Petunk Week 4: Crossing the finish line

Hey everyone and welcome to the fourth installment of my series on Petunk. At the beginning of July I stated that I would be creating one game each month for the summer. Well, July is over so it’s time to look back on the past month and see how things went.

What went well

Let’s start with the good news. In the month of July I was able to create a concept for Petunk and implement the entire game! Creating a game in a month was very educational for me. I feel like:

1. The compressed schedule helped fight off scope creep
2. Working on a short project created natural opportunities to share something
3. Even with only a month it was possible to create something of quality

In fact, I think this model is great for finding new ideas. You can generate a bunch of simple games to show off different concepts and release them to the market to test which ideas get the most traction. When you find an idea that seems to be taking off then you can double down.

What didn’t work

Not surprisingly there are some consequences to working in such a short time period which are not desirable. First and foremost many game ideas can’t be implemented in such a short period of time. Especially new gameplay mechanics which need extended testing and balancing to get right. For Petunk I found that the schedule forced me to focus more on artwork than on gameplay. Ultimately, I was happy with the trade offs I had to make but it’s certainly something to consider.

Another area where I felt the crunch was in building out non-game aspects of the game. For example, I believe there might be an opportunity to sell players additional levels in Petunk, but because of my schedule I wasn’t able to implement that functionality or test the idea further. Likewise, I wasn’t able to implement any sharing features to improve Petunk’s viral distribution. Personally, for a month’s work I think a game can do without these features — especially if it’s a lightweight experiment to test an idea — but for many it’s not possible to release a game without any monetization or distribution plan baked in.

In Conclusion

So what am I going on about? I think many of us are at the “discovery stage” where we are looking for the “scaleable game idea”, that is an idea which will take us to a million players or earn a sizeable return on investment. At this stage I believe iterating on different ideas quickly and cheaply is a great strategy for eventually finding a scaleable game idea. However these experiments are unlikely to convert into much cash. Instead look at these experiments for valuable market data about what players want and how they interact with your ideas. Run these tests to improve your model about what customers want until you’ve found a working formula.

Oh and one last thing. I’d like to share Petunk with you, but first I’m going to place it on Flash Game License to see if there’s any interest from sponsors. So, check back in a few weeks for an update containing the full game.

Related posts:

1. Petunk Week 1: Finding a game idea
2. Petunk Week 3: Putting it all together
3. Petunk Week 2: Creating a distinctive look
4. Hello, Petunk
5. August is over: time for show & tell