Our talk is about how to use Lean Development and apply it to Game Development. BitCake Studio has been developing Project Tilt since before Steam ever had the Early Access program and we've gathered lots of know how on how to build a community from scratch and use them to help us build a better experience. Portuguese version: http://pt.slideshare.net/BitCake/benefcios-e-dificuldades-da-metodologia-lean-aplicada-jogos-eletrnicos

2. Bachelor in Game Design by Anhembi Morumbi
3d Animator by Gnomon School of Visual Effects
and Melies School
Started as Game Master for MMOs
Game Designer on the late Takô Online
GameFounders 4th class alumni!
HEEEY!

3. Developing Project Tilt: “Quake meets Mario Kart in 2D”
Coming soon to Steam

4. Once upon a time...
Started inside a bigger studio in 2012
Critical Studio gave us mentorship and office space

5. Unexpected
journey

6. HOW WE
WORK

7. Lean Startup
Methodology
Lean was introduced to us by Critical Studio
since the beggning it was priority in our process

8. This means everything we do is thought out as a test
and released to the end-user as soon as possible
How does it work?
Build > Measure > Learn
- Build MVPs to prove or disprove
hypothesis
- Validate your hypothesis with data
from experiments

9. Build
- Game has been open to the
public since the first month
- Built in MVP blocks
- Weekly tests with the players
from our tester group
Each new feature is still released as an MVP
Exemples: Missions, Friends, XP, Store

10. Measure
and Learn
We use this data to iterate on features and make them better
according to the players’ needs
GameAnalytics & database
for quantitative data
Facebook posts and player
feedback e-mails to collect
qualitative data

11. Our process
live game on the web
define
identify problems,
prioritize them and
create a hypothesis to
work on
analyse
feedback
players’ comments on
emails, facebook, etc
develop
build something and
test internally
get it out to the
community
marketing, customer
service, community
management

12. PROS CONS
Gather lots of user feedback
Get to know our audience
Answers: risk mitigation
Live and “living” game
Community <3
Revenue possibilities
Enough users for multiplayer
Marketing/social media puts a
lot of weight on the art team
Community management
Server costs (online game)
Hard to plan on the long term
As any process, it might not be perfect
and has pretty clear pros and cons

13. Knowing our audience is our greatest asset
And having a validated product makes us more confident
“No business plan survives
first contact with a customer.”
- Steve Blank
Knowing your user and validating your
ideas makes “risks” smaller.
You learn what works on your product,
what doesn’t, and what you should work
on first.

14. We lose a lot of time with activities that are not development
but that are part of having a product
But, that being said,
IT’S NOT EASY
Some important features are
delayed for not being a priority
We deal with too many things at
once for a small team
Constant bugfixes

15. We got success in various ways
and are working to make it a financial success too
In the end,
IS IT WORTH IT?
850k accounts created
100k MAU
active community on facebook and
discussion groups
6500+ feedback e-mails
GameFounders
Trip to China via Skymobi
Local industry recognition

16. In the end, what makes it worth it is the players’ engagement
and seeing that the game is important to them

17. eduardo@bitcakestudio.com
www.bitcakestudio.com
SHUPER
TEAM!!