As I reworked the old mechanics in a completely new

The first game that burned my levels on the retina was The Lost Vikings. Her idea crushed my barely formed view of the industry: the realism of graphics allowed Odin to be the envoy, and every loss, apart from disappointment, left a metallic taste of blood in the mouth. If someone does not know - blizzards diversified the usual platformer with three characters. Everyone had their own skills and only the right switching between the Vikings allowed them to complete the level. A happy childhood passed, hair grew in my nose, and I plunged into the world of game development.


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"Make games in which he would play" (c) the dude who made games in which he played.

“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” (C) the dude who bowed Minecraft before it became fashionable.

If you combine these quotes, it becomes clear that the easiest way to make a good game is to steal the idea of ​​the game that you adore. Further, a moral and ethical text that “stealing” and “cloning” could follow is two different things, but all this has already been chewed on in the book “Steal as an artist” . If you are too lazy to follow the link and download the book (and in fact it is too lazy), below I attach an illustration-retelling, so as not to change the pace of the article, go to the essence of our conversation - the very theft.



Stealing an idea is very easy. All you need to do is pass it through the brainstorm machine. We take the idea of ​​switching characters with different functionality and insert it into a shooter. Or fighter on the console, where you can switch characters during the battle! Awesome, yes?



But the most offensive in the theft of games - all already surrounded you. Another problem is that for dozens of years it has been done efficiently and on all platforms.

Lost Vikings + beautiful graphics - Trine.
Lost Vikings + FPS + Open World - Gta5
Lost Viking + Fighter - Mortal Kombat Mode
Lost viking + web version + cute setting - Home sheep home
Lost Vikings + Consoles - The cave
Lost Vikings + another Viking - Ninja bros.
Lost Vikings + Adventure - Gobliins.
Lost Vikings + Mobiles + Top View - Monsters Ate my birthday cake

Enough? You can score any number of ideas. The next step is to bury them. Unfortunately, this is inevitable. Money, team size, lack of time, time in prison — all these are small deaths.



I had a whole pack of ideas for big games, but I wanted to make this game quickly and efficiently, so I looked towards the still unusual runner genre: the character runs through the cave, and by clicking it changes its appearance. If you develop the Viking triplicity, then each character corresponded to an obstacle that he could pass, and two - which he could not. Three characters - three obstacles. So far, nothing complicated, right? And the name is simple - TRIO.



Now it was necessary to choose the platform for which we are making the game. Of course, now everyone is trying to fill their game wherever possible, but I would focus on a single platform and grind out the gameplay for it. My choice fell on mobiles for many reasons: an unknown world for me, not a bad competition, and in spite of that, an opportunity to get to the top.

What are we doing already? No, wait. Now the small and unpleasant features of the market come into play. In mobile phones there is such an important thing as orientation. Why make one-game landscape-oriented game?



Landscape orientation is needed for deeper games, and not for shallow timekillers. It's simple: the time killer in the minibus - portrait orientation, you can play with one hand; long game, two fingers, comfortable sofa - landscape orientation.
A new problem looms on the horizon: the idea comes out shitty in a vertical orientation - you need to trim it. Let's make a runner down instead of a runner. Are the characters running down? Sounds somehow uncomfortable, right?

Okay, changing the concept again. Let the character fall down through the floors in the house. A trap is waiting for him on every floor, and he must have time to react.

There is a place to turn around: you can vary the rooms, the traps themselves can be made of different shapes, and they will be of the same type. The game will remain simple, but it will still please the eye.



The first prototype and immediately rendezvous with the most terrible thing for a game developer - reality.

In my prototype there are only two floors on the screen, and the game aesthetically looks very ugly. Especially on the iPad and the new spade iPhone. Well, ok, we remake it so that there are many floors. We test: the floors are small and beautiful, but they are boring - the player sees two subsequent obstacles and manages to mentally prepare. 5 liters of coffee later we decide to remake the game. Fully. It looks like we are confused so that you need to restart the brain.

The key word from which we push off is “simplicity”. We reject all the frames and go into the world of abstraction. We need a really simple game, the core of the idea, its essence. The core of Lost Viking - switching characters to pass various obstacles. Character simplified to the ball, the obstacle to the arch. Hmm, not bad.

Add a couple of more figures! A game with figures that need to be inserted into the correct grooves - what could be easier?



We run this idea through an isometric filter and a new prototype of the game is ready! We took the idea of ​​one game and through a series of absolutely insane transformations got another game.



If you count from the moment of the first contact of the buttocks with the chair and the start of the brainstorming, then such a simple prototype takes 2-3 days. A few more weeks are spent on polishing, adding characters (yes, the idea of ​​characters in an abstract game also needs to come), sound, balance, monetization, testing, inserting advertisements and launching. But this is a completely different and boring story. Oh yeah, do not forget to leave Easter eggs in games (in case they suddenly become famous).