.

2. Stats [Fred(22)]
• Level 22 in life
• From planet Earth, sector Estonia
• 24/7 designer for 4 years
– Work
– Hobbies
– Fun
• Personal motivation – development
• Deals in Mobile, web, print + UI & UX

3. What are serious games?
• Game designed for simulations of real life
• Games designed for solving a problem
• Games, which main purpose is to train or
educate
• Don’t have to be entertaining
– But can be

4. Examples 1/3
• HabitRPG

5. Examples 2/3
• Fitocracy

6. Example 3/3
• FingerFolk

7. Whats the agenda?
• Let’s find a problem
• Let’s find the perfect team
• Let’s polish the idea and assign works
• Let’s have a quick meeting
• Let’s solve the problem
• Let’s market the game
• Let’s monetize the game
• Let’s enjoy the game

8. Achievement unlocked!
„5 minutes with Fred“
• Awards:
– 50 experience points
– You get to hear him talk more
– New quest unlocked: „How to start making a
game?“

9. HOW DOES FRED START MAKING
HIS GAMES?
Unintended capslock

10. The idea
• Before making games figure out your
motivation. Why do you want to make games?
• To make a serious game you need:
– A problem which needs solving
– To know what you want to offer to the player
– A vision that compels the listener
– To know the platform on which you will develop
– Understand the problem which needs solving

11. The Idea 2
Once you have your idea figured out, it’s time to
polish it.
• Ask yourself a lot of questions
• Pitch to your friends and let them ask a lot of
questions
• A well polished idea can be explained in two
sentences. A perfect idea can be explained in
one.

12. The idea 3
• Fred, I don’t have an idea but I still want to
make a game 
– Join a hackaton
• Garage48
• Game Jam
• 1 Game a Month
• Ludum Dare
• Etc

13. The idea 4
• Why should I join a Hackaton?
– This brings together a team of professionals to
achieve something big together.
– Mentors are there to mentor you
– Ideas get better, inspiration flows
– Looks great in your CV (- & LinkedIn )
– Motivates you

14. OKAY! I have an idea!
• Time to find our team members.
• We need:
– A big mean boss (project manager)
– Game design paladin
– Design agent
– Programming wizards
– Additional roles depending on the game.

15. Team 2
• Telltale-type games and their teams
• Some roles are replaceable or covered by others (
the lone programmer )
• You can skip some people in your team but
something has to be sacrificed in return.
• The most important thing about choosing
teammates – trust your guts not your brain !!

16. Idea? Check.
Team? Check.
Next..
• Brainstorming
– Don’t filter anything
– Write down everything
– Limited time or see when the team starts to settle
down
– Example
– Sort the keywords into 2

17. MustHave, NiceToHave
• MustHave
– Everything your game cannot exist without
– Programming & Game design
– Main goal should be reflected here. If it is getting
money, write down monetization.

18. MustHave, NiceToHave
• NiceToHave
– Details which would could be in the game but are
not necessary for the game to function
– Very important for serious games – they do not
have to be entertaining, so think twice before
adding stuff to MustHave
– Most of the artsy parts (but not all)

19. Example board

20. Example Board
• Color coded
• Wishlist

21. What do i do with the 2 lists now?
What to do with lists:
Prioritize them and start from the top
If you are in a time critical situation,
remove half and then remove some more.
Then prioritize them. This is the very core
of the game!

22. Quick meetings
• Quick stand-up meetings can help boost the
teams motivation and work
– Project manager goes through everybodys DONE
and TODO lists
– Productivity boost. Noone wants to say „I kind of
didn’t do anything for the past 7 days..“
– At least 1 meeting a week

23. Tips
• Paired programming
• Ballmer peak
• Let people take tasks rather than assign tasks to
people randomly
• 1 minute of planning saves you ten minutes of
work
• Know your market and your strengths,
advantages
• Everybody in the team should see the results

24. Tips 2
• Ask questions. Lots of them. Because people
will ask questions. Lots of them.
• Make your Google Play or iStore icon
attractive

25. Congratulations!
Ideally you have everything you need to
complete the smaller-scale game for now.

26. Marketing the game
• Market through your role without cash
– Programmers – developing blog
– Marketers – social media
– Public relations – forums, gaming sites
– Rich people - VGMarket provides research and
consulting services for game developers, including
surveys, play tests, market research, and mock
reviews

27. Marketing the game
• Should you have an investor
– Market through ads in other games & google
targeted ads.
– Learn how the games in the marketplace are
getting to the top

28. Let’s play a game
• I will show you 4 games. Can you guess which
game was the most successful?

29. MyWheel
• Team:
– 1 Project manager
– 1 Questionaire designer
– 1 Artist
– 4 Programmers
– 48 hours

30. • Team:
– 1 Game Designer / dancer
– 2 Project managers
– 2 Artists
– 1 Programmer
– 2 Marketing guys
– 48 hours

31. Color ninja
• Team:
– 1 Game Designer
– 1 Game Designer/Artist
– 1 Artist
– 2 Programmers
– 2 Marketing gurus
– Time: 48 hours

32. Game Master
• http://youtu.be/dGzNYZahA7s
• https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/554392
007/game-master-play-create-and-share-
adventures-on-th
• Time: 1.5 years

33. Answer:
They were all successful in their own way
Color Ninja – Most money
FingerFolk – in national TV
MyWheel – Top 40 in Ajujaht
Game Master – lots of experience

34. Monetizing
• Empathy cards for your client & investor

35. Monetizing 2
Investors value four things in my experience.
1) The team
2) The idea
3) The transparency between communications
4) Success

36. Monetizing 3
• If you have a really cool idea and have already
started with it, join an accelerator!

37. Make a game you would play yourself.