Alien Hive review

Alien Hive has been in App Store's feature list recently as free game. I had downloaded and play it for awhile and now i write a review, just my personal ideas about this game as a player and as a game designer.
First thing i mention about is art style. This game has a beautiful graphic with clear and big Play button. Its graphic suited to alien theme. I really love its art.
The music is charming. I can listen to that music all day. The sound effect is very rewarding and suits to background music.
But the game-play is not interesting enough for me. The mechanic of upper level match with the mechanics of puzzle seem to work but it's not very affective. I played a lot of dull move until i got what want (May be i'm too dull to make a good move). The energy mechanic is the ending condition. You can earn more energy by matching crystal or seed. So there are four hierarchy in this game: Crystal, seed, alien, robot but the map is so small it's 6x6 board (equal to Triple Town but triple town is only 2 hierarchy: building and bears) .

Compare to triple town this game is a little of pointless. In Triple Town, you actively plan you move. In Alien Hive, you just try to make a effective move. So many thing to care about: earn energy, kill robot, make a higher level. Each move make me think a lot and i don't find the freedom in game play.

There are a lot of power up in game but it require money. You can you power up to make gameplayer easier. It's unlimited but it's cost much. May be the freemium model of this game make it so hard to balance the difficult level of the game. Without power-up you just can't go far in this game because their so little crystal to create energy, even crafting crystal cost you energy. So...., power-up and money.

Personally i think they should reject some of the hierarchy such as crystal and plant. Just robot and alien. That will make the game more easier for such a small board.
Recently i've watched on Youtube about their blitz mode. Yeah! no more sliding with only one slot. Now you can be in worm mode all the time. That make the game more easier and classic. That's fine. Classic is good.
CONCLUSION: I love its graphic so much but gameplay bother me like hell. I hope the developer will add some twist so it's easier to enjoy.

Game as a service

So i read a presentation of Scott Brodie about "Designing game at the service of humankind". There are a lot of great idea to provide long lasting game. On my opinion, game is a service for people is enough.
What characters of service that we can apply to game?
1. Listen to your customers
Everyone wants to be listened, especially when they use a service. I saw a women who come to a salon to watch her hair, after finished, she feel happy a lot and share the feeling with service staff. We should support that function in our game. The more user feel being listen the more sympathy they are. Just an email to support team but mean a lot.

2.Greeting customers when they comeback to your game
Greeting make the customer feel the respect. In KFC stores, there's an employee who just stand to greet new customers come to their store. Just a simple sentences, "well comeback" a lot of difference it make.

3. Remember each user
It's like data mining. Remember your customer habit to suggest them what they always want. Favorite list and recently list is good example. Think about your individual customer 's need. The more your remember about your customer, the more they think you understand you.

Game design practice

1- Types of joy in games and how to implement it

Fiero: Boss fight, big wave of enemy

Being lucky: item drop from enemy, jackpot

Accomplishment: Missions

Masterskill: Move that require skill to receive good results. Not by grinding

Watch performance: Design a good gameplay show

Being loved: cheering, show love

Help others: coop play, thank you from NPC

Destroy stuff: Design stuff that can destroy and the destroy effect must be overwhelming sensation

Be social: coop play, arena, compete game.

Be rich: design economy system and a lot of way to find the income and a lot of way to spent the money they earn

Be smart: Design puzzle that seem to be hard to answer but it's not :))

Learn new thing: Design a good content delivery: deliver new things on the long period of time. Player know a little about new thing will happen.

Exploration: design a lot of type of land, player feel joy of exploration

Self Expression: Make the player can't show the flavor of themselves

being supported: pet, coop play with support roles, follower

Watch the quarium: building style. Make it shine and repeat animations, beauty is the key

2- Types of skill

Timing: choose the right time to push a certain button or do the certain action

Memory: remember the exactly information

Motor skill: drive or move the right way

Select skill: give a good choice to each situation

solving skill: give a good solution to a problem

recognition skill: matching, or point out the different or find or some thing that different form other.

Connecting: connecting event, clue to make a decision or solution

3- Interest curve 

 

 This is a good interest curve. A is the starting point. B is the hook. B must be very interesting to gap player attention. Then it drop the the interesting level to build trust. C is the hill where player was introduce new content. G is the final point. Resolve everything.

Interest is really a abstract word they can be replaced by: tension, number of possible move, number of enemy... etc.

The joy of a designer

Yes, you are a happiness maker
It's very happy to think that you are the happiness maker. When you a game designer, you didn't design it for yourself, you did it for your audience. When a game released, you're hunger to see the feedback to your game. If it a positive feedback, you can enjoy yourself for awhile. If it a negative feedback, then you have to point out the problem.

This is the picture of 2 people enjoy my game. I'm feel proud and happy when i looked at that picture.

When you worked in game industry, it's the number of user and profit is the most important. That's easy to understand, without money you can't make any game. And all the features must increase something, user's loyalty, user paying, retention rate.... If you want to add any feature to serve your user, you have to explain to boss and the whole team why it's important and why it's worth to add. If you can't find the good reason, that's not gonna be happen. The feature that gave profit only for the user but not the team is consider wasting resource to do something unprofitable. So if you want to make something improve player experience make it silently and with profit in mind.
Game designer is actually a hard working job. you will work 24/24 and note everything. With a lot of pressure that will break you down. Remembering you are the happiness maker will help you continue your work with more motivation.
Game as a service to solve people needs
Ofcouse game is about entertainment, it's is one type of people needs. But let me make it more detail.
When you met someone for the coffee, the waiter can't bring your coffee for awhile. Let play a short simple game for warm up the meeting. That can make you and your friend have some funny game after work. That's why i design Game For Two (offline version). To solve some short boring period.link
After work, there are two kinds of of activity you want to enjoy: entertainment or relax. If you want entertainment play some exciting game with real time exciting gameplay like dota, League of Legend or Counterstrike.... If you want relax there some puzzle game with lower speed and you got time to make interesting decision. Someone want to enjoy beautiful story, there some japan title as Solid Snake or Final Fantasy could satisfy you.
You're the social type? there a lot of social game with rich social activity like Farmville and Clash of Clan make your activity with your friend more meaningful.
Personally I think game enrich people live a lot.

Game as a art
Game has everything that other art have. A lot of people call it an art of interaction. As other art, game designers have to spend a lot of their time for training. It require skill, imagination, knowledge to craft such a beautiful game and a lot of people to plan, make and market it to the world. Each game have its own fan. It's a mix of other kind of art : music, painting...