In 2017 I have released my first smartphone game "Supermarket Challenge" for iOS and Android. I learned a lot of stuff during the game development and wanted to share my experiences with you.

Why did I develop a game

I play and love video games since I am a little boy. Additionally, I started my software development career some years ago. As a result, I decided to combine both of my greatest passions to develop my own video game. Fortunately, I also had a good idea for my first game.

The game idea

My plan was to develop a smartphone game like Paper's Please but in a supermarket scenario.

Check the following trailer to see "Paper's Please" in action:

In my game, you would play a poor supermarket cashier which needs to spend each day after work the money for food, medicine, rent and so on.

Market analysis

The first step was to analyze the market for similar existing smartphone games. My findings discovered an endless amount of supermarket-themed games. The main goal of these (mostly child-oriented) games was to take the money of the customers and return them the correct amount of money. I found two games which included the game mechanic I had in my mind:

Crazy Market

Basically, this game nearly matched my expectations for the basic game mechanic at the supermarket checkout. But I disliked the Japan-styled theme, the aggressive In-App purchases and the level-based approach.

Checkout Challenge

Checkout Challenge isn't available anymore but provided a funny Arcade-focused supermarket checkout game.

Another inspiration: Fruit Ninja

I played Fruit Ninja a lot and had a nice high score challenge with my friends. For my game, I wanted to achieve the same high score challenge feeling and implement the three player lifes as they were available in Fruit Ninja.

Market Analysis Conclusion

Summarizing, the market analysis resulted in these decisions:

• The game name should be "Supermarket Challenge" (inspired by "Checkout Challenge")
• It should be a 2D game
• Combine the best parts of "Fruit Ninja", "Crazy Market" and "Checkout Challenge"

Prototype Development

Christmas 2016 I started to develop a first prototype of the game based on the Unity engine. I invested about 80 hours into the prototype including the training period for Unity.

Gameplay video of the first prototype (right-click image below and select "Play"):

I deployed the game to my smartphone and on a web platform to let friends and family try the game. The response was very positive so I decided to further develop the prototype to a publishable game.

Development Start

In January 2017 I started the game development in my free time as I was in a full-time job during the whole development.

As a first step, I set up some expectations I had for the final result:

• The game should be a financial success.
• It should attract a big and recurring amount of gamers.
• The game mechanic should be scalable. First version should only include the Arcade mode with the basic game mechanic.
• It should not look like a low-budget game.
• It should include a minimal amount of ads.
• First versions should be free without In-App purchases.
• First release in App stores should be within one year.
• Team size: 1 developer (myself) and maybe 1 designer (if necessary)

As I tried to continue developing my Unity prototype I had a rude awakening: My spaghetti code was unmaintainable and not expandable.

In my full time job as software developer I was used to develop text-based without a full-blown IDE as it is provided by Unity. Implementing a known software architecture pattern in Unity was very difficult for me and the IDE itself is very complex.

So I decided to start researching for a new game engine which better suited my needs.

New Game Engine

As I had concrete expectations for the new engine my research led to Corona:

• Focused on 2D games
• Cross-Platform (iOS, Android, Desktop applications, Smart TVs)
• Free (with few restrictions)
• Text-based with Lua as scripting language
• Includes a simulator with Live-Testing feature
• Good starting tutorials
• Integrated advertising possibilities

My Tools

During the development I used the following tools:

• Atom (later Visual Code) as text editors
• Trello as my project management tool
• Gimp and Inkscape for image editing
• Bitbucket for hosting my private repository

Architecture

I structured my code based on scenes and components:

scenes
  * game
    - lib
      scanner.lua
      supermarket-basket.lua
      item.lua
      ...
  * menu
    - images
    - sounds
    - menu.lua
  * game-over
  * ...

A scene is a visible screen which is available in the game. The lib folder contains all components which are reused in different scenes.

Development Progress

The following videos demonstrate the progress of the game from the first prototypes to the final version.

Mid January 2017

Implemented basic game mechanic:

Start February 2017

UX adjustments, tutorials, menus and more:

Mid March 2017

I released the first beta version for about 10 testers (friends & family). Negative feedback was given due to the high difficulty and the inconsistent visual design. As a result, I asked a friend of mine to support and assist me in visual aspects of the game which resulted in a better design:

Version 1.0

Start of May 2017 I released the first version of "Supermarket Challenge" on iOS and Android. It included only the Arcade mode:

Version 2.0

I further developed the game and implemented a new level mode and an easier Arcade mode. Version 2.0 was released in December 2017.

Conclusion

Interesting numbers

• Invested time: ~500hours / ~21 days
• Expenses: ~240€ (mostly for graphics, libraries and license)
• Ad revenues: ~1€

Google Analytics

Some Google Analytics numbers which might be interesting:

In my opinion, especially the custom events like play time are very interesting. Based on this numbers I can assume that the game is still to hard as most of the players see the game over screen in less than one minute play time.

My Insights

• Keep it simple: Start with small and realistic goals
• Help yourself, learn everything: Game design, writing code, image editing, ...
• Use free assets: Saves time and money, especially in the beginning
• Develop prototypes as early as possible
• Be active in social networks to build an active community. Trailer and teaser are a good way to keep people up-to-date.
• Be comfortable with your game engine and be not afraid to change it.

Possible reasons for the missing success of the game

• App icon is not ideal in my opinion
• Bad ranking in the app stores
• No frequent app updates
• High score challenge seems not to be attractive enough
• Too few advertising campaigns for the game

Final words

I really had a lot of fun developing the game and I learned a ton of stuff. Unfortunately, the game was not a financial success but at least I released my first video game 😜

Links

• Download "Supermarket Challenge" at iTunes
• Download "Supermarket Challenge" at Google Play