Tackling the tutorial mystery

One area we have been struggling with all of our games is the tutorial for new players. It's so easy to concentrate making the actual game and then add a tutorial as afterthought. When one knows the game inside out, it becomes hard to design the tutorial for players who see the game for the first time.

We are just beginning to grasp the importance of a good tutorial and all the challenges included in making one. The tutorial is the first thing a new player sees. Especially for free-to-play games, poor tutorial can easily kill even a good game. People generally hate learning rules and if the process is not fluent and fun, they simply quit and find something else to play. Optimally the tutorial feels like a natural part of the game flow and progresses by creating objectives to the player instead of a forced step by step process. The biggest challenge is that players often don't read the instructions. A good tutorial should be intuitive enough to direct the player to do right things without relying on text.

In the great tutorial mystery I was wondering why adding a tutorial to Permia - Duels did not improve our numbers. Looking back now, it's evident we did not do that good job with the tutorial: It is too long, feels forced and partly concentrates on teaching irrelevant details too early for a new player. In Pet Shows we improved by slicing the tutorial into pieces which are activated as the player progresses. Regardless, the first tutorial is too long and contains too much information by trying to teach all the mini games at once. Additionally it is lacking clear objectives.So how are we planning to solve these problems?

The answer for Pet Shows lies in understanding that the player does not need to have access to all of the mini games at once. While for a veteran player it might feel limiting to have only a couple to choose from, it's enough for first time player for whom everything is new. Locking some of the mini games at the beginning also creates natural objectives for the player to continue playing to get them unlocked. As added bonus the new flow allows easy way to add more mini games in the future. 

Another thing we have been underestimating are the achievements. By designing the flow correctly, the achievements can be powerful tools for teaching the game flow without a forced tutorial. For player they form objectives with a promise for rewards. Game instructions can be hidden inside the achievement descriptions and by fulfilling achievements players learn the game flow as a side product. Additionally the achievement rewards work as a feedback for the player for doing the right things. Conversely poorly designed achievements can distract the player and thus both the achievements and their presentation needs to be designed carefully to support the desired game flow.

So that's the plan and we have already started implementing the new tutorial flow for Pet Shows. Duels will follow later, after we finish the current graphics upgrade. I will get back to the subject later, when we know were we able to improve the new player experience for Pet Shows through these changes or not. If you have any ideas for the tutorials, please let us know!

Clarity's the word

We have, in the past, made some absolutely terrible design decisions. We have even been told by a number of people that they are terrible ideas and yet we have gone forward with them. Looking back at these decisions, I cannot believe how thick we have been at times.

During the past month or so, we have been working on a Permia – Duels facelift. Most of the feedback we have received from players (in terms of the game’s appearances) has been positive but we still felt that we could do better now than when we first designed the game. We also felt that we could make the game more accessible to a wider player base by addressing some of the usability/design issues, which is why the update goes beyond being just a facelift.

By far, the most problematic part for us has been the actual game board and specifically the hexagonal tile design. Our game unit tiles carry a lot of information which we have to fit into a very small space and still ensure that it is legible on a small mobile display. Unit type, special attributes, unit rarity etc. are all emblazoned on the small hexagonal tile.

Possibly the most grotesque design mistake in the old design is the unit’s border we use to mark the card’s rarity level. What possessed us to think that it was a good idea to have a “blue player” and a blue border that denotes something completely different, I do not know. We have even used a different shade of blue in different parts of the UI. Fantastically confusing but not very player friendly.

After the update, the unit’s border finally stands for what it should’ve stood for from day one: whose unit it is. Unit rarity, an attribute with no intrinsic gameplay value, will now take a step back and assume a smaller role in the unit’s design. It will still be visible, but far less dominant. Because of these changes, we can drop the gradient we have previously used to indicate “ownership” and make more room for the actual unit illustrations. These changes should make the situation in the game much easier to read.

Unit design evolution (left old, right new. Not necesarily final graphics)

This is not the only change we have made but it is possibly the most important one and we hope that it will help new players get a grasp of the game quicker than before. We still have many other areas of the game to address (the tutorial comes to mind). The update should go live within a couple weeks. Once again, we would then love to hear what you think of the update? Are we headed in the right direction or has it all gone horribly wrong?

Happy 2015! And happy birthday, Seepia Games!

I figured that I’d be in a better position to write this if I read my “happy new year” post from 2014. Luckily I did not make too many promises we could not keep.

Quite a few things have changed since the 2014 post. Habbo Hotel’s Game Centre, once an important channel for us, is no more. While I would not go as far as describing it as a shock, the game centre’s closure still came as a surprise to us. As a result, we had to shut down Tetrablok servers and effectively kill off our first game. A very cathartic experience that I recommend every developer goes through. If you are interested in our rationale for letting Tetrablok go, have a look at our press release.

On a more positive note, Pet Shows is finally out!  It took us much, much longer than we ever expected it would. We are only now starting to get some actual feedback and metrics from the game. We’ve already implemented a few changes based on early player data and more changes are in the pipeline. If you haven’t given it a try yet, head to Windows Phone Store and download it! We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Going back to our 2014 plans, perhaps surprisingly, we still have not made a single Android/iOS release. There are a number of reasons why it is so. Maybe more on those later on.

2014 also saw us move into a new office. We blogged about the pros and cons of the change before but the move has since also meant that we have been, for a lack of a better word, reunited with Headnought. Working alongside them is always a blast and I cannot emphasise the value added by having a team to bounce ideas off.

Our team has also grown in size. We have more people working on our games than ever before.  With two games to support, we are still stretched thin but it’s not quite as bad as it used to be. We are fantastically pleased with our new recruits and their great talent beautifully complements our team.

2015 is set to become another busy year. In just a couple of weeks we are heading to London for Pocket Gamer Connects, a Steel Media event where we can meet press and investors. The Permia – Duels facelift we have been working on is well underway (some of the changes are already in the game, the rest will follow soon). Pet Shows is still in its infancy. We have even started work on the prototype of our next game.

Thank you very much everyone for sticking with us and let’s all have a fabulous 2015!

Permia - Duels: Back into action

Games take a lot of work to do. It is also hard to estimate the required effort as correctly, as often multiple iterations are required to get it right. For a small company like Seepia, the resources are always limited and simply not enough to accomlish everything we would like to do.

As such for the last half a year, our whole team has been concentrating on getting Pet Shows ready to be published on Windows Phone. Unfortunately during that time, we have had little time to concentrate on developing Permia - Duels beyond the Windows 8.1 version released in July. But now Pet Shows is finally out! We are now concentrating our efforts for updating the games and taking them to new platforms.

For Permia - Duels we are working on a major updates. Part of the updates will be published in December to kick of our Christmas campaign: there will also be Christmas present for all active player and the Christmas booster available, so Christmas will be a great time to play Duels! Rest of the updates will be published in January

The game will have a completely improved graphical outlook. We have learned a lot compared to when the Duels UI was originally designed. With the clearer presentation, added polish and fancy animations the game is starting to simply look great! 

Early concept art of the new game view.

Among other improvements of the update will be an improved mailbox, updated achievements, percentage based season rewards and a possibility for filtering tiles in the deck editor. For the daily challenges we are planning to change the system such, that skipping a single day won't lose the whole progress.

With the update, we are bringing the Windows Phone version also to the universal app world. This will mean using the Live ID as the primary player identification method instead of the ANID2 which is currently used. To do that, we are creating a separate helper app for linking the ANID2 accounts to Live ID for players who have not yet done that in the game. The reason for the separate app is simply that ANID2 is not available in the universal app builds.

For a bit further in the future, Duels will be extending to other platforms. The tutorial still needs more work. Also a Facebook connection to enable playing with friends as well ass the ability to communicate with other players during games will be added eventually. Additional content, like single player campaign, new units and special powers, new game modes and guilds are all planned.

So fear not! While the update schedule of Permia - Duels have been a bit slow lately, we have not abandoned the game, just been too busy with Pet Shows. Now we are again back into the track of making Duels the best collectible card game around! 

Story of Pet Shows

Year 2012, October

We needed to find couple of concepts fast to present to an investor. I was playing a few different manager games at the time and we thought that manager game would be one possibility. Idea was to publish the game to Habbo hotel so we wanted to use a theme that suited both boys and girls. Our friend Ari gave us an idea to use pets as a theme and we liked it.

Basic idea behind the concept is to manage a team of pets. Pets have three different age phases. When they are puppies, player can train them, when they are adults, they can participate in competitions and when they are seniors they can breed with other pets to get new puppies.

It has taken about two years to complete the game. During that time almost everything has been rewritten or changed. Even tools that we use to create the game has been changed. Basic idea behind the concept is still there, but the whole game experience is totally different. Latest big change came at the beginning of this year when Pet Shows was accepted as AppCampus project. We added mini-games to the concept that are used to train the pets and to compete with other players teams.

This is just a beginning

Few days ago we got the news that AppCampus review team has accepted our release candidate and we can publish the game when we see fit. This is a huge step and allows us to continue to the next phase. Now we can start gathering feedback from the players. We will carefully go through the feedback and develop game further to give best possible experience for the players. It is hard to describe how exciting it is when you are just about to get real information from the real customers and to learn what they think about the game. All the feedback is good. If players don't like the game, we try to find out why and make the game better. If players like the game, then we are happy and continue to bring new features for them to enjoy.

Pet Shows

What is it about? Pet Shows is most probably different than you have used to see with pet themed games. The game has over 300 different pet profiles to collect, 5 different mini-games to attend and possibility to compete against other player teams from all over the world. It is about being best pet trainer in town. There is no payment wall and everything in the game can be achieved without using real money. Real money is used only to buy in game currency that can be used to help player to progress faster.

Pet Shows is now available in Windows Phone store. Check it out.

Onto something

Three years

Long ago, I had a dream. I wanted to create games. Over 15 years ago I realized, that I don't have to do it alone. I tried, and I failed. I wasn't ready. At 2011 we studied the feasibility of an idea to start a game studio. Result of that study is Seepia Games. We managed to put together a small dream team without game industry experience. Fortunately we got a good adviser to our board to help us learn quick. Still it took about three years before we feel that we understand what it takes. Succeeding in game industry is really not the easiest way to make living. It really needs that cliche of passionate and dedicated team every investor is trying to find.

Experience

You can study and research as much as you like. Before you have real life experience, it does not matter much. We are very fact driven team. You can imagine how much more fun it is to estimate product revenues after you have some. Before that we can use some industry averages from the web, and oh boy how far from the truth that takes us. We have been lucky. Our first game Tetrablok was published by Sulake in Habbo hotel and we got a one million downloads for the game. A good number for the first one you think. It did not perform well in monetisation, but gave us a valuable experience about synchronous multiplayer game and free-to-play business model. Our second game Permia - Duels has been one of the top ranked collectible card games in Windows Phone store and has gathered about one million downloads so far when all the platforms are combined. We really succeed with ASO to pull those numbers. Product is good and we have ideas to make it great. After a couple of next updates we will know how it goes. More experience is coming soon with our next AppCampus game Pet Shows. It is combination of everything that we have learned so far. The concept itself is already two years old and the journey with it has been really long. We have practically developed the game three times during this time. Thanks to Visionplus for their patience with us.

Pet Shows - Main menu first concept

Ready

We started with the vision to create free-to-play cross-platform multiplayer games. First three years we used to learn. Today our vision is to create free-to-play cross-platform games for mobile and tablets. We know what it takes from the product perspective and we are ready to unleash our full potential. For that we have started a process to get investors for the company. We are looking for investors for seed round. We hope that we can find ones with good knowledge about paid marketing. That is something that we don't have experience yet with our team because we have not used paid marketing to get current figures. Our first step is to participate The Web Summit - Dublin next week and Slush later this month. We will release Pet Shows on Windows Phone store later this month and we are also preparing Permia - Duels for Apple store and Google Play. It looks like we still have something to do before year is done and should have something to write about to incoming blog posts as well. Stay tuned.

Pet Shows - Main menu from the game

Sitrep

Our blog has been quiet for a while now. It’s about time we gave you a quick update what’s happening inside Seepia’s offices.

We moved into a new office a couple weeks ago. Nothing terribly exciting, we are still in the same “business park” and about 2 minutes’ walk away from the old one. Pros? You no longer need your little magic access token to get back to your desk after a visit to the loo or the coffee machine. Cons? We are spread across three different rooms now which obviously is not the end of the world but it does make communication a bit more difficult.

Development wise, we have all been working hard to get Pet Shows ready for release. The game is starting to shape up. We have made some pretty major changes in the past months but it has definitely been worth the effort. The game looks better than anything we’ve released before and the reaction from people we have shown the game to has been overwhelmingly positive. We will post a more detailed update about Pet Shows soon.

We also recently released a Windows 8.1 version of Permia – Duels. The world outside mobile phones is still somewhat uncharted territory for us so it will be interesting to see how things develop on that front.

All in all, "busy" has once again been the operative word for us. I won't promise you more frequent blog updates but I do promise that you will hear more about Pet Shows soon.