Game in millionaire or the story of the creation of Board games for the social network
Good day!
I want to introduce you to our app "Monopoly: the Gold Bag", which is developed for social network "Vkontakte".
You can see it by clicking on this link.
The client application was written in AS3, Flash IDE + FDT. Database — MySQL. Mostly raster graphics. The server is in the cloud, our choice fell on Skalaksi. Why such power is uncertain, but let it be.
The idea of doing something like this came to us in early 2011. Then we, two friends, and later the creators of the app, gathered to play the Board game "Monopoly". Having an incredible fun game, I wanted to be able to play with friends, without leaving home. Trying to find something similar social networks have failed. Then came the idea to develop his Board game "Monopoly" in the form of the application.
The path to its creation was very long: mostly this was due to the absence of any experience in developing online resources. We didn't know where to start, but in the end we got a small action plan:
And now. The first thing we started with a simple sketch on a sheet of paper. It was a picture of the original version of the application Windows. Thinking through sketch took a lot of time and is not subsequently played a particularly important role, but it was easier to navigate, especially in working with the designer.
Next, we thought out the functionality applications, which has undergone dozens of changes. Basically, the app is a little different from the usual Board game "Monopoly", which you can buy, rent and sell your property. But there are number of differences from the original Board game, namely:
the
The main complexity was to move the Board game into a computer, in particular to introduce a system of votes. It is important to interest the players, but at the same time create the conditions under which players would be equal, regardless of the number of submitted votes. That is why it was decided to make cumulative: the winner gets a percentage of the initial capital, thus, each player earns virtual money.
The next step was designer. Design is a very important part of creating application: visual perception depends on the attitude of users to the game. The monopoly was necessary to maintain a direct style Board games, but at the same time, to give conservatism, thereby to cause the confidence of the players. Also the "strictness" of the design increases the target audience: teenagers in addition to in-app play older people that tend not all social networking apps.
"We were very lucky with the choice of the designer, it definitely did its job" – we thought. But now realize that the design needs to be changed. By the way, if there are designers/illustrators willing to work, to write. The main colours used were gold and green, where gold symbolizes wealth, and the green money and peace of mind.
The main character of the game was the chosen hero of Irish folklore — the Leprechaun is usually depicted dressed all in green. Attribute Leprechaun is a pot of gold, hence a variation of the name of our game, "Golden bag".
Next we started developer, it was tough. Honestly, working with a programmer has taught us to wait, to wait long. It seemed to us that after successfully developed the design we start the app after a couple of weeks, but we were wrong and the phrase "well, on Saturday launched", we repeated 15 times :)
The first thing we sent him terms of reference and hoped that he would agree to do this work, as the previous two programmers refused due to the complex functionality of the application. The programmer gave us a surprisingly short time for a very ridiculous price, which we, of course, did not meet. During programming of some functions had to be abandoned, but some had to be added as it is developed. We met a number of challenges, both technical and visual. In most cases the problems were due to insufficient training of the programmer or Illustrator. We had to hire new artists, but in the end most of the problems have been solved. In the result, the learned single very nice lesson: you have to stay on good terms with the people who worked on Your project, even if You are sure that the person You no longer need. As practice showed, to many people come back, and with them again have to work.
After the basic work needed to... to play! Very, very much to play, so to speak test app, in order to find and eliminate all the technical errors. Honestly, during this time, we have become virtuosos of the game "Monopoly", although it's 10 times love and hate. The main difference of this application from others is very complex core functionality. In the game there are a lot of possibilities and scenarios and, as you know, even with a great number of hours spent on testing, just the two errors were not found. That is why the need arose to run the game, in order to have users, that is to say in the field, helped us to identify the error.
Fell in 22 APR 2012. It's funny that the first day a few people offered to buy our app, what we naturally not even thought of. People liked monopoly, fans of this game there were many worthy applications was not, so we guessed. But, as we thought, immediately showered with questions about problems encountered: there were many errors and work on the run was just beginning. People, most of them were not very good-natured, so I had to listen to the claims expressed in a rough form.
We tried several ways of advertising directly to "Vkontakte": target VC (~4,5 RUB/person), advertisement groups(~2.5 RUB/person), advertising applications through the voices(0.9 RUB/person). After some investigation, it turned out thatbest game began promoting advertising apps via voice. Each application has the ability to put ads in the main window of the "Game" for votes, it looks like this:
I would like to share with you the advice: it is better to save the voice for a few days and spend it all in one day. It turns out that one day you will spend more money, but the probability of being in the recommended application "Vkontakte", as the rating of applications ranked by the number of visits of users.
At this stage advertising and promotion just started, so we welcome your questions and suggestions.
If you have any questions on creating the game, feel free to ask them in the comments and we'll try to answer them.
Article based on information from habrahabr.ru
I want to introduce you to our app "Monopoly: the Gold Bag", which is developed for social network "Vkontakte".
You can see it by clicking on this link.
Technical characteristics application:
The client application was written in AS3, Flash IDE + FDT. Database — MySQL. Mostly raster graphics. The server is in the cloud, our choice fell on Skalaksi. Why such power is uncertain, but let it be.
server Settings:
Demographics application
History
The idea of doing something like this came to us in early 2011. Then we, two friends, and later the creators of the app, gathered to play the Board game "Monopoly". Having an incredible fun game, I wanted to be able to play with friends, without leaving home. Trying to find something similar social networks have failed. Then came the idea to develop his Board game "Monopoly" in the form of the application.
The path to its creation was very long: mostly this was due to the absence of any experience in developing online resources. We didn't know where to start, but in the end we got a small action plan:
-
the
- Thumbnail; the
- Lookahead functionality; the
- Search and the work of the designer; the
- Search and the job of the programmer; the
- test the application; the
- Run application; the
- Advertising and promotion.
And now. The first thing we started with a simple sketch on a sheet of paper. It was a picture of the original version of the application Windows. Thinking through sketch took a lot of time and is not subsequently played a particularly important role, but it was easier to navigate, especially in working with the designer.
Next, we thought out the functionality applications, which has undergone dozens of changes. Basically, the app is a little different from the usual Board game "Monopoly", which you can buy, rent and sell your property. But there are number of differences from the original Board game, namely:
the
-
the
- in the beginning of the game You have in the account the minimum amount of$ 1500; the
- the more Your earnings, the more expensive tables You can afford; the
- to quickly advance in the game You can buy chips made in the voice application; the
- the winner is the one who have the passage of time is the biggest capital, or the latter is not bankrupt player; the
- at the end of the game to the winner's account translated games percentage of the money that You will play with opponents.
The main complexity was to move the Board game into a computer, in particular to introduce a system of votes. It is important to interest the players, but at the same time create the conditions under which players would be equal, regardless of the number of submitted votes. That is why it was decided to make cumulative: the winner gets a percentage of the initial capital, thus, each player earns virtual money.
The next step was designer. Design is a very important part of creating application: visual perception depends on the attitude of users to the game. The monopoly was necessary to maintain a direct style Board games, but at the same time, to give conservatism, thereby to cause the confidence of the players. Also the "strictness" of the design increases the target audience: teenagers in addition to in-app play older people that tend not all social networking apps.
"We were very lucky with the choice of the designer, it definitely did its job" – we thought. But now realize that the design needs to be changed. By the way, if there are designers/illustrators willing to work, to write. The main colours used were gold and green, where gold symbolizes wealth, and the green money and peace of mind.
The main character of the game was the chosen hero of Irish folklore — the Leprechaun is usually depicted dressed all in green. Attribute Leprechaun is a pot of gold, hence a variation of the name of our game, "Golden bag".
Next we started developer, it was tough. Honestly, working with a programmer has taught us to wait, to wait long. It seemed to us that after successfully developed the design we start the app after a couple of weeks, but we were wrong and the phrase "well, on Saturday launched", we repeated 15 times :)
The first thing we sent him terms of reference and hoped that he would agree to do this work, as the previous two programmers refused due to the complex functionality of the application. The programmer gave us a surprisingly short time for a very ridiculous price, which we, of course, did not meet. During programming of some functions had to be abandoned, but some had to be added as it is developed. We met a number of challenges, both technical and visual. In most cases the problems were due to insufficient training of the programmer or Illustrator. We had to hire new artists, but in the end most of the problems have been solved. In the result, the learned single very nice lesson: you have to stay on good terms with the people who worked on Your project, even if You are sure that the person You no longer need. As practice showed, to many people come back, and with them again have to work.
After the basic work needed to... to play! Very, very much to play, so to speak test app, in order to find and eliminate all the technical errors. Honestly, during this time, we have become virtuosos of the game "Monopoly", although it's 10 times love and hate. The main difference of this application from others is very complex core functionality. In the game there are a lot of possibilities and scenarios and, as you know, even with a great number of hours spent on testing, just the two errors were not found. That is why the need arose to run the game, in order to have users, that is to say in the field, helped us to identify the error.
Run application
Fell in 22 APR 2012. It's funny that the first day a few people offered to buy our app, what we naturally not even thought of. People liked monopoly, fans of this game there were many worthy applications was not, so we guessed. But, as we thought, immediately showered with questions about problems encountered: there were many errors and work on the run was just beginning. People, most of them were not very good-natured, so I had to listen to the claims expressed in a rough form.
Advertising and promotion
We tried several ways of advertising directly to "Vkontakte": target VC (~4,5 RUB/person), advertisement groups(~2.5 RUB/person), advertising applications through the voices(0.9 RUB/person). After some investigation, it turned out thatbest game began promoting advertising apps via voice. Each application has the ability to put ads in the main window of the "Game" for votes, it looks like this:
I would like to share with you the advice: it is better to save the voice for a few days and spend it all in one day. It turns out that one day you will spend more money, but the probability of being in the recommended application "Vkontakte", as the rating of applications ranked by the number of visits of users.
At this stage advertising and promotion just started, so we welcome your questions and suggestions.
If you have any questions on creating the game, feel free to ask them in the comments and we'll try to answer them.
