How About a Trilogy
July 18th, 2010 - filed under Development News, Input Requested, Status UpdatesThis project has evolved a lot from the beginning. In case you haven’t kept up, this went from being a very different Jetpack 2, to being a small retrofit of Jetpack 1, to being a very enhanced retrofit somewhere between Jetpack 1 & Jetpack 2. Now we’re close to release and I’m making another change to fit my current circumstances: Jetpack will be released as a trilogy.
I’m excited about this decision, and the logic behind it is simple:
- Get a product out the door asap.
- Take a few months to finish graphics and add some gameplay enhancements I’ve wanted, for episodes 2 & 3.
- Hopefully build up more loyal fans while each release is being worked on.
- Lower price barrier for a single product.
- Offer a discount for buying the whole trilogy in advance = advance funding.
Here’s the tenative description of each episode:
Episode 1: Our hero arrives at the entrance to the maze, where he becomes trapped. The themes are dark original brick/cave, and (easier) colorful outdoor nature. You choose a path to start – you can reach the end via either path but you can only unlock all the bonuses by completing both paths.
Episode 2: A time machine in the maze transports our hero to the distant past, where you can choose to follow the easier path into a castle fortress, or the dark path into the jungle with ancient tribes and ruins.
Episode 3: A time machine in the maze transports our hero to the future, where you can choose to battle through a high tech space station, or travel to an (easier) alien planet, with strange vegetation and structures. At the end our hero finally discovers the secret of the maze and who is behind it.
Each episode will have its own new gameplay additions, and bonus areas which contain specially themed levels. There should be about 50-70 levels per episode.
Pricing
There’s a big concern in the indie community about the $6.95 price point some big companies are offering. That’s a price point that makes it hard to compete if you’re an indie with relatively few sales (thousands, not hundreds of thousands). I’ve considered that pricing model, but from the very helpful comments from other indie authors on indiegamer.com, in our market that can greatly decrease the perceived value of your game. Several people have actually reported higher sales when they raised the price of their game. So setting a price that doesn’t undervalue the game but is fair for the value offered is a tricky thing.
I’m considering pricing around $12-$20 per episode, and $30-$50 to buy all 3 in advance. It’s a big range .. what do you think?
What’s Done
I’ve entered Jetpack into the 2010 IndieCade festival/contest! It’s not really one of those artsy games that seem to win much of the time, but hopefully gameplay will be a bigger factor in their decision making.
Getting ready for the contest got a lot of things done, but burned me out a bit.
What’s mostly done:
- Gameplay
- Steel ball / EyeBall / Peppermint
- Flitzer
- Spring
- Industrial/Cave theme (short on graphics for the nature theme)
- Candy world & devilish themes (for bonus levels)
- Main menu functionality
Coming Soonish
- Editor
- Achievements
- The rest of the enemies, and AI
Editor
I’m working on getting the editor done, it’s going to be really cool. I hope to release it in 2 weeks. If you have levels going in the final game, you’ll have access to them automatically, so you can add any of the new features to your levels, switch themes, and add scenery.
Here are some of the features of the editor so far:
- All levels are saved to your JetpackHQ account. In the future, your personal levels will show up on your profile page.
- Levels can be organized into folders. The last 100 revisions/deleted levels are kept in your ‘revisions’ folder.
- A screenshot & thumbnail are automatically generated on save.
- Undo/redo
- You can import old levels, however you might want to wait for the mass zip upload tool.
Since the response to the scrolling was good, I’m also considering allowing differently sized levels, like short but 2 screens wide, or narrow but 2 screens tall, or even double size (52×36 tiles).
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July 18th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Look at the indie list at steam. Nearly every indie game is 9.99. Most of the top sellers are at this price. Before even checking this list, I figured I would not pay more than 9.99 for each episode. If you go any higher, sales are going to suffer.
July 18th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Hey Adam,
To sum it up in bullet points (and go into lengths later):
Pricing:
- I think an episode should cost no less than $10, but no more than $15.
- If you’re going for the cheapest option, then charge $10 for an episode and $25 for a three-episode pre-order.
- I think $12 is a good middle ground for an episode, and $30 for a three-episode pre-order (save $6).
- You could also try a system where the game’s price is lower for the introductory episode. $10 for episode 1, $12 for episode 2, $12 for episode 3, $30 for pre-order (save $4).
- I wouldn’t go up to $15 an episode because that would make the three-episode game $45 and that sound too much.
- I personally dislike the .99 format, for me a .99 pricing looks more like the usual Big Company Marketing Tactic. I would more likely buy something for $10 than $9.99, but that’s just me and I wouldn’t say that’s how most people think. (But maybe more of those who spend money on indie games think this way than people who don’t.)
- To provide a further incentive for people to pre-order, you could include something that only three-episode preorders get.
Other price considerations:
- All of the above is in many respects just throwing around numbers. The final price should be measured based on the game time you get by purchasing the game. For this reason you could implement a counter that measures the entire time spent with the game, so during beta testing you will be able get feedback on that. Game time is a deciding factor in indie games, especially because there are games that last only 5, 10 or 15 minutes, then there are games that last 1 hour, or up to 5 hours, and then there’s the rare category of anything longer than 5 hours.
I think Jetpack will fall into this latter category, especially if there are many levels (but it’ll have to be made sure that the game doesn’t become repetitive at any time). In marketing the game it will be crucial to emphasize the long game time and the fact that you can spend up to years with the editor, like most of us here have
- In one of his latter titles, FiNCK, Nicklas Nygren (Nifflas) has implemented an interesting pricing system: the main game, about 2-5 hours of game time depending on game completion percentage, is free of charge, and the two purchasable elements are the editor and custom level support. I wouldn’t advise Jetpack to be free outside of a demo/Facebook version of maximum 15-20 levels, but I wonder if making the editor a separate purchase is a good idea or not. Just throwing it in there.
Episode structure:
- Generally, I think the three episode structure is a good idea.
- However, each new episode will have to contain enough new gameplay elements for people to want to buy them. You don’t want costumers to buy the first episode and then say either “Oh, but the other two are just rehashes of the first episode”, or “50 levels is enough of this, the new stuff isn’t new enough.”
- Again, repetition is the biggest flaw this kind of game can fall into, so all levels that get into the final title will truly have to be the best of the best. Even if that means fewer levels (ie. 50 instead of 75, although 3×75 levels is quite impressive).
Questions:
- In the three-episode structure, where does the editor stand? Does a separate one come with each game?
July 18th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
$6.95 is perfect. I understand the logic that anything under $10 will lessen the perceived value of a game, but this is episodic content. Episodic content works exactly because it’s something small and cheap and provides an alternative for all the bigger games, while still enabling the option to get a full game at a reasonably normal price point. And $50 is NOT NORMAL NOR REASONABLE for an indie game ;D
July 18th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I’d like to hear what you’d personally be willing to pay from your own point of view (which is hard to say of course). If you value Jetpack only as much as another find the hidden object game, I’m probably not going to reach you.
My market is niche – there is very little like Jetpack out there – it’s more like that of a specialty store, than the bargain bin at wal-mart. If you have an audience of millions like a console/store/steam/iphone app, you can maximize revenue with a low cost. My market right now is low thousands. I’m mainly going to get traffic from people really interested in lode-runner style games, and those people are going to be more willing to pay 1/3 of a retail game’s cost, rather than 1/10th that $6.95 represents.
If I could sell 10k units at $7, vs 1k at $20 the choice would be clear. However in a niche market the spread is much closer. It may be 3k at $7 and 2k at $20. In that case I’d be a fool to go for the bargain big price. And the revenue on this game sells will determine whether I stay in games and make some of the awesome ideas I have, or give it up. There another niche indie game out there that sells for around $30, and gets about 5,000 sales per release. Minus expenses, that’s enough for full time. If they had put it at $7, definitely not.
There’s a good discussion of this here: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/04/indie-games-should-cost-more-pt-1.html
> I personally dislike the .99 format, for me a .99 pricing looks more like the usual Big Company Marketing Tactic.
I hate the .99 thing too. It’s clearly a proven psychological sales technique, so it may be foolish to ignore it. We’ll see.
> each new episode will have to contain enough new gameplay elements for people to want to buy them.
Definitely, graphics will not be enough.
BTW “episode” may be a poor term. Each release will be a full game in itself, with editor.
Looking at Steam, there are top indie sellers at $20-$25 too.
July 19th, 2010 at 9:53 am
> I’d like to hear what you’d personally be willing to pay from your own point of view.
Again, my example is bad because here in Hungary, most people I know make no more than what converts to 350-500 USD a month, although in the 30s generation (which has more niche gamers) I know people who make 650-700 USD a month. (And it doesn’t help that the dollar exchange rate is getting worse each day currently.)
For comparison, $60 is a week’s food costs for my household of 2, and food is around 30-35% of our monthly expenses. Viewed from that angle, currently I wouldn’t physically be able to pay $20 for each of the three game releases (added up that’s $60, which is the price of boxed console games here, and which is definitely out of my price range for any entertainment venture), and I would stick to just buying one. In a better economy, I would pay $20 for perhaps one and $15-$15 for the other two, but not now.
So to sum up: personally and at this point in time I would pay $15 for the first game and not decide on the others until they come out and I see the amount of the extra added value. If each would cost $10 it would be a no-brainer and I would buy all three in advance. If it cost $7 I would probably think that the game is of low quality. At $12 I would think about buying all three but would stick to the first, and at $20 I would not buy at all.
> There’s a good discussion of this here: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/04/indie-games-should-cost-more-pt-1.html
Which I agree with entirely, but I don’t think you will be able to break the ice right now, when people everywhere are cutting back on entertainment costs.
> BTW “episode” may be a poor term. Each release will be a full game in itself, with editor.
Still, if it is a story that is broken up into 3 parts, it will be most probably viewed as episodic no matter the length.
July 19th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
At $7 you would think it’s low quality? I don’t think that’s the way it works, generally the potential buyer is hooked to buy the game (either from a video review, ad, word of mouth, etc.) then finds out the price later when they go to buy; they have already made their mind up about the game.
Personally I think $15 is fine if the levels are very well designed and evolve. The original jetpack did not evolve much from level 1 to level 100 (most of the enemies/tiles and gameplay possibilities were presented pretty early and all that was left was different arrangements of them, which is still fun). But a good game really should change graphics and mood as time goes on, eg. donkey kong country with the new level themes, jungle, cave, minecart etc. or world of goo with the beauty goo, the digital goo etc. It looks like part of that is solved with the different graphic packs and audio that appear to be applied to different levels, but I really think if you’re going to ask for something in the range of $15 you need something more to change than just these superficial elements. I hope you create a compelling story, and truly unique gameplay elements to the different chapters of each episode.
July 19th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
> At $7 you would think it’s low quality? I don’t think that’s the way it works.
For me it does, that’s why I wrote ‘personally’.
If I just saw the price tag _alone_, I would either think the game was very short, or long but repetitive or of low quality in other aspects. The same way, for $20 I would expect better quality and variety (within reason, of course), and longer gameplay. If by the original plan, this new Jetpack had the full variety of environments, a hundred levels, for me it would be worth the $20 or $25.
But your mention of the graphic variety leaves me wondering if only two different level styles would cut it for a full game, wouldn’t it get repetitive. I would much rather see the brick/cave, outdoorsy, castle & nature themes in one game, and those PLUS 2 & 2 new ones with each new game. In the month(s?) between game releases, new graphics could be recruited for the follow-up games to solve the current problem of not enough graphic varieties.
I think it would add to game variety if graphics weren’t so attached to the level packs that in a 50-70 level game there would only be two kinds of levels.
I say put most of what you can in the first game (while leaving some for later of course but not most) because if that doesn’t work out then you’re screwed. Don’t take away anything that you currently have and could add to the game’s excitement, replay, appeal or fun factor.
July 19th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
hmm…pricing. That’s an annoying topic. I haven’t bought a computer game in a long, long time, but I’ve bought plenty of playstation games over all of my years. I know that most people probably, as I am among them, think of the value of a video game and a computer game differently, and therefore the pricing of a video game converts differently to the pricing of a computer game, and even of a video game for a different console. In my experience, the best video games I have ever bought were for $19.99 on the PS2. The best computer games, I don’t remember, but they were probably for around that same price. The range $14.99 – $24.99 generally screams good game, but personal experience with the game or similar games greatly affects what the price dictates about the game. For example, if I didn’t have every crash bandicoot game for the playstation, and I found one that I knew was new and legit, and it only cost $2.99, I’d buy it without a second thought. If I see a PS2 game that says “Greatest Hit,” i know that it’s both $19.99, and good, according to a certain audience.
Sadly, I don’t know anything about indie games, but if I had to, I’d be willing to pay up to $14.99 for the first “episode,” and up to $15.99 for each of the next two “episodes.” I’d also be willing to pay $29.99 – $32.99 for all 3 in advance, without much thought. Anything higher than that would make me think some more before buying it. If the first episode turns out to be one of the greatest games I’ve ever played, like nearly all of the PS2 greatest hits games that I’ve bought (that I’VE bought; not every greatest hit is good), then I’d probably pay $19.99 for each of the other 2 episodes.
July 19th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
You might not want to reveal that it will be a trilogy in advance, now that I think about it. If the first game does well, then you could reveal the trilogy, and sell the next two games individually, or together in a lower price, and still have an option to buy all three in advance, for those people who didn’t buy the first game before it was successful (or successful enough).
July 20th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Or maybe the first episode would be the expensive one, at $14-$20, and the others would be the cheaper ones, at $11-$15…but that might have the psychological effect of making people think that the 2nd and 3rd episodes are supplementary and not as good as the first episode by themselves. And it would very likely rake in much less profit than you could.
Maybe have them all sell for $15.99, or for the same price, anyway, so that people imagine that each one will be just as good as or better than the last one? I don’t know what to think; there are just so many ways this could go. I’d just pay up to what I think the game is worth. It might be smart to raise the prices of the 2nd and 3rd games, and maybe not mention that you’ll even make 2 others, or it might be smarter to keep the price of all 3 games the same. I want jetpack to be successful so I don’t know if I’m a fan of anything about the idea in the preceding paragraph.
Also to clear up my “greatest hit” comment, I meant that I’m assuming a lot of people think the game is good, because it sold a lot of copies to become a “greatest hit.”
July 20th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
“Offer a discount for buying the whole trilogy in advance = advance funding.”
You might lose that advance funding, though, if you kept the trilogy a secret. It’s your choice. :/
July 20th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
> people I know make no more than what converts to 350-500 USD a month
Wow you can hardly blame anyone for pirating when that is the income and games run $60. I wouldn’t have a problem with charging different rates for different countries, if it was easy to do.
> if you kept the trilogy a secret
Very little is secret about this project since it’s being developed and discussed openly here. The openness is kind of an experiment that I wouldn’t mind continuing if there don’t turn out to be too many problems with it.
I’m leaning toward $15, and with a digital download there’s always the ability to experiment & change the price after it’s released.
July 21st, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Don’t get ahead of yourself; you’re thinking too much like a businessman…
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:04 am
@Dave: I don’t get your point, Adam has restarted Jetpack to make a profit, if he’s not thinking like a businessman he is wasting his own time.
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:38 am
Personally, I buy very few games. However, I remember the old Jetpack, and am very happy to see this being developed. Games like this one and Commander Keen and a few other games I used to play hold a special place in my heart, so I am probably willing to pay more than the average person.
For each episode/part/game I would be willing to pay a good $15-$20. I am sure it is a bit high, but I am a big fan. For the whole trilogy, I would be up for paying about $50. Anything more than $25/part or $60 for the trilogy would make me want to hold off and hesitate to buy it though. Something about those numbers that make it a little harder to spend such a big chunk.
I would really love an option for physical media. Maybe an option to get the whole trilogy on a CD with a cardboard sleeve for an additional cost. Something like $10 – $15 I believe is about right, as long as the CD has some fancy picture on it. (Burnt discs are not exactly awesome, and I don’t think I would pay much more than $5 for that to be sent out). I am a big fan of having the items I purchase on physical media though, so it might not even be popular.
As long as I don’t have to go and make an account in some game portal thing like Steam to get it, I will be a happy camper! (also not a fan of games/software linked/restricted to other systems/services.)
Either, way, you are doing great work, and I will be happy when there is a release!
July 24th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
When you commented about “if you have levels going in the final game”, um, how do we know what/if any of our levels are going into the game?
July 25th, 2010 at 7:38 am
I’m not great at business, but the business end is essential unless you have a trust fund.
I’ll be using a service like Fastspring or BMT, they have a service to send a physical CD for a fee, but I don’t know if a label can be designed or not. If so I would definitely design a label for it.
Kalnz, you’ll see your levels in the new editor.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Ich will definitely pay this price!
When will the next release will come out?
Or do you want to keep the process a little bit
away from the public audience?
This would be sad.
July 31st, 2010 at 12:32 am
Ummm..
well ive been lurking your blog for around a year
since i am a huge fan of the first… i think pricing around $15 should do,
people saying $10 i personally think just want a cheaper game
i dont really like the idea about
Travelling back in time twice, because it makes the story a bit repetitive.
for the 3rd story i would say, that he like smashes some cryochamber (at the end of 2nd) and wakes up in the future on a ship or in a derelict futuristic building, and makes his way whilst solving a puzzle and seeing clues, to the man behind it and it was all a sick experiment at the end
August 1st, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I was hoping to get it out this weekend, but I was planning to use a 3rd party UI tree for the level browser, and it turns out there are no good ones out there. Several look good but are written very poorly, others have no demos and I’m not going to pay to find out it doesn’t work. So I had to write my own, it will be used for the folder list, level list, and tile picker. Now maybe tues/wed for the editor release.
So I think I’ll concentrate on making Jetpack release 1 bigger, with more themes and content, and worry about the sequels later, maybe spaced out 4-6 months so I have time to make them full games. And for price I’ll start out at either $15 or $19. I don’t want people to have their fill of levels on the first game though. What do you think, is 50 levels + 20 bonus levels enough for a full game? I believe Jumpman had about 50 levels.
The time travel idea is cliche, I’ll come up with something better when the time comes.
So the release schedule is roughly:
* Release the editor
* Build the 15-level free version, and try to find a sponsor: 3-4 weeks
* Work on the full version for simultaneous public release: 3-4 weeks
That puts us at around Oct 1 for release. Let’s hope that’s not the 8th release date I miss!
August 4th, 2010 at 4:10 am
sounds awesome. I can’t wait to see the developments!
March 15th, 2011 at 11:14 pm
“I wouldn’t have a problem with charging different rates for different countries, if it was easy to do.”
Please don’t. This way leads to madness. I understand people in different countries have different general levels of income, but why should a rich person in Hungary get a game cheaper than a rich person in America? More to the point, here in Australia, we frequently see massive price differentials. On Steam, I recall Civ V was selling here for double the price in the US, and we just have to pay more. I don’t earn much so why should I have to pay more than someone in America?