I made Plague Inc. as a hobby in my spare time. I wanted a challenge and I had never made a game so thought it would be a fun thing to do.
I began development of Plague Inc in 2011 and it was the opportunity to make the game that I wanted. Deep strategy, meaningful choices, sophisticated game play, hyper-realistic game models and much more. With no prior game development experience, I always knew that it would be hard to create a truly enjoyable and successful game. It took almost a year and a lot of hard work but the end result was better than my wildest dreams - a beautiful, sophisticated and challenging game that is a global, critically acclaimed hit.
Here, I will be detailing my experiences and lessons learnt in the hope that other people find them useful / entertaining. -James
p.s. you can listen to a detailed interview on the making of Plague Inc. here
|
posted Jan 10, 2013, 12:33 PM by James Vaughan
[
updated Jan 10, 2013, 12:37 PM
]
What a year Plague Inc. and Ndemic Creations have had! The release of Plague Inc. in May was an unbelievable success thanks to the support of players, going from unknown to #1 paid app in just 5 days. Since then, it has launched on Android, sold millions of copies, is one of the highest rated games on the App Store and has never left the top charts. 
It was great to see that Plague Inc. was one of the very top games on the App Store in 2012. It was the: - 15th most popular paid iPhone game of 2012
- 18th most popular paid iPad game of 2012
I am immensely proud of these two numbers. These rankings are not picked, they can't be influenced or manipulated. These rankings are hard, absolute facts, driven from millions and millions of people voting with their time and money. The fact that so many people have chosen to enjoy Plague Inc. is both humbling and incredibly rewarding.
Of course, awards are very nice as well so before I break down with emotion, here are some of the GotY awards that Plague Inc. won: - IGN Best Mobile Strategy Game of 2012 : People's Choice Award
- IGN Best Overall Strategy Game of 2012: Runner Up
- New York Daily News called Plague Inc. the Top Tablet Game of 2012
- TouchArcade listed Plague Inc. as one of their Best Strategy Games of 2012
- VentureBeat placed Plague Inc. as one of their Top Mobile Games of 2012
- PocketGamer listed Plague Inc. as one of their ten Top Android Games of 2012
- Modojo listed Plague Inc. as one of their Top iPhone/iPad Games of 2012
- PocketTactics gave Plague Inc. the runner up Strategy/RPG Game of the Year 2012 :
Note: apparently Plague Inc. was also the 2nd most successful mobile game to come out of the UK in 2012!
Interesting articles about Plague Inc. from 2012: Immediate plans for the future:
- Release Mutation 5: This update will add the Necroa Virus to Plague Inc. - this huge expansion pack adds a new plague which turns people into zombies and will require brand new strategies and gameplay. It will be available end of January
- Add other languages: Plague Inc. is already available in German and Mutation 5 will add French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. More will come after that...
- More platforms: Bring Plague Inc. to other platforms (PC, Mac, Windows 8 etc)
- Work on Mutation 6 : Content TBD
Hope you found this interesting - follow me on twitter / facebook for more debriefs and updates.
James
|
posted Oct 12, 2012, 7:04 AM by James Vaughan
[
updated Oct 12, 2012, 8:37 AM
]
In case you missed it, the official Plague Inc. cinematic trailer was released a few weeks ago. ( link). This was partly to celebrate the launch of Plague Inc. on Android devices ( link) but more importantly – to say thank you to all the millions of players and fans who have supported Plague Inc so far on its incredible journey. I have had quite a few people ask me how I came up with the idea of the trailer, how it was made etc so I have decided to write a (monster) article to cover the concept and the collaborative effort that it took from lots of people to make it a reality. *** Stop reading now unless you are really interested in how the trailer was made :P ***
The Brief:
Making a cool trailer for Plague Inc. has been on my to do list for half a year but it was a big task and I had many other things to work on first. Once I decided to use Miniclip to bring Plague Inc. to Android, I mentioned my trailer to Sergio Varanda, the Head of Mobile at Miniclip and he agreed that his team would help produce the trailer. I had a number of requirements for the trailer. It had to be: - Exceptionally high quality / “Cool” – Plague Inc. is an extremely high quality game and the trailer needed to match this. I wanted people to be wowed by it and want to play the game after seeing it. A lot of trailers for mobile games are pretty simple gameplay trailers. These are functional and show the player what to expect but they don’t capture the players imagination and make them rush off to tell their friends about it. This one would be different!
- A narrative driven experience – Plague Inc. is a very personal game and a lot of it takes place inside the mind of the player. I wanted to expand the narrative, spurring the imagination of players by giving them a different view of the world that they create inside the game.
- Heavily connected to Plague Inc. – It had to clearly link to Plague Inc. and feel like a part of the game – even though it didn’t use actual gameplay footage. Plague Inc. doesn’t have a main character / public face and I had to make sure that the trailer would not be mistaken for something else (e.g the movie ‘Contagion’)
- Self contained – It had to be a cool trailer for people who had not played Plague Inc.
 start of initial design document
With all of this in mind, I wrote the concept and script down into a 5 page design document. Now stuff could really start to happen!
The Graphics:
With the concept and script written, I pulled together a storyboard which I passed along to the talented graphics team at Miniclip - Ricardo Serrazina and Vasco Pires.The storyboard...
They took my ugly, blocky storyboard and began to brainstorm the elements and visuals that they would use. Once they had the detailed design sorted, Vasco got to work. He used stock footage for the news clips and some existing assets from Plague Inc (my graphics designer Sofia Merkulova) but everything else was created from scratch using Photoshop. Importantly, Vasco made most animations separately so that they could be prolonged or shortened to better fit all possible timing changes in the future as we refined the trailer. (very helpful as I did ask for quite a few changes :P) ...the end result!
The Voice:
The voice of the scientist was extremely important, as this was the only human interaction that the viewer would experience. A month earlier – Elias Toufexis had tweeted that he loved Plague Inc. - I recognised his name from the work he did in Deus Ex: Human Revolution so got in touch with him to see if he was interested in taking part... "When James approached me to do a little bit of voice work for the trailer, I feared that Ndemic Creations would release a brutal virus in my neighborhood so I graciously accepted! Seriously though I'm totally addicted to Plague Inc and I was happy to help out"
The music and effects are a great way to connect the trailer to the game so we used the original “Plague Bloom” piece by Joshua Kaplin for the music. On top of the game sound effects, Vasco managed to find some other effects to help support the graphics and interface that the viewer sees. The final step saw Vasco combining and synchronizing the voice, sound, and music with the graphics.
And here is the end result – I am very proud of it and want to say a big thanks to everyone who helped produce it.
Hope you found this interesting - follow me on twitter / facebook for more debriefs and updates.
James
Fun fact: This was the first time I ever uploaded a video to youtube! One thing that surprised me a bit was how many unauthorised websites/people took the trailer and reposted it under their own account. (often putting ads in front of it). Whilst it doesn’t really matter – it does make it harder to work out total views and reduces the contact that viewers have with directly with Ndemic Creations (something that is very important for a 1 man, indie developer!) |
posted Jul 16, 2012, 4:25 AM by Ndemic Creations
[
updated Jul 16, 2012, 4:51 AM
]
Wow – just wow! Read on for the latest news of Plague Inc. – covering Mutation 1.3, Android, my views on freemium, latest sales/performance figures and the plans for the future.
The Facts:
- Plague Inc. is a critically acclaimed, high end strategy game for iPhone and iPad which has taken the world by storm – made by first time developer James Vaughan from Ndemic Creations (as a hobby!)
- Plague Inc. has over a million paid downloads, was #1 paid app in the US for 2 weeks and hasn’t left the top charts yet. It is a global hit with over 60 thousand 5 star ratings and over 10 million games played to date.
- Plague Inc. launched just 7 weeks ago, completely unknown with no marketing budget. The game has gone completely viral and its success is down to players loving it and recommending it to their friends. A huge thank you to everyone who has helped me get this far.
- Major content update coming soon for Plague Inc. which will add the Neurax Worm.
Mutation 1.3 – the plague of the Neurax Worm
Mutation (update) 1.3 for Plague Inc. is bringing a lot of new content and is looking really awesome. It adds multiple features that players have requested (more space at top of screen, ability to select your own music etc), loads of new events/achievements and two major additions which I want to call out: - Modify genetic code: The ability to tweak your genetic code prior to playing – this will let you customise your play style (e.g. You can insert a gene which means you don’t need to pop bubbles or one that gives you bonus DNA at the start) Still fine tuning the details but currently, you will unlock a random gene each time you play a game and there will be 25 to collect in total.
- The Neurax Worm – this is a terrifying new Plague type which will require all new tactics to win. I’m really excited about this as I have basically redesigned the gameplay from scratch. It will have new graphics, new events, new victory conditions and a very different playstyle. (I view this as a mini expansion pack so it will cost 99c to play with this plague)
Working hard on bringing Plague Inc. to Android and will have more news shortly. Not long to wait now – follow twitter / facebook to be the first to know when it is available.
One of the interesting topics when bringing a game to Android from iOS is how to sell the game. (Do I do exactly what I did for iOS and have a paid app or do I make it free and make people pay in game to upgrade it etc) Still working out the details here but I can promise that the core gameplay of Plague Inc. will remain the same. You won’t see loads of consumables/ currency appearing in the game.
I think that the freemium model with consumables/currency is very clever and definitely great at making lots of money. However, personally, I don’t enjoy games with lots of consumables in. I think it damages the fundamental game and cheapens the experience – turning players into cash cows and make you focus on extracting as much money as possible from them – rather than make an awesome and challenging game. So – don’t worry about any of that in Plague Inc. - I'm keeping Plague Inc. a game that I want to play :-)
Sales/performance: - Plague Inc. continues to sell incredibly well with ~ 1.1 million downloads. Remember, this is all organic growth (people telling their friends and followers about it) – no advertising or marketing which pretty much all other big games use.
- Daily downloads are still high. Also - between 100k-300k play the game every day and well over 10 million games have been played in total. (its great to see so many people enjoying it!)
- I'm having good conversations with players on twitter, facebook and email. Players love the game and are keen to help make it even better by suggesting new features - this is very helpful so please keep doing it!
- Plague Inc. is living proof that you don't have to be a massive gaming company or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to market your app in order to create a global hit. (although I'm sure those things help as well :P)
Plans for the future:
Once we have Mutation 1.3 released, the plan is to keep working – there is so much more stuff we want to do! - Localisation: I want to bring Plague Inc. to as many people as possible and an important way to do this is translate Plague Inc. into other languages. Plague Inc. is a text heavy game so this takes a fair bit of time and effort but we are working on it. We may even have some languages completed in time for Mutation 1.3 (no promises though!)
- Mutation 1.4: This will add the much requested Zombie plague type. Like the Neurax Worm, it will feature new graphics, radically different gameplay and a very different strategy to master. Let us know what else you want to see here!
- And much more...!
Hope you found this interesting - follow me on twitter / facebook for more debriefs and updates. |
posted Jun 17, 2012, 10:32 AM by Ndemic Creations
[
updated Jun 17, 2012, 12:26 PM by James Vaughan
]
The Facts:- Plague Inc. is a critically acclaimed, high end strategy game for iPhone and iPad which has taken the world by storm – made by first time developer Ndemic Creations (as a hobby!)
- Plague Inc. has almost three quarters of a million downloads. It was #1 paid app in the US for iPhone and iPad for 2 weeks. It is a global hit with over 25 thousand 5 star reviews and over 7.5 million games played to date.
- Plague Inc. launched just 21 days ago, completely unknown with no marketing budget. The game has gone completely viral and its success is down to players loving it and recommending it to their friends. A huge thank you to everyone who has helped us get this far.
This post will take a look back at the last few weeks and what the future holds for Plague Inc. Hope you find it interesting.
Mutation 2 (Update 1.2) release:
This was a large update in response to player feedback – it added new events and achievements, completely fixed the crashes that some people were having with iPad 1 and iPod 4, added iCloud sync, the option to immediately unlock disease types and much more! Responses to the update have been fantastic and we have seen our app store ratings increase from ~4.5 -> ~4.75. Seeing people enjoy the updates really helps drive us to make more so please keep reviewing it! Sales and other numbers:
As one might expect from the #1 paid app for 2 weeks, Plague Inc. is selling very well and it really makes all the late nights and weekends worth it! It has sold almost 750,000 copies, mostly in English speaking countries. Sales are beginning to slow but people are playing the game more than ever – almost 2 million games played in the last 5 days! Plague Inc. sales climbed extremely fast
Feedback, reviews and the community: - Responses towards the game have been exceptionally positive, both from players and journalists. (iMore just selected us as their game of the week)
- Chloe and I are still managing to respond to every single thing that gets sent to us (email, twitter or facebook) and it is so great to hear people’s thoughts on how to make the game even better. Keep them coming!
- I have also been giving a number of interviews so watch out for those (the first newspaper article was published today in the Boston Herald)
Future Plans
We are not resting on our laurels. Plague Inc. is a fantastic game but I want to make it even better so we are still hard at work. Below are my 4 highest priorities (in no particular order): - Infect Android – we are getting thousands of requests for this. It is coming! Follow us on twitter/facebook so you know when!
- Localisation – we are also getting thousands of emails about this. I want to bring Plague Inc. to as many countries as possible. We are currently preparing the code to allow for this and will start translating into other languages soon. Hopefully, some new languages will make it into update 1.3
- New disease types – the different disease types already give very different strategic challenges (especially nano-virus and bio-weapon!). I want to add even more to the game with new graphics, new evolutions and new strategies to master. (Zombies may well be one new type!). At least 1 new type will be in update 1.3
- Update 1.3 – As well as the above, update 1.3 will also add lots more events, achievements and other functionality that is requested by players (custom music, fb/twitter integration, more space on the top of the screen and much more!) There is so much stuff to do but I hope to release update 1.3 in 3-4 weeks.
Hope you found this interesting - follow us on twitter / facebook for more debriefs and updates.
James
|
posted Jun 14, 2012, 4:17 PM by Ndemic Creations
[
updated Jun 17, 2012, 10:52 AM by James Vaughan
]
A lot of people have expressed interest in how Plague Inc. was made – going from some scribbles on a notepad into a global success – becoming the number 1 paid app on the AppStore within 6 days! So - this is where you get your answers...
Here, I interview Sofia about the graphics of Plague Inc. |
Who are you?
I’m Sofia Merkulova, freelance graphic designer, I'm from Kiev (Ukraine). I live currently in Prague (Czech Republic). As a freelance graphic designer, I do all types of graphics work and I have mostly done 2D design recently. I studied Graphic Design at university and I was pretty sure that I would end up working in some advertising agency but surprisingly my first working experience was as a UI designer. It got worse; I started to work as a web-designer and I liked it! In the last year I was co-operating with development team on creating several mobile games (here in Prague) and that’s how I met James. What did you do for Plague Inc.
I was responsible for creating all graphics work in this game (Miss Graphic Department :p ). James came with an existing vision with a very well thought structure and concept of how the game should work. We did all the UI work together with James leadership and my main responsibility was to “dress it up and make it look wonderful”. I was trying to create a feeling that the player is in a “laboratory” but I didn’t want to have it really scary or repulsive. Honestly even if I wanted to make it that way I wouldn’t be able to.... because I eat only rainbows and poop butterflies :). I created the visual style so it will be comfy, joyful, fun and mainly easy to play even for me (personally I don’t want to use my brain too much when I'm playing games. Game is ‘momentary relief from the existential terrors of existence’ to me). As for inspiration – I’ve got some from the film ‘Rise of the planet of the apes’. In it, it was shown how the virus is spreading all over the world in the end of the film. We were just in the middle of game creation process when I saw it and thought “damn, that would be so cool to have something like this in the game” and we did so! And it looks awesome! What was the easiest thing you did?
As a matter of fact, the whole work on the game was easy for me because I liked it! I loved the idea and it was extremely interesting for me. I’ve never done anything so nasty like this game (dating websites don’t count!) before and I was very excited. And that’s how I joined the Dark Side. What was the most challenging thing you did?
The main problem I had was to make as many graphic elements (e.g. icons, illustrations) as possible so the player would be able to play game and understand what is what without reading. At the same time, all the graphics had to be done in a very minimalistic way so one wouldn't be confused with too many details. It took a lot of time to get them just right but I was very pleased with the end result! What is your favourite thing about Plague Inc.?
Well, this is obvious – the design :p But honestly I love how the game makes you relaxed after bad day when you feel like you angry with the whole world. I get to de-stress and don’t make anyone upset in real life! I think shrinks could suggest people to play it as a therapy J) I like the witty texts and that that you are able to think up varieties of strategies for each kind of plague over and over. That at the first sight it’s pretty easy to play (apparently because of well-done interface J) but then you realize that there are a lot of variables in the game and you need to make lots of decisions on which the whole course of the game depends. The game sucks you deeper and deeper thanks to diversity of scenarios. You never get bored and just can’t stop playing. What are your plans for the future?
We have a plan to continue to work on Plague Inc. to improve its graphics and add lots more features, James has lots of great ideas for the game! I will not tell you what we will do exactly. Let it be a surprise. I am always open for interesting projects so get in touch if you have some interesting, high quality graphics requirements! (You can see some examples of my work on my website http://merkulova.prosite.com/ )
Hope you found this interesting - follow us on twitter / facebook for more debriefs and updates.
James
|
posted Jun 3, 2012, 7:57 AM by Ndemic Creations
The facts: - Plague Inc. is a critically acclaimed, high end strategy game for iPhone and iPad – made by first time developer Ndemic Creations
- Plague Inc. is a global hit, at the top of app charts worldwide with fantastic reviews
- Plague Inc. launched only 7 days ago, completely unknown. Its success has been fully driven by people power – the fans and people who enjoy playing it
This post will take a look at how things have gone since release and where we are at the moment.
Before all of that, let me just say – this last week has been awesome, there is no better feeling than sharing your work and having it appreciated. I am so grateful to everyone around the world who is playing and enjoying Plague Inc. I started work on Plague Inc. over a year ago as a hobby to make the deep, meaningful strategy game that I craved - I had no idea how many other people wanted the same thing!
The morning of the release:
Plague Inc. was approved by Apple sooner than expected and I was still on holiday (Ireland). I woke up to find 17 five star reviews already posted and instantly jumped out of bed to contact friends and get them to check it out. I spent the next few hours (nervously) on the computer, posting on forums, tweeting and responding to feedback. (my girlfriend was very tolerant!) By the end of day 1 – there were over 500 downloads and with overwhelmingly positive feedback – I knew that things were looking good. 2 days later, we were top paid game in the UK app store.
Mutation (update) 1.1:
Plague Inc. is my hobby and I want it to be the best game out there. I aim to read and respond to every single piece of feedback that is sent to me – this lets me understand what the players want from the game. Two things became apparent very quickly: People really, really(!) wanted to play on their iPads and a few people with older devices were having crashes due to low memory (not acceptable).
Mario and I decided to work 20 hours a day to get the first update out and the output was impressive. In three days, we had added full universal iPad functionality, significantly improved memory usage (more on this later) and also threw in a load of other functionality that people had been asking for. People loved the 1.1 update and within 1 day of release, we had risen to be number 1 paid iPad app in the US as well as #1 paid iPhone app!
Marketing / Engaging with the community
Plague Inc. had a marketing budget of $0. No one had ever heard of it or Ndemic Creations before it released. My approach was simple – make a wonderful game that people want to play. If it is good enough, people will spread the word. I have also been engaging with the players through email, twitter, facebook, shacknews and toucharcade. As the game has grown bigger, so has the amount of people talking about it. We are currently getting over 400 emails a day from players giving their suggestions and thoughts. We still respond to every single one (Chloe – Mario’s girlfriend has been a great help here!) Mutation (update) 1.2
As soon as 1.1 was released, it became clear that we had not completely fixed the low memory problem on a few devices (although it was much better). Therefore, we accelerated the schedule and have been working on 1.2 all weekend. As well as 100% fixing the crashes, it will add new events, more disease combos, iCloud, balance tweaks, the ability to pay to unlock disease types if you don’t want to play the game properly (the biggest request from players!) and much more. We are currently beta testing 1.2 and the good news is that performance is significantly improved. Once we have made some final tweaks and made it perfect – we will be submitting to apple
Hope you found this interesting - follow us on twitter / facebook for more debriefs and updates.
James |
posted Jun 1, 2012, 2:32 PM by Ndemic Creations
[
updated Jun 17, 2012, 10:53 AM by James Vaughan
]
A lot of people have expressed interest in how Plague Inc. was made – going from some scribbles on a notepad into a global success – becoming the number 1 paid app on the AppStore within 6 days! So - this is where you get your answers...
Here, I interview Joshua about the sound of Plague Inc. Who are you?
I'm Joshua Kaplan. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and do freelance music composition & sound design for games. What did you do for Plague Inc.?
I made the music and sound effects. James already had a very specific idea in mind when he went looking for audio, and I was lucky enough to land the gig. Even though the game wasn't yet playable, he was a patient explainer and provided a lot of great examples for reference. He wanted game music that was suspenseful & ominous, without being traditionally spooky. He wanted to put the player on edge just a little bit, but didn't want a traditional orchestral score. We sent a lot of ideas and drafts back and forth for both the music and the effects, talking about how this or that instrument could represent the sound of the virus slowly creeping in, of the cure being delayed, etc. He was very involved in the writing process for just that one in-game loop, moreso than any other developer I've worked with. Film music was a great reference, with Cliff Martinez's Contagion soundtrack obviously being a very huge inspiration. I can't recall how many drafts we went through in order to get to the final piece, but it's safe to say that James cares more about the tiny little details of his game than most. I think Plague Inc as a finished product really shows that. What was the easiest thing you did?
Though it took a little while to settle on a direction for the music, once we did figure it out, the song practically wrote itself. It was really enjoyable creating the music. I don't know if it was necessarily "easy," because as I mentioned, it took quite a while to write this relatively short piece of music. But it really was a lot of fun. To me, fun = easy. Even when it's hard. What was the most challenging thing you did? As is usually the case, making a handful of 2-second sound effects proved to be a lot more difficult than writing a long, evolving piece of music. It's easy enough to get samples of people coughing, airport announcers, and church bells. But trying to create/combine exactly the right mix of abstract noises to signify the pop-up & tapping of a little red DNA bubble is surprisingly annoying. Also, trying to get my daughter to sing the entire Ring Around the Roses song in a creepy voice without laughing was probably the most challenging thing of all. What is your favourite thing about Plague Inc.? Nano-virus mode on Brutal difficulty. You can't be timid. The only way I can win is by snagging the code fragment intercepts first, then continuing to grab the next-cheapest infectious symptoms and transmission boosters as soon as I can afford them. The cure reaches 50%, 60%, 70%, with less than half of the world infected, but if you play it right and grab the cure extending attributes at that point, you've got a shot. What are your plans for the future?
First and foremost, I'd love to put a bit more work into the audio for Plague Inc. A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that this is Ndemic Creations' very first game, and I'm more than satisfied with how it turned out, but one of the best things about iOS apps is the ability to continually keep upgrading and polishing your games post-release. I think there's a lot of room to get it sounding even better and I'd love to keep at it. I've also got a really promising tower defense game about to come out, as well as a few indie games for the Xbox. Of course I hope to continue finding new and interesting games and apps of all types to work on. I had no idea that Plague Inc. would end up topping the charts on the app store but I greatly wanted to be involved because it seemed like an exceptionally intelligent and creative game. I really enjoy collaborating on high-quality projects like this one, and want to keep meeting new up & coming developers to work with. If you happen to be looking for an audio assist with your next game, please check out my site at OpenHeartSound.com or get in touch at joshua@openheartsound.com!
Hope you found this interesting - follow us on twitter / facebook for more debriefs and updates.
James
|
posted May 24, 2012, 1:10 PM by Ndemic Creations
[
updated Jul 10, 2012, 3:49 PM
]
As a first time, indie developer working on Plague Inc. for over a year, I found developer blogs and stories to be an extremely useful source of information and inspiration. Whilst waiting for Apple to approve Plague Inc., I wanted to share my list of Do’s and Don’ts for developers in a similar position to me (an idea, limited technical experience and a desire to release a great game) Do:
- Identify a real gap in the market – this is a crucial point. The app store is a crowded environment where incremental change can struggle to be noticed. Whilst there are some great games which have fought their way to the top of a saturated genre, I believe it is far better to find an open space that lets you focus on making the ultimate game – rather than how to stand out against a horde of similar games. Plague Inc. sits in the ‘high strategy’ category, an empty space compared to most parts of the app store! (Although I always hope for more games!)
- Make the game you want to play – you will be spending a lot of time on your game, if you don’t feel truly inspired and excited by what the game could be – then what is the point!? I made Plague Inc. to be the in-depth strategy game that I had been searching for ever since I got an iPhone. Even after playing the game hundreds of times, I still enjoy trying out new strategies to devastate the world with a new Plague.
- Have a clear vision and stick to it – your initial design document (or envelope or scrap of paper) where you first capture your ideas must become your bible. Keep coming back to the pure vision and measure yourself against it. What changes have you made? What components have been cut? Does the game still support that first burst of creativity? The Plague Inc. that I released was quite different to the Plague Inc. that I first imagined but the core focus of a deep and meaningful strategy game remained throughout.
- Be prepared to spend (lots) of money – everyone knows you get what you pay for. If you have a fantastic game idea, then it is important to use money to deliver the skills that you lack, be it graphics, sound or technical. Don’t try to do things on the cheap.
- Find great people to work with – building on the previous point – it is rare for one person to be amazing at everything so bring other people on board (probably by paying them). Take the time to find the best people and don’t settle for less. Whilst it may be easy to hire an ‘ok’ person now, in the long run, it is always better to wait until you find the right person. For Plague Inc., I spent over a month talking/interviewing different people to find the people I needed. It was time well spent.
Do not: - Be too ambitious – Better to release a complete game with a smaller scope than never release at all. Everything always takes longer than expected!
- Mindlessly copy another game – Copying someone else’s game is pointless. It isn't creative, it isn’t fun and it is unlikely to be better than the original. Plague Inc. was inspired by the flash game Pandemic (and others) and I was wary of accidentally creating a clone. To avoid it, I developed and stuck to a clear vision of what Plague Inc. would focus on and how it would evolve the game play whilst avoiding the territory that had been claimed by Pandemic. The end result: a game with radically different mechanics and a more narrative driven, strategic game play that pushes the genre forwards
- Give up when you hit delays, problems or complications – these are part of the game making process and are challenges to be overcome. Plague Inc. had a 3 month pause in its development due to other priorities and whilst it was mildly frustrating, the team did not give up. Instead, we used the opportunity to recharge ourselves and then threw ourselves back into the game when ready
Very early excel model of Plague Inc game concepts! |
|
