There are also certain types of games that are a lot easier to create an MVP for than other types of games. Meaning that depending on the gameplay mechanics involved you might need more or less of them to actually demonstrate the core idea of your game (MVP).
Over the years I've heard corporate leaders and entrepreneurs preach the MVP gospel, but personally I struggled with breaking an idea down into core elements. Thanks for distilling MVP into a framework that I can actually put to use. Now, I am going to build a skateboard app instead of that boring, useless wheel app. :)
I agree that a MVP is essential for getting the product in front of players and getting feedback to shape it in the right direction. The biggest issue is deciding when the MVP is ready to be sent or how much time should be spent on it.
You make good points! I'm in a situation where gamedev is my hobby. Having a full time job I don't worry about the money aspect, but I can only spend a little time on the game on weekends - this means that any "mistakes" are costly for me timewise and the longer something takes to get release the smaller the chance of it getting finished.
Thanks for the visual representation with the pyramids. It really helps with the explanation. I've been focusing on all my game's functionality. I guess I should do a little bit of all the aspects.
Great video! Was familiar with The Lean Startup and the MVP concept for a long time but never tried to apply it to games, this makes perfect sense though. There is a video on Ars Technica on how a demo of Serious Sam saved the game from extinction and they followed this exact formula.
Even worse: Released a game on accident last year. Last month got 2k+ players, had major gamebreaking bugs: Not no feedback, but negative! Even after fixing could hardly get from ~50% positives to 70% positives. People won't even start the game if it has overall negative ratings. And it could even just be that the first few sequences are not explained, no guide through, some glitches so they don't even get to the stage where the game actually shines. Good luck my dude!
Great video on MVP - would suggest that if you're planning on crowdfunding or other types of investment, beauty may be a more foundational section of that triangle rather than right at the top.
MVP is a great philosophy but it can be hard to follow, especially when you're sharing your game on places like youtube. People suggest great ideas that just aren't necessary but you want to add.
Loved this video, made me feel that I’m on the right track. I also think this concept is not just for games but can be applied for other MVP's (such as web apps) as well!
Yup. No matter how many times you mention "project scope", there's always someone who falls into this trap. Example of this? Me XD I bought a Third-Person Shooter kit, a ton of models, animations, sounds, etc. But there are so many things to tweak in the kit (the code side) that I changed the project to a "clunky" and smaller version (my ugly MVP). I hope the Itch.io community gives me feedback to fix it before the final version.
Great video. I'm glad you made the distinction of MFP and MVP. I think it's fine to start with functional but I think it would be pretty bad to confuse the different concepts.
Thank you for giving me new insight. I always went with just getting the prototype functional but I see now I'm not getting the full impact of the game.
Hey Tim, just curious what sort of advice you have for someone who's got a game demo and trailer, and looking to launch a crowdfunding campaign. I can build games, but I'm terrible at marketing.
I've tried working in vertical slices. Everytime someone explains it to me it makes perfect sense. But it's never really worked for for some reason. I've found it to lead to a bunch of wasted work, and a lot of redoing shit. And for the most part the finished product is exactly how I imagined it anyway. Especially when trying to make something with a lot of systemic complexity, building it up layer by layer is the only effective way I have personally found. Imagine trying to build a skyscrapper in vertical slices, that's just not how structures work. On the other hand I still see all the benefits of the MVP as described, and I'm honestly confused by the discrepancy between what I've been told and my own experience. Tell me what I'm missing.
Kind of side note, but looks like you've lost some weight recently... Anyways, this really helps me a lot as I'm working on a new Steam game and haven't released once since 2016 and becoming a Dad. Appreciate the video!
How do you find ideas for a commercial game or let's say "Minimum Viable Game". Do you follow the trends or do You always come up with your own idea? I think relying on your own idea for a commercially sucessful game is more risky.
Search for "But method" from Jonas Tyroller, it will help a lot. Meshup of multiple genres is also nice. Or taking a standard genre and giving it a unique spin].
My philosophy as a game dev is to make a game I want to play and create something that sends the message I want to give. As an artist, that is my mission. If you legitimately care about the process, you won't ask yourself to be compensated as highly. But if you don't care about having fun with the artistic process and simply want money, that's fine too. In that case, follow trends, make clones, let ads and microtransactions work their magic. But take time to reflect on some of the most successful indie game devs (excluding mobile). Most will say they started with making the project they truly wanted to play for themselves as opposed to looking into current trends
@@troyd9212 I appreciate your time you taking to answer my question. Actually when I said follow the trends I didn't mean to create a clone of an game. I could use some ideas from the current trends and create a game that I would have fun creating and something that I would like you to play. So that the trends will maybe help me get some extra attention.
@@troyd9212 thinking about my own game dev journey, I’m totally doing the same. I make games that I want to play myself, then I guess they just evolve as I become inspired by different things. Oh and money would just buy time to do it all more and more...
Keep a log, preferably on your phone since you have it with you all the time (for me, I get a lot of ideas when I go for a jog). Write down every little thing that pops into your head. Could be one word, one line or a paragraph. Go back and read them time to time and you will get refined ideas. Once you get into this habit ideas really are a dime a dozen. Then pick one, as others said, that you yourself would not only like to play but would love to play. As a rule, I ask myself, is this something I would eagerly wait to buy and pre-order, and binge play on release date? if the answer is yes then I would consider it, if the answer is no then it is not my game. If its something you would love to play, you will have an easier time carrying yourself through all the hardships during production and it will be much, much easier to keep yourself motivated. About the risk and commercial success, as soon as you decide to go solo/small team indie, you are taking a huge risk. I think the best way to find this out is sharing with your potential player base as practical. Most people are shy about this part, worried about being judged and some are worried that their precious idea is going to get stolen (sad reality is no one care and chance are you aren't the first to come up with it). You can do this by creating a small demo/MVP and doing a playtest. This will give you a good indication on if you should continue or pick something else.
does this mean the graphics need to be done? i have a MVP but its basically just functionality. its 3 levels of a platformer but with shit graphics and usability and reliability
then its not a MVP, that's a prototype. A prototype's purpose is to test wether the game would work, functionally. A MVP is to test if people would be interested in the game.
Start small, develop, fail fast, learn fast.
That’s my philosophy.
@Nocturnal Jester It works for me 👌
"Minimum viable video" - Solid regrouping!
There are also certain types of games that are a lot easier to create an MVP for than other types of games. Meaning that depending on the gameplay mechanics involved you might need more or less of them to actually demonstrate the core idea of your game (MVP).
Over the years I've heard corporate leaders and entrepreneurs preach the MVP gospel, but personally I struggled with breaking an idea down into core elements. Thanks for distilling MVP into a framework that I can actually put to use. Now, I am going to build a skateboard app instead of that boring, useless wheel app. :)
I agree that a MVP is essential for getting the product in front of players and getting feedback to shape it in the right direction. The biggest issue is deciding when the MVP is ready to be sent or how much time should be spent on it.
I got recommended this video but I haven't seen you in my feed for the past like 6 months. Glad to see some more videos.
It's hard when many good ideas continuously flows in my head as I try to make a minimal game.
I "Thought" I knew what a vertical slice was.. Until now, NOW i understand it "Properly" Thanks for this !
You make good points! I'm in a situation where gamedev is my hobby. Having a full time job I don't worry about the money aspect, but I can only spend a little time on the game on weekends - this means that any "mistakes" are costly for me timewise and the longer something takes to get release the smaller the chance of it getting finished.
Thanks for the visual representation with the pyramids. It really helps with the explanation. I've been focusing on all my game's functionality. I guess I should do a little bit of all the aspects.
Thanks for these videos man, I'm a struggling developer right now and you help a lot with my feelings of inadequacy towards finishing my game
Keep it lean, iterate, learn, repeat. Thanks for sharing TIm!
Thank you for giving people real advice. Wish there would be more people on this platform/world like you.
Great video! Was familiar with The Lean Startup and the MVP concept for a long time but never tried to apply it to games, this makes perfect sense though. There is a video on Ars Technica on how a demo of Serious Sam saved the game from extinction and they followed this exact formula.
Even worse: Released a game on accident last year. Last month got 2k+ players, had major gamebreaking bugs: Not no feedback, but negative! Even after fixing could hardly get from ~50% positives to 70% positives. People won't even start the game if it has overall negative ratings. And it could even just be that the first few sequences are not explained, no guide through, some glitches so they don't even get to the stage where the game actually shines. Good luck my dude!
also steam algo promotes games w/ higher review scores more
This video is pure gold. Thanks for your amazing content!
Great video on MVP - would suggest that if you're planning on crowdfunding or other types of investment, beauty may be a more foundational section of that triangle rather than right at the top.
working on a fighting agme and your videos ++ content have really helped me through the journey and learnt alot.thanks
i am so glad u r posting videos frequently . missed u bro and awesome content
MVP is a great philosophy but it can be hard to follow, especially when you're sharing your game on places like youtube. People suggest great ideas that just aren't necessary but you want to add.
Loved this video, made me feel that I’m on the right track. I also think this concept is not just for games but can be applied for other MVP's (such as web apps) as well!
I love your videos man!
Bro, I really needed to hear this for my game.
Thank you! 😁
Yup. No matter how many times you mention "project scope", there's always someone who falls into this trap. Example of this? Me XD I bought a Third-Person Shooter kit, a ton of models, animations, sounds, etc. But there are so many things to tweak in the kit (the code side) that I changed the project to a "clunky" and smaller version (my ugly MVP). I hope the Itch.io community gives me feedback to fix it before the final version.
That was very well said and put together!
Great video. I'm glad you made the distinction of MFP and MVP. I think it's fine to start with functional but I think it would be pretty bad to confuse the different concepts.
Thank you for giving me new insight. I always went with just getting the prototype functional but I see now I'm not getting the full impact of the game.
Nice vid, thanks 🙏
Yes! Thanks for this.
Yeah!! Thanks!!
2:00 THIS x100
Nice video!
Hey Tim, just curious what sort of advice you have for someone who's got a game demo and trailer, and looking to launch a crowdfunding campaign. I can build games, but I'm terrible at marketing.
Can you give me list of books about game design.I need it.
I've tried working in vertical slices. Everytime someone explains it to me it makes perfect sense. But it's never really worked for for some reason. I've found it to lead to a bunch of wasted work, and a lot of redoing shit. And for the most part the finished product is exactly how I imagined it anyway.
Especially when trying to make something with a lot of systemic complexity, building it up layer by layer is the only effective way I have personally found. Imagine trying to build a skyscrapper in vertical slices, that's just not how structures work.
On the other hand I still see all the benefits of the MVP as described, and I'm honestly confused by the discrepancy between what I've been told and my own experience. Tell me what I'm missing.
Our minds works differently. It's good you figured out a way that works better on you.
I too, for the algorithm.
Kind of side note, but looks like you've lost some weight recently... Anyways, this really helps me a lot as I'm working on a new Steam game and haven't released once since 2016 and becoming a Dad. Appreciate the video!
Yeah that game was released in 2003. Too bad it never got really popular :(
How do you find ideas for a commercial game or let's say "Minimum Viable Game". Do you follow the trends or do You always come up with your own idea? I think relying on your own idea for a commercially sucessful game is more risky.
Search for "But method" from Jonas Tyroller, it will help a lot. Meshup of multiple genres is also nice. Or taking a standard genre and giving it a unique spin].
My philosophy as a game dev is to make a game I want to play and create something that sends the message I want to give. As an artist, that is my mission. If you legitimately care about the process, you won't ask yourself to be compensated as highly. But if you don't care about having fun with the artistic process and simply want money, that's fine too. In that case, follow trends, make clones, let ads and microtransactions work their magic. But take time to reflect on some of the most successful indie game devs (excluding mobile). Most will say they started with making the project they truly wanted to play for themselves as opposed to looking into current trends
@@troyd9212 I appreciate your time you taking to answer my question. Actually when I said follow the trends I didn't mean to create a clone of an game. I could use some ideas from the current trends and create a game that I would have fun creating and something that I would like you to play. So that the trends will maybe help me get some extra attention.
@@troyd9212 thinking about my own game dev journey, I’m totally doing the same. I make games that I want to play myself, then I guess they just evolve as I become inspired by different things. Oh and money would just buy time to do it all more and more...
Keep a log, preferably on your phone since you have it with you all the time (for me, I get a lot of ideas when I go for a jog). Write down every little thing that pops into your head. Could be one word, one line or a paragraph. Go back and read them time to time and you will get refined ideas. Once you get into this habit ideas really are a dime a dozen.
Then pick one, as others said, that you yourself would not only like to play but would love to play. As a rule, I ask myself, is this something I would eagerly wait to buy and pre-order, and binge play on release date? if the answer is yes then I would consider it, if the answer is no then it is not my game. If its something you would love to play, you will have an easier time carrying yourself through all the hardships during production and it will be much, much easier to keep yourself motivated.
About the risk and commercial success, as soon as you decide to go solo/small team indie, you are taking a huge risk. I think the best way to find this out is sharing with your potential player base as practical. Most people are shy about this part, worried about being judged and some are worried that their precious idea is going to get stolen (sad reality is no one care and chance are you aren't the first to come up with it). You can do this by creating a small demo/MVP and doing a playtest. This will give you a good indication on if you should continue or pick something else.
Agile game dev, eh? :)
For the algorithm.
Why do you only make videos that I need?
Minimum viable channel :p
does this mean the graphics need to be done? i have a MVP but its basically just functionality. its 3 levels of a platformer but with shit graphics and usability and reliability
then its not a MVP, that's a prototype. A prototype's purpose is to test wether the game would work, functionally. A MVP is to test if people would be interested in the game.
Produce shit until it sticks? I don't need 10,000001 minutes of that. Flash did it and now Unity will do it
Am i first
Smort
@@shines4031 idk what that means but in my head it's a compliment,and i thank you 🤙
@@birdmann6923 its is XD smart
@@shines4031 lmao well I understand now if you take back your previous statement 😅