My little story of the development and publication of mobile games
Retreat
About a year and a half ago, looking through the next issue of “Videomania”, I heard about the Unity3D engine. I have never been deeply interested in such things before and considered the development process difficult for me. At the same time, the childhood dream of creating games, as well as the love for them, has not yet died away. I paused and paused "unity3d" ... Having installed Unity and understood the basic principles of the engine, I was very happy with several things at once: ease of development, multi-platform, detailed and understandable documentation and a live forum (everything is in order with English good) availability of store add-ons and free licenses. In the future, I tried other engines, but my preference still has not changed. Choosing a platform, I stopped on mobile and, in particular, on Android. I had nothing apple. By that time, the Android license was worth $ 400. But, while I was in a hurry taking a video course on the basics of OOP programming and Java (there was some experience in php), the guys from Unity decided to give developers the opportunity to make games for Android and iOS completely free, for which they thank you very much.
Joy knew no bounds when I first launched a test project on my phone. Everything worked great! And the process of compiling, sending and running the application on the device took a few seconds. Clapping my hands, with a smile on my face, I began to think about what should I do with all this now ...
In September of that year, Google published the first game, today there are five of them. None of them has yet taken possession of the world, but each subsequent gave me a new interesting experience.
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Further, the story continues in the chronological order of the games and is divided into chapters of the same name, with statistics, promotion methods and other things.
Quiz
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Being a fan of Tolkien’s universe and seeing an addition that simplified the process of creating a quiz, he decided to make his own. Of course, for the quiz to use Unity is not quite reasonable, I understood that even then, but it did not stop me. I came up with the name of my “studio”, bought a domain for the future site, registered as a developer on Google Play and plunged into a doubly enjoyable process. About 2 months of work and the quiz was ready. 45 questions with increasing difficulty, divided into 3 levels. I understood that I was violating copyrights by using screenshots from a movie in questions, like its name in the name of my application. But at the same time I saw how similar quizzes from other developers quietly lie in the market and are in demand. For which, in fact, was punished by removing the application, as well as the first and last warning from Google, 3 months after publication. I fully agree with this, I am guilty, I will not do it again. At that time, “cleaning” of all kinds of garbage just started on Google Play.
For those three months, my quiz still scored 14k installations. The main part, of course, in the first month. At this time, the application participates in the "new free" ratings in its and in general categories, which gives rise to installations. The plans did not seriously promote this kind of game, and did it more as a fan for fans and for the sake of experience. Therefore, I just wrote about it in several thematic publics on VKontakte and forums, including w3bsit3-dns.com and Xennet-Annun. I think the main push was due to the last mentioned source. The application has risen in new free in the category "Puzzles" (there were other categories before) and in the end, reaching 20 places, gave out up to 660 installations per day. Here, as I believe, the name and icon worked. The ratings were good, the reviews were pleasant, they asked for more levels. In the top of the "free" game above 120 places did not rise. A month later, the installation dropped quite sharply to ~ 100 per day.
Installation schedule on Google Play:
All the ratings I call Russian now and later in the text, in other popular countries it was not possible to rise to decent positions.
After publishing, he continued to work on the game and learned how to embed authorization in the Play Service, leaderboards, achievements. Also practiced to display ad banners Admob network. This helped a special plugin (Android Native). I will not give the income graph from advertising, on average it was $ 1 a day, there was a small banner below. There was also an English version, it made a separate application, but success was darker and after the warning I myself removed it from the publication.
Chpok! match three
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By the time the quiz was removed, I was already doing the next game. The “three in a row” mechanic seemed to me suitable as the next test. I will not go into the technical details much. But I want to say that I decided to write scripts on CSharp. It is more common in Unity, it will contain most of the examples, tutorials, and other useful materials that you will find. Also then discovered a wonderful plugin, which then used in all the following games - 2DToolKit. It facilitates working with sprites and is suitable as a GUI.
He drew the graphic part himself, recorded most of the sounds from the microphone, took the rest from freesound.org, with mention of their creators in the game. In addition to the achievements, leaderboards and advertising in this game, I overcame the stage of introducing internal purchases.
After the publication for promotion I used only publications on the forums. Plus I tried advertising in Admo: putting on the balance about 500 rubles I received about 30-35 installations.
The installation schedule on Google Play at first looked like this:
At the peak of installations, the game was ~ 25th place in new free puzzles and 166th among all free puzzles. Now I am surprised that this game just took up to 1000 installations per day, which may have been largely played by a successful name.
The graph of revenue from advertising for the same period is presented below. At the bottom hung a smart banner, every 10 level completion was accompanied by an interstitial ad. Subsequently, the interstitial period, I reduced to three.
Admob revenue schedule:
By the current time, the installations smoothly dropped to ~ 10 per day, the whole game collected 14k installations. Revenues from advertising from $ 0.1 to $ 0.5, with spontaneous
After the release of the game, I decided to try out the multi-platform Unity and post the game in the Appstore. With the purchase of a license, there were no problems. It costs $ 100 for a period of one year. To buy a license, the presence of apple devices is not necessary. On New Year's holidays I went to my friend, the owner of a MacBook several times, and we together with him went through all the stages of publishing an application. This process has turned out to be many times more difficult in comparison with publication on Google Play. In the end, to my luck, the game was still published.
Appstore installation schedule:
In the Appstore, new applications in the "new" ratings go down from the top as new applications are added. Therefore, if you just lay out and watch, without resorting to promotion, then the peak of installations falls on 1 day. Now, a few months later, the installations range from 0 to 3. The experience has been gained and, well, we are doing the next game.
Bigfoot hunt
In fact, this game has not yet seen the light. But I spent at least 2 months on this project and this work gave me a lot of experience in Unity theory and drawing, so I don’t want to miss it. In complexity, it surpasses the rest of my games, and on it I decently increased my level of programming. I learned how to make randomly generated levels from tiles (tiles) with slides and climbs, 2D animation, artificial intelligence and much more.
Initially I wanted to make an endless 2D runner running through the mountains of a snowman overcoming obstacles. Playing the draft version, I realized that the game quickly becomes boring, there is little content in it and there is no motivation. He began to reflect on correcting it, and came to this point ...
The player controls a hunter who, overcoming obstacles, pursues the yeti. At the same time, the yeti itself is not on the screen, and the distance indicator between them hangs at the top of the screen. When a hunter catches up with a target, a yeti appears in the frame, which also runs and is able to pass obstacles. At this point, the game goes into shooting mode. Both the hunter and the victim are still running, but now the first one takes out a weapon and starts shooting at the target right on the run. Actually the task - to catch up and kill the yeti. I drew characters, weapons (through tracing paper) and background. I could not record the sounds of gun shots. Having rummaged in the assetstore, I found a pack for $ 10, with the sounds of all possible weapons, from a crossbow to a grenade launcher, several sounds of a shot, reloading and dropping the sleeves on each weapon on the floor. To create an animation bought the extension SmoothMoves. Then there was still a sort of action on it, $ 35 instead of $ 70. Very handy plugin for 2D animation.
There is a demo version that can be played from the browser.
Then different ideas began to come to the head and the game began to rapidly become more complex. I was confronted with many questions about how to complicate levels, systems of pumping and unlocking weapons and much more. The head went round and round. Against this confusion, one thought comes to me, and I decide to quickly switch to another game, and leave this one until I decide how to do it.
The next game was already mentally outlined in my head, and it was immediately clear to me how I would do it “from” and “to”.
Brickdown 3d
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The idea of the game, which, in fact, well, very simple, came to my mind in a rather interesting way. Once at dinner, while browsing YouTube, I came across a review of a game called “Sumotori Dreams”. It became interesting to me and I downloaded the demo version. After playing a couple of times, I went to the main menu, which stopped my attention. The choice of the menu item took place by throwing the dice into the appropriate plank, while they were hung on the ropes and all yielded to the laws of physics. On the background of the menu was a large platform suspended in space. I began to indulge in throwing dice away from the menu items, and watch how he behaves. He knocked on the platform, jumped and fell from the edge into the abyss. And suddenly one of the cubes was still on the very edge. I automatically had the idea to knock down this cube at whatever cost. I began to try to do it, aiming at more precisely and taking into account the amendment to the ballistic movement. After a few shots, I got it and I experienced a little feeling of victory. A little later, pouring myself a cup of tea, I came to the conclusion that I really liked the experienced process, and I want to make such a game.
On the same day in the evening the draft version of the game and the first level were already ready. After playing it on the tablet, I was convinced of the validity of the resulting gameplay. Moreover, I have not seen such games in the market, and the thought that I am making my game with unique mechanics inspired me even more. In total, the development took a month and a half, of which the lion's share, I basically came up with levels. The graphics were chosen in the style of minimalism, objects of ideal geometric shape, even shaders without textures. I really visually loved it: nothing superfluous and distracting, easier to manufacture 3D models and less system requirements. Players then divided on this score. In the sound part there was only the sound of the swoosh at the moment of the launch of the projectile, and the sounds of the collision of objects (I shot them from the microphone, dropping the box on the table). There was no background music or UI sounds then. Most recently, I still added them.
On April Fools' Day, there was a release on Google Play, a week later on the Appstore.
The schedule of installations from Google Play for the first month:
Schedule of installations from the Appstore for the first month:
On the first day after the release on Google Play, I published information about the game on several resources, among which were w3bsit3-dns.com, xda-developers, gamedev, gcup, trashbox and several public pages on Vkontakte. The result was awesome for me! 464 installations on the first day and immediately jump to 25th place in the top of new free arcades. As I found out later, the game got into a review from GamePlan, a video blogger reviewing Android mobile games. The release was on the same day as the release, it was he who gave most of the installations, for which the author thanks a lot.
Recalling Chpok, I predicted a huge number of installations for the next few days, but to my surprise, these expectations did not materialize. On the contrary, the installations began to fall, and with them my mood. I began to realize more and more clearly that there was nothing to hope for without paid promotion. After reading a bit about paid promotion of mobile games, I decided to order a review on w3bsit3-dns.com at the "Light" tariff. The publication was scheduled for Friday, April 25, in the evening. The graphs show a jump on this day, and on Google Play the jump is very decent, about 1000 installations. There was a push in the tops, and I was hoping that the tops themselves would begin to pull the game up by inertia. But, as it turned out, to push further, this push was not enough.
It was very curious to observe how information about the game appeared in various places on the network. There were text reviews and simply adding to the game catalogs, and reposts of ready-made reviews or videos. In order not to search each time in a search engine and view the results, you can subscribe to a notification about new results in Google. For example, I learned that the official MTS group in Vkontakte made a repost one of the articles. This gave additional installation, but not essential.
Admob ad revenue graph:
From the very beginning, I did not include advertising at all in order to gain user loyalty and more positive ratings. But after a while, I turned on the interstitial ad after every fifteenth launch level. Later, over time, I reduced this period, feeling for the optimal threshold.
At the moment, this game is downloaded 20-30 times a day, and it brings $ 3-6 per day, in total from Android and iOS.
Yeti run
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On the May holidays, my wife and I planned a trip for 2 weeks, and I decided to quickly lay out another game. I just cut BigFoot Hunt to an endless runner with a snowman in the lead role. The only thing that added was a dynamic change of day and night to somehow make the game more diverse, and also screwed the leaderboard so that people could compete in the distance of the distance traveled. Breaking is not building, everything took 2 days. Just before I left, I put it on Google Play for free. As expected, without any progress the game goes unnoticed.
Spinny
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After returning from a trip, I rested for a while from the games, until one day before going to bed I had the idea of one small and simple arcade. It was so simple that it did it on the first day and laid it out on the second, 4th of June. The essence of the game - to get from a rotating gun at the targets. With each hit, the rotation speed increases, complicating the whole process. The game has 3 levels, and if the first is still somehow possible to pass after long training sessions, then the second and third are hardcore. I myself did not pass them, but I knew for sure that this was possible. This was confirmed by the fact that the players were passing. I saw this by the presence of results in the leaderboards, which were three - at each level. My desire to promote the game was the same as the game itself - small and frivolous. So I just managed to post in several forums. Nevertheless, the game also got into the video review from GamePlan and scored 525 installations per day, having made races immediately to 30th place in the top of new arcades. At this her adventures ended.
Brickdown nextgen
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Development
It was summer. In my free time, I had more fun than I spent on my new hobby. But towards the end of July, he came to his senses and was preparing for a new start. Moreover, the autumn season is already on the nose. Of all my games, I considered only decent brickdown to be worthy and thought about continuing. These thoughts were fed by slipping reviews asking them to do the second part or add new levels. In early August, after a long search for background music and textures, I began to work closely.
The basis of the draft was the first part. Remembering stuffed cones began to diligently remake the game, rebuilding the interaction architecture of scripts and paying great attention to how best to use prefabs. In the future, this greatly simplified and accelerated the implementation of changes in the course of development. After optimizing the scripts and building the system, the main menu began to create levels.
My HTC Desire X and Nexus 7 tablet showed quite acceptable 40-60 fps, but it was interesting how things are on other devices. I decided to find testers. Fortunately, I got it pretty easily and quickly. On Google Play, you can give access to alpha and beta versions of the application to certain Google accounts or members of a given community on Google+. Especially not counting on success, I published a post on pikabu with an appeal to help in testing and attached a screenshot of the 1st level. To my surprise, the topic began to actively ply, comment, and he got into the "hot." During the day, 160 people were added to the group, 20 of whom were unsubscribed in the community based on the test results. Moreover, some of them are quite detailed and with the indication of the defects and wishes found, for which many thanks to them. The results were positive both in terms of testing and in terms of user response. This turn of events fueled my desire to work even more. Later I tried to write such a topic on other similar resources, but there was no such effect anymore.
According to my plan, I had to finish by the day of knowledge, but in the course of level design, I decided to add a few new "chips" to the game, which eventually doubled the period. In the process of development, in addition to becoming familiar with editing UV coordinates for 3D objects, I further tightened my scripting skills in Unity and began to look less and less into the documentation. From third-party free add-ons taken on the assetstore, the game has a metal texture pack (Metal textures pack), from paid ones a set of music and effects for puzzles (Puzzle Audio Kit) and a set of space skyboxes (Skybox Volume 3).
The second part turned out a head taller than the first and in performance and in all other parameters. It has more content, star award systems, block level unlocking, and more. I also added the ability to upgrade the game to a premium version for a fee, which cleared ads and opened all levels at once. Advertising, as in the game prequel, was full-screen and was shown after a certain period of level launches. I began to store this period in a php file on my VPS server. This made it possible to change this parameter at any time, without updating the apk file.
Promotion
Previously, I did not choose the days of release and released the game as soon as it was ready. This time I decided to choose Friday exactly, having decided that this day is more favorable for the birth of a new game. Having created an icon, screenshots, a promo image and a description, I was relieved to put on another game on Google Play and started a less enjoyable and much more complicated process - promotion.
By tradition, after the release, he posted posts on forums and publics on Vkontakte with an open wall or the ability to offer news. But unlike the first part, the game was taken much colder. The post on pikabu, on which I had reason to hope, also did not give any special results. Through Google Analytics, I watched how many people play in real time. At one point, I noticed a sharp increase in users. "Googling" the name of his game, found a fresh video on YouTube. It was nice to again get into the release from GamePlan, this time, in first place, of the three games surveyed. The review gave about 360 installations on the day of its release.
Having exhausted the free channels smoothly switched to paid ones. I ordered reviews from two video bloggers and a post in the Android community on Vkontakte (~ 400k subscribers). All publications occurred on day 1 and in the amount of 20 thousand views I received about 1,750 installations, while spending a total of 3,500 p. It should be noted here that one of the testers who joined my VC group helped, and one review (from a more popular video blogger) was made to me at a symbolic price, which I myself called.
On the second day after the publication, the result of the jerk was visible. In the top of the new free arcades, the game jumped to 25th place and 148th place in the top of all free in this category. Good reviews and high average rating - 4.7. Then I began to buy the installation in the apptools system, where its members, for a fee, install the promoted applications. The price of one installation there costs at least 6 rubles for Android applications. For several days I bought 100-400 installations, so as not to slow down and go up to the top further. In total, the usual settings were quite good, as a result, the game reached from the 25th to the 15th place, occasionally getting into the top "gaining popularity." But installations from apptools have a reverse side of the coin. Most of the participants, having received the award, are immediately removed, and this is a bad influence on the ranking in the tops. Inertia did not follow and after that a smooth descent began.
Google Play installation graph:
Position chart in the top of free arcades:
Ad revenue graph:
At the time of writing, I'm waiting for the review from w3bsit3-dns.com and the results of moderation in the Appstore.
Conclusion
Over the entire period, I got a lot of experience working in my free time and at my pleasure. I made sure that games can be created without much programming experience. The main lever is a strong desire. I made a conclusion for myself that the success of the game for the most part depends not on the game itself, but on the right promotion strategy, which I still have to learn. For all the time, the profit from advertising from all games amounted to a little more than 1k dollars and about a hundred more from in-game sales and paid versions.The main part came in the last six months. The numbers, of course, are still funny, considering that there are games that earn as much in 1 day. But at least something, incomes twice beat off all the costs of additions and promotion. At the moment, I plan to continue to make games, ideas and desire for this there.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/241419/
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