I’d like to hear your thoughts on the different benefits one could get from making a barebones but “complete” minimum viable product of a game, compared to a vertical slice of a game that is just a tiny part of what the whole game would be, but polished to the best of your abilities. I definitely can see value in both. I don’t think there’s a clear answer to what is time better spend, without a context to relate it to.
I’ve moved the goalpost of what I’m working towards more often than I can count now. I’ve realized that I’m most likely more happy with just doing gamedev as a hobby and not commercially releasing games. And I started my current project in anticipation that I won’t finish it most likely, but I’m having fun with it.
After thinking about it, I’m warming up to the idea of just doing a vertical slice of the game I have in mind, just focusing on providing ~5 minutes of gameplay, and make that as impressive as I possibly can. I could imagine to be happier with having made a tiny slice of something cool, than a complete but mediocre game that can be played start to finish, but lacks overall polish and quality. Let’s just assume for the sake of the argument I’d spend the same amount of time on both alternatives. Like… a couple hundred hours max, is probably realistic.
What would you personally choose and why? I’m interested in hearing different perspectives, your answer doesn’t need to relate to my situation.
Kinda depends on the project. Fact is, you can never get an MVP without getting a vertical slice first at some point.
But if you just mean lavishing attention on a single aspect of gameplay, or a small zone vs building out an entire game. I would go with the small zone to quality. If you can build it well enough that players really want to play more, it can motivate you to buckling down and building out the rest.
I’ve just completed the first vertical slice of my game today. This iteration has been in the works since January. It was worth doing right and I’m extremely proud of, and pleased with the result so far.
prototype: bare bones functionality to test feasibility of features and if the idea works and make sense, generally ugly boxes or placeholder.
MVP: basically a prettier prototype for presentation, still barebones but has minimum functionality (ie start screen, menu, etc …) think student’s game I like to call it diagonal slice lol
Horizontal slice: the mvp extended to the whole game
Vertical slice: one level made to the final target quality and all fonctionality, think what demo use to be, but with all features cram into a single level. Generally required to evaluate teh final cost of the game (basically VS cost * number of level = final cost). Sometimes shown to show floor to gauge interest.
I do proto, which means it’s not MVP, because menus etc and all that aren’t essential to gameplay. After prototype comes MVP which should be the basic game, followed by content and then polish.
MVP: the minimum needed for release. Full systems, full content. Maybe not ideal, but releasable.
Vertical Slice: essentially an alpha (system complete, but little to no content)
Horizontal Slice: a skeleton of the entire game, an “outline” in the creative writing sense. Or a single layer of game play - for example in multi layer games (strategy layer / tactical layer).
If the amount of time spent is a constant and you’re debating between MVP and vertical slice, you’re really asking if the game should (MVP) sacrifice quality or scale in favor of completeness or if you should (Vertical Slice) sacrifice completeness in favor of quality or scale.
I’m not aware if there are by-the-books hard definitions for these terms. What I’m talking about is :
VS making ~5 minutes worth of gameplay, with as much polish, bells and whistles as a solo dev is capable of. Doesn’t need to have all the features of the final product in it, just what those ~5 minutes of polished gameplay need. No menus, no tutorial, no implementing systems that aren’t needed to show what you wanna show. But everything else turned up to 11!
Yeah, like I’ve had my mind made up to do some minimalist barebones MVP first, because “it’s the smart thing to do” ^^. But I just can’t do it… the polish virtually sucks me in. I don’t pay attention and a day has gone by with me tweaking a worldmachine graph or something like that.
But yes, you’re right. I’m leaning towards vertical slice. But I’d still like to hear other perspectives and I might change my mind again, either now or somewhere down the road.
That would certainly be a nice side effect. It would also be a good reality check if the concept/vision that I have is any good at all. Considering how much time there is to sink in things like UI, balancing, unlocking mechanics, procedural generation, content, designing progressions, tutorials etc., it would be nice to know where all of that is converging towards in the end.
Thinking on it further, it really depends on your objective. If you are going to Steam Greenlight or KickStarter, then a vertical slice is the way to go. If you are going to beta testers, a MVP is probably better off.
For internal purposes, I would still suggest neither.
I know some people interpret it in different way, but there was many games release as MVP and they were not that at all. That’s not a requirement. By that I mean they only had the core done, acceptable graphics and everything else but only the core, not full system nor contents.
I would say a lot of game jam’s games end up MVP as a point of reference. That’s the target.
This is the entire purpose of the MVP. It is to start getting your product to consumer so you can objectively test hypotheses about what it is going to take to make your product successful. One aspect of that is not wasting your time putting a ton of effort into aspects of the game before you know they will help your game become successful. So the question that I’ll ask you is: Why do you want to polish your game beyond what you think it will take for it to be successful?
I disagree with “Full systems, full content.” It may include full systems and content but not necessarily. If your initial testing suggests that you will need more content for your game to be successful, then you need to consider adding more content. If you are missing an important feature, you need to consider implementing it.
I consider an MVP to be the minimum that can be used to receive initial feedback. It is certainly not release ready. My definition of MVP is based on “The Lean Startup”. An MVP should not have full systems or full content.
A vertical slice is usually 1-2 levels polished about 80%. It is not release ready either.
An MVP would come first, and would be used to ask gamers “Is the core gameplay mechanic fun?” A vertical slice would come later, and would be used to show people a taste of what the eventual game will be.
Eric Ries definitely talks about the MVP being the first release. He doesn’t say that it has to be but my take was that it was preferable that you were charging for the MVP but not necessary.
I really should have prevented semantic arguments about where to draw the line for MVPs, by asking the question in a different way. Like: “If you were to spend 300 hours on a game would you rather make a proper shippable game, or a demo, reduced in scope, but expanded in quality?”
I was having similar thoughts, that’s why I said I don’t think one can say which is better or worse without a context. Since I don’t aim for a commercial release my choices are relatively simple and meaningless. I’m interested in what unique strategies other people may have in their situations. Looking to acquire funding on kickstarter would be a good example. I’d go for a super polished vertical slice that creates good video footage for that. I’d never hand out something actually playable to get a Kickstarter campaign funded.
Given the “What would you spend 300 hours of dev time on?” rephrasing of the question, what would you suggest for internal purposes?
For me, 48 hour gamejam games are prototypes, at best. I’m not aware of many that actually hit the market without a substantial amount of polish added to them post-jam.
Personally I believe that lots of polish is necessary for a game to be successful. The opinions on that seem to vary wildly within this community.
Considering the “not wasting my time aspect”, I’d feel it’s far more a waste of my time to implement menus, save/load functionality, a tutorial, and unlocking mechanics, than polish up a tiny slice of gameplay to the point where I can say “this is the best I can make it”. All those things are really important if you actually want to get a game into the market and I’d be spending a lot of time on them if that was my goal. But ultimately that’s the bare minimum of expected effort and not something that makes people care or get interested in a project.
I think it might have been @Master-Frog who said “stop making games that no one wants to play”, and that kind of stuck with me. When I think of “gamers” I don’t think of other devs that might be interested in seeing how I’m starting out with the first thing I release, I’m thinking of jaded cynics (like myself), that see the game and compare it to market standards of quality.
Vertical slice. Everyone can produce an mvp that functions correctly given enough time (assuming my definition is the same as yours), but to make a vertical slice of a game that people would really want to play takes skill and time that most people don’t even know they don’t have. In fact I think that the difference between mvp and vertical slice is what kills most projects.
Speaking of which, I wish people would make vertical slices and sell them for a dollar or two on Steam. I couldn’t be bothered to play most games but a 15-30 minute quickie every now and then would be right up my alley. And if it goes down really well, it’s probably a winner!
That is kind of what I expected. You don’t quite understand what an MVP is. YOU decide what your MVP is. If you think that you need a lot of polish to get people to play your game, then that is what you need to do. That is part of your MVP Just because a lot of people publish junk and call it an MVP, doesn’t mean that is what you should do, or that it is the right thing to do. If you think that wasting time on menus is not important, then don’t waste your time on menus. Menus are not part of your MVP.
Your MVP needs to be tailored to your goal. If your goal is to have a successful Kickstarter campaign, your MVP is going to be different than if you are going for Steam early access, which will be different than if you are going for a full release. It doesn’t sound like your main goal is to release a game, so your MVP is likely going to be a lot different than someone who is planning on releasing.
The whole idea about the MVP is getting your product to your customers quickly so you can get useful information about what you need to develop. If you produce crap and no one wants to play it, you really haven’t learned much. If you spend 3 years making a very polished game, but no one wants to play it, you will have learned a tiny bit more but wasted a lot of time learning it. You need to design your MVP to get the most valuable information you can, as quickly as you can. That takes a lot of skill.
When Eric is talking about “releasing” an MVP, he is often referring to a web application that would simply need to be available for people to use. The key to his concept of an MVP is the idea that you make it available so people can give you feedback. He is not talking about releasing an MVP for sale unless that is needed to get feedback.
I like to call it diagonal slice lol