Twins Memory Game - clone of the next game find a pair? Or is it something new? Brief history of game development
We decided to approach the creation of a game based on simple mechanics “find a pair” is not quite standard. As a result, there appeared not just the Twins Memory Game , but a whole game world with a plot, with many locations, levels and restrictions on the levels.
In more detail about the process of working on the game, what difficulties we encountered and how you managed to learn them under the cat.
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Idea
The idea came quickly enough. Take as a basis the simple “Find a pair” mechanics, but add a few highlights to it:
The storyline was also born fairly quickly. Couples - decided to associate with twins - twins.
A story was born about how brother and sister, twins Alex and Mia went for a walk in the magical forest and Mia was kidnapped by the evil wizard Zilzibar. Alex has nothing to do, how to go to save his sister, passing many locations and obstacles.
No sooner said than done. Now we need to implement our plans.
Choosing the engine
In the team, we have native developers for each mobile platform. But do not write the same code for each platform. Therefore, pay attention to the game engines.
Among the engines considered:
Requirements that were made to the engine: cross-platform, popularity, gratuity, documentation availability.
As a result, taking into account the requirements that we set before the engine, we chose Cocos2D-x.
Development time
Since the compilation of the task and the launch of the game, about 2 years have passed. They periodically returned to the game, then they put off development for a few weeks. There were always new ideas, I wanted to quit and rewrite everything. Something to improve. But then they always stopped and realized that new chips and ideas all the time discard the launch date and increase the development time. Therefore, we stopped, returned to the original plan and continued to work on the game.
Show game publishers
We made the first working prototype of the game for DevGamm 2014, which was held in Minsk. We were lucky. We presented our project at the Game Showcase. Many people came to our table. They all enjoyed playing the prototype. Leave your comments and feedbacks. No offense to the boys, the girls visual memory is much better. They coped with the game and the levels are much better. By the way on the DevGamm Game Show 90% of the games were written on Unity.
We also managed to show the game to more than 40 publishers and experts in the framework of Speed Game Dating at DevGamm Minsk 2014. Great experience. For 3 minutes you need to talk about the project and get feedback. There were a lot of reviews. But as it turned out, publishers are not interested in a project of this kind. Someone specializes only in races, someone in Match3, someone submit HTML. Someone gave advice on how to optimize the game. Everyone liked the idea of a network game. So we definitely decided to implement this feature in the project.
Having returned from the conference, they understood: thousands of people - a thousand opinions. We decided not to deviate from the initial ideas and move on.
Design levels and game balance
It took a lot of time to design the levels, test them and select the parameters of constraints at the levels to create the correct game balance. So, the levels were first designed on paper, then transferred to electronic form.
In order to increase the users' retens, we introduce life into the game. Which are selected in case of unsuccessful passing of the game and are restored after a while. You can also get a life right away by inviting friends to the game or watching an advertisement.
Monetization
Banner advertising in the game + video advertising for life. Advertising in the application can be completely disabled by buying IAP
Getting ready for soft lunch
It was decided to run on the Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms. The launch was scheduled for the end of January. Getting ready for launch started in December. I’ll warn everyone here, when it seems that everything is almost ready, a lot of trifles arise that we didn’t think about or forgot or didn’t take into account, but which are necessary to start. Thus, the whole of December and January we licked the project.
The launch was successful. Microsoft introduced, nominated a project to feature in several European countries, but unfortunately we did not get the effect we expected from the feature.
Imagine Cup 2015 Russia
As the students worked on the project in our team - we decide to take part in the Imagine Cup 2015. The project passes the preliminary selection to the Russian final. We get a bunch of reviews and ideas. Everybody likes the idea of network mode again. We promise to make a network mode for the show at the Russian final of the Imagine Cup.
Multiplayer - network mode
Initial ideas on the implementation of the regime heap. Invite friends, tournaments, game nets, leaderboards, etc. But we understand that all these additional chips complicate our initial idea. Players need to register (either by e-mail or through social networks), you need to write a registration server and ...
In general, we stop at a simple Multiplayer with a random player. The server rises in a cloud of Microsoft Azure. We implement multiplayer with a random player. Players play by turns. Can see the opponent's moves. For each open pair - one more move.
Gameplay video
Summary
Some advice to those who work on game projects, based on personal experience
The game is available for download in Goole Play and Windows Store
Google play
What's next?
We plan to collect feedback from users. Examine analytics. Launch a project on iOs. We are interested in your opinion about the game. Write comments, ideas, suggestions. We will analyze everything and, if possible, we will try to implement it.
In more detail about the process of working on the game, what difficulties we encountered and how you managed to learn them under the cat.
')
Idea
The idea came quickly enough. Take as a basis the simple “Find a pair” mechanics, but add a few highlights to it:
- Custom configuration levels. Not just a square box, but various shapes.
- Story line
- Network mode - when on the same field in the online mode, two players play sequentially with each other
The storyline was also born fairly quickly. Couples - decided to associate with twins - twins.
A story was born about how brother and sister, twins Alex and Mia went for a walk in the magical forest and Mia was kidnapped by the evil wizard Zilzibar. Alex has nothing to do, how to go to save his sister, passing many locations and obstacles.
No sooner said than done. Now we need to implement our plans.
Choosing the engine
In the team, we have native developers for each mobile platform. But do not write the same code for each platform. Therefore, pay attention to the game engines.
Among the engines considered:
- Unity
- Marmelad
- Cocos2D-x
Requirements that were made to the engine: cross-platform, popularity, gratuity, documentation availability.
As a result, taking into account the requirements that we set before the engine, we chose Cocos2D-x.
Development time
Since the compilation of the task and the launch of the game, about 2 years have passed. They periodically returned to the game, then they put off development for a few weeks. There were always new ideas, I wanted to quit and rewrite everything. Something to improve. But then they always stopped and realized that new chips and ideas all the time discard the launch date and increase the development time. Therefore, we stopped, returned to the original plan and continued to work on the game.
Show game publishers
We made the first working prototype of the game for DevGamm 2014, which was held in Minsk. We were lucky. We presented our project at the Game Showcase. Many people came to our table. They all enjoyed playing the prototype. Leave your comments and feedbacks. No offense to the boys, the girls visual memory is much better. They coped with the game and the levels are much better. By the way on the DevGamm Game Show 90% of the games were written on Unity.
We also managed to show the game to more than 40 publishers and experts in the framework of Speed Game Dating at DevGamm Minsk 2014. Great experience. For 3 minutes you need to talk about the project and get feedback. There were a lot of reviews. But as it turned out, publishers are not interested in a project of this kind. Someone specializes only in races, someone in Match3, someone submit HTML. Someone gave advice on how to optimize the game. Everyone liked the idea of a network game. So we definitely decided to implement this feature in the project.
Having returned from the conference, they understood: thousands of people - a thousand opinions. We decided not to deviate from the initial ideas and move on.
Design levels and game balance
It took a lot of time to design the levels, test them and select the parameters of constraints at the levels to create the correct game balance. So, the levels were first designed on paper, then transferred to electronic form.
In order to increase the users' retens, we introduce life into the game. Which are selected in case of unsuccessful passing of the game and are restored after a while. You can also get a life right away by inviting friends to the game or watching an advertisement.
Monetization
Banner advertising in the game + video advertising for life. Advertising in the application can be completely disabled by buying IAP
Getting ready for soft lunch
It was decided to run on the Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms. The launch was scheduled for the end of January. Getting ready for launch started in December. I’ll warn everyone here, when it seems that everything is almost ready, a lot of trifles arise that we didn’t think about or forgot or didn’t take into account, but which are necessary to start. Thus, the whole of December and January we licked the project.
The launch was successful. Microsoft introduced, nominated a project to feature in several European countries, but unfortunately we did not get the effect we expected from the feature.
Imagine Cup 2015 Russia
As the students worked on the project in our team - we decide to take part in the Imagine Cup 2015. The project passes the preliminary selection to the Russian final. We get a bunch of reviews and ideas. Everybody likes the idea of network mode again. We promise to make a network mode for the show at the Russian final of the Imagine Cup.
Multiplayer - network mode
Initial ideas on the implementation of the regime heap. Invite friends, tournaments, game nets, leaderboards, etc. But we understand that all these additional chips complicate our initial idea. Players need to register (either by e-mail or through social networks), you need to write a registration server and ...
In general, we stop at a simple Multiplayer with a random player. The server rises in a cloud of Microsoft Azure. We implement multiplayer with a random player. Players play by turns. Can see the opponent's moves. For each open pair - one more move.
Gameplay video
Summary
Some advice to those who work on game projects, based on personal experience
- Try to release the prototype as soon as possible. Set yourself a deadline (let it be an exhibition or a conference, so you only focus on the main pieces and make a working prototype)
- A thousand people - a thousand opinions. Listen, but filter. Do not deviate from the original idea.
- Start getting ready for launch as early as possible. Believe me - so many trifles will pop up, without which it would be impossible to launch the project.
The game is available for download in Goole Play and Windows Store
Google play
What's next?
We plan to collect feedback from users. Examine analytics. Launch a project on iOs. We are interested in your opinion about the game. Write comments, ideas, suggestions. We will analyze everything and, if possible, we will try to implement it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/293842/
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