Browser development - physical fork
The desire to enter new markets with our project for a long time does not give us peace of mind - and the ideas are available, and the potential is not bad, but, as they say, all hands did not reach normal implementation.
This story will be about a two-year length of our journey, which we can safely call the “spin-off” of the initial series of articles. This is an additional project, which even for us somewhat unexpectedly coincided with the opening with the anniversary of the “browser”. But we could not do everything as it should.
What else is inspired by the creation of their projects and the correct construction of the business ideology, if not the articles of the Mosigra company? Personally, I am not an exception to the general rule - I always read Milfgard articles with greed, sometimes I even take a great interest in text, I catch myself on suspicion of familiarity with handwriting, and only then I confirm the guess with a reference to the author under the article. During the attempts to write this article, I again had to open a familiar blog on Habré in search of the correct links, and then I woke up an hour later in the author’s blog on lifejournal after scrolling through the next thread.
')
The starting point of our journey can be called the now distant 2014, with the exact date - April 7, it was on that day that an article appeared on the creation of a board game about insane scientists "Nefarius", that very day a thought appeared in my head that does not leave me day: “This is really great. And after all, we can also do something. ”
I am aware that our level is not comparable with the level of the creator of Nefariusa and the MosGames team, but we could at least try. Moreover, at that time we already launched “birds” in open access - we had a ready world, many illustrations and texts, ready aspects of the game and a team of developers, it only remained to transform the available materials into a slightly different product and try to find a publisher. And who said it would be easy ...
Only after the actual inception of the idea did the evidence of its viability begin to appear - rather, to calm itself and the team and not to seem an idiot in their eyes. The main argument for the development of an idea was the thesis about a sufficient share of intersection of the audience of our “browser” with the players “desktop” - “our” player can be happy to get a board game from the familiar world, and the player of the “desktop” may well go online. At the same time, the likely failure in the search for a publisher did not seem to be such a failure - a finished game that could not find a publisher could be distributed in competitions, which would give a fresh positive effect of loyalty, all that remained was to print the assembly in the printing house.
The first description of the thoughts that I tried to convey to the team turned out to be rather messy, and I clearly saw a lack of enthusiasm among my colleagues, which at that time was overwhelming me. The discussion within the team began, but differences of opinion and vision were felt.
In fact, the basic concept of game mechanics was already in my head, and this fact gave rise to my misunderstanding of other people's ideas. I cannot say for everyone, but personally my brain works with an idea not with descriptive phrases, but with certain impulses processed by a separate “processor”, and the “interpreter” does not always have time to catch the whole idea for translation into human language. This feature makes it possible to quickly solve the problem in my head, but significantly increases the duration of the “data output from the system”, therefore the main image of the game originated in my head in the first seconds of reflection, but I could not convey my thoughts to others - they were only on the way of understanding the problem and reflection.
One crazy idea can drive you crazy - I did not express it out loud or in writing, but the discussion process with my colleagues constantly caused bewilderment on my part by: “Why do you think so long? Yet it has already been invented! ”- before:“ This is not correct! Everything is wrong! I thought out wrong, the task is not about that! Why doesn't anyone see my idea? ” The feeling of my powerlessness as a coordinator in the board game question was cooling the hurricane in my head, and this was in some way for the benefit of me and the whole project. Despite this, I podcherpul a few sound other people's thoughts for myself and used in the final concept.
In fact, a couple of weeks from the date of the start of work on the project, the spark of enthusiasm in the team faded to zero. I occasionally tried to remind, but the result was unequivocal - if you want to make a project, you will have to drag it yourself first of all.
All solve problems to the best of their abilities, and we are no exception. What can a programmer come up with to somehow create a board game? Of course, you should first make a prototype in the form of a site "to hone the balance of the game."
A bit of common sense then still flashed - I tried to jot down cards on plain paper in the right quantity, for which I additionally went to use the help of my wife, but after hours of drawing the cones on a small piece of paper, my hands began to numb, the brain desperately resisted with such a work format, and drawn cones began to resemble the old logo of habr. The web version was ordered to be.
It should be understood that the development of the main browser game did not stop, while there was the main work, where money was made for survival. And in such a situation, I didn’t want to tear off a piece of my time to write the prototype, but on the contrary, I wanted to shift some of the routine tasks from the browser to someone else. Hiring a developer for a team to work on a browser-based game was quite problematic: we did not have enough budget for a good programmer, and we could not be sure about the rest of the “layers” of developers (both in terms of possible leaks and in terms of quality) .
Approximately by the beginning of the winter of 2014, the thought had crept in to find an interested “junior” who wanted to get some “live” experience with the project, to learn from our experience, and also put some finances in his pocket. It was assumed that a new team member for a couple of months will make a basic project, in which it will be possible to play, evaluate the scale and convenience, correct the mechanics and balance. At the same time, this project could contribute to the establishment of a trusting relationship with the developer, which could lead to a transition to the main project.
A simple job posting that offered part-time work for ten hours a week with payment of five thousand rubles found several dozens of reviews from: “Write to Skype, discuss,” to: “I'm a cool programmer, but I will work with you.” I myself personally began my becoming “junior” with a full day at the office for 15 thousand, therefore we considered our proposal with a free schedule, our loyal attitude, help in development and all sorts of future possibilities quite adequate. There was a complete understanding of the possible freebies on the part of the junior developer, when there are words, and the new code does not appear, but there were still hopes for a reciprocal adequacy and the existence of conscience in this world.
The first candidate did not work long, we suggested to stop our cooperation due to a large share of liberty on schedule - a person could be absent on Skype for several days, expecting to work on what was missed on other days, but did not consider it his duty to report changes in schedule. Yes, we offered a free schedule, but you still need to have some kind of work plan. The second candidate was more responsible, he tried to be present on the network every day, but there was clearly less knowledge.
A few weeks later, with a new colleague, stories began with the need for his absence for the sake of personal affairs or main work. Since we saw some potential, we proposed to increase employment to half and a full day after the completion of the probationary period and the positive effect of the work - there were determined the factors of assessment, the necessary amount of knowledge that guaranteed further work. The result was not long in coming, I had to part with the candidate due to the lack of results and his unwillingness to get more busy.
Attempt number three at the beginning of 2015 was more solid - full-time, two tens of thousands of rubles, remote employment, the presence of the candidate at least a basic knowledge of the framework. And for this vacancy, there was a person familiar with our history, ready to go all the way from the junior in support to a full-fledged member of the team. The first weeks made it clear that the direction of cooperation was correct - I liked the way of thinking of a new colleague, I liked the speed of work, the presence of questions that I can answer.
After some two months, the meridian of works appeared, but the free budget for the project suddenly began to decline convulsively. Despite the full coordination with the coordinator of the development of a browser-based project of a board game, no one has crept in on the suspicion of the failure of the idea. My arguments in favor of developing a loyal relationship with a new programmer, a kind of test period that prepared for entry into the main code of the project, were weighty enough not to interfere with the process. By the way, the developer also did not work out - we switched to another project, on which the case stalled relatively quickly, which is a pity.
Even having a person in a team who can say to the others: “Stop, stop, we do something wrong” - sometimes there are situations when such a person is silent. And only external factors make it possible to take a fresh look at the development path - this factor was the problem financial situation along with the small amount of effect from the work.
The understanding has come that making a board game through the creation of a browser game on a browser game will fail - the effect is not the same, and the process is too cumbersome. However, a prototype is still needed, a balance check is still required, but this will be much easier to do in a “live game” than in a substitute in a browser.
At the end of July 2015, once again taking the old idea into my own hands, I again began to create pieces of the game - the main deck of cards. Fortunately, this time the coordinator joined the process, pulling the artist behind him, and the project received a new “kick” to the speed of its development. In just a few days, a sufficient temporary design of the main deck of cards was assembled; during the discussion, hints on the list of variations on maps, effects, and the game process appeared. The idea of ​​the main mechanics of the game was fixed, the goals of the party, the scope of permissible actions, copywriters were given tasks on texts, the artist was given tasks on illustrations - the project left the stage of a dry idea, received a go-ahead for life.
Of course, the collected thoughts were far from the final ones, and the rules of the game were altered almost on the move, but after a year of silence it was “progress”. In fact, to create something yourself, without having clear visible results from work, is quite problematic - laziness immediately appears, immediately instead of ideal images in your head you get a disgusting monster from scattered thoughts. To see how a colleague helps in some aspect of the project motivates and leads.
To begin the emergence of physical objects (in the common people - printing on paper) it was necessary to have at least a pair of agreed elements of the game, and it all started with bird cards. Throughout the process of generating ideas, I spoke with all my hands for maintaining the maximum similarity of the gameplay to the main "browser" - so we would have kept in touch with the "big brother". Thus, the basis for the board game became pair battles with a certain number of rounds, a set of skills in battles, health, characteristics.
The first thought was to use the edges of the dice to determine the type of player effect in the round. Using the numerical characteristics of the browser game was not possible because of the complexity of the calculations, so the differences between the cards of the players were reduced to sets of effects and the amount of available health.
As a preliminary goal, the event of filling the nest field with buildings similar to those in the browser game was defined. For this purpose, of course, it was necessary to use currency, however, the four types existing in the “browser” did not fit into the concept, which was decided to be reduced to two. For the general action of resource extraction, task cards are needed that would assume the execution of a certain action and the receipt of remuneration. At a minimum, such a set of definitions was enough to start talking about printing.
Almost immediately with the advent of the design of the first card, there was a need to convert the familiar psd \ png format into a format that the printing company would undertake to print, and an experimental batch is necessary for all the same checks inside the team and sending prototypes to the publisher. We can make up for the browser, but no one in the team really knows how to make up for paper, but again the way out of the situation is through old connections.
If you start from afar, then at school, then my friends somehow gave me a couple of books from the Star Wars series, which doused me in their hobby, fixing a similar thing in my head. A few years ago, I had finished reading the books of the Eksmo publishing house, and the question arose where to get new ones — there were plenty of books translated by fans, but the tablets were still in the “practically not working” stage, and the paper version was always more pleasant. Having studied several video lessons on the layout of books, I then collected my first version, ready for printing in InDesign (with usual footers, black cover, so that it looked right on the shelf), and turned to a couple of printing houses for help.
One of the printing houses agreed to help me, and I received some tips on the correct format for submitting the initial data for printing, and for the next whole year 1-2 times a month, I produced 3-5 books with excellent quality at “tasty” prices. (and the then salary of the “junior” asked to save money). Since then, this printing house for me is a company that did not laugh at the enthusiasm, but took someone else’s caprice and always did a great job. The logical step was to contact a known email address with a letter of offer. The very next day an old acquaintance, who had once taken orders for books, made up a dialogue with us.
Not every printing house will take up non-standard printing, and if the book is within the permissible limits of error, then the board game is a separate product of a special format. And nobody really doubted that they would help us.
It was assumed that the number of cards that players will use as a representation of their "I" will be quite large - at least the number of basic avatars in the browser game, which means that such a number of cards need the right set of different characteristics that make up the overall balance. After a few days and calculations, we have formed a table with 54 cards with different characteristics. Such a volume of relatively small pieces of paper needed to be assembled into a print format, and preferably not manually.
The representative of the printing house - Vadim - by his own efforts assembled a vba-script for CorelDraw, drawing a map based on a set of separate illustrations and a data table, which made life easier for everyone, since no one had canceled the “play with the duck” fixes. And in early September, a treasured photo appeared in my mail, marking the beginning of the birth of our prototype.
After some time, we were able to get out with our coordinator for a meeting at the printing house, where we received a deck of such cards for personal use. Until now, this deck is on my table, and in the moments of time “I need to think” easily takes my hands by shuffling.
The size of the card coincided with bank cards, but later it slightly decreased to the working prototype, but the very first copies are quite comfortable in the hand. There have always been meditations about borders and margins too, and everything is always limited by the inaccuracy of cutting after printing.
Not to say that we did not think about the usability of the game elements. There were quite interesting ideas of the interaction of players who were rejected due to the excessive complexity of controlling such.
Writing on sheets of paper is extremely inconvenient, except in cases where the game itself is played on a piece of paper. Using counters for counting is possible only up to a certain number of such chips, and the amount depends on the frequency of use. All other options - this is an attempt to get out of the situation.
It was assumed that to conduct a battle between two birds of players it is necessary to take into account the health of each of them. And if up to a certain point we wanted to keep our health only within the framework of one battle, then closer to the final version, it was decided that the health of the bird is maintained for the whole lot. In the framework of one battle, it was permissible to use health chips (up to 12 pieces on each side), although it already seemed like it was on the verge, but while maintaining the health of the whole batch, the chips had to be abandoned.
The only way out seemed to be the mechanism of “paper calculators” familiar from school - a pair of concentric round sheets of paper connected in the center with a special clip, which allows the layers to rotate around the axis. The cut on the top of the sheet allowed to view the contents on the bottom layer. In an unexpected way, this option turned out to be real in terms of printing and assembly capabilities in the print shop.
Again, the size on the first sample is much larger than the final version, but we appreciated the fact of reality. An additional convenience of such a “health circle” is that the bird's card can be inserted between two layers of the circle, and a sufficiently strong coupling is obtained, which does not fall apart as a result of table shaking.
The most difficult thing was with two things that determined the essence of the game - a set of tasks for resource extraction and the playing field. Task cards limped on both legs in content - we tried to use texts from a browser game, allowing players to decide for themselves how to perform such a task, but realized that players would not be able to strain their brains for self-entertainment, and they had to write the essence of tasks again. The playing field directly influenced the goal of the game, the interaction of the players, the size and number of linked cards, the size of the box - the final decision was quite responsible and at the same time had to give answers to all open questions.
Comrade coordinator came to the rescue, who participated in the development of the main browser game as a "concept developer". Together, the coordinator and our colleague compiled 60 variants of texts with explanatory hints, which formed a finished deck of tasks - the first problem was solved, Vadim was able to start writing a script for collecting the deck in a printing house.
There were more problems with the playing field: the initial version of the goal in the form of building your own nest did not allow for a sufficient amount of interaction between the players. The way out of the situation was the concept of one of the locations - pack wars, where on the map section of a group of players they are trying to destroy the enemy’s “dice”.
This option of the playing field still needed to be adapted to the realities of paper restrictions, but as a source for thought it was already quite good. The fog of war, similar to the base location, was not fully realized - the players see the actions of their opponents, but they have managed to achieve some obscurity with the inverted cards of the internal landscape, although this approach is very similar to another popular board game.
The playing field has expanded to accommodate four players simultaneously. The goal of the game was transformed into the destruction of all opponents or their "pods". Resource mining tasks went to the landscape deck and were scattered across the field, protective equipment was added to the “pockets”, and the number of bird cards on the player’s hands increased from one to four to form a flock. The size of the box was dictated by the size of the playing field, folded in half twice, colored players' chips were added to the game, and color designations were added to the “health circles” to identify the chip on the field with a particular bird on hand.
The result was a relatively solid game, ready for the first "live" test, which involved final corrections before being sent to the publisher for verification.
Undoubtedly, for the first test sample, we did not have time to prepare all the illustrations - we did not have a separately drawn playing field, boxes, landscape icons. It was supposed that after the first “live” test, corrections on mechanics would appear, which would give us time to finish the missing, graphical. But, the feeling of having a finished and fairly weighty product in the hands is very unusual.
The first marathon of tests took place during the celebration of a certain event, lasted about 7 hours, during which a dozen games were played, while one game lasted on average for about half an hour. Despite the collected “hodgepodge” of various mechanics inside one game (traveling around the playing field, interacting with companies through tasks, dueling battles), the final reviews are positive, both in terms of the overall state of the game and on the schedule.
Almost the same version that we had in our hands went to print, except that the frames were removed from some cards that appeared by chance, changed the amount of health of the birds, slightly changed the size of the cards. But in general, there were no strong differences for the particular first final version.
Suddenly, it was pre-New Year time, the printing house was mired in the work to the ears, so our “purebred” slightly shifted in time for the beginning of January. Not that we did not expect such a turn. However, the new year was not only the printing house, but also came to our team - urgently needed updates to the “browser”, the graphics were urgently needed, so the artist didn’t immediately start the “desktop”.
During the holidays there was an idea to increase the number of cells on the playing field in order to get rid of “appendixes”, which required an increase in the number of cards placed on the cells of the playing field. The changes were also reflected in the contents of the set of rules; therefore, only the cards of birds and tasks remained intact. With the end of the holidays, the work on drawing the playing field was completed, and suddenly it became scary to look at the illustrations of cell cards that strongly contrasted with the graphics of the field, which means that they went to the revision as well, and the printing house sent a pause signal until all the graphics were ready.
Suddenly, February 1 came, and there was still no ready-made copy on hand, and only the third number managed to get a new box, which increased in size compared to the intermediate version. The field increased along with the box, and now consisted not of four, but of six sections, and the visual design looked great - it was not for nothing that the seal was postponed.
The graphics on the cell cards also changed:
In general, after all the changes, the game began to look completely different: more complete, it was not a shame to show it to someone. It's time to transfer the box with the game to the publisher to evaluate the prototype.
The box with the game perfectly fit into the package envelope issued by the EMS courier, and was sent to the company Magellan, known by the MosIgra brand. Just a couple of days the parcel reached the addressee, and was under the scrutiny of responsible people on the other side of the country. Practically with the same cosmic speed, we received a final answer:
“Good afternoon. Have reviewed your game.
We see that you have done a great job, but at the moment we are not ready to take the risks of publishing your game. The main reason is the very high cost of the game, and as a result, its high price in retail.
We sincerely wish you continued success. "
In fact, any refusal was expected for us - we are not market professionals, we have never done such projects, and we could be mistaken in any aspect, but we did not expect a refusal about material costs. The most likely answer would be: “Guys, the mechanics are shitty, we won’t sell this,” or: “Fix this and that, come up with a dozen more variations, and only then there may be some chance, but not now.”
I repent, in view of my bewilderment of the answer, turned to all the well-known Milfgard for help, who could turn to the very responsible person, as a result of which clarifications were obtained, still indicating the high cost of manufacturing. Sergey, if you are reading this - we are not offended, we just waited for problems in another plane.
For one's own comfort, another letter was sent to the World of Hobby publishing house, where even without having the box itself on the table, only by evaluating the set of rules we were told what we needed - about the mechanics, about the target audience, about the market, about the competition. And we really realized that the resulting product is not a mass retail sale product, but a companion product to a browser game for players familiar with the “brand”, which, in turn, puts an end to store sales, but does not destroy all the work done.
When the question is what to do next, once everyone refused, then there are only two options: to forget it like a bad dream, or try to push it yourself. Of course, no one is going to sell the game in stores for the same reasons, but don’t give them to the players - why not.
The date of the project’s anniversary gave a good reason to present a couple of players with the available boxes, which was done. Based on the experience of sending the box to the publisher (when the box with the broken corner came back), when handed over to the courier, the boxes were wrapped in several layers of polyethylene, then in several layers of “pimples”, richly decorated with scotch tape, resulting in the boxes somehow getting into the corporate EMS package. One box went to Riga, the other to Moscow, both shipments received the declared value of 10 thousand rubles and the “nameplate” “fragile cargo” - for sure.
It should be said that we received the final print of the mini-party a couple of days before the end of the draw, so at the same time we managed to order a print of bird cards with unique avatars of the winners, which were invested in the general deck when sent.
From the basic moments it remains to highlight only one - the cost of production from the beginning of the idea to the time of delivery to the players. Personal work is unlikely to be calculated, but the financial estimate, nevertheless, turned out. From one-time operations it turned out to allocate only the services of the printing house in layout, consultation and printing of test samples, which came to the amount of 25,000 rubles. As for the materials and production of one box, the calculation is as follows:
Plus delivery costs in the region of 900 rubles, including the commission for the declared value. The result is certainly expensive, even if viewed from the retail side, but we do not have the goal of profitable direct sale.
Of course, there are options for the quality of execution of various elements of the game, and specializing printing houses at publishing houses have their own standards that allow you to maintain a balance. For example, the cost of 500 rubles only for a box may seem incredibly high to someone, but if you consider that the box is not a standard “cover-bottom”, but consists of thick cardboard and holds the edge of the cover with a magnetic lock, then the price can be understood.
Thousands of books, articles and other sources unanimously repeat - as quickly as possible make the simplest copy of your product and check if your idea was a success. And we honestly wanted to do it quickly, check, add, and only then take on the “clean” assembly, but this “quickly” took almost two years - in fact, we repeated the entire history of the browser game.
All my life, dealing with virtual products, I have not had the opportunity to “touch” the finished product, and participation in the development has always seemed somewhat hidden and imperceptible. But now on the shelf there is a box with a game, with autographs of alpha testers and all participants in the development - at least it was not boring.
This story will be about a two-year length of our journey, which we can safely call the “spin-off” of the initial series of articles. This is an additional project, which even for us somewhat unexpectedly coincided with the opening with the anniversary of the “browser”. But we could not do everything as it should.
Crazy thought
What else is inspired by the creation of their projects and the correct construction of the business ideology, if not the articles of the Mosigra company? Personally, I am not an exception to the general rule - I always read Milfgard articles with greed, sometimes I even take a great interest in text, I catch myself on suspicion of familiarity with handwriting, and only then I confirm the guess with a reference to the author under the article. During the attempts to write this article, I again had to open a familiar blog on Habré in search of the correct links, and then I woke up an hour later in the author’s blog on lifejournal after scrolling through the next thread.
')
The starting point of our journey can be called the now distant 2014, with the exact date - April 7, it was on that day that an article appeared on the creation of a board game about insane scientists "Nefarius", that very day a thought appeared in my head that does not leave me day: “This is really great. And after all, we can also do something. ”
I am aware that our level is not comparable with the level of the creator of Nefariusa and the MosGames team, but we could at least try. Moreover, at that time we already launched “birds” in open access - we had a ready world, many illustrations and texts, ready aspects of the game and a team of developers, it only remained to transform the available materials into a slightly different product and try to find a publisher. And who said it would be easy ...
Mincemeat
Only after the actual inception of the idea did the evidence of its viability begin to appear - rather, to calm itself and the team and not to seem an idiot in their eyes. The main argument for the development of an idea was the thesis about a sufficient share of intersection of the audience of our “browser” with the players “desktop” - “our” player can be happy to get a board game from the familiar world, and the player of the “desktop” may well go online. At the same time, the likely failure in the search for a publisher did not seem to be such a failure - a finished game that could not find a publisher could be distributed in competitions, which would give a fresh positive effect of loyalty, all that remained was to print the assembly in the printing house.
The first description of the thoughts that I tried to convey to the team turned out to be rather messy, and I clearly saw a lack of enthusiasm among my colleagues, which at that time was overwhelming me. The discussion within the team began, but differences of opinion and vision were felt.
In fact, the basic concept of game mechanics was already in my head, and this fact gave rise to my misunderstanding of other people's ideas. I cannot say for everyone, but personally my brain works with an idea not with descriptive phrases, but with certain impulses processed by a separate “processor”, and the “interpreter” does not always have time to catch the whole idea for translation into human language. This feature makes it possible to quickly solve the problem in my head, but significantly increases the duration of the “data output from the system”, therefore the main image of the game originated in my head in the first seconds of reflection, but I could not convey my thoughts to others - they were only on the way of understanding the problem and reflection.
One crazy idea can drive you crazy - I did not express it out loud or in writing, but the discussion process with my colleagues constantly caused bewilderment on my part by: “Why do you think so long? Yet it has already been invented! ”- before:“ This is not correct! Everything is wrong! I thought out wrong, the task is not about that! Why doesn't anyone see my idea? ” The feeling of my powerlessness as a coordinator in the board game question was cooling the hurricane in my head, and this was in some way for the benefit of me and the whole project. Despite this, I podcherpul a few sound other people's thoughts for myself and used in the final concept.
In fact, a couple of weeks from the date of the start of work on the project, the spark of enthusiasm in the team faded to zero. I occasionally tried to remind, but the result was unequivocal - if you want to make a project, you will have to drag it yourself first of all.
Through thorns to the prototype
All solve problems to the best of their abilities, and we are no exception. What can a programmer come up with to somehow create a board game? Of course, you should first make a prototype in the form of a site "to hone the balance of the game."
A bit of common sense then still flashed - I tried to jot down cards on plain paper in the right quantity, for which I additionally went to use the help of my wife, but after hours of drawing the cones on a small piece of paper, my hands began to numb, the brain desperately resisted with such a work format, and drawn cones began to resemble the old logo of habr. The web version was ordered to be.
It should be understood that the development of the main browser game did not stop, while there was the main work, where money was made for survival. And in such a situation, I didn’t want to tear off a piece of my time to write the prototype, but on the contrary, I wanted to shift some of the routine tasks from the browser to someone else. Hiring a developer for a team to work on a browser-based game was quite problematic: we did not have enough budget for a good programmer, and we could not be sure about the rest of the “layers” of developers (both in terms of possible leaks and in terms of quality) .
Approximately by the beginning of the winter of 2014, the thought had crept in to find an interested “junior” who wanted to get some “live” experience with the project, to learn from our experience, and also put some finances in his pocket. It was assumed that a new team member for a couple of months will make a basic project, in which it will be possible to play, evaluate the scale and convenience, correct the mechanics and balance. At the same time, this project could contribute to the establishment of a trusting relationship with the developer, which could lead to a transition to the main project.
A simple job posting that offered part-time work for ten hours a week with payment of five thousand rubles found several dozens of reviews from: “Write to Skype, discuss,” to: “I'm a cool programmer, but I will work with you.” I myself personally began my becoming “junior” with a full day at the office for 15 thousand, therefore we considered our proposal with a free schedule, our loyal attitude, help in development and all sorts of future possibilities quite adequate. There was a complete understanding of the possible freebies on the part of the junior developer, when there are words, and the new code does not appear, but there were still hopes for a reciprocal adequacy and the existence of conscience in this world.
The first candidate did not work long, we suggested to stop our cooperation due to a large share of liberty on schedule - a person could be absent on Skype for several days, expecting to work on what was missed on other days, but did not consider it his duty to report changes in schedule. Yes, we offered a free schedule, but you still need to have some kind of work plan. The second candidate was more responsible, he tried to be present on the network every day, but there was clearly less knowledge.
A few weeks later, with a new colleague, stories began with the need for his absence for the sake of personal affairs or main work. Since we saw some potential, we proposed to increase employment to half and a full day after the completion of the probationary period and the positive effect of the work - there were determined the factors of assessment, the necessary amount of knowledge that guaranteed further work. The result was not long in coming, I had to part with the candidate due to the lack of results and his unwillingness to get more busy.
Attempt number three at the beginning of 2015 was more solid - full-time, two tens of thousands of rubles, remote employment, the presence of the candidate at least a basic knowledge of the framework. And for this vacancy, there was a person familiar with our history, ready to go all the way from the junior in support to a full-fledged member of the team. The first weeks made it clear that the direction of cooperation was correct - I liked the way of thinking of a new colleague, I liked the speed of work, the presence of questions that I can answer.
After some two months, the meridian of works appeared, but the free budget for the project suddenly began to decline convulsively. Despite the full coordination with the coordinator of the development of a browser-based project of a board game, no one has crept in on the suspicion of the failure of the idea. My arguments in favor of developing a loyal relationship with a new programmer, a kind of test period that prepared for entry into the main code of the project, were weighty enough not to interfere with the process. By the way, the developer also did not work out - we switched to another project, on which the case stalled relatively quickly, which is a pity.
Even having a person in a team who can say to the others: “Stop, stop, we do something wrong” - sometimes there are situations when such a person is silent. And only external factors make it possible to take a fresh look at the development path - this factor was the problem financial situation along with the small amount of effect from the work.
From “A” to “D”, bypassing “B” and “C”
The understanding has come that making a board game through the creation of a browser game on a browser game will fail - the effect is not the same, and the process is too cumbersome. However, a prototype is still needed, a balance check is still required, but this will be much easier to do in a “live game” than in a substitute in a browser.
At the end of July 2015, once again taking the old idea into my own hands, I again began to create pieces of the game - the main deck of cards. Fortunately, this time the coordinator joined the process, pulling the artist behind him, and the project received a new “kick” to the speed of its development. In just a few days, a sufficient temporary design of the main deck of cards was assembled; during the discussion, hints on the list of variations on maps, effects, and the game process appeared. The idea of ​​the main mechanics of the game was fixed, the goals of the party, the scope of permissible actions, copywriters were given tasks on texts, the artist was given tasks on illustrations - the project left the stage of a dry idea, received a go-ahead for life.
Of course, the collected thoughts were far from the final ones, and the rules of the game were altered almost on the move, but after a year of silence it was “progress”. In fact, to create something yourself, without having clear visible results from work, is quite problematic - laziness immediately appears, immediately instead of ideal images in your head you get a disgusting monster from scattered thoughts. To see how a colleague helps in some aspect of the project motivates and leads.
To begin the emergence of physical objects (in the common people - printing on paper) it was necessary to have at least a pair of agreed elements of the game, and it all started with bird cards. Throughout the process of generating ideas, I spoke with all my hands for maintaining the maximum similarity of the gameplay to the main "browser" - so we would have kept in touch with the "big brother". Thus, the basis for the board game became pair battles with a certain number of rounds, a set of skills in battles, health, characteristics.
The first thought was to use the edges of the dice to determine the type of player effect in the round. Using the numerical characteristics of the browser game was not possible because of the complexity of the calculations, so the differences between the cards of the players were reduced to sets of effects and the amount of available health.
As a preliminary goal, the event of filling the nest field with buildings similar to those in the browser game was defined. For this purpose, of course, it was necessary to use currency, however, the four types existing in the “browser” did not fit into the concept, which was decided to be reduced to two. For the general action of resource extraction, task cards are needed that would assume the execution of a certain action and the receipt of remuneration. At a minimum, such a set of definitions was enough to start talking about printing.
Unknown technology
Almost immediately with the advent of the design of the first card, there was a need to convert the familiar psd \ png format into a format that the printing company would undertake to print, and an experimental batch is necessary for all the same checks inside the team and sending prototypes to the publisher. We can make up for the browser, but no one in the team really knows how to make up for paper, but again the way out of the situation is through old connections.
If you start from afar, then at school, then my friends somehow gave me a couple of books from the Star Wars series, which doused me in their hobby, fixing a similar thing in my head. A few years ago, I had finished reading the books of the Eksmo publishing house, and the question arose where to get new ones — there were plenty of books translated by fans, but the tablets were still in the “practically not working” stage, and the paper version was always more pleasant. Having studied several video lessons on the layout of books, I then collected my first version, ready for printing in InDesign (with usual footers, black cover, so that it looked right on the shelf), and turned to a couple of printing houses for help.
One of the printing houses agreed to help me, and I received some tips on the correct format for submitting the initial data for printing, and for the next whole year 1-2 times a month, I produced 3-5 books with excellent quality at “tasty” prices. (and the then salary of the “junior” asked to save money). Since then, this printing house for me is a company that did not laugh at the enthusiasm, but took someone else’s caprice and always did a great job. The logical step was to contact a known email address with a letter of offer. The very next day an old acquaintance, who had once taken orders for books, made up a dialogue with us.
Not every printing house will take up non-standard printing, and if the book is within the permissible limits of error, then the board game is a separate product of a special format. And nobody really doubted that they would help us.
Tactile sensations
It was assumed that the number of cards that players will use as a representation of their "I" will be quite large - at least the number of basic avatars in the browser game, which means that such a number of cards need the right set of different characteristics that make up the overall balance. After a few days and calculations, we have formed a table with 54 cards with different characteristics. Such a volume of relatively small pieces of paper needed to be assembled into a print format, and preferably not manually.
The representative of the printing house - Vadim - by his own efforts assembled a vba-script for CorelDraw, drawing a map based on a set of separate illustrations and a data table, which made life easier for everyone, since no one had canceled the “play with the duck” fixes. And in early September, a treasured photo appeared in my mail, marking the beginning of the birth of our prototype.
After some time, we were able to get out with our coordinator for a meeting at the printing house, where we received a deck of such cards for personal use. Until now, this deck is on my table, and in the moments of time “I need to think” easily takes my hands by shuffling.
The size of the card coincided with bank cards, but later it slightly decreased to the working prototype, but the very first copies are quite comfortable in the hand. There have always been meditations about borders and margins too, and everything is always limited by the inaccuracy of cutting after printing.
Paper UI
Not to say that we did not think about the usability of the game elements. There were quite interesting ideas of the interaction of players who were rejected due to the excessive complexity of controlling such.
Writing on sheets of paper is extremely inconvenient, except in cases where the game itself is played on a piece of paper. Using counters for counting is possible only up to a certain number of such chips, and the amount depends on the frequency of use. All other options - this is an attempt to get out of the situation.
It was assumed that to conduct a battle between two birds of players it is necessary to take into account the health of each of them. And if up to a certain point we wanted to keep our health only within the framework of one battle, then closer to the final version, it was decided that the health of the bird is maintained for the whole lot. In the framework of one battle, it was permissible to use health chips (up to 12 pieces on each side), although it already seemed like it was on the verge, but while maintaining the health of the whole batch, the chips had to be abandoned.
The only way out seemed to be the mechanism of “paper calculators” familiar from school - a pair of concentric round sheets of paper connected in the center with a special clip, which allows the layers to rotate around the axis. The cut on the top of the sheet allowed to view the contents on the bottom layer. In an unexpected way, this option turned out to be real in terms of printing and assembly capabilities in the print shop.
Again, the size on the first sample is much larger than the final version, but we appreciated the fact of reality. An additional convenience of such a “health circle” is that the bird's card can be inserted between two layers of the circle, and a sufficiently strong coupling is obtained, which does not fall apart as a result of table shaking.
The most difficult thing was with two things that determined the essence of the game - a set of tasks for resource extraction and the playing field. Task cards limped on both legs in content - we tried to use texts from a browser game, allowing players to decide for themselves how to perform such a task, but realized that players would not be able to strain their brains for self-entertainment, and they had to write the essence of tasks again. The playing field directly influenced the goal of the game, the interaction of the players, the size and number of linked cards, the size of the box - the final decision was quite responsible and at the same time had to give answers to all open questions.
Comrade coordinator came to the rescue, who participated in the development of the main browser game as a "concept developer". Together, the coordinator and our colleague compiled 60 variants of texts with explanatory hints, which formed a finished deck of tasks - the first problem was solved, Vadim was able to start writing a script for collecting the deck in a printing house.
There were more problems with the playing field: the initial version of the goal in the form of building your own nest did not allow for a sufficient amount of interaction between the players. The way out of the situation was the concept of one of the locations - pack wars, where on the map section of a group of players they are trying to destroy the enemy’s “dice”.
This option of the playing field still needed to be adapted to the realities of paper restrictions, but as a source for thought it was already quite good. The fog of war, similar to the base location, was not fully realized - the players see the actions of their opponents, but they have managed to achieve some obscurity with the inverted cards of the internal landscape, although this approach is very similar to another popular board game.
The playing field has expanded to accommodate four players simultaneously. The goal of the game was transformed into the destruction of all opponents or their "pods". Resource mining tasks went to the landscape deck and were scattered across the field, protective equipment was added to the “pockets”, and the number of bird cards on the player’s hands increased from one to four to form a flock. The size of the box was dictated by the size of the playing field, folded in half twice, colored players' chips were added to the game, and color designations were added to the “health circles” to identify the chip on the field with a particular bird on hand.
The result was a relatively solid game, ready for the first "live" test, which involved final corrections before being sent to the publisher for verification.
It's alive! ALIVE!
Undoubtedly, for the first test sample, we did not have time to prepare all the illustrations - we did not have a separately drawn playing field, boxes, landscape icons. It was supposed that after the first “live” test, corrections on mechanics would appear, which would give us time to finish the missing, graphical. But, the feeling of having a finished and fairly weighty product in the hands is very unusual.
The first marathon of tests took place during the celebration of a certain event, lasted about 7 hours, during which a dozen games were played, while one game lasted on average for about half an hour. Despite the collected “hodgepodge” of various mechanics inside one game (traveling around the playing field, interacting with companies through tasks, dueling battles), the final reviews are positive, both in terms of the overall state of the game and on the schedule.
Who said this all?
Almost the same version that we had in our hands went to print, except that the frames were removed from some cards that appeared by chance, changed the amount of health of the birds, slightly changed the size of the cards. But in general, there were no strong differences for the particular first final version.
Suddenly, it was pre-New Year time, the printing house was mired in the work to the ears, so our “purebred” slightly shifted in time for the beginning of January. Not that we did not expect such a turn. However, the new year was not only the printing house, but also came to our team - urgently needed updates to the “browser”, the graphics were urgently needed, so the artist didn’t immediately start the “desktop”.
During the holidays there was an idea to increase the number of cells on the playing field in order to get rid of “appendixes”, which required an increase in the number of cards placed on the cells of the playing field. The changes were also reflected in the contents of the set of rules; therefore, only the cards of birds and tasks remained intact. With the end of the holidays, the work on drawing the playing field was completed, and suddenly it became scary to look at the illustrations of cell cards that strongly contrasted with the graphics of the field, which means that they went to the revision as well, and the printing house sent a pause signal until all the graphics were ready.
Suddenly, February 1 came, and there was still no ready-made copy on hand, and only the third number managed to get a new box, which increased in size compared to the intermediate version. The field increased along with the box, and now consisted not of four, but of six sections, and the visual design looked great - it was not for nothing that the seal was postponed.
The graphics on the cell cards also changed:
In general, after all the changes, the game began to look completely different: more complete, it was not a shame to show it to someone. It's time to transfer the box with the game to the publisher to evaluate the prototype.
Quick result
The box with the game perfectly fit into the package envelope issued by the EMS courier, and was sent to the company Magellan, known by the MosIgra brand. Just a couple of days the parcel reached the addressee, and was under the scrutiny of responsible people on the other side of the country. Practically with the same cosmic speed, we received a final answer:
“Good afternoon. Have reviewed your game.
We see that you have done a great job, but at the moment we are not ready to take the risks of publishing your game. The main reason is the very high cost of the game, and as a result, its high price in retail.
We sincerely wish you continued success. "
In fact, any refusal was expected for us - we are not market professionals, we have never done such projects, and we could be mistaken in any aspect, but we did not expect a refusal about material costs. The most likely answer would be: “Guys, the mechanics are shitty, we won’t sell this,” or: “Fix this and that, come up with a dozen more variations, and only then there may be some chance, but not now.”
I repent, in view of my bewilderment of the answer, turned to all the well-known Milfgard for help, who could turn to the very responsible person, as a result of which clarifications were obtained, still indicating the high cost of manufacturing. Sergey, if you are reading this - we are not offended, we just waited for problems in another plane.
For one's own comfort, another letter was sent to the World of Hobby publishing house, where even without having the box itself on the table, only by evaluating the set of rules we were told what we needed - about the mechanics, about the target audience, about the market, about the competition. And we really realized that the resulting product is not a mass retail sale product, but a companion product to a browser game for players familiar with the “brand”, which, in turn, puts an end to store sales, but does not destroy all the work done.
Three portions of kebab - thrown into the abyss
When the question is what to do next, once everyone refused, then there are only two options: to forget it like a bad dream, or try to push it yourself. Of course, no one is going to sell the game in stores for the same reasons, but don’t give them to the players - why not.
The date of the project’s anniversary gave a good reason to present a couple of players with the available boxes, which was done. Based on the experience of sending the box to the publisher (when the box with the broken corner came back), when handed over to the courier, the boxes were wrapped in several layers of polyethylene, then in several layers of “pimples”, richly decorated with scotch tape, resulting in the boxes somehow getting into the corporate EMS package. One box went to Riga, the other to Moscow, both shipments received the declared value of 10 thousand rubles and the “nameplate” “fragile cargo” - for sure.
It should be said that we received the final print of the mini-party a couple of days before the end of the draw, so at the same time we managed to order a print of bird cards with unique avatars of the winners, which were invested in the general deck when sent.
From the basic moments it remains to highlight only one - the cost of production from the beginning of the idea to the time of delivery to the players. Personal work is unlikely to be calculated, but the financial estimate, nevertheless, turned out. From one-time operations it turned out to allocate only the services of the printing house in layout, consultation and printing of test samples, which came to the amount of 25,000 rubles. As for the materials and production of one box, the calculation is as follows:
Plus delivery costs in the region of 900 rubles, including the commission for the declared value. The result is certainly expensive, even if viewed from the retail side, but we do not have the goal of profitable direct sale.
Of course, there are options for the quality of execution of various elements of the game, and specializing printing houses at publishing houses have their own standards that allow you to maintain a balance. For example, the cost of 500 rubles only for a box may seem incredibly high to someone, but if you consider that the box is not a standard “cover-bottom”, but consists of thick cardboard and holds the edge of the cover with a magnetic lock, then the price can be understood.
We wanted differently, but it turned out as always
Thousands of books, articles and other sources unanimously repeat - as quickly as possible make the simplest copy of your product and check if your idea was a success. And we honestly wanted to do it quickly, check, add, and only then take on the “clean” assembly, but this “quickly” took almost two years - in fact, we repeated the entire history of the browser game.
All my life, dealing with virtual products, I have not had the opportunity to “touch” the finished product, and participation in the development has always seemed somewhat hidden and imperceptible. But now on the shelf there is a box with a game, with autographs of alpha testers and all participants in the development - at least it was not boring.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/281098/
All Articles