The story of the game about childhood, which we discussed with the whole crowd on Habr October 28, 2013 - and yes, it came out

Hello!

I promised to tell this story, and I tell.

Here in this post for 125 thousand people two years ago we discussed a game about childhood, more precisely, about the events that determined your development. We wanted to release the box in a couple of months, but it lingered a bit. And then there was a whole detective story.

Where did it start

One big western publisher suddenly realized that we make cool games and sell them cool. He had about the following thought: “Development with these Russian dudes pays off, they also have their own network. Moreover, wait a minute, the largest in Europe ... Soooooo! ”

In general, they knocked on us and said that they really, really want to consider options for games so that dad can play with his son. European dad with a European son. You can also call mom. It was almost TK.

Here is the first approximation:


^{We are considering different variations of the games of the child and dad.}

To begin with, we have the basic mechanics of Crocodile, Bet, Danetok - these are games where the father will play with his son not on equal terms, but directly feel how the son is developing. The same "Bet" was conceived in this arrangement as a game where dad answers, and the child evaluates the correctness of the answer, and not in classical mechanics, when everyone answers. This is a set of so-called "condescending" games, when parents play with children not for their gaming pleasure, but for solving problems outside the game. In this case, for the development of the child.

Next is the frame where “Dad is smart” - the mechanics of the fact that the son plays together with dad. In pirate adventures, dad does 80% of the work, while a small child must unravel his plan (without communication) and act in such a way as to complement it. Joint action leads to victory. It’s damn important for children to put themselves in someone’s place - and if it’s dad, everything’s cool. In "Truth or Lies," everything is clear - the son learns a lot about the dad and the world. By the way, the rules are very simple, you can play right now. Each tells two true stories and one false, similar to the truth. The task is to guess which of them is not true.

The next option to consider is skill games, moreover, those where dad and child play on equal terms. We all know that children grow up to 95 years old, so dad will be interested (from here, by the way, all sorts of table footballs and hockey in offices, plus helicopter mania).



The “Papa sly” block is a more complicated set, where the father has the main interest in the game, and the child will learn by observing his actions and trying to repeat them.

And another call of our brainstorming session is “Dad with Mom”, when the child is generally excluded from the gameplay. These are games to improve the ecology of the family, because healthy calm parents are a healthy calm child.

Continuation

The publisher looked at the options and said that we were crazy. Because they wanted one game there, and now they have to release at least three.

So we started the development of the “Ark” first (dexterity and load balancing games with a bunch of wooden animal figures). The point was to place the animals on a wooden swinging hemisphere, and dad had big heavy animals, and his son had small light ones (to make it easier for him). The second branch was the game "33 adventures" about what to do at home and how. The third branch was a game about which, alas, I can’t tell yet.

At the time when I wrote the post in 2013, we already had an understanding that we need to do something like a diary, where every day will be an adventure for the family and the child. In the course of miscalculations, it quickly became clear that the daily log only makes sense with a circulation of 10 thousand pieces (on average, a game is sold in Russia with a circulation of 3 thousand pieces per year, bestsellers - tens of thousands of pieces per year). In Europe, circulation is even less. Therefore, not at once - it is too expensive on the shelves. We came to the card system as in the game “For You” - there are two envelopes of 15 tasks for a boyfriend in love and a girl in love. There should have been more tasks, and one envelope - for a loving dad.

At that moment, I came to you with questions about your childhood, because throwing adventures simply would be cool, but even cooler - to make sure that they really had an impact on the personality of the child. Hence the tips in the post. Of course, not all of them entered, but almost everyone participated in the review and tests.

2014

The game was due out in 2014. By logic. As time went. The guys acquired the rights to the elements of games from us, but were in no hurry to move - for sure it was a purchase “at the table”, that is, until better times when someone needed it. According to my feelings (unreasonable), they wanted to fall under one of the popular franchises for children's films, but could not agree. This is the fate of the Ark branch and the third, closed.

At this time, we were preparing for the publication of “33 adventures” in the form of cards in Russia. Plus, in parallel, while we were carrying animals from the bag in the "Ark", another game about Tower Defense came up, but more on that later.

Then it became clear that we need two products: a small box with “cheat sheets” what to do once a week - and a large one that you can play directly how to play (in the classical sense), with a field, chips, and so on. The project was divided into two branches: “33 adventures” went to the classic “what to do today”, and the second game was the children's game “Leaders Day”, which received the working title “Tear apart the apartment” after the tests due to the peculiarities of the game style of young testers. She came out before the main branch, the result is here . Today it is the best-selling children's game on our network (in the last month).


^{This is a big box.}

At one point, 33 Adventures was ready for print (in 2014). But it was at that moment that the whistle with the dollar exchange rate started, which changed our priorities in production. The game had to be postponed for a month (as we thought then), but gradually it became more and more fun and more fun, so in February 2015 the game was postponed to the next production cycle - that is, in the fall of 2015.

Actually, it was released last week.

What is in the box

^{This is a small box of}

33 cards with adventures of the type like these:



On one side of the card is an idea and description of the adventure (plus a diagram, if necessary, or a recipe for experience). On the other side there is a “diary” with achievements for the child so that he writes down the results of the adventure, like this one:



List of adventures here:



It is also on the game’s page in more detail in letters.

There are rules inside how to play, but they are optional.



Actually, that’s almost all I wanted to say. There are two things left. First, I promised to tell this story on Habré, but Habr has since divided, so the post is here. Secondly, I would like to give a box to those who helped in the post. Specifically bukt , Spyrius , vsabadazh , clops , AlexeiZavjalov , kleevahew , Alliceinwonders , akurganow , shoorick , aavezel , Quiensabe , Halt , YgReEk , edwardspec , Smart_Martes , iriscrm , engine9 , multik , Kidar , urecogurec , Frommi , Tai_Neko , DmitryAnatolich , SLY_G and Zibx , GreatRash , Dimond17 , @ 5nak, Stalkers , vladimirovich , may-cat , DANL , samlabs821 , TomashUA , NCIX , yupic , lanseg , wersii , mahowik , 4wert , 57Ded, Bigzver , Powerhead , aksyutenko , mix2000 , sphinks , KVie , zilia , mazayats , AliraSirin , MaGIc2laNTern , alfiruna . Alas, I can’t just take and send you a box, but I can add such a box for free to any of your orders (within the next 3 months) with delivery from the online store. Or give you one for free in a store on Taganskaya. Write to me in PM or at fox@mosigra.ru, please, to do this.

And we also included the maximum retail discount of 10% in the online store for all games for the next two weeks according to the word " Habrahabr " (in the note to the order or by phone to the operator at confirmation) - this is for those who read and followed this story. And just like that for those who did not read and did not follow, but went to this post.

And again, the link to the original post is if you want to start doing something unusual before the box arrives.