作者：Sebastian Uribe

《Flip》是我在很长一段时间以来所创造的第一款游戏。从2003年至2008年期间，我运行着一家小型的开发工作室，在那里我们创造了J2ME游戏，但在那之后我便未曾直接参与游戏开发工作（直至现在）。我仍然与游戏开发社区保持着联系（即通过学术领域，包括演讲和研究等等），而作为一名观察者，我仍拥有一些致力于游戏开发的好友和熟人。去年的时候，我决定回归游戏开发，并开始学习Unity，在经过一些尝试后，我于2014年初开始致力于《Flip》。

flip(from gamasutra)

《Flip》是一款益智游戏，你必须在游戏中不断旋转组块让它们能够匹配一个适当的顺序。如果你知道“煎饼排序问题”，你便清楚这是关于什么（有趣的是在开发过程中我并不了解“煎饼问题”，但在基于同样的方式尝试着排序货币时我想到了同样的理念）。第一个关卡总是很容易解决，但是在最后的关卡中会变得很困难。有些人告诉我，他们发现它带有“硬核性”，因为它要求更多的逻辑思维，并且具有非常严格的获胜条件，玩家可能会因此而退缩。

什么是对的

较短的开发时间

这款游戏在3个月内从原型过度到了发行。除了声音和一些unity插件程序外，我独自一人完成了所有工作。这是件困难的工作，我每一周需要工作6至7天，并且每一天需要花费10至12个小时。但这也意味着游戏的预算会非常少，因为我考虑到了自己不一定能从中赚到钱。

不匆忙

实际上，我在一个半月内便完成了游戏开发，而剩下的时间我都专注于完善它的可用性。我多次调整了某些内容，包括教程，组块移动方式，关卡的选择，按键设置，信息，对话框，关卡进程，难度进程等等。我的主要目标是为玩家扫除障碍让他们能够自然地在游戏中前行。我认为最终玩家可以顺利地体验并理解游戏，虽然我还保持着完善其中的某些内容。在触屏设备上旋转组块真的是一种非常棒的体验。

进行适当的可用性测试

我的主要测试方法包含带着平板电脑到处请人玩游戏。我利用40多个人去测试游戏，观看他们如何游戏并且在不打扰他们的前提下在旁边做记录。之后我询问了他们为何要做某些事，并尝试着得出结论以及明确模范的用户行为。这一方法真的很有用，我在测试之后所作出的一些改变使得新玩家们也能更轻松地体验游戏。

使用适当的工具

我使用了Unity 3D。尽管一开始我并不熟悉它，但是它却为我提供了简单的移植方式以及一些第三方插件程序，从而让我节省了不少时间—-特别是它们还能跨越多个平台提供服务。关于图像我使用的是Gimp和Inkscape。在熟练后我便能够创建新的图像风格原型，并快速创造各种类型的资源。

总结：考虑到一些限制因素，开发真的非常成功。

我学到了什么（或者说是我意识到什么是错的）

从一开始我便知道游戏的市场营销将是我的软肋。我尝试着从其他开发者身上吸取经验：帖子，事后分析，会议交谈，或者与同僚间的对话。但这并不能带给我多大帮助，主要有两个原因：首先，发行并推广游戏的任务数真的非常巨大，就像创造一款小型游戏那般（更何况我还是独自创造游戏）。其次，我因为避免去思考并计划一些自己不想做的事而出现了怠工的情况。尽管当我知道该做些什么时，但却仍耽搁了许多事。

我未能创造足够的认知度

在阅读了许多有关建立游戏社区的重要性的内容后，我发现自己未能做到这点，因为：

我并未使用适当的渠道。只是在自己的网站上发表一些相关文章并发几条tweet，但却没人真正follow你，这就像朝着一间空荡荡的房间呐喊一样。我并未使用像tigsource那样的论坛让社区去了解我的游戏，我只创建了一个#screenshotsaturday。我并未去思考这种保障性的成功，但是它们的确能够帮助提升游戏的认知度。在开发期间，有人将《Flip》称为“出色的小游戏”，我认为这是对的。但我认为这也意味着作为一款独立游戏，《Flip》还不够迷人。所以当我开始使用常规的独立渠道时，它并未能吸引足够的关注。

之后我还尝试了adwords和Facebook的广告，但考虑到我的游戏的低价，前者似乎太过昂贵，而第二种方法则需要在发行前落实。我是在发行后才拥有一个适当的游戏网站，所以所有的信息都只能呈现在官方的Perro Electrico博客上，并通过不同的帖子进行推广。这真的很糟糕。如果你是一位不知名的开发者，并且你所使用的理念并不热门，那么你能在3个月内获得多少认知度呢？

为什么提高认知度如此重要？因为如果你发行了一款游戏并且没有人认识你的游戏，你便不可能获得多少销量，没人谈论你的游戏就意味着没人帮你传播游戏。

我缺少一些基本的推广资产

一些例子：

我创造一个2分半钟的视频，并呈现了一个简单的游戏玩法。对于该视频我的目标是让玩家能够看到这是关于什么的游戏，但它却没有多少吸引力。对于呈现一些游戏中没有的内容会让我感到不舒服，所以一个带有铁克诺音乐的预告片会让我觉得自己在撒谎。在游戏发行后一个朋友帮我创造了新的预告片，这至少包含了音乐和一些视频剪辑，同时还能呈现出基本的游戏氛围，所以这次的反响明显好多了。

我还使用了pressKit()，并且我总是会创造一些截图和（无聊）的游戏玩法视频，但如果我在这方面多花些心思的话便能够创造出更多资料。

我的新闻稿（PR）很丢脸

我总共发了8封邮件给媒体，发了3封到Let’s players，并在gamespress.com提交了一份PR。我能够获得回应真的很惊人，因为我只在Rock Paper Shotgun接受了简短的访问，并在两个较小的网站上提到游戏，同时还只刊登了一些有关新闻稿的内容。

我的新闻稿本来可以做的更好，但却因为：

我缺少明确的发行目标

我非常专注于游戏开发和完善，所以我并没有足够的时间去思考“发行”对我来说有何意义，或者我到底将发行怎样的内容。在游戏出现在谷歌应用商店的前一晚我创建了一个官方网站。同一天我为游戏的Windows版本创造了一个安装程序，并为了获得一个Widget而联系了Humble Store的员工。实际上我是在游戏发行后才开始接触在线商店。我到底发行了什么内容？“《Flip》”，或者至少“面向Android的《Flip》”，还是“面向Android和Windows的《Flip》”？但是在开发过程中我并未花任何时间去思考这一问题。

我花了几天去等待PR，直到我知道面向Windows版本的Humble Widget能够运行。这真的很棒，之后我便能够进入RPS，即能在PC上打开的网站，这也是我的游戏销量的主要来源。

缺少明确的发行目标神偷到我的所有推广行动中。

总结：怠工，未投入足够的努力去计划发行与市场营销工作。

道德选择

就像其他开发者在他们的事后分析中提到的，手机盈利模式可能是一个困难的选择。就我个人来讲手机商店是基于一种非常糟糕的形态，充斥了许多复制品，即很多游戏都使用了免费模式，大多数应用都是通过广告网站受益。种种的这些元素都导致游戏很难突显于此。

我并不想使用广告或免费模式，所以我决定使用应用内部购买机制，即执行“在购买前进行尝试”的模式。你可以下载游戏的手机版本，并试着玩一些关卡，如果你喜欢游戏，便可以升级到“完整版”。你也可以在网上尝试同样的免费版本（使用Unity Webplayer Plugin）。

使用这一模式其实是一大激励因素，特别是当提到设计一个优秀的游戏流程，就像我所认为的那样，如果玩家因为界面或可用性问题而不能完成免费关卡，这便算阻止他们去购买完整版本一样。但是如果他们因为不喜欢游戏而事先终止了游戏，我便不会因为他们不购买游戏而郁闷。

对于我来说业务选择与道德选择一样重要。虽然我不知道一个基于广告的游戏是否能够帮助我赚到更多钱，特别是对于一款立基游戏来说，但我更希望能够做到问心无愧。

结论

游戏是成功还是失败？我敢确定的是我不能赚回本了，所以从商业上来看游戏是失败的。但我却对于自己所获得与学到的一切感到自豪。

我在此学到的主要教训便是：独自致力于一款游戏并不是最佳选择，你有可能因此而忽视了一些重要元素（游戏邦注：如市场营销和业务方面），并且没人能够注意到它们并提醒你。在我的下一款游戏中我会采取合作方式，并将自己在《Flip》开发中学到的所有内容都运用于其中，我敢打赌自己一定能够取得更好的成绩。

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

Postmortem of Flip, by Perro Electrico, or how can you make sure you will not make money on your game

by Sebastian Uribe

Flip was the first game I made in a long time. From 2003 till 2008 I run a small development studio where we made J2ME games, but after that I was not involved directly in game development (until now). I was still in touch with the game development community, from the academic side (lecturing and researching) and as an observer, as several of my friends and acquaintances develop games. I decided to return to game development last year, I started learning Unity, and after some experiments I began working on Flip at the beginning of 2014.

Flip is a puzzle game where you must rotate pieces to make them match a proper order. If you know the “Pancakes Sorting Problem”, you know what it is about (funnily, I was not aware of the pancakes problem while developing it, but the idea came to me while attempting to sort coins in the same way). The first levels are usually easy to solve, but It can get very hard in the last levels. Some people told me they find it “hardcore“, as it requires a lot of logical thinking and is very strict regarding winning conditions, and players can be put off by that.

What went right

Short development time

The game went from prototype to launch in 3 months. I worked alone and did everything by myself, except for the sounds and some unity plug-ins. It was hard work, putting sometimes 10 to 12 hours a day 6 or 7 days a week. But that meant that my budget for the game was minimal, a good thing given that I was not sure if I was not going to recover the money.

Not rushing it out

The game was virtually complete a month and a half into development, and I spent the rest of the time improving usability. I changed several times things like the tutorial, the way pieces are moved, level selection, button placement, messages, dialogs, level progression, difficulty progression and more. My main objective was to get out of the way of the player, and allow him or her to flow through the game as if it was something natural. I think the end result, even though it could always be improved, plays quite nicely and is easy to understand. Particularly rotating pieces on touch devices provides a nice experience.

Doing proper usability testing

My main way of testing consisted of going everywhere with a tablet and asking people to play. I tested it with over 40 people, and I watched them play, taking notes without intervening. I later asked them why they did some things, and tried to reach conclusions and model user behaviour. This approach proved very useful, as changes introduced after this process (specially the tutorial) made the game easier to approach by new players.

Using the right Tools

I used Unity 3D. Even though I fought a lot with it at the beginning, it provided me with easy porting and a couple third party plug-ins that saved me a lot of time, specially when they provided services across multiple platforms. For graphics I used Gimp and Inkscape. Being proficient in the later allowed me to prototype new graphical styles, and generate all kind of assorted resources at a very fast pace.

Summary: development was very successful, given the constraints.

What I learned (or… the things that went wrong that I’m aware of)

I knew from the beginning that the marketing of the game would be my weak spot. I tried to learn from other developers’ experience: posts, postmortems, conference talks, conversations with colleagues. But that did not help me anyway for two reasons: first the amount of tasks required for launching and promoting a game is probably as huge and demanding as developing a small game (and remember I was doing this alone). And second, I sabotaged myself by avoiding thinking and planning things that I did not want to do. And even when I knew what to do, I procrastinated a lot.

I did not build enough awareness

After reading a lot about how important it is to build a community around your game, I failed to do so, because:

I did not use the appropriate channels. Just blogging in your own website and twittering while nobody follows you is like shouting in an empty room. I did not use forums like tigsource for letting the community know about my game, and I published only one #screenshotsaturday. I do not think these guarantee success, but they help creating awareness.
During development somebody called Flip a “nice little game”, and I think he was right. But I think that also means that for an indie game, Flip is just not sexy enough. So even when I started using the regular indie channels, it did not attract a lot of attention.

I experimented later with adwords and facebook ads, but the former was not cost effective given the low price of my game, and the second should have been used before launch.
I did not have a proper website for the game until launch, so information was only in the official Perro Electrico blog, spread among different posts. And it looks horrible.
Lastly… how much awareness can you raise in 3 months if you are not a well known developer and your concept is not hot? I never fooled myself into thinking my game was hot, but I did not act consequently.

Why is it important to raise awareness? Because if you launch and nobody knows about your game, you start with no sales, nobody talking about your game, nobody helping you spread the word.

I lacked some basic promotional assets

Some examples:

I made a 2:30 minutes video that showed a simple gameplay session. My objective with the video was that players could see what the game was about, but it was not very attractive. I would not feel comfortable showing something that is not in the game, so a teaser trailer with techno music would feel to me like lying. A friend helped me make one after launch which at least included music and some video editing, while keeping the general vibe of the game, and its repercussion was much better.

Some ideas I had for promoting the game required making custom versions of the game with changes that were not trivial, and I could not find time to make them later.
A similar problem was that I lacked an easy way for android reviewers to access all the levels without having to purchase them. I could have planned this better.

I did use pressKit(), and I always had some screenshots and the (boring) gameplay video, but I could have created much more material if I had put more thought into it.

My PR was a shame

I sent a total of 8 emails to the press, 3 to Let’s players, and submitted a PR in gamespress.com. Considering that, the response I got was amazing, given that I had a short and favorable review on Rock Paper Shotgun, two mentions in smaller sites, and a couple postings of the press release (including one in gamasutra).

And my press release could have used a lot of improvement, mainly because…

I lacked clear launch objectives

I was so focused on the development and polishing of the game, that I did not stop to think clearly about what a “launch” meant to me, or even what would I launch exactly. I hacked an official website the night before publishing the game in the Google store. I created an installer for the Windows version that same day and contacted the Humble Store people for getting a Widget. I actually started contacting online stores after launch. What was I launching? “Flip”, or just “Flip for Android”? Or maybe “Flip for Android and Windows”? I just did not stop to think about this during development.

I waited some days for the PR until I could verify that the Humble Widget for the Windows version was up and running. That was actually good, as then I could get covered in RPS, a PC only site, which drove most of my sales.

This lack of a clear launch objective permeated all promotional actions.

Summary: self sabotaged, spent little effort on planning launch and marketing.

Moral choices

As other developers have already mentioned in their postmortem, mobile monetization models can be a difficult choice. I personally think that mobile stores are in a very bad shape, full of blatant clones, games that use abusive F2P practices, and applications that benefit mostly the advertising networks and not so much the developers. This makes it difficult for games to stand out.

I did not want to include ads or use a freemium model (e.g., charging for hints on how to solve a puzzle), so I decided to implement a “try before you buy” model using in-app purchases. You download the mobile version of the game and play some levels, and if you like it, upgrade to “full”. You can also try the same free version online (using the Unity Webplayer Plugin).

Using this model was actually a big motivator when it came to designing a good gameplay flow, as my reasoning was that if players could not finish the free levels because of interface or usability issues, then I was preventing them from buying the full version. But if they stopped before that because they did not like the game, then it is ok for me that they don’t buy it.

This was for me as much a business choice as a moral one. In the end I cannot know if an ad-sponsored game would have made me more money, specially such a specific niche game, but I prefer to have a clear conscience.

Final words

Was the game a success or failure? I am sure that I will not recover my costs, so commercially it is a failure. But I am very proud about both what I accomplished, and the things I learned. Career wise, it is probably a success.

The main lesson was one I already knew: working alone in a game is not the best, as you can overlook huge aspects (like the marketing and business side) and nobody else will be watching and reminding you of them. For my next game I’m already planning a collaboration, and adding all that I learned from Flip, I bet it will do much better.(source:gamasutra)