Who's Who: PixelFresh Games
Evgeny Litvinov, who recently released the mobile project Out of Brakes, told us about the development of the game alone.
App2Top: Hi! Please tell us a little about yourself and about the company. How did you take up game development, how was PixelFresh Games created?
Evgeny Litvinov: I’ve been developing games for as long as I can remember. At first it was unprofessional, at school, and at the institute. Then he worked in different companies. Mostly as a programmer, but sometimes as a designer.
App2Top: Why did you take up the creation of your own company?
Evgeny Litvinov: First of all, I miss the days when I had my first computer – the ZX Spectrum. At that time, one person was creating cool games. He drew them and programmed them, and it was very cool! Just a bunch of enthusiasts sat and created cool games. And, secondly, because I like to draw, and program, and invent games – I could not find satisfaction when I worked in some companies. Because in companies you work either as a programmer or as a designer.
Actually, it’s a hobby for me. And only now this hobby acquires some outlines of the company. Although it still cannot be called a company.
App2Top: What do you mean? You have PixelFresh Games, there is a game website, there is a company name. Why is there no company?
Evgeny Litvinov: A company of one person sounds funny! Plus, the company must be registered, there must be trademarks. This all needs to be dealt with. But it will make sense to do this if the game has some success. Then it will be possible to say that this is really a company, by all standards.
App2Top: I see. And was there a turning point when you realized that your hobby, what you do at home, looms into something serious? In this case, the game Out of Brakes.
Evgeny Litvinov: Yes, there was such a moment in the summer. We have finished working on a project in which I participated as a programmer.
App2Top: What was the name of the project?
Evgeny Litvinov: Cradle. There is such a studio – “Flying cafe for semi-animals” [also known by the English name Flying Cafe for Semianimals, – approx. editorial offices]. I worked there as a programmer. We worked there with like-minded friends – also a small indie studio. After finishing the Cradle game, we took a short break, dispersed. Everyone started doing something different. Before that, I was developing on weekends, in the evenings. After that, I started practicing fully from morning to evening. I’m done now.
Evgeny Litvinov: Yes. He lived on his reserves.
App2Top: Do you have any plan, what will you do next? The game Out of Brakes was released for a trial run on October 12 in the CIS. How are you promoting it?
Evgeny Litvinov: This is the first game I’m promoting. In the promotion so far, I’m filling the first bumps. But I focused on three whales. The first is social networks. While I am only dealing with the CIS, it is, of course, Vkontakte – groups of game reviewers. The second is letsplays. And the third is thematic sites, such as App2Top. I started to get in touch, many began to be interested. The only thing is that there are practically no letsplayers, as it turned out.
App2Top: You mean on the territory of the CIS?
Evgeny Litvinov: Yes, there were very few letsplayers of mobile games. Many of them are engaged in reviews as a hobby, there was no special progress in this direction. And in terms of social networks and websites – communication turned out. I hope it will be fruitful.
App2Top: Let’s talk a little bit about the game. As far as I understand, this is such an endless runner with an eye on the physical model. How did you come to the concept, why him?
Evgeny Litvinov: The concept was born quite a long time ago. This is my second game as an independent developer. The first game was a clone of Doodle Jump. I really liked this game back then. I started to get acquainted with Unity, figured out how to launch the game on Google Play and the App Store. And I needed some simple idea to make a small game and feel it all. In the R-Climber game, we control a robot that crawls along a vertical wall, and all sorts of physical objects are showered on his head. Plus, there are platforms that he needs to crawl around. Since the level scrolls up all the time, the player sooner or later finds himself at the very bottom and loses. When I was developing it, it occurred to me that these platforms could be used not as a penalty for the player, but as some islands of tranquility. So that he could catch his breath moving forward. So the idea arose that the player should shoot down obstacles that slow him down, so that he can play longer. The idea was based on the concept of arcade racing. The level was rotated from vertical to horizontal, and the robot turned into a machine made of cubes.
App2Top: And by the way, why? It’s not a very standard model in your game. If runners are made, then they are traditionally from the third person, the camera is behind. Either it’s 2D. And you get a rather unexpected isometry.
Evgeny Litvinov: Well, that’s how I saw it! (Laughs). To be honest, I didn’t even think about this question. Initially, the idea was to make objects as if cut out of paper, to use such dies. But at some point I came to the conclusion that I want to make destructible objects. There is a lot of buzz in this. And at that moment, these cubes, the constructor, were born. And the camera took the place it occupies now.
App2Top: In my opinion, a “paper” game would be more difficult to make. Only one project comes to mind that uses a “paper” setting – Tearaway for PS Vita. Recently released on PS4. But there would be a very difficult development if the game was made in such a setting. And what do you think, would the project be more difficult if the setting remained “paper”?
Evgeny Litvinov: I think so. There, firstly, it would be necessary to draw more,
to develop an interesting style. There would be a lot of design work. And since I was making the game alone, I was looking for a style that would be cheap in terms of designer costs.
App2Top: You said about the cheap style, but the game does not make such an impression. Because everything is very neat, three-dimensional, square. Pleasant. Since you both coded and drew the game, how much in percentage was spent on code development, and how much on the visual side?
Evgeny Litvinov: It’s hard to say, I didn’t keep specific statistics. I think 50% to 50%. In terms of coding, it’s easier for me, because I have a lot of programming experience. And in design, I had to tinker longer until I found the style, made all the facets so that everything connected by color. In general, the design probably took more time than programming. So 40% on programming, and 60% on design.
App2Top: Tell me why you made the project free? And, by the way, why did the game service? After all, it is much more difficult for one person to support such a game than for a team.
Evgeny Litvinov: I agree with this opinion, it is more difficult. I chose the monetization model for the reasons that it is easier to promote an f2p project. It would be very difficult to push out a paid project without having an advertising budget and funds for promotion, without having a team that does it. So I decided to make a fritupley. Besides, I generally like this model. As a developer, I try to make games that I’m interested in playing myself. I don’t depend on someone else’s funding, I do what I want to do, and as much time as I need. This is a very great pleasure from the development. Therefore, I made the game exactly the way I would play myself, which I could advise my friends. About which I can honestly tell myself – it turned out great. It’s important to me.
App2Top: I rarely hear this, because usually developers think that frituplay is not the right thing. We need to make a paid game, like in the good old days.
Evgeny Litvinov: Why? There are many examples of a freeplay model when the game is both cool and monetized great. Crossy Road, for example.
App2Top: Listen, how is your game monetized? I’m on the menu right now, I can’t figure out where to spend the money!
Evgeny Litvinov: The game is monetized as follows: firstly, IAP. You can buy cars for them. If you want a specific machine, then you can go to the market and choose from the list there. Another way to get cars is to collect cups scattered around the level. This is the game currency. It is also given as a daily bonus, encouraging the user to log into the game from time to time. Plus, the player can get cups for watching video ads.
App2Top: Is there one here? I haven’t come across it yet.
Evgeny Litvinov: Yes, there is one too. I don’t like in many games that I see in stores that developers abuse monetization too much. I mean, there are too many imposed ads that appear in unexpected places. For example, the game expects an action from the player. And before you click on the button, a banner pops up, and you get on it. I often delete such games, even if I really like the game. I see some kind of disrespect in this, or something, on the part of the developer. So I knew for sure that I wouldn’t do that. But I didn’t know how to do it either at that time. Then, playing different games, I began to pay attention to the fact that the monetization system, as in Crossy Road, is the most popular. I liked it both from the point of view of the player, who is not stuffed with advertising, and from the point of view of the developer. I think they also make good money by giving the player this choice: watch ads and get rewarded, or not. And the player does not get annoyed once again. So I used the same monetization system. After arrival, the player is sometimes offered to watch a video, for which he will receive cups. And having collected 100 cups, the player can open a new model: boxes appear, he chooses one of them, it crumbles, and it turns out that there is a new car in it.
App2Top: As far as I understand, do you use the analytics that is built into Unity by default?
Evgeny Litvinov: Yes.
App2Top: What indicators do you expect from the project to say to yourself, here, I will no longer look for a job, I will continue my indie path? What indicators have I set myself as a goal?
Evgeny Litvinov: I did not set clear indicators, I think if the project will bring about $2 thousand a month, then it will be a sufficient amount to be able to engage in it and develop it further. There are still, in fact, a lot of ideas. Due to the fact that I did everything myself, about 30% of what I thought up during the development process got into the game. There is also a huge list of different funny cars that I would like to use in the game, I want to add unique settings for different types of cars – spring, winter, space. Plus, you can develop additional gameplay for specific cars. There’s a lot more I want to do. If there are people who are interested in this, if there is interest in the game, then I will continue to develop Out of Brakes.
App2Top: I understood correctly that now the project has started, and you will actively try to promote it, see what indicators, where the “dump” of users is going. Configure some moments. And after that, you will start new content.
Evgeny Litvinov: Yes. Content is a priority, because there are not very many cars right now. We need at least 30-40 pieces of them.
App2Top: How many are there now?
Evgeny Litvinov: There are 20 of them now. I think 40 pieces would be great. Of course, bugs will be the highest priority, if there are any serious ones. And analytics. It will be necessary to see how far the players reach and what they “fall off” on. Maybe it won’t be about the cars, not in their number. And then it will be necessary to resolve issues of a different nature.
App2Top: We often communicate with novice teams, and they often have such an aim initially – to find a publisher. As far as I understand, you decided to do everything yourself. Why? Have you tried to contact someone, what came of it?
Evgeny Litvinov: I haven’t tried to contact anyone. I want to build the whole environment myself. Create and develop a company. If you work with the publisher, it is unclear to whom the rights to the game will belong. That is, a lawyer is needed here, you need to delve into details that are far from game development. This part of the activity will take a lot of time: to negotiate with the publisher, to settle all the nuances, to understand who is responsible for what. Plus, the publisher will certainly influence the development process. At the time when I started making the game, it seemed to me that this approach would destroy my cozy hobby. Because he will bring someone else’s investments and immediately – someone else’s rules of the game, which I did not want to agree to. And now the project is ready, and you can try to do everything on your own. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll try to contact the publishers.
App2Top: Last question. Now the project is ready. He came out, albeit in a softlonch. Are there any things you would do differently? What are these things? What should those who launched the project alone pay attention to?
Evgeny Litvinov: In general, there are no such things. I did everything the way I wanted. There are a few minor flaws that I noticed a little later. For example, the word “rubles” is not displayed in the store. I tested it in the Ukrainian store, and everything is in dollars there. So the dollars are showing up, but the rubles are disappearing. Well, that’s right, small problems that I will solve with subsequent updates.
App2Top: Thanks for the interview! It turned out very interesting. We wish you success, we hope that everything will be fine with the project!
P.S.
Evgeny Litvinov: A little time has passed since the interview was recorded and before its publication (about a month), during this time I finished working on the 1.0.1 release, which solved the problem with rubles, different types of levels appeared for different cars (Space, Night, etc.), and most importantly, during this time I managed to port the game to Android.
The iOS version of Out of Brakes can be downloaded here
The Android version of Out of Brakes can be downloaded here
Alexander Semenov talked
Deciphered by Irina Smirnova
