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Fantasy Kommander - Eukarion Wars (UD) (view all articles)
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Written by Fabio
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Hi all
Mmm, how can I start this diary?
To be honest, in my 10 years of videogame and interactive software development, this is the first time I'm writing a development diary.
And to be more honest, this is not the best time to start a diary about this project.
So, if you stop to read now I can stop to write and everyone will be happy... or not?
Ok, let's try to write something interesting that I can discuss later with you, crazy old (or new?) generals of FK.
First of all, you must know that we really did many errors during the development of “Fantasy Kommander-Eukarion Wars”. So many that the project has now about 18 months of delay...
Software development is not linear and indy companies like ours have many unexpected problems to manage. We did many errors mainly because we were afraid to make too many errors and to release a game that will not earn enough money... so we did many errors!
FK-Series was (and is) a success on AOG but it's not a global internet hit like other flashgames. The main “problem” is the audience of this game. Fantasy Kommander is more like a wargame than a more accesible casual strategy-turn based game. In the free-flash market most of people don't want a complex wargame like FK so it has not millions of gameplays and a 4+ rating in the web and so we don't earn enough money from the ads in the game. After years of development I belive we did a big mistake developing FK in flash. It would have been really better to develop this game/series in Unity 3D or Java and sell it from the first time. Flash has not the right audience in its market and has many limitations, like a really slow AI (the problem that you have to wait too much before the enemy moves) and issues in managing big maps with many armies... but, as of now, we are using the flash technology so we have to wrap up things and make our best with it. And we'll do!
Considering all these things, our final, “strategic”, decision was to develop 2 games:
- Fantasy Kommander 3
- Fantasy Kommander – Eukarion Wars
Fantasy Kommander 3 will be still full free but will have 5 battles only in the single player campaign and limited multiplayer.
Fantasy Kommander – Eukarion Wars will be sold (probably at 19,95 USD) and will have 8 campaigns (4 Adamantia/4 Kaos) and unlimited multiplayer.
FK 3 will pratically be the Demo (to launch in the web) of Fantasy Kommander – Eukarion Wars. Please don't hate us for this, but as I tried to explain yo you before this is the only way for thi project-series (and us!) to survive.
In this period, coders have finished the editors and all the “structures” of the game. I'm finalizing some Game Mechanics and the Story. Soon I'll start the Game Balance, in general and for every single map...
I'd like to involve you in this crucial development phase submitting to you, in this and in the next episode of the diary, some questions.
This time my questions for you are the following:
- What do you think about this development diary?
- What aspects of the game development do you want to know better?
- Do you like historical wargames?
- Do you know people that like historical wargames but don't like fantasy background?
- Do you think that the fantasy background can be a “problem” for serious strategy game players?
- 19,95 USD is a right price for FK – Eukarion Wars? Why?
- Do you think to buy the game? Why?
- If you had the money to buy FK-Eukarion Wars or another strategy game and you'll decide to buy the other one, could you tell us what that game would be?
Thank you very much for your time and attention!
P.S. Just a reminder: FK-Eukarion Wars will be free for all AOG supporters. We will probably stop this special offer very soon!
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Comments
Thank you very much!
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/168303/defenders_quest_by_the_numbers.php
It seems to address a lot of the issues you are looking at with a very recent example. The author is unusually open with his numbers and details and has some surprising (and some not surprising) conclusions.
One thing that always frustrated me is that the overall game strategy relies too much on not letting any of your units die - winning a battle but losing half your guys is really a loss and you can't really continue. I'd love to see that de-emphasized. I find it a lot more fun and compelling (and, dare I say, realistic?) to win a hard, close fought battle where most of my guys die, but I won by the skin of my teeth. Also, being able to sacrifice units adds more strategic depth. I'd like to see that style of gameplay without it jeopardizing my continuation of the campaign.
And I'm really glad that now you're an AOG member!
Your comments are really smart and will help us for sure.
We'll be more than happy to discuss with you all the "episodes" of this diary and the features of the game when it'll be release!
Welcome, welcome, welcome on AOG!
regarding the diary - love it. Be careful getting too involved with user feedback. Accepting the feedback is crucial - how to use it successfully is very difficult. Everyone has ideas on what they want to see, but few people actually know what works. Taking too much input can also pull your core ideas away from the main theme, or fragment it too much. I remember joining a community based around the development of a game that was almost entirely user based ideas - it did not even reach alpha. Remember you are the professionals. We as users do get a lot of value from being kept in the loop, though.
- what aspects of game development would I like to know better? Don't really have any requests for that.
- Historical games or fantasy or Sci-fi, how the game is implemented is more important to me. All 3 have very rich material to pull from. Do what your designers are most compelled by, and they'll make the best game possible.
- There are definitely people who prefer historical to fantasy, but don't try to cater to everyone. Your post with the map explains well your personal feelings on the matter, and I think it's a good direction to go in.
- for the money and sales issues, see my previous post
As far as price point and marketing strategy, I think the best fairly recent example to look at is Plants vs. Zombies. Published by a casual flash developer delving into selling the full downloadable package. I think they started out at $10. The hook was that you could download it for free and play for an hour, at which point you were hooked. FK could do something similar, offer a DL of the full game where you can play a large amount of the content (don't be stingy here!) and then offer the signigicantly expanded campaigns for $10 or so.
I think at $20 I would probably buy FK-ET just because I am in love with the series, but if I was approaching it anew I would not risk it, even though I'm a fan of the genre.
There are actually some good examples of other content out there where the premium price is surprisingly low, such that I whipped out my wallet with wide eyes. Someone mentioned Kingdom Rush already, which is a good example.
Dear camsyams
I hope to release it very soon, but now, after all the failed release dates of the past, I can't say you a date.
The answer is ASAP!
Thanks for your patience.
FK3 will be full free and will have a link to FK-Eukarion Wars.
We'll sell FK-Eukarion Wars.
Probably, after all the comments we received, we'll make a version of the game with a "freemimum" strategy that is a game basically free but that you have to pay to play more campaigns.
Thanks for your feedback!
A freeware demo would be O K but I feel a freeware copy of the full game would just detract from its viability as a money spinner.
as for the putting it on other sites.., F K 1 is on kongregate and has had a fair few plays on there. It could be a simple thing to put that on other sites to feed the advertising requirements.
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