Even though it feels like you’re taking a step back, knowing that the game is going to be better without something that you just spent two weeks working on is going to result in a better game.” An early success with lasting appeal “Cutting something out is still making progress. “Something that a lot of game developers have trouble doing is knowing when to cut something,” said Scott. He deemed it too hardcore for even hardcore players and decided to remove the feature from the game. Ultimately, though, Scott realized this feature wasn’t going to work. Original plans included a skill tree that allowed players to upgrade different body parts of monsters, like improving legs to increase speed and adding brainpower to improve units’ AI. One of the key design ideas was that the title would include all elements that PC strategy fans loved, including making building placement integral to a base’s defense, as well as dynamic battles that were affected by which direction invaders came from and the order they attacked in.Īnother concern was how deep gameplay could be without alienating a wide spectrum of strategy fans. Secure in its newfound profitability, The Casual Collective began work on Backyard Monsters, a deep strategy game that could be played on Facebook. Desktop Defender was making more money in a day than The Casual Collective could bring in over an entire month. To say that the gamble paid off is an understatement. The original belief was that gamers wouldn’t spend more than what a retail game cost (roughly $50 to $60), but it turned out that some players were willing to spend up to $200 to proceed through a game with a finite length.Įven though company funds were running low, Scott and Preece had enough left to move out to San Francisco, build a development team and start working on a game that would appeal to hardcore gamers: Desktop Defender, a tower defense game that tasked players with defending their desktop from invading creatures known as “creeps.” The game launched on Facebook in December 2009, peaking with just over 675,000 MAU and 930,000 DAU. The final two games created by The Casual Collective for its portal - Minions on Ice and TSG: Missions - featured virtual goods, which proved to be an eye opener for the developer.
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