Create a concept game without programming skills: how we conducted the first PixJam in the company

- What is your game idea?

- I want all ofigeli, to convey a sense of speed, which is growing until you have the meat from the bones start to fly off, and you no longer understand whether you can cope with it, but still continue to push like crazy!

- Match-3 or what?

- Yeah.



From talking on PixJam.

We spent the first Jam in creating new game concepts inside the company and want to share our impressions. The idea was to push the limits and “infect” as many employees as possible with the creative (regardless of skill in programming or game design). The idea to hold such an event in the format of Jam came from Igor Klyukin - our COO. As practice shows, this format is generally well suited for solving creative problems.

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The prototypes were not done, the task was to convey the impression of the game when you see it in the mobile store for the first time in your life. Therefore, at the output of the team showed pages of concepts, using only art (any) and description. It was necessary to vote for those games that cause the desire to immediately run it.



For the finalists, we will attract marketers, we will conduct a real study and find out how their ideas will be in demand. Then it will be possible to undertake development.

Move frame

Why did we want the whole company to participate in Jam? Because we believe that working on the realization of your own ideas is much more pleasant than performing purely mechanical tasks. Making prototypes, tests and analytics is our everything, but another thing is to learn how to convey the impression of the game at the concept stage.



Do not forget that worthwhile ideas can come to mind to anyone, not just game designers. It is necessary to create an atmosphere and opportunities for employees to put forward any proposals. We have a lot in the company - from the transition from social to mobile games and until PS4 appeared in the chillout - this is exactly how it was implemented.



As for PixJam - the majority participated in such an event for the first time and did not have the experience of public presentations. But since this was an internal event, everyone felt as free as possible.





COO Pixonic Igor Klyukin



Minimum rules: everyone participates (as a result, 25 teams scored), no code, no professional art (if you are not an artist), no restrictions on genre / setting - only 5 hours for the brainstorm and the fake mobile game page in the end, which everyone want to download.



After the introductory part, people began to team up based on different strategies. Someone took people from other departments, someone on the contrary gathered a team of closest colleagues. In fact, people were pumping their organizational skills.

Emotions, not prototypes

Mobile games, as a rule, are distinguished by the fact that they have a single idea or mechanic, there is nothing “superfluous”. Therefore, it was allowed to take any screenshots, drawings, references, sketches and descriptions to convey the desired feeling. Spectacular mass wall-to-wall battles on flying dinosaurs with bazookas? You are welcome. Just to get someone to hook.



The main thing is that at the end of Jam each project should look like this:





One of the concept options



THUNDERGODZ is a game where evil has won, and the player is the only one who is afraid of it. But GG is already boring just to kill monsters, so the player needs to help him do it as quickly as possible and more sophisticated. In a word, this is an action arcade about speed.



“It's about like Diablo, just folded with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Only two buttons: “hit” and “jump + hit”. And you can jump on the enemy and ride it, like on a snowboard. Because speed is your health, the more damage you take, the faster you have to run. Although, even dying, you do not really die. You get up, shake off and go relax - that's so cool you are. Sometimes you meet bosses, sometimes they turn out to be other players. And then you have 10 seconds to accelerate, as quickly as possible, break into him as much as possible and knock out as much loot as possible ”, - c pitch our senior CM Artemiy Kozlov and his team.

Evaluation

After short pitches (3 minutes for the presentation), all employees voted for the games they liked according to one criterion - they would like to play it if they saw this page in reality. You can vote for several projects at once.



The question arises: can people from the industry — developers and game designers (who themselves participated in the Jam) — objectively evaluate the projects of their colleagues? Firstly, this is not a typical competition and we have a very friendly team, and, secondly, it is very important that the winning game ignites those who may be working on it.



What was invented for PixJam (and these are 25 options - according to the number of teams), until we tell. Now we are summing up the results of the voting, although the finalists are already known. If the genres of the top three are interesting, then here is the spoiler: this is an AR-shooter; tactical PvP-shooter and another interesting project. Somewhere else you can rob a cow, but this is not certain.

Out into the world

With the winners figured out, but how to find out whether the game will be in demand all over the world as well as among colleagues in the company? The answer is simple - create a real page of a non-existent game and drive more traffic onto it. Before that, of course, we will make professional, original art. Next is work for marketers on page design and niche market research.



We are very pleased with PixJam in terms of experience and results. Be sure to repeat it in the future, strengthening the positive aspects and working with the weak. If you have not had time, we recommend to organize something like that.



In the meantime, a few photos from the event:















For us, the experiment with PixJam was definitely a success - we selected 3 concepts by voting within the company. Next are the marketing tests to test the hypotheses of these games. And if they seem successful in different metrics, then it is likely that one of them will turn into a new project.