Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

avoiding work

You know you are trying to avoid doing real work (in this case kudos 2 gameplay tweaking) when you end up updating the analytics code for the website and finding a not too silly picture to add to the blog sidebar.

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That picture may make me seem confused and out of it, but that’s what I’m like in real life, so it’s pretty accurate.

I can even justify the silly hat, as it’s taken in a rain forest.  Not on feringinar though.

Algorithmic dilemma

Here is a puzzle:

I have lists of neutral comments, positive comments, and negative comments. Any of the lists could be empty or of any size.

I wish to select roughly 2 comments in total, sometimes 1, sometimes 3. There is a chance that I will only have a total of 1 comment to choose from anyway (in all 3 lists)

I also have a value that is positive or negative. If it’s positive I need to ensure not all my comments I select are negative, given that there are some positive ones. If its negative, I need to do the reverse.

How do you do that?

If the mere thought of it makes your head explode, you will never be a programmer. If you can see immediately how to do it, in explicit steps, efficiently and accurately. Then you may be a very good programmer one day. Hopefully I’ll have sussed it before anyone posts a good reply :D

Press release day

I lifted the lid on Kudos 2 today, showing screenshots for the first time. here is the blurb, and mini-site link:

For Immediate Release
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Positech Games, the indie game developer formed by ex-lionhead AI coder
Cliff Harris, are pleased to announce the first screen-shots of their next
game – Kudos 2.

Kudos 2 is the sequel to the popular ‘strategic life-simulation game’. The
only turn-based life sim, Kudos 2 puts you in charge of a character from
their twentieth to thirtieth birthdays, and challenges you to make something
of their life. Your character starts out as uneducated and penniless,
working a dead-end job. Your aim is to improve their life, whether that
means making them happier, more popular, wealthier, or carving out a career.

The key to the game is the complex AI behind your characters personality and
moods. As you would expect from the developers of super-complex strategy
games like ‘Democracy’, every nuance of your character is simulated and
modeled. Each day your decisions change your character for the better or
worse, from what books they read, to who they associate with, to what food
they eat and which TV programs they watch.

Kudos 2 is designed and coded by one man (Cliff Harris) with Artwork by
Jamie McKelvie and Chris Hildenbrand and music by Jesse Hopkins. The game is
scheduled for release at the start of October 2008.
Kudos 2 will be available to buy direct on-line from the Positech website,
as well as through additional on-line stores. Interested publishers should
contact Cliff at cliff@positech.co.uk.

website: http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2

screens:
http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2/images/Image2.jpg
http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2/images/Image4.jpg
http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2/images/Image6.jpg
http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2/images/Image5.jpg

Developer: http://www.positech.co.uk

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Advertising costs

I spend a lot of time fiddling with advertising budgets. Much more so than most indie game devs (who do not advertise much, if at all). The trick to advertising effectively is to tweak it, to pick the right ads, in the right places, for the right products.

Some stuff I’ve learned about selling games through advertising online:

  1. Some advertising publishers charge silly rates. Literally 10 times as much as others, for no good reason. Not all advertising locations are worth the same, I pay maybe half per click for a text ad on someones blog or forums as I do for the same ad in google search results, but some websites are charging a ridiculous amount, and it’s not worthwhile.
  2. You need to track conversions when you can. Getting someone to visit the site is great, but worthless if they don’t later buy anything, Some ads provide lots of clicks, some provide lots of sales. Ideally I don’t want any clicks that are not eventually sales. It’s easy to forget this
  3. If other people sell your product, they will advertise it, and they may be prepared to spend a lot of money on doing so. They didn’t develop the product, so their only costs are marketing and maybe some web hosting. If a partner gets 40% of the sale price of a $20 game, they earn $8. If they can get a sale for every $7 of ads, they are  in profit. And they may value the sale at > $8 anyway because they might get repeat business.  That means I need to be prepared to pay > $8 if I want to  be top dog on ads for my own stuff. That”s scary
  4. Some ad campaigns just don’t work. They are a waste of money. You learn that, and move on.
  5. Advertising providers want your business. Some will offer you free initial impressions to get you hooked. The important thing is not to be too polite and feel you owe them anything. Free trails are welcome, but eventually I spend my ad budget where it returns optimum results.

Hopefully this is of interest to any other devs. Advertising DOES work. Of course it does, if it didn’t, the Coca Cola company are wasting billions. Plus it does work on a small scale. You can’t spend five minutes knocking it together and hoping for the best though. I spend maybe 2 hours a week on tweaking ad campaigns, maybe more. I also spend a lot of my revenue on advertising, it’s by far my biggest expense each month (ignoring the costs of my time coding and designing games).