Now What?

So how can you achieve an iterative process in a market where there are literally hundreds of games a week and it feels like you have to deliver something as soon as possible? Well I must admit that after I had come up with my little iterative process, I ran across this awesome article “Promoting your game: Lessons Learned” by Axcho which I found fascinating since it seems we both arrived at very similar conclusions. I have also seen tidbits of these ideas in several other articles on MochiLand such as “Marketing Flash Games: The Other Half of the Battle”, and great ideas even touched on in “The Filler Sponsorship Rundown: Why I’m glad I kept distribution rights”. The bottom line is there is a lot of really good information out there and it seems like people are really putting it all together. So on to my little iterative process.

Step 1: Finish your game

Get your game to that state where you think you have nothing left to do on it. Play it a million times and then play it again. Show it off to your friends and family and fix whatever they find. This step is important because it will later allow you to gauge how close you really were to being “done”. It’s probably a good idea to save a backup copy of your work here to, for future comparison.

Step 2: Pick a portal with dynamic uploading and user feedback system

Once your game is anywhere, people are going to steal it and put it on their website. However, don’t concern yourself with all of that now (especially if you’ve taken the time to put MochiAds and MochiBot in your game, which you should!) The big thing is to make sure your game is on a portal that lets YOU update it and has user reviews or comments. This allows you to iterate your game immediately as the comments come in.

Step 3: Work on the game for another week

Plan to spend a good four to five days doing this. You will be amazed at how much cleaner and bug free your masterpiece is becoming. Allowing for a reasonable amount of time to get and evaluate feedback will allow you the time to fix and address all the little and maybe some of the big issues that pop up with your game.

Step 4: Pull the trigger

Now you are ready to “pull the trigger” so to speak. Get your thumbnails and description assets together along with the comfort of knowing that your game is that much better than it was a week ago. You definitely have a better shot at higher ratings and hopefully a longer shelf life for your game as a side effect. I highly recommend before you pull the trigger, read James Robinsons article “Marketing Flash Games: The Other Half of the Battle”.

So why is this process important? If you want to get the most out of your hard work, the last 10% of the game development can be the difference between just another game, and the next big thing. This last part of the development cycle can seem like an insurmountable hill that is dooming the horizon. Especially after you have worked on it for the past month and are really quite sick of looking at it. However, many times this last extra push can set you apart from the ten other games released that day.

In conclusion, it is the end user who determines how popular your game is. No amount of time spent coding or creating assets will change that. If you continue to work in a box, you will be bound to the size of that box. Testing and improving your game along the way can drastically increase your odds of success. If your game rates high, you stay on the front page, if it’s low, well, it gets lost in the sea of content released every day. So while the Masses maybe hard to listen to, they are always “Right”.