Most people thought creating video games is just sitting and playing video games for hours long. With the indie game development, you have the freedom to do just that but it’s not all fun and play.

The indie game industry is booming compared to several decades before. Indie video games like Minecraft and Stardew Valley managed to develop a long-lasting impact among gamers around the world.

BoomZap Entertainment is an indie game studio that focused on casual games based in Singapore. Founded by Allan Simonsen and Christopher Natsuume with a combined experience of 20 years in video games industry, BoomZap is a complete virtual studio that operates online with 8 different countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Russia and Qatar.

BoomZap has worked with numerous publishers such as Big Fish Games, Gravity, 505 Games, Nintendo and many more. The studio has put their fingers in every pie by making and shipping over 40 titles on various platforms like PC, Mac, mobile and console games.

Having worked in the indie game industry for more than 10 years, BoomZap shared with us four enlightening insights into indie game development. Here’s what they’ve learned over the years.

1. Start small

Angry Birds is one of the innovative casual games with simple controls

Generally, indie game developers opt to make casual games in order to save cost for memorable gameplay instead of delivering high-end game graphics. BoomZap primarily focused on Quick & Dirty prototyping in which they build small prototypes to try to find the two or three core pillars.

When asked about how to create engaging casual games on par with hardcore games, it all boils down to your targeted demographics and simpler gameplay controls.

Casual games such as Angry Birds and Bejeweled tend to appeal to a wide range of age groups and with a much larger female player base. The contents of casual games are usually rated E for everyone.

Building a casual game is not that far off from hardcore games but the main component of any video game is to encourage players to retain their enthusiasm. It can be incorporating a ladder system, competitive leaderboards, progress on a map or unlocking new characters and visuals.

2. Consider strategical and tactical approach of indie game creation

Mak Cun’s Adventure incorporates Malaysian food and Diner Dash-inspired controls, which led the mobile game to be popular among Malaysians

During the development process, indie game developers will inevitably have to face the challenges and struggles along the way. The next stage is to weigh on the strategical and tactical approach to tackle a wide variety of issues.

Once you have your ideas set to stone, you have to observe the strategic side whether to partner up with publishers or starting your own Kickstarter fund to distribute the game, to ship on which platform and to use the suitable technology or tools in developing the game. These observations can have a far-reaching impact on your business.

On the tactical side, indie game developers will be focusing on the intricate details to make a game, getting the right people on the team, juggling many ideas while searching and polishing the central cores that make your game stands out. Finding and landing on the foundation pillars of the game may be the hardest part for game developers.

However, BoomZap shared that one of the most important elements in game development is to let the designers and artists pour their heart and soul into making an innovative and polished video game.

3. Microtransactions can make or break your game

BoomZap’s upcoming strategy game, Last Regiment at STGCC 2018

Microtransaction seems to be ubiquitous in the current world of video games and this implementation of purchasing in-game items using real money in games have irked many gamers. In BoomZap’s perspective, there are advantages and disadvantages to microtransactions.

In a positive light, it means that the game can be launched as free-to-play and be able to reach a much wider audience. To cast a shadow over free games, someone still has to pay for game development and marketing.

In a lot of their free-to-play games, the top 1% of the players who pay for the content, become the central focus for further development. Besides, there are other ways to market and implenting purchase system in games.

For example, BoomZap’s upcoming fantasy turn-based strategy game akin to XCOM and Civilization, Last Regiment is a standard ‘premium’ game where you have to buy but doesn’t include microtransactions in the game. They also have built casual try-and-buy games in which you play the first hour for free and then encounter a paywall if you want to keep playing.

4. Gaming trends come and go

PUBG spawns a successive legion of battle royale games inspired by a movie of the same name including Fortnite, H1Z1 and many more.

Although video game industry has been established since the early 70’s, video game development can be extremely unpredictable. As the battle royale and open-world games seem to be the major hit among players nowadays, BoomZap stated making video games based on what’s trending right now is dangerous because, by the time you launch your game, the crowd has vanished somewhere else.

Rather than making a game similar to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Fortnite, it’s better for game developers to create a game that focused on ‘underserved’ genres. For example, role-playing games (RPG) like Divinity: Original Sin 2 was the right call back to the tight storytelling and great role-playing elements in a sea of RPG that turned to Far Cry-inspired open worlds. There is always underserved market niches whether it’s realistic wargame simulations, turn-based multiplayer strategy games, great adventure games or awesome classic RTS games.

As opposed to following blindly on trends, it’s better for game developers to place gaming trends in the grand scheme of things, which starts by asking yourself to a question: what are everyone that’s following these trends… missing right now?

I was able to play the closed beta of Last Regiment during my visit to STGCC 2018. The pop culture convention featured a variety of Singaporean-made games from tabletop to mobile games. The game awakened the best memories of playing strategy games like Civilization and BattleTech due to its classic use of hex-based maps while taking down enemies at the same time.

Last Regiment is the forthcoming strategy games with simultaneous turn-based multiplayer and single-player campaigns, which follows a young woman named Olivia in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world full of Dragoons, Artillery, Orcs, Pirates, Chainsaws and more. Players can form regiments of heroes and units from various factions, fight enemies in hex-based maps to conquer all over the lands and structures.

To find out more about how to enter the closed beta, you can visit their official blog. You can follow BoomZap’s official Facebook and Twitter to keep a close eye on Last Regiment’s development and other games.