IT Startups are often given the advice to make a minimal viable product...

IT Startups are often given the advice to make a minimal viable product...

Would this approach work for games?

Edit - This

 

You mean the approach we recommend to practically every newcomer?

 

Yes. It's a reasonably popular concept in games.

Have you not paid attention to any beginners thread anywhere on this forum?

Edit: Sniped.

 

Now now, you both know that Arowx is too busy making threads to read them.

 

Do you get an achievement for the number of threads you start or the number that get shut by mods?

 

There is a game called crime craft, they got such achievements on forum, it's pretty funny.

 

Can you provide examples of where this has been used?

The only games I know of that were successful using this approach were minecraft, surgeon simulator and dwarf fortress.

 

Have you seen a forum thread on this specific topic and approach to writing and releasing games, please link to it and don't reply to this thread.

More personal conversations you can direct to me via the forums conversation system.

Maybe this topic could be moved to the game design forum section as I'm asking from more of how should you design a minimal viable successful game?

What features should a minimal viable game have?

What other problems arise with this approach using Unity e.g. patching, DLC, asset bundles, automatic game updating system?

 

To be fair there are a number of forum veterans that don't go near the Getting Started section.

As few as possible? You kinda walked into that one.

 

Droll, anyone who has had experience in launching a minimum viable product, using Unity and being successful?

 

I don't think there is such thing as minimum viable product in gaming anymore. You did not specify platform and not sure if that even matters. Startup advice about products usually focuses on things like supply and demand which do not really exists in the gaming world. Supply is flooded as there are hundreds or thousands of games pumped on the markets weekly and there is no demand as the players are not really looking for specific thing same way as normal software or consumer products. You can make a few days game project viable with powerful marketing and have one year project polished game disappear in the wind without marketing.

 

Yeah, loads. Steam early access is pretty much that and in general when you release on early access it's actually the full launch with a minor spike when you "release".

 

Excellent point even a minimal viable product has to stand out in an overcrowded market to be successful.

 

The extra credits video on MVP is pretty good.

Note the general advice is to build a MVP, not launch it.

 

You always need the minimum viable, which I consider to be a prototype. Not sure where minimum viable terminology comes from, it just tries to be cool and wears an earring or something. It's a basic prototype or alpha build that works.

How can you not hit that stage first?

 

@BoredMormon has and is doing it currently... he made an MVP for his game then recently put it on Steam to see what kind of interest there was and gain feedback from those interested enough to check it out and leave a comment.

 

Ha ha! Buzzwords! People have got to have the buzzwords and new terms describing the same ole things must continually be created so folks think they have discovered something!

 

This is true, the term prototype and the term MVP are essentially interchangeable.

It is possible to build a product without going through a prototype stage. It's kind of crazy, but some people just jump into producing final assets without making sure it's fun. Often doesn't work out well.

 

That's one way to describe it. I wasn't specifically aiming for a MVP market test. In fact it really wasn't about Pond Wars at all.

Mainly it was an experiment, looking to find out how steam works. And I'll be playing with different publicity measures and watching the stats too. I'll write a post about it once all the data is in.

It's one thing to read about how green light works. It's another thing to go through the process yourself.

 

Facebook right? Zynga's core business plan is quick iterative mvp releases, see if there is interest and build upon anything that shows potential.
Here is a student developer releasing weekly mvps.
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/creating-one-game-a-week-devlog.378083/

Agreed - mvp/prototype success isn't measured like a finished product. It's 'success' is only measured by - if it is a solid building block to proceed to develop further.

 

I often build MVPs at work and deliver them to stake holders. They can then make the call if we spend time on further development.

 

Investors love their terminology.
An MVP is generally considered anything you can gain valuable data/feedback from.
For me its a very bare bones prototype that outlines the basic gameplay.
Not something you would put on steam, just something you can get some data back from such as is this playable or fun at all. Is anyone interested in it?

 

@BoredMormon
Either way it is an experiment which ultimately to me is what prototyping is about. In a sense this whole thing is your minimal effort to get an answer. In this case "so... what is this Steam thing all about?"

Good luck btw. I definitely think this is a valuable thing Steam has done. Allowing a dev to easily connect with gamers is golden. And since most of the replies are regarding graphics it seems to me that is such a simple thing to improve. A visit to the Asset store or elsewhere or hiring an artist. But you have an actual game done and ready for testing. That is the important thing I think. Easy to polish it up from here.

 

We've been taught that an mvp is basically a polished vertical slice so everyone involved can check whether the whole thing works together as designed/thought. It allows focused testing on the core elements of the game.

 

From an indie game developers point of view can an MVP be released to test the waters and decide if further time and effort should be applied to that game idea?

 

An MVP is not something you launch with. The MVP is used to quickly put something together to show users to get feedback. Read "The Lean Startup" to better understand what an MVP is and how it is used properly. An MVP is not something you actually ship.

 

What are you on about? You speak as if @Arowx is way off board when his view is if anything as common, if not more common, view of an MVP. Sometimes an MVP may be released internally or to some limited group of customers, very often with less market spend/fanfare, but one of the main reasons to do an MVP is to put it in front of real customers in a real market scenario and test the viability of the product before you spend too much.

 

I'll add that I don't think this works as well for games generally, although it may work for certain use cases (e.g. deeply repayable strategy games, or single player RPG which laters becomes multiplayer).

 

According to Wikipedia, the minimum viable product was coined by Frank Robertson and made popular by Steve Blank and Eric Ries. I have read Eric Ries book, The Lean Startup, and from what I remember it was a pretty good book. I was actually just looking at my local library's website a couple days ago to see if I could download it.

A lot of my thoughts right now are directed at figuring out what my MVP should be. I received my Vive a couple weeks ago and that has allowed me to really ramp up my development. So I am trying to figure out what I really need to finish before I can take my product and start marketing it.

 

Yes. That is common practice. We do it on our games, we use unity and we have some very successful games. (And on failed games)

MVP will vary heavily on the core game type, and the needs of that game.

 

Its been a term in software development as long as can remember. Typically minimum viable product means the least amount of features for a product to meet its functional requirement. It might be a prototype and a prototype may be an mvp. In my experience, prototype is usually meant as a stripped down, focused test of something, either core game or even specific features. Where as an MVP is usually something that could actually be released. We do tons of prototypes, either for play testing, or even to isolate tech challenges. A big part of what I do is building prototypes because they can be done faster outside the codebase. (it also means that I can do really sloppy code) In addition we use the term "visual target" often. Which is basically a prototype that realizes concept art in engine. (to build final art, final ui, shaders etc...).

Using MVPs became commonplace (in terms of releasing) in the web social games height because you could update at any time. Releasing the minimum let you put the least amount of investment into a game, and if the core game worked, you could invest more into it. Pretty much King's model of success. They pumped out hundreds of small games that were just the core minimum product on their website. If one of those games got popular, they added more content and few features and promoted it. If it grew, they went all in on it. In mobile, often MVP is used for a soft launch / geo-beta.

 

Same here. We often use MVP and vertical slice interchangeably.

 

Thats the crux of it but as you said the terms meaning has got a blurrier as it has become more common.

I don't think its right to say vertical slice and MVP are the same thing*. A vertical slice may be an MVP but its also easy to imagine vertical slices that are not an MVP. For example we could do a vertical slice for our authentication, but (except in a few specialist cases) authentication alone is not an MVP.

Its really more of a composition relationship: an MVP is one or more vertical slices that combine to create a complete, albeit minimal, product. Typically this product will enable your core features and be viable in the sense that it provides enough value to justify further development. This value could be revenue but is quite often measured in terms of user acquisition, user retention or user engagement.

Anyway enough with the semantics


* Generally. Doesn't mean it isn't right in your company/industry. Every company has its own lingo.

 

In the end it all means whatever your team defines it as As long as you can be consistent with the people you are dealing with.

 

True. As I said "we" use the terms interchangeably. I neglected to say that often is problematic. It is all to common for our vertical slices (external ones at least), to incorporate smoke and mirrors in some areas. They usually 'illustrate' the mvp, but may not be running production code, and fake or short cut network features. But they always look real purtty.

 

And internally we all agree on terms.

Quite a while back, we got in the habit of making that nearly the page in a projects wiki. Listing all common terms (game an tech) and what the mean.

 

As long as your team members all agree on the same definitions, I guess it does not really matter. Personally, I think it would be problematic to call a vertical slice an MVP, since I view the MVP as the first version that I could use to gather feedback. By contrast, the vertical slice would be a single level (or possibly a couple levels) polished to about 80% of the final product. An MVP would only receive enough polish to gather feedback.

My goal with an MVP is to get feedback, often feedback about whether the core gameplay mechanic is enjoyable. Realistically, we should be able to have an MVP ready to get that feedback long before we could get a vertical slice ready. I view the vertical slice as a demo with a lot more polish than an MVP.

 

look at game jams @Arowx
tons of material of minimal viable products there.
Not to mention that on itch.io are also quite many indie games...and successful, how about Pong, Tetris, Angry Birds, Breakout, Pacman, Evolands, Super Meat Boy etc. it might not be obvious at first but they are all "small" games and Evolands started as a ludum dare game jam project even. So it was done within a weekend and then polished to put it on steam.
There are tons of examples, I would even go as far and say that most games start like that.

 

You mean like Ludum Dare - My LD Entries

 

Speaking of which what's the state of your Zelda clone?

 

LOL @Ryiah I hope you're not stalking me you're starting to creep me out!

 

No. I just happened to remember the game and don't feel like digging up the thread again.

 

Bink's Amazing Adventure did look very promising. It may have been an experiment instead of an actual game (kind of like everything I have made in recent years lol).

But yeah it would be cool to see more of it. Seems like it could actually do well on Steam.

 

How does one come up with game concepts that wouldn't take crazy long to make? Seriously, when I try to scope down, make a list of tasks, and give it my best guess how long I'd be working on that, I always end up with something in the 1000 - 3000 hours range. At the moment I'm doubtful if I could even manage to put 90 hours into a single project. How do you or other people manage to come up with stuff that fits into game-jam timeframes for example? I feel like I'm absolutely incapable of thinking up anything simple.

 

Quantity over quality.

Edit: And cool shader effects/superficiality...

 

To me that is the benefit of doing jams. If forces to you to think/plan/build with heavy limitations and time. Its a good exercise to help you build those skills - scoping, planning and still being creative.

Also, well done simplicity can be deceptively difficult.

 

This is just all from my own experience doing this stuff in a very part-time way. Not sure if any of it will help but there may be something.

I'm guessing you do this stuff very part-time much as I do. 20 to 50 hours has been the "sweet spot" for my game project experiments. I just decided near the final quarter of last year to start focusing on actually making games again (been a long time). I'm looking at projects I can complete in about 150 to 400 hours. Even 150 hours is a lot of time to me. That's about 3 months of calendar time working part-time on game dev.

Generally, what I do is just tackle these things in sprints. Last year I spent about 3 weeks (not quite) working on a Halloween game. Then I spent 5 to 6 weeks working on a Christmas game. I'll return to work on the Halloween game this September and put another 3 weeks on it. Then I will put another 5 to 6 weeks on the Christmas game. Eventually they will both be done.

I mention that because it might be an approach you could try. I completely get not wanting to spend more than 90 hours on any one project if you mean 90 hours consecutively. It's a lot of time when you have a job and life of other things to do. If you can break it down into sprints of say 50 hours or so then you could do a chunk and stop. Maybe work on another project for 50 hours and so forth.

Currently, I am focusing on an FPS action adventure game. Been working on it for a month now and am getting ready for a break. Thinking of taking a couple weeks to do a much smaller scope game. Then return to working on this project. I find I work better (don't get burnout) if I work on multiple projects bouncing back and forth periodically.

For truly scoping small... I think that is one of the defining traits of being an Indie. You make trade-offs. You don't spend 1,000+ hours trying to create top quality graphics and so forth. Instead you try to figure out how you can get "close" to what you'd like in a reasonable amount of effort and time. That could be ultra low poly or ultra lowres pixel art. Or maybe something like Limbo. It's about "doing more with less". To me that is the core of being an Indie (or Hobbyist Game Developer). You do those things so you can focus on the actual game itself. Maybe you have ideas for a unique game concept or at least unique play mechanics. Maybe you want to explore an aspect of a certain genre in more depth and detail than is normal. That's where you put your focus and everything else is sacrificed towards that end.

Like @zombiegorilla mentioned taking a look at game jams is very useful. They have to scope very small due to the extremely tight deadlines. And yet many popular Indie games started from these game jams. You have to switch your mind from thinking about AAA stuff and focus on what a lonewolf Indie with a small amount of time can achieve. The challenge is... what can you make that is a very interesting game experience without relying on "gee whizz graphics and FX" and that kind of thing?

Another good way to do it is look at some old games. Take Space Invaders for example. Maybe you don't find that inspiring at all. That's ok. What can you do to make it inspiring? What would a Space Invaders game be like for you to find it interesting enough to want to play it? That's your small scope game.

Something like these look like an excellent scale of games for a lone dev working part-time:

 

Indie does not mean "failure at being AAA", kids.

Indie means "all the fun without the frills".

The most ****ed up part is that most indie developers focus all of their efforts on the frills.

Don't do drugs, kids. Drugs are bad.

 

Thanks a lot for all your replies!

I'm leaning more towards the shader/superficialty thing, I think.

So basically this?

I didn't get that movie reference by the way. I can only see from the related videos that it seems to be one.

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply, much appreciated! I still haven't figured out what timeframes I'm really most comfortable working with. My art jobs usually are tripple digit numbers of hours spread out over months or even years with multiple projects in parallel. And I actually hate that. I think I function best with tasks that I can complete and get approved in a single day, but those are super rare and manual splitting big projects into sub-tasks doesn't have the same effect for me. I also haven't quite figured out yet, if I'd rather switch projects more often or less often. We're touching on that that topic here at the moment:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/i-am-giving-up-on-3d-modelling.402985/#post-2627485

But I have spent 1000+ hours on my first game (now abandoned). ^^

I fear... I can't think of anything. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a game designer and I'm more like "the polish idea guy", like an idea guy, but just focused on ideas how to polish a game and with barely any ideas that qualify as gamedesign ideas. I'm serious, I really have trouble thinking about pure mechanics instead of aesthetics related to mechanics.

I'm afraid I can't think of anything that would make me care about such a game. Maybe it's because I spent the better part of my life learning how to make things look better, while either retaining or improving their usability? I used to think of my art background as a perk, but I might have been really off on that one, and it might be a strong factor holding me back from a) coming up with ideas of sane scope, and b) ever seeing such a project finished. I think I've redone the main menu on my first game 3 or 4 times total, and I still wasn't 100% happy with how it turned out. Settling for heavy compromises in such areas is painful for me. Maybe that's another reason why I just shouldn't try to make games? I don't see that one going away any time soon.

The first one looks rather similar to my first abandoned game, here is a screenshot


Devil Daggers is a game, where I feel what @zombiegorilla said applies: "well done simplicity can be deceptively difficult". When that game got released I saw the gamedev already had close to 500 hours of gameplay logged on steam. I'm assuming he playtested long before he got that game to log such data on steam. And I'm also guessing he spent a lot more time developing than playtesting, which puts this project into the multi-thousand hour area as well. For getting the FPS movement controller done as well as he has, including testing and tweaking, I'd easily budget 80+ hours. And based on my lack of experience in budgeting time for coding and gamedesign tasks I'd multiply that number by 3. I know how many FPS games don't get that aspect right and it bothers the crap out of me when I play them. I don't think I could settle for a quick and dirty solution. I'd probably burn out on this task alone.

Well... maybe that's just the answer for me? Unable to compromise, so I better stay away from it altogether?

Reminds me of Watchmen:

Spoiler

 

[Definitely 83812]@Martin_H[/USER] hmmm... small projects focusing on art. Well that sounds like you may enjoy creating content for the Asset Store. You could focus only on the graphics piece and fill in the holes out there. You'd get to spend the bulk of your time working on what you love to do, still be involved in this game dev community and over time probably make a nice secondary income and perhaps build it to a full-time income.

Of course you could always team up with one or two people and get the same kind of work focus. Definitely nothing wrong at all with a person enjoying only the art creation. Everybody has "their thing" they love to do and truthfully is most likely what they would see success from doing.