OVERVIEW
Blast your way through a city of crumbling ancient temples in this explosive puzzle game.
Three different types of bomb can be used to strategically demolish the levels and bring the Power Ball safely to rest – but watch out for the fragile stone idols, moving platforms and pre-set bombs that could bring everything crashing down in entirely the wrong way!
THE SITUATION
Bomba was the first mobile game to market for Games Lab (Released August 25, 2011). The app built and deployed to the App Store and google play store in under two months with both a light and full version.
The initial purpose of the app was to develop the skill base of the studio, establish a development workflow using Unity, learn the processes involved in deploying a product to the asset store, test marketing strategies, test monetization strategies and learn how to collect and analyze user data effectively.
Team
Matthew Rietdijk: Technical lead programmer, game design & voice over actor.
Anthony Palaje: Game design, UX/UI design, art assets, 3D assets & graphic design.
Alain Machain: Sound.
Additional assets: Amanda Oei, Antony Lamb and Douglas Hand.
RETROSPECTIVE
FEATURES
- Contains 54 mind-bending levels and 6 lush animated backdrops.
- Three different types of bomb.
- Moving platforms.
- Pre-set bombs.
- Fragile stone idols.
- Different Power Ball types.
GAMEPLAY
During playtesting, we found the core mechanic to be fun but a bit too repetitive to engage the user in repeat play. To counter these different Bomb types were tested and introduced which allowed us to create different kinds of levels using mechanics such as moving platforms even after the introduction of the various bombs the game still felt flat after sustained play and the level design limited. After some consideration, I proposed the idea of introducing an Idol character which the player could not break to be successful. The introduction of the idol character changed the game dynamics significantly as it added an element of risk and allowed for more diverse level designs and more creative use of bomb types.
MONETIZATION
Mobile games at this time were still in their infancy, and no clear standard or accurate data was supporting a method of monetization. So with this in mind, after much debate, a business decision was made by the financial stakeholders, the game released as a one-off purchase on both iOS and Android for $10. Even with good publicity and a few good reviews, it is needless to say adoption rate was poor and questions were asked of the game as the financial stakeholders did not understand the market. While we could not get them to drop the price after much debate, we did manage to get them to agree to a lite version of the game.a
We pushed out a lite version of the game which received between 50,000 - 100,000 downloads on google play and over 500,00 downloads on iOS. While we did get an increase in purchases, the price point of the game was way too high and other than influxes of sales during game sale periods the game was not a commercial success even though sales did increase when the price dropped.
