Round table: we analyze the Best Fiends together with Alis Games
Denis Voikhansky, the head of Alis Games, wrote to me the other day and offered to arrange a discussion of Best Fiend's within the framework of the “good and evil policeman”. I liked the idea, but instead of an ideological confrontation, Denis and Alexander Chalupnya, the creative director of the Minsk company, turned out to be a kind of round table on the game of the Finnish studio Seriously.
Numbers
But I'll start with general information about the Best Fiends game.
The project was released in early October. In the first week, I scored about 1 million downloads. By now, it has more than 7-8 million (in early February, it overcame the 7 million mark). The DAU of the game at the end of January was about 1 million.
As for the performance of the game, they leave much to be desired at the moment in the three focus markets (USA, Germany, Russia — Asia).
Position dynamics Best Fiends in the free gaming Chart (App Store):
Position dynamics Best Fiends in the free gaming chart (Google Play):
Position dynamics Best Fiends in the box office gaming chart (App Store):
Position dynamics Best Fiends in the box office gaming chart (Google Play):
The overall picture is as follows: the game is in the Top 100 by downloads (games) now only in 14 countries (App Store) and 12 countries (Google Play). The box Office Top 100 (games) in 12 regions (App Store) and 26 regions (Google Play).
The round table
- Sasha — Alexander Semyonov, Editor-in-chief App2Top.ru
- Denis — Denis Voikhansky, Head of Alis Games
- Alexander — Alexander Chalupnya, Creative Director of Alis Games
Alexander Semenov
Sasha: It seems to me that the project has average indicators. Look, 6 months after the release of the game, everything is bad in the American top. The best markets for it are Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. The project performed well in Poland and performed well in Russia. As for the cash figures, he has them everywhere, in general, the first or second hundred. I'm talking about the App Store. The game was released on Android a little later and its performance is slightly better now. Does this mean that the project has not fired yet? Or could something else change?
Denis Voikhansky
Denis: Oh. Good question. You know, we're the kind of guys who've been making the same game for three years now. We are even less successful compared to them. Our vision is that if the team understands that something can be significantly improved in the game, and there is a good dynamic, then we need to do this, we need to do it. But that's what we're doing, we don't know what position the Best Fiends developers are in.
Plus, I think they are at least profitable with this game. Yes, they are not very high in markets such as the USA, Great Britain, and Germany, but there are enough countries where they are in the Top 10, Top 50 in grossing.
Sasha: But these are very small markets, like Croatia. I understand that if it's not one Croatia, but ten, that's some money.
Denis: Look, in Norway the game is in the Top 10, for example. There are not such small amounts.
Sasha: That is, for a startup project, it's not bad, there is something to show to investors who have already invested about $ 5 million in the studio, and say: guys, our next game will be completely chocolate.
Alexander Chalupnya
Alexander: If we take into account the fierce competition in the mobile market now, then the indicators, in general, can be called successful.
Denis: And why, Sasha, do you consider it unsuccessful?
Sasha: There is such a situation here. If we take the entire market as a whole, in which the prevailing mass of games are zombie games that no one has ever downloaded, then this…
Denis: ... far from such a game. They were well-equipped, they got ten million installations for free for sure. Let half of it be more or less OK, but even if the ARPU is $0.30, then they definitely earned a couple of million dollars. There are no questions here. I think many people would like to develop their own high-quality game and earn a couple of million. Therefore, this is quite a success.
Sasha: Against the background of the fact that they recently announced that the former vice president of 20th Century Fox mobile and the head of one of the Rovio studios joined the team, they are really doing well.
Denis: They come from big teams themselves.
Sasha: Petri Jarvilechto, one of the founders, was the chief designer of Max Payne 2.
Denis: A few years ago, there was such an illusion in the mobile market that it was enough to make a product, take money from somewhere (and money was not such a problem then) and you can do it yourself without big connections, without serious marketing…
And these guys are the ones who have very cool connections, have money, marketing. I have no doubt that these dudes will be doing very well. There are hundreds of teams that can make a product like this. It's a very good product, but it's not a masterpiece. But they have a team that can present and launch it correctly, sell it correctly, and get good features. They'll be fine.
Sasha: Well, the indicators showed, we talked about marketing, now let's go through the game. I'll start with the fact that I'm ashamed: I couldn't go far, up to the 30th level with a ponytail. Moreover, I played the project for the first time as soon as it came out, also then I went through about 30-40. Then they put a hard paywall in front of me and I quit. Now the situation has repeated itself. I got somewhere up to 33 and then it's hard, I have to pump my cockroaches, replay the level many times, but I don't want that. How do you feel about the project, and how far has anyone gone?
Alexander: unfortunately, I'm not far away, I passed the level up to the 40th.
Denis: I'm at 100+ level, I've been playing for quite a long time. Starting from 30 levels go very hard. The vast majority of the player-friends fell off, judging by my game map, around the 60th, and then I'm almost alone.
Alexander: And how are your cockroaches swinging?
Denis: I have most of the cockroaches open. Several dozen are swayed. Here, starting somewhere from about level 50, you have to download them all.
Alexander: I also want to mark this moment, but I felt it much earlier. There are types of levels where you need to collect a large number of colors, and there are types of levels where I need to destroy boxes. Where the boxes are, cockroaches that strike horizontally or vertically are effective for me. Where there are many colors, cockroaches are effective there, which give a bonus that increases the number of gems of the corresponding color.
Sasha: The problem with the latter is that they are the least powerful. When you want to pump someone, you pump exactly the first type of cockroaches — they have a double effect. First, they deal a more tangible blow to the monster. Secondly, you break boxes and obstacles. In relation to those cockroaches that just generate more gems of the same color, your attitude at 20-30 levels is about the following: guys, I don't want to rock you. They have to be pumped so that their blows are not very insignificant, so that they cause at least a little damage. I didn't like this moment very much.
Alexander: In general, it seems to me that such a meta element is superfluous in match-3 games. As a match-3 player, first of all, I come to such games to spend time with a combination of stones. I don't like choosing and leveling characters for specific levels.
Sasha: Maybe there is such a problem in this game. But personally, I love pumping, I play a little bit in Heroes Charge, I like to equip heroes there, pump them up. It's always interesting, but there's too much mixed up in Best Fiends. There are two types of cockroaches, a lot of tasks, plus, the levels themselves are not just levels, they are puzzles.
Alexander: But the levels are very cool!
Sasha: Did you like them?
Alexander: Yes, I am quite a challenger player, so, in general, I have a lot of problems with match-3. But I like the way the levels are built in the game.
Sasha: I have a backlash. If only the first part of the game were in the game — without puzzle levels — I would go further and play with great pleasure, but as it is, I'm steaming with one meta-game, plus, they give me a difficult level here. As a result, I do not accept the project. But, I want to point out, if there were only puzzles, it would also be ok. Recently, Supercell closed a wonderful Spoocky Pop, there was no pumping, only tasks on the levels themselves, and I enjoyed the whole thing, I passed all 80-something levels. I was ready to spend money on it, but there is no such thing here.
Alexander: I just repeat that in a casual game, pumping is an extra element. It's easier to attract me with its central element — the gameplay on the field. Puzzle levels are good for me, but are they interesting to a casual audience, my wife, for example…
Sasha: Did she play in Best Fiends?
ALEXANDER: I usually show her many match-3 games, but in 99% of cases she falls off and returns to “Looking for a Hero”.
Sasha: Healthy patriotism is always a good thing. Denis, what do you think about mixing so many gameplays into one game?
Denis: At first, for me, pumping Persians was a little sideways: that is, you play, pump only each type one at a time and look at it, like, why is this feature needed at all. At a certain point — level 30-40 — it becomes clear to you that it's time to take other characters, for example, those who generate color. And this is such a difficult and interesting moment at the same time.
It wasn't until I'd played one of the levels ten times that I finally figured out that maybe it was worth seeing what other characters I had. And when I put on another character and passed the level the first time, I got a lot of pleasure that I was, like, so very smart. And then, at senior levels, you need to change characters regularly, experiment with each one, think about which character you specifically need, what abbreviations are needed, what color, try different combinations. I like this scheme.
Alexander: But do you think it's good for casual play?
Denis: I think that a huge audience will have problems understanding this scheme. At some point, you need to switch to other heroes — and at these very levels, it seems to me, they have a huge dump. There, at least, it was necessary to make a tutorial suggesting whether you would like to change the character, do this. As for the casual audience… It seems to me that the guys have the same problem as our “Looking for a hero". It's unclear who the game was made for?
Sasha: For myself.
Denis: They are most likely like we tried to do for everyone: for boys, for girls. And as a result, they were made for an incomprehensible audience. Because if they were made for girls, then why is there some kind of action movie, some kind of RPG, like ours. The only thing is that their fight is more cute. The enemies are all cute, kind, although there are big and evil black dudes further on who are clearly not friendly-minded. If they were made for boys, then the style of the chosen graphics is completely unsuitable for them: smiling slugs, cockroaches in the role of the main characters. In general, it all looks strange to them. We are very similar in this, not to mention the mechanics.
Sasha: It seems to me that Supercell can be blamed for everything here. They demonstrated that, in principle, this problem can be solved. In Clash of Clans, everything is so bright, positive, there is nothing there that it is only for boys. And at the same time, he's doing well with the cash register, and looking at him, of course, you try to follow in these footsteps. Isn't there such a thing?
Denis: It seems to me that it is incorrect to compare it with Clash of Clans here. The guys from Seriously have very specific problems: she's too hardcore for girls, she's too casual for boys, and her graphics are off—putting. And I think they have a huge problem with how to attract an audience. And if you go back to Clash of Clans.... Supercell in interviews like to say that their bright cartoon style of graphics is good, but considering that 95% of them are boys and the same ratio in the paying audience, then I am absolutely sure that if they had hardcore realistic graphics, they would have achieved more. It's like a “Zombie farm”, which, if it wasn't about zombies, in my opinion, would be more successful. Plus, it should be borne in mind that in the United States, cartoonishness does not cause rejection, as, for example, in Russia, where cartoonishness is for children and no one plays it.
Sasha: In general, if Best Fiends were about knights, about terrible monsters with hardcore graphics, would it be better?
Denis: They just have to choose whether they are for girls or they are for boys. Basically, it's the same for us. We made the same mistake with them in this.
Sasha: And if we go back to the gameplay…
Denis: You know, in this regard, I perfectly understand what, how and why they did, because we faced the same problem. Look, the very basic mechanics — shortening chains — if you don't introduce any additional elements into the field, a la “open the box”, “destroy the walls here” and all that kind of stuff is boring. Even the fight and the cuts: cut — hit, then it would be boring. We would have to introduce other elements, character skills, something else, and turn the mechanics around.
Therefore, they introduced — and we have exactly the same situation — some elements on the field that need to be played with, but there is a problem: you need to connect what is happening on the playing field and what is happening above it. They tied it up ugly. Just like two goals: kill the enemy and destroy the boxes. Plus, it's not pretty at all: they added a third goal — do it in a certain number of moves. We did a little more beautifully, for example, we have a yeti monster. It turns the player into a penguin. The penguin has a very weak attack. To break the curse, the player must collect the pieces of the amulet scattered across the field. You need to get to the pieces, connect them into an amulet and thereby reset the spell. And after that, it is already effective to beat the yeti.
Sasha: That is, it turns out to be a single logical chain.
Denis: Yes. Or there is a werewolf that generates the moon on the field. When the moon is on the field, he turns into a healthy wolf, which is much more difficult to kill. It's the same here: First you have to destroy the moon, and then get down to the werewolf who turned back into a human. But the problem with these schemes is that it is very difficult to balance it. You need to set up two elements of the game for different types of players: casual and not so much. It is unclear how they will react to all this. This led to the fact that we made it so that it was easier not to pay attention to these objects on the field at all (not to twitch for the amulet and the moon), but just stupidly match large chains and kill the enemy like that. We have the same goal - to kill the enemy. And it turns out that this element of the game on the field is... less involved. And you can't balance it in any way. So they went the easy way with unrelated tasks.
Sasha: Then the question arises. If there are such problems with chains, wouldn't it be better to do a traditional match-3 at all? If we look at the box office tops, then now there are exactly those “three-in-a-row" at the top that adhere to classical mechanics. The people who make them are clearly less steamed up.
Alexander: The remark is actually sound. I absolutely agree that for a casual audience it is better to have the mechanics closest to the classical one, in which it is necessary not to shorten the chain, but only to move one pebble. This mechanic is more tactical. The player, making a move, can predict his further actions. In addition, there are various cascades that give rise to combos, in other words, a set of a large number of points, which the player did not expect and which he is now happy about. But when we started developing the game, one of the tasks that we faced was to bring something new to the genre. We thought it was important enough for the success of the game.
Sasha: It turns out to be such an experiment.
Denis: By the way, I disagree with you here. I believe that the game can be made successful on this mechanics as well.
Alexander: It's easier to do this using traditional mechanics, the basics of which the players are already familiar with, than trying to teach them something unique. But I agree with Denis that it is possible to make successful games using new mechanics, but this is a much more difficult task.
SASHA: I'm definitely not arguing with that here. Going back to Best Fiends, this is what upset me in the game. When we play this or that leveling game, we often go through the old levels to pass where we currently stumble, collect experience and gold. It doesn't make sense to do that in this game.
ALEXANDER: The levels can be traversed, I tried this point, but I will say that the difficulty, as it seemed to me, automatically adjusts to your current cockroaches. I'm around the 40th right now. I tried to go through the levels up to the 20th. Theoretically, I should have passed them by surprise. But I only lost at these levels with about the same frequency, as if they were new levels.
Denis: In any case, there is no point in overplaying there, because at lower levels you have a lower reward for winning.
Sasha: It's generally small.
Alexander: The main guard is the keys with which you open the locks, and under them there is a standard distribution of midges.
Denis: No, it's not standard, I have 400 midges at a time on the hundredth level.
Alexander: So you skipped the moment after which the reward began to change. My reward is still about the same.
Sasha: Plus, the cockroaches themselves require more and more improvement from level to level. And if Revard hadn't grown up, there would have been very few positive emotions from the game.
Denis: By the way, with pumping, I'm sure that it doesn't bring them any money at all. The monsters are swinging pretty fast. And when you try to complete a level — over and over again — you farm enough of these midges. You're trying to complete a level and swing the characters at the same time. Therefore, everything happens quickly. I have never encountered a situation where I needed to pour money in order to upgrade the necessary character.
Sasha: I have the opposite situation. It is difficult for me to pass the levels regularly.
Denis: Well, play ten times and pump everyone up. Plus, you probably often lose at the level, not because your Persian is not cool enough, but because you can't complete the puzzle component.
Sasha: Well, for me this is a double difficulty. Sometimes I can't pass the puzzle, then I can kill the monster. The reasons are different every time — and it's annoying.
Alexander: So this moment — the passability of puzzles — also depends on the coolness of cockroaches. Their abilities increase from their level. If your cockroaches are not pumped, you simply will not be able to break the necessary box or collect the necessary number of flowers at one level or another.
Denis: They did this very well: a relatively small number of obstacles. They have a wall, there is a box, there is an indestructible wall and chocolate. That's all. They made a lot of interesting levels on this small number of objects. I especially liked the element with the walls that separate the stones. This element is very much asking for this reduction mechanics, whose problem is the following: you can immediately reduce a lot on the field. And too much changes in one cut on the field. You can deal with this either by exposing stones or by using all sorts of walls.
Sasha: Yes, and the walls/borders make the levels unique.
Denis: We only came up with a wall that completely occupies the cell, and they implemented walls between the cells.
Sasha: In the game, if we talk about monetization, it's not entirely clear to me why two types of midges were introduced. Both types are used in the improvement of cockroaches. It's harder to balance. It is clear that there is such a division in the game into ordinary and elite cockroaches. Elite ones require blue midges, not just yellow ones.
Alexander: I think this was done only in order not to scare with big numbers. If there was one resource, it would take a lot at a certain stage, and splitting into several resources makes it possible to set relatively small values, especially if one resource is more valuable than another.
Denis: In theory, yes, but in practice I haven't even encountered a shortage of blue midges in the game.
Alexander: On the contrary, I constantly lack them, but I compensate for this with crystals.
Sasha: Steering towards the end. They had events in the game — in a casual game.
Alexander: Yes, they made the Chinese New Year very beautiful, the camera flies through the bright Chinatown right to the statue with the goat. What else is good: they did not directly involve the cockroaches that we raise to complete the levels, because in this case problems could arise: people would come to the event either pumped or under-pumped. On the other hand, as a person who loves whole games where there is nothing superfluous, I am not thrilled that I raise my cockroaches there, and here I come completely naked.
Sasha: So it turns out that the game is in the game. By the way, what is the purpose of a particular event?
Alexander: The goal is this. There, initially, you were offered a unique cockroach for passing, which, it seems, cannot be obtained in the campaign. At least that's how I understood it.
Denis: Returning to the balance of the event: you either adjust it to a strong player, which is quite difficult, or you just put stock Persians, which is not very nice, but they chose not the most beautiful option.
Sasha: I remember the battlers, they've already thought of everything.
Denis: Three types of difficulty and so on?
Sasha: Not really. You always get a medal for participating in the event. But the coolness of the medal or prizes directly depends on how far you have passed the event, how many missions you have completed in it, and the missions themselves grow in complexity. The first ones are very simple, then a little harder, and until the end, of course, only the most rocked ones can pass, but still everyone will get a bun for participating.
Alexander: But this way he will not have a sense of completed action.
Sasha: And this is an incentive. He knows that he will get pumped up, return to another event and go on there.
Alexander: If the very principle of the game is based on a huge number of events, then yes, but if an event is a rare thing, then, rather, it will be a shame.
Sasha: But today, when we talk about games, we still mean service games, and service games without events are not so interesting anymore.
Denis: All King games are without events. A chain of levels and no events. And nothing, the projects earn well.
ALEXANDER: It all depends on the specific implementation. In one case, the event is able to diversify the monotony of ordinary levels, in another to surprise and retain the audience, but, in general, match-3 players do not really need diversity.
Sasha: The main thing is that there should always be new levels.
Denis: In any case, the guys did well to implement the events, and the levels there are quite difficult. In general, I took the event as a specific challenge mode. Plus, they did a very controversial thing. No energy is used at these levels. Yes, you don't get any reward for not passing....
Alexander: But there is an opportunity to get tired of the game. Any casual game needs to be limited, because they are all quite monotonous. So, in my opinion, the fact that the event is not limited in any way is still bad.
Denis: Yes, I agree. By the way, they also experimented with buying additional skills inside the battle, when you click on the field and they offer you to buy more, but it definitely doesn't work, it's a clear mistake. The same situation is in Jelly Splash, in which the scheme was changed at least four times, trying to sell boosts inside the battle, but it still didn't work out. Anyway, such events are very necessary, limited in time, diluting the monotony of missions in campaigns. Another thing is that they made it very expensive, this passage, this experiment with boosters, all these animations. But the thrill is the player, and I get not from all these things, but from just the new gameplay in my favorite game.
Alexander: If you look from the developer's point of view, then any event should be an inexpensive way to diversify the game, attract an audience and earn money. Immediately, they overdid it a bit. It's possible, of course, that they have a blank, a blank for future events, but all the visual content that the developers will just throw away is very expensive here.
DENIS: In the whole game, they have a huge problem with how the balance is organized at the level. The first levels are relatively difficult and even when you lose, you just have to replay five times and you pass the level. On the other hand, after the 60th, everything becomes very difficult - and difficult linearly. And they don't let you rest on your lungs after difficult levels, they don't have it. And their complexity increases linearly. In my opinion, this is a big problem. But they are cool that the new levels do not require a lot of new content, unlike our game. They have a certain set that they constantly work with.
Sasha: And what will you take from Best Fiends to "Looking for a Hero"?
Denis: We will take note of the events and the partitions between the stones.
Sasha: Drawing a line. Did you guys like the game yourself?
Alexander: I liked the design of the levels, their puzzles, diversity. I liked how the three-dimensional elements, the map, the backdrops in the levels are implemented, but, again, it is expensive and optional. I rather didn't like everything else. Extra pumping, an inarticulate target audience... who might like the cockroach and slug characters I'm fighting against?
Denis: I only played the game because it is very similar to “Looking for a Hero". If it wasn't for that, of course, I wouldn't have played it for so long.
Sasha: This is the verdict at the end.
Denis: No, the game is very good, no doubt, God grant everyone to do at least half of what is in Best Fiends.
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