Our last TechTea was all about developing a game. Product manager and business analyst Kuba Wagner discussed a special project he developed with his friends. After three years and 23,000 lines of code, their labor of love, “The Button Game” (Nuclear Football) was birthed by their own Two Bulbs Studio. The game is now playable here.
Let’s read more about what goes into making a game like this.
Startup? Game? Same deal.
Launching a game is a lot like building a startup. You have to go through the same stages, such as: idea, validation, budget, building a team, MVP, development, and release. (Want to know more about how to build a startup? Visit our Startup Guide).
In both endeavors you should also make use of your failures. If you’ve built a game before and want to give it another try, write down the list of mistakes you made so you can avoid them this time around.
Thinking big(ish)
It’s a meeting of imagination and practical possibility. For example, the concept of Kuba’s previous game was so complex that it was impossible, or perhaps impossibly expensive, to depict graphically given the team’s capacities. Here’s a screenshot from the fully working prototype of “Diesel Penicillin”:
The Button Game posed quite the opposite problem. The concept was more straightforward, but the team’s imagination started to run wild when envisioning the look of the game. Much of their time was consumed by developing photorealistic graphics. Observe this desertscape background:
In the beginning you shouldn’t spend too much time and money. The Two Bulbs team hired a designer up front and paid for the decision (both literally and figuratively): money spent and nothing to show — lessons learned. It’s important to hire the right people. While you may be eager to get your vision out there, don’t just take the first person who comes along. Start with a simple idea, let people play it, get feedback. When you build something simple, it’s much easier to change it down the road. Make use of free assets (Kuba recommends Kenney). You can put money into the project later, once you’re sure there’s some potential interest in the game.
Inspiration comes from the most unlikely places
The final outcome seems miles away. Considering the desolate, apocalyptic design of The Button Game, you may be shocked to realize the origin of its DNA:
Indeed, an innocent junk-clearing day led Kuba to a buried Mickey magazine from 1995, wherein he found the treasure map to his current creation. Kuba was open-minded enough to see the potential in this number-finding game and decided to pitch it to a slightly different audience.
The basis of the game is finding numbers in sequence on a board. It’s harder than you might think, especially when nuclear war is at stake.
Do something special
If you want to get people’s attention, build something they might like. Visuals matter, so hire a designer. So does sound: Two Bulbs had original music composed. When it comes to a look, try to be different and craft a uniquely recognizable style. Some singular effects the Two Bulbs team used were adaptive music, tricks for a “human-like” AI, particle effects, and a unique avatar generator. Results have been great, garnering much positive feedback.
After it’s built, your task isn’t over (assuming you want people to actually play your creation). More than 400 games are launched every day on iTunes, so standing out is a significant part of the whole battle. Let people know you exist. Make some noise. Do some marketing. (Once again, our Startup Guide comes in handy).
Sources:
Statista.com — Number of available apps in the iTunes App Store from 2008 to 2017
Statista.com — Number of newly developed applications/games submitted for release to the iTunes App Store from 2012 to 2018
