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真正考虑成功对于自己来说意味着什么

发布时间:2015-12-25 15:32:56 Tags:,,,,

作者:David Maletz

今天我登录了Steam并发现我的最新游戏《I Can’t Escape: Darkness》的销量达到了666。对于一款恐怖游戏,这是一个非常吉利的数字,我对此非常欣慰。但这同时也让我想起了自己最初为这款游戏所设定的目标。现实并不如我所预期的那样。在仔细思考了自己的期许以及我对于成功和失败的定义后,我决定写下自己的第一篇事后分析文—-记下我的这些想法,同时和其他游戏开发者分享我的总结内容。

历史

首先我想先说说我们的工作室Fancy Fish Games。我们已经在Steam上发行了3款商业游戏,在那之前还发行过6款免费游戏。Fancy Fish Games已经诞生3年多时间(尽管我是从中学时便开始制作游戏),包含5个在此兼职的工作人员。

开始

一开始我们是打算将《I Can’t Escape: Darkness》作为游戏续集,或者就像我想的那样创造出《I Can’t Escape》的完整版本。这是一款简单的恐怖游戏,在这里玩家将深陷一个看似无止尽的地牢中,他们需要想办法逃离这里。多亏了一些youtuber和streamer的推广,《I Can’t Escape》获得了显著的成功—-而对于这一成功,我指的是超过25万名玩家在玩这款游戏并且有很多人评价了游戏并喜欢游戏。

关于这一续集,我们打算沿用《I Can’t Escape》的简单理念,即在不破坏最初游戏乐趣的前提下创造出一款完整的游戏。从这方面看来,我认为这一续集取得了成功—-当然了游戏中还是存在一些缺陷和问题,但这款游戏业吸引了玩家的注意并营造了一个悬疑可怕的游戏氛围。该续集同时也添加了许多全新功能,包括整体进程,事件,战斗和故事。

开发

《I Can’t Escape:Darkness》的开发花了一年多时间。我们的核心团队只有三个人—-我致力于编程,Chase Bethea致力于音乐和音效而Matthew Poppe则致力于图像与动画。对于这款游戏我最初只打算花4个月的时间—-但是根据以往的经验我之后又将时间计划翻了一倍。而与那些兼职成员合作是一件很难预测的事—-幸好我之前已经与Matt和Chase合作过,所以我非常信任他们,他们也从未让我失望。

我们的开发时间是这么划分的:

引擎开发—-第一个月:2014年8月。是的,我是从头开始为这款游戏开发引擎。你可能会觉得我疯了,或者认为在一个月内创造一个引擎是不可能的事,但我并不是在创造一个通用引擎。我优化了一些早前的迷宫渲染代码并创造了专属于《I Can’t Escape:Darkness》的灯光算式。我拥有许多开发游戏引擎的经验,所以这对于我来说并不是什么难事。

ICEDfinal(from gamasutra)

ICEDfinal(from gamasutra)

最小可行性产品(MVP)—-2014年9月。最小可行性产品包括基本的游戏机制,如移动,探索,道具和战斗。再一次地,你可能会认为一个月非常短,但是你要记得最初的游戏可是只花了我们一个月的时间。这时候我们会发布带有游戏截图和视频的greenlight页面。

完成功能—-2015年1月。这是我在决定游戏将花费4个月的时间进行创造时所计算好的里程碑。但之后根据自己以往的经验,我知道完成功能只是完成我们工作的一半。尽管我们花了6个月,而不是4个月才走到这里,但需要注意的是这只是我们开发过程的一半。

现在你可能会好奇,如果引擎只需要花费1个月,MVP只花费一个月,那为什么引擎需要花费4个月时间呢?答案便是,尽管MVP拥有核心游戏玩法元素,但它却缺少了包括各种事件发生区域和谜题等内容,UI和平衡。这需要我们投入更多工作,并且这时候的游戏也更像是一个原型。在这期间我们同样也花了一个时间致力于一个较小的项目(《ADventureLib》)并将《神王之路》带向Steam(我是在2014年5月发行了这款游戏,那时候我以为它永远不会被greenlight,但它却在去年12月做到了)。

内部测试—-2015年2月。在完成游戏功能后,我们需要对其进行测试,调试,完成所有更高级的图像和音乐资产。然后我们发行了游戏的测试版本希望能够第一时间获得外部反馈。我需要确保游戏足够稳定,没有漏掉任何重要资产,从而确保测试者能够提供更多有关游戏节奏和游戏玩法本身的反馈。有趣的是游戏也是在这时候获得Steam的greenlight。

基本测试—-2015年6月。我们已经在内部测试中获得许多不错的反馈,但游戏还是存在许多节奏和平衡问题。我们在最后时刻还决定添加一些新功能—-虽然这些功能都不大,但总的看起来也并不轻松。然而内部测试和基本测试之间却存在着显著的区别。在基本测试中游戏将把玩家带到一个比内部测试长4倍的游戏内容中,玩家开始会对游戏故事感到好奇。在这里有一点需要注意的是当你越接近开发尾端,你会觉得自己的发展速度变得越来越慢,因为这里并未出现太多显著的改变,但从内部测试和基本测试间的区别看来,你那四个月的时间也是没有白费的。

第二次基本测试—-2015年7月。经过另一轮的调整和完善,并且将游戏编译到Mac和Linux上后,我们开始进行第二轮基本测试。同时Justin Whirledge所组织的市场营销活动也进入快速发展阶段,即每隔几周我们便会发布游戏玩法预告片。

Steam上的基本测试—-2015年8月。这时候,除了最终调整以及最后的漏洞修复外,游戏基本上算是完成了。但因为我们准备面向Steam发行游戏,所以我们还有很多事要做。我们需要创造自己的商店页面,完成最后的资产修改(包括交易卡片和成就的资产),整合Steam API,翻译游戏(游戏邦注:我们发行了英语,西班牙语,俄语和德语的游戏版本)。最终,即在8月底,我们完成了商店页面,并公布了最终发行日期为9月17日。我们同样也在Steam上进行了快速的基本测试以确保所有内容都与Steam API和最后的修改内容保持一致。

发行!—-2015年9月17日。在经过一年又一个月的创造以及最终的测试,调整和市场营销后,游戏终于发行了!这比我预期的时间多了六个月,并开始让我感受到游戏开发的无止尽,但不管怎样我们还是做到了!

三个月后,我们获得了666的有效销量,来自Steam的大多数正面反馈,来自媒体的一些负面反馈,一些优秀的游戏相关视频以及来自粉丝编写的出色游戏指南。我们的游戏是否获得了成功?你又是如何衡量成功的呢?

什么是成功—-关于金钱?

如果成功是关于金钱,或者赚到足够多的钱让我们能够全职创造下一款游戏,我们便是失败的。游戏在Steam上的零售价是11.99美元,所以666的销量算不错了。但是如果算上我们花在项目上的时间,我们每个小时的收益仍不到3美元(即在Steam拿走抽成后)。所以虽然看起来我们还是赚到了一些钱并让我们能够在年终拿到了奖金,但这却不足以让我们放弃全职工作而专注于游戏中。

sales(from gamasutra)

sales(from gamasutra)

在游戏发行后销量便快速下降,但之后还是出现了销量和更新的峰值。第一个峰值便是我们的第一次较大的更新(即伴随着一些全新的秘密内容和完善)时。第二次大型峰值则是在万圣节促销期间,并且也伴随着我们另一次较小型的更新。而第三次较不稳定的销量提升则是在万圣节的促销期间—-但其实从主题上看它并不符合万圣节的促销活动,并且这次我们并未添加任何更新内容,且促销力度也不大,所以这次的销量提升较不明显。

但如果赚钱对于我们来说是最重要的话,我们便不会选择创造游戏了。凭借我们的技能,我们大可以找到一些收入更高的工作。所以对于成功我们还有其它的定义。

什么是成功—-关于声誉?

如果我们不能赚到更多钱,那我们是否能够从中获得声誉呢?因为人们最关心的似乎总是名与利。当然了,我们并没有什么名气,我敢打赌你们中的大多数人是在点开链接后才知道《I Can’t Escape:Darkness》这款游戏。并且有关我们的评价也都不是很高。但从另一方面看来,我们在Steam上的评价有91%都是正面的,并且伴随着23条评价,而大多数玩过我们游戏的Let’s Player都表示喜欢游戏。

而如果声誉是我们的目标的话,我们又一次失败了。甚至连最初的游戏版本也未让我们一举成名,那时候可是有25万人玩了游戏,远超于现在的666销量。尽管让更多人知道Fancy Fish Games并关注我们的游戏是件好事,但我们创造游戏却并非为了赚取声誉。

什么是成功—-创造一款有趣的游戏?

最后,我们之所以会创造游戏是因为我们想要创造一些具有创造性且有趣的东西,即那些我们自己喜欢并且也希望别人喜欢的内容。尽管我们的销量不高,但还是有很多人真的喜欢我们的游戏。甚至有一群玩家聚集在一起为我们游戏创造了一篇让人印象深刻的全面指导内容。

对此我便能够说《I Can’t Escape:Darkness》获得了巨大的成功—-我们一整年的游戏开发过程也非常让人满足。也许我们既不富裕也不出名,但我们却创造出了许多人所喜欢的有趣的内容,我们也为此感到骄傲。当然了,我们的游戏并不完美,你也能从评价中看出它的种种问题,但我们还是拥有一批忠实的粉丝基础。

我需要指出的是,即使是讨厌游戏的评论家也不得不承认这款游戏拥有不错的氛围—-而这也是我们想要呈献给玩家的内容。

结论

我们可以看到许多讨论一款游戏成败的事后分析都是基于经济方面。但是我认为真正考虑成功对于自己的意义也很重要,只要你认为是对自己有价值的学习经验,或者你能够从中获得一批死忠粉丝,那么即使是一个失败的作品对你来说也是成功的。就像我的第一款公开发行的游戏《Deus Shift》便是如此,即虽然未创造出什么轰动,但却为我召集了一批死忠粉,并且这些粉丝帮我测试了《I Can’t Escape:Darkness》并将其翻译成了俄文。

哇,就在我完成本文并发布时,我们的游戏销量又上升到了674!我们的发行还未结束,玩家将能够在游戏发行几年后继续玩这些游戏!这真的是一种非常奇妙的感受。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Between Success and Failure – I Can’t Escape: Darkness Post Mortem

by David Maletz

Today, I logged into Steam and noticed that sales for my latest game, I Can’t Escape: Darkness, reached 666. A very auspicious number for a horror game, and it made me laugh. However, it also made me remember what my original goals for the game were, and how the reality didn’t quite live up to my expectations. After thinking about what my expectations were, and how I defined success and failure, I decided to write my first Post-Mortem – both to put these thoughts down, and to share my conclusions with other game developers.

History

But, first a little about my studio, Fancy Fish Games. We’ve released three commercial games on Steam, and six free games before that (four of which were for One Game A Month). Fancy Fish Games has been around for three years (although I’ve been making games since I was in middle school), and consists of around five people who work part time for nothing but revenue share (kudos to them giving up their free time so that we can make our dreams reality).

The Beginning

I Can’t Escape: Darkness was designed as the sequel, or as I like to think of it, the full version of I Can’t Escape, our January “One Game A Month” back in 2013. I Can’t Escape was a simple atmospheric horror game in which the player is trapped in a seemingly (and in fact, literally) endless dungeon where escape consistently eludes them. Thanks to several youtubers and streamers (including Markiplier), I Can’t Escape was a great success – where by success, I mean that over 250,000 people played the game and a lot of people commented and seemed to enjoy it (we didn’t make a dime on the game).

The sequel was meant to take the simple idea of I Can’t Escape, and make a fully fleshed out game without destroying what made the original interesting. And in that respect, I think the sequel was a success – there are certainly flaws and nit-picks that I could talk about, but the game does draw you in and creates a suspenseful, eerie atmosphere without relying on jump scares (which was part of my goal with the original). The sequel was also fleshed out with a lot new features, including overall progression, events, combat and a story.

Development

Development for I Can’t Escape: Darkness took a little over a year. The core team was only three people – myself working on the code, Chase Bethea working on music and sound effects (and he did some awesome experiments with dynamic music for this game), and Matthew Poppe working on art and animations. My original plan was for the game to take four months – which as a rule of thumb I doubled to eight months, which wasn’t a terrible estimate for the total development time. Working with collaborators over the internet part time is always a little unpredictable – but I had worked with both Matt and Chase before and trusted them a lot – and they didn’t let me down.

The development time broke down something like this:

Engine Development – First Month: August 2014. Yes, I developed the engine for the game from scratch. You might think I’m crazy, or it’s impossible to make an engine in one month, but I wasn’t making a general purpose engine. I was modifying some old maze rendering code and developing the lighting algorithms specifically tailored for I Can’t Escape: Darkness and it’s gameplay needs. I’ve had a lot of experience developing game engines, so it really wasn’t as difficult as it sounds.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – September 2014. The minimum viable product included the basic gameplay mechanics – movement, exploration, items and combat. Again, you might be thinking one month is pretty short, but remember that the entire original game only took one month. At this point we launched the greenlight page with screenshots and videos.

Feature Complete – January 2015. This is the milestone I was estimating when I said the game would take four months. I then double that number because I know from experience that feature complete is really only the halfway point. And while it took six months to get here instead of four, it’s interesting to note that it was the halfway point in development for us.

Now you might be wondering, if the engine work only took one month, and the MVP only took one month, why did it take four months to get to feature complete? The answer is that even though the MVP has the core elements of game play, it is missing content (including the various event areas and puzzles), UI, and balancing. These add up to a lot of work, and they turn what is more like a prototype into an actual game. We also took about a month off during this time between holidays, a short side project (ADventureLib) and getting Deity Quest on Steam (I launched the game May 2014, thinking it’d never get greenlit, but to my surprise it did in late december).

Alpha Test – February 2015. After the game was feature complete, we had to playtest, debug, and finish all the higher priority art and music assets. Then we released the game to a closed alpha to get outside feedback for the first time. I wanted to make sure the game was stable and not missing important assets so that the testers could give more focused feedback on the pacing and gameplay itself. It’s also interesting to note that the game was greenlit on Steam at this point, after five months.

Beta Test – June 2015. We got a lot of good feedback from the Alpha Test, and there were many pacing and balancing problems we had to address (damn rats!). There were also some last minute features that we decided to add – while none of them were big, they do add up *cough*feature bloat*cough*. However, the difference between the alpha and beta test was pretty incredible. The game drew people in a lot more, the average play length quadrupled, and people began wondering about the story. One interesting thing to note here is that as you get closer to the end of development, it seems like you’re moving slower as there aren’t as many spectacular changes, but those four months of work weren’t wasted – as is clear from the difference in the responses from the alpha and beta tests.

Second Beta Test – July 2015. After another round of tweaks and improvements, plus cross compiling the game to Mac and Linux, we started a second round of beta testing. Meanwhile, the marketing campaign run by Justin Whirledge went into high gear at this point, with gameplay trailers released every other week.

Steam Beta Test – August 2015. At this point, the game was mostly done other than the final tweaks and squashing the last bugs. But there was plenty to do as we prepared to release on steam. We had to set up the store page, get the last of the asset changes in (including assets for trading cards and achievements), integrate the Steam API, get the game translated (we released in English, Spanish, Russian and German – friends, fans, and beta testers offered to translate the game for free!). Finally, near the end of August, the store page was live, and the release date of September 17th was announced. We also did a quick beta test on steam to make sure everything was working with the Steam API and the last of the changes.

Release! – September 17th, 2015. After a year and nearly two months, doing some final playtests, tweaks, and a marketing push (including early review copies and attack of the gifs), the game was released. It took nearly six months longer than we expected, and it was starting to feel like endless development hell (we probably could have tweaked the balance and pacing indefinitely – getting a procedurally generated game to parcel out events and progression at an interesting pace is a lot harder than it sounds), but we did it!

Three months later, we’ve had 666 sales, mostly positive feedback on steam, mostly negative feedback from press, some great videos and lets plays, and one amazing fan-written guide. Was the game a success? How do you measure success?

What is Success – Money?

If success is money, or even making enough to work full time on our next game, we definitely failed. The game retailed for $11.99 on steam, so 666 sales is certainly not nothing. But, even underestimating how much time we all spent on the project, we still made less than $3 an hour (after steam cuts and dividing the revenue among the team). So, it wasn’t like we made no money, and it was an awesome end of year bonus for us, but it certainly won’t let us quit our day jobs.

For those of you who like charts and graphs, here’s I Can’t Escape: Darkness’ sales graph (with the labels removed as we’re not supposed to release exact numbers).

It follows the pretty standard long tail with spikes pattern – where sales drop off very quickly after launch, but then there are spikes from sales and updates. The first big spike was our first major update (with several new secrets and improvements). The second, biggest spike was the Halloween sale including another, smaller update. The third wobbly bump of elevated sales was the Thanksgiving sale – which was not thematically fitting like the Halloween sale, didn’t include an update, and was a smaller sale, so was a lot weaker.

But let’s face it – if making money was most important to us, we wouldn’t be making games. There are plenty of better paying jobs we could get with our skills. So, there are other definitions of success to consider…

What is Success – Fame?

So, if we’re not getting much money, how about fame – people always seem to want money and fame. Well, we certainly aren’t famous, and I doubt most of you knew what I Can’t Escape: Darkness was when you clicked the link. Additionally, critic reviews are almost unanimously terrible with our metacritic score at 40/100. But, on the other side of the coin, our steam reviews are 91% positive with 23 reviews, and the majority of let’s players who played seemed to really enjoy the game.

But if fame is our goal, again, we failed. Even the original didn’t make us famous, and that had 250,000 plays, a lot more than 666 sales. However, while it would be nice for more people to know who Fancy Fish Games was and follow our games, we don’t really do it for the fame either.

What is Success – Making a Fun Game?

At the end of the day – we make games because we want to make something creative and fun – something that we enjoy playing, and we want others to enjoy as well. And while we might not have a lot of sales, there are a lot of people who really love the game. A group of players even got together and collaborated notes to create this impressively comprehensive guide to the game.

And this is where I can say I Can’t Escape: Darkness was a resounding success – and can feel good about our year long development. We might not be rich or famous, but we made something interesting that a lot of people enjoyed, and we can feel proud about that. Sure – the game isn’t perfect, and you only have to read one of the critic reviews to see them point out all of the flaws, but despite that there is definitely a loyal fan base.

As a side note, I’ll point out that even the critics who hated the game, perhaps grudgingly, had to admit that the game had a good atmosphere – which was what we set out to create.

Final Notes

There are a lot of post-mortems that talk about how successful and unsuccessful their games are only in the financial sense. However, I feel like it’s also important to think about what success means to you – as even a complete flop that no one plays could be a success if you felt it was a valuable learning experience or you gained one die hard fan who will continue to follow your games – and perhaps even beta test them or offer other help – as you continue on your game development path. This was true for Deus Shift, my very first publicly released game, which didn’t make much of a splash but gained one loyal fan who ended up both playtesting I Can’t Escape: Darkness and translating it to Russian.

Oh, and as I finally finished this post mortem and posted it, the sales have gone up to 674 (update: 704 since the posting of this gamasutra blog thanks to the winter sale)! The launch isn’t the end, and people will continue to play and enjoy your games even years after their release! That’s quite a special feeling.(source:Gamasutra

 


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