This document summarizes the development process of the Pokémon game Magikarp Jump by a small team at SELECT BUTTON inc. It describes several issues they faced including high costs for supervision due to IP security needs, lack of team members requiring efficient communication, costs of multilingual support, and managing large app size. Tools were created to help cut costs and streamline processes. Despite challenges, the game was successfully released and became very popular with over 10 million downloads, though retention was lower than expected. The conclusion reflects on automating processes and cutting communication costs to develop licensed IP games with small teams.

1. Issues and Solutions
after creating the IP-based
game
with 3 members
-Pokémon: Magikarp Jump-
SELECT BUTTON inc.
Nakahata Koya

2. Self-Introduction
Director DesignerProgrammer

3. Self-Introduction
Survive Mola Mola!
8.2M Downloads
(5.5M KR ver.)
Hunt Cook
1.8M Downloads
(0.3M KR ver.)
Pokémon: Magikarp Jump
10M+ Downloads
©2017 Pokémon. ©1995–2017 Nintendo/Creatures Inc. /GAME FREAK inc. Developed by SELECT BUTTON inc.

4. Today’s Theme
Increment of IP-based titles.

5. Today’s Theme
High difficulty for a Small-sized team
to create the Others’ IP games
Character
Comprehension
Security
Supervision
AD material
CS Support
Multilingualism
etc..
Legal

6. Today’s Theme
Issues for the Small-sized team
to create the Others’ IP games

7. Development Prehistory
of
Magikarp Jump

8. Encounter with The Pokémon Company
End of Feb 2016. While updating HuntCook ...

9. Encounter with The Pokémon Company
There was a fan of Survive mola mola
in The Pokémon Company!

10. Pokémon x Nurturing game
From popular to odd characters

11. Pokémon x Nurturing game
An extra idea noted on the corner of the project book;
that was Magikarp Jump
“Train your Magikarp without getting caught by Pidgeot
This phrase rang the bell

12. Pokémon x Nurturing game
Overview
Train your Magikarp
to the highest jumper!
User target
Super casual user
From child to elder
Planning Concept
Playable for anyone
Slow tempo easy game

13. Team created!
Pokémon first generation members
are the center of creation

14. Let’s start
Development!

15. Only 3 Persons at dev team
enormous amount of to-do-lists

16. Make sure there aren’t any traps
before starting the development

17. • Check-ups for Illustration resources
• Resource management; hard task
→zip? Dropbox? E-mail?
• Check-ups for animation on Apps
• Record smart phone screen?
• Download mock-App and play it every time?
Issue1. Costs for Supervisor

18. Issue1. Costs for Supervisor
Check-ups for Illustration materials
→Creation of the pic-check tool ”Image Viewer”

19. Issue1. Costs for Supervisor
・Features
・Unique URL for each images
・Secured by limited IP access

20. Issue1. Costs for Supervisor
Check-ups for animation on Apps
→Check the animation by Flash mock on web browser

21. Issue1. Costs for Supervisor
・Merit of Flash mock
・available to check the animation anywhere anytime
・No logics, easy and fast to create
・Effect the code made by Flash to Cocos2d-x

23. • 1 Programmer, 1 Designer
• However, enormous amount of tasks
→The programmer and the designer each have to
really concentrate on their works to end by due
date!
→Communication cost cut-offs for resource
sharing were indispensable between them
Issue2. Lack of members

24. Issue2. Lack of members
Communication cost cut-offs for resource sharing
→develop layout instruction tool ”Layouter”

25. Issue2. Lack of members
Merit
- The programmer can focus on his development
while the designer only has to reflect his work on this
- No need to communicate since
the animation are checkable through the Flash mock

26. Succeeded to cut off
man-hours!

27. Let’s develop!

28. Oh No!
Still got a problem!

29. - Translated to 8 languages and released all in
once
- German texts are simply twice longer than
Korean
- In addition to time-difference takes around
2-3 days to revise phrases, build and check
Issue3. Costs for multilingualism
→ Necessity to reflect the phrases which the translator
registered on device in real time
튀는 힘
Jump power JP

30. Issue3. Costs for multilingualism
How to reflect multilingual phrases in real time?
→Developed hot-update function which reflects
the translated phrases on the app
Translation
tool

31. Issue4. App size
- Avoid extra resource download requirement
- Keep App size up to 100MB
- However, resource amount is enormous
such as Pokémon character illustration
→Generate the animation resources in app
× 34Patterns x 2Gender

32. Issue4. App size
Generate the animation resources in app

33. Finally after 10 months
of development term
all done!

34. - 10 M Downloads within 1.5months after
launching
- Rate over ★4.5 in App Store around the world
- No.1 Free App in App Store USA
- Overwhelming Expansion on Twitter（Just like
Mola mola!）
- Played by every generation
Result of release: Success

35. - Difficulty to develop for super casual user
- Massive downloads than expected
- However, retention rate was lower than
expected
- “More complicated rules” “Faster tempo”
- We couldn’t find time to update HuntCook
- IP-based games can’t be done
without full commitment
Result of release: Self-examination

36. - Resolution required to the fact that twice the
development cost will occur compared to the
original game
- The best idea to cut-off the communication
costs are simply to automate man-hour by
developing the convenient tools
Conclusion

37. I can not be happier to
develop the game of the IP I have
been admiring since a little boy!

38. Thank you!

39. - Useful Tools
- Fabric Beta
- Send binary
- Crashlytics
- Analyzing crash log
Appendix

40. - Good that we didn’t create as in
Pixel Illustration…
- Vector Illustration
- Creating High resolution image
for AD is easier
- Animation creation is easier
Appendix