Fun da vinci

That's where it all began, but what we have come to. We have changed a lot, put together a stable team, and gained experience selling the game, we will share all of this with you% Username%. Interesting? Welcome under cat.

Programming

Everything is simple - me and Nikita Sidorenko (Division). They say that two programmers on one simple flash game are many, I categorically do not share this position. As practice has shown, if you write a game alone, you will soon score. Maybe it’s certainly in us, but believe me, we tried it - the two of us are more fun, and progress is being made. I explain it from the point of view of conscience, if one does something, then the second is ashamed that he is idle and starts to connect to the process.
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Design

It all starts with him, and in the quality game he stands at the forefront. As you know, the design for the last part I painted (tyril). This feeds into the competition, but for a successful product, a normal, and most importantly, exclusive art is needed. Kherson, a small city, everyone knows everyone in the face, good designers once and twice, so they didn’t have to search for a long time “freelancer from the provinces” by Semyon Khramtsov .



“Though I didn’t like puzzles, the guys' enthusiasm infected me. At first I proposed several variants of art, among which was the stylization of Leonardo's manuscripts. On her all eyes and put. Of course, in graphic design, this technique is very pop, but it was thirsty for the synthesis of an interactive environment with the well-known style of sketches by the mega-designer of the Renaissance. I re-read his biography, gossiped his works to get more raisins for the game, and in general, immerse myself in the right atmosphere as much as possible. Of course, what turned out, I think, mockery of his image and inventions, but where are we up to the Master? Thank God that I did not repaint the game in bright, “casual” colors, as one of the judges advised us on a game lynch, then they would surely burn in hell.
The greatest achievement for me in this work is the immersion in the level-design and the combination of the gloomy self-portrait of the artist with the smile of Dzhakonda :) ”- Semen Khramtsov.

Sound and music

The last one remains, but an important area is the musical and sound design of the game. It not only enlivens the game, but also does not let the user get bored, at least until it starts to annoy. Semyon just turned out to be an acquaintance, a very talented composer, with whom he had long worked on small flash projects, Vladimir Marinichev , which was very helpful.

“First of all, to dive into the atmosphere of the Renaissance, I revised the film-biography of Leonardo da Vinci and listened to the works of composers of that time. For the menu theme, I took the work of Claudi Gervaise as the basis, which would convey the mood of the thoughtful Creator and transfer the player to the Renaissance. Arranged as well as instrumental set tried to perform in the style inherent in that time.
For the sound design of the gameplay, many sounds were recorded using the objects at hand. It was decided to leave the levels without musical accompaniment, and instead convey the atmosphere of the workshop. During the game, you can hear Leonardo constantly making notes and singing along with himself, enthusiastically performing his next experience.
Unfortunately, in an effort to reduce the size of the game, I had to cut the quality of all sounds and music, which of course prevented us from realistically conveying all the details and details. But in general, many were satisfied with the result, and of course it was very pleasant to get a high rating from the FGL ”- Vladimir Marinichev

So, the team is on the road ...

Start

The first committee was held on August 4, 2010, it can be considered the beginning of development. We slowly began to fix bugs, and since we all have the main work, it all happened very slowly. We hooked our manager, we created a bunch of tasks there, a lot of discussions, all of course about anything. In the final form, if you take into account all the tasks, the game should look like a mini Starcraft 2 with its BattleNet `th (he came out at that time, which was very distracting). Just in the unreality of our plans and the first error was covered. Do not build huge locks. For the most part you will score when it comes to you that your plans would surprise even Napoleon. It happened to us. We realized all this when we decided to take part in FlashGamm KYIV 2010. We had to show something, and we didn’t have anything, even a working prototype. That's when the real work began. First of all, they carried most of the tasks, all that was possible was minimized and optimized. And it gave results.

FlashGamm KYIV 2010

By the beginning of the conference, we were able to assemble something resembling a prototype, and make a few sad levelers. With this Simon and Nikita went to Kiev. We participated in the “Indies” category, plus we also signed up for a game lynch, oh, and we were there… But the game lynch itself was very useful, we were pointed out the flaws of our game, our mistakes and advised where to go further. It was gratifying that we predicted many of these shortcomings already in advance. On the audience voting for the best game lynch game, our game scored 0 points (Zen) and none of us, after that, expected that we could take at least something. But suddenly we took the nomination “Future hit”! Joy knew no bounds
proof I think this event had a positive effect on the team spirit, we realized that there is something in the game and it needs to be completed, by all means.

Coming to an end

After the competition, the development was already going in an adjusted manner, everything worked like a clock. But there were annoying bugs. The first bug is the dropping of objects, he pursued us back in the Ball factory (in the first prototype). Decided trite, by the method of scientific spear. I started to play with the settings of Box2D and found one feature, if you change b2_aabbMultiplier from 0.2 to 0.1, then the falling was magically fixed. But the second bug crept up, from where we did not expect. We used SimpleButton wherever it was necessary to make a button, and even thoughts didn’t allow that in newer versions of the player, the states of the button started to stick and it couldn’t be corrected, no matter how sophisticated they were, it didn’t help, I had to make my scooter. Discussion on flasher.ru .

Sale

Another event happened on FlashGamm, we met Stefan Keix. We did not know how to sell the game. There was of course something on the Internet about FGL, but everything was vague, besides it was necessary to attract sponsors. Stefan actually deals with this, of course, not for free, of 30% of the sold game. Thinking and consulting, we decided to accept this offer. Stefan still gives recommendations on how to make the game more attractive to the sponsor. The first thing he indicated is the name. The fact is that the working name of the game was “Balls Da Vinci”, it was with this name that we participated in FlashGamme. But alas, this name caused a lot of unnecessary associations with Leonardo's manhood (which could not but rejoice) and we were renamed “Fun Da Vinci” (maybe this is only a puzzle for us, and for da Vinci's brain - jokes).
The lot was exhibited on January 14, 2011. For everyone who sets up the game, the FGL makes a review.
Review Information:

Intuitiveness: 7 Good
Fun: 6 Average
Graphics: 7 Good
Sound: 8 Great
Quality: 7 Good
Overall: 7 Good

Comments:
Leonardo da Vinci theme
Creative level design, polished interface
Lacks depth beyond first playthrough. Consider adding a sort of mechanism

Immediately we were offered $ 1,000, but we wanted more, at least $ 3k. This rate lasted for about a month, we were already desperate, but suddenly several large portals began to fight for the game (I think it could not have done without Stefan). Rates now grew, then subsided. It was noticed that by the end of the week the activity of sponsors increased. When the bid reached $ 3,000, we nearly broke off to accept it, but someone bald suggested we wait, because at that moment we received an offer from jayisgames.com to write a review for the game. We were delighted, because besides the “Respect” from the well-known portal, a new wave of rates may arise, and it happened ... After the next sponsorship battles for the game, the rate stopped at $ 5,600. We have strangled our "toad" and took a bet. It was another victory. Exactly 2 months passed from the publication of the game on FGL to the adoption of the bet.

As you may have guessed, won the Armor Games. Usually sponsors are asked to make branding for their portal, put the intro, connect the API, etc. All this is easily done, but we have problems with the Armor Games' API, it did not want to connect to any. We made an empty project, everything works fine in it, but not in the game project. I do not know how miraculous, but Nikita found out that if the API is initialized in the preloader, then everything is OK, strange of course, but oh well.

Divide the money

So, you all wonder how much we earned? Well, the alignment is as follows:
FGL takes 10% for its services (half, by agreement, Stefan pays);
10% of 5600 = 560 (FGL share);
560/2 = 280 (the fraction of the FGL share that we pay for);
30% of 5600 = 1680 (Stephan’s share);
The result: 5600 - 280 - 1680 = 3640:

Three and a half pieces for 4 people in 4 months is a good result, as for migrant workers from Nigeria. How to live on games alone? - the question that puzzled us, but, nevertheless, the enthusiasm only increased, and we will not throw our hobby. And the answer to this question, we will surely decide or find, maybe even in the comments to this post;

Future plans

We are already doing the second version with new items, levels, and features. There are ideas for interesting gameplay and virgin themes. On the technical side we look towards the Appstore and the Android Market, Unity3d to help us.