Welcome to the Voodoo coaching program!

Here are some guidelines to follow to create

promising hypercasual games.

Feel free to ask for clarifications to your PM

This doc is updated by the Voodoo Publishing team

 SYSTEM 1 / SYSTEM 2
How easily understandable a game is?

We can categorize games according to the amount of mental effort and processing they require from the player.
We like to think of games as either being "System 1" or "System 2".
SYSTEM 1 GAMES

They are essentially intuitive, automatic, effortless, durable and fast

A good example of this is Rolly Vortex:

There is no need to think at length in this game, it is a a very

simplified runner; as such it is immediately understood.

Most obstacles in the game are there only to give players

the feeling that they are performing well and navigating a
challenging environment, when in practice the sensitivity
of controls is such that very little movement is required of
them, and the game is relatively forgiving.

Not stressful and very easy to understand - it is typically a

game that is reflective of Good KPIs because it ticks all the
boxes mentioned above.
SYSTEM 2 GAMES

They can be hard, laborious, tiring, temporary and slow as a result

A good example of this would be Rhythm Saber !!!

Such games require, at the least, a moment of reflection in order to comprehend the
gameplay. This usually results in a stressful experience for the player, who can be
overloaded with information and variables to compute as she plays. A lack of clarity
makes the game less enjoyable and conveys less fun to the player.
 YOUTUBABILITY
How appealing and understandable a game is?

People (your grandma) should understand goal(s), danger(s), scoring system simply by watching a gameplay
video
YOUTUBABILITY

A key driver of youtubability is the clarity of your gameplay to a potential player.

Gameplay clarity will help you achieve the full potential of your
game by working on getting the lowest possible CPIs for your
games.

Many elements can be used to make your game clearer :

For instance, ask yourself if a user’s interaction with the game

is evident, for example, can she tell which character she
controls? Is the objective clear? Does it look fun to play?
Has she understood the game after 1 second (great!) or after
10 seconds (too long!).

Make sure to use colours to help indicate the gameplay rules.

For instance, in Helix Jump, obstacles are clearly contrasted
(in orange here) and instantly recognized as a threat.
YOUTUBABILITY

If you want to run user tests with friends and family or even
random people in the street, it is interesting to show them the
30 second video before making them try to prototype in order to
understand their expectations from the video vs. the actual
game they try.

Make it obvious with visual elements that help understand

the objective and controls of the game, like with the target
used in Viatcheslav Tarasov’s Purple Diver or Fabrika Games’
Draw Car with the space dedicated to drawing.
YOUTUBABILITY

People will be watching the gameplay videos of your games on

their phone’s Facebook feed, everything will seem smaller
than when displayed in Unity or as a video on your computer
screen. You should also consider whether your gameplay
video is understandable if someone watches it on a small
screen. With an average watch time of 3 to 5 seconds, this is
an accelerated elevator pitch!

Think of the moment when you decide to click on a random

video on YouTube just because it has an attractive thumbnail -
it’s the same idea for your game videos.

You can test several videos on the dashboard so try to

display different gameplay moments in each one of them :
starting with fever mode, a win/a loss, different characters
etc. in order to leverage your changes to get the lowest CPI.

Ask yourself, which features would be the most exciting

ones to show to a prospect player?
 ART EFFICIENCY

One of the aims of the hyper-casual game developer should be to create games that are comprehensible to the player through their
visual style.
ART EFFICIENCY

Art Efficiency relates to the clarity of games through art style and polish.

The aim of the developer should be to create games that are

comprehensible to the player through their visual style.

It’s important to be straightforward without using any unnecessary assets

that crowd the vision behind the gameplay → this is why it is a matter of
efficiency.

You can consider various examples such as Helix Jump, Roller Splat! or
Commuters! : every element seen on screen clearly explains how to play
with themes that remain consistent with the gameplay.

Check out these two versions of Commuters! in testing and at launch. The
latter is much clearer and shows a good ratio between minimum effort
and impact on gameplay clarity. It also goes in the direction of the game’s
theme.
ART EFFICIENCY

You can also think of the comparison between Flappy Dunk and
Hop Hop Hop (in the newsletter on Forgiveness) where the latter has
unnecessary elements that make the gameplay less clear if watching a
video of it. The baskets in Flappy Dunk explain much better that you have to
go through them with thanks to the wings that illustrate the player’s input : it’s
the only moving element.

Another interesting comparison could be made between Rise Up and

Keep it Alive!

Although it lacks forgiveness in gameplay, Rise Up clearly emphasises

the objective : the fact that the avatar is a balloon explains why constantly
goes up and is fragile so needs to be protected.

To learn more about art efficiency, watch the dedicated live stream
PLAYER ONBOARDING

Crazy Kick usecase

PLAYER ONBOARDING

Orbital Knight’s Crazy Kick is very inspiring for adding depth in the gameplay and player onboarding.
There are two ways to play within the game :

1. Drag the ball - to constantly direct it where you want. This allows the player to
have more control over the ball but take more risks in front of opponent players.

2. Swipe and release to kick the ball - this will make you trade precision in control
for more power and speed + kicking the ball above your opponents, who will be less
of a threat to your success as a player.
Giving the choice to the player to play in the way he/she desires means avoiding to
create stress in the gaming experience. Some players might drop the game
because they are not happy with specific controls. It gives more chances to a
higher and more stable retention.

The onboarding is also very well oiled. It teaches the player to use both ways of
playing through level progression. Check out the gif below, in zone 5, the swipe
and release control is introduced, the player has to use it to go to the next platform.

For additional content from this studio here is a case study on Castle Wreck from
Karol, founder of Orbital Knight here talking about the journey of creating a hit game.
 SNACKABILITY

Snackability can be defined as bite-sized sessions for Hyper-Casual players.

Quick, satisfying and bringing immediate pleasure : Hyper-Casual games should be snackable, just like
munching on a Mars bar
SNACKABILITY

Let’s consider how games can be snackable in their own respective ways through the two following examples :

1. Roller Splat

In Neon Play’s Roller Splat, levels are extremely short, quickly

understandable and satisfying. In their essence, the game the
ratio between effort and pleasure is interesting. For less effort, the
gameplay brings more pleasure to the player and can be played
anywhere thanks to its short levels. It is clear, easy and provides
immediate satisfaction because of the comfort it offers. In other
words, a snackable game provides constant reward through a
simple gameplay, and a dynamic flow. The twist in Roller Splat
is that it is rewarding and thus easily replayable.
SNACKABILITY

2. Aquapark.io

In this new classic, there is an interesting form of variation in the

snackability. If you play the game the “normal” way without
jumping from the slide - the game already ticks all the boxes of
snackability. If the player decides to play using the hack of jumping
to go faster and quickly become first in the race, the session
length becomes shorter by choice. Consequently, the game is
snackable in nature but can be made even more snackable in
accordance with the player’s type of interaction.

You can rewatch the livestream recently held by Cassette and

Alexander Shea here.
SNACKABILITY

Typically, a snackable game should take into account the following elements :

Less effort

More pleasure

Constant reward

Playable anywhere

Simple gameplay

Dynamism

You can watch this tutorial video we made on snackability - it’s also available in the
Tutorials on Improving Gameplay section on your dashboard's homepage.
 NEWNESS

Hyper-Casual games keep evolving very fast and one of the best ways to stand out and make a
difference is to seek innovation in the gameplay you experiment with. Try to think of an innovative
mechanic that has not been seen or exploited in Hyper-Casual yet by also benchmarking outside of
mobile games - don't hesitate to check out AAA games, retro games and even board games for more
inspiration!
 BALANCING

Balancing relates to different adjustable components of a game, all of which can typically be leveraged to find the optimal difficulty, physics or
camera angle in the game for instance.
BALANCING
One of the most common examples of optimised Balancing is apparent when looking at
Flappy Dunk vs. Flappy Bird.

Both games are essentially the same, but the way that the gravity, speed and force of the
tap have been balanced in Flappy Dunk make it inherently more hyper-casual and
pleasant to play.

Flappy Dunk uses less punitive obstacles, lower gravity and a different death
mechanic.

The fact that there are sideways movements and less force when tapping make sure
that the player has much more control over the character and much less danger in
gameplay.

With essentially the same concept, Flappy Dunk is very well balanced, whereas Flappy
Bird relies on frustration and novelty to work.
BALANCING
Tiny Wings and Dune! are also a good example of balancing differences.

Dune! is more forgiving due to the game cheating the angle at which you drop, and
increases the reward with more height and distance on your jumps.

Tiny Wings is harder and less rewarding, which makes it less well balanced despite
having the same gameplay.
 DEPTH

Do players have multiple actions to take within the same set of rules and the same gameplay ?
DEPTH
In designing “deep” gameplays you may consider the following levers:

- Objectives
- Challenges
- Choices on how to overcome these challenges to reach the objectives

The way you can add depth is by creating situations in which the user will have a choice, most
often in the repeatable core loop of your game.

One of the most common ways to do this is through users’ risk/reward considerations.

These should often be:

- Voluntary : without choice, a risk reward dilemma is just a difficulty peak;
- Clear : the player has to understand that he has decided to take the risk, otherwise
frustration will ensue;
- Gameplay related : link the reward to gameplay/interactive elements, rather than having
it be only a visual queue or a scoring boost.

Please note that :

Depth does not imply that a game has to be harder
Depth does not mean that the game content has to be more varied

Here are a couple of examples of well integrated depth through risk and reward :
DEPTH
Here are a couple of examples of well integrated depth through risk
and reward :

In Helix Jump, the player can choose to pass multiple platforms and
gets rewarded by being indestructible with a good visual reward.

Basing a game only on risk/reward can also fail : if the player has no
choice but to take the risk, the game has no depth.

A good test to see if your game has depth is to see what actions the
player can take through action points.

Does the player have multiple actions to take within the same set
of rules and the same gameplay ?

In Aquapark.io the key is in the player’s precision; how far left or right
they move. In that, skilled players can swerve off the track, and skip
huge chunks of the race. Players can also do the regular race in the
aqua slide. Having this freedom to choose between options that offers
different degrees of risk/reward is what we call depth!
OTHER RESOURCES TO DIG INTO:

Tell a small story with your games

Create a good perfect / fever mode

Create a good progression for your game

Create a good runner: step 1

Create a good runner: step 2

Basics of io games: part 1

Basics of io games: part 2

About Physics based games

LIVE STREAMS
Watch the 10 most recent ones
Date Topic / Title Category Link
https://youtu.be/BA6Kf
18/5/2020 Case Study: Tower Run Case study SPuRoA
https://youtu.be/-mRl0p
14/5/2020 Runner depth features Coaching & Guidelines _Yu6E
https://youtu.be/pdMEoj
7/5/2020 Converting adviewers into gamers (+ 5 proven ideation techniques) Coaching & Guidelines 65Db4
https://youtu.be/zK9lKA
28/4/2020 Voodoo x Cassette: Feelings and emotions Case study 9bpO0

https://youtu.be/aj
2/4/2020 Case study: Spiral Roll Case study GT9ifm_Hc
https://youtu.be/Xh
10/3/2020 Voodoo x OHM: Comparative study of Knock Balls & Push’em All Case study d_Id_7obc
https://youtu.be/p5f
27/2/2020 Case study: Draw Climber Case study euzDppOo

6/2/2020 Case study: Wood turning Case study https://youtu.be/dk

3Bde7zYPw
23/1/2020 Case study: Bike Hills Case study https://youtu.be/PD
OQhGBVYig
8/1/2020 Case study: Push'em All Case study https://youtu.be/vm
tL5VyZWLs
12/12/2019 Case study: Ball Mayhem Case study https://youtu.be/CF
ZxWHDpOBY
28/11/2019 Art Efficiency Coaching & Guidelines https://youtu.be/Po
MJRyJ2cb8?t=9
07/11/2019 Case study: Draw Car 3D Case study https://youtu.be/Uo
9yhTw37Fo?t=2
24/10/2019 Case study: Crazy Kick Case study https://youtu.be/Po
MJRyJ2cb8?t=9