As you may know we recently released O’s Amazing Odyssey, our latest mobile video game currently available for free at the Google Play store here *cough* Download *cough*. Ok, the shameless plug is out of the way I would like to go ahead and start writing this “Experience Points” post. It is tradition that after the release of a game to post a proper post mortem about it. Now you might be wondering why make a post mortem about O’s Amazing Odyssey since its just a little charming game that is currently available for free at the Google Play store here *cough* Download *cough*? Funny thing is, the more I think about it the more I wonder that myself. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m really proud and grateful of what we have done with O’s Amazing Odyssey, available for free at the Google Play store here. The thing is that to be perfectly honest I don’t like the idea of writing a formal post mortem. It’s just going to be me talking pompously about the experience of working on O’s Amazing Odyssey. So how about I do something more useful and write about what we learned while making O’s Amazing Odyssey that might help anyone out there that is making games. Agreed? Good! So without further adieu let’s begin:
I can’t believe we’re this artistic: O’s Amazing Odyssey is our little mad experiment where we tested making a game using mechanics as metaphor as our main design tool. Almost everything in the game is a metaphor for a real life experience. What we learned is that you have to define what you want to convey through metaphor from the very beginning of production. In our case, we wanted O’s Amazing Odyssey to be a metaphor of our journey of venturing into the unknown and dangerous world of indie game dev. Now, I know this may sound pompously-high-artsy, but trust me, coming up with the metaphor was an extremely mundane process. Anyone can do it!
Who needs money when you have art: Since the game was our mad experiment we decided from the get go to make it a free game with no ads. The obvious downside from doing this is that you wont make any money from your work. Now this may sound bad, but we found out that this was a good thing. Knowing that you won’t make any money makes you not spend any money on the game but still have it live up to your standards. We manage to do this by reusing old company assets and searching for free new ones. Knowing that people won’t spend any money on your game also frees you as a designer since you stop thinking that you are selling a game and start thinking that you are sharing an artistic vision. (Again, I know this may sound pompously-high-artsy but its not)
I wont stop to ask for directions: This is what I believe is the biggest benefit of using mechanics as metaphor as your main design tool. Knowing what metaphor you want to tell helps you decide what mechanics to use and not use in your game. It’s quite simple. Every time you have to decide if a mechanic is added to your game you just have to ask yourself “Does this mechanic help deliver and/or reinforce the metaphor?” If it does you add it, if it doesn’t you don’t.
You honestly thought it was going to be that easy? Now I’ll be honest. At the start of the project we intended for O’s Amazing Odyssey to be, and I quote, “A simple mobile game that would be done fast. It would let us experiment with game design and move on”. The reality is that there is no such thing as a simple mobile game since even the simplest app has to be properly prepared for publishing. This means that while you just intended to experiment with core mechanics with your mobile game, you still have to develop the rest of the features that are expected of a mobile game. Luckily for us, we can manage mobile game production. But I can only imagine all the extra work we would have had to do if we had decided to develop for a higher platform e.g. PS Vita, PS3, XBox 360, etc. Since the expectations for a game will be greatly determine by the platform its being develop for. So, our advice is to keep in mind the outcomes that you want to accomplish with your game and think of what platform is suitable to accomplish said outcomes.
There is no such thing as a free lunch: I know that I said that we manage to make this game without spending any money. That is true. But we did end up spending money on legal fees. Specifically, we had to pay a lawyer to help us with copyrighting O’s Amazing Odyssey IP. Now, while we don’t consider this as spending money on the game (since we did it so that we can be legally able to protect our characters) it would be dishonest to not mention it. So the lesson I would take from this is that unless you are 100% prepared to give everything away for free (not only the game but all that’s in it) you should be ready to spend some money on it.
Just do it: One of the major flaws we had as indie developers was that we used to think as game developers that work on big studios. This meant that we would spend a lot of time on pre-production making sure that all the documentation was done and that we had everything ready to start production. With this project we learned that you don’t need to do this if you are an indie dev. As indie devs we realized that being a small team worked to our advantage since we didn’t have to put much effort into keeping all the members informed about the project. With O’s Amazing Odyssey, once we had a clear vision of the game we just started working on it and the result was a much faster development cycle. Our advice is if you have a small team, just do basic everything and start working. Don’t over think it! You will be able to effectively work and finish the game so long as your team can communicate properly, and since you are a small team that can be achieved rather easily.
Chicken soup for the soul: The last thing we learned from making this game is that it feels good to be “artistic” every once in a while. I believe that most people that get into game development have a “vision”. Therefore I would recommend every now and again (at least once in your lifetime) make a risk free project that is full of love and explore what that “vision” really is about. Try it and see for yourself what the final outcome is. Worst case scenario you can get that creative monkey off your back and share something special with the world. Believe me when I tell you that its good for the soul.
And that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. Now go play some games.
