Express Photos: A Brief Review of Flip and Amnesia Post-Modems: A Machine for Pigs
Last weekend, gamasutra.com published new post- mortem topics dedicated to completely different games. In the reviews, developers Sebastian Urbi and Peter Howell share with readers the experience of creating game projects.
Post-mortem Flip, or How to make sure that the game will not bring money
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Sebastian Urby began to develop the game Flip (puzzle, in which you need to rotate the elements in order to achieve their proper order) in early 2014. The project was created under Unity, Gimp and Inkscape were used for graphics. The whole process took about three busy months of work, while a month and a half was spent only on usability testing. Sebastian asked people to play, and he watched the gameplay and wrote down minor notes, as he wanted to significantly simplify the Flip entry threshold.
The budget of the game was minimal, since its author was practically all (the exception was a few Unity plug-ins and music) he created himself. But, unfortunately, even this scanty budget Sebastian failed to cover. In the post-mortem Urby warns developers against repeating his mistakes.
In general, as Sebastian believes, the main problem was not the secondary nature of the project and not the dullness of the gameplay, but a bad marketing strategy. He practically did not advertise the game before launch - AdWords was too expensive, and it only made sense to use Facebook ad until release.
As a result, Urby had only a set of music, a boring three-minute gameplay video and a press kit. The information about the game was published in just a few sources, and the author started placing Flip in online stores only after the release, having wasted a lot of time.
Due to the lack of clear goals that had to be determined at the initial stage, Flip did not recoup the costs of its creation. In addition, Sebastian stresses, he wanted to be honest with users, so he did not use popular monetization models. Urby chose the “play and buy” option, in which gamers, while playing for free, could reach a certain level. Access to the rest of the content was opened only after the purchase of the full version.
Despite the failure of Flip, its creator considers the time spent a good experience and hopes to correct its mistakes in the future.
The full version of the misadventures of Sebastian Urbi can be read on gamasutra.com .
Also on the portal you can see the exclusive post-amusement of the game Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs from the British studio The Chinese Room.
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a joint brainchild of Frictional Games (FG) and The Chinese Room (TCR) studios. Development of the project took about two years, but both companies were satisfied with the result. The TCR emphasizes that FG provided them with greater freedom of action: the main goal was to create not the exact continuation of the first Amnesia, but a new game “with the old skeleton”.
Positive experience:
First of all, it was necessary to get rid of the mechanics of "madness" that was present in Amnesia: The Dark Descent (the point is that the character is "frightened" by the darkness and monsters and begins to literally go crazy), since FG seemed to be an indicator of fear for the player and puts an emotional response in a certain framework. In the early stages of development, “madness” was replaced with “infection rate”, which, judging by the screenshot, did not change the essence.
As a result, the infection system did not fit into the game, as it did not look too intimidating and only confused the players, so they decided to give it up and pay more attention to the plot. The game focuses on a specific story, and the developers used various techniques to inflate the atmosphere and uncover plot details. The script contained a large number of internal monologues, but as a result, some elements of the voice acting were cut out, and some were scattered throughout the levels as notes.
The presence of text prompts made it possible to maintain the ambiguity of the perception of game events, which would be impossible with voice voice acting - the actor necessarily “dictates” a certain meaning through intonation. This approach received positive feedback from the players, while the necessary emotional reactions were reinforced by a strong audio sequence, which was later named almost the main advantage of the game.
HPL2 had to tinker with the mechanics, but in the end the whole development team mastered the basic tools, and with the help of some adjustments proposed by the programmers, TCR customized the level editor for optimal performance. The openness of the source code made it possible to make the necessary changes almost without the intervention of FG specialists, which significantly reduced the process of creating Amnesia. TCR has worked a lot with the HPL2 debugging tools, and this has laid a solid foundation for the game.
In addition, the accessibility of the API, which was used to create levels and was based on AngelScript, helped in working with the main stages - several team members could work on the same task. Initially, a number of portable script sections were approved and created, which could be used and adjusted at any level. For example, this allowed the audio team to work with portable scripts to randomize environmental sounds, switch soundtracks, and integrate music independently of other developers.
TCR has greatly simplified the gameplay. First, the developers planned to add a “speed limiter”, since the main character is far from being an athlete. However, it later emerged that such a limiter was more annoying than adding something interesting to the gameplay. A big step was a complete rejection of the use of the character inventory - fortunately, the game implemented a system for transferring objects from one location point to another. The absence of the need to switch screens, according to TCR, allows gamers to delve into the gameplay.
Negative experience:
Instead of requesting a preliminary version of all levels of the game, FG forced the TCR to create a fully prescribed third level (Cellar level) and display all the capabilities of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs in it, having worked its design to the smallest detail. Considering how many times the changes were subsequently made to the game, the creation of a complete third level turned out to be a waste of time - almost nothing of what was in the initial version went into release. TCR emphasizes that in the early stages of development it is much more important to have a gray-boxed version of the game, in which you can display all key events, and not to do it already during or, worse, after completing the leveling.
The TCR claims that, although the FG company provided them with complete freedom of action in terms of creativity, they made many edits, often controversial, because of which they had to redo the levels several times. FG also removed many aspects from the project that TCR considered extremely successful, and the largest visual error “blue fog” was the result of a misunderstanding and lack of communication between the companies.
The entire “What Didn't work” section is devoted to excuses and blaming FG for all the miscalculations in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. TCR reproached FG for wanting to simplify the respawn system and the game as a whole, and also expressed dissatisfaction with the limited capabilities of HPL2, since due to difficulties in working with the AI ​​system, it was impossible to place enemies in narrow corridors and cluttered rooms. As a result, based on the mechanics itself, it is easy to predict in which room you are “planted a pig”.
The marketing campaign of the game completely failed: the developers did not pay enough attention to writing press releases and creating videos. Both trailers released in support of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs were perceived negatively by the public. In addition, FG gave an early access to the game to the flyerscaster, which, according to TCR, only aggravated the situation: many gamers were disappointed in the gameplay, because they could not fully feel the right atmosphere.
In conclusion, Peter Howell hypothesizes that the game would have been more successful if it had not been released under the title Amnesia, since the differences between the first and second parts of the gameplay caused negative feedback from many fans. Despite abundant criticism, TCR still considers Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs a successful project that made gamers lead lively discussions, demonstrating a real passion for the game and immersion in its universe.
You can read the full version of post- mortem on gamasutra.com
In addition to the obvious problems with marketing, the developers of both games had difficulty determining the target audience, were limited by the project budget and tried to simplify the gameplay in order to attract more players. Despite the huge gap between Flip and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, the reasons for the low popularity of both projects are very similar.
Post-mortem Flip, or How to make sure that the game will not bring money
')
Sebastian Urby began to develop the game Flip (puzzle, in which you need to rotate the elements in order to achieve their proper order) in early 2014. The project was created under Unity, Gimp and Inkscape were used for graphics. The whole process took about three busy months of work, while a month and a half was spent only on usability testing. Sebastian asked people to play, and he watched the gameplay and wrote down minor notes, as he wanted to significantly simplify the Flip entry threshold.
The budget of the game was minimal, since its author was practically all (the exception was a few Unity plug-ins and music) he created himself. But, unfortunately, even this scanty budget Sebastian failed to cover. In the post-mortem Urby warns developers against repeating his mistakes.
In general, as Sebastian believes, the main problem was not the secondary nature of the project and not the dullness of the gameplay, but a bad marketing strategy. He practically did not advertise the game before launch - AdWords was too expensive, and it only made sense to use Facebook ad until release.
As a result, Urby had only a set of music, a boring three-minute gameplay video and a press kit. The information about the game was published in just a few sources, and the author started placing Flip in online stores only after the release, having wasted a lot of time.
Due to the lack of clear goals that had to be determined at the initial stage, Flip did not recoup the costs of its creation. In addition, Sebastian stresses, he wanted to be honest with users, so he did not use popular monetization models. Urby chose the “play and buy” option, in which gamers, while playing for free, could reach a certain level. Access to the rest of the content was opened only after the purchase of the full version.
Despite the failure of Flip, its creator considers the time spent a good experience and hopes to correct its mistakes in the future.
The full version of the misadventures of Sebastian Urbi can be read on gamasutra.com .
Also on the portal you can see the exclusive post-amusement of the game Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs from the British studio The Chinese Room.
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a joint brainchild of Frictional Games (FG) and The Chinese Room (TCR) studios. Development of the project took about two years, but both companies were satisfied with the result. The TCR emphasizes that FG provided them with greater freedom of action: the main goal was to create not the exact continuation of the first Amnesia, but a new game “with the old skeleton”.
Positive experience:
First of all, it was necessary to get rid of the mechanics of "madness" that was present in Amnesia: The Dark Descent (the point is that the character is "frightened" by the darkness and monsters and begins to literally go crazy), since FG seemed to be an indicator of fear for the player and puts an emotional response in a certain framework. In the early stages of development, “madness” was replaced with “infection rate”, which, judging by the screenshot, did not change the essence.
As a result, the infection system did not fit into the game, as it did not look too intimidating and only confused the players, so they decided to give it up and pay more attention to the plot. The game focuses on a specific story, and the developers used various techniques to inflate the atmosphere and uncover plot details. The script contained a large number of internal monologues, but as a result, some elements of the voice acting were cut out, and some were scattered throughout the levels as notes.
The presence of text prompts made it possible to maintain the ambiguity of the perception of game events, which would be impossible with voice voice acting - the actor necessarily “dictates” a certain meaning through intonation. This approach received positive feedback from the players, while the necessary emotional reactions were reinforced by a strong audio sequence, which was later named almost the main advantage of the game.
HPL2 had to tinker with the mechanics, but in the end the whole development team mastered the basic tools, and with the help of some adjustments proposed by the programmers, TCR customized the level editor for optimal performance. The openness of the source code made it possible to make the necessary changes almost without the intervention of FG specialists, which significantly reduced the process of creating Amnesia. TCR has worked a lot with the HPL2 debugging tools, and this has laid a solid foundation for the game.
In addition, the accessibility of the API, which was used to create levels and was based on AngelScript, helped in working with the main stages - several team members could work on the same task. Initially, a number of portable script sections were approved and created, which could be used and adjusted at any level. For example, this allowed the audio team to work with portable scripts to randomize environmental sounds, switch soundtracks, and integrate music independently of other developers.
TCR has greatly simplified the gameplay. First, the developers planned to add a “speed limiter”, since the main character is far from being an athlete. However, it later emerged that such a limiter was more annoying than adding something interesting to the gameplay. A big step was a complete rejection of the use of the character inventory - fortunately, the game implemented a system for transferring objects from one location point to another. The absence of the need to switch screens, according to TCR, allows gamers to delve into the gameplay.
Negative experience:
Instead of requesting a preliminary version of all levels of the game, FG forced the TCR to create a fully prescribed third level (Cellar level) and display all the capabilities of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs in it, having worked its design to the smallest detail. Considering how many times the changes were subsequently made to the game, the creation of a complete third level turned out to be a waste of time - almost nothing of what was in the initial version went into release. TCR emphasizes that in the early stages of development it is much more important to have a gray-boxed version of the game, in which you can display all key events, and not to do it already during or, worse, after completing the leveling.
The TCR claims that, although the FG company provided them with complete freedom of action in terms of creativity, they made many edits, often controversial, because of which they had to redo the levels several times. FG also removed many aspects from the project that TCR considered extremely successful, and the largest visual error “blue fog” was the result of a misunderstanding and lack of communication between the companies.
The entire “What Didn't work” section is devoted to excuses and blaming FG for all the miscalculations in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. TCR reproached FG for wanting to simplify the respawn system and the game as a whole, and also expressed dissatisfaction with the limited capabilities of HPL2, since due to difficulties in working with the AI ​​system, it was impossible to place enemies in narrow corridors and cluttered rooms. As a result, based on the mechanics itself, it is easy to predict in which room you are “planted a pig”.
The marketing campaign of the game completely failed: the developers did not pay enough attention to writing press releases and creating videos. Both trailers released in support of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs were perceived negatively by the public. In addition, FG gave an early access to the game to the flyerscaster, which, according to TCR, only aggravated the situation: many gamers were disappointed in the gameplay, because they could not fully feel the right atmosphere.
In conclusion, Peter Howell hypothesizes that the game would have been more successful if it had not been released under the title Amnesia, since the differences between the first and second parts of the gameplay caused negative feedback from many fans. Despite abundant criticism, TCR still considers Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs a successful project that made gamers lead lively discussions, demonstrating a real passion for the game and immersion in its universe.
You can read the full version of post- mortem on gamasutra.com
In addition to the obvious problems with marketing, the developers of both games had difficulty determining the target audience, were limited by the project budget and tried to simplify the gameplay in order to attract more players. Despite the huge gap between Flip and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, the reasons for the low popularity of both projects are very similar.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/224703/
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