another case solved' post-mortem
DESCRIPTION
Looking back at the production process of 'Another Case Solved' - a story-driven puzzle F2P game by ATGames. Slides from a speech on Digital Dragons 2014TRANSCRIPT
Another Case Solved
• Game: story-driven, puzzle, F2P
• Development: AT Games
• iOS: Chillingo
• Android: Noddlecake
• Windows 8, Windows Phone 8: Syzygy
Core Gameplay
Big Cycle: strategic, I-must-go-back factor
• story progress,
• office and character development.
Small Cycle: tactical, I-cant-put-down factor
• earning in-game currency,
• unlocking story progress.
Big Cycle
• Major Cases: storytelling, earning stars and cash.
• Your Office: investment, spending cash.
• Your Character: unlocking skills, spending stars.
Small Cycle
• Newspaper Cases: easy, repeatable, grinding in-game currency.
• Tools: useable, buy them with in-game currency.
• Story Progress: unlock Major Caseswith newspapers.
Scope of the Game
• Release Day: 3 chapters = 50 Major Cases
• Full Story: 5 chapters = 90 Major Cases
• About 200 newspaper cases.
• Release Day: at least 30 hrs of gameplay.
Rules of Investigation
• Connect Puzzles: to solve a case gather clues, different for every witness.
• Long Chains: get bonus puzzles, use them to max. the case.
• Limitations: number of moves, target numbers for puzzles.
Other Mini-Games
Major Cases = Puzzles + 3 Extra Stages collected evidences help in solving extra stages.
Witnesses
Inspired by „Guess Who”.
Find the person, who matches all criteria.
Number of questions depends on photos collected.
Crime Scene
Hot or Cold, limited no. moves.
Find the ”hottest” item.
Max. ”hotness” shown depends on Fingerptints collected.
City Search
Find the place that matches all hints.
Some icons are hidden.
Number of hints depends on Maps collected.
Spending Candies
• Unlocking Major Cases,
• Faster delivery of furniture and newspapers,
• Extra moves,
• Character customization, decorations,
• Premium tools, skills upgrade.
Earning Candies
• Bonus candies, candy truck,
• Long chains of Coin puzzles,
• Daily bonus,
• Candies hidden in extra stages,
• Challenges, achievements,
• Ads.
Starting Point
• Something from Puzzle Craft,
• Something new,
• F2P design,
• Known risk: less casual, more text-heavy.
Team and Methodology
• Code: 3, Art: 3, Design: 2, QA: 1.
• Instant prototyping, iterative development,working game with placeholders, improving-as-you-go.
Time Frame
• Start: October 2012
• Release: 20 March 2014
• At the same time: to Jan. 2013 still working on Puzzle Craft, from Nov. 2013 a new project.
Production Cycle
• 2 months - preproduction,
• 9 months - production,
• 3 months - pre-release & polish.
What went OK?
• A game bigger and more complicated than Puzzle Craft, in the same time.
• Merging puzzles with new mini-games.
• Updateable and portable.
• Lessons learned from Puzzle Craft.
• How ads were implemented.
What went not so OK?
• Testing balance: difficulty peaks, unplanned frustration, exploits.
• Secret cases too secret.
• Polish localization.
• Facebook integration.
• Interface sometimes a bit clumsy.
Story vs. Gameplay
In a case, when we are looking for Lucy...
... we can ask Lucy for help.
Awkward.
Good Practices
• Separating balance from code:config i localization in .xml and .csv files.
• Game state re-created on load, no hard saving.
• Analyzing data and feedback.
Reception
• 2 mln downloads (first week: 1 mln)
• Average AppStore rating: 4,5 stars
• Metacritics: 67 „because IAPs”
• 100K likes on Facebook
Our very first fan-art!
Mr. or Ms. Detective?
• Different clothes & face elements.
• Dialog modifications.
• Separate personal plots.
54%
46%
Let’s Talk Business
• F2P was a good decision
• Ads well implemented
• Better than Puzzle Craft
• Break even after 2 months
• Flurry is ok. Player has control over if and when to see ads.
Plans
• Support planned from the beginning
• update: 1.1 ready
• update: 1.2 in development
• next updates subject to demand
Another Case Solved
Play it on your favourite device.
Join Our Team!
• Programmers
• Graphics
• Designers
We are looking for:
Contact us: [email protected]