HYPERCASUAL NOTES
How to start HyperCasual production from scratch
To make a successful hypercasual game - you have to be ready that first, second, third, and up to an average of 40th project of your team would be total crap.
There are a number of reasons for that, but even if you are an experienced game-development team (you know that if you are), you can't predict which ideas would be successful and which will not. We dove deeper into this topic on "All about CTR tests" talk at HGC
In order to be able to build on a stable basis 40 projects and that wouldn't take a lifetime, we usually recommend our teams to follow the deadlines and requirements:
CTR Video prototype. Development time 2-3 working days. A 15-20 second video prototype of gameplay, showing off the main game-design idea. Gameplay rules, no additional "marketing features" on the video are allowed. 3\4 of projects fail the test.
CPI AppStore build. Dev. time 5 working days. After the project passes CTR we check its real CPI, so consider it as additional development time after you already have something on CTR. We also check for Retention and at this stage project gets greenlight if both CPI and Retention are in place. Otherwise, there might be 1-3 iterations with similar development time.
CPI AppStore build. Dev. time 5 working days. After the project passes CTR we check its real CPI, so consider it as additional development time after you already have something on CTR. We also check for Retention and at this stage project gets greenlight if both CPI and Retention are in place. Otherwise, there might be 1-3 iterations with similar development time.
As you can see the required production time is way smaller than the conventional game-development process could ever dream of. This speed is achieved by:
1
Keeping the team small (2-5 ppl)
2
No-documents and paper-work AT ALL
3
Reuse what's already been produced
Let's take a look at that closer. A small team is a key to all other rules. 2-5 people are much easier to be self-manageable, there are people keeping their back, and it's still small enough to take into account every team-member suggestions or ideas.
It starts to be more essential because a middle-sized and larger team has to be managed somehow, and there is not really much that you could use other than doing some tasks and paperwork. Without it, management would be a nightmare and the team would not be able to deliver in time and quality. Writing docs takes a lot of time, and moreover, it makes the designer design in his mind rather than in the actual game making additional mistakes. "No docs approach" means more real-time communication in the team, which eventually results in more things done in the build itself and less time spent on paper.
A small team means limited resources, which is clearly visible to all teammates and makes them come up with the decisions on spending less time on what someone has already done, like plugins, previous assets, asset stores and etc. This allows the team to get their assets "Already done" which speeds things up dramatically.
Following this logic, we see that the best set-up for a Hyper-casual team would be:
A hit game could be build without any additional art, and that is not an assumption but already a fact. I don't say its the only or the best way, let's just keep it for simplicity for now.
This way a scheme of a unit would look like this:
It starts to be more essential because a middle-sized and larger team has to be managed somehow, and there is not really much that you could use other than doing some tasks and paperwork. Without it, management would be a nightmare and the team would not be able to deliver in time and quality. Writing docs takes a lot of time, and moreover, it makes the designer design in his mind rather than in the actual game making additional mistakes. "No docs approach" means more real-time communication in the team, which eventually results in more things done in the build itself and less time spent on paper.
A small team means limited resources, which is clearly visible to all teammates and makes them come up with the decisions on spending less time on what someone has already done, like plugins, previous assets, asset stores and etc. This allows the team to get their assets "Already done" which speeds things up dramatically.
Following this logic, we see that the best set-up for a Hyper-casual team would be:
- 1 Game-Designer\PM
- 2 Programmers
A hit game could be build without any additional art, and that is not an assumption but already a fact. I don't say its the only or the best way, let's just keep it for simplicity for now.
This way a scheme of a unit would look like this:
At this setup, each programmer work on their own projects in parallel, with the game designer helping from concept to asset search, feedback, tune, and level-design on both projects. The assets may be found and downloaded from the assets stores, but once you would want to do some more advanced graphics - you will still require an Artist.
So a team of 3-5 ppl is capable of doing 2 different projects on the CTR test. This means 4 CTR tests per week, 16 per month, and you'll get to 40 in 2,5 months.
The other huge plus of this setup is that once a project passes the CPI test and has a greenlight for Monetization and further development, the team is able to stop the research of the new game ideas and boost up production uniting two programmers on one successful project.
We call this small team a Unit, and it allows developers to scale further adding more Units to the team, increasing their production rates as well as chances to reach a hit project. As well it would be a good idea to add some 3d and 2d generalist artists to be able to create a more unique and colorful experience for your players.
So a team of 3-5 ppl is capable of doing 2 different projects on the CTR test. This means 4 CTR tests per week, 16 per month, and you'll get to 40 in 2,5 months.
The other huge plus of this setup is that once a project passes the CPI test and has a greenlight for Monetization and further development, the team is able to stop the research of the new game ideas and boost up production uniting two programmers on one successful project.
We call this small team a Unit, and it allows developers to scale further adding more Units to the team, increasing their production rates as well as chances to reach a hit project. As well it would be a good idea to add some 3d and 2d generalist artists to be able to create a more unique and colorful experience for your players.
Getting back to the main topic: You start once you have a video prototype to test on a real audience. Find yourself a publisher and test your idea to check its marketability.
We at Playducky.com are devoted to helping developers find their hits faster, and invest our time and efforts to explain how things work. We also deliver test results in 24 hours, so once you've got something to test, make sure to submit your game.
We at Playducky.com are devoted to helping developers find their hits faster, and invest our time and efforts to explain how things work. We also deliver test results in 24 hours, so once you've got something to test, make sure to submit your game.