My last blog was 5 years ago. In it, I talked about Sergey Meshchersky – a simple sisadmin from Murmansk and the creator of the Games “Syria”, “Diamant”. The blog was presented in the interview format.
Since then, much has changed. Probably the wildest changes have occurred in this crazy year. I wondered what changed with Sergey. Despite the fact that from the last interview, Sergey and I regularly communicate, but this concerned more about the games detached from the games. How his games live I knew only remotely. This text, in fact, is a continuation of the previous blog. If you are especially interested in this topic, then start reading from the very beginning. Like last time – exclusive for Stopgame.
Hello! How are you doing? Like your company? Still, a lot of time has passed ..
– Hello Stopgame! I continue to work on games. Launched a new game AOD. The company has not changed. In fact, the backbone remained the same: the artist, the server programmer and I. But at the same time, at one time or another, we hired more people to help. But not for long. Indie-deelop is a very harsh occupation, not everyone will hold.
The artist is still Alexander Tarakanov, about whom we wrote in the last interview?
– Certainly. Alexander is indispensable. Everything you see and feel on the screen is his work. There would be nothing without him. I really want to note his attention to all the most insignificant details when drawing a particular object. Even I sometimes discover the new for myself in his drawings. For example, I myself only recently saw that in the new game on snow levels under the thickness of the ice, dinosaurs froze. And he was silent, did not say. And each such find is a delight!
And what is the main difficulty of the game development of games?
– The difficulty of indie development is that you never know what will happen tomorrow. At first it seems: "Oh, how cool, you work for yourself!"And then awareness comes. When yourself, then for yourself you always overstrain the bar. At a certain moment, you try to embrace the immense and you can break (and many break, I know examples). Naturally, this is not only for the developers, it is for any entrepreneur so. And to hired workers, when the team is small, also the requirements are high, they are also sometimes hard, they can’t stand it. I’m not talking about the issue of money, from season to season their number can vary. Today you are on a horse and 3,000 people a day go to the game, and tomorrow you fell from the horse and, well, if a person has come five.
Where it is better to start a person who dreams of his own game? Immediately look for the company of like -minded people or swim alone, in the hope that they themselves will find you?
– Cases are different. If you really immediately found like -minded people, then why not. If you are united by a common goal, you have a “airbag” to go on a long development path, if you are sure of every team member and know that no one will fall off along the road, then boldly dare. Doing something together in the company is much better than one. However, most developers still start on their own alone. How I did it.
Is there state support for IT companies?
– As far as I know, at the moment the law on IT support is being prepared. But so far we have experienced only general concessions in terms of taxation. Several times they called me from the Center for the Support of Entrepreneurs of the Murmansk Region and offered help. For free! And even almost persuaded. But, unfortunately, I did not have work for them.
There are many freelancers about the “declins” of tenants, and how the employer sees the freelancers themselves? Probably expired deadlins – everyday life?
– I never put any deadlines in front of https://playhub-casino.uk/ freelancers, I just assessed the speed and quality of their work, tried it on my bell tower. And this was the main error of approaching work with them. It was necessary to do this: we take my speed, efficiency and motivation and divide by 2 (at least). Then we are already imposing these requirements for hired.
I know that your new game “AOD: Art of Defense” was released on Steam. Maybe my ideas are obsolete, but I think this is a significant achievement. In the last interview, you already admitted that you thought about the publication of games on this site. Why did this happen only now, after 5 years?
– Yes, we went to Steam, but with some very great achievement, I do not think it. Why so long? The fact is that we ourselves have rejected our early games to release in Steam. And according to the schedule and according to content. Plus, they were written on Flash, decided that we would not go there with such games. Then, when they developed the AOD game (2 years ago), they first decided to go to the already proven social networks: VK, FB. Then they released the game for all popular mobile platforms. We were in no hurry with access to Steam. The game is constantly growing, new chapters, new "Fisheki". Honed and went there. Now we still plan to go to Winstore.
Is it difficult now, in 2020, an indie developer to “get through” in Steam? How did it happen in your case?
– It was easy to go out on Steam. No problem with registration arose. The price of the issue is about 6,000 rubles per one application. All documentation in Russian, everything is transparent and understandable not even a sophisticated user. Basic trouble: API (achievements, payments, Steam-cloud), but also here is solved.
They loaded the build, designed a page: description, screenshots. The check goes in 2 stages: first check the appearance of the page, and after passing this check, check the game itself. The page was checked right away and gave the go -ahead, but with the game itself we initially rejected various minor shortcomings. But there were precisely our "jambs" by inexperience. For example: since the game is on mobile, we suggested leaving a review / assessment. In Steam, this is strictly prohibited. I really liked the fact that the inspectors really played the game, but did not look.
Since we make the game in Unity, there were no problems on the technical part of the transition to other platforms. Easily made the assembly for Windows, Linux and Mac.
How the players took your game? It’s no secret that the audience of social.networks differs from Steam audience. Did not cut the "browser"?
– Indeed, Steam has its own specific audience and we were well aware that it was dangerous to get there with the Free-to-Play model. Tried to prepare for this. The reviews are different, but mostly positive (75%). We can say that the players warmly met the game and the worst fears were not confirmed.
This is good. Whether the pandemic affected you and the whole team?
– When the pandemic began, it did not affect our work in our work. We work from the house everything. All from different cities and even different countries. We were all so -home, and then there is an extra reason to sit more, to win/draw plenty.
But with the income and activity of the players there were some oddities. At the very beginning, in February-March, the activity of the players increased sharply. But! The income began to fall sharply. As if players were afraid to spend money. They can see and really did not know what was waiting for them ahead. But then in June-July-August, everyone seemed to break off the chain and began to spend and spend. Sometimes even inexplicable. Thawed.
It is clear that you will not agree to make financial statistics, but at least general – what your games have reached in these 5 years?
– I can indicate the number of registered users: AOD – 900,000, diamond – 2,000,000, Syria – 1,300,000. Is it big statistics for indie? Given that the Syrian budget (including advertising) amounted to 0 rubles, and the rest-no more than 100,000, then this is quite good, in my opinion.
What is the specificity of the creation of genre games Tower Defenses?
– The most difficult thing in TD is to make and calculate the game balance. The fact is that AOD is not an easy Tower Defense. We have a huge pumping tree of each gun, we have heroes who also have their own branch, we have modifications and so on and so on. It is very important to find a thin line so as not to get a player in a complete dead end and at the same time, so that it does not seem to him that everything is too easy and boring. Giving the player a huge freedom of choice, we ourselves subscribed to the difficulties. But all difficulties are completely solved. But yes, this is really the most difficult and we are still working on the balance. Every day.
The game on Unity? This is a “weak” engine, according to some players.
– Any engine is just a set of tools. It’s not about the engine, but how you can use it. For example, our new game is so optimized that even on the weakest cars and ancient phones with Andorid 4.4. This is taking into account the fact that AD is a rather dynamic game.
Unity is a convenient tool for playing games, sharpened precisely for this. Plus universal and multi-platform. Again, free. I do not see him alternatives in our niche.
I will not believe that you catch all bugs yourself. Surely seek help from players for help.
– I have a small group of enthusiasts that help me in testing the game here in VK. Each new release always first comes out on the VK platform, we polish the bugs (those that I did not find), and after that we run into the world. The guys are very cool, are always happy to help the project.
Now there is such a trend that the developers are talking about small tricks in their games. For example, enemies do not attack the player if they are out of sight. Are there such tricks in AD?
– Actually no, there are no such tricks in the game. We have a lot of gameplay secrets with which a player can win a particular battle. But they are all known on the battlefield, the player opens them himself (and we tell him something in the course of the game), which leads him to victory.
Tell me about your strategic plans. How do you see your games after another 5 years?
-We have long been thinking about a large multiplayer project. There were many ideas: it was a multiplayer based on Tower Defense, and a huge RTS strategy, and mass battles in medieval style. There were different thoughts, but so far almost all ideas have been rejected. But still, at the moment, something is loosening and, perhaps, in the future we will introduce a good game to the world, which will like so many. Let’s hope.
Fine. I see that you have touched for the future, which means there is still where to move. Thanks for the answers Sergey. My blog will be published before the New Year that you wish readers?
-New Year is a great time to make a desire. One of the best is to wish to change your life. Become a game developer, learn something new, open your own business or achieve a height that has never conquered before. I wish you just such desires and, I guarantee, they will definitely be fulfilled!