Unga Bunga Post Mortem

[jordan1207]

Hi everyone,

I've been hanging around here for a while, but haven't actually posted anything since the move from Dexterity.

Anyway, I've finally gone ahead and written a post mortem for my first game project, Unga Bunga. I hope you find it helpful. For my part, I find few things more enlightening than reading the mistakes and successes of fellow game developers (and I wish there were a few more post mortems hanging around these forums). This, being my first effort, after my first game, is admittedly an amateur piece of work... but perhaps it still has some worth. Let me know what you think.

PDF version: Unga Bunga Post Mortem (http://fusionapple.com/UngaBungaPostMortem.pdf)

HTML version: Unga Bunga Post Mortem (http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Unga_Bunga_Postmortem)

[Emmanuel]

Hey,

It's a very nice read. A released amateur product and post-mortem product are infintely better than an unfinished professional project !

Now that you identified what you did wrong, do you intend to fix these mistakes? If you have a conversion rate of 3% (which is a good start), you have some money, so you get to call the shots.

If the game is really unusable on, say, a Pentium II under Windows 95, you can get someone to do a C or C++ version of the important code (ie, in-game code, probably the intro screens and whatnot can be left as they are -- you don't want to invest in rewriting code you already have, if that won't pick up more customers !)

You can get someone to do professional-looking art as well. There are many offers on the forums here. If you can't find someone you trust, I can personally vouch for an independent who does great 2D and 3D art and cares about his projects. (not a plug -- do visit forums first !)

I would suggest to get in touch with your customers and ask them to rate the best and worst feature of your game. You will know what to work on in order to get new sales !

You're right that having completed and released your product is a big step and you should be happy about that. Now you get the chance to improve it !

[cliffski]

interesting read but.... PDF format?
WHY?????

[Nemesis]

Very interesting read.. thanks for sharing.

It almost begs the question: why don't you get a professional pixel artist for the graphics and release an update of Unga Bunga before a major sequel? I mean, the game is paying for itself already so it might be worth the expense? Perhaps even a deal with an enthusiastic but talented amateur artist who's willing a share of future profits. Giving the game some good looks would give you the opportunity to get it on the major casual game sites.

[Teq]

An interesting read, glad you shared that with us, might have to do the same thing sometime, though then I'll have to admit to my mistakes! hehe ;)

[20thCenturyBoy]

interesting read but.... PDF format?
WHY?????
Well, they're good enough for Mr Stroustrup's articles (http://www.research.att.com/~bs/papers.html) :D

20thCB

[20thCenturyBoy]

I had a quick look at the game. The art isn't bad but a good artist could do wonders for the look. Also it wouldn't hurt to have more animations eg when I hit another caveman he just stands there, it would be nice if he did something (cower, hop around, you get the idea). Also the fade out effect at the end was annoyingly jerky, not in keeping with the rest of the game which ran smoothly.

BTW on the first level how do I get my caveman to the higher branches? There doesn't seem to be a high enough ledge...

20thCB

[Jim Buck]

Can you give an idea on what kind of numbers you are getting for downloads (to get a 3% conversion rate)?

[Gnatinator]

Can you give an idea on what kind of numbers you are getting for downloads (to get a 3% conversion rate)?
3% for a game made with MMF? :eek:

I would also really like to see the numbers

[Dan MacDonald]

Save the Meeklets was MMF and it sold pretty well if I recall....

[jordan1207]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad that people are finding the post mortem useful (or at least entertaining :p ).

interesting read but.... PDF format?
WHY?????
Is there something incredibly horrible about the PDF format that I'm unaware of? Do people just prefer looking at HTML? In any case, Ryan Clark has been kind enough to host an HTML version over at Game Programming Wiki, which you can check out here (http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Unga_Bunga_Postmortem).

Can you give an idea on what kind of numbers you are getting for downloads (to get a 3% conversion rate)?
I'm currently getting an all-time low of around 100/month; so yes, the conversion rate is necessarily a tentative estimate. But looking back over the past two years, the 2-3% seems to hold pretty steady.

It almost begs the question: why don't you get a professional pixel artist for the graphics and release an update of Unga Bunga before a major sequel?
That's an idea. But if I'm going to bother to write the game again from scratch, and update the art and everything, why not go ahead and do things like support internet and LAN play, and maybe single player, and maybe a level editor?... well okay, maybe I would get carried away. Hm...

Also the fade out effect at the end was annoyingly jerky, not in keeping with the rest of the game which ran smoothly.
Thanks for pointing that out 20thCenturyBoy. I fixed this in the full version, and thought it was fixed in the demo, but I guess not. Todo...

[jordan1207]

BTW on the first level how do I get my caveman to the higher branches? There doesn't seem to be a high enough ledge...
Wow... perhaps getting into the game is even worse than I suspected?! Just climb the trees :) . They're like ladders.

[SteveZ]

Good post-mortem.

Dan, you're correct, from my standard at that time, Meeklits (made with MMF) performed fairly well. However, most of that is due to my publisher's reputatiaon as I'm not certain how it would do if I were to self publish it.

From reading the post-mortem and my experience using MMF, most of the time MMF won't create the error unless 1) 3rd party extensions used could be buggy 2) programming in the event list editor.

But I still believe games made with MMF can convert well and potentially be a good seller. "Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys" is made with MMF and so far it has been seeling fairly well. Course, its still too early to tell =)

[Martoon]

Thanks for the postmortem. Very informative. Wish more indie developers did these.

In "What Went Right" #6, you said you improved your conversion rate my more than a factor of 10 by following Steve's article. Could you give us some details on what specifically you changed? Thanks!

[jordan1207]

In "What Went Right" #6, you said you improved your conversion rate my more than a factor of 10 by following Steve's article. Could you give us some details on what specifically you changed?
Good question. If you want to know exactly how I changed the demo, just compare the current version to the original demo, which I've uploaded to fusionapple.com/ungabungaold.exe (http://fusionapple.com/ungabungaold.exe). Note that this demo won't run if you haven't installed a version of the current demo (fusionapple.com/Setup_Unga_Bunga_Demo.exe (http://fusionapple.com/Setup_Unga_Bunga_Demo.exe)).

Here's a basic comparison of the two demos:

Old demo:
-Only one nag screen, first time you play the game.
-Nag screen is very bland.
-No limitations on gameplay (demo = full game).
-One "buy now" button in game.
-Trial period = 30 days.

New demo:
-Nag screen with every play, at beginning and end of session.
-More colorful + gives more incentives than old demo nag screen.
-Gameplay is heavily limited compared to full version.
-"Buy Now" buttons everywhere.
-15 day trial period.