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The 13 Basic Principles of Gameplay Design

[In an intriguing design feature, EA and Page 44 veteran Allmer re-imagines the famous '12 Principles Of Animation' for video games - adding a principle along the way!]

-Matt Allmer [Design]

Gameplay design is chaotic and full of frustrations and contradictions. More often than not, the request is to come up with something guaranteed to be successful. This condition steers solutions towards the established -- which means solutions that have been done before.

But in the same breath, the product must separate itself from the competition or stand out in some way. This immediately pulls the designer in conflicting directions.

Then, whatever the solution, it must fit within the confines of the project's resources. Not to mention scheduling pressure and strategy changes coming from executive positions.

Hup hup! No time for analyzing the previous paragraph! We've got a title to ship! Never mind your lack of proper tools! Quit your sniveling! Don't you know?

Game design is like sailing a ship while still building the hull! Jump out of a plane while still sewing your parachute and you'll get a good sense of pace in this business. The horse is never put before the cart. We race them side-by-side to see which one wins!

With so much urgency, conflict and uncertainty, there must be an anchor somewhere. Call me boring, but I'm a fan of preparation and established fundamentals. They give me a better understanding of which rules I can break, and which rules I should think twice about.

I took a traditional animation class in college and on the first day, the professor handed out the "12 Principles of Animation", introduced by Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston. If you're not familiar with these two, they were part of the Nine Old Men: The legendary Disney animation crew responsible for the studio's timeless classics, such as, Snow White, 101 Dalmatians, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, and others.

At first, these 12 principles were difficult to fully grasp. However, by the end of the semester, I noticed the more principles I applied to my work, the better the animation. Remembering that experience, I think to myself, "By George! Game design should have something similar!"

So, George and I scoured the Internet. Unfortunately, I was disappointed after finding so many disjointed theories, strategies, approaches and creeds. There was a lot of broad subject matter like theories on fun, rewarding players' choices, controlling thought activity, mental multi-tasking... and calls to "simplify" (whatever that means. I'm a designer for crying out loud).

I also found principles so apparent, Captain Obvious would roll his eyes: "know your audience", "don't break the player's trust", "give players choice", "know thyself", "one mechanic in the engine is two in the bush". Alright, the last two were made up, but nothing I found really did it for me.

I was perplexed. None of what I found would help a designer on a day-to-day basis. So George, Captain Obvious and I have decided to throw our proverbial hat into the muddled picture. (And quick! For god's sake, before I collect any more metaphorical personalities!)

The 12 Basic Principles of Animation was my starting point. I took the commonalities and added to them based on what I've identified as the different compartments of gameplay design. You'll notice some are described similarly and some even have the same name, but all apply to gameplay.

The purpose of these principles is to cover all your bases before presenting your designs. You might have a principle fully covered in the beginning, but these principles may spark a thought later when circumstances present a new opportunity. 

Direction

The first three principles have to do with leading and directing the player's experience. Even though this medium is heavily based on personal, interactive discovery, it is still an artistic medium.

Do not underestimate the importance of artistic direction. Just as a painting leads the eye, a book leads the imagery, a film leads the narrative, so too must a game lead the interactivity.

1. Focal Point

Never allow the player to guess what they should focus on. At the same time, always allow secondary subject matter, but it is the designer's job to clearly provide the primary focus at all times. This applies to both visual and visceral aspects of gameplay.

Level design example

Creating clear, apparent lines of sight.

System design example

Clearly defined plot points and objectives during game progression/user experience.

2. Anticipation

Time is needed to inform the player that something is about to happen. Always factor in Anticipation when designing and implementing events and behaviors.

Level design example

A train sound effect occurs before player sees train.

System design example

An energy charge builds before the lightning attack occurs.

3. Announce Change

Communicate all changes to the player. This short step occurs between Anticipation and the event itself.

The important part to remember is maintaining a hierarchy of notable changes.

A good rule of thumb is degree of rarity. If a change occurs a hundred times in an hour, the announcement may not be required. However, if the change occurs five times throughout the entire game experience, a number of visual cues could be needed.

This principle is so obvious, it can be taken for granted and sometimes overlooked. Be diligent in knowing what changes the player should be aware of at the correct time and on the correct event.

Level design example

"Cast-off" animations trigger for NPCs when the player's character boards the ship.

System design example

An on-screen notification occurs when quest criteria have been completed (i.e. "Slay 10 goblins for Farmer Bob")

Behavior

These next four principles address the very important aspect of behavior. This tackles the player's expectations, both conscious and unconscious. This is where common design theories are addressed such as player choice, reward and payoff, etc. These principles are also broader, so they can be applied to additional types of design like UI and story...

4. Believable Events and Behavior

Every event or behavior must occur according to the logic and expectations of the player. Every action, reaction, results, emotion and conveyance must satisfy the players' subconscious acceptance test.

Level design example

Place destructible objects near an explosive object. This way, the explosion looks more believable.

System design example

Weaker enemies run away when the advantage shifts in the player's favor.

UI example

HUD elements are affected when player's mech is near death.

Story example

Villagers are more upbeat and react positively after the player has slain the dragon.

5. Overlapping Events and Behavior

Dynamic is lost if only one change occurs at a time. Discover the right amount of events to occur at any given moment of time.

Level design example

Providing the player the ability to build from an appropriate list of structures.

System design example

The linebacker points to direct fellow players, the defensive end shifts over, the quarterback points and calls out football jargon and the crowd cheers louder because it's third down. All this occurs before the snap.

UI example

Points accumulate in the score while each kill is individually tallied on screen.

Story Example

Multiple plot points are at the forefront of the narrative experience. Example: the king is on his deathbed while his war is being waged and he has yet to announce an heir -- all while an unknown saboteur orchestrates a military coup.

6. Physics

The player's primary logic operates within the known possibilities of physics. Keep in mind gravity, weight, mass, density, force, buoyancy, elasticity, etc. Use this as the starting point, but do not be limited by it.

Level design example

Ensuring a hole in the floor is the correct size for the correct purpose. Whether it is part of the path of level progression, or simply for visual aesthetics.

System design example

A spark particle effect occurs when the player's vehicle scrapes the side of the concrete wall.

UI example

The GUI's theme references scrapbook elements. In which case, animated transitions, highlights, etc. follow the physical characteristics of paper.

7. Sound

Ask yourself, "What sound does it make when ________ happens?" "Is the sound appropriate?" "Is the sound necessary?" "Does it benefit the experience or hinder it?" If players close their eyes, the sound alone should still achieve the desired affect.

It's debatable whether this principle should be included since Sound Design can be considered separate from Gameplay Design. I've included it because sound is crucial and can easily be neglected. The more it is considered, the better the experience is for the player.

Level design example

Flies in swamp level make a sound when close to the camera.

System design example

A proximity system where sound effects volume fluctuates depending on distance of game assets.

UI example

Only visually prominent graphics have sound effects attached to them, so as not to muffle the auditory experience.

The next three principles individually touch on other major design components.

Progression

8. Pacing

Keep in mind the desired sense of urgency, the rate in which events occur, the level of concentration required and how often events are being repeated. Spread out the moments of high concentration, mix up the sense of urgency, and change things wherever possible to achieve the proper affect.

Level design example

Create areas for the player to admire the expansive view, versus areas where the player feels claustrophobic.

System design example

Create long, powerful attacks versus short, light attacks.

Environment

9. Spacing

Understand how much space is available both on-screen and in-world, recognize the spatial relationship between elements and take into account the effects of modifying those spaces.

Level design example

Lay out the appropriate amount of space for the appropriate number of enemies to maneuver correctly.

System design example

When an AI character moves through a bottleneck area, walk loops switch to standing idle when the AI character is not moving forward, to show that the character is "waiting" to move through the narrowed space.

Method

10. Linear Design versus Component Breakdown

Linear Design involves solving challenges as they come. All solutions and possibilities hold the same institutional value. Focus can be lost with this method, but it provides creative and spontaneous solutions.

Component Breakdown involves systemic categorization and forming a logical hierarchy of all solutions. This method can restrict innovation but preserves clarity of primary design objectives.

This principle does not mean designers must choose one or the other. There are times during development where one method is more appropriate than the other.

For instance, pre-production provides plenty of time for breaking down a sequence of events. However, when the publisher drops a "must have" change after pre-production, linear design can provide an acceptable solution quickly.

Level design example

Typical blocking of level geometry in an early stage of development, versus adjusting a small area of the same level to implement an idea that wasn't thought of until later.

System design example

Identifying all major systems (combat, AI, input, etc), and progressively filling in various levels of detail versus conceiving the first couple of levels and extracting possible systems based on a linear player experience.

Foundation

The final three principles mark the foundation of gameplay design, which are listed in reverse order of importance. These should be a surprise to no one.

11. Player

How does the player factor into this? How does the player interact with everything that has been designed? More than just device input, address how the player contributes to the experience. If it's a good idea and you're able to convey it correctly but the player is not into it, change it or scrap it!

Level design example

Setting up the player in hopes of making them jump out of their seat.

System design example

Orchestrating progression so that the player feels empowered, determined, anxious, etc.

12. Communication

Is the appropriate team member correctly aware of the objective? Are the appropriate developers clear on the solution? If it's a good idea but you can't communicate it correctly, it might as well be a bad idea because it's very likely to be received as such.

Level design example

Using the elements of the environment so the player is compelled to travel in the correct direction.

System design example

Using visual cues so the player learns when to punch rather than kick, jump rather than strafe, etc.

13. Appeal

When addressing anyone, ask yourself, "Does this draw the audience in?" This applies to (but is not limited to) the player, the spectator, your fellow developers, the publisher, and their marketing team. If it's not a good idea, there's no need to continue until it becomes a good idea or is replaced by something better.

Level design example

Running down the street is not fun, but running down the street while being pursued by government secret agents is.

System design example

Punching can be fun but when the camera shakes on impact, it's even more fun.

Conclusion 

So, there you have it. These principles have noticeably improved my designs and forced me to think of components from all angles. I thoroughly believe they will give you an edge on all those impatient carts. So, stick that in your horse and race it!

SOURCE : gamasutra

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Creative AI: Procedural generation takes game development to new worlds

Owing perhaps to the difficulty and extreme cost of building virtual worlds that can be seen, heard, explored, and interacted with in multitudes of other ways, video games have long made use of procedural content generation and computation creativity. Epic space-faring BBC Micro gameElite generated its own star systems on the fly way back in 1984, for instance, while the likes of Minecraft, Diablo, and the SimCity series all similarly sport environments sculpted by algorithms. But artificial intelligence research is opening new avenues in the ever-evolving dance between human game developers and their algorithmically-intelligent tools. AIs can now create entire 2D and 3D games from scratch, unassisted, and that could be just the tip of the iceberg.

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"I have a personal fascination with what technology can do," Michael Cook tells Gizmag. He's a Ph. D student at Imperial College in London and research associate at Goldsmiths College Computational Creativity Group. He makes things that make other things, exploring the limits to how much computers can be taught to create.

"Procedural content generation feels a bit like violating laws of the universe – creating something from nothing, again and again," he continues. "Of course it's nothing like that really, but you get a rush from seeing something appear suddenly."

Cook's game designing AI ANGELINA ("A Novel Game-Evolving Labrat I've Named ANGELINA") has evolved steadily through multiple variations since 2011 just as it (not her), itself, evolves its own video games. ANGELINA at first created its own simple arcade games, then moved into Metroid-styled platformers and onto more unique fare.

One of ANGELINA's earliest games, Revenge, in which you chase the blue dots and avoid the red ones

Cook likes to ask questions that break people's assumptions. He sees value in challenging the status quo and looking for answers to questions in unusual places. ANGELINA is part of that.

For a while ANGELINA generated ideas by reading the Guardian website, maintaining a text file with the names of all the people known to it alongside a numeric value of its opinion of them based on its reading. It inexplicably developed a fondness for Rupert Murdoch during this time (because he's responsible, which is generally a good thing, albeit for things ANGELINA does not know are negative), all the while using its political not-quite-savvy to add texture to the 2D platformers and games with self-created mechanics that it designed in a process described in detail as part of a Eurogamer interview with Cook from 2013.

This screenshot comes from ANGELINA's Parliament Last Night, based on a Guardian news story about the Leveson inquiry

More recently, ANGELINA has participated in game jams such as Ludum Dare, where it competed against human players, and it's made the jump to creating 3D games using the popular Unity engine. As part of these initiatives, ANGELINA learned how to design a game from a single theme word or phrase – something abstract like "alone" or more straightforward like "fishing" or "you only get one" (which was the theme for Ludum Dare 28).

ANGELINA can select theme-appropriate graphics and sound effects with help from a multitude of databases and other sources, then layer those onto unspectacular maze games that have level layouts and mechanical rules that ANGELINA sets with code it writes itself. You can see a video below of Cook playing through and commentating on the design choices that ANGELINA made in creating its Ludum Dare entry, To That Sect.

For 10 days in November, ANGELINA took a backseat to other procedural-generation game projects. Cook ran PROCJAM over that period, which is described as "a game jam about making stuff that makes other stuff" that attracted 138 submissions ranging from procedurally-generated games toweather, new Pokemon and tile generators. (And even, remarkably, a procedural first-person shooter meant to be printed out on paper and played on a tabletop.)

Cook got a kick out of seeing the creativity and collaboration on show at PROCJAM, in large part because it drives more discourse about procedural generation and game design. "The successes are pretty modest," he notes, but his work has already started to get people thinking about these problems in new ways.

For game design, artificial intelligence is another way of tackling problems. In a world where most current genres and core gameplay mechanics have been around for years, refined again and again to a sharp point, an AI could bring something new to the table.

"AI will invent genres that humans could never have possibly conceived of, I believe," says Cook. "One day people will steal ideas from software, not because they want the fame or the pride, but because it's the current mobile trend and it's too good not to steal. It's a cynical and sad aspect of the future, perhaps, but also I like to think it would be a moment of huge validation for AI."

In the meantime, AI's benefits will be more subtle.

"Computers are quite good at considering options equally," explains Cook. "They can't forget things, they don't get tired, they don't get confused by emotional needs." People, however, are prone to fatigue and conscious or unconscious biases. An AI can show them something that they stopped considering as an option earlier in the process.

The catch, however, is that the two need to work together for best results. AI and human, collaborating.

Computers can be trained to make aesthetic decisions about which creative solution is "better," but as Georgia Tech associate professor Mark Riedlexplains, "What happens is the machine starts to learn our preferences, but it doesn't necessarily learn to generalize very well. So then what happens is it starts to just mimic us."

"And when you think about creative exploration," he continues, "the great creators of the world are the ones who are actually able to violate expectations and preferences and cultural norms and find something new that was valuable but then becomes part of our cultural norms."

Mark Riedl and the rest of the team behind the GameTailor project use games such as this to collect data on player behavior against procedurally-generated non-player characters in role-playing games (Image: Entertainment Intelligence Lab)

Riedl runs the Entertainment Intelligence Lab. His chief research interests are in interactive storytelling and automated story generation, though he also dabbles in other areas of AI and computational creativity. We'll dig deeper into his background and thoughts on story generation later in the series, but suffice to say that there's a heavy crossover between that and the applications of creative AI in video game development.

AI creativity has two main avenues in game design, Riedl argues. First, there's creativity support, wherein the intelligent design tools help people to more quickly generate level layouts, environments, characters, and so forth.

"A classic example of this is a computer program called SpeedTree," he says. "All it does is put unique trees in a 3D environment. That saves the designer lots of time because they don't have to hand place every single tree. They don't have to make every tree look a little bit different manually."

Other examples might be procedurally-generated virtual cities or racetracks, or, as mentioned above, tiles or Pokemon or other creatures that could then be altered and tuned as desired to fit the preferences of the designers (hopefully for the betterment of the game's balance and cohesiveness). At the extreme end, there's upcoming galactic adventure No Man's Sky, which will, its creators Hello Games say, be infinitely large, with every giant rock and ball of gas able to be explored.

Then there's what Riedl thinks of as real-time adaptation of computer games. "This is when the system wants to learn something about the user and then customize something about the map or the game to the user," he explains. "So, for example, if I knew that you were really interested in exploring maps, exploring worlds, maybe you should have a larger, more intricate world. Whereas maybe the next person doesn't want to spend a lot of time wandering around in the wilderness. Then you need a completely different sort of map. Smaller, more linear sort of map."

The underlying processes for this need not be complicated. You could have a small number variables that trigger changes, Riedl suggests, based on the number of times a player leaves the beaten path or how efficiently they dispose of enemies. The algorithms could be based on just the current player's behavior or on how this player's behavior differs in statistically-significant ways from many thousands of other players, rather like how Amazon decides what books to recommend.

"In one piece of work I looked at hundreds and hundreds of users and tried to categorize them based on skill difficulty," Riedl says. "And then I gave different clusters of players different sorts of monsters to fight against because they were better or easier or harder for those particular users."

Riedl and his colleagues have been exploring these kinds of problems in their GameTailor, Game Forge (see the video below), and, to a lesser extent,weQuest projects over a number of years, and they've already solved many of the issues with using computers to automatically generate and modify various parts of a game. But there's still plenty more to do.

"To me what I think is the big missing area in terms of game generation or automatic game design is the storytelling components, which doesn't have this nice physical manifestation that we can work on," Riedl says. "It's more abstract constructs and conceptual sorts of ideas."

Stories in games are often derided for being too derivative, cliched, and hackneyed. They tend to either lack depth or feel tacked on. But stories are nonetheless important to games as without them a world is empty.

Riedl wants to see this get more attention in his field, to have AI that's capable of creating lore and plotlines that gel with the worlds it generates. Near-impenetrable open-ended world-simulation game Dwarf Fortress does this in a simple manner for its obscenely-complicated, fractally-generated worlds (which are represented by ASCII graphics), but its innovations have not yet been generalized to other game genres.

There's a need for progress here, too. Shortly after Facebook bought virtual reality company Oculus last year, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe announced at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that the two companies were looking to use future iterations of the tech to make the first massively-multiplayer-online game (MMO) with a billion players.

MMOs are big business, with the likes of World of Warcraft, EVE Online,World of Tanks, and Second Life boasting millions of monthly subscribers hungry for never-ending streams of quests and worlds and other content to dig into. And it's not always feasible to have teams of humans providing that content.

Minecraft proves that we can make very large worlds with algorithms, Riedl notes, but it also shows that "those worlds would be vastly empty without interesting things to push players to do interesting things." The secret is to find a way to generate more stories and all of the elements that go with them.

"Stories are the things that push people to do activity in worlds," Riedl says. "Virtual characters are the things that make the world feel more full. And these are things that have not been completely overlooked, but have not received as much attention as level design [and aspects of game mechanics]."

This is where Riedl wants to see more attention directed, and it's where we'll head next week as part of a broader look at how computer algorithms can generate all kinds of stories – whether it be basic, formulaic "she did this, then that happened" or more complex and layered with abstract concepts that convey a deeper meaning, and whether it be fiction or non-fiction.

SOURCE : www.gizmag.com                                                                          By Richard Moss

12 business tips for indie game developers

This is a guest post from Paul Taylor of Mode 7, an indie development studio based in Oxford. Their current project is Frozen Synapse, a critically acclaimed multiplayer and single player squad-based tactical game for PC and Mac.  Check it out at www.frozensynapse.com

I’d like to take Nicholas’ post on The Future of The Games Industry and expand on one part of it. Go and read that first, then come back!

This post will be of most use to people in the “Anyone Who Wants to Make Games” category, which is where we at Mode 7 would place ourselves. We don’t have ambitions to be the next Zynga or Activision; we want to be small but profitable.

If you find yourself in a similar position, or even if you’re a one-man-band developer trying to make a living from indie games, you may find the following helpful. I don’t pretend to have all the answers – far from it – we’re all learning as we go.

1. Business brain required

To make a living from indie games, you will have to start running your own business.

If this idea scares you, or you find it uninteresting, then get yourself a commercially-minded but creatively-sympathetic business partner immediately.

You should try and get hold of a good business accountant (hard to find!) and get some basic advice from organisations like Business Link.

There is nothing about the basics of running a business which is remotely difficult: your accountant should be able to help you out with anything you don’t understand.

2. Have realistic sales targets

How much money can an indie game make? Well, we’ve now seen that a statistically insignificant percentage of indie games can sell over a million copies!

More sanely, Amnesia, an indie game from a developer with an existing fanbase, which features graphics approaching AAA quality recently managed to sell nearly 200,000 units.

Other indies are delighted when their games break 10k or 20k units.

So, this is a “how-long-is-a-piece-of-string” situation. But suffice it to say, if a new developer told me that his or her PC-only game required sales of over 10k units to break even, I would be concerned for them.

Simon Carless has some interesting sales stats athttp://www.slideshare.net/simoniker/independent-games-sales-stats-101

I think the ideal project duration for an ambitious indie game is 1.5 – 2 years, but that’s just my personal opinion!

3. Concept, Aesthetic, Gameplay

Fundamentally, nobody really knows which games will sell well until they are launched. They can guess; with a lot of relevant data they can make ballpark predictions, but they can’t know.

However, I think there are boxes to tick in order to allow your game a chance of being a decent product:

Concept

There’s no formula for coming up with a great concept; you’re trying to divine something that will appeal to a range of people, or a specific niche that you think is under-served.

Also, there’s almost no point giving direct advice about this, save that it’s important to bear in mind what people other than yourself will think about your concept. Here are four very different games that I believe have very strong concepts; they’ll illustrate my point better than another paragraph of my waffle:

• Retro City Rampage
• Farmville
• Uplink
• World of Goo

As soon as you encounter each of those games, it’s very clear what’s going on and why you’re likely to have fun if you play them. That’s the goal of a concept.

Aesthetic

Your indie game must look spectacular to even be a mild success. Heaps of visually attractive indie games are coming out literally on a daily basis: just take a look at TIGsource orIndiegames.com or RockPaperShotgun to see what I mean.

People will come for the graphics and stay for the gameplay; you need both. I’m not talking about expensive AAA graphics here; I mean something that has a massive visual impact instantly. EvenDwarf Fortress does this: its ASCII look is immediately intriguing.

You need to develop a way of creating a brilliant original look with very little cost. Not easy, but as an inventive indie, doing clever things is your job!

Lexaloffle have done this by resurrecting a forgotten graphics technique in a low-fi but striking way…

That’s why their trailer has 200k views already!

Finally, two things that will never, ever hurt you: detail and “spice”. Once your game is visually functional, go back and add stuff – funny things, little animations, quirky details, hidden areas, motion graphics for the menus.

Polish is an accumulation of small, hand-crafted details: reviewers and customers will notice the effort you’ve put in.

Gameplay

Good game design involves both a strong grasp of abstract rule systems and a practical hands-on iterative approach: skills which are at opposite poles. If you’re good at the former but poor at the latter, get other people involved at the earliest possible time when feedback is useful. This is where the tried and tested “release early and often” concept comes in.

One word of warning: most gamers find it almost impossible to evaluate gameplay without some decent art on top.

Game design is a skill that takes a lifetime to master: it’s a vocation. Like many vocations, a lot of people think they’d be great at it if they just had a chance to do it: these people are almost always wrong.

If your gameplay isn’t good enough for people to recommend your game to their friends, you won’t sell enough copies to keep going: that’s a fact.

4. Make payment models part of your design process

Think of your payment model as part of your game design.

Here’s some mild conjecture: free-to-play games incorporating virtual goods offer the highest possible ceiling in terms of revenue on PC and Mac right now. They allow customers who love the game to pay more than average, and they also capture small amounts of revenue from players at the other end of the scale, who otherwise might not buy a “full version” of the game.

However, just because something has the highest ceiling does not mean that’s where you should aim: it may simply not be suitable for the type of game you want to make. Remember, we’re in the “Anyone Who Wants to Make a Game” category here; you’re doing this because you have something you want to create, not because you want to make the most money possible.

So, it’s important information that traditional “pay-once” titles are still very viable for individuals and small companies.

One caveat: if you do go down the pay-once route, I would definitely urge you to look into DLC and ways of offering more value to customers who truly love your game. Pay-once arguably offers more opportunity for immersion and scope than free-to-play, so you may well gain some very passionate fans who would love to get hold of more content.

It’s also more customer-friendly: you don’t have to keep badgering people to give you money every five seconds. That could lead to a more meaningful relationship with your customers.

For a good example of how to make the most of long-term customer commitments in gaming, look at Penny Arcade. They make products (and hold events) that their fans love; they have a truly mutually beneficial relationship with their community. There’s no reason that an indie games company couldn’t adopt the same approach.

5. Offer pre-orders – and add value to them

Pre-orders are a very strong route for indie developers making pay-once games.

When someone pre-orders our forthcoming title Frozen Synapse, they immediately get a copy of the beta as well as a free copy for a friend; this has had a reasonable degree of success for us so far. The most important thing we did was to wait until the beta was exciting to play and fairly polished before we released it in this way: I’d urge anyone considering this to do the same.

We decided not to put out a demo with the pre-order, ensuring that only those who were excited by the concept enough to invest made it in to the beta. While I believe that this has restricted the size of our pre-order community, it has also created an extremely passionate and supportive group who have helped us out significantly with development. When the game is ready to reach a wider audience through a demo, it will be in the best possible shape because of this decision.

I think, though, that if you have an alpha with the ease-of-use and accessibility of something likeMinecraft there is simply no excuse for failing to have a demo at an early stage.

Like everything, you should make this decision based on what suits your game.

6. Consider online to beat piracy

Piracy is a very real issue for indie developers: it effectively means that your game needs some kind of online component in order to offer value to customers who do want to pay. Only very good-natured people will buy something they know they can get for free elsewhere with no negative consequences.

There are many ways of solving this problem by incorporating online components, but I’d urge you to do that in a way which is pro-customer rather than anti-customer. Don’t just force the game to contact your server for no reason: think of an interesting online feature which can add value.

7. Go direct, and go indirect

To have a decent success on the PC with a downloadable game, you’ll need to be on every major portal. The secret of getting on portals? Make a popular game and release information about it early!

Don’t just rely on distributors to sell your game for you, though: there is still significant money to be made from direct sales. You’ll need the following:

• A reliable payment provider (we recommend Fastspring)
• A clear website which allows easy access to information about your game, a demo download and a buy page
• Time spent on optimising your website and tuning it for conversions
• A marketing plan based on generating traffic

Your website doesn’t have to be flashy or even particularly attractive (providing your game itself looks good); it just has to be simple and work.

8. Market, market, market

I wrote a big piece on indie game marketing for Gamasutra a while back, which covers most of what I want to say.

The only thing I want to add to this now is that it never seems to be possible to over-do it on the blogging, videos or social network front. Loudness seems to correlate directly with success in my experience: be as attention-seeking as possible without harming yourself or others!

9. Know your numbers

You must have a good web analytics package on your website: this is the single most useful piece of marketing advice anyone has ever given me. Without this, you won’t know why your game is selling or not selling. Google Analytics is immensely powerful and free: I highly recommend it.

10. Work with other indies, and the indie community

Increasingly, indie developers are banding together and collaborating. Look at some of the cross-marketing in games like Super Meat Boy, or projects like Cliffski’s ShowMeTheGames.com. Getting actively involved with the indie games community can really benefit your work: just don’t get distracted by the posturing and in-fighting.

11. Use events wisely

Don’t spend much money on events: I’ve yet to find anyone who can demonstrate a clear return from paying for a big stand at a show or similar.

Definitely try and find legal ways of going to events for free!

In any case, do go to some events and talk to a lot of people about your games: there is always a small-but-not-insignificant chance of making a really valuable contact.

If you’re in the UK (or even if you’re not) I urge you to support Gamecity – it’s an event which sums up why I want to be part of the games industry.

12. Do it, and don’t ever give up

Persistence is the most important trait you’ll need as an indie developer. You’ll need to make mistakes, learn from them and carry on anyway.

You have to love doing this in order to do it at all: that’s why the indie games scene is one of the best places to be in this cruel world!

SOURCE :gamesbrief.com