[casual_games] Game development duration, any numbers?

Mon Aug 28 13:59:20 EDT 2006

Virtual Villagers took about 7 months, again using an existing code base 
from PalmOS that we tried to leave intact wherever possible. The original 
code base took about 6 months for the PDA release.  I know these 
circumstances make the dev-time numbers hard to use for comparison. VV is a 
fairly complicated game, however, and difficult to tune and I would wager 
that it would be prone to a longer dev cycle than a traditional puzzle game.

If we had the framework then that we do now, it is not hard to imagine that 
it would have been completed more quickly.

Commenting on another post here on the mailing list, we had a 
"brick-and-mortar" office last year that we gave up in favor of our current 
'virtual office' with almost all of our collaborators now working remotely. 
That is one move that we have been VERY happy with, although it does take 
some practice and can be somewhat growth-limiting. We had about 7 
contractors working on VV remotely (not all full-time), and just 2 of us 
'in-house' (quite literally!).

Arthur
"Last Day of Work"

At 11:27 AM 8/28/2006 -0500, you wrote:

>I was hoping youd comment, Arthur  ;)
>
>How long did Virtual Villagers take, if you dont mind..?
>
>
>
>Ben Lewis
>Yatec Games
>Marketing and Sales
>(225)274-1550
><http://www.yatecgames.com>www.yatecgames.com
>
>----------
>From: Arthur Humphrey [mailto:nospam1 at ldw.com]
>Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 11:19 AM
>To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
>Subject: RE: [casual_games] Game development duration, any numbers?
>
>
>
>With Fish Tycoon, a lot of the time was spent on the framework and the 
>game engine. Bear in mind, also, that we already had the game in release 
>on PalmOS/PPC which meant less time needed to be spent testing and tuning 
>game balance. With Virtual Villagers we really invested time in a solid 
>reusable framework (which we started from scratch rather than reusing Fish 
>Tycoon's) that handles saveslots, screen nav, string and sprite 
>management, etc, as well as adding an abstraction layer that gives us 
>almost-free Mac builds.
>
>We feel like this is really streamlining our newest project -- maybe to 
>the tune of a couple months -- and hopefully all of our future products, 
>although it is irresistable to keep enhancing the framework.
>
>My point is that dev time on these projects may depend very largely on the 
>number of [casual game] projects that the dev team in question has 
>previously/recently done.
>
>Arthur Humphrey
>"Last Day of Work"
>
>At 09:02 AM 8/28/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>Ah, I forgot about that point! Yeah, she did say their team was 
>under-qualified and they eventually fired everyone but one guy, and it was 
>their best decision yet. She also mentioned that the fonts took forever, 
>tons of sloppy code had to be removed, and Big Fish asked them to polish 
>the hell out of the graphics before putting it out. Moral of the story: 
>"plan ahead."  =)
>
>Ben Lewis
>Yatec Games
>Marketing and Sales
>(225)274-1550
><http://www.yatecgames.com>www.yatecgames.com
>
>From: Eric Lamendola [<mailto:eric at slingo.com>mailto:eric at slingo.com]
>Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 8:54 AM
>To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
>Subject: RE: [casual_games] Game development duration, any numbers?
>
>I thought that Carla Humphrey had said they scrapped all but one of their 
>team half way through development and finished Fish Tycoon with 1 person.
>
>Eric Lamendola
>Director of Operations & Business Development
>
>Email: <mailto:eric at slingo.com>eric at slingo.com
>IM: EricLamendola (AIM)
>         411 Hackensack Ave - 8th Floor
>Hackensack, NJ 07601
>
>work: +1-201-489-6727
>mobile: +1-201-921-4989
><https://www.linkedin.com/e/sig/5086154/>
>
>
>From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org 
>[<mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org>mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] 
>On Behalf Of Ben Lewis
>Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 9:45 AM
>To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
>Subject: RE: [casual_games] Game development duration, any numbers?
>
> >> Maybe, it would by useful to build a chart of estimations by genre and 
> features of games (or real data for well-known titles)... any volunteer? :)
>
>Looking at my notes from Casuality Seattle, these are some dev cycles for 
>a few well-recognized casual games:
>
>-Mah Jong Quest took 10 months to develop, with a team of three + 
>contracted artist
>-Fish Tycoon took 9-10 months with a five-person team
>-Luxor took only 3 months (against their will) with a 3-man team
>
>I think it's safe to say that a game based on an "original" concept will 
>take significantly longer to develop than one based on an existing 
>mechanic. Something tells me that Luxor would've taken longer if Zuma 
>didn't already exist.
>
>Also, something insanely art-intensive will just take longer if you only 
>have 1-2 artists on the team. I remember reading that Big Fish Studios was 
>able to crank out Hidden Expedition: Titanic so quickly because they piled 
>5+ artists on the project. Hope this helps.
>
>Ben Lewis
>Yatec Games
>Marketing and Sales
>(225)274-1550
><http://www.yatecgames.com>www.yatecgames.com
>
>From: Branislav Siles 
>[<mailto:siles at atomontage.com>mailto:siles at atomontage.com]
>Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 10:23 AM
>To: casual_games at igda.org
>Subject: [casual_games] Game development duration, any numbers?
>
>Hello,
>
>
>
>I have two questions about game development duration depending on genre, 
>previous experience, middleware used, etc.
>
>
>
>First, has anybody of you created a 3D car-racing game using Torque Game 
>or Shader Engine? Please provide me with any numbers (or links) on how 
>many coder-weeks and/or scripter-weeks it took your team to finish it. It 
>would be nice if you name the game or provide some other information about 
>it (features, number of levels, previous experience of developers or what 
>ever you find interesting).
>
>
>
>Second, I am looking for ANY information about how long it takes 
>(coder/man-weeks) to create a typical game of a specific genre and size 
>(gameplay length, number of levels..). I know that this varies extremely 
>between particular games and programmers/developers, but this is the case 
>in any area of creativity and sure there are at least some numbers for 
>many of them.
>
>
>
>I will be thankful for any numbers or pure estimations, so if you have 
>some experience in creating a small game of some genre and you know it 
>took your coder 16 weeks to write the code, then this information is very 
>ok for me.
>
>
>
>Maybe, it would by useful to build a chart of estimations by genre and 
>features of games (or real data for well-known titles)... any volunteer? :)
>
>
>
>Thank you a lot,
>
>
>
>Brano/Atomontage
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