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Monthly Archives: November 2013

MIGS 2013 Recap

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Ben

A few weeks ago, I went up to the Montreal International Game Summit to see what kind of secret Canadian game development know-how could be learned.

Spoiler: A lot!

MIGS-2013

Here are my notes and pics from a few standout sessions:


Character Flaws and Choices: How to Engage Players Emotionally Without Alarming Your Producer
Alex Epstein, Compulsion Games

– Games are the only medium that offer story choices

– The player emotionally owns the choices they make

Contrast: In games, the player chooses what happens and when. In traditional storytelling, the storyteller chooses what happens and when.

To communicate exposition, have character argue with each other instead of agree – more compelling to watch/engage with

Foreshadowing: Let the player do the foreshadowing for themselves through gameplay actions, not scripted sequences

Importance of setting up the ending: “The ending should be in the story’s bones”

Flaws: “Flaws are what make us care about characters”

However, NPCs often lack flaws and act like robots

“The intimate opponent” – setting up an NPC ally as someone close to you but an antagonist, traitor, or inconvenient love interest

Ways to use flaws to make for more interesting gameplay:

1. Make a character flaw a core gameplay mechanic. Ex: In Ico, the princess Yorda needs to be led by her hand through the environment by the player.

2. Reveal an NPC flaw to send the player on an unexpected adventure.

3. Use an NPC flaw to increase the gameplay challenge.

4. Balance NPC flaws with virtues.

5. Let the player choose from NPCs with flaws that best complement their play style (instead of making it more difficult or annoying)

Also: Consider using character flaws to close plotholes


Why Does Free Work?
Nicholas Lovell, Games Brief

Show of hands: Who in the audience has games they’ve bought on Steam but never played? Says it’s not that different from the underlying concept behind f2p – you want to express yourself through what you spend money on, at the core.

Free ebook – 10 Ways to Make Money in a FREE World

Says the $0.99 price point is the worst: it communicates that “the game isn’t good enough to be expensive or good enough to be free.”

The f2p first time user experience (FTUE) has 30 seconds to convince players to play. “Show them where fun lives.”

The handicap principle – intentionally doing unproductive things with your time and resources as if to say, “I’m so good, look at all the surplus time and effort I can afford to squander.”

Of high-spending supporters: “They spend to make other people feel happy”

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Do you value the physical artifact of the media? Or the experience it gives you?

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The three steps: 1. Find an audience 2. Be able to talk to them again 3. Enable Superfans.

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The main impetus behind Lovell’s adoption of the “free” ethos.

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The progression on how to convert free users to paying users.


A PR Playbook: Executing an Effective PR Program, with Real-World Insight from a PR Maven and Demiurge Studios

Albert Reed, Demiurge Studios
Elicia Basoli, Elicia Basoli Communications

Elicia:

When coming up with positioning for your game, brainstorm a list of adjectives that describe the game and the studio

Basic questions to ask yourself:

1. What is the game?

2. What makes it/you unique?

3. Why is it fun/entertaining?

4. Why should someone care?

Embargoes: Can be a great tool, the press appreciates embargoes on assets and news stories since it gives them more time to prepare and write stores.

-> However, only send embargos to select press you know, not 200 random ones – they might break the embargo and piss other press off

For bigger shows and conventions, send press invites early – bigger studios tend to book press quickly at events

Albert:

– Demiurge experimented with augmenting their userbase with paid acquisition. Their takeaway was that paid acquisition campaigns is not something to dabble in since you need lots of expertise to do it correctly. They ended up going with a firm to help with this.

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Coffee break – thanks Eidos!

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The importance of planning in your PR efforts.

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Lots of good info about preparing press kits.

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Positioning your game at a glance.

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Hooray for embargoes!


Romance Games: Unpopular Genre or Untapped Market?

Heidi McDonald, Schell Games

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A quick snapshot of romance games.

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McDonald posits that as the average age of romance novels decreases and the average gamer age rises, there could be a sweet spot of gamers eager for meaningful romance games.


Creating Candy Crush – King´s Recipe for Sweet Success

Tommy Palm, King.com

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King.com sees a portable gaming future.

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You could say that mobile has done pretty well for Candy Crush Saga.

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A rare look at the Candy Crush Saga level editor.

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The secret sauce!

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OK, the real secret sauce. Note how they always have an opportunity for the player to engage with the game on a new platform.


And to cap it off, here’s a slide from Ubisoft Creative Director Jason Vanderberg’s closing talk:

– Whenever you have an idea and someone tries to shoot it down, reply with this:

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You know, we have a game you might be interested in…

– Followed by “Can you imagine any version of this idea that wouldn’t suck?”

If they think for a second and say yes, reply with “Then that’s what I mean!”

Posted in Events | Tags: Candy Crush Saga, conference, f2p, monetization | Leave a comment |

Prototyping and Making Games with Construct 2

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Ben

On Monday, Studio Mercato’s own Chris Hernandez and Jon Stokes gave a Deep Dive talk on using Construct 2 for making games at Microsoft’s Midtown office. We’ve been using Construct 2 for games and prototypes for a while now, and are using it to develop Crystal Brawl – which has quickly become just as complex as a natively-coded project.

So why should you use Construct 2?

Studio Mercato's Chris Hernandez (standing) and Jon Stokes (action crouching) show off an example Construct 2 project.

Our own Chris Hernandez (standing) and Jon Stokes (action crouching) show off an example Construct 2 project.

Chris says:

It’s good for prototyping, and comes pre-loaded with modules to get the common stuff out of the way, like collision detection, physics, and controls. Once you get the hang of it you can get a basic game up and running in 30 minutes, which lets you spend more of your time on art, unique mechanics, and whatever else will make your game stand out.

Jon says:

Construct 2 has a lot of export options – you can get your game on almost anything, including browsers, mobile, desktop, and you can wrap it for native app stores too. Since it runs in the browser, it’s great for getting quick feedback from testers. Instead of with a native iOS build, where you have to convince your friends to sign up through testflight, upload new builds, and then pester them to download each update —  you can just throw your HTML5 game on dropbox and share the public link on Facebook.  One click to open the game and be playing is a very low barrier to entry.

You can download the example project they worked on at the talk here: http://studio-mercato.com/files/deepDiveLesson.capx

Posted in Crystal Brawl, Events | Tags: construct 2, talks, tools | Leave a comment |

Don’t F**k Up Gets Acquired!

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Ben

Holy f**k! Today, we’re proud to announce the sale of the Don’t F**k Up game and IP to an undisclosed buyer!

dont-fk-up-come-out-and-play-1

Created as an entry for the Grasshopper Round Table Game Jam in March of this year, Don’t F**k Up is a 2-6 player pub game of skill, reflexes, and a test of your ability to follow one simple instruction. After the 48-hour jam finished, we ended up taking home third prize!

We kept working on the game long after the jam ended, culminating in a showing at the Come Out and Play Festival and a profile on Kotaku.

kotaku don't fk up

While it’s always bittersweet sending one of our creations off into the world, we’re confident that DFU’s message of striving for excellence amid the temptation to err will continue to inspire people long after the last ball has bounced.

Posted in Business, Don't F**k Up | Tags: business, Don't F**k Up | Leave a comment |

Nika Wins the Tizen Hackathon

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Ben

We won! Nika took home the top prize at last week’s Intel/Tizen Hackathon. The hackathon was held alongside the HTML5 Developer Conference in San Francisco.

nika_logo

More details here: http://www.downloadtizenapps.com/2013/10/nika-digital-app-winner-in-tizen.html

Posted in Awards, Nika, Press | Tags: hackathon, intel, tizen | Leave a comment |

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