Creating truly player-centric games - how we do it at Kolibri Games?

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Kolibri Games (formerly Fluffy Fairy Games) is most known for “Idle Miner Tycoon”, one of most successful idle games in the world. What made it a success? How we grow our business now? How we use data and gather user's insights to improve monetisation and business results? Presentation based on examples.

Kolibri Games
Nathaniel Barker 10.12.2018
Creating truly
player-centric games.

Under the Hood of a Successful Idle Game -
A Deep Dive into Full Live Game Operations
Nathaniel Barker

Games are a hit-driven business.
The faster you can find out that a game
doesn't work, the lower the costs.

• Small team
• Find concept /
core mechanic
• Playable
version
• Test & iterate
8 weeks
1. Start
Project Manager
Engineer
Designer
Artist
Game Team
2. Minimum
product
???
Our process behind making games
• Everyone in the
company
• Is the gameplay
fun?
• Fixing bugs
3. Internal
Testing

Building a minimum viable product
• Basic mechanics
• No graphics
• Rough graphic concepts
• Further development of
mechanics
• Iterating on graphics
• Test gameplay
mechanics and adjust
balancing
• Finalizing UX
• Adding animaAons
• Improving look & feel

What is the most important thing to do?
Say to a lot of things
NO

• Early day
retention
• Organic
downloads
• Rating & user
feedback
4 weeks
4. External
Testing
• Small team
• Find concept /
core mechanic
• Playable
version
• Test & iterate
8 weeks
1. Start
Project Manager
Engineer
Designer
Artist
Game Team
2. Minimum
product
???
Our process behind making games
• Everyone in the
company
• Is the gameplay
fun?
• Fixing bugs
3. Internal
Testing

We believe that the most import thing is
the core gameplay measured by D1
retention
(Everything else can be polished later)
Idle Miner Tycoon Idle Factory Tycoon

• Add team
members
• Build more
features
• Scale with user
acquisition
5. Scaling Up
forever
• Early day
retention
• Organic
downloads
• Rating & user
feedback
4 weeks
4. External
Testing
• Small team
• Find concept /
core mechanic
• Playable
version
• Test & iterate
8 weeks
1. Start
Project Manager
Engineer
Designer
Artist
Game Team
2. Minimum
product
???
Our process behind making games
• Everyone in the
company
• Is the gameplay
fun?
• Fixing bugs
3. Internal
Testing

Released Idle Miner Tycoon on July 2016
Polishing and expanding
the game with more than
90 updates.
We call it games as a service.

Update policy
1 Development Sprint
1 Week
Planning Developing Testing
1 Update

Make a new update
Game Design – work ahead of the dev team
(plan new features about a week in advance)

Make a new update
Game Design – work ahead of the dev team
(plan new features about a week in advance)
Game Art – prepare assets for new features

Make a new update
Game Design – work ahead of the dev team
(plan new features about a week in advance)
Game Art – prepare assets for new features
Dev Team should not be blocked by another
team – fully focus on developing
Sprint

Continuous Integration (CI)
Developer
Version
control
(git)
CI-Pla8orm (Jenkins)
Playstore / Appstore
Test devices
Staged rollout

Staged Rollout
1%
20%
100%
5%
Day 1: Identifying bugs via reporting tool
Day 3: User feedback and store reviews
Day 4: Android release
Day 2: Identifying bugs via reporting tool
Android
iOS
Day 4: iOS release100%

Event Mines
We Preload these on player’s devices and activate
remotely
Can double revenue for a weekend

Event Sales
Preload these on player’s device & ac6vate
remotely
Have a game designer working part 6me
monthly to change these constantly

Be player-centric
and connect to players
Connect to players
through a lot of
channels
Integrate feedback
and ideas from
community very fast
Players love it and
get more engaged
Increased user
satisfaction

31
CONTACT
• Nathaniel Barker
• nate.barker@kolibrigames.com
Thank you for
listening!

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