From idea to millions of players
Over the years I’ve built a creative process I love that helps me detect a game’s potential early. It’s still changing and adapting based on what I learn from every new game. Let’s dive into my notebooks, my prototypes folders, and some of the work I’ve done to create the Blumgi games.
Where do my ideas come from?
There are three kinds of starting points for a game:
A) Passive ideas that come to me naturally, without effort:
I went diving for the first time and noticed that when you breathe in, your body floats up, and when you breathe out, your body sinks. Bim! I could capture that experience in a game and make it the core mechanic.
B) Active ideas I hunt deliberately to solve a fit problem with platform constraints.
For example: “I want to make a game where players feel more and more powerful, one step at a time.”
C) Extracted mechanics Sometimes I take one micro mechanic I loved from a bigger game full of features, and adapt it for a new audience and platform as a full game, like turning Worms ninja rope to a one button portrait mobile game: Stickman Hook I made at Madbox.
Capture the idea
When an idea pops, I note it in my phone or draw it on my ipad, so I can forget it later and keep space in my mind for new ones:
I make one line concept lists and one picture per concept list so I can visualise all ideas easily when I start a new project or detect witch ones are the most exciting.
Validate the fun potential
At this step, I try to feel the experience with as little effort as possible and iterate until I find the fun.
I can use drawings to visualize an idea, get excited about it, and use that spark of energy to build momentum.
When I started making games, I designed a lot on paper, drawing, bouncing, exploring ideas. "What if this and that? Yes, so cool!"
It’s super exciting because on paper you’re building the whole game super fast, everything works in your mind. But...
Most of the time, when I tested the concept I spent lot of time designing on paper, with a prototype, the core idea wasn’t fun. Or I had a blast exploring in one shot, and then it was just execution, and I lost motivation.
Now I try to play the experience I have in mind as soon as possible by making a prototype. Instead of bouncing in my head, I bounce on what happens in the game and iterate super fast. I keep the excitement of exploration on the go.
At this step, I use all the shortcuts: dirty code and placeholders that let me feel the experience as fast as possible and validate (or not) the fun potential.
What are the fun levers?
Once I have a concept with some potential, I play with the prototype to understand what brings the fun and how I can control it. Here I want to know if I’ll have enough levers to build an experience with enough depth to be playable for around one hour.
I explore as many variants as possible with the main mechanic, drawing on my Ipad. I love this step and will use what I make later when it's time to make the content:
Blumgi Paintball:
Swingo:
Blumgi racers:
Blumgi Soccer:
Blumgi Dragon:
Blumgi Bloom:
Blumgi Rocket:
Can I make it work with the audience and platform?
During the fun hunt I try not to think about problems, to keep momentum. Once I’ve found the fun, it’s time to analyze.
I iterate until I solve the constraints and find solutions. For example, when I design a game for Poki, I consider:
- ❓ Is it playable in both portrait and landscape?
- ❓ Do the controls work on desktop (mouse/keyboard/trackpad) and touch (mobile)?
- ❓ Are the controls and rules easy to understand?
- ❓ Does it use a popular fantasy, theme, or characters?
- ❓ Is the build size small (limited assets, music, etc.)?
- ❓ Is it low-skill / high-reward?
- ❓ Is it ad-friendly (short gameplay chunks; rewards unlocked via ads)?
- ❓ Is the content easy to produce once the core gameplay is set?
This step is hard. Sometimes I find something super fun on desktop landscape but struggle to make it work on mobile. Or I have a minimalist concept and need to add rewards for ads, which can break the simplicity of the concept.
That’s why now, when I design a game for Poki, I often hunt ideas with the platform constraints in mind from the start.
Fantasy and Art
Most of the time I start with mechanics, then look for themes and aesthetics that serve the gameplay. Sometimes I have a fun mechanic but struggle to find the fantasy that fits.
Another constraint is choosing something that won’t take too much time to produce. I have a lot to say about this, I could write a full post about this topic.
Game structure
It's about designing progression, short-term goals, long-term goals, and so on… That’s not my strongest area. So far I’ve made very level-based games, and they were super linear. I'd like to explore new structures in the next ones.
Iterating with playtests
Pacing / Polish / Debug.
A super important step where I test the game directly with players. And it never works as expected. It’s all about iterating and testing again… until it’s fun for them.
Content
This is one of my favorite steps: once the challenges are nailed, I play with variations, focus on surprising players, and build an interesting flow and set of challenges.
Music / Sound
In my current process, this happens at the end. In most of my games I’ve outsourced it, or my co-creators made it. I think it would be interesting to work on music earlier, like at the design step.
That’s basically my process. I hope it was inspiring and gave you some ideas for your own games.
Loïc 🏝️🏝️🏝️