Awem about Cradle Of Empires: without a "body kit" the game would have no chance

The pros and cons of a large field in match3 games, how the casual audience has changed in recent years, how to launch the game correctly on the mobile market – we talked about this and much more with Oleg Rogovenko, producer of Awem Games.

Their latest mobile project — three-in-a-row Cradle Of Empire — shows good results in the App Store. The project was part of the total box-office Top 100 in 67 regions, including the UK, Germany and Russia. We asked about him first of all Oleg.

Hi! For me, Cradle Of Empires is match3 with the monetization of the “Mysterious House”. How did you come up with such an idea?

Oleg Rogovenko

That’s exactly how they came. We took our match3 title Cradle Of Egypt, took the idea of monetizing the “Mysterious House” and similar projects, spent 3.5 years of work trying to properly combine these two components, and the Cradle Of Empires turned out.

How long and with what composition did you work on the game?

The first 2 years the work was carried out by a small team – 5-6 people. There were many prototypes and alterations. When the first more or less convincing build finally appeared, development began to accelerate, and most of the company’s resources were focused on this project. The size of the team at the finish line, which lasted more than a year, exceeded 25 people.

Probably, even before the start of development, they outlined some main theses, features? What were they like when the work started? What was new that eventually had to be abandoned?

When the project started, we had absolutely no experience in developing f2p projects, especially of such complexity. There was no preproduction, there were only two reference projects: Cradle Of Egypt and Mystery Manor with the idea of replacing the HO-mechanics with match3. They moved by touch, learned from their own mistakes.

What engine is the game made on, why?

The game is made on our ancient, thrice-written-rewritten C++ engine, on which Cradle Of Rome was written back in 2006. The team “loves” him like a sick, mangy kitten. When work on the game was just beginning, no one saw this technical solution as a big problem. And when the project began to gain momentum, it was too late to change anything in the middle of the way. As a result, we have what we have, and we plan, if we are lucky, to start a significant technological upgrade for future projects this year.

In the project, as can be understood by the name, the developments of previous Awem games were used. In particular, Cradle Of Egypt. Which items from previous games were used, which ones were abandoned and why?

Only the basic structural solution from COR and COE was used, the essence of which is that in match3 levels, chips give resources, and for these resources we build a city, which, in turn, gives the player a new match3 experience. There was nothing to refuse, because COR and COE are rather primitive games: apart from the mentioned idea and setting, there was nothing to take from them.

Awem traditionally has a field format made for large screens. Cradle Of Empires, where there are fields of 12 by 10 chips, is no exception. Why is this format chosen, but on smartphones, the chips on such fields look small?

The larger the field, the more scope for the level designer’s fantasies. On the other hand, we have lost part of the audience on smartphones. It’s really a little uncomfortable to play with such a field on small screens, but this is a conscious sacrifice in favor of a greater variety of levels. Perhaps in the next project we will be able to find a more beautiful solution suitable for all screen sizes.

In addition to the “three-in-a-row” game, there are elements of a time manager, there are collections, there is an experience set system. Because of this, the tongue does not turn to call it casual. Who is the audience?

According to our observations, the classic casual audience (women 40+) has significantly improved over the past 5-7 years. If in 2008 we made ultra-detailed tutorials and relatively simple games for women over 40 years old, and this was in demand, now these same women grasp everything on the fly, and they need more sophisticated games. The term casual in games has become younger and more complex.

If compared with your other more casual projects, how much did the “body kit” help in retention?

Without the “body kit”, the game would have no chance.

Which aspect of the game brings the most money (buying resources, bonuses, energy, something else)?

One of the main features of the game is that it changes deficits in the process. At first, the player is sorely lacking in energy and monetization occurs due to this… A few days later, we arrange an intrigue around the construction of the ship and the player catches a stopper when trying to collect all the necessary items for the collection … Further, the growing complexity of match3 levels forces the player to buy more bonuses or moves.

That is, in different periods of the game, different entities become more monetizable. The only thing that is poorly bought is amulets and resources. But they have their own role – they maintain the illusion of choice.

As far as I can tell, the performance of the iPad version is better than that of the iPhone version. Was there a difference in promotion between them (do you generally promote versions differently)?

Yes, indeed – the iPhone version shows not very good results so far. I see the reason not in the promotion, but in the fact that we paid very little attention to the design of the iPhone version. In fact, we took and “pushed” the iPad build to the iPhone. The result is appropriate. Will we somehow solve the problem or leave everything as it is – we haven’t solved it yet.

By what forces is the game supported?

The active development of the project has not yet been completed. Therefore, the current team is more than 20 people.

How often do you update? What do you usually add in updates?

Every 6 weeks. In the first months after the worldwide release, there were many structural changes in the updates. In the last half of the year, we added a lot of content, this year we plan to seriously deal with the balance, plus we will begin to more actively exploit holiday promotions.

How much do they affect the project in terms of downloads/revenue (as a percentage)?

We don’t see a special surge in revenue after the updates. We can say that there are practically none… Content updates strongly support retention, especially long–term – the most valuable players who have been in the game for six months or longer.

Tangible surges of income occur during promotional discounts. But this is still a very controversial topic for me, we still have to learn how to use discounts correctly so as not to turn potential killer whales into minnows.

I can’t help but ask about updating the icon. The game had a recognizable icon with Cleopatra’s profile. It was replaced by, as it seems to me, a less clear one. Why? What did this bring to the project?

This brought +30% to the conversion of visitors to the game page to downloads. I don’t like the new icon myself, but it’s hard to argue with the A/B test results. I’m trying to understand this strange choice of the audience.

New icon

And the last question. Cradle Of Empires is not Awem’s first mobile project. But what difficulties did you encounter when publishing it, what would you have warned yourself about from your current position?

We have no problems with the publication. All our questions and difficulties were exclusively in the field of design and technology. We have nothing to brag about technology yet, but conclusions have been drawn in the field of design and planning, and some of them coincide with the experience of other companies:

• to bring the game to soft launch as quickly as possible, so that further development relies (it “relied”, and not blindly followed!) on statistics and feedback from the audience. With the right approach, this will save a lot of money and time;
• do not launch the game for a worldwide release until the structure of the game is settled. It is better to search for the optimal structure on SL, even if it takes many months. First – a working structure that gives normal retention and monetization, only then the content and audience;
• the best strategy for the development of the game is “deep, not wide”. Find out as early as possible what kind of people (age, gender, education) are in the main segment of the game’s audience. Further development should be conducted primarily for them. Any, even very good ideas, which at the same time do not quite suit the audience and make noise gameplay – mercilessly throw away. Slowly and imperceptibly, it’s easy to turn the game into “lard, honey, g*** and bees”. There are many examples on the market… But this, firstly, will greatly complicate the balancing of the game, and secondly, I am sure, it will significantly shorten the life of such a fritupley.

Thanks for the interview!