Hello! In this post I would like to talk to you about our next project in development for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 “Woodle Tree 2: Deluxe”.
Provisory logo
This is actually a remake of a game released in 2016 on Steam called “Woodle Tree 2: Worlds” (link)
The game was pretty successful at his time with over 20.000 copies sold, but we were not able to include all the concepts and mechanics we wanted due to time and budget limit.
Woodle Tree 2: Deluxe first screenshot!
Thanks to the great success of other games we’ve release in last years (like Suicide Guy and more) we now have the budget to be able to create even a greater title!
We started the development of this new version in June 2018, trying to adapt the whole game to Nintendo Switch. Since it’s an open world platformer, the effort has been huge considering the limited hardware and the fact that our target was to achieve 60 fps.
Here a glimps of the map of the whole game, comprehending over 9 levels + new different platforming areas:
Concept of the World map in Woodle Tree 2: Deluxe
The remake we’re trying to achieve will comprehend a total redesign with new levels, characters, new cutscenes, improved game mechanics and much more.
Hello my friend! In this post I would like to talk about the game development process we’ve acutally used during the last years for our games.
To start by, I would suggest you to read even the “Agile Game Development with Scrum” book by Clinton Keith: Amazon link
The process we’re acutally using is very similar even if it’s applied to a much smaller scale studio (of 5 people instead of 200).
What is Agile?
Agile is an approach for developing products using short and fast iterations.
The ideas is to make small features for the current project in small periods of time. In this way the results of each iteration are used to adjust the project plan: each iteration is like a short project in itself.
What is SCRUM?
SCURM is an iterative and incremental Agile process that produces demonstrable working software every few days: for example a build of the project that can actually be tested.
How Agile can be used for Indie Games?
I think Agile can be really useful for indie game studios if used wisely: Since the initial concept of a game does never perfectly reflect how the final game will be, I think a Waterfall Development process is useless in most cases.
We usually start with the Concept of the game and then start the Preproduction and Prototyping process for testing the main mechanics of the game.
While we’re still in the Production process, the Concept and Design core of the game can still be modified depending on the feedbacks of our testers that are testing the first prototypes. If something is not working well in a game mechanic, we’re still able to modify it without great effort from the Programmers.
This is just an example, but this process can be used to every phase of the development: for example while the Sound Designer is making the sound effects of a character and the Animator is making the animations for it, the Game Designer can test both and give feedback on how well the sound effects are linked to the animations.
Personally I think that Concept and Design can be modified through the entire development process of a game (even in the final Post Production stages) if this does not change too much the Deadline Release.
Extended Agile
I think Agile can be even extended while working on multiple projects at the same time. We usually develop 2 or 3 games at the same time and Agile is really useful since some of the ideas, concepts and mechanics could pop up in the development of a game and can be used even on other projects.
This process can even be useful to avoid Dependencies of members of the team: for example if a programmer is waiting for the animations of the main character in order to finish the code for the run mechanic, he can meanwhile work on other mechanics or on another project.
It’s important to have a cohesive team, since the potential savings in cost for team is lost when time and effort is wasted through iteration delays and dependencies between team members.
Final Considerations
One of the most interesting phrases from the Agile Game Development book referring to the best team Clinton worked with is:
“Much of the chemistry of that team is a mystery to me. There doesn’t seem to be a formula for how such teams can be created, but I’ve found that it’s quite easy to prevent such teams from forming” - Clinton Keith
Agile and Scrum are surely some of the things that really can help these kinds of team to form since it allows all the members of the team to communicate and have a larger view on the project.
Hello my friend!
We would like to share with you what went right and wrong after our latest release Suicide Guy in this post mortem, 1 year after its release on Steam
In the end the game release and feedback from the public were great and it helped us to continue the development of the game.
We’re actually working on the Xbox One release and the new chapter console release.
Since the game went well we’re actually thinking of new levels and chapters that we would like to release in the future, so expect new content coming soon!
In this new chapter of “Suicide Guy” you’ll be challenged with even more insane puzzles, generated by the surreal dreams of the Guy. You’ll encounter the weirdest of the living beings as you go deeper and deeper into his subconscious. This time to wake him up you’ll need all your skills.
This is our first game licenced by Sony, and this was a real honor for us.
I’ll soon write a thorough topic about the development on this fantastic console!
This is our first game licenced by Nintendo, and this was a real honor for us.
I’ll soon write a thorough topic about the development on this fantastic console!
Hello my friend!
in this section I’ll start describing the development process of our latest game “Suicide Guy”, Now available on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/303610/Suicide_Guy/ and soon on Console!
Here the 9 fundamental steps we used to create this new game!
1) CONCEPT
The first concept we had for the game was back in 2011.
At first we were trying to find an original concept for our next game:
that’s when we had in mind the idea that the player had to kill himself in order to surpass every level.
Since the concept and the action in the game has a really strong impact on the player’s reaction, we decided to make the game in first person.
For the first alpha version we had in mind a total of 3 levels that would help the gamer to understand the mechanics, controls (how to activate an object etc.) during the whole game.
The gameplay can be considered as a parody of the most classic videogames in which you have to find a way to save the life of your character, while here you have to find a way to kill him.
2) ALPHAVERION
We first developed an alpha version of the game (back in 2011) with 3 levels using Unity3D, you can play the browser demo here.
As you can see it was at an early stage compared to the final version, but the main ideas was there.
The browser version has been played a total of 100.000+ times during the first years.
3) GAMEANDLEVELDESIGN
We started the design of the levels first on paper and then modeling them in Maya.
As game engine we used Unity3D: it is a really suitable engine, except for the fact that it’s pretty difficult to optimize the levels to run at a smooth 60 frames per second as target.
The optimization took a while in certain levels where there is a high amount of detailsand objects.
The use of lods, compressed textures and new optimization techniques has been a must.
4) STORYDESIGN
Since the main concept to pass the levels is to kill yourself, we wanted to create a motivation to it. Why would the character need to kill himself in everylevel to go to the next level?
That’s when we developed the idea of dreams inside of dreams, inspired by the movie “Inception”.
We first made the storyboard to make the story understandable by everyone, then used the cinematics to make a tangible story.
The character had to be characterized since it’s one of the few beings in the game, that’s when we had the idea to characterize him during the levels, thanks to the objects he imagines in his dreams, derived directly from his experiences in the real life.
5) PROJECTMANAGEMENT
We used Trello as project management tool and Source Tree as repository for the assets.
It’s perfect for organizing the workflow when you have a team of 3 or more people. In our case we were in 6 as you can see in the image below and we divided the work like this:
Fabio Ferrara (Game and concept development, Gameplay programming, 3D modeling, Soundtracks and Sound effects)
Yan Dawid (Camera programmer and Gameplay)
Giulia Airoldi (Concept art and texturing)
Fabio Masnari (Tester)
Andrea Masnari (Soundtrack composer and Sound Effects design)
Selcuk Yagci (Character modeler)
We’ll soon share the trello link when the game is finished.
6) 3DMODELING
We used Maya for modeling the environments, items and the characters, While Photoshop for texturing.
For skinning, rigging and animation we used the animation system integrated in Maya as well as lots of animation references from cartoons such as Looney Tunes, Adventures Time, Studio Ghibli movies and many more.
We used lots of references too found on Pinterest, Instagram and Google images in order to create the best looking levels in terms of colors and forms.
7) SOUNDDESIGN
Cubase was the main software we used for composing the Sountracks and Audacity for the sound effects as well as a large variety of sound libraries.
We designed the levels so that the soundtrack is alwasy diegetic in the sense that it’s inside the narrative context of the action: It’s aways played by a radio that can be turned off and even used to pass certain kind of levels.
8) LEVELCREATION
For the level creation, Unity3D has been really useful.
We created the design on paper and then the main structure of the level was modeled in Maya in a single .fbx file. All the elements and details were separate meshes and prefabs.
For the iteractive items, we set the positions in maya with red cubes, and then positioning the prefabs in Unity 3D.
We think this is the best and fastest possibile way to create the levels especially if you want to make future modifics during the development.
9) MARKETING (Before release)
We started marketing the game immediately after the first Alpha was made, with constant updates of images, gifs, soundtracks etc. on our social pages:
…and sending updates through our Mailing list (with over 100.000 e‑mails)
This blog post was useful too in order to create awareness regarding the development of the game.
In May we published the first teaser of the game (2 months before the actual release), here you can take a look:
His helped a lot to create awareness before the actual release of the game.
10) MARKETING (After release)
The day we published the game(on 14th of July 2017) we immediately started to create advertising, here the steps we took in order to improve the sellings:
After the first days a lot of youtuber videos of the game went viral with over 1 million views, here some examples:
This helped the visibility of the game A LOT and infact Big youtuber starts started to playing it, even making more than just one video of it (Jacksepticeye and JuegaGerman) with over 3 million views:
In the end after the first month, this helped the game to sell over 10k copies, and millions gamers aware of the existence of the game.
The great thing for us is that the game is still selling constantly even after the first few days (with a 20% discount), while generally the sales drop after the first discount.
I would say that for us the youtubers views count was the determining factor that helped the game to be featured on the front Steam page in the most popular games
The first reviews from press started to came out after the first week of release (we sended press copy AFTER the game was out, but probably we should have sent them 1 week before) here some few:
The 8 fundamental steps we used to create this new game!
1) CONCEPTDEVELOPMENT (SKETCHES)
We started developing the story and the characters with storyboards and concept art to give us a general understanding of the mood of the world we were going to build, here some few examples below:
We then started to think about the gameplay and inteactions with the environment, always with the help of drawings and sketches:
Thanks to this we were able to see the camera behaviour, the characters movements and all the gameplay basic elements of the final game.
2) PROJECTMANAGEMENT (TRELLO)
We used Trello for this and all our other games.
It’s perfect for organizing the workflow when you have a team of 3 or more people. In our case we were in 6 as you can see in the image below and we divided the work like this:
Fabio Ferrara (Game and concept development, Gameplay programming, 3D modeling, Soundtracks and Sound effects)
We then created the repository for the game files Using SourceTree (SourceTree) with Git is the perfect combination for keep all the project on a server, in order to be able to go back to a previous version of your game (in case you brake something :D)
There are a lot of other solutions here like Github and Perforce (used at Ubisoft studios), but I think for smaller projects SourceTree is the best choice.
4) DEVELOPMENT (UNITY3D)
We then are finally be able to start the development!
The main engine we use for game development is Unity 3D and obviously we used it even for this new project.
I personally would suggest you to develop your games with the engine you used the most. This way you’ll be able to extrapolate the maximum from it and develop the best possibile game.
For the 3D environments modeling we used Maya and blender, while for texturing we used Photoshop and Illustrator.
For the soundtracks we used a keyboard with Cubase with lots of sound libraries (VST virtual instruments) and for the sound effects Audacity and a recorder.
5) TESTING
We asked our family and friends to try out our game (with a total of 10 testers).
We started testing right after the Alpha version of the game was completed, it’s very useful to find out if the concept and mechanics are understandable and clear to everyone.
I would suggest to ask casual players for first and then hardcore gamers, this way you’ll hear both sides.
Testing has to be done even after the game is finished (you’ll never really complete your game since every game is improvable!).
6) EARLYACCESSRELEASE
The early access of the game was released on 27 of July 2016 and sold over 3000 copies during the first month.
It gained a lot of attention since it was even featured on the Steam home page.
The reviews were good with 140 reviews in the first month with 93% of positive reviews.
7) FULLRELEASE
The Game has been fully release on Steam on the 16th of september with over 1000 players playing at the same time!
in the first week it sold 2000 copies (added to the 3000 from the early access release) for a total of 5000 copies in a month!
The first week went pretty well even considered that we weren’t featured in the most popular releases.
During this week the game had a 25% discount, this improved a lot the selling power of the game.
In the fisrt week has been featured both on the big slider in the home page and among the most popular games.
This improved significantly the impressions and number of clicks on the game page.
8) MARKETING
A great resource for our marketing strategies is Pixelprospector, used by a lot of developers to find tips about game development and marketing.
In particular here the Big list of videogames postmortems, a great resurce to understand development and marketing of the most famous indie games and the Big list of game dev marketingwere you can find videos and articles, super useful if you’re a beginner marketing manager.
We started writing to all the videogame web journal we knew (even the smallest ones) in order to get attention.
After that we could start sending promo codes to youtubers.
This is the mailing list we used so far, I’m sure it will be useful for a lot of developers, Check it out here.
Use these steps if you just started to develop your first games, since you’ll probably find your own way to manage the development and marketing of your game.
I decided to write this post mortem since if I had all these suggestions the first time I developed a game, I would have spared a lot of time!
Steam is surely a great platform where to publish your game, but I would suggest to publish yours on all the platforms you can (expecially PS4 and Xbox One).
By using this website you agree to our Privacy Policy AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
