 30 percent to the earnings. But at one point after reading a comment from a player, I understood that it confuses other players. She said she can’t pay $4.99 to unlock the game, since she thinks it’s too much for a mobile game. I had to remind her that it will only cost her $0.99 to unlock the full game. The $4.99 is an option to support the developer and get an additional wallpaper and soundtrack. In the end, because we don’t have real stats to compare with (since, as far as I know, no other game has used this approach), we decided to leave it as is and focus on content instead.

Mistake in a Twitter URL May Have Cost Downloads

It’s a good thing that I manage the Facebook fan page of Pretentious Game, and can connect with the players to advise them what to do. Once there was a slight mistake in the URL of the link shared on Twitter, but that was easily fixed by the next week’s update. I am still wondering if it should have brought in extra downloads. I also noticed the Facebook sharing feature I put in the game did nothing! At least, that was the case when I checked for #pretentiousgame and saw a total of zero users having shared the message on Facebook.

Bari is now working on Circles with multiple personalities! He is planning to start a studio and gather a bunch of local talents in his provenance. If you want to check out more of his games, visit his Facebook Page.

Contributions Development Indie Postmortem

Lunata Rescue: Creating Games When You Have No Experience

December 20, 2013 — by Mariia Lototska

Insignia Games is a Brazilian independent game studio founded in 2006 by Kleber Seixas. Having worked as a civil engineer for 10 years, he made a radical decision and started making games, the real passion of his life. In 2012, the company launched their first platformer game, Lunata Rescue, where the player acts as the protagonist — a treehopper looking for its lost babies. Kleber Seixas recalls the journey from starting Lunata Rescue to its release.

Games Don’t Grow on Shelves

My first encounter with electronic games happened when I was seven years old, when my mother game me an Atari 2600. This year, I’m completing 30 years in this universe, passing through all generations of devices, including PC. The Super Mario franchise was a great inspiration for me (our very first game, Lunata Rescue, is also a platformer).

However, the idea of actually making games came about when I was 14. I was traveling to the USA for the first time, and I got into a huge toy store. I was fascinated when I saw the games section with piles of boxes! And then I came up with this thought: those games don’t spring from this shelf; I know that big companies are selling them, but there are people who work there to bring games to life. How cool it would be to work in one of those companies! This idea came true when I grew up. At that time, I had been working in engineering for 10 years, but I decided to switch from my job of a director of a construction company to making games, something I had been thinking about since teenage years. However, the engineering times wasn’t useless: it was this job that gave me the resources to set off on the game development journey.

kleber-1 — How cool it would be to work in one of those companies! This idea came true when I grew up.

The Beginning: 4 people, 8 computers

Initially, Insignia Games was based in Belém, a city in the region of the Amazon Forest in the North of Brazil. It was the first game company in the city, and therefore, a huge challenge. Back in 2005, information was the biggest problem on the way to starting a game company, followed by the issue of creating a team with a minimum of production capability. It took almost a year to gather my first team. But in the beginning, no one knew how to make games, including myself. We started studying everything: in what direction to go, what tools to use, and how to use them. I had to be the game designer, the producer, CEO, and the marketing guy at the same time to make production cheaper. And of course, I financed the company from my own pocket.

We spent almost two years like this, while today, you can finish a full game in just three months. My initial plan of studying and then creating wasn’t really working, so I finished that office in my hometown in the north of Brazil and move to Florianopolis in the South, where I could meet people with more experience in game development. This city is a big tech center in the country. In a year, we got used to the new place, met new people, and were ready to restart my dream project to develop games.

It was 2011 when I finally managed to gather a team of two programmers and an artist and finally start working. I put up an advertisement in all local universities and waited for a response. That’s how I met Robson Siebel and Alberto Palmieri (programmer and artist). After six months, Robson introduced me to Ycaro Weschenfelder (programmer), and we’ve had this team of four ever since.

534288_565960833473339_1846462939_n — It was 2011 when I finally managed to gather a team of two programmers and an artist and finally start working.

We started with eight computers. Each person used two machines: one for internet, and one within the internal network for our projects. Everyone had something to learn: the programmers were studying Unity 3D, the artist had to improve his animation techniques, and I needed to understand how to produce and finish the game design of the project. That was definitely not easy. On the other hand, when you work with something you love, all the difficult things that get in your way become “good” difficult things. It was great: finding the team in a completely new city, settling down, designing Lunata Rescue, and watching the character you imagined becoming alive. The whole process of production and resource management felt like playing a real-life game, with the first achievement of finishing the game and the second one of selling it. The first achievement has been unlocked, now we are working on the second one.

Rescuing Insect Babies

In the beginning of 2012, we were finally ready to start our first game project called Lunata Rescue. In Lunata Rescue, the player controls a little treehopper, questing the surroundings for its lost babies. Each level encourages players to explore the environment collecting bonuses, evading enemies, trying to rescue each and every lost baby, and finally facing the evil ant queen Donatella.

In Lunata Rescue, the player controls a little treehopper, questing the surroundings for its lost babies.

Each of five available maps are 100 percent hand-drawn, no tilemaps are used. Unlike in many platform games, the whole level design of Lunata Rescue is not linear, meaning the player doesn’t just move from left to right, but scouts the environment in all directions instead. The cartoon style shows common things from a bug´s perspective: tree leaves, grass, and even bigger animals are just platforms to reach other areas of the level. Five game modes are there for the player to combine their skills with abilities and upgrades obtained through the game to pass all challenges and accomplish achievements.

1377959_554942837908472_756566146_n — The cartoon style shows common things from a bug´s perspective: tree leaves, grass, and even bigger animals are just platforms to reach other areas of the level.

Using Unity 3D

We decided to work with Unity 3D because of the multiplatform possibilities. But our project turned out as a 2D project in a 3D tool, so we used a sprite manager plugin and the game was ready…and then Unity launched their 2D tools. Still, I think Unity 3D was the best choice for indie developers like us, who needed to start making projects, get into the market, and make it possible to launch our game on many devices.

We’ve done a lot of changes in the game during the development process, and I think this is natural for a first project, though the main idea, the objectives, and the characters have stayed intact since the initial idea. While the things around the game were growing, I kept telling the team that the game will be finished whenever it’s ready. That was the good side of being the finance man, the game designer, and producer at the same time. I just had to balance the three positions and finish the game.

Ready is When You Wanna Play as a Gamer, not as a Developer

I understood Lunata Rescue was ready for release when I felt it’s a game I’d play as a platformer player, not as the developer. It took eight days to get Apple approval, and we launched Lunata Rescue on iOS on October 21. We made the official launch on BGS (Brazil Game Show), the biggest game event in Latin America in São Paulo on October 25. The people’s feedback made us happy: we had 5-year-old kids playing as well as 40-year-old men. The cartoon style appealed to the younger players, and the classic platform style attracted the big guys. Within five days, we could show our game to 150,000 people. It was an enjoyable experience to see them playing, and they really liked our creation.

1385803_566211120114977_1607849115_n — We made the official launch on BGS (Brasil Game Show), the biggest game event in Latin America in São Paulo on October 25.

In my opinion, as a developer you need to put yourself in the player’s shoes and ask: is the game I’m making worth one day, one week, one month of my gameplay time? Or do I want people to play this game just because my friends and relatives said it’s awesome, and they play because it took a lot of work and investment?

601772_566212070114882_954320709_n — In my opinion, as a developer you need to put yourself in the player’s shoes and ask: is the game I’m making worth one day, one week, one month of my gameplay time?

Every day in Facebook gamedev groups, I see high-quality games being created by completely new companies like us, with three to five people. And I think that’s the way to put us on the world map of developers. We need to start making more games, do more mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and keep raising the quality.

Lunata Rescue is available for iOS. Insignia Games made a promotional launch for Brazil, and are still looking for partnership to make the Android, Windows Phone, (iOS outside of Brazil) launch of Lunata Rescue by the end of this year. They are also working on a new game they want to launch in the second quarter of 2014.

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