Game Design Secrets

Chapter 9

Web Game Developer Profiles: Kingdom of Loathing, Nitrome, and Desktop Tower Defense

In This Chapter

• Taking lessons from Kingdom of Loathing, the indie cult RPG
• Knowing what to do when users “change” your game
• Learning from Desktop Tower Defense—including what its developer learned the hard way
• Preparing for your game’s future success
• Turning hit web games into a hit web game factory, the Nitrome Way

This chapter draws from lessons learned by three web developers who launched successful games. The first developer managed to find success from relatively low user numbers, showing that it is possible to create a profitable game despite a small user base. This chapter also introduces you to a developer who did just the opposite. He attracted extremely large numbers of users, but failed to capitalize on that popularity. To your benefit, he has some hard-earned lessons to share so that you won’t repeat these same mistakes. Speaking of which, we’ll also talk with a developer who capitalized on the success of his first few hits by becoming a hit-generating factory.