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The Final 20%

Lecture 25:

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The Hope

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Source: Lucasfilm

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The Final 20%3

Source: Saving Private Ryan

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The Final 20%4

11/25

Postmortems

11/20

Today

12/2

Kongregate?

12/4

Kongregate?

12/13

Final

Postmortems

Tues Thurs Sat

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The Final 20%5

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The Final 20%6

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The Final 20%7

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Unique Players

Epic

Thermo

Pyrokid

That's How We Roll

Box

Sleep Fighter

Nameless

Zombify

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

The Final 20%9

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Average Unique Levels Completed

Epic

Thermo

Pyrokid

That's How We Roll

Box

Sleep Fighter

Nameless

Zombify

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

The Final 20%10

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Average Active Play Time

Epic

Thermo

Pyrokid

That's How We Roll

Box

Sleep Fighter

Nameless

Zombify

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

The Final 20%11

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Average Active Play Time

(Friends: Orange, Newgrounds: Red)

Epic

Thermo

Pyrokid

That's How We Roll

Box

Sleep Fighter

Nameless

Zombify

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

The Final 20%12

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Newgrounds Rating

Epic

Thermo

Pyrokid

That's How We Roll

Box

Sleep Fighter

Nameless

Zombify

2.5 2.7 2.9 3.1 3.3 3.5

The Final 20%16

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A/B Tests

Epic

Thermo

Pyrokid

That's How We Roll

Box

Sleep Fighter

Nameless

Zombify

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

The Final 20%17

Higher condition #

Lower condition #

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Epic’s A/B Test Was Particularly Epic

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

The Final 20%18

Higher condition #

Lower condition #

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Anatomy of a Release

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Under Judgment

New Games List

Hot New GamesGathering

Dust

Featured Games

~5 hours

1 day

1-3 days

3-7 days

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Anatomy of a Release

The Final 20%20

Under Judgment

New Games List

Hot New Games

Featured Games

~5 hours

1 day

1-3 days

3-7 days

25 people / hour

25 people / hour

100 people / hour

300 people / hour

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Kongregate Contests

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The Final 20%22

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The Final 20%23

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The Final 20%24

Rating: 3.6 Rating: 4.3

Mu ComplexMu Complex:

Episode One

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The Final 20%25

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Polish

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Title Pages

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The Final 20%29

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Level Select Screens

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The Final 20%33

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The Final 20%34

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Main Game

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Presentations

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Engage the audience

Use sufficient volume

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thegamedesigninitiative

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Use sufficient volume

The Final 20%40

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thegamedesigninitiative

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Engage the audience

Use sufficient volume

Organize and motivate

The Final 20%41

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thegamedesigninitiative

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Motivate

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thegamedesigninitiative

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Engage the audience

Use sufficient volume

Organize and motivate

Minimize cognitive load

The Final 20%43

gamedesigninitiativeat cornell university

thegamedesigninitiative

at cornell university

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Avoid Death by Powerpoint

People often put every word they are going to say on

their slides

It’s terrible

Why?

No one can read this fast

It’s stressful to even have to look at this much text

No one can read and listen at the same time

If your audience is reading, they aren’t listening to you

The Final 20%44

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Remove unnecessary information

The Final 20%45

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Use pictures

The Final 20%46

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Fixing the Spikes

Our data shows that spikes are bad

We will remove some of them

The Final 20%47

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Plan: Reduce Spikes

The Final 20%48

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thegamedesigninitiative

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For bulleted lists

Simplify each point

Bring in one-by-one

This minimizes cognitive load

The Final 20%49

gamedesigninitiativeat cornell university

thegamedesigninitiative

at cornell university

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Logging Goals & Summary

We wanted to answer these questions: How far did players get before giving up, and was this affected by

the difficulty of specific levels?

In what ways did players circumvent the intended solution?

Entries were logged for the following events: Entering Water

Gaining power from a gate

Getting the key

Finishing the level

Data examined: How often people played each level

How often people beat each level

Events on a per-level basis

gamedesigninitiativeat cornell university

thegamedesigninitiative

at cornell university

the

Logging Goals & Summary

We wanted to answer these questions: How far did players get before giving up, and was this affected by

the difficulty of specific levels?

In what ways did players circumvent the intended solution?

Entries were logged for the following events: Entering Water

Gaining power from a gate

Getting the key

Finishing the level

Data examined: How often people played each level

How often people beat each level

Events on a per-level basis

gamedesigninitiativeat cornell university

thegamedesigninitiative

at cornell university

the

Design Questions

How far did players get?

Did they circumvent the intended solution?

gamedesigninitiativeat cornell university

thegamedesigninitiative

at cornell university

the

Logging Goals & Summary

We wanted to answer these questions: How far did players get before giving up, and was this affected by

the difficulty of specific levels?

In what ways did players circumvent the intended solution?

Entries were logged for the following events: Entering Water

Gaining power from a gate

Getting the key

Finishing the level

Data examined: How often people played each level

How often people beat each level

Events on a per-level basis

gamedesigninitiativeat cornell university

thegamedesigninitiative

at cornell university

the

Events

The Final 20%54

Enter Water

Grab Key

Enter Gate

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thegamedesigninitiative

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Don’t forget to summarize

Use sufficient volume

Organize and motivate

Minimize cognitive load

The Final 20%55

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The Last 20%

Newgrounds data!

Techniques for polishing

Techniques for presenting

The Final 20%56