Developer Path, Part 3: The Game Creation History
Hello everyone, with you half a year later again Delfuego FM, and I want to happily announce the long-awaited release of our mobile game - Sling Monsters!
In this great article will be told about the development of the game, the development of its visual style and what it actually is (for more than a year since the first launch of Unity, I kept its main mechanics secret, because nothing identical to it I met), and also about what rake I was attacking in the development process, about the development of the graphic style, about all sorts of philosophical reflections on the theme of industry and everything else.
It is better to see once than hear a hundred times, so you can immediately watch our promo video:
')
The idea of ​​the game originated a long time ago, after the unsuccessful work in Moscow, when I was performing the task of inventing various concepts of mobile games for some remote producer. From a couple of dozens of ideas, this was the most interesting and promising, and I left it for myself.
I was never paid for the concepts, the producer disappeared somewhere, but the idea of ​​a unique game remained. Still, sometimes useless at first glance, the activity brings its tasty fruit.
The first drawing of the game that started it all
Monsters walk along the paths from top to bottom, and the player scorches along them from various magical slingshots.
In essence, the game is a combination of ideas Plants vs. Zombies and Angry birds.
The first normal art for the game (authorship is not mine), when I, being still only a game designer, organized 3.5 parallel projects (for more details, all my adventures in game development are described in 2 previous articles, 1 article , 2 article ).
After all these adventures, I came to the conclusion that in order to finish the job, you have to become the chief programmer yourself, not just the game designer.
As a development engine, I wanted to take Cocos 2dx, but thanks to one really good person, namely Sergey Ledin, I gave up this hopeless idea for the humanities and chose Unity. As it turned out, not in vain - and if someone else is thinking about the choice of the engine, then I hasten to dispel all your doubts - feel free to choose Unity. Thanks to some amateur making bikes from rakes and crutches, and even without sitting, for some reason I was sure that since Unity allows you to do it on any platform at once, this affects performance and buggy. And suddenly this engine turned out to be an industry standard, exemplary documented, with a huge amount of ready-made code, with answers to Unity Answers for all Nuba questions.
The typical lover of homemade rake bikes
I also want to assure only those who make up their own game that it is not necessary to study programming or the mythical architecture of games beforehand - you can start doing everything on the go, you just need to finish the basic course on a codecademy, and all the knowledge will come in the process.
As a language, I chose Unity Script (a kind of JS). On the one hand, it is much simpler than C #, and on the other hand, if you do not train yourself to more complex constructions, then when it comes to the integration of plug-ins, for example with in-game purchases, then you may have problems. So if a crazy Tyrannosaurus with plasma cannons is not chasing you, then writing a game on C # would be more reasonable.
Inspired by the creator of Iconoclasts, I chose a completely Jade path, on which I was going to draw the whole game myself. Monsters came out pretty well with me. The first monster, a blue cat, appeared when I was painting an ice and suddenly realized that it resembles a cat in its outlines.
Each monster must have its own anti-monster. I suffered from drawing inanimate objects (turrets and minivolcanoes), which I went out badly, and then accidentally stumbled upon a router:
And I came up with such a defender:
Here the plot concept was formed: good characters shoot a good witch at evil and make them kinder. If the monster has reached the bottom of the screen ("base"), then he steals a heart (life) from a player. It sounds naive, childish or something, but this has a special meaning. Even the most evil monster needs only love and attention. As I mentioned in the previous article, the main enemy is always inside us, not outside.
At one time, I repeatedly passed such games as Postal, Manhunt and GTA, but then I became a staunch supporter of the bloodless gameplay. I believe that the struggle is the basis of the universe, and the bloody violence in modern culture (not only in games) is a relic of the past. Since the time of the Big Bang, matter has undergone not only structural changes, but also conceptual ones. Initially, there were only non-living compounds of molecules, then from all this chaos, living matter somehow evolved, which evolved into animals. Then a man appeared who was little different from his ancestors - the same life under the whistle of instincts, but more complex. Now, in my opinion, a person is at a turning point - from a partially conscious matter, due to the accumulation and understanding of cultural baggage and the experience of civilization, we are gradually becoming a fully conscious matter. So in this and my other games I will try to implement the concept of bloodless struggle. In fact, you can even make the MMORPG with a boevka, but without blood. It sounds strange, but in fact it all depends on the setting and the desire to consistently implement a non-standard idea.
After determining the plot, I drew and programmed the prototype. Here's what I got:
It seems like a good idea, but I wanted to make such a game, which quite seriously could be with the heavyweights of the industry. The style was original, but not of high quality, so that it did not evoke a feeling of hack-work and understanding of the unprofessionalism of the creator.
I decided to still order art. According to the results of cooperation, which was not specified, the following happened:
The next artist was good, we had a wonderful logo from 1 time, but Vasily gathered in Tai for half a year and I had to start searching again. This time, after numerous misadventures (not related to Vasiliy) with male artists, I decided to find an artist, assuming that the girl would treat the work more decently. What a good decision I made! I managed to find “the very one” that immediately produced the coolest comic with the history of the world.
The main villain Moriarty was kicked out of hell for his bad temper, and now he is creating chaos and destroying in the once happy country of seals and other freaks.
In the meantime, the visual style was not completely redone, I finished the demo on my own, and hurriedly sent it to the publishers. She looked like this:
Now I understand that I was in a hurry, I had to contact the publishers after a complete update of the visual style to increase the chances of interest.
Despite the "bright and colorful visual style" and "original concept" (quotes from publishers), no one became interested in its publication. It would seem that it is necessary that the game interested? The visual style that distinguishes it from the rest of the games, but not arthouse, understandable only to a few? There is. The original and simple mechanics that do not clone a single game, which will allow the first to occupy its niche? There is. Who needs all this? No one :)
In communicating with one of the publishers, I found out that the estimated cost of attracting a player to our game is several times higher than the predicted profit from him, and therefore to invest in "traffic" (from the word "traffic", that's exactly what publishers now call players) no one will. This explained a few dozen failures from the best publishers. Although for me it still remains a mystery how countless 3 are in line, despite the marketing budgets of competitors represented by Candy Saga and numerous imitators, discourages investments, while a game like mine has the same simple and casual essence as CCS, but with the original mechanics, there are no chances for publishers.
I will figure it out on my own experience.
When the publishers refused me for this reason, I was surprised, because I planned that the majority of failures would be for other reasons. Also, the crazy prospect of competing alone with the giants of the industry, who are investing the budgets of small countries in promoting their games, did not inspire optimism.
Now I am grateful to the publishers for the refusals, because it will allow me to go all the way to this indie from beginning to end, including the promotion of the game. It’s like the sunrise by hand - a crazy idea at first glance, but if you approach it systematically, then there may be chances. How successfully I got this for the market of ex-USSR countries will become clear in the coming days.
But back to the fall of last year. The publishers refused, but the cooperation with the artist went successfully, the game took its final shape (a staged screenshot for the stores):
Yes, we are actually playing 5 kg Twix in our group.
The problem with graphics was solved, but a new one arose: after integrating the authorization plug-in in contact, I realized that for implementing invites, analytics and in-game payments, I need a server programmer that I managed to find (it was the author of the plug-in).
They decided to do the server on Microsoft Azure - firstly, it eliminates the need to write bicycles from crutches, and secondly, Microsoft gives bonus money to Microsoft Azure every developer after registering the project with BizSpark.
As a sound design, I decided to use the tracks of a DJ and composer, with whom I successfully worked on one of the previous projects. As a result, we got an original sound design - trance and breakbeat tracks are used as background music for levels.
Flashback track screenshot
Monetization of the game is very soft - all 50 levels can be completed without spending a penny. We plan to get most of the revenue through video advertising, which is shown in 1 out of 5 cases after a level failure. In my first big game, I decided not to squeeze out all the juices from the players.
In general, the monetization of the game is a separate interesting story. While the game had not yet started, I had already managed to avoid several rakes associated with it. It all started with admob banners at the bottom of the screen. Banners were in the place where it stretches and click, if one of the monsters almost got to the edge of the screen. And, knowing how admob bans at the slightest suspicion of a misclick, I decided to find some other way to monetize. Poryskav in articles about monetization, I decided to use video advertising. I chose Chartboost as a system, since by indirect evidence he worked well in Russia. But, as it turned out, video advertising with an award in Russia did not really work, the fill-rate was close to 0. It turned out that quite accidentally in the comments to “Zuckerberg will call.” In the same place, I created a topic-survey, what kind of video advertising to use in Russia. Apparently, in Russia it is best to use Unity Ads.
Monetizing non-greedy games like mine leads to paradoxical results - if you monetize a player gently, then you survive only through the “overflow of traffic” into the games of the whales of the industry. And in general, the analysis of the entire situation in the industry leads to phantasmagoric conclusions - after all, players used to pay for game installations, and now publishers pay for it, often to the same players (using motivated installations services).
The modern monetization model for most mobile games
In addition to video advertising, we plan to get some return on co-financing of the project on the crowdfunding platform Planeta.
Honestly, I find it a bit embarrassing to collect money for the game, when in the neighborhood they collect money for charity, save lives and destinies of people, and we are here with our Sling Monsters. But the fact is that the game is not an end in itself, in the first place I do it in order to get a financial basis for other projects without the need for investment, which often, on the experience of the same Contact and Habrahabr, force us to spend on scandals and share instead of project development. What are these planned projects? For example, one of them can help local communities and even states overcome crises more successfully.
Speaking of the crisis. And again, there is a paradoxical situation with games - for such games like mine, which are monetized by advertising, the high dollar rate is even on hand, because the revenue from ad networks comes in dollars. That is, even if the game works in the ex-USSR market, and our players do not spend a penny, you still get the profit, and moreover in dollars. Amazing thing.
Today we are launching in Russia and the countries of the former USSR, in line with the world release, before which we plan to add many new interesting things to the game, including PvP with rates in game currency.
Links to the game in the article unfortunately I can not give. You may see them in the comments if any kind person is interested in the results of my story.
Many thanks to Polina, Danila, Vitaly and Sergey for making the game with me!
PS
If you would like to program this or another our game on Unity (for payment, of course) and you are ready to drop everything and fly to the ends of the earth, then be sure to write me in contact.
In this great article will be told about the development of the game, the development of its visual style and what it actually is (for more than a year since the first launch of Unity, I kept its main mechanics secret, because nothing identical to it I met), and also about what rake I was attacking in the development process, about the development of the graphic style, about all sorts of philosophical reflections on the theme of industry and everything else.
It is better to see once than hear a hundred times, so you can immediately watch our promo video:
')
The idea of ​​the game originated a long time ago, after the unsuccessful work in Moscow, when I was performing the task of inventing various concepts of mobile games for some remote producer. From a couple of dozens of ideas, this was the most interesting and promising, and I left it for myself.
I was never paid for the concepts, the producer disappeared somewhere, but the idea of ​​a unique game remained. Still, sometimes useless at first glance, the activity brings its tasty fruit.
The first drawing of the game that started it all
Monsters walk along the paths from top to bottom, and the player scorches along them from various magical slingshots.
In essence, the game is a combination of ideas Plants vs. Zombies and Angry birds.
The first normal art for the game (authorship is not mine), when I, being still only a game designer, organized 3.5 parallel projects (for more details, all my adventures in game development are described in 2 previous articles, 1 article , 2 article ).
After all these adventures, I came to the conclusion that in order to finish the job, you have to become the chief programmer yourself, not just the game designer.
As a development engine, I wanted to take Cocos 2dx, but thanks to one really good person, namely Sergey Ledin, I gave up this hopeless idea for the humanities and chose Unity. As it turned out, not in vain - and if someone else is thinking about the choice of the engine, then I hasten to dispel all your doubts - feel free to choose Unity. Thanks to some amateur making bikes from rakes and crutches, and even without sitting, for some reason I was sure that since Unity allows you to do it on any platform at once, this affects performance and buggy. And suddenly this engine turned out to be an industry standard, exemplary documented, with a huge amount of ready-made code, with answers to Unity Answers for all Nuba questions.
The typical lover of homemade rake bikes
I also want to assure only those who make up their own game that it is not necessary to study programming or the mythical architecture of games beforehand - you can start doing everything on the go, you just need to finish the basic course on a codecademy, and all the knowledge will come in the process.
As a language, I chose Unity Script (a kind of JS). On the one hand, it is much simpler than C #, and on the other hand, if you do not train yourself to more complex constructions, then when it comes to the integration of plug-ins, for example with in-game purchases, then you may have problems. So if a crazy Tyrannosaurus with plasma cannons is not chasing you, then writing a game on C # would be more reasonable.
Inspired by the creator of Iconoclasts, I chose a completely Jade path, on which I was going to draw the whole game myself. Monsters came out pretty well with me. The first monster, a blue cat, appeared when I was painting an ice and suddenly realized that it resembles a cat in its outlines.
Each monster must have its own anti-monster. I suffered from drawing inanimate objects (turrets and minivolcanoes), which I went out badly, and then accidentally stumbled upon a router:
And I came up with such a defender:
Here the plot concept was formed: good characters shoot a good witch at evil and make them kinder. If the monster has reached the bottom of the screen ("base"), then he steals a heart (life) from a player. It sounds naive, childish or something, but this has a special meaning. Even the most evil monster needs only love and attention. As I mentioned in the previous article, the main enemy is always inside us, not outside.
At one time, I repeatedly passed such games as Postal, Manhunt and GTA, but then I became a staunch supporter of the bloodless gameplay. I believe that the struggle is the basis of the universe, and the bloody violence in modern culture (not only in games) is a relic of the past. Since the time of the Big Bang, matter has undergone not only structural changes, but also conceptual ones. Initially, there were only non-living compounds of molecules, then from all this chaos, living matter somehow evolved, which evolved into animals. Then a man appeared who was little different from his ancestors - the same life under the whistle of instincts, but more complex. Now, in my opinion, a person is at a turning point - from a partially conscious matter, due to the accumulation and understanding of cultural baggage and the experience of civilization, we are gradually becoming a fully conscious matter. So in this and my other games I will try to implement the concept of bloodless struggle. In fact, you can even make the MMORPG with a boevka, but without blood. It sounds strange, but in fact it all depends on the setting and the desire to consistently implement a non-standard idea.
After determining the plot, I drew and programmed the prototype. Here's what I got:
It seems like a good idea, but I wanted to make such a game, which quite seriously could be with the heavyweights of the industry. The style was original, but not of high quality, so that it did not evoke a feeling of hack-work and understanding of the unprofessionalism of the creator.
I decided to still order art. According to the results of cooperation, which was not specified, the following happened:
The next artist was good, we had a wonderful logo from 1 time, but Vasily gathered in Tai for half a year and I had to start searching again. This time, after numerous misadventures (not related to Vasiliy) with male artists, I decided to find an artist, assuming that the girl would treat the work more decently. What a good decision I made! I managed to find “the very one” that immediately produced the coolest comic with the history of the world.
The main villain Moriarty was kicked out of hell for his bad temper, and now he is creating chaos and destroying in the once happy country of seals and other freaks.
In the meantime, the visual style was not completely redone, I finished the demo on my own, and hurriedly sent it to the publishers. She looked like this:
Now I understand that I was in a hurry, I had to contact the publishers after a complete update of the visual style to increase the chances of interest.
Despite the "bright and colorful visual style" and "original concept" (quotes from publishers), no one became interested in its publication. It would seem that it is necessary that the game interested? The visual style that distinguishes it from the rest of the games, but not arthouse, understandable only to a few? There is. The original and simple mechanics that do not clone a single game, which will allow the first to occupy its niche? There is. Who needs all this? No one :)
In communicating with one of the publishers, I found out that the estimated cost of attracting a player to our game is several times higher than the predicted profit from him, and therefore to invest in "traffic" (from the word "traffic", that's exactly what publishers now call players) no one will. This explained a few dozen failures from the best publishers. Although for me it still remains a mystery how countless 3 are in line, despite the marketing budgets of competitors represented by Candy Saga and numerous imitators, discourages investments, while a game like mine has the same simple and casual essence as CCS, but with the original mechanics, there are no chances for publishers.
I will figure it out on my own experience.
When the publishers refused me for this reason, I was surprised, because I planned that the majority of failures would be for other reasons. Also, the crazy prospect of competing alone with the giants of the industry, who are investing the budgets of small countries in promoting their games, did not inspire optimism.
Now I am grateful to the publishers for the refusals, because it will allow me to go all the way to this indie from beginning to end, including the promotion of the game. It’s like the sunrise by hand - a crazy idea at first glance, but if you approach it systematically, then there may be chances. How successfully I got this for the market of ex-USSR countries will become clear in the coming days.
But back to the fall of last year. The publishers refused, but the cooperation with the artist went successfully, the game took its final shape (a staged screenshot for the stores):
Yes, we are actually playing 5 kg Twix in our group.
The problem with graphics was solved, but a new one arose: after integrating the authorization plug-in in contact, I realized that for implementing invites, analytics and in-game payments, I need a server programmer that I managed to find (it was the author of the plug-in).
They decided to do the server on Microsoft Azure - firstly, it eliminates the need to write bicycles from crutches, and secondly, Microsoft gives bonus money to Microsoft Azure every developer after registering the project with BizSpark.
As a sound design, I decided to use the tracks of a DJ and composer, with whom I successfully worked on one of the previous projects. As a result, we got an original sound design - trance and breakbeat tracks are used as background music for levels.
Flashback track screenshot
Monetization of the game is very soft - all 50 levels can be completed without spending a penny. We plan to get most of the revenue through video advertising, which is shown in 1 out of 5 cases after a level failure. In my first big game, I decided not to squeeze out all the juices from the players.
In general, the monetization of the game is a separate interesting story. While the game had not yet started, I had already managed to avoid several rakes associated with it. It all started with admob banners at the bottom of the screen. Banners were in the place where it stretches and click, if one of the monsters almost got to the edge of the screen. And, knowing how admob bans at the slightest suspicion of a misclick, I decided to find some other way to monetize. Poryskav in articles about monetization, I decided to use video advertising. I chose Chartboost as a system, since by indirect evidence he worked well in Russia. But, as it turned out, video advertising with an award in Russia did not really work, the fill-rate was close to 0. It turned out that quite accidentally in the comments to “Zuckerberg will call.” In the same place, I created a topic-survey, what kind of video advertising to use in Russia. Apparently, in Russia it is best to use Unity Ads.
Monetizing non-greedy games like mine leads to paradoxical results - if you monetize a player gently, then you survive only through the “overflow of traffic” into the games of the whales of the industry. And in general, the analysis of the entire situation in the industry leads to phantasmagoric conclusions - after all, players used to pay for game installations, and now publishers pay for it, often to the same players (using motivated installations services).
The modern monetization model for most mobile games
In addition to video advertising, we plan to get some return on co-financing of the project on the crowdfunding platform Planeta.
Honestly, I find it a bit embarrassing to collect money for the game, when in the neighborhood they collect money for charity, save lives and destinies of people, and we are here with our Sling Monsters. But the fact is that the game is not an end in itself, in the first place I do it in order to get a financial basis for other projects without the need for investment, which often, on the experience of the same Contact and Habrahabr, force us to spend on scandals and share instead of project development. What are these planned projects? For example, one of them can help local communities and even states overcome crises more successfully.
Speaking of the crisis. And again, there is a paradoxical situation with games - for such games like mine, which are monetized by advertising, the high dollar rate is even on hand, because the revenue from ad networks comes in dollars. That is, even if the game works in the ex-USSR market, and our players do not spend a penny, you still get the profit, and moreover in dollars. Amazing thing.
Today we are launching in Russia and the countries of the former USSR, in line with the world release, before which we plan to add many new interesting things to the game, including PvP with rates in game currency.
Links to the game in the article unfortunately I can not give. You may see them in the comments if any kind person is interested in the results of my story.
Many thanks to Polina, Danila, Vitaly and Sergey for making the game with me!
PS
If you would like to program this or another our game on Unity (for payment, of course) and you are ready to drop everything and fly to the ends of the earth, then be sure to write me in contact.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/263509/
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