ApathyWorks

Cute Things Dying Violently Post-Mortem

Posted by Alex Jordan on September 14, 2011

It's that time of the year again. Having worked on Cute Things Dying Violently for longer than Michelangelo worked on the Sistine Chapel*, I have written a post-mortem to document every up, down, left, right, in, and out of that process. Maybe some back and forth, too. I dunno, whatever. You can read the whole thing here.

I should warn you, though, that it's long as hell. 14 or 15 pages long, in fact. Why? Because I'm a good writer, and I like writing, and because I am like Samson at the gate when it comes to fighting the ADHD-riddled masses out there, wielding my wit and shining knowledge like the jawbone of an ass. Is that even still Samson? I can't remember, but everyone can enjoy a good chuckle about the fact that I referred to my wit as coming from the mouth of an ass. Get it? GET IT?

For anyone who wants to skip to the summary, I've posted it below the fold:

What went right:

• The name: 'Nuff said. It was my secret weapon, right up until the point it was no longer a secret. Then it merely became my best weapon.

• The gameplay: 2D physics puzzlers can be compelling to play? No way! Sure, I recognize that I stuck with a tried-and-true genre, but if people hadn't liked the core game, I would've been up a creek without a paddle. But you liked it, you really liked it!

• Rapid development of the in-game objects: Many reviewers have remarked that the puzzles and content stayed fresh even late into the game. I credit that to finishing up the work on 90% of the in-game objects within the first three months of development. That gave me a further eleven months to create levels and iterate at my own pace. It also meant that I had plenty of time to go back and rebalance levels, so that some of them became harder and earned spots later in the game, but showed off some older (and good!) puzzle ideas that I'd came up with earlier. Spreading the fresher ideas throughout the singleplayer campaign reaped huge dividends.

• The integrated level editor: Getting that done first allowed me to work faster from there on. Also, it gives players a way to increase the longevity of the game.

• The sense of humor: Aside from the cheeky nature of the game's trailer and my press releases, I didn't bill CTDV as a humorous game. As a direct result, lots of players were pleasantly caught off guard by the sheer amount of sarcasm and sly jokes. Lots of reviewers too, it seems, thanks in part to the funny press releases.

• The gore and the profanity: I knew right off that one of CTDV's greatest strengths would be in the weird juxtaposition of cute, idealistic Critters and their being sent to bloody ends, cursing all the way. Again, I didn't advertise the fact that the Critters or the Hate Bot talk, so it came as a nice surprise for people.

• The price point: I packed CTDV with tons of content (singleplayer, achieve mints, challenge levels, local multiplayer, the level editor), so when I marketed it for only $1, the price in and of itself became a selling point. “And it's only one dollar!” was written by practically all reviewers. At $3, players would be weighing whether or not to buy the game, but at $1, the higher demand curve rewarded what turned out to be a hidden feature!

• The Summer Uprising: Thanks to the great work of Dave Voyles and Kris Steele, CTDV got far more attention than it would have if I was on my own. Plus, they got our games on the Xbox Dashboard, which is a huge accomplishment. Thanks, guys!

• Twitter and networking: 14 months of development is a hell of a long time, and I spent a lot of it chatting about game design on Twitter. In doing so, for me, Twitter went from a “what the hell is the point of this?” exercise to a bonafide networking tool. Talk about a prominent topic (game design), in a prominent market (Xbox), with prominent people for long enough, and soon you'll have made important contacts with fellow developers and gaming journalists, all of whom are approachable, kind, and more than willing to help you out. Thank you to you guys and girls, as well!

What went wrong:

• The controls: I use “wrong” advisedly. Although a discussion on the controls might be better suited for the “???” section, the controls are where I got most of the complaints about CTDV, so they earned their spot in the “wrong” section.

Here's the thing about the controls: they're “analog”, meaning that they're analogous to the player's dexterity. The various reviewers that have complained about faulty controls or hyper- sensitive controls? They're talking their own inability to pull off the necessary flicks, not the games's. The controls are set up in such a way that a lot of people were inferring flaws in their design that don't actually exist.

EDIT: Yeah, the reason that's struck out above? It turns out a minority of players have been getting some flicking issues that really are bugs. I'm flabbergasted, because the flicking algorithm is written to be specifically airtight. It even factors out the movement of the thumbstick rocking back to the center position, so that your originally-chosen angle would be unsullied. These bugs should theoretically be impossible, but several users and reviewers have confirmed them, so now I have the unenviable task of trying to hunt down a bug that I've never ever experienced that only appears infrequently. Great. END EDIT.

But as it stands, that's cold comfort. I didn't set out to design a game for the most dextrous elite. In fact, I failed to consider that some players wouldn't have the hand-eye coordination or the spacial coordination to play the game properly. And although I'm not about to change the controls (EDIT: Except to squash whatever this mystery bug is), seeing as how most of the reviewers and players liked (or at least, understood) the importance of having complete analog control over the flicking, I am busy working on new aiming tools that will give players who are bad shots the opportunity to improve their aim and learn from their mistakes. I hope that will keep the core game intact while also mollifying the reviewers and players who didn't enjoy the game through no fault of their own. I'm not designing for just my fans, I'm designing for everyone.

• Too Long/Didn't Read: Aside from the Critter vocalizations, CTDV's main method of conveying humor is the in-game text boxes. My goal was to make teaching new game mechanics fun. Unfortunately, way too many players don't like reading. The second level... the second goddamn level... teaches the player to use the Left Trigger on the Xbox gamepad to hold and drag Critters. But that lesson is nestled inside a text box, and those that got bored reading during the second level missed this entirely and tried to play the game without dragging Critters! Which, needless to say, makes for a terrible game. I've rectified the situation by adding a visualization of the control screen that will be coming out in the next game patch. Unfortunately, I can't also send Ritalin through Xbox Live.

• The 100%'ers: CTDV is technically possible to 100% (at least one player has already saved every last possible Critter), but I'm not a 100%'er, so I wasn't thinking in terms of those who were. It turns out that several 100%'ers approached me and admonished me for making some of the last levels so impossibly hard to do perfectly... it's a feat to save just one Critter, let alone all of them! But now that I know that there's an active community of completionists out there, I'm going back and rebalancing some of the more obnoxious levels. Oh, and speaking of which...

• Obnoxious levels: It turns out that some levels have easy-to-deduce puzzles that require an unreasonable amount of trial and error to actually complete. Even with good control of the flick mechanics, certain levels – particularly number 4-8, “Quick Dip” - can only be beaten with once-in-a-lifetime shots. I'm rebalancing those, too.

What went ???

• Cute Things doesn't have cute things? Cuteness and attractiveness is subjective, I guess, but I didn't realize that I'd staked a pretty large chunk of my game's appeal on the “cuteness” of the Critters. It's right there in the title, for chrissakes! I'd better be right about it. And while most people did think the Critters were cute, a notable chunk of reviewers disagreed. In fact, some figured out that I'd originally been shooting for the little woodland creatures and wondered why they hadn't made the cut.

• Hey, this reminds me of... Yeah, I get it, the flicking is a lot like Angry Birds. But you're doing me a disservice every time you suggest (thinking you're the first to do so) that CTDV would go great on a mobile phone. I'm sure it would! But aside from Windows Phone 7, porting to other mobile devices is a pain in the ass, especially for someone with a day job. Also, you're doing CTDV itself a disservice by ignoring the degree of control that two analog sticks offers you. I'd like to see you pull off some of the game's more precise shots with just a quick finger swipe...which, of course, would also obscure half the play area on a mobile phone.

• The graphics: Talk about damning with faint praise. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I saw a reviewer say, “The graphics don't bring the game down”, or something to that effect. Only one or two of them actually liked the graphics. The rest just considered them workmanlike, but nothing to detract from the game itself.

• Local multiplayer: While it doesn't hurt the game, I've heard almost no feedback on the local multiplayer whatsoever. If it was Live-based multiplayer, it probably would've been a bit more popular.

• Too Long/Didn't Read, Part II: If a funny game conveys most of its humor through text boxes that you didn't bother to read, is it still a funny game?

• ApathyWorks and my blog: In addition to being an aspiring game developer, I'm also an aspiring writer. I've always hoped that designing and releasing games would also send attention to my blog, but this is the second game in a row that's failed to do that. The funny side effect is that people recognize CTDV and even “Alex Jordan, the federal employee who makes violent video games” much more than the whole ApathyWorks/writing side of things!