Alpha & Beta

Disclaimer: covers the milestone in mobile games production. While some practices can be used in the PC and console space, I would rather keep to experience, not speculations. Only use if it’s applicable.

Previously we discussed Prototypes and how to set up the core for your title. It’s time to start thinking about systems, complexities, and dependencies to begin scaling the project.

If through contract signing, pre-production, and prototyping a small core team can get the most tasks achieved, in Alpha all the gears are set into motion. Burns rates will increase significantly so consider each tool and resource with diligence. Even if you “had it all covered in Pre-production“, take a step back and decide: “What to do in-house vs what can be externalized?“

The beauty of the games industry is that through work for hire a studio can cover its missing skill sets: art, UI, modeling, animation, and trailer production. Judge budget restraints realistically to cover all the aspects of a game’s development. The Agile methodology is the way to go in terms of seeing the work and value created, but working on games is different than developing apps. In my experience, no game has been released exactly as scheduled and the Sprint Increment isn’t always a reflection of the expected Sprint Goal. Humans are working on developing games, and planning needs to be tempered with real-time day-to-day changes, as more is learned.

We can’t talk about production pipelines and resources without thinking of the impacts of AI. While it can democratize development it can also lead to an overall decline in quality for gamers. There’s an ongoing open debate about what will happen with our development practices. We can’t predict with high accuracy where it will take the games industry, but I’m excited about what’s in store. As long as AI remains a tool to enhance our practices, and reduce workload without completely removing the concept of “meaning“ that’s unique to human beings, we are in for a change. Interactions and self-correcting mechanisms will handle the rest. For a deep dive into the AI debate, check out “ Tim Sweeney, CD Projekt, and Other Experts React to AI's Rise, and Some Are More Skeptical Than You Think“.

Alpha

A game’s development time is highly dependent on team commitment aka skin in the game (taking a personal risk for the project’s success) and the allocated budget/burn rates. That’s the reason in the context of further funding and developing a project, I believe it’s the “make or break” milestone (not universally applicable). Some studios skip Alpha and Beta together and directly go to Soft Launch, to decide if a game is a sustainable product.

If this milestone has been reached - leaving aside unforeseen events - stopping here can leave a big hole in a team’s morale. Because in alpha stakeholders can have a glimpse of what the end product looks like, there are many more variables to consider when evaluating the project. Publishers can provide bounded reasons why it’s Go or No Go, the game needs rework, market requirements and player tastes have changed…these few variables only scratch the surface. This story focuses on a positive outcome, where everyone involved wants “Project Fortune“ market ready. Expectations, intuitions, and predictions don’t reflect the reality of the market and global player impressions.

Rules of thumb

• Setting up working and visible systems

If the prototype wasn’t written to be scratched, it saves a lot of time. Set up a good foundation - you want working code to be able to process beautiful models, gameplay mechanics, animations, and visual effects.

Building systems after Alpha increases the risk of re-modeling the house, again.

• The game engine must connect seamlessly with the Back-end tools

At the end of the Alpha milestone, most development and publishing teams can intuit “where this is going”. You can complete levels, open the shop, get resources, and figure out the finished gameplay loops. It’s all messy, and unbalanced, but it shouldn’t feel completely disconnected. If it does that means there’s still work to be done.

Inventory systems aren’t as flashy as moment-to-moment combat, but they are just as crucial for a game’s success. What’s the point of having the best combat system, that stops there and no real progress can be felt?

We are in the business of providing players with good gameplay, mind-blowing visuals, goals, purpose, rewards, and upgrades. Behind all of these themes are layers of systems made of code, polygons, rigs, animations, UI, and servers. It’s an almost living, breathing gameplay environment. That’s one way to approach the Alpha milestone scope.

• Community

Start building a community around the game as early as possible. Players want to see “where this is going” to decide if it’s a game they will potentially invest time and money in. Write blogs, and showcase progress. Post Youtube and Tiktok videos. Establish an online presence. Not everyone will love your game, so it is best to have a loyal community than aim for universal success.

Beta

• Scale and polish. Adding and finalizing content is the heuristic

The game code should catch up to the delivered art assets. The artists continue improving on the visuals. The art team can seamlessly add content without there being any technical blockers or requirements to constantly poke the coders for insights.

There’s a high probability there is a sea of bugs in-game, but while these are being stomped out game design takes center stage.

A complete first iteration has tuned balancing, complete gameplay loops, visuals and narrative ready to fuel the player fantasy. Every variable connects in a way that’s ready to communicate ideas, feelings, and concepts. The game “speaks” to its creator.

Tinker and experiment on what doesn’t work or feel good. Maybe this animation needs adjustment or this visual effect needs improvements. Marline the mage should have more INT, drop rates need more balancing because Legendary items don’t drop as often as they should. After 100 hours of gameplay, my intuition tells me this UI element can be improved so…this health potion needs to be yellow!

There is habit formation built around games (especially mobile). Habits need to make sense and fit into the day-to-day activity. Just one more match before my break ends or until my baby wakes up.

• A milestone filled with assumptions

The entire team can now play “Project Fortune“ from start to finish. The internal feedback has been accumulated, but before getting it into the player's hands, good assumptions need to be established:

• What do we as developers expect our player to behave like on day 1 vs day 30

• Is there enough content to keep this going in LiveOps

• What’s the difficulty curve and where does “the grind” start

• Where are the monetization opportunities? It’s F2P so let’s tie monetization to progression,

• What will be the spending habits?

• How do we avoid pay-to-win

• Be flexible in interpreting design iterations, assigning value statements to alpha/beta builds, and analyzing visible changes vs the work in progress (i.e backend work).

Remember that a lot of the “assumptions” are just that. It’s critical to move into a stage where these can be tested. Soft Launch is the go to now.

TL: DR

If in Beta, the game plays and feels like a “final” product, all hypotheses and assumptions need to be validated in a Live environment. That’s where Soft Launch KPIs come into play.

Credits: Artwork by Tanya Timosina