Jasmine is the President of Luminosity Mobile. Her goal is to create useful games, apps and other software to make your life more enjoyable. She lives in New York with her fiancee and two cats.
First off, some housekeeping. The Painter’s Apprentice is going to be at Artcade 3000 in Brooklyn, NYC, June 5-7. Stop by and play a demo of our game along with a whole bunch of other amazing games. Come say hello on June 5 from 8-10pm for the Designer Opening if you want to ask us questions about the game.
We’re still looking for some awesome artists to feature in our bonus levels for The Painter’s Apprentice. If you’re interested in being featured, please contact jasmine [at] luminositymobile [dot] com for more information.
Now, onto business.
We got our submission video for the Boston FIG Digital Showcase done this week. See below for your viewing pleasure.
On our weekly stream this past Saturday we played The Painter’s Apprentice live on our Twitch channel. We went into the stream focused on showing off the game and finding bugs, which we found, but we also ended up with a lot of realizations about the overall experience we’re trying to create. If you missed the stream it’s on our YouTube page, but here’s the highlights:
single jump
The double jump feels strange. To get more height you hit the jump button twice early and in quick succession to get height instead of at the highest point of the jump. This is counter intuitive to anyone who’s played a platformer before and should probably be finessed a little. The game should feel good to play.
Double Jump if the jump button is pressed instinctively.Double Jump if the jump button is hit twice quickly.
We discussed adding a pan feature so players can see where they should go, but decided it’s better to make the player figure out where to go for the most part. There will be places in the level where you could make a blind jump, but if you look around a little you’ll find a more obvious way to go. This will require some levels to be redesigned with this principal in mind. This retains a level of exploration and difficulty in the games.
Not a bug, but the music is sounding great!
We have some UI problems with the menus scaling/stretching and covering up the great home screen background we have.
We want to add some more buttons to several of the UI menus like a retry from checkpoint or retry from beginning.
We don’t want the store to seems so intimidating, so we’re going to rename it to fit the theme better, like Art Supplies or Painting Supplies. The idea being that the store will have some optional real money elements, but real money will not be required. Plus, we don’t want to scare people away.
There is a 3 star system currently in the game. One star for completing the level, one star for completing the level in 60 seconds, and one star for completing the level without taking damage. The level exit doesn’t appear until you defeat all the enemies. We talked a lot about using the star system to unlock levels, which brought up a lot of discussion about the goal of the game. We decided on keeping the main levels unlocked because we don’t to locked the experience behind a “wall.” The Painter’s Apprentice does not require hardcore skill. That being said, there will be bonus levels featuring guest artists that require a high number of stars. This should appeal to players who are more into completion or challenge. As we say in the biz, gotta catch ’em all. In all seriousness though, we want The Painter’s Apprentice to be accessible to different types of players.
So, as you can see, we still have quite a bit of work to do, but it’s so exciting to do a big play like that and see the game get better.
Otherwise here’s some pictures of everything we’ve been working on this week!
It’s aliveeeeee! (2x speed)Just click on an enemy to change the brush to that color.New and Improved defeated animations.A preview of the new tutorial systemTutorial sketch
Since we’re getting pretty close to finishing up the main parts of The Painter’s Apprentice we’re looking for some alpha testers to help us “break” the game and find some bugs. Interested? Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email out an open call for alpha testers when we’re ready, complete with instructions.
Dev Log
The past week has been pretty jam-packed as we prepare for our video submission to the Boston Festival of Indie Games digital showcase. We’ve been messing around with some UI and, of course, creating the tiles the other levels so we can showcase them in our video. We’re pretty excited with our progress so far, now all that’s left is creating the video!
Programming
Gif of the dialogue box in action
Completed two different color picking methods for the paint
Updated AI branching trees for enemies
Created dialogue events for in-game cut scenes
Unlock more advanced gameplay techniques throughout the game versus everything available in the beginning
Art
Updated enemies to be black and white for easier color changing
Brought on new Tile Artist to finish remaining tiles.
Besides that we also had our weekly Twitch Stream on Saturday. If you haven’t checked it out you should! It’s a ton of fun. This time we had our composer – Ray Flores – explain the process he goes through when creating background music and sound effects. Did you miss it? You’re in luck as we created two highlights for both music composition and sound effects creation. Check them out below to get a more in-depth look at what goes on behind the scenes.
We’re really excited the Painter’s Apprentice is coming together so quickly and we can’t wait to get it out to you! If you’re looking for something to fill the time between now and our release, might we suggest trying out Once Upon a Runner? It’s available on both iOS and Android. We’d love to hear suggestions on improvement as we’re working on a huge update that should be coming out in a couple months.
And finally, a little classified ad. We’re looking for some artists to feature in The Painter’s Apprentice. Our plan upon its inception was always to features some modern artists and their work as a backdrop to a level. If you’re interested in being featured, please contact jasmine@luminositymobile.com for more information.
On April 29, 2015 we showed off The Painter’s Apprentice in front of 300+ people at The Spring Expo hosted by Playcrafting NYC and Microsoft. Leading up to the event we were really burning the midnight oil. Luckily all of those late nights weren’t in vain as we got a lot of positive comments from the attendees. Everyone we spoke to loved the idea of The Painter’s Apprentice and were interested in trying it out further down the line. We also received some excellent feedback on how to improve the game as well and we’re already busy implementing these updates. So a huge thank you to everyone who tried out The Painter’s Apprentice! We’ll be at the Summer Expo in July and it will definitely be much more polished by then.
The Mover
Speaking of upcoming conventions, we’ll be submitting The Painter’s Apprentice to a couple places. The first deadline coming up is for the Boston Festival of Indie Games in September. The digital showcase submission deadline is May 15 (eep!) and requires a 3-5 minute demo of the game, how it works and what makes it unique. We’ll be bringing you the completed video once it’s done. Fingers crossed we get accepted! The next event we were invited to was the Artcade 3000 out in Bushwick Studios happening June 5-7. We actually met up with the organizer – Jan-Luc Van Damme – at the Spring Expo and he was impressed with how we tied art and videogames in The Painter’s Apprentice and wanted to know if we wanted to exhibit. The answer is of course! So if you’re in the neighborhood during that time, stop by and say hello. We’ll be hanging out with fellow devs and gamers.
We had a lot of updates the last week since we were scrambling to get everything working for the Spring Expo. This week we worked on fixing some bugs and getting some more artwork completed.
Bugs
Fixed UI configuration so it adjusts to the screen size
Removed area of effect on dive attack
Programming
Added adjustable gameplay button UI so players can adjust size and location of buttons
It might seem like a slower week than last but we’re still making some pretty steady progress. If you want to watch us make levels, create animations or make some music, you can tune into our Twitch Stream every Saturday at 7pm ET.
For the past week our team has been prepping for the upcoming Spring Expo held by the Playcrafting group. After a couple pitfalls, we are well on our way to completing a workable demo of the first couple levels and a boss fight for The Painter’s Apprentice. The last couple of weeks have been intense with many long hours, but the end result is shaping up. We’re steadily making progress and now it’s just about testing. So what have we completed? A whole lot!
Look at all that green! That means we’ve gotten all those tasks completed.
Programming:
Completed win, lose, home, level select and options menu.
Implemented small and medium enemy AI.
Fixed a couple bugs where player was not detecting collision boxes during dive attack.
Updated attack to be continuous.
Tutorial level completed.
Players have all attack options available (dive, dash, regular and paintball).
Art:
Background artwork for all levels completed.
All player animations updated.
Mover boss animation finished.
Final boss concept artwork completed and approved.
Music:
Level 1-4 music completed.
Basic sound effects approved.
Game Design:
3 levels completed.
9 levels designed.
We continue to forge ahead at a fairly even pace and while there will likely be some other bumps and hiccups along the way, the path forward is relatively clear of obstacles. This upcoming demo will be the first time we allow others to see The Painter’s Apprentice. It’s a bit nerve-wracking, but these events allow us to get priceless live feedback.
For those in the New York City region, stop by on April 29, 2015 between the hours of 6-9pm. For a limited time only you can get tickets to the Spring Expo for $9 instead of the standard $16. You’ll get to play The Painter’s Apprentice and 74 other indie games. You can also meet two of our team members: Liz Phillips, our marketing and community manager, and Jasmine Greene, the President of Luminosity.
Good project management is the key to successfully shipping a game on time without any major bugs. The problem is that so many teams don’t bother with it. Our team fell into the same trap in our first game – Once Upon a Runner – but it wasn’t for lack of trying. We tried a couple different programs like Asana and Jira but none of the team members used it citing it to be unnecessary and not relevant to their tasks. We let it slide – a bad decision on our part – and ultimately the project itself slid into slow decline. Without goals and deadlines, our team slowly stopped working on the project. Eventually there was no progress on the game and less people started showing up for the weekly meetings. Eventually our team fell apart until there was only myself, Ray and Chris left on the team. Without more people there was no way we could finish the game and with 80 percent of it completed and 1.5 years invested into it, we had to get it shipped if only for peace of mind. We brought on a couple other programmers and I did some research into different project management tools. Thus began my love affair with Trello.
Enter Trello
While I can’t pinpoint exactly what the issue was with Jira and Asana, my guess is that it looked too complicated even if it wasn’t actually that hard to use. With Jira, you needed to download it to your computer, something our team members didn’t want to do. For Asana, there were too many fields for them to fill out. They needed to track the amount of time they had spent on a project and write in what they accomplished for that week. It all was too much of a hassle. When I introduced Trello to the team, they jumped on board almost immediately. It has a super simple layout and it’s pretty intuitive to use. Best of all, it doesn’t require a lot of time on their part. I think the other big reason people immediately jumped into Trello was because I handled creating all of the tasks. There was very minimal work they needed to put into the board. All the literally had to do was check off a task and move it over to the Done column when they completed something. And since it is completely web based there was no additional software they needed to install. I can share the boards with as many people as I want and can see the progress of certain cards as team members check off items in the list. And, of course, I can organize the team by assigning tasks to people, adding deadlines and adding comments on the card if they or I have any questions.
There are some limitations with Trello of course. There is now way for you to view the entire project as a whole. Sure, you can visually see how many tasks have been completed on each board, but there’s no chart or percentage that tells you how far along you are with every task without clicking into the boards. This makes it less than ideal for larger teams. But as a small development company, it works just fine so far. Trello coupled with weekly meetings and daily Facebook catch-up chats keeps the group up-to-date on what all of the members are doing and keeps us accountable for the work we produce every day.
While this might sound like an advertisement, we’re in no way affilitated with Trello. We just really love their product, especially since it helped us release our first game and now keeps us on track with our second game. If you happen to have project management issues and other tools haven’t worked, give Trello a try. It’s kept us organized and, best of all, it’s free!
For many people that have followed us back when we were SaltyPepper Games, you might remember our Kickstarter campaign to raise $5,000 for Once Upon a Runner. The objective was to help recoup some of the payments we had made out to artists and, of course, to drum up a little bit of interest in Once Upon a Runner before its release. We were certain we could reach our modest goal. After all, there were plenty of other games that collected ten times the amount. For those that don’t know, we didn’t reach our goal though we were still able to release on Android and, just recently, on iOS. So what went wrong? Why couldn’t we raise $5,000 on Kickstarter?
Late Marketing
I read plenty of articles on how to run a successful Kickstarter and the tip that always made the list is to start marketing early. In my mind I thought I had. A month before we actually launched our campaign I had created the press release, written up the content for our page, started handing out some brochures and increasing our activity and engagement on social profiles. The problem is, a month is just not enough time to grab someone’s interest and build up a fan base. Everything was kind of rushed, especially when contacting media outlets to get some coverage on the campaign. While we still did get a handful of articles it certainly wasn’t enough to really get people interested in our game or company for that matter. As well, our social media efforts were also futile. Without a group of loyal followers there was no way our campaign would get the social media boost others might enjoy.
So what should you do? Start as early as possible and really engrain yourself into these communities. It’s really never too early to start marketing. Yes, even if you do not have a product yet jump into a couple groups and start contributing. Engage in conversations with other group members and be as helpful as possible. The more you interact the more people will check out your campaigns/links when you do post them. After all, you’ve already built up a strong relationship and hopefully gotten them excited about your game during the development process. It can take a long time to build up this rapport but once you do you’ll have a group of people who will help spread the work about your Kickstarter and game to their friends.
Poor Planning
As much as I don’t want to admit it, the truth is we didn’t plan out our Kickstarter as well as we could have. We didn’t have specific milestones for each day nor did we really have any idea what to put up for our updates. Not only that but our campaign ended around a holiday, not the best time to make that final fundraising push. Our video was also a bit all over the place in terms of graphics, our message and sound quality as well. We definitely should have spent much more time with the recording to present something that would really excite viewers and make them want to contribute. As well, we also should have spread out the news coverage over time to have a more consistent flow of traffic and backers.
If you want your Kickstarter to be successful you need a plan of action. Write out a script for your video and rehearse it until you don’t make any mistakes. Have several people provide feedback on the video and its message. Are you actually conveying a sense of urgency and telling viewers why they should back your project? You should also plan your updates in advance. Maybe not all of them, but you should have a basic idea of what to post to keep your backers involved and attract new ones. This could be as simple as showing off concept artwork, posting a dev log or even offering a special “gift” when you reach $x. The more you have planned out the less you need to scramble to come up with ideas.
Visuals
Although we did have some gameplay videos, the most successful game Kickstarters also used gifs creatively whether they were short loops of gameplay or animated sprites of their in-game characters. It might seem unnecessary, but these visuals do a great job engaging visitors because it gives them an idea of how the game will play and what it looks like. The more high quality images, gifs and videos you can provide the better. This includes adding images of your rewards in the body of your campaign, using sprites/gifs instead of text for your different campaign sections (About us, Description of game, etc) and posting pictures of your team members. Put up as much of the game as you can in your Kickstarter so people know exactly what to expect. The better you make it look, the more likely they are to back.
Kickstarter Retry
Just because we failed doesn’t mean we won’t try again. Many Kickstarter creators have failed at least once before finding success. The trick is to learn from past mistakes and apply those lessons to the next campaign. The next time we find ourselves on Kickstarter we have no doubt that we’ll be able to raise the funds. But before then we’ll make sure we have all our ducks in a row.
Have you any of you failed on your Kickstarter? What did you learn? Tell us in the comments below.
Like other independent content creators we love what we do. Otherwise, we couldn’t put in the hours after work or school into our projects. Still, creating any kind of project – whether it’s games or a piece of art – can be very isolating at times. We’ll spend hours crafting our code, blog post or video to the point where sometimes we even ignore our loved ones (sorry). While our desire to see the project finished is a great motivator, another one is you – our fans.
When we worked on Once Upon a Runner we did a lot of internal testing, fixing some obvious bugs and cleaning up the menu. It wasn’t until we got the game in front of actual people that we were able to get real feedback. After playing the game for so long we didn’t realize certain obstacles were difficult to see and the background was too distracting. Thanks to all of the constructive criticism we received, we have implemented changes to make the gaming experience more enjoyable. And it’s all because of you!
But you help us in other ways too. Something as simple as a comment on our Twitter or Facebook can help push us through some lulls in our motivation. Just knowing that there are people who are showing an interest in our game and company can give us enough energy to put in an extra hour or two of work on our projects. You might be thinking that all of this sounds very Hallmark-y, but it’s the truth. Knowing that there are people out there who care and are as excited about our projects as we are helps keep us running.
That’s why we’re starting this hashtag #fanskeepusrunning. Thanks to a discussion a bunch of us indie developers had over on a Facebook group, we realized that all of us developers wanted to show some fan appreciation and let you know that we really do care. Your feedback matters to us so please feel free to let us know what you think whether it’s on our blog posts, Facebook updates or Tweets. And don’t worry. We’ll respond to you as quickly as we can. We know how frustrating it can be to leave a comment and not hear anything back – communication is a two-way street after all!
So, yeah. It might sound kind of weird, but we just want you to know, we’re really grateful. And if you’re a creator of any kind, show your appreciation to your fans by using the hashtag:
As a small, indie developer, we’ve definitely looked into different ways we can build up our community. Our main focus has been on building up our social media presence on Twitter and Facebook with a little Google+ experimentation in the mix. So far our reach hasn’t been huge, but we’re slowly building up our fan base as organically as possible. Still, it’s getting harder to really increase your reach organically. The standard advice is, “Put some money in advertising on these social sites.”The problem with this is need to keep pumping money into it in order to keep building your community and engagement. Maybe if we had the money we’d be doing just that, but as it happens we just don’t have the budget. Instead, we’ve been trying to find ways to connect with our local community. We’re attending local events hosted by Playcrafting and The Sheep’s Meow to show off our games. So far it’s been fairly successful as we’ve gained some fans and game development friends. And of course we’re attending larger events like Pax. Thanks to a lecture at IndieCade we realized we had been missing out on a huge local opportunity – the local library.
Libraries and games are not a new invention as speaker Scott Nicholson points out. In fact, the two have been connected since at least the 1800s when a library in California held casual chess games for the public. Today, the idea of games as we know them might seem out of place but 75 percent of libraries support gaming. Many librarians have turned to games and gaming, but the number one reason is to attract an underserved group of users as the slide illustrates below:
While libraries might support gaming events, many are looking for qualified volunteers to improve these programs and attract even more people. This is where game developers come in. As a game developer we can provide a level of expertise and knowledge that librarians and other volunteers cannot. After all, we understand there are many games available that attract different types of people. Not only that but you can even provide insight into the entire game making process. This kind of knowledge is invaluable but Nicholson points out we won’t get very far without knowing the lingo. In order to get librarians on our side we need to “speak Librarianese”:
Once the partnership is set up, there are plenty of different ways to engage the public whether it’s gaming events, workshops or jams. The key is to understand what the local populace needs and how to integrate this with games and the goal of the library. As well, find ways to get different groups to interact with each other to really form a strong community bond. This could be something as simple as timing the game events after things like senior events. The more people get involved, the more they will spread the word about it and you. And, as has been noted time and again, there’s no stronger marketing than word-of-mouth.
To be honest, I had never really thought of library partnerships as a viable strategy. After listening to Nicholson, it seems silly NOT to take advantage of it. I encourage other indie developers to look into the programs of the your local library and see if they don’t already host some gaming events. Even if they do, it’s possible that you could improve upon it. After all, they are always looking for eager volunteers who also have experience. One of the best ways to start this relationship with a local library is to get involved with the International Game Day. Every third Saturday in November the American Library Association encourages libraries nationwide to participate. Not only is this a great excuse to forge a relationship with the local library it should also give an idea on who attends these events.
image via International Science Times (creative commons image)
*This post has been edited to include more recent information regarding lootboxes.
When you hear the word whale, what is the first thing that pops into your mind? For most people, it’s probably actual whales, as in the animals. If you speak to ad monetization and user acquisition networks though, the term whale means something else entirely. Recently, I attended a panel that had representatives from Tapinator, PCH, Playhaven and Puzzle Social discuss this very topic of freemium games and the best ways to monetize a mobile game. They made reference to “whales” and ways to attract, retain and basically generate revenue from these people. So what does this term mean? Essentially, these are a very small percentage of players that will end up spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars making in app purchases (IAP) in your game. In fact, 0.15% of mobile gamers make up 50% of all in-game revenue. In essence, if you can lure these big spenders to your game, you have already secured a fairly steady income stream for your company.
South Park covers the topic of freemium games and micro-transaction perfectly in the episode “Freemium Isn’t Free.” If you haven’t seen it you can watch the clip below:
Of course since only 3 percent of mobile gamers will ever make in-app purchases, you need to find other ways to generate revenue, mainly via ads. There are a plethora of options such as banner (AKA french fry) ads, interstitials and videos. The trick, of course, is to include ads without taking away from the gameplay. One of the best examples of this is Bitcoin Billionaire that would reward players with double currency or additional rewards for watching videos or allowing banners in the game for a minute.
During the panel, the discussion revolved around cost of user acquisition (UA), which is apparently ridiculously high and often not worth it in the long run. These IAPs and ads can help offset these costs but often it doesn’t, especially for smaller developers. It seems that the only hope for smaller developers in terms of distribution is to somehow get featured in the various app stores, spend money on social media and basically “pray to the kitten god for luck.”
And for those with premium apps, they pretty much say forget it. At the end of the day, all of the panelists firmly believed that F2P was the only viable option in the mobile world and premium apps would ultimately go the way of the Dodo. After all, as the panelist from Puzzle Social pointed out, why would anyone pay for a game if they don’t know how good it will be (you know except for all those PC and console gamers). As much as I want to disagree, the truth is freemium games are making the most money. Even well received games like Monument Valley “only” made $8 million total on a game that cost them $800,000 to produce. Compare that to King.com that makes around $970,000 per day on Candy Crush alone and it seems like a cut and dry case.
Added as of 11/30/2017
This isn’t limited to mobile or freemium games. Even paid games are including IAPs. As of 2017, many large developers are buying into the microtransaction sector with the introduction of lootboxes. Some companies use lootboxes for purely cosmetic items like Blizzard with their popular Overwatch game. Others lock weapons and other upgrades behind lootboxes. The issue that has come up recently is the very random nature of these boxes equates to a form of gambling. While players can earn these boxes through playing the game, often it takes several hours to earn enough currency for one box. And, because you cannot see what is in the box, you aren’t guaranteed the skin or weapon you want. Naturally, you can also spend real money to purchase lootboxes, but again, you are not guaranteed the specific item you want. EA’s lootbox system with BattleFront II has brought this system to the forefront to the point where Belgium has denounced lootboxes as gambling.
While I don’t begrudge developers hard-earned money, the combination of developers racing to the bottom and forced paywalls/micro-transaction loop is getting to a point where it seems to really be turning a lot of people away from mobile games. Many consumers have dropped games immediately after the paywall and even many tech journalists are offering poor reviews to otherwise good apps due to the sneaky use of IAPs.
Sadly, the issue doesn’t lie only with developers. Consumers are also to blame as free apps account for a whopping 90% of all app downloads. Since no one is paying for apps anymore, developers have no choice but to follow the freemium route in order to pay for their staff, bills and other business expenses. Still, despite hearing from the experts that freemium is the only way to go nowadays, I can’t help but wonder how sustainable that model is. How long before mobile users get tired of being stuck behind a paywall to progress in the game or having to watch ads in order to earn in-game currency? How long before the well of these whales dry up? Do you have thoughts on this matter? Write them in the comments below.
We recently released our first game Once Upon a Runner (OUR) on Android back in September of 2014 and while the team was very excited about it, I’ll be honest and say that I was just relieved to finally be done with the project. Yes, of course it is still my baby and I’m still working on ways to improve it, but when we finally released on Android it was like a huge burden was lifted from my shoulders. You see, we had started working on OUR back in 2012. Yes, it took TWO YEARS to get a simple runner game out on Android. In those two years, I learned so much about project management that I wanted to share my experience with others. So I decided to take part in the lightning talks at the Boston Festival of Indie Games. Unfortunately, I only had seven minutes to go over the topic, which means I really had to gloss over a lot. You can watch the video below. Honestly, I felt like I wasn’t able to properly illustrate my point in such a short time so I decided to compile a helpful list of the common pitfalls we ran into and how you can avoid it. Hopefully you’ll find it useful!
Have a Plan
Gameplay screen done in Paint
Whether you’re working as part of a team or by yourself, you should absolultely have a written document. You might not necessarily need a full blown game design bible or Wiki page, but it is so important to have all of the game features written down so you can refer back to it. You’ll always have a point of reference in case you forget why you designed your game a certain way and, most importantly, it will help you focus on the core features. Without a plan, it can be very tempting to simply go off on whatever idea pops into your mind at any given time and work on that. In the mean time, you’re ignoring the actual meat and potatoes of the game. The funny thing is you won’t realize it until you suddenly look at your work and realize, “Holy crap, we’re not even 10% completed with just the basic aspects!”
A lot of people seem to shy away from planning, thinking that it limits their creativity and flexibility to make changes. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Good documentation allows for sudden changes as it shows you how it will work with the features you already have. From that you can decide whether it makes sense to implement and the easiest way to do so.
Lead
A team without someone taking the lead is doomed for failure. Sure, there might be someone that calls him/herself the lead, but watch them carefully. Are they actually effective? I have worked with several people that were in leadership positions who had trouble making the hard decisions. Instead of asking for revisions or speaking directly to certain problem employees about their work they would let things slide, unwilling to confront these issues head on. Instead they would hem and haw and complain about the issues to me. After many, many months of poor communication and unmotivated team members, eventually I had to step up to salvage what was left of the team and make the hard decisions. Eventually we moved on from the old programmers and found a new group that were motivated. I kept track of the team with weekly Skype meetings and daily check-ins via Facebook chat. I made myself available as often as possible so I could answer any questions or concerns. And if it seemed like someone wasn’t pulling their weight, I would have to make the hard decision to let them go.
Leading isn’t easy and it isn’t for everyone. You have to be willing to put your foot down, make the calls and shoulder the burden of those decisions. You have to be able to give and take criticism. Most of all, you need to work harder than everyone else in order to keep your team members motivated.
Be Social
Overhead shot of Pax South
If you’re developing games, that usually means you’re hoping to get people outside of your friends/family network to play them. The only way you’ll get the word out is to spread it yourself. Although social media sites are the popular outlets, the main problem is building your fanbase. Facebook has made it harder for you to organically reach an audience (even your own fans) and Twitter is so inundated with tweets that your’s will quickly get buried. Of course, it’s still possible to build up your audience, but you’ll need to actually converse with people on these channels and not just push your games. That means commenting on other people’s updates, providing helpful answers and comments and basically just starting a one-on-one relationship with potential followers. It’s a lot of work, but you’ll be rewarded by loyal fans.
Of course, if you want your social media strategy to be effective, you should couple it with real-life socialization. Meetup.com is a great service where you can meet people who share the same interests. There are also conferences you can attend like Pax, GDC, etc. The larger conferences can be quite costly, but there are plenty of smaller events you can attend. While there might not be as many people, the smaller crowd will give you the opportunity to strike up deeper connections. If you have the time and energy, game jams are also a great way to meet other developers and get your name out. And if your game is good people will definitely be looking out for more work from you.
Manage Effectively
Trello board
One of the biggest issues I ran into when I took over as lead designer was project management. I tried out a lot of different types of project management software like Asana, but no one used them. Most people just viewed it as an inconvenience and found it too difficult to use. After trying out a couple, I found Trello, which has made project management a breeze. It’s incredibly simple to use and all people need to do is check off tasks they completed and move over cards to the finished column when they’re done. Besides the simplicity, I think the other big reason it has been effective is due to the visual and interactive aspect of it. You are physically moving over a task card to the done section and you can actually see how much progress you’ve made. It’s pretty invigorating and I think this aspect keeps people motivated. Even if you’re a solo team, I think it’s still a great way to keep track of your progress.
Besides this, I also keep track of progress throughout the week during weekly Skype meetings and run it a bit SCRUM. We all get a chance to speak and go over what we accomplished the previous week and what we plan to do in the upcoming week. I then follow-up in our chat group almost daily. The chats aren’t always about work, often there are some silly conversations on there, but it helps create relationships between team members. I think having something like that builds accountability as they become more than just team members.
Be Completely Honest
This is applicable to your audience and to your team as well. If something is not going right or there is an obvious issue, communicate. Don’t try to hide it or lie about it. People value transparency and the more open you are the more loyal people will be. Can’t afford upfront payment for an artist or programmer? Mention this fact to them before they join your team. Did you notice some issues with your game when you released it? Make note of it and let your audience know you are working on it. People want to feel valued and answering questions, acknowledging issues is a great way to do that. And, of course if you really screw up, an apology goes a long way.
