This is Chillaptic's first self-published game on iOS and Android. Although we're a team of seasoned gamedevs, we made many mistakes that lead to a big failure. It is about the pitfalls of diving into indie development thinking you know how to make games. We're sharing the lessons we have learned and our new development plan for the future.

1. Some Sums
Making mistakes in indie game development
Taner Baubec
co-founder Chillaptic Studio

2. About me
Games 101
Chillaptic Studio
The Master Plan
Some Sums
Dev diary
Results
7 lessons we (re)learned
New rules
Current game

3. Co-founder Chillaptic Studio
7 years in games design (ex-Ubisoft ex-King)
Taner Baubec

4. Games 101
Mobile games ≠ Apps
Different shopping behavior
Games = Entertainment
Fun is about…
Learning, overcoming challenges, feeling good
Interesting choices (risk vs. reward)
Game terms
Gameplay, game feel, playtest, difficulty curve

5. Chillaptic Studio
Team
A game designer
A game programmer
And a game artist.
Goals
Present: Become sustainable ASAP.
Future: Games that impact the player’s thinking on life topics.

6. Make tiny games fast
Learn from failures
Repeat until sustainable
Gradually increase the scale of games
The Master Plan

7. Some Sums
Scope:
• Planned duration: 1 month
• Learn publishing
• Test marketing channels:
• Press emails, forums, facebook gamedev groups, reddit, twitter #indiedev #gamedev
• Fail was very expected and very welcomed
Game idea:
• “Numbers are falling! Catch them in a cup to make sums!”
• Apple was featuring math games at the time

8. Dev Diary: Month 1
Week 1: Good prototype, proved to have good potential
Weeks 2 and 3: Playtesting showed it wasn’t working for 50%, so we tried to...
• Explain the game through UI - bad sign
• Balance difficulty to match everyone’s level of skill - bad sign
• Added power-ups - good call
Week 4: Signs of a problematic concept
• Difficulty curve to skill-up players as they progress - hard task
• Continued solving problems because there’s good potential - falling in love

10. Dev Diary: Month 2
Iterate, iterate, iterate
• After still working on difficulty balancing, found a balance.
• Better graphics
• Gameplay mostly the same (tried different operators, didn’t work)
Organize (~ 1 week)
• Legal: founded company, accountant, papers.
• Setup domain, hosting, email accounts, etc.
• Slack: awesome, still use it.
• Trello: tried, then quit. Excel is better for us.

14. Dev Diary: Month 3
Soft Launch: Android, 5 countries, 200 Downloads (mostly friends)
• Tiny infinite gameplay with random numbers.
• No monetization yet (Ads + IAPs)
Results: Again good feedback about the game, but…
• Everyone wanted more (elements of retention).
• Didn’t feel rewarding enough.
Decisions
• Change the format (menu flow, game objectives), make it level based (level
objectives) - bad
• Add more production value: graphics, animations in game, in menus, sound effects -
good
• We started believing more and more in the game - bad
• Integrate Mopub ads, 2 weeks lost emailing support - bad

16. Dev Diary: Month 4
Waking up
• Game concept doesn’t scale well to the new format
• Overextended our goals
• Lost focus (reach, retention, revenue) to passion
• December + January = 1 month
Closing mind
• Tried to promote iOS beta, failed, found out people simply don’t care.
• Contacted by publisher but didn’t go through (repetitive gameplay)
• Added some level obstacles for variety - 2 days work - good

18. The end
• Self-Published on Appstore and Google play - submission process and store pages
• Promotion: press, bloggers, vloggers, forums
• Buy $50 facebook ads
• Acknowledge failure
• Had honest retrospective, drew conclusions
Break
• Took 1 week-off
New plan
• Re-evaluated our goals and strategy
Dev Diary: Month 5

19. Results
• 3000 store views (Appstore and Google
Play)
• 500 downloads in total
• 10$
• 4+ months to make, turned dead in a week
• Non-reusable creative work
• Most of analytics data is irelevant with so
few users.
Bad Good
• Deadlines are sacred. Killing projects, too.
• Re-usable technology
• 3rd parties (ad networks, analytics)
• Better aware of our weaknesses and
constraints:
• Time
• Marketing
• Publishing
• Analytics (it’s good to have data,
though)
• Big conclusion: We need publishers for
now

20. 7 lessons we (re)learned
1. Have a good plan. Focus on one thing only. Take decisions based on it.
2. Be a tyrant about objectives and deadlines – assassinate the baby as soon as it’s messing with
your plan.
3. Perfect means “good enough”.
4. Two things about feedback we always need to remember:
A. Friends - not a good choice. If necessary, extra care.
B. Take feedback that helps you implement the plan, not the one that changes the plan.
1. Plan breaks. Avoid guilt. We all need them.
2. Outsource weaknesses.
3. Don’t feel good about working hard. Feel bad. Work smarter instead.

21. New Rules
2 weeks dev-time for a game
Validate proto in 4th day
Track max. 2 things on the screen
Don’t explain the game through UI
Work on game feel early on - WIP
Don’t do marketing, find a publisher. - TO DO

22. Current game
2 weeks dev-time for a game - (1 week break)
Validate proto in 4th day - DONE
Track max. 2 things on the screen - DONE
Don’t explain the game through UI - DONE
Work on game feel early on - WIP
Don’t do marketing, find a publisher. - TO DO

23. Thank you!
Contact
taner@chillaptic.com
Chillaptic Studio
www.chillaptic.com
www.facebook.com/chillaptic
www.twitter.com/chillaptic
To play Some Sums, visit our website.