August 30, 2010 at 13:17Treasure chest: Diamond Idol - post-mortem project
The article is published at the request of the hub user Sergion , who, alas, does not have enough karma, so he will respond to comments, and accordingly the pluses / minuses should be addressed to him.
All summer, we (Artefact Network) worked hard at our indie project for social networks using Unity3D technology - “Treasure chest : Diamond idol” in the match2 genre . And literally this weekend, finally come to life.
Since we are talking primarily about the social network (and not the casual) - the game has one dynamically variable level, designed for multiple points game. Players compete with friends for maximum points, as well as in weekly and overall ratings. Initially, literally a minute is allotted to the game, but in the process an hourglass may drop out, allowing you to restore the time. As you gain points, the level structure changes, new bonuses appear, as well as frozen items (they must be broken using combinations).
During the game, energy bottles fall out. When the player collects 3 pieces (on top is the collection progress) - the idol is activated and it can be used with the left mouse button. Then lightnings erupt from the idol and the playing field is partially reset.
For various achievements - players receive gold coins as a reward. For the last level of each achievement, the player gets the opportunity to use instead of his avatar - a special mask that personifies the type of achievement.
In addition, players must collect 5 types of runes. For every 100 such runes, the story in the book opens, and the inventory expands (the maximum number of artifacts used). In order to open all the stories - you will need to play a lot of games, and thus the book is a kind of bonus for fans of the game.
We ventured to use a full-fledged 3D engine, going to the root of the established practice of creating such games exclusively in 2D (where it is easier to draw user-friendly and beautiful graphics). As a result, most users primarily respond positively about the schedule.
Client development was conducted on the Unity platform, accordingly, for the game you need to install the plugin, which is no more difficult than installing the Flash player (although alas, it scares away some users). The current weight of the client (the file that the Unity plugin loads) is about 2.7mb, it is downloaded once upon entering the game and then it will be loaded from the cache until the new version is released. True, due to the peculiarities of Unity 2.6.1, 300 kb at the same time occupy some fonts (Unity creates bitmap fonts for each unique font size and type), in the 3rd version the problem will be solved.
By default, the game starts at medium graphics settings (without shadows and other bells and whistles), so that when you first log in to slow computers there are no brakes. By the way - we tested it on laptops with Intel's videos - it plays on average quality. But of course the game looks much better on high quality.
The client is compatible with all major browsers, as well as with Windows and Mac operating systems (we would love to make a version for Linux, but to our regret, its support is only in Unity plans).
The server is based on LAMP. For optimization, memcached and eaccelerator are used. Iron is a virtual server on CentOS. Data is exchanged with the server via the www protocol, since Unity has the ability to work with http requests. Thus, it is not required to open any non-standard ports for the game. Data is transmitted as strings serialized by standard php tools.
Almost all graphic content was created by our multi-armed artist. I created special effects, as there is some experience with this. All sound effects were taken from www.freesound.org with some refinements. The music was also used with the free distribution of Alexander Akhura , with his permission.
In addition to the earned coins - daily, users receive one gold gift. If a player does not have enough money, he can buy it for real. Coins are spent on objects during the game (defrosting, idol activation), as well as on artifacts. Artifacts are sold in the store and allow you to expand the gaming capabilities - mainly the player splurge on them, for example, increasing the time for the game by buying silver and gold watches.
In principle, everything is standard here - write on your wall or a friend’s wall for important events. Buying most artifacts is limited by the need for a certain number of friends. Friends can give gifts at discounted prices. It is also beneficial to attract friends for duels (alternate game for points), which can be spent on money and used as a way to earn money. To participate in dueling, the player challenging the duel must have a special artifact - the “Duelist's Sword”.
Vkontakte was chosen as the first platform for the game - for various reasons (for example, there are no problems with accepting payments - everything is paid by votes). There were no problems with Unity integration - iframe and JavaScript API are used to interact with the social network. The verification procedure took no more than a day and no questions arose in the process. Not only pleased with the statistics tool, this is certainly not Google Analytic's, but still better than none.
In general, despite the fact that our team is not made up of newcomers, the project arose spontaneously, due to the fact that it was necessary to put our creative energy into it (unfortunately, it did not fit within the office work). No design or even concept documents - as a maximum of a wiki page with a vision of certain planned functions. For order in work, we used the project management service www.teamworkpm.net (task lists, wikis, plans, etc.). We are satisfied with the service and, in principle, this was enough to create such a relatively small project. A significant plus was that each of us knew our business well and performed several roles at once (as well as in any indie company). Since the team is small, decisions were usually made very quickly and there were no situations when someone slowed down the others.
Minimum financial investment, 3-4 months of work, a team of 3 people (programmer, artist, game designer). ~ 400 unique users and ~ 200 installations for the first day of work, of which ~ 170 went into the game (that is, they coped with installing the plug-in). Nevertheless, in addition to the fact of the release itself - there is nothing more to boast about, and the success or failure of the project can be judged only after a while and releases on other platforms.
The application is available at vkontakte.ru/app1894446
All summer, we (Artefact Network) worked hard at our indie project for social networks using Unity3D technology - “Treasure chest : Diamond idol” in the match2 genre . And literally this weekend, finally come to life.
Game process
Since we are talking primarily about the social network (and not the casual) - the game has one dynamically variable level, designed for multiple points game. Players compete with friends for maximum points, as well as in weekly and overall ratings. Initially, literally a minute is allotted to the game, but in the process an hourglass may drop out, allowing you to restore the time. As you gain points, the level structure changes, new bonuses appear, as well as frozen items (they must be broken using combinations).
During the game, energy bottles fall out. When the player collects 3 pieces (on top is the collection progress) - the idol is activated and it can be used with the left mouse button. Then lightnings erupt from the idol and the playing field is partially reset.
For various achievements - players receive gold coins as a reward. For the last level of each achievement, the player gets the opportunity to use instead of his avatar - a special mask that personifies the type of achievement.
In addition, players must collect 5 types of runes. For every 100 such runes, the story in the book opens, and the inventory expands (the maximum number of artifacts used). In order to open all the stories - you will need to play a lot of games, and thus the book is a kind of bonus for fans of the game.
Client
We ventured to use a full-fledged 3D engine, going to the root of the established practice of creating such games exclusively in 2D (where it is easier to draw user-friendly and beautiful graphics). As a result, most users primarily respond positively about the schedule.
Client development was conducted on the Unity platform, accordingly, for the game you need to install the plugin, which is no more difficult than installing the Flash player (although alas, it scares away some users). The current weight of the client (the file that the Unity plugin loads) is about 2.7mb, it is downloaded once upon entering the game and then it will be loaded from the cache until the new version is released. True, due to the peculiarities of Unity 2.6.1, 300 kb at the same time occupy some fonts (Unity creates bitmap fonts for each unique font size and type), in the 3rd version the problem will be solved.
By default, the game starts at medium graphics settings (without shadows and other bells and whistles), so that when you first log in to slow computers there are no brakes. By the way - we tested it on laptops with Intel's videos - it plays on average quality. But of course the game looks much better on high quality.
The client is compatible with all major browsers, as well as with Windows and Mac operating systems (we would love to make a version for Linux, but to our regret, its support is only in Unity plans).
Server
The server is based on LAMP. For optimization, memcached and eaccelerator are used. Iron is a virtual server on CentOS. Data is exchanged with the server via the www protocol, since Unity has the ability to work with http requests. Thus, it is not required to open any non-standard ports for the game. Data is transmitted as strings serialized by standard php tools.
Content
Almost all graphic content was created by our multi-armed artist. I created special effects, as there is some experience with this. All sound effects were taken from www.freesound.org with some refinements. The music was also used with the free distribution of Alexander Akhura , with his permission.
Monetization
In addition to the earned coins - daily, users receive one gold gift. If a player does not have enough money, he can buy it for real. Coins are spent on objects during the game (defrosting, idol activation), as well as on artifacts. Artifacts are sold in the store and allow you to expand the gaming capabilities - mainly the player splurge on them, for example, increasing the time for the game by buying silver and gold watches.
Virality
In principle, everything is standard here - write on your wall or a friend’s wall for important events. Buying most artifacts is limited by the need for a certain number of friends. Friends can give gifts at discounted prices. It is also beneficial to attract friends for duels (alternate game for points), which can be spent on money and used as a way to earn money. To participate in dueling, the player challenging the duel must have a special artifact - the “Duelist's Sword”.
Platform
Vkontakte was chosen as the first platform for the game - for various reasons (for example, there are no problems with accepting payments - everything is paid by votes). There were no problems with Unity integration - iframe and JavaScript API are used to interact with the social network. The verification procedure took no more than a day and no questions arose in the process. Not only pleased with the statistics tool, this is certainly not Google Analytic's, but still better than none.
Development
In general, despite the fact that our team is not made up of newcomers, the project arose spontaneously, due to the fact that it was necessary to put our creative energy into it (unfortunately, it did not fit within the office work). No design or even concept documents - as a maximum of a wiki page with a vision of certain planned functions. For order in work, we used the project management service www.teamworkpm.net (task lists, wikis, plans, etc.). We are satisfied with the service and, in principle, this was enough to create such a relatively small project. A significant plus was that each of us knew our business well and performed several roles at once (as well as in any indie company). Since the team is small, decisions were usually made very quickly and there were no situations when someone slowed down the others.
Total:
Minimum financial investment, 3-4 months of work, a team of 3 people (programmer, artist, game designer). ~ 400 unique users and ~ 200 installations for the first day of work, of which ~ 170 went into the game (that is, they coped with installing the plug-in). Nevertheless, in addition to the fact of the release itself - there is nothing more to boast about, and the success or failure of the project can be judged only after a while and releases on other platforms.
The application is available at vkontakte.ru/app1894446