Edy Zahid Blog The Thoughts of One Game Developer

Blade Thrust Tactics : The Meaning Behind The Game

Original Design - a game about human struggle within a harsh environment.
Final Result - a game about the struggle of a weaker side ( the Alliance ) against a powerful side ( Idea Empire ) in the quest of freedom.

Recently I was playing a strange little indie game called Passage. The game itself has nothing special to it but what makes it different is because it was designed and developed by its developer, Jason Rohrer to convey meaning of life and death. Every aspect of the game has been designed to convey this meaning. From my opinion, Passage represent Jason Rohrer's self expression on the subject of life and death.

A game can transcend beyond its stereotype limitation ( mindless fun ) to have an impact on human soul if the developer care to put extra effort to design their game to convey some meaning to it. I was inspired by Planescape Torment game because the game has brought many complex issues with it. I can never forget this haunting question - "What can change the nature of a man?". That question still haunts me to this day. It's a deep stuff.

It's All Started With Dreazth

That's why I decided to start Dreazth, a RPG game project around February 2001 to create a game that reflect my view about human struggle within a harsh environment. Dreazth is a game world of which technology clashes with mystic forces. The game world is imbued with dread, despair and mystic atmosphere ( D2M ). The world is at the brink of major war and people behave in their own self-interest. As you play the game, you'll soon realize the true nature of human in oppressive condition - they are greedy, clueless and hopeless. You can either become just like them or choose another direction - become a good man and prove that there is still a value of kindness within a harsh environment.

I must say this is a big project as I've never done any game project before. It took me almost 3 years to fully build a complete structure of the game world - geography, social system, creature types, organization, conflict issues, and even people details who runs those organizations. Unfortunately I face a problem on how to integrate all these details in quest based game play so I switch to mission based game play. Although the game at that time mutates to strategy oriented game instead of RPG oriented game, most of messages that I want to convey in the game still survive the transition.

That Big Change

But then something big happen on June 2004. I have fast forward the time line in the game world several years later of which the Idea Empire has become a global empire by invading cities/towns throughout the world. An underground rebel organization called the Alliance was formed to fight the global empire. Player are in charge of a special operative squad to carry out several missions for the Alliance in their campaign to liberate several regions throughout the world.

This my friend is where the game starts to become something else - I lose focus of what the game should be and instead focus on more action oriented aspect of the game. I think this is the hazard of long game development project - you tend to lose focus of why you develop the game in the first place and turn it into something way different.

I finally managed to finish the first trilogy in the game called Blade Thrust Tactics on April 2009. Originally I want to create RPG game which convey message about human struggle within a harsh environment. But in the end I turn it to become a tactical combat game which convey message about the struggle of a weaker side ( the Alliance ) against a powerful side ( Idea Empire ) in the quest of freedom. Hey, that is not such as a bad transition, isn't it?

Struggle of Weaker Side

The struggle of weaker side message has been communicated throughout the game with these design implementations:

1) Your squad starts with pathetic supply and it's up to you to salvage any remaining items carried out by your dead enemies. If you don't salvage, you are not going to finish your objectives.
2) The Alliance only has little money to fund their operation so it is possible they will run out of their fund in the middle of campaign. You are responsible to help the Alliance gather more money by completing certain missions.
3) The enemy will try to insult and intimidate you at the early part of the game. Luckily you can only read this if you get close to them.
4) The war machines aka tank gives you nightmare if you enter the sector from wrong entry point. This eventual death can be prevented if you spend your time reading recon details ( mission section ) in the game website.

So there you go - Blade Thrust Tactics game condensed to its core. When you play Blade Thrust Tactics, you are effectively struggle within your limitation to achieve your objective. There are lots of enemies to be killed but that is not totally important. The more important thing is during your time playing the game, if you feel frustrated about your limitation, then I guess I've already deliver my message in the game.

You need a strong will and guts to play this game.

Blade Thrust Tactics Marketing Plan

The marketing plan for Blade Thrust Tactics is simple - try to achieve 15000 downloads before the next game version is released in 2012 or whenever the game is finished. I have no target for sales unit because my objective is to try to get this game to be played by as many target audience as possible. I can make the game as a freeware but I need some money to fund the next game version so I stick to shareware.

I do marketing on the game but not as aggressive as it should be. I think this is the best strategy right now as this keep my expectation low and I can keep working on marketing the game over long period of time.

Since Blade Thrust Tactics is my first game effort, I try to learn as much I can from many sources on the Internet. While searching Google on how to sell shareware games, I come across an in-depth article written by Paul Eres from RPG Creation called How to Sell Games as Shareware. It contains lots of useful suggestion on many aspect of marketing games as shareware. Since then, I've been following some of those suggestions.

What surprises me is Paul Eres has only release one shareware game called Immortal Defense. Since the release of the game on June 2007, the game has been downloaded over 60000 and rakes about 300 units in total sales. For the first shareware games, this is actually a good number. A lot of indie game developers can only start making real money once they have a sizeable collection of games on their pocket.

The marketing effort for the game has been started as early as July 2009. After getting frustrated of lacklustre response on the game public beta released at the end of April 2009, I step up effort to increase traffic to the game website.

Shareware and Download Sites

1) I submit the game to be listed on many shareware and download sites. I think I already try to submit to over 30 websites before I get bored of the efforts. I didn't see any significant traffic to the game website. I think part of the problem is because since most of these websites have lots of software titles, it is very hard for developer to get his software or games to be noticed by people who visit the websites.

And people who runs this website take advantage of this by coming up with some crafty ways to persuade developer to pay if they want their software or games get more attention on the website. This is actually not such a bad idea if the website itself get visited by lots of people. But since I am kind of cheapskates guy, I'll give this thing a pass.

Nevertheless, submitting the game to these websites are not entirely useless. I get myself some valuable back link to the game website which helps to improve Google page rank. It's not much but everything little thing adds up. I also get some bonus when some websites such as Softpedia and ZDNet automatically list the game on their website.

I want to share some interesting fact - out of 32 websites I submit, I manage to get the game listed at only 15 websites! We are talking about 53% rejection here.

Game Forums

2) I announce the game on many game forums. This is actually not some sort of spam because I announce the game on feedback section of the forum asking people to try the game and provide feedback. If there is no feedback section, I'll write the post without making it looks like a typical spam. I do it on IGDA, IndieGamer, Bear's Pit, MGDC and even GameDev.net forum.

Initially the effort only attract small traffic but then a blogger and indie game developer himself named Rampant Coyote aka Jay Barnson read my forum post on IndieGamer and put some news about the game on his Tales of Rampant Coyote blog. Someone read his blog and post news about the game on Game Banshee. This build a significant traffic to the website. Although I don't get traffic from Game Banshee website any more, I still receive traffic coming from Tales of Rampant Coyote blog. Jay, if you read this I would like to say big thanks!

Press Release

3) I intend to send press release to many gaming sites but so far I didn't do it. It requires a tremendous amount of work trying to find the e-mail contact list and personally e-mailing them. I can use paid press release service which can streamline the process but since I am kind of cheapskates guy, I'll give this thing a pass. Maybe I can use the service in the future release of the game if I have the money.

Indie Game Developer Community

4) Another approach is to increase my presence within the indie game developer community by participating in indie game developer community forum such as TIGSource. If I have some useful insight about certain aspect of indie game or any other indie games to give feedback, I'll share it through the forum. I also would comment on other indie game developer blogs if I have something useful to say. I like the idea of what Paul Eres has said on his blog - Market Through Helpfulness. If you do good thing to people, people might do good thing to yourself.

It is also about perception management. I don't want to be seen as some sort of clueless jerk who think nothing but only to serve his interest only. I care about indie game developer community and I want them to grow. Becoming an indie game developer allows you to express your creative freedom that wasn't possible with mainstream game architecture. Yes, I tend to sound philosophical at times.

I actually provide my comment on other indie games but that info can only be accessed through the game website. Hmm, maybe I can transfer some content of it to any places where people can see it.

Internet Promotion Campaign

5) I have come out with a crafty campaign by giving the code to unlock the game to the full version to anyone who promote the game on the Internet. There are 3 options - blog, website or forum. If you have a blog, you can write a blurp or short description about the game on your blog and include a link to the game website. The blog can be about anything. It does not necessarily about games.

If you have a website, you can write a short description about the game on your link page and include a link to the game website. I accept most kind of website such as personal website, propaganda website but not porn website. If you are a regular forumites, you can suggest or recommend the game on the forum and include a link to the game website. The forum does not necessarily about games.

Although I might lose lots of sales from this campaign, the extra exposure gain from this campaign might give a boast for download numbers. And remember my target is not sales but download number.

Incentive - Strategy Guide

6) In order to provide incentive for people to upgrade to full version, I have written a full length strategy guide that will given to anyone who upgrade the game to full version. The short version of it can be accessed by anyone from the game website. This actually does not provide good enough incentive but it do make sense as the strategy guide contain lots of useful details that allow player to take advantage of what the full version of the game has to offer.

Game Review

7) I try to submit the game to be reviewed on several indie game websites or blogs. This might take some time though which depends on my presence within the indie game developer community which makes the fourth strategy very important to pursue.

Advertising

I don't intend to spend in any advertising at all for the game. The low game price, the niche target audience, bleak global economic scenario and low reputation as indie game developer ( Who the hell is this guy anyway? ) are reasons why spending on advertising isn't justifiable for me. Even if I have spare money to spend on advertising, I better spend that money on improving the production qualities of the game such as voice actors, art and such.

Tangible Value

9) I plan to provide tangible value to the game by giving USB flash drive preloaded with the full version of the game and some digital goodies to anyone who upgrade the game to full version. This is just a plan and can only be realized if I can gather enough capital money for this effort.

Man, that's a lot of things to do just to sell games directly on the Internet. No wonder lots of developers has switched to casual games or Flash games. They just want to makes games, not to get involved in nitty gritty details of confusing world of Internet marketing.