Seven Lessons for Achieving Consistency in Game Creation
I often write about games that hit the market with huge success and sell 100,000 copies in the first week. This is a fantastic result, but many more indie companies would be happy to simply have a steady income that allows them to make more games. Is it possible? Does Steam really only give you success or failure, and not something in between?
Introduction
This article is a free translation material Chris Zukowski with a story about John Nelson (Jon Nielsen) and his remarkable story of launching WitchHand, which brought him $90,000 in the first week. John's first post appeared on the X network and Chris contacted the developer to find out more details about the story.
The publication will be submitted on behalf of Chris with preservation of interview quotes, links to all resources and to support the author, you can subscribe to his mailing list and receive a book with tips on promoting your games on Steam. And to support the developer, you can simply buy one of his games.
The translation was prepared jointly with the guys from tutortopwhich make a convenient aggregator of courses for game developers and other IT professions.
Lesson 1: Release more games
Obviously, making games is more difficult than riding a bike. But even then, you still crashed your bike hundreds of times before you learned to stay on your feet long enough to ride around the block. So why do we expect our first games to be successful?
You have to release a few games that “break” before you can expect any form of success.
I show this graph often, but it is very important to understand. Most studios close or developers give up before releasing a second game.
John Nielsen's strategy is perfect: he has released three games since he started creating his own in 2021 and here are some information and statistics about his success:
Last Nova: appeared on Steam on April 15, 2021, and was released on May 11, 2022. It has collected 10,000 wishlists and 153 reviews.
Mechanibot: appeared on Steam on December 10, 2021, and was released on August 31, 2022. It collected 2000 wishlists and 48 positive reviews.
WitchHand: appeared on Steam on June 10, 2023, and was released on February 7, 2024. It collected 9,900 wishlists and 222 positive reviews.
As you can see, the development time is decreasing, and the income it receives is trending upward, which tells us the main thing – it takes time to learn how to create games!
Here's what John says about creating his games:
Lost Nova
“My first game, Lost Nova, was my dream game. She was exactly what I wanted her to be. I knew it had the potential to be successful with games like A Short Hike, but I wasn't too excited about it. Unfortunately for me, this game did not allow me to make money. I needed to create games with deeper mechanics that people would spend more time in.” – John Nielsen
Typically, starting with your dream game is risky because it leads to endless rework because the vision the developer has in his head never matches the beginner's skill level. John worked in the industry as an illustrator for many years before developing Lost Nova. I think it helped him understand scale and how to make games that look polished.
Mechanibot
“It's hard to admit, but I think Mechanibot had some design issues related to the core gameplay mechanics. I was still learning how to make games that were gameplay-oriented. However, the core of the game is still good and I would love to do some kind of Mechanibot spin-off/remake someday.” – John Nielsen
WitchHand
“WitchHand immediately took on a different vibe. The reaction to the first gifs I shared, the messages and comments I received… there was a real excitement in the air that I hadn't felt in my other games. And people liked the demo. The average playing time was 2 hours. Many people have told me that they have played it for over 10 years! Can you imagine playing a free demo for 10 hours?” — John Nielsen.
I hear this all the time and it's what I call “magic”. Some game ideas just take off without much marketing.
Lesson 2: Set boundaries and stick to them
How did John manage to release 3 games in 3 years?
“Sticking to a schedule and planning helps me. Fully understand the foundation and scope of your game before you begin. And try to take days off!” — John Nielsen.
Lesson 3: Stay small
The longer you work on a game and the more people you collaborate with, the more success the game must achieve to break even. The monthly cost of maintaining the studio is the payback ratio.
You can't control how many copies your game will sell, but you can control the speed of development and the scale of your game. Controlling costs is much easier than predicting success.
John takes an extremely lean approach. It helps that he has amazing art and that he can code, but you have to find ways to “keep things in check.”
“I did the art, design and wrote the code myself, and my partner Topher Anselmo worked on the soundtrack and helped with programming. He is the best!” — John Nielsen.
Lesson 4: Follow Steam Marketing Best Practices
WitchHand's marketing follows a very tried and true tactic: release a demo early in the marketing cycle, get YouTubers to play it and get into festivals. As you can see, he participated in the last festival before the launch of Next Fest, was among the popular ones and received good coverage on YouTube.
Here's a graph of WitchHand's cumulative wishlist:
…I teach this process in my master class”Wishlist & Availability“.
I recently looked at how games progress in the Discovery Queue (DQ) because it's one of the most powerful parameters Steam uses to drive traffic to your page. Here's what DQ did in terms of traffic within a week of launch:
Note that the highest peak occurred the day after launch, and then traffic slowly declined. A slow drop in traffic is good. For games that don't live up to expectations, DQ drops like a stone. But for games that really take off and become $1,000,000 sellers, I usually see DQ doubling every day for at least a week.
For more information on DQ, check out these articles:
Lesson 5: Follow Successful Games Fast
“I don't think I did anything special for WitchHand. The best decision I made was at the very beginning, choosing a genre and aesthetic. Should everyone make Stacklands-like games? Perhaps not (though I'm surprised I haven't seen more)” – John Nielsen.
WitchHand belongs to the new genre of solo-card-resource-management, which was pioneered in 2018 by Cultist Simulatorand then expanded and simplified Stacklands.
We're still at the point in the genre where there's no name for it, instead people just call it “-like” or list the games that pioneered it. In the 90s we used to say “doom clones” when describing FPS.
I've found some positive reviews of WitchHand, with people saying how much they love that WitchHand is the next evolutionary step in a line of pioneering games. Notice they don't say “It's just a useless clone”! They love that the game is so similar to other games they love.
I think card management games are a great genre for small teams just starting out. That's why:
They don't have a lot of images. You just need some good 2D art to put on the cards.
The gameplay cycle of combining resources to obtain a new resource is the basis of almost all games dedicated to this genre. This is a good place to learn how to design this type of gameplay.
The pleasure of the game comes from accidents input data that can be endlessly generated by different combinations of cards.
Due to randomness, players spend more time in these games, which is good for the Steam algorithm and streamers.
It's a great stepping stone to more complex games like 4X, Open World Survival Craft and City Builders. You can practice developing these types of games on a simpler card game without having to create the many systems that other, larger genres require.
It's a new genre with fans who are hungry for more games like this.
Genre “anchors“have not yet taken hold, so there is room for innovation and experimentation.
You don't have to deal with complex programming for gameplay, such as combat, jumping, physics. One of the biggest challenges for new teams is getting the “feel of the game” right. If done incorrectly, combat can feel “clunky” or “slippery” and you'll get bad reviews. In this card gameplay, interaction is done using the mouse – clicking, dragging and zooming.
Lesson 6: Small Innovations
You can't just clone a hit game, but at the same time, new teams shouldn't try to reinvent an entirely new genre (it's too difficult).
I think the reason Mechanibot didn't succeed is because it was too different from other genres. It tried too many new mechanics.
Instead, WitchHand followed the genre, but changed it up ENOUGH to make it unique and interesting:
“I can't help but bring my own taste and style to everything I do. This alone is worth something, I think. When I made WitchHand, I had a rule: not to remake mechanics from Stacklands without studying each of them thoroughly. I couldn't just say, “Well, they did it this way, so I'll do it this way.” And, of course, I made my own changes to some aspects that I didn't really like. I didn't like opening the glossary to look up recipes, so I turned the recipes into cards. I didn't like how the Buy and Sell buttons were blocked on the board and often off-screen, so I made them part of the UI.” – John Nielsen
Lesson 7: Watch for Mixing Genres
Note: According to John, Lost Nova did not live up to his expectations. He hoped to make another simple and useful game like A Short Hike. Why didn't Lost Nova take off? It looks good, it's solid, like A Short Hike. The action takes place in beautiful forests. It has the pastel color palette that all “cozy” games need!
I have no data on this, but my gut tells me that every cozy game has to walk a very fine line. Stray too far from what makes a cozy game cozy and fans will ignore it. I also think it seems stupid but the main character uses a gun. Yes, it's a peaceful, calming, charming tool, similar to the ray gun from 1950s sci-fi movies, but there's some unwritten rule of cozy games that you can't use “shot” as the basis of gameplay.
Here is a short list of mechanics that, in my experience, cannot be in “cozy” games:
Kills, Shoot, Attack, Destroy.
But these ones can be found in the field:
Farming, Decorate, Explore, Craft, Talk, Organize.
Lost Nova demonstrates that shooters/space/lasers are not cozy. I believe that such cozy games should take place in a familiar, everyday place that evokes sympathy. Because Lost Nova was set on an alien planet with strange (but still cute) Sci-fi creatures, the game violated one of the audience's unwritten expectations.
I can't think of a single useful game that had guns in it. There's a vacuum “gun” in Slime Rancher, but it's really cute.
Making games is hard because you have to deal with people's quirks. It can be a perfectly fun game, but if it doesn't tickle our brains in the right way, we reject it. A tiny deviation from what the brain wants and it becomes indifferent to it. It's like adding a little more salt to a soup and it turns from rich and tasty to disgusting. The same thing happens with games. If at least one ingredient is outside the norm, the brain says: “NOT.”
On the other hand, I think what WitchHand does so well is because it navigates between genre and theme just right while still being innovative.
Cute witches making potions and creating spells is a very popular theme, and the gameplay of combining items to create new ones fits perfectly into the fan-favorite witch theme.
Additionally, Steam doesn't like games with simulation elements. They love deep games. WitchHand is John's most difficult game, and it is also his most successful. Look at this screenshot! This is the difficulty Steam players crave!
My advice to developers is to pay close attention to the genre and theme. Adding just one tiny element that conflicts with the genre can have a huge impact on how your game is perceived. This is why I think mixing genres is riskier than most developers realize; this increases the likelihood that you will have conflicting genre/theme/mechanics.
What's next
The key to a fast release strategy like John's is to stay nimble. If the game fails, start the next one, and so on until you succeed.
Now John has traction. So what's now? Double down and keep updating WitchHand? Moving on to game four?
“I'm definitely going to continue making games. It is very funny! It's the best way to use all the skills I've accidentally acquired over the years, all at once. I don't have any grandiose plans to create a studio. I'm going to keep making games that won't take me and my friend Topher more than two years to complete. With WitchHand gaining attention, I'm very interested to see how the big update I'm working on comes out, but I'm sure it won't be long before I get to work on the fourth game.” – John Nielsen
Bonus comment: What could be improved
John is doing an amazing job releasing many games at a steady pace. I believe this is the best way to have a long-term career in this industry. One of the strengths of this approach is that you create a catalog so that when someone discovers one of your games, there is a chance that they will buy ALL your games.
So it's important to make it easy for people to find all your games.
There are a couple of small improvements John could make to increase sales.
I was a little disappointed that his game's main menu doesn't have a button that says “More from John” to open his studio page.
Also, since he now has 3 games, Jon should make a “Jon Nielsen Bundle” where all his games can be purchased at once. It's very easy to set up and people will be able to give you more money.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading! Write in the comments about your attitude to these tips, and also look for other materials and useful links about game development, game design, monetization and game promotion in my profile.
See you later…
