The game has been under testing in New Zealand, Canada and bunch of other countries at least from October 2013 (the what I have found out from App Annie records).
To describe the game in the shortest form, it's a game which mixes game-play features from Minecraft and Farmville. In essence, the goal of the game is to build and upgrade player's own little lot of land in the space by producing different kinds of materials using special machinery which produces them, solve puzzles in mission mode and play together with friends (which means visiting other player's land, give gifts and chat).
It is the game that in paper, sounds like a dream come true to casual / mid-core gamer like me who doesn't have so much free time to invest into more hard core games, but still want to do something creative, engaging and social with ease of current smartphones and tablets. It is the game that features stunning casual graphics, great sounds and full-fledged 3D-camera which can be rotated, zoomed and pivoted. The production speeds, in-game currency, progression and social elements are also implemented in a way that at least I couldn't find any major bottlenecks in them.
Better quality download ranks of Supernauts here.
Better quality grossing ranks of Supernauts here.
Still, in my honest opinion, it feels that the game misses something. Something which would tie all of those great features together, engage players to the game and keep them engaged. This notion of mine was confirmed when I fetched the estimations from App Annie's portal which clearly shows that the game could be much better in terms of download or grossing ranks. The game has hovered between #20 - #390 of Simulation and Adventure categories in Canadian App Store. In addition, the graphs of download ranks tell that the game is not taking off because the rank position in the download ranks decrease drastically after the release exposure (either by featuring or user acquisition) of new update of the game.
Consequently, the grossing rank features similar phenomenon; curves are shifting rapidly downwards and upwards when new content is added and new user acquisition campaigns started to get big enough cohorts to test new features and updates to the game. Unfortunately as of today, the curve tells their blunt and ruthless truth: lines are going downwards.
Missing Link
So what causes the game, which is created by experienced professionals, developed in the country whose drinking water should contain something which creates likes of Supercell and Rovio, and financed by sharp and cautious investors who do rigorous analysis of the capabilities of the team and profitability of the product(s), to showcase serious performance issues?
In my opinion, it is not the monetization aspects, not the graphics, sounds or bugs in the game and not even the camera which - in it's own right - might cause more casually oriented players to leave the game.
The key to problems is the core loop of the game and its inherent social mechanics.
First of all, the core loop of the game doesn't differ much from the core-loop of first social simulation games, e.g. Farm Ville. Core loop of Supernauts consists of following actions.
1. Producing resources. The game features different kinds of resources which the player has to produce in order to progress in the game. Let's call the first resource type as naturals which are produced either in Claymaker (clay), in Logmaker (log / timber), in Stonemaker (stone) or in similar kinds of makers. These naturals are then used to produce more refined resources (materials) such as brick, stone, cement, paper and all sorts of different materials which are produced in different types of Bots. When player progresses, he will need to mix also the materials together in the Bots in order to make even better materials for his use.
The makers, bots and production of resources will cost coins (soft currency) and will take time.
After player has produced resources, he can decide whether to 1) sell them in Block Exchange (to virtual buyers in the game, not to real human players), 2) to use them in the quests or 3) use them to upgrade player's own asteroid.
2a. Selling resources. Selling resources is typical feature of social simulation & mgmt games; you produce the goods with the cost of money and you sell the goods and you get money. Simple and effective, ain't it? Well, to be honest, it would be if the same mechanic wouldn't be operated already in plethora of other games already starting from Zynga's Facebook games like Farmville 2 and the likes.
So in short, players can sell their resources to the randomly generated virtual customers in Block Exchange. Customers and their needs in Block Exchange will expire in certain time-frames which could be a great for increasing engagement, but unfortunately the user has to initiate requests of new customers after the old ones have been expired. Therefore, the game cannot send any notifications to the player to communicate the arrival of new customers.
2b. Use resources in quests. Quests are small missions which consists of similar smaller actions than upgrading player's own asteroid. Typically the player has to complete some unfinished construction of a building when he unlocks more land around his asteroid. In reward of completing a quest, the player gets coins, experience and game's own reputation units; "fanciness". (Sorry for blunt translation - I don't know what "fantsut" means in English since I only have the Finnish version in my device).
2c. Construct more buildings Player's third option for using the resources is use them to make more buildings onto his asteroid. The more and better resources the player uses to construct buildings, the more reputation - fanciness - the player will get.
Below you can find the visualization of the core loop. Better quality picture of it here.
1. Old, familiar core loop. Although Grand Cru has invested a lot of money into developing a game which looks amazing in high-end mobile devices with Retina displays, it doesn't change the fact that exactly the same core loop has been used in several other games already.
Result: players will quickly realize old core loops inside the games and the fact there isn't anything new under the hood compared to much older games already out there. Just improving graphics doesn't make the core loop any more engaging than they are in already published games.
2. No skills required. Supernauts is a game where you don't have to be particularly skilful in order to progress more rapidly in the game which is why the game is not engaging for contemporary mobile gamers. In my opinion mobile platforms and consumers will go more and more towards direction where it is not sufficient any more to hold on to shallow core loops where players just produce stuff, sell stuff and buy stuff in order to progress faster - or use money to do the same.
Sadly, even if the player would be more tolerant towards the mechanics and grind their way up the ladders of the game, the core loop doesn't get any more exciting. Sure, there comes more and more different kinds of resources and machines which produce new kinds of resources but that's it, the basic actions (produce, sell, build) of the game doesn't get any fascinating after the first week of gaming experience.
Result: players will see through that shallow loop which is based on busywork and will not spend any more time in the game.
3. Shallow social mechanics. In the game, players can visit other players' home bases (asteroids), give them gifts (limited amount of resources), sell ice-cream to citizens of fellow player and to chat with other players in real-time. Unfortunately these actions which players are able to do in the game are not enough for conscious contemporary player and consumer.
Players are already got used to much stronger social mechanics which can be found already in Clash of Clans (donations inside clans, attacking other players), Hay Day (selling goods to other players, helping other players in their quests) and Candy Crush Saga (seeing how far friends are already).
Result: players want to collaborate, compete and discover together in the games, not just co-exist in the game.
For these reasons I assume that the game will not fly very high. Only way to change this state is to change the core loop of the game which cannot be done post-release. But let's see, it is interesting to see how things will evolve for Supernauts.
Core Loop & Social Mechanics
First of all, the core loop of the game doesn't differ much from the core-loop of first social simulation games, e.g. Farm Ville. Core loop of Supernauts consists of following actions.
1. Producing resources. The game features different kinds of resources which the player has to produce in order to progress in the game. Let's call the first resource type as naturals which are produced either in Claymaker (clay), in Logmaker (log / timber), in Stonemaker (stone) or in similar kinds of makers. These naturals are then used to produce more refined resources (materials) such as brick, stone, cement, paper and all sorts of different materials which are produced in different types of Bots. When player progresses, he will need to mix also the materials together in the Bots in order to make even better materials for his use.
The makers, bots and production of resources will cost coins (soft currency) and will take time.
After player has produced resources, he can decide whether to 1) sell them in Block Exchange (to virtual buyers in the game, not to real human players), 2) to use them in the quests or 3) use them to upgrade player's own asteroid.
2a. Selling resources. Selling resources is typical feature of social simulation & mgmt games; you produce the goods with the cost of money and you sell the goods and you get money. Simple and effective, ain't it? Well, to be honest, it would be if the same mechanic wouldn't be operated already in plethora of other games already starting from Zynga's Facebook games like Farmville 2 and the likes.
So in short, players can sell their resources to the randomly generated virtual customers in Block Exchange. Customers and their needs in Block Exchange will expire in certain time-frames which could be a great for increasing engagement, but unfortunately the user has to initiate requests of new customers after the old ones have been expired. Therefore, the game cannot send any notifications to the player to communicate the arrival of new customers.
 |
| Players can sell their resources in Block Exchange |
2c. Construct more buildings Player's third option for using the resources is use them to make more buildings onto his asteroid. The more and better resources the player uses to construct buildings, the more reputation - fanciness - the player will get.
Below you can find the visualization of the core loop. Better quality picture of it here.
Summary
To summarize my finding, Supernauts' core loop and social mechanics are not optimal for following reasons:1. Old, familiar core loop. Although Grand Cru has invested a lot of money into developing a game which looks amazing in high-end mobile devices with Retina displays, it doesn't change the fact that exactly the same core loop has been used in several other games already.
Result: players will quickly realize old core loops inside the games and the fact there isn't anything new under the hood compared to much older games already out there. Just improving graphics doesn't make the core loop any more engaging than they are in already published games.
2. No skills required. Supernauts is a game where you don't have to be particularly skilful in order to progress more rapidly in the game which is why the game is not engaging for contemporary mobile gamers. In my opinion mobile platforms and consumers will go more and more towards direction where it is not sufficient any more to hold on to shallow core loops where players just produce stuff, sell stuff and buy stuff in order to progress faster - or use money to do the same.
Sadly, even if the player would be more tolerant towards the mechanics and grind their way up the ladders of the game, the core loop doesn't get any more exciting. Sure, there comes more and more different kinds of resources and machines which produce new kinds of resources but that's it, the basic actions (produce, sell, build) of the game doesn't get any fascinating after the first week of gaming experience.
Result: players will see through that shallow loop which is based on busywork and will not spend any more time in the game.
3. Shallow social mechanics. In the game, players can visit other players' home bases (asteroids), give them gifts (limited amount of resources), sell ice-cream to citizens of fellow player and to chat with other players in real-time. Unfortunately these actions which players are able to do in the game are not enough for conscious contemporary player and consumer.
Players are already got used to much stronger social mechanics which can be found already in Clash of Clans (donations inside clans, attacking other players), Hay Day (selling goods to other players, helping other players in their quests) and Candy Crush Saga (seeing how far friends are already).
Result: players want to collaborate, compete and discover together in the games, not just co-exist in the game.
For these reasons I assume that the game will not fly very high. Only way to change this state is to change the core loop of the game which cannot be done post-release. But let's see, it is interesting to see how things will evolve for Supernauts.
