Developing an iPhone Game On Nights and Weekends, Part 2

Peter…founder of Magnetic Studio…and developer of 123 Pop, talks about developing an iPhone game…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/123pop-part2.mp3

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]jPjDSNBa1vw[/wp_youtube]

Show Notes:
Peter: Hi.
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Interviewer: Welcome to the show. This is part two of the discussion of getting the game on the iPhone. So, for the listeners out there, can you just quickly summarize what your game is about?

Peter: Sure.

Interviewer: Then, we’ll just move on to what some of the challenges were.

Peter: Sure. So, again my game is called 123pop. It’s a math/puzzle game. It’s for the iPhone or iPod Touch. Basically, it’s the sort of game where you actually touch three numbers. You touch the first number, and you touch a second number, and the third number has to be the sum of the first two numbers. There’s that game mechanic, and there’s also some other little objects that come around.

For example, there’s a rocket. You time it, and it gets numbers and what not, and when it collides it adds to a score. But in a nutshell it’s called 123pop, and it’s a puzzle game, math/puzzle game.

Interviewer: So, the last time we were discussing how it took you a month and a half to finalize the mechanics and the design of the game. So, after that month and a half, what was the next step because you said it took about six to seven months to release the game.

Peter: Well, basically, there was a period where I was working on Unity, learning the scripting, and then I had to stop. Products came in. I stopped working. When I say a month and a half, that’s pretty much how long it took to do 123pop. There was some other scripting stuff I did in the past before that, but I wouldn’t necessarily attribute that to… I wouldn’t contain that as part of that process of building 123pop because that was more like a learning exercise.

I think, in general, especially someone like myself who doesn’t have a huge amount of experience in programming, I think it’s crucial to just make really, really quick exercises for yourself and just learn from that and move on. You don’t necessarily have to start on a game. It could be basically, how do I instantiate objects? How do I clone objects?

Then the next exercise could be, OK, now that I have all of these objects moving around free in space, how can I actually move these around and add forces to them to make them behave in a certain way? OK, let me look at collisions for this next exercise.

So, again, I think if you divide your whole learning experience into little chapters where you master the creation of objects and then, let’s say, the motion of objects, collision detection, and you just spend just a few days on variables and code routines and the flow of these code routines. What happens first? Does start happen first? Does the function of weight happen first? And all these little things. And so, that kind of part, I would say, was off and on on my evenings or on my weekends, playing around. Once I started into 123 pop, that was again a month and a half process.

Interviewer: How many hours were you spending each week developing this game because you have your free lance job? Like a lot of listeners, potentially they’ve got another job going on, and it’s extremely difficult to do that and potentially finish a game. So, how did you overcome that? How many hours did you spend, and what were some of the things that you had to do to overcome that challenge?

Peter: What I would sometimes do is I’d be working on a project for my paying job. I would do that until, let’s say, 4:00 or 4:30 or 5:00, have dinner and then from the evening ’til 1:00 in the morning I’d be slaving – I shouldn’t be saying slaving away because it is a love of labor, sorry, labor of love is what I meant to say. I would do my paying stuff during the day, and then in the evening it’d be like, yes, me time. And then, I’d actually work. Then, there was the weekends every now and then where I’d also be working at the dismay of my wife because I had to… That’s family time, right?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Peter: I think that you did actually mention something that is kind of interesting in that finishing a game is huge, the fact that you’re just able to finish it sometimes, especially because you have a full-time job or a free lance career. That’s big, just finishing the darn thing. Maybe, that’s why I’m so thrilled with this game of mine because I actually finished it. So, yeah, that’s basically what my schedule looks like.

Interviewer: Were there any challenges, like you mentioned, some of the issues with the wife or the kids? How did you balance that family time with the time that you needed to focus to get this game done?

Peter: Like I said, what I would try and do is just try balancing time. You’ve got your time for work. Then, you’ve got your time for family. And then, you’ve got your time for coding. The reality is that you take breaks here and there, of course. You’ve got to eat. You’ve got to drink.

Interviewer: Yeah, definitely.

Peter: But I think another thing is that there’s a bit of sacrifice in everything. If you want something, you do have to put the time in. I don’t think you can make a game by just doing it one hour a day. That’s not going to happen.

Interviewer: You know, that’s another good question. Once you got the ball rolling, once you got this working prototype thing going, did you still have to spend a lot of time each week, or was it a lot easier. Because once you got that initial draft done, then you can get , maybe, more polish and more impact with one or two hours a day. So, can you talk about that more?

Peter: Yes, absolutely. Well, one of the amazing things to me was that basically you’re scripting it. You’re attaching scripts to all these elements that are in this 3D space and what not, and you’re using a text editor. You can use a text editor to make this script. You can literally pull things off of the net, whether it’s little pieces of code and copy and paste, and then you can edit them to make it your own.

So, it’s almost like writing a story. That’s one of the best technologies they make. That helps to save time because you’re cutting and pasting, and you’re appropriating the script and what now. And definitely it makes it easier because as you solve things that’s one down.

For example, I’m already starting to work on another game, and I’ve got this whole library of scripts now that I’ve been building over the last, let’s say, year. Literally, whenever I need to know how to do something, I can just look up the scripts and pull what I need from that. So, if it has to do with collisions or it has to be with moving a rigid body around with forces and what not or the different kinds. Right now, I can pull from a ready made list of stuff and only use what I need. So, yes, it makes it a lot easier.

Interviewer: As you’re developing this and you’re getting closer to having it done, let’s talk about what you had to do. When it was around release time, how were you feeling, and what were some of the challenges or surprises as you’re beginning to release this game?

Peter: Well, definitely in terms of Unity 3D, some of the challenges were optimizing it for the iPod, for example. I have a 2G and a 3G iPod, and those were primarily what I tested on. Some of my challenges were… I’m not sure if this is actually going a little bit backward, but I think I should note this. Some of the challenges were getting the frame rates to 30 or so, making it so that it didn’t lag.

In fact, even in my game, there are just small cases every now and then where there’s a little bit of lag for a second and then it stops. So, definitely I guess that is my lack of experience coming in. Definitely, I think probably one of the biggest challenges is making this game run smoothly on a little device like the iPod, especially the 2G iPod. And I didn’t even bother with the first generation iPod. I just figured that it was at that point where it’s so old now that I don’t have to work at it.

I should actually give another example. I was actually trying to make this game in GameZer which is another game engine. It’s not a bad game, actually. It has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, I had this issue with lag because the frame rates just weren’t there. We’d even got to the point where when you touched objects on screen it wasn’t responsive enough. I was like, what?

Interviewer: Oh, yeah, yeah. That’s good to know.

Peter: Sure, sure. But I just want to mention that. It is an excellent game engine. It’s got a lot of potential. There’s a game, Secret of Grisly Manor, which is doing awesome. It’s definitely on the top of the list all over the world. That was made with GameZer And there’s also a game named Bumps which was made with GameZer. I think it’s a terrific game engine. I think it needs time though to mature, and I understand that there is a huge update on the way, and it’s supposed to be awesome.

In any way, yeah, another challenge of mine, getting the game to run smoothly and how you do that in Unity 3D. Again, I found this all online. Basically, it involves making like a master texture, putting all the textures for all the game objects under one master, like a texture atlas. And then using that because that way apparently [?] if all the objects are using just one texture. There’s just an advantage to that.

There’s also a thing called Batch.. It batches them. If they’re all using the same texture and if the object polygons are under a certain object or under a certain amount. I should mention that was another challenge I had, but I was able to overcome it just by going online and getting information about that. And also, for anyone who has experience with 3D animation and modeling, half the battle is knowing how to manage polygons and UVs and stuff like that.

I also want to mention that having a 3D background and going to Unity 3D was a very nice jump because I already had this kind of background. And Unity 3D, to me, it’s almost like a 3D app that you can script and have inter-activity. So, those two worlds are very complimentary.

Interviewer: Well, you know, even if you’re using Unity 3D, you could have focused on the 2D stuff, right? You could have used, maybe, simpler images or simpler polygons but simpler images to get the frame rate up. Did you consider that in your decision?

Peter: Well, actually I should mention that 123pop, even though it is a 3D game, it’s sort of like a fake. It’s a 3D but I’m using a 2D plain. I’m also using a lithographic camera, and the polygons are pretty low because they’re just actual plains in a lot of cases. And definitely I did look into focus 2D which, for me, I just… The scripting part of focus 2D to me seemed a little difficult. I actually found Unity 3D easier to turn into scripting.

I also was looking at Corona which looks awesome, and I’m definitely following it. I’m definitely got it on one of my Googlers which ends up following the progress of it and what not. The thing is it comes to a point where you have to ask yourself, look, am I going to focus on this game engine, or am I going to focus on that game engine because it’s hard to be a master of all of them, right?

Interviewer: Yeah, definitely. So, around release time what were some of the other challenges, and can you talk about your marketing plan because most developers, once they release the game, they may not even think about marketing or even maintaining it?

What were your thoughts, and what were your goals? Were you just going to release the game and just let it go, or did you want to promote it, get it out there?

Peter: Yes. Let me tell you about it. I definitely heard that somebody even mentioned that it’s literally 80 percent marketing and 20 percent game. And you know what? There’s a lot of merit to that comment because if no one knows your game is out there, how are they going to buy it? How are they going to know where it is? How are they going to know what the name is and what not?

I have definitely have promotion issues, but then again every developer knows that. So, my philosophy has been not to spend any money because this is such a learning process for me. Maybe, perhaps in the future I’ll definitely purchase some marketing. But at the end of the day what I did was I released some press releases on the day that the game was approved by Apple which might have been a mistake.

In fact, from what I’m hearing it’s better to do some marketing before the game even comes out, even like two or three weeks before. I think that might actually work in some cases. It might be better in some cases.

For example, if you’re in touch with media and you know that your game could be released, if you already know that you’ve set the dates to your release. Let’s say it’s a few weeks later. They may not have the story ready to publish on that date. Obviously, they’re going to have to wait.

Another thing with reviewers, they may not review your game until one or two weeks later. So, it’s the sort of thing where it might actually be worth sending emails to reviewers way before your game comes out so that you can tell them when it will be on the Apps Store.

Or, maybe, they can build buzz for it. So, I guess the mistake I made was I marketed the day that it was released on the Apps Store. What I should have done was marketed two or three weeks before.

Another challenge I want to mention is categories and key words for the Apps Store are crucial, are very, very important. I probably didn’t spend enough really investigating these things. Well, that’ll be a piece of cake. I’ll just pick whatever. But the reality is that, for example, for 123pop I chose, let’s say, puzzle category and the kids category. But what I find is that the puzzle category, there’s a lot of competition in the category.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Peter: Perhaps, I would have been better off picking kids and family or, maybe, even education and kids or something like that. In my experience I could be wrong, but it seems like the educational category, for example, is less competitive than the puzzle category. I think that could be true.

Here’s my other thing about categories is that apparently when you choose the category for your app, apparently you can’t actually change the category after it’s live. I think that you actually have to release an update in order to change those categories. So, it’s the sort of thing that before you pick your category and before it was live, make sure those categories are your best choice because later on you’ll have to put an update in order to change it.

Interviewer: When you released it, what was the price point for it?

Peter: I actually released it at 99 cents. Some people believe that you should probably release at a higher, like at $1.99.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Peter: This gives you a buffer so that you can actually lower it.

Interviewer: Did you consider a light version or having a free version?

Peter: I did not have a light version when it was released which was November 3rd. That’s when it went live, but as of yesterday I released my light version which is called 123pop 3. It’s now live on the Apps Store. Let me tell you. Last night and actually I was even debating whether we should have this interview, maybe, a week from now because I would have more numbers to deal with that.

But basically last night was my second best sales numbers. That could be because of the light version, or it could also be because just before that light version was released I did actually put my game for free only for like six hours. It could be because I put the game for free for six hours or because of the light version.

Interviewer: So, for the listeners out there, who’ve heard that it takes a long time to put updates and changes on the Apps Store, how were you able to make something free for just six hours?

Peter: Well, what I did was I just went in and just set it for free, and I was actually intending to do it for a lot longer than that, but then all of a sudden I found that my light version was live. So, it was like, crap, I can’t have a light version and a free version at the same time. So, unfortunately, I had to put it back to 99 cents which I hope I didn’t piss anyone off.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about when you released the game. You said it was November 3rd that you released it.

Peter: I’m sorry. It was live November 3rd.

Interviewer: How long did it take to get your first sale? Did it happen that day? Did it happen that week?

Peter: Yeah. I got sales the first day, but it probably also… I know I got some valid sales, but don’t forget a lot of the sales came because of family and friends and what not.

Interviewer: How did that feel? How did that feel when you got sales, even from non-family and friends?

Peter: It was awesome. Even to this day, maybe, because I’m a nut ball. It’s really cool. Just to see that you got a sale in Singapore or, like, Denmark. That’s so cool. Somebody out there, who I don’t know, is playing my game or even going to my website and seeing what else I do. I look at those traffic numbers, I think, almost obsessively and it’s great. It definitely feels awesome.

Interviewer: So, you get some sales. What about updates? Were you thinking about adding updates? I know that a lot of apps, or some apps, that are fairly popular have weekly updates or continuous updates to just keep it in front of the player’s mind. What’s your strategy on that?

Peter: I think updates are terrific. I think that if a developer has the time to do it, definitely do it. A friend of mine even said that if you’ve got featured and you’re worth it, you’re noteworthy, that by putting out an update you might actually get featured later on again because there’s an update. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but my friend says that that’s the case. He’s read this before.

I would definitely say, absolutely, if you’ve got the time, put time into those updates. The only problem is I’m always asking myself, is it worth it? It’s definitely worth updating. I think I’d like to update my game, but to be honest I’m also excited about what’s next. I’m excited about what the next game can be.

Interviewer: Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Peter: But apparently, even like Doodle Jump, Doodle Jump updates their game seems like every single day. Then, there’s Pocket God. It updates every week or something.

Interviewer: Yeah. Exactly.

Peter: That’s turned out well for them. I would definitely say it to other developers, absolutely. I personally would like to update 123pop a little more. The only thing is, like I said, it’s the time commitment. Is it going to be worth it? I don’t know.

I was thinking of putting, like reskinning the graphics for the Christmas holidays, but the problem is the cutoff time for the Christmas holidays in terms of getting it approved might be two weeks from now. I imagine that it might be… You’d have to crank out something pretty soon to get it by the holidays.

Interviewer: In terms of marketing, what other things? You mentioned a press release. What other things have you been doing to get the word out, to get exposure because you said it was 80 percent marketing?

Peter: Yeah, yeah. Another thing that I did was frequent the law forums out there and specifically I definitely go to the Touch Arcade forums in the developer’s section and also the announcement. There’s one thread that’s all about the new games coming out and what not. I’ve definitely posted some stuff there.

What’s interesting is I actually posted promo codes in one of the sections there, but the downside to the promo codes is that while I did actually get more sales, like, I did see a bump in sales when I released the promo codes.

At first, I was thinking, this is a great tactic to use. This actually works, but then a couple of days later it’s like I did a Google search on the title of the game, and literally there’s like hundreds-I shouldn’t say hundreds. But there was literally 20 different sites that had a pirated version of the game on their site. And it happened literally a day after I posted in Touch Arcade.

So, I have a feeling that some people do spend a lot of time there looking to get promo codes to crack the game, I guess, and put it out there which is sad because we developers put our efforts to make a great game. And then, the next thing you know it turns up free somewhere, and that’s obviously not a good thing.

Interviewer: Cool. Any other things? So, are you doing mainly then online marketing, or are you making YouTube videos and all that other stuff or using Facebook?

Peter: Yeah. Basically, the extent of my marketing is posting anywhere I can, sending out promo codes to reviewers, doing a YouTube video and then putting it on YouTube, and what else? I’ve also sent emails to newspapers like Toronto, especially local ones because they tend to do stories on local developers and their business and what not.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Peter: I’ve tried all those things, and I’m still waiting to hear. Obviously, there’s this podcast which is great and fantastic and I want all the listeners to know it. This is an awesome fun because there are podcasts for developers, but yours, in particular, I like a lot because it actually interviews developers, and there’s lots to be learned from that.

Interviewer: You also mentioned working on another game. So, you’re doing marketing now. What’s next in store? What’s the future of game development for you?

Peter: For me, I want to do games for myself, and I want to do games for brands, like for companies. I have worked with ad agencies, and I also worked on, for example, there’s a show called Dino Dan TV Show. I worked on the background parts and some graphics for that online sort of game. And there is talk of doing things like that, more so and also on the iPhone. I’m also in touch with a member of a different company. I can’t say anything right now just because we’re in talks.

But the idea is that I definitely want to make more games, not just for myself but also for brands, whether that be children’s television shows, whether that be Levi’s or Pepsi, for God sakes. I think commercials could be like games. Why can’t commercials be like games? I think that’s an area to pursue.

I think another thing as an illustrator, I definitely worked lots in the publishing area. I would definitely love to pursue creating an original children’s book but an actual iPad interactive children’s book, something that combines the art of a children’s book and story telling and then also something that’s more interactive.

Interviewer: So, are you going to focus then, maybe, in the future on iPad only, or are you still going to focus on iPhone?

Peter: I think that it’s funny. It’s like the sky’s the limit. I wouldn’t just focus on iPod or iPhone. My thinking is I would never close my doors. I could have just done illustration and not done any animation or interactive stuff. I’m the sort of person where I like to do different things, and maybe the next one could be an iPad game or it could be just an iPod game.

But definitely, it’s a great place to be. There’s so many things that are happening. It seems like every day there’s talk of new tablets, and there’s talk of Unity 3D perhaps actually being on set top boxes. The future is bright. There’s so much out there. There’s so much potential.

No, I wouldn’t just close my mind to just write that stuff although what I like about the iPad is that because I’m an illustrator I could actually make a children’s book, not go to a publisher, just make it for the iPad and make it interactive so it becomes kind of a hybrid, a children’s book yet there’s something more going on.

Interviewer: And so, where can listeners find out more about the game and, maybe, even check out the game and start playing it?

Peter: Sure. So, again the name is 123pop. It’s on the Apps Store. There’s a free version that you can try and there’s the paid version that’s only 99 cents. If you go on YouTube, there’s a YouTube video called 123pop. There’s also my website, magnetstudio.com where you’ll see my illustration work, my animation reels, and you’ll perhaps see some other stuff to do with upcoming games.

Interviewer: Yeah. Any last words then for game developers out there looking to do game development, looking to get started, maybe, or hobbyists that are kind of tangentially related to the creative industry but want to get into games?

Peter: You know, I would say go for it. There’s no excuse. All the information you need is online. The SDK, I believe, is what? It’s either free or a hundred bucks. Even Unity, for example, is free. If you’re making it for the Web, you can download Unity 3 for free and play around with it. And then, later on purchase the iPhone module or the promos or what not.

The bottom line is go out there and just have fun. I think game making is like art. So, create art. Go and be creative.

Interviewer: OK, great. Thank you very much.

Peter: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

Interviewer: Take care. Bye.