We received a Facebook question from our friend Bradley Erickson asking us "How do you finish and ship the dang thing after months(or years) of iteration and work?" after we published the episode 'How to turn an idea into a game?'. So, we got together and recoded this episode to answer his question. Enjoy!
How Do You Know when a Game is Done?
This brings up the question, "Is it ever done?" Well, at the end of the day you need to just ship it and get it out. This episode will give you some insights on how you can tell when you're ready to rap it up.
Creating the Minimum Viable Product
Ideas are everywhere. An important skill to develop is taking an idea from start to finish. In general it is good practice to finish what you started. Finding a way to create a minimum viable product and getting that out in the world will do wonders for you and even hopefully earn you some money.
What Does Minimum Viable Product Mean?
From a gameplay perspective:
You can feel the meta loop - the core game loop
You're able to replay that loop in the right amount of time and have a continuation of where you left off
The whole system is working for you
Social Media - perfectly acceptable high level meta loop or meta game
If you can get that short term, medium term and long term loops in place that's a good indicator that you're close to being done
No Bugs
It is extremely important that as your playing in all three loops of your game that you're not coming across any bugs or errors. The worst thing you can do when launching a game is get a bunch of 1 stars for something you had control of.
Soft Launch
Launching to a small market first avoids the disastrous results if there are any problems with your game.
Analytics
Find ways to get as much feedback as you can. Seeing how people are playing your game can be a safety measure to catch problems really and make sure there are no road blocks.
Using achievements is a cheating way of doing analytics. It works based on what achievements the player is getting you'll have some analytics. Brian used Flurry Analytics with his game Roboto and put a hook in the beginning of each level to gauge how people were playing the game.
What Corners Do You Cut To Get Your Game Out Sooner?
It is really hard to hand something over to someone when you know it had flaws. At some point you have to make the decision that this is good enough. But what do you give up on?
Monetization
On free-to-play games, you can shave (not cut out) on monetization and focus more on player retention so they are more likely to play the game and stay with it; then over time you can introduce more areas to monetize like more in-app purchases. How about an in-app purchase that takes the ads away, for instance.
Amount of Assets
Visual polish is more favorable that the amount of assets. Instead of making six worlds for your game, you can put all your focus on worlds one and two and make them absolutely amazing.
Determining When Your Game Is Done
Create An Amazing Experience
Your experience can be shorter and better.
Keep in mind, the game doesn't have need to be the everything game that does all kinds of stuff. Players are going to move on to a game that has a different kind of experience - go in understanding that.
But, the experience you're making is so special and so different and so unlike anything else that they only get it when playing your game. So, take that one thing that you're doing so far and you've presented it in such a brilliant way that it's going to be unique and fresh and that's why they're sticking with it.
Working Through the Half Way Point
When working on a game, about half way through the game, you want to start working on the next game. Don't. Finish that thought (remember, it was once a brilliant idea) and then move on to your next game instead of trying to turn this game into your next game.
It could be a tough pivot.