3 tools to flesh out your indie game business

Dear lab cats, dear developer friends

You’re feeling ambitious. Your game is nearly finished and you want to reach out to people with all the enthusiasm in the world! Then comes the dreaded question: are you sure you’re ready?

Building a healthy business is a big challenge. We creative developers tend to work on our game and expect the business side to follow. Even the best game in the world can fail miserably 🙁

Thanks to StartIt, we have found a new view on how we handle the market and our models.

(You can also read this post on Gamasutra!)

 

Define your Business Model Canvas

We’ll start off with a basic one. Just one page with frames to fill out. Each of them highlights a different aspect of your business model. This helps you to (re)define your focus and strategy.

It helps you to develop an effective game in terms of marketing position. A smart project defines its goals, cost models and value proposition as soon as possible. To get an even better view on the value proposition you can also use the Value Proposition Canvas.

The business model canvas was invented by Alexander Osterwalder in 2008. He started his company Strategyzer thanks to the huge success of his helpful tool.

 

Assess your business plan with the Pimento Map

The second tool is an online questionnaire that requires a critical mind of one’s project. It then grades its success rate. This number helps guide you in the right direction.

The Pimento Map makes you reflect on the vital elements of your project’s business side. You’ll be able to look beyond your game and take into account the different aspects a projects needs to be successful. Keep in mind that you should fill out the steps anew for each project.

The tool was created by three co-founders who did research in thousands of different businesses to find out what makes them tick. Learn more at

 

Be smart with the Crowdfunding Canvas

This tool is actually a modified version of the business model canvas. Fill in the frames to help you set up your crowdfunding campaign. Keep in mind it’s only the beginning of your preparations!

Most of you will think about crowdfunding and associate it with a web of communication channels, rewards and loads of preparation. This tool helps you to get a clear view of the most important aspects of your campaign. Focus on the why of your project and have the rewards follow that phylosophy.

Just a short translation: Waarom = why, project, propositie = proposition, infrastructuur = infrastructure, promotie = promotion, community, kosten = costs, doelbedrag = target amount.

The Crowdfunding Canvas was created by Dutch consultancy company Douw&Koren. If you have any questions about crowdfunding, they’d be happy to help!

 

Conclusion

We see these tools for what they are; interesting tools. We won’t claim they guarantee success, but they can help you to see the bigger picture and find out what your focus is. You’re entering a competitive business after all. We hope these tools can help you to achieve everything you planned out!

QuizWitz: The Leap Forward?

We’re EXCITED!

Why? Well, we made it into the StartIt@KBC community! And that is a big deal indeed. The organization is backed by some big companies, and that means big opportunities.

The StartIt@KBC community

What is it exactly, you ask? It’s a community of Belgian startups that want to change the world. Cronos, KBC and Mobile Vikings and other big boys aim to support adventurous people like us. We sent in our project Quizwitz last minute to win a chance to pitch for a jury of professionals. Needless to say it went smoothly.

What do we get?

That’s easy. We get an office space for 12 months where we’ll be around other startups,  all working on our dreams. Next to that there will be fascinating events where we can learn a lot and mentor will follow up our project, providing help where needed. Thanks to the vibrant community, we might get to work together with some intriguing people, who knows!

We’re planning a lot!

So what do we plan to do with all this victory? Another easy one! We want to be inspired and reach further. We will learn as much as we can from the people and the events. That way, we can keep doing what we love: create fun games!

One of the things we finished past weekend is the image tool for questions thanks to some feedback from a user! If you want to test QuizWitz, and help us with your feedback too, try it all on QuizWitz.com.

Thanks a million for your support, and don’t forget to hug the cat!

QuizWitz Update: User Experience

Dear lab cats

It’s the end of the month, and we hope you had a blast! Just like we had at the studio. We worked our bright and furry socks off and we’re ready to give you a thorough update.


User Experience

First of all, we worked on your experience with the game. We felt we provided little guidance to help you find your way. That’s why new users will now receive a confirmation email. Of course every account upgrade will receive a nice thank you note too. Next, we added tooltips to our buttons to help guide you on the platform. Whenever you can’t remember what a certain button does, simply hover over it for a second or two and a little explanation will pop up. Lastly, we started working on a tutorial, for which we present an early preview here!

Localization

Languages can be a boundary, but not for us! We created a simple localization tool and started translating the platform in Dutch. So from now on you can choose between two languages already. In due time, you will also be able to filter on language in the search menu, but for now, the collectibles are shown in the language the user selects for the platform. We are looking to add more languages in the future.

The future holds the tutorial and a FAQ, plus a translation for and improvements to the party game. So, what do you think about our new confirmation email, tooltips and Dutch translations? We’d be very happy to hear your thoughts and comments! Just drop them in the whiskers box below!

P.S.

Don’t forget it’s the end of the week, which means it’s time for the Weekly news quiz! Have you been paying attention to the news lately?

QuizWitz Dev: Promo Video

Dear lab cats!

This past week has been one of improving the QuizWitz creation tool, finishing a promo video and a surprising post on a news site in the far USA!

Improving the creation tool

Quite some stuff has changed. From now on, for example, a published beta round can be unpublished. That might help when comments make you aware of a horrible grammar error you made (unintentionally). You can tell how many questions you already added to your round more easily and you’ll be able to translate your rounds into another language in the same go.

Our own promo video

To make you ready for the game, our designer created a little movie explaining the QuizWitz features. Then, our composer friends then added some cool sounds and music. Press play below to see the result.

News post on a USA-based news site

Tuesday, we were surprised to find QuizWitz had been featured on the big USA news site The Inquisitr! They wrote about us with praise, comparing our web-based approach to platform-dependent apps.

Here’s a quote

“QuizWitz seems easy enough to set up as a quick, casual party game but also robust in its options to allow for a serious, mental throwdown among friends.”

In revision, it has been a productive week, and it seems we made some new friends in the USA. So tell us, what do you think of our new video?

The QuizWitz beta is open!

Dear lab cats!

As a Belgian game studio, just like for any other indie studio, the world is a big place. The path to global domination with our party quiz game QuizWitz is still long. We’re excited to announce our open beta and explain our different account types.

A collaborative beta

QuizWitz is a game and social platform that turns your smart device into a controller. The platform is its own (one day vibrant) community of quiz creators, which needs great people to bring it to life. We feel this beta will teach us a lot about what people are looking for and their thoughts about our game. That is why we want our game to be accessible to as many people as possible.

Account types and donations

You, the user, are at the center of the game. You are a part of the game. That’s why we want to give everyone access to our game in the Free account. It allows you to collect up to 10 quiz rounds on the platform.

If you become a Premium user, you can collect as many rounds as you like. You get to manage your rounds by creating packs, which are basically maps of rounds. Because we’re a young studio and our game is still in beta, we give you a choice about how much you donate for a Premium account. The minimum here is only €1.

The last account type is called Pro and is paid monthly. It grants you the ability to create a quiz, which is completely customizable pack. While you can share any round or pack, the quiz is the only form you can embed on your own website or blog. This can help you create awareness or test your readers’ knowledge about any topic you master.

Happy Quizzing

QuizWitz is as much a community as it’s a game. So feel free to join and start creating, collecting, rating and of course, playing quizzes about any topic you like!

And don’t forget it’s No Homework Day today! We might think it’s the best moment to create a quiz!