Publishing lessons

Approximately 5 weeks ago I was talking with Wonmin about the idea of creating 5-minute digital demos to allow people to get a taste of what playing a game would feel like before they buy it.

There are plenty of digital platforms that offer full implementations of games but these require a lot of effort from the user and have a learning curve. Wonmin’s idea would be to create web based demos hosted on a website in order to reduce the effort required from the user. They just need to click a link, read a few rules, and can then immediately start playing.

The idea is not to teach them the full game but to help them get a feeling of what playing the game might be like. Perhaps a link could be placed on a shop store or a crowdfunding page, as a potential backer I can see the benefits of being able to trial the game quickly before I pledge to buy it.

With my latest game being a cooperative puzzle game it seemed like a great opportunity to give it a try and be able to report back my findings.

I’m very intrigued to see how many people decide to give it a go, how many will complete the demo, and whether it has any noticeable impact on conversion rates.

You can take a look at the beta version of the demo here.

I think it’s great to try new things and look forward to seeing how this turns out.

I’d also love to hear your thoughts about this, would you include a demo like this on your Kickstarter page if you could?

If you would like to explore creating your own digital demo then I recommend reaching out to Wonmin as he is currently open to work.