Casual Game Tutorial — Agile R&D: Start Small, Aim Big

When we mention the creation of casual games, the one natural advantage that comes to mind is the short R&D phase of these games.

Then how can we maximize this advantage and turn it into a core competitive factor?

Here, Ohayoo hopes to bring our extensive experience in publishing casual games in the Chinese market to the table and share our product R&D model — Agile R&D — with fellow developers who just started developing casual games.

Agile R&D: Efficient Communication with Quick Iterations, which can Better Balance Risks and Revenue

Compared to traditional R&D models, the core idea of Agile R&D can be divided into 4 aspects:

“Practice makes perfect.” We believe that only through actually publishing 1–2 casual games can we truly understand this category and its gamers.

Changes in game data, experience in the product optimization process, user reviews, and comparing the expected results to actual results are all helpful for future product planning and optimization. At the same time, we recommend that Ohayoo’s publishing process can help both parties build a more efficient cooperation mechanism, further lowering the R&D production cost.

This is why we recommend developers, especially those who just joined the party to try out our Agile R&D model to explore the industry.

So, how many stages are there in the Agile R&D process? And what problems can each stage solve?

Agile R&D≠R&D Shortcut: Advance Step by Step + Timely Stop-loss

First of all, we have to clarify that Agile R&D≠R&D shortcut. Agile R&D is a complete and rigorous process.

With the Agile R&D process, we suggest developers focus on measurement factors of the next stage when they have done all they can to achieve the core output of the current stage. We only advise developers to consider the next stage’s R&D output if they have cleared their current R&D stage goals step by step. This prevents the decrease in efficiency or increase in cost due to overwhelming information.

We also suggest developers consider “loss prevention”, especially when there’s a large data difference between the expectations from planning and the actual market research during data analysis. We do not recommend developers to force ahead, as there will be other chances for success.

Agile R&D≠Quick R&D: Accumulate Knowledge + Cater to the Market

In the above section, we have mentioned that Agile R&D is a complete and rigorous process, this means that Agile R&D will not speed up your R&D duration, it is not designed to accelerate the R&D process. Agile R&D encourages verification at each step so as to lower trial-and-error costs and increase efficiency, it is also a chance to gain experience and understand the market.

Of course, we at Ohayoo will share our experience with developers during the process. The following are some common problems that developers face at different stages of R&D and our own experience:

01 Creative Thinking

Be as creative as possible, think of 2–3 possible development directions.

1. Use market data tools for social listening, and discover innovative gameplay with high acceptance rates by observing market hotspots (Refer to China’s market);

*Third-party open data source: Qimai Data (publishing situation of same type products), Analysys Qianfan/Ta (user population characteristic analysis), Aldzs, Steam casual games ranking, Pangle industry sharing (advertisement market’s trends)

*Recommended social media platforms to pay attention to: Weibo, TikTok/Douyin, Bilibili

2. Ohayoo holds popular creation sharings from time to time.

02 Planning Stage

Clearly identify the core gameplay and overall plans. Create a complete plan by deciding the target audience, system, theme, and art style.

1. Gameplay: There are no strict restrictions on casual games’ gameplay, be it shooting, action, tower defense, idle, or simulation; try to be innovative, freshen up existing gameplay, or bring back classic gameplay and simplify it. But don’t make the controls too complicated, it’s best that it can be easily picked up by most players. “Something that even your grandparents can play.”
2. Target audience: Try to choose ad monetizable users (30–50 year old males), female ad monetization rate is generally lower. At the same time, weekends and holidays are the best for monetization. Developers can launch special events during these periods;
3. Mechanism: We recommend keeping each level’s play time less than 5 minutes (except for specific categories), and also to make it pausable and resumable at any time; (for example, asking if the player wants to resume the battle data from the last interrupted battle).
4. System: The growth of an outstanding core gameplay does not necessitate overly complicated subsystems. 1–2 objectives at a time are enough. It’s best to combine the subsystems with the core gameplay. Usually, players can collect resources in the main gameplay and train characters through the subsystems. In turn, stronger characters allow them to proceed with the main gameplay. The resources collection path needs to be clear and precise.
5. Theme: Try to choose Chinese elements and not medieval European style which has higher comprehension costs if you aim at China’s market. Developers can make games more interesting by adding a storyline, but nothing that requires players to spend a lot of time to comprehend. Also, it’s best to make sure that the gameplay is not affected even if the player does not recall the story or characters.
6. Art style: Pick something light-hearted and bright, try to avoid a dark style as that costs more in advertising. Try to make characters unique. It’s fine as long as they are distinguishable. There is no need to make detailed face models for each character.

03 CTR Test

Present the finished core gameplay. Make a CTR test video (15/30 seconds) mainly with screen recordings.

1. CTR test videos are not game CGs. There is no need to make it perfect. The aim is to present the core gameplay, gameplay screen recording should appear within the first 5 seconds of the video.
2. The CTR value can indicate the game’s attractiveness. Do not edit the video in order to get a higher CTR value. Developers have to accept the users’ choices. Lying to yourself does not help.
3. A good CTR value does not mean that the game will 100% succeed, player retention is also important. In China, hyper-casual games still need a LTV higher than 6 dollars if they want to make it big;
4. A bad CTR value does not mean the game should be abandoned, its LTV also affects the situation. Some categories and themes naturally have a bad CTR value but a high LTV can make up for it. For example, tower defense, idle games, and the Three Kingdoms themed games.

04 Second-day Retention Version

Produce a version with 2–3 days worth of content and connect to SDK to commence testing. This stage mainly tests the player’s acceptance of the core gameplay so the addition of subsystems is unnecessary.

1. Casual gamers focus more on the core gameplay so we recommend a shorter opening scene. Users should be able to understand the core gameplay within the first 2 minutes of starting the game. Different from hardcore games, casual games should keep tutorials to a minimum and allow players to explore the game themselves.
2. Casual games can have subsystems for resource mining. One system for resource mining is enough for retaining users. Too many functions might be too complicated for the user to comprehend, and reduce participation and retention rate.
3. Allow new users to understand the game on the first day and avoid displaying ads too soon. When there is a conflict between these two considerations, choose retention. Retention means that the users will contribute to watching more rewarded ads in the future. A reasonable situation is to reduce ads on the first day and increase them on the second day.

05 Optimizing the Long-term Retention Version

Set long-term goals for users through rich game content and game system optimization.

This process may involve multiple version tests to decide an optimization direction. It is not recommended to test only after doing everything in the plan.

Common game systems for setting long term goals:

Stats: Stats growth is the most common casual gaming system. This can effectively increase player retention and ads watched by stimulating the player’s competitiveness with the stats of a character;

RPG: Split the main stats into several stats and increase the capacity, allowing players more options for training. Also, different quality equipment and set bonuses are common systems in Chinese games so the comprehension cost is low.

Roguelike: Increase random buffs in stages/rewards to increase game enjoyment. It is also possible to set the game difficulty randomly to urge players to explore different possibilities.

Battle Pass: Encourage players to spend more time in the game by giving out special rewards. More time spent means higher retention and monetization rate. A reasonable Battle Pass design will add to players’ long term goals. High-level rewards in casual games can be unlocked by achieving a certain amount of activeness or through watching ads.

Agile R&D≠100% Success: Stage Verification + Trust

Developers will often ask, “how long will it take to create a chart-topping game if we opt for Agile R&D cooperation?” “What’s the success rate?”

Ohayoo’s reply would be:

First of all, each developer’s background, experience, and skills are different, so it is hard for us to predict how many iterations or how long will it take to succeed, but with each iteration of Agile R&D, we gain crucial experience that is required for making the number one game.

Secondly, we do not endorse predicting results from success rate.

On one hand, as a casual game publisher, we hope to be able to work with more developers. We also hope that our services can help developers improve their abilities for cognitive iteration. In order to achieve this, continuous cooperation is required. No matter how small the idea, we can make it into something big together;

On the other hand, speaking from a developer’s point of view, previous cooperation with publishers were all only about the product data, so a lot of developers are against cooperating and communicating before their product is finished, and this is something we at Ohayoo wish to change. We sincerely hope that developers can make good use of our services and resources, and start working with us during the early stages of project planning. The sooner you reach out to us, the more services and support we can provide, and the trial-and-error cost will thus decrease. Through communication, we can further understand each other, making cooperation more efficient and building trust between teams.

Conclusion

Ohayoo looks forward to hearing your opinions, and truly hope that our tutorial can act as an inspiration to help you step foot into the gaming industry! For more information about Ohayoo, please follow us and contact us by email if you have any inquiries.

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Ohayoo Games

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