"In the softphone, ARPU was $0.99," — an interview with Vizor about the new blockbuster Atlantis Odyssey
At the end of October, Belarusian Vizor Games released a new major project — Atlantis Odyssey. According to AppMagic, by the end of November, the game can reach revenue of a million dollars without advertising. We talked about the project and its development with the leading game designer of the project Ilya Marchenko.
Alexander Semenov, Editor-in-Chief App2Top.ru : Hello! First, tell me a little about yourself. What did you do on the project and what did you do before?
Ilya Marchenko
Ilya Marchenko, game designer of Vizor: My name is Ilya Marchenko, I am a Lead Game Designer on the Atlantis Odyssey project.
He started his career in game development in the Nival support team, and became a game designer at Vizor when he came here to the Fidelity project. After some time I switched to the social “Klondike” – the project was growing and it was necessary to strengthen the team. Already in the Klondike, I became a leader. Well, when I was offered to lead the team of a new project – Atlantis Odyssey, I just couldn’t refuse.
Part One — about the game
Before we dive into the history of development, I propose to dwell in detail on Atlantis Odyssey and the specifics of its genre. How can I briefly describe the game?
Ilya: This is an expedition and adventure on the theme of mythical Atlantis. To learn the secrets of an ancient civilization, you need to equip and develop your camp, which is the starting point of the adventure.
In “Atlantis” we improved our “Klondike” expeditions: a new setting, a new balance, a different story, a bigger tilt into the narrative. This is an adventure game!
Atlantis Odyssey screen with basic gameplay
The adventure genre was very popular during the heyday of Facebook as a gaming platform. I know that top games in this genre — including from Vizor and including for mobile — can earn more than ten million dollars a month. But how relevant is the genre as a whole, is it at its peak or is it more niche?
Ilya: Only in mobile projects of this genre we have more than 100 million installations and DAU more than 2 million. Recently, new projects have begun to appear that copy the mechanics of the Klondike. And with very good metrics. By the way, we are happy about the appearance of clones – this develops the genre and its mechanics, spurs us to experiment.
In addition, many projects with a different meta appear within the genre, which allows developers to expand game audiences. So the genre remains relevant.
Who is the genre primarily focused on, who is its main target audience?
Ilya: We see that casual games with elements of adventure and urban planning are played mainly by women over the age of 25, but specifically in our new title, the main players we see are not men or women with a specific set of socio-demographic parameters, but all lovers of adventure stories. Those who read Jules Verne as a child or watched Indiana Jones. We avoided audience segmentation so that the game would not turn out to be niche.
The plot of Atlantis Odyssey is also served in the form of comics
For those who are less familiar with the design of social and casual games, can you focus on the main features of the genre, how the user experience is usually built in such games, what is the core and meta of games?
Ilya: A casual game is always a search for a balance between the storyline, pumping the main character (in our case, the camp) and short game sessions. Simply put, the player is involved, wants to complete several quests or craft the desired item, but you need to do it in time for one trip in transport. Such games themselves guide the player, help him develop and give him a choice: to pump the level and his location (city) or to open new horizons, overcoming plot twists.
What is monetization usually based on in such games, what are the main funnels present here?
Ilya: The player has a set of starter packs with key valuable items that everyone can choose according to their taste and based on the strategy for the game. You can get additional energy for passing locations or completing quests just by playing. Purchases in the in-game store help speed up the passage. In addition to the store, players can increase the number of bonuses received through viewing ads.
Atlantis Odyssey
If we talk about Atlantis Odyssey, how different is it from the “gold standards”, what makes it stand out from the point of view of mechanics and monetization?
Ilya: And what is the “gold standard”? If we take the Klondike for him, then he is unique in his own way, so it’s not entirely clear what to compare with.
Atlantis Odyssey is a very dynamic game where events develop quickly. The plot leads the player through locations and motivates him to act actively – this is a kind of opportunity to “travel” and experience adventures during the lockdown period. The speed of the game affects the monetization model. High game pace arouse excitement and make the player want to move on. And here the classic IAP monetization comes to the fore with the ability to “cut corners” when passing the game.
If we talk about the features of Atlantis Odyssey, then for calm and measured players there are bonuses and “buns” for constant activity and regularity of gaming sessions. I repeat, the rewards received can be doubled by viewing ads.
If we are talking about the previous games of Vizor, the same “Klondike”, then, apart from the visual, how much and how exactly does the novelty differ from it?
Ilya: From the very beginning, we did not plan to make a second Klondike. We want our old users to play the new title as well.
In “Atlantis” we rethought the whole experience of “Klondike” and took all the best: expeditions, adventures. But at the same time, there are a lot of new things there: they put more emphasis on history, added fresh graphics, developed more dynamic locations and a new research process.
You will have to go through these locations
What role does the plot and character development play in such games?
Ilya: One of the key ones. If the player does not understand what is happening in the game, is not involved in the plot, then at some point he becomes bored and the question arises: “what am I doing here at all?”. If there is no answer, then there is a great chance that he will leave. It is the characters and the plot that create the reality into which the user is immersed. A good plot of the game is a book that you can’t tear yourself away from and come back to it as soon as there is a free minute.
The second important point is the process of interaction with locations (expeditions). The player draws a lot of information from the visual component and action. Without the synergy of these points, you can’t get a cool result.
Can you tell us about the plot of the game?
Ilya: The plane of the main characters – researchers Nicole and Robert – fails. They find themselves on an unknown island, where they meet a mysterious local woman. Here they also find other stranded travelers. And together they begin to learn about the mysterious civilization. There are many twists and intrigues in the storyline. The players will definitely appreciate it.
Atlantis Odyssey
Part Two — about development
Now let’s get down to how you implemented Atlantis Odyssey. The very first question is now exclusively about business. How do you usually decide which product you will make? And why did you decide to make Atlantis Odyssey? Especially since you already had a Klondike at the start of development.
Ilya: The idea to create a kind of heir to the Klondike was a long time ago. At some point we just got together, discussed it and decided that the time had come.
Klondike is a mature and mature product, and we wanted to try a lot of new things. For example, a new construction of expedition locations, a fresh setting. These ideas of ours directly affected the fundamental foundations of the Klondike. It would be wrong to make such large-scale changes to the game in relation to the current players. In addition, we wanted to expand the audience of our projects at the expense of those who don’t know us yet. Klondike users will be able to try something new and even play both games, and new users, thanks to Atlantis, will be able to discover Klondike.
Having already decided on the genre, how did you start looking for a setting?
Ilya: The setting is very important – it directly affects how the adventure will look like, what happens in it and what additional mechanics we can use.
While conducting research, we studied the settings that are already used in our genre. Then they started looking for those that hadn’t been there yet. We also listened to the opinions of our players, conducted tests.
One of the first maps of Atlantis Odyssey
Why did you choose an adventure in the style of “Indiana Jones”? What do you call it yourself?
Ilya: Such adventures are always full of events and plot twists. Atlantis is something on the verge of reality and myth. Therefore, such a setting gives us the opportunity to develop a storyline in any direction, produce interesting events and not be limited to strict limits in game design.
Were there any other options?
Ilya: We considered two more options: the 1920s and the 1960s in America, but after the tests we settled on Atlantis.
What is the deadline for development?
Ilya: We planned to meet it in 12 months (by the way, it turned out that way in the end). The biggest difficulties in the course of development arose with graphics: its volume was huge, and the project team was young and had not yet worked together. Fortunately, we already had a proven technology and a core of experienced specialists who knew how our projects worked and helped us cope with all the problems.
Character Sketches for Atlantis Odyssey
What was the next stage after finding the setting?
Ilya: Mass production of graphics. At the same time, game designers were connected, who began to create content.
You have a lot of experience in developing and operating such projects. “Zombie Farm” is almost ten years old, “Klondike” has also been operating for a long time, and its mobile version is about two years old. Within the framework of the available expertise, what was the experience of developing Atlantis Odyssey new to you?
Ilya: Each project is a new experience. In this, we had new graphics, high-quality optimization for all types of devices, deeper product analytics and a flexible marketing strategy.
A separate challenge is working in a distributed team. For Vizor, this was the first experience of developing a product from scratch in such conditions.
Sketches of buildings for Atlantis Odyssey
You just mentioned the experience of a distributed team. How was it difficult for you?
Ilya: The transition to the remote was sudden. It was necessary to restructure the development processes, establish new ways of communication. Previously, we just gathered in a meeting room and quickly discussed issues. If you needed to talk about something individually, you could always just come up and chat. Yes, now you can find a person online in the same way, call / assemble a group meeting and quickly solve everything, but before it all became fast and convenient, it still took some time to adapt.
There were difficulties of a different kind, which we did not expect. For example, they began to notice that some people have been working for the tenth hour in a row. Such people were simply “driven home”, that is, they were asked to finish for today. It is clear that such a regime is a path to burnout and other problems, and we did not want that.
Another problem: the border between home and work has been erased, which has a bad effect on people’s morale. So I had to come up with new ways to separate work and home. For example, they offered to go for a walk after breakfast or the end of the working day to create a feeling of going to work or returning from it. Someone solved this issue by putting on work clothes at the beginning of the day, and then taking them off at the end. Someone used both options.
Atlantis Odyssey
How comfortable do you think it is now? I am increasingly faced with the opinion that within the framework of the new reality, having learned to work remotely, companies come to the conclusion that it is more efficient and cheaper for them to work this way. What do you think about it?
Ilya: Everything is individual. But we now know for sure that it is possible to organize effective development in remote mode. You just need to create all the conditions for the team members at home. To do this, we moved powerful working computers to them, the company arranged surprises for employees, held online events. All this was important to maintain team spirit.
In general, any processes are being rebuilt and adapted to new conditions, only the time and desire of all team members are needed.
If you go back to the project, were there any moments during the implementation that did not work as you intended? What did you have to give up or change? Or was everything “according to plan”?
Ilya: There are always failures in the initial plan. Who, for example, at the end of 2019 assumed what would happen in 2020? Nobody. We are no exception. As for the game, we made a lot of changes along the way, we had to process a lot right on the go: we changed the story several times at the beginning of the game, worked on a new approach to our locations and the mechanics of the expeditions themselves, which entailed alterations in almost ready-made first locations. But in the end, everything ended well.
Sketch of one of the heroes of Atlantis Odyssey
Part Three — about bringing the project to market
At what stage did the first public tests begin?
Ilya: When several locations were ready, basic game cycles were set up and graphics were created.
Where and for how long did the softlonch take place?
Ilya: Softlonch was held in Russia and Canada for two months. Monetization was tested on users from Canada.
The main characters of Atlantis Odyssey
Was there anything that surprised you in its framework?
Ilya: We were pleased with the positive reaction of the audience to the product and its rather high retention and monetization metrics: retention of 1.7 and 30 days — 62%, 33% and 7%, respectively. The envelope to the payer on day 7 is 10%, ARPU (D7) = $0.99.
What’s next?
Ilya: We are preparing a lot of interesting events and live shows. We observe, analyze, rule and move only forward.
Thanks for the interview.
