80/20 Rule
Fill up that backlog!
Introduction
The mobile games space is hyper competitive (pun intended). Hyper casual studios such as Voodoo, Rollic and many others are investing huge amounts of resources hiring developers who generate game prototypes for them on a monthly basis.
The Equation
Every company has their own equation on what works for them. For some like Voodoo and Rollic, the bar is pretty high; sometimes requiring more than 40% D1 Retention and less than $ 0.5 CPI’s to even consider a prototype for iteration.
However, many games can be made profitable with a measly 20% D1 Retention as well. But first we need to come up with a “backlog” of concepts that we can develop over in a period of time, optimally in two (2) weeks.
Research
The first step is to find out what is trending in the broader; checking out recent trends on tik-tok, google play, YouTube and corroborating app rank information from sites such as Data.ai, Sensor Tower or the many other app intelligence platforms that you might have access to.
That being said, you should always be downloading and playing games from the stores to see what your competitors might be doing. Getting inspiration is easy!
Creating the Backlog
There are tonnes of ways you can note down concepts. Sticky notes work for most people, even a text file on your desktop. However to keep track of things in a single place while working with a team requires a little more than a pen and a paper.
Given the latest innovation in SaaS, there are tonnes of services you can use to organise your ideas. At this point you’re only concerned with noting down the mechanics of the game you want to create and find a unique selling point (USP) that might resonate with the audience of Hyper Casual Games.