iPad games that don't suck

PLAYTESTING IS CRITICAL (AND DON’T HALF-ASS YOUR PLAYTESTER SELECTION)
We thought we’d playtested PongVaders sufficiently before release. In fact, we’d chosen to charge forth on PongVaders after showing a series of alternative games to people and hearing that the retro-aesthetic + familiarity leading to easy pick-up-and-play use would be a strong initial release of original (or at least re-mixed) IP. At least once per week for the five weeks of the game’s development, we showed the game to a group of fellow technologists in the Bay Area. The vast majority had little-to-no gaming experience, so we felt that it was a fair sample for the general iOS gaming public.

We were wrong.

First of all, there was personal context. They knew that I could be a prankster, so they found it funny that the ‘powerups’ in the game were generally ‘powerdowns’. Secondly, these were engineers. They liked solving puzzles. Any opacity in our game systems was seen as a fun problem to solve. Some of the opacity was intentional; some of it was not. Nevertheless our playtesters enjoyed deciphering the rules of our game.

Post-launch, we had an opportunity to show the game at PAX. If we weren’t thick-skinned and willing to undergo severe pain on our quest to make you, our audience, happy, this trip would have been about as fun as being on the receiving end of a disciplinary lecture from one’s elementary school principle. To the unwashed masses general gaming public, the powerdowns were confusing and frustrating, as was puzzling nature of the non-critical game systems (points, volleys, etc). What we had hoped would be a simple mashup of two classic games was in practice difficult for people to play. Oops.

We’ve remedied this in our upcoming update after we took a week to …

SPEND EXTRA EFFORT ON PLAYER COMMUNICATION / JUICINESS
This tip comes straight from a heavy-weight game design expert who will remain nameless because it would seem mostly like I’m namedropping. He told us that player communication makes a game ‘juicy’ and aids in learning the systems at work.

He gave examples of how backgrounds in Braid had linear movement that was identifiable as ‘forwards’ and ‘backwards’ (such as falling water) that both enhances the time-reversal mechanic as well as communicates to the player exactly _what_ is happening. Limbo was another example, with its use of falling detritus to communicate the vector of gravity while the orientation of the scene/gravitational force changed (compared with And Yet It Moves, which does the player few favors in determining orientation). Sound effects were also highlighted as a critical piece of creating ‘juiciness’.

When creating a game, we have a limited range of output to the player – mostly image and sound. Juiciness comes from creating something believable or believably tangible. In addition to sounds and visual effects acting as blatant signifiers of things that happen in the game (think of the sound of Mario collecting a mushroom, or the nitro-charge noise of bumping a chain in Rock Band by another ten notes), they can serve as signifiers of _properties_ of things in the game. A simple example: using a lower pitch when a ball collides with a lengthened paddle in Arkanoid or KODUCO GAMES’ very own PONGVADERS anchors the paddle (and, to a secondary degree, the ball) as a physical object with physical properties within the world of the game.

Play your favorite games (as well as some best-selling games) with this in mind and pay attention to what’s behind every sound effect and flourish. Does it help you learn and play the game? Do you crave certain sounds, such as the satisfying ‘clank’ of a dropped shield in Halo, the ‘slap’ at the end of a stage in Super Meat Boy, or the relieving ‘bleep’ of hitting a checkpoint in VVVVVV?

TRUST YOUR COLLABORATORS / CONTRACTORS (DON’T MICROMANAGE)
It’s good to have a vision – no one’s going to deny that. Yet there’s a difference between having a vision and being overbearing. If you are outsourcing e.g. art and/or music, that means that you’re not an expert in that field (in biz-geek terms, it means that it’s not your “core competency”). If you are unable to show your collaborators your game so far and tell them to go nuts within a specific budget, I would argue that you are either a control freak or that you are not working with good people. I’ve been on both ends of a contract, and I can assure you that when my client has micromanaged me or given terrible specs, my enthusiasm and work have suffered. Only work with people who will improve the vision of your project, then allow them to do so.

WORK ON SOMETHING ELSE FOR A WHILE IF YOU GET BUMMED
After receiving a bum rap in the AppStore due to a particularly lengthy lead-time on a patch release, we were not at our peak performance for a couple weeks while working on further patches, ports to our games, and infrastructure to cross-promote our games. We took some time out in October to head back East to see some old friends and hang out with the fine folk at MIT’s GAMBIT Game Lab. During our time there, we dropped our current projects and did things such as play with construction paper and Play-Doh until we felt that we hammered on a good touch interaction. Then we mocked up a game utilizing that interaction. When we came back to the KODUCO GAMES studio we were re-invigorated and were able to draw up and execute laundry-lists of things-that-aren’t-directly-related-to-games such as creating an in-house ad network, prepping in-app purchase and creating the associated DLC, etc.

Short version: working at a slow pace drained momentum which resulted in yet slower work. Working quickly on something else for a week restored our momentum.