This talk is from the event 'The Arcade (R)Evolution: Making Hit Casual Games with a Focus on Idle'. To see more details about our events, follow us on Meetup here: https://www.meetup.com/mobilegamesdev/ About this talk: Having created one of the most popular idle games on the market, Idle Miner Tycoon (reaching over 100 million downloads), Kolibri shared with us how they built on what they learned from their first title to create their next big hit, Idle Factory Tycoon. In this talk, Nate Barker digs into the details, discussing topics like the different features they used, how they used their season pass, and simple mechanics behind the complex genre.

1. <>
M a k i n g H i t C a s u a l G a m e s
9th of October 2019Meetup < >

2. What did we learn while building
Our Idle Games?

3. N A T E B A R K E R
Director of Business Development at
Kolibri Games
New York University Alumnus.
Marketing at Disney Mobile and
Linekong Interactive.
Evangelist at Chartboost.

4. A G E N D A
Our Story
About Idle Miner
Tycoon
Our development approach
Games as a service

5. A G E N D A
About Idle Miner
Tycoon
Our development approach
Games as a service
Our Story

6. A G R O W T H S T O R Y
K O L I B R I G A M E S
This is a story about how we created
a gaming franchise spanning more
than 100M downloads.
And a story about passion, resilience,
hard work and long hours.

7. H O W I T A L L S T A R T E D
K O L I B R I G A M E S
Humble beginnings in
the student apartment.

8. Our first project failed. Why?
• Waterfall development
instead of agile
approach.
• Very complex technical
approach.
• No testing for months.

9. So we started from scratch
again.
And thought about a new genre
we wanted to be in.
Restart

10. K O L I B R I G A M E S
S I M P L E P R O T O T Y P E
No 3D artwork
No social features
No localization
No IAPs
No ad mediation
No longterm motivation
No cloudsave
2 0 1 6

11. K O L I B R I G A M E S
S I M P L E P R O T O T Y P E
2 0 1 6
And it reached an outstanding D1 retention.
D1 = the fraction of players that return one day after installing the game.
Most Free2Play games have a D1 retention of 40%.

12. K O L I B R I G A M E S
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E
Polishing and expanding our
games with weekly updates.

13. K O L I B R I G A M E S
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E
1 Development Sprint
1 Week
Planning Developing Testing
1 Update

14. We began our first steps of marketing in June 2017 and
scaled revenue 10x within 3 months.
2 0 1 7

15. D E C 2 0 1 7 We decided to move to Berlin.
30 of our people trusted us and
moved with us.

16. 2 0 1 8
We grew our portfolio
to 2 idle games

17. 2 0 1 9 We grew our team to over 100 people

18. 100 MILLION DOWNLOADS
Success is no accident.
It’s the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.

19. A G E N D A
Our Story
Our development approach
Games as a service
About Idle Miner
Tycoon

20. O T H E R I D L E G A M E S
K O L I B R I G A M E S

21. F E A T U R E S
I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N
Expand the Skill TreeGo on ExpeditionsExplore Your WorldMine Resources

22. F E A T U R E S
I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N
Expand the Skill TreeGo on ExpeditionsExplore Your WorldMine Resources

23. F E A T U R E S
I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N
Expand the Skill TreeGo on ExpeditionsExplore Your WorldMine Resources

24. F E A T U R E S
I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N
Expand the Skill TreeGo on ExpeditionsExplore Your WorldMine Resources

25. E V E N T M I N E S
I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N

26. S E A S O N P A S S
I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N
The Idle Miner Tycoon version of the
popular Battle Pass known from
games like Clash of Clans, Fortnite
and other Top-Grossing Mobile
Games.

27. Casual / Hyper Casual
Easy to pick up
Easy to play
Mid-core
Strong social mechanics
Meta Game
Long-term retention
Idle
Short sessions
Quick progress/success
Player Friendly Ad Monetization

28. I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N
K O L I B R I G A M E S
Mine
Transport
Sell
Mine
Mine
Upgrade
Mine
Transport
Sell
Mine
Mine
Upgrade
Choke Choke
Choke

29. You pay
You wait

30. I D L E M I N E R T Y C O O N
K O L I B R I G A M E S
Time vs. Money
Unblock Barriers
Double revenue

31. H O W D O E S I D L E M I N E R M O N E T I Z E ?
K O L I B R I G A M E S
Advertisements
In-App
Purchases

32. A G E N D A
Our Story
About Idle Miner
Tycoon
Games as a service
Our development approach

33. Games are a hit-driven business.
The faster you can find out that a game doesn't work, the
lower the costs.

34. What is the most important thing to do?
Say to a lot of things
NO!

35. O U R D E V E L O P M E N T A P P R O A C H
Our biggest inspiration

36. Basic mechanics
M I N I M U M V I A B L E P R O D U C T
O U R D E V E L O P M E N T A P P R O A C H

37. Basic mechanics Rough graphic concepts
M I N I M U M V I A B L E P R O D U C T
O U R D E V E L O P M E N T A P P R O A C H

38. Basic mechanics Rough graphic concepts Iterating on graphics,
mechanics, balancing
M I N I M U M V I A B L E P R O D U C T
O U R D E V E L O P M E N T A P P R O A C H

39. Basic mechanics Rough graphic concepts Iterating on graphics,
mechanics, balancing
Finalizing UX, graphics,
mechanics, balancing
M I N I M U M V I A B L E P R O D U C T
O U R D E V E L O P M E N T A P P R O A C H

40. We believe that the most import thing is
the core gameplay measured by
D1 retention.
D1 Retention = the fraction of
players that return one day
after installing the game.

41. Idle Miner Tycoon Idle Factory Tycoon
It’s 75% with
this one
Also with this one
Most Free2Play games have a
D1 retention of 40%.
Not our games.

42. K O L I B R I G A M E S
S I M P L E P R O T O T Y P E
Outstanding D1 retention.
D1 = the fraction of players that return one day after installing the game.
Most Free2Play games have a D1 retention of 40%.

43. • Small team
• Find concept /
core mechanic
• Playable version
• Test & iterate
8
1. Start
Product Manager
Engineer
Designer
Artist
2. Minimum
viable
product
???
• Everyone in the
company
• Is the gameplay
fun?
• Fixing bugs
3. Internal
Testing
• Early day
retention
• Organic
downloads
• Rating & user
feedback
4
weeks
4. External
Testing
• Add team
members
• Build more
features
• Scale with user
acquisition
5. Scaling Up
forever
Game
Team
D E V E L O P M E N T P R O C E S S
O U R D E V E L O P M E N T A P P R O A C H
QA

44. A G E N D A
Our Story
About Idle Miner
Tycoon
Our development approach
Games as a service

45. We released Idle MinerTycoon
in July 2016.
Polishing and expanding the game
with more than 160 updates.
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E

46. 1 Development Sprint
1 Week
Planning Developing Testing
1 Update
U P D A T E P O L I C Y
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E

47. 1%
20%
100%
5%
Day 1: Identifying bugs via reporting tool
Day 3: User feedback and store reviews
Day 4: Release
Day 2: Identifying bugs via reporting tool
S T A G E D R O L L O U T
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E

48. 1%
20%
100%
5%
Day 1: Identifying bugs via reporting tool
Day 3: User feedback and store reviews
Day 4: Release
Day 2: Identifying bugs via reporting tool
S T A G E D R O L L O U T
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E
How do we know which update
players will love the most?
Which idea is worth developing?

49. K E E P P L A Y E R S E N G A G E D
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E
Community
Feedback
Data based
Qualitative decisions

50. Most of our players are located in the US and Europe.

51. Most players stay in the game for 9:24 minutes per session.

53. Nice, but now what?

54. Will players like a 5th
continent?
We don’t know and it’s too
costly to just test it.
So we have to just make a
decision.
Q U A L I T A T I V E D E C I S I O N S
G A M E S A S A S E R V I C E

55. A G E N D A
Our Story
About Idle Miner
Tycoon
Our development approach
Games as a service

56. T H A N K Y O U !
Nate Barker
Director of Business Development
nate.barker@kolibrigames.com

57. Thanks for listening
And thanks for coming! Next up, we’ll be focusing on ‘Platformer/Runner Games’.
We’ll share the details (when, where, and line up) at a later date, so stay tuned.
Any questions, feel free to email us at insights@gameanalytics.com.