How the Tuffle developers tried themselves in mobile game development

After one and a half years of hard work on Tuffle.com digital memory service, the release of a mobile application, and then its promotion, our team began to look for new directions that could provide funding for a startup. We noted some very promising options and stopped in the field of the gaming industry. And if in the development of iOS applications, the experience was already there, then we were amateurs in mobile game development. Initially, treating the future project as a test project, we began to sort through all sorts of ideas and genres. Since on the move to create a large title did not allow neither financial nor human capabilities, it was necessary to do something small, but interesting.

First of all, it was necessary to choose a genre - it was decided to stop on timekillers. First, the creation of such games does not entail serious costs - they can be made even by one person. Secondly, such projects are made fairly quickly, and in conditions where you just need to test the idea, this factor is of no small importance.
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But timekillers can also be different. We conducted a small analysis of the market and identified several factors:

1. The game should be memorable;
2. It should be convenient to play anywhere and at any time;
3. The game should be simple to perform and manage;
4. The game must be difficult in terms of passing.

In addition, we tried to take into account the trend for 8-bit projects. Titles like Flappy Bird and Timberman managed to gain popularity among the mobile audience, and therefore it was decided to try to arrange their pilot game project in the same style. Moreover, pixel art gave the workflow a kind of “start feeling”, by analogy with old toys, which later turned into large-scale and well-known games with beautiful graphics and a huge audience.



In the end, we decided to create an iOS game about diggers , whose task is to dig as far down as possible without encountering obstacles. Initially it was assumed that the Brutal Digger will receive only one location, which will smoothly change as it passes. Later it was decided to abandon this idea, because if a player cannot dig deep enough, he simply will not see everything that we have prepared for him. Therefore, our designer has created several locations, including the cemetery, desert and night. In addition, there was still a winter card with brutal Santa, however it existed until February 1 and was turned off - Christmas has long been in the world.

The first mechanic we used was represented by tapas. By analogy with the Swing Copters, the character moved to the left, then to the right. To change its direction, it was necessary to touch the screen. Later we added another mechanic - push. Keep your finger on the smartphone screen, and the excavator starts to dig strictly down. Control in the latter case was carried out by means of an accelerometer. The second mechanic turned out to be more convenient, and it was possible to dig a little deeper in this way. As a result of team debates, it was decided to show both mechanics to people - friends and acquaintances, schoolchildren and even young mothers saw the game Brutal Digger on courses for the development and education of young children. Almost unanimously, all preferred control using an accelerometer.

As for the obstacles, we immediately decided to eliminate the addiction factor - the user should not know where the gap will be next. Therefore, horizontal blocks are generated randomly. To add a little interest and dynamics to the Brutal Digger, we decided to add a few artifacts to the game. Thus, gold widens the gap between obstacles, and the skull and bones, on the contrary, narrow it. Dynamite was also added - a spectacular way to destroy the nearest barrier.



Initially, we assumed that only one character would be used in the game, but shortly before the release, our designer released some more funny options that we liked. Thus, in addition to the very first digger, Brutal Digger also included: a brutal American with a pickaxe, a Russian with a balalaika, a Frenchman in a thong, a sapper with a shovel, and Santa, who was digging the ground with a Christmas tree. In addition, for the sake of fun, we added to the project a completely naked digger with a horned helmet - Easter eggs, appearing in the game very rarely. The excavator-nudist flies down and demolishes everything in its path. To be fair, the result achieved in this way is not taken into account.



A bit short-sighted was the use of the third version of the Cocos2d engine. Porting Brutal Digger to Android (along with an accelerometer) has proven to be quite difficult. In addition, the game was displayed differently on different devices. If in the case of the Galaxy Note III, only periodic departures were noticed, then here on the HTC One (M8) the textures have already seriously gone. It would be a very long time to correct these shortcomings, and therefore we decided to test the game on iOS for the time being and send forces to its further improvement. If the digger turns out to be in demand among iPhone users, then this naturally motivates us to release the game under the mobile platform from Google.

It is also worth saying a few words about the balance. During the development process, the game was launched, probably, more than one thousand times, as a result of which various options for balancing complexity were tested. We stopped on the principle "from simple to complex." That is, at the beginning between the obstacles there is a little more gap, more gold, and also lower the speed of movement of the character. But already somewhere in 10 seconds after the start the complexity becomes maximum, and then the player digs as much as he can hold out.



Surprisingly, creating mobile games was pretty fun. Moreover, to observe how a fully-fledged title grows from the prototype is quite an interesting occupation. It took us almost two and a half months to create the Brutal Digger, despite the fact that initially we expected to prepare the game in three to four weeks. Here, to some extent, our inexperience, prolonged testing, as well as the preparation of locations and characters affected. Now we have already released the first large-scale update, which brought with it a new artifact (night vision goggles, with which you can see the weak points in the obstacles), distance scale (previously you could see your result in the upper part of the screen), as well as a complicating element - torch. So that it does not go out, the player on his way will have to collect batteries.

You can view the result of our work by clicking on this link (the game is free).

In future materials, we will share our experience in terms of promoting Brutal Digger. What happened immediately, and what is not. Leave your opinions and comments, we will try to answer them.

Our previous materials:

Advantages of dedicated servers over cloud solutions on the example of Tuffle.com server architecture