by [Business/Marketing, Design, Postmortem, Production, Game Developer Magazine, Console/PC, Indie, Smartphone/Tablet, GD Mag, GD Mag Exclusive]
April 29, 2013
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A reprint from the April 2013
issue of Gamasutra sister publication Game Developer magazine, this
article rounds up several mini-postmortems for a variety of high-quality
indie titles.
If there is one thing we've learned over the last year at Game Developer, it's that dev studios need to stay current on every potential game platform out there, or risk missing opportunities to reach the widest possible audience.
That's why we've put together a collection of four shorter postmortems, each for a game developed for a different platform: Muteki's Dragon Fantasy (mobile), Subset Games's Faster Than Light (PC), KIXEYE's War Commander (social), and RSBLSB's Dyad (console).
So whether you're a single-platform dev wondering if the grass really is greener, or you just want to learn more about what went right and wrong with a handful of standout games from last year, read on for the mini-mortems.
If there is one thing we've learned over the last year at Game Developer, it's that dev studios need to stay current on every potential game platform out there, or risk missing opportunities to reach the widest possible audience.
That's why we've put together a collection of four shorter postmortems, each for a game developed for a different platform: Muteki's Dragon Fantasy (mobile), Subset Games's Faster Than Light (PC), KIXEYE's War Commander (social), and RSBLSB's Dyad (console).
So whether you're a single-platform dev wondering if the grass really is greener, or you just want to learn more about what went right and wrong with a handful of standout games from last year, read on for the mini-mortems.
Mobile: Dragon Fantasy
By Adam Rippon and Bryan Sawler
We started on Dragon Fantasy on April 1,
2011 as a tribute to Adam's late father, Tom. Adam started making the
game as a way to cope with the depression and stress in his life. While
it probably wasn't particularly healthy to be as obsessed as he was with
one project, he sure did get a lot of work done in a surprisingly short
amount of time!
The first chapter of Dragon Fantasy launched on iOS on August 23, 2011.
What Went Right
1. Regular Content Updates
The game was a modest success, and we immediately
set to work on adding more content to it, hoping that by continually
adding new content we could keep sales consistent.
While we weren't hugely financially successful from
all of our free content updates, the goodwill and reputation that it
earned us was a huge benefit. We've made a lot of friends in the indie
developer community, which has been a huge help. We learned a lot about
how to market our game via shows and via the press.
Also, we bumped into
Sony several times during the development of the game, and I believe
that it was our dedication and cult-favorite status that led them to
decide to include Dragon Fantasy Book II in the Pub Fund. Had we put out chapter one and called it a day, I wouldn't be writing this article right now!
2. Great Press Coverage
If there's one thing you absolutely need to have on
your side, it's great reviews -- and we got lots of 'em. We enjoy a 4.5
star rating on both iOS and Android, despite the perpetually entitled
rage of the "OMG WHY ISN'T IT FREE" crowd.
We got great coverage from
RPGamer, whose editor-in-chief absolutely loves the game.
Joystiq gave
us some great shout-outs. And our crowning achievement was our interview
with Kotaku Australia -- Adam has a copy of it printed and hung up on
his wall, and his mom even mailed a copy of it to his grandma. (It was
that good.)
Apparently it wasn't that common for Kotaku U.S. to run
Kotaku Australia's articles, but they ran this one. Oh, and the sales
bump from that beautiful article? Very, very nice. Great press goes a
long way.
3. Good Tech Helps
Dragon Fantasy may not look like it's a
super high-end engine, what with all the ginormous pixels and whatnot,
but you'd be surprised! We've always rolled our own engine and tools,
and the work on Dragon Fantasy was a serious boon to the production of our very powerful and very easy-to-use UI system.
While we didn't make a ton of money on the game
itself, we did make a fair bit by using the tech we built for the game
on other contract projects. We've done numerous paid projects for larger
clients using our MuTech engine, even going so far as to use it in a
political news app!
And despite being reviewed by dozens of blogs, not a
single one noticed that it wasn't a native iPhone app. We're pretty
proud of that. So while we probably could have just done Dragon Fantasy
with some off-the-shelf engine, there are some serious benefits to
building your own cross-platform, application-agnostic engine if you
have the means.
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