D-Pad Studio

Games As A Service

Part #2

Written by Jo. These thoughts are my own, and are not written on behalf of D-Pad Studio. Meet me and my team at DICE, GDC and SXSW 2017!

You can read this post in it's entierty here.



Customer interaction is great right? I mean, before launch, you go seeking as many likes and comments about your game as possible. It's a way to pre-maturely measure how successful your launch will be.

Post-launch however, we experienced a certain sense of impending doom with every thread, review or mention of Savant - Ascent, fearing that it would contain yet another request by our 'wanting' player base.





How far did we go to keep up with player demands? Let's make a list.


FEATURE WEEKS DETAILS
Full controller support 2 Added tooltips, tutorials, options + extensive testing
Wide-screen support 3 Redrew assets, re-program camera, test on various screen
Achievements 3 Integrate Steam SDK, plan challenges, adding icons
Online Scoreboards 3 Add anti-cheat systems, lobby screens, assets
Translations 4 Replace all in-game text, find a reliable translator
Mobile 12 Memory management, touch, get iphone/ipad/android
Ports 4 Compability, extensive tests on Mac/Linux
Console ??? Ratings, publishers, devkits, timelines (still on-going)




Did we go overboard with keeping up with the game? We sure as hell did.

On the flip side, we became pretty darn happy with our work, and it did bolster us for the juggernaut to come, the release of our 10 year project - Owlboy.

But this is what game-development has largely become these days. The curse/blessing of the 'continous development'. Minecraft isn't the only one affected. It happens to all of us.



A portion of your playerbase will always want more - you just have to realize that this is usually a good thing, while keeping in mind that you're not obligated to keep working on it. Players wanting more is a good sign that you're on the right track of making something great! Keep working on it with current feedback, or note it - and continue with a new project with what you've learned.

We kept on working with the feedback - and after we'd implemented our players requests, we saw a boost in sales! Our dedication to improving the game had worked, and we decided it was time to go bigger!

After a good first run, we started working on an expansion.

> Read Part #3 of this post.






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Owlboy is launched! For more info, visit owlboygame.com.