The Importance of Cash Flow & Projections in Games

You don't have to be an accountant to look at your cash flow. In fact, you don't even need to have an accountant to look at your cash flow. The business / financing / accounting side of things is an aspect that many indie game development studios struggle with. This isn't surprising, as usually these teams don't have a person dedicated to this kind of stuff. 

But I wanted to discuss cash flow today in conjunction with projections. I'm not a magician, and I can't tell you how much your game, our game, or any game will sell. What I can say, however, especially now that our game has launched, is about how many months we can survive if a) sales stopped today, if b) sales go worse than expected, or if c) sales go well. This is important! This is very important.

Someone on your team, even if you don't have a "business guy", is going to have to know when to start approaching publishers for funding your next game, when to look for investors or government funds, or when to stop working on a feature of a game that "just hasn't taken off yet but it will soon... soon!". Without a crystal ball, you should still know how much money you're spending per month, how much you'll need to be spending in 6 months, and how much revenue you're going to be earning to offset that cost.

If you're working on a passion project, a hobby project, etc. and not expecting to make a business out of it, that's one thing. But, if you're looking to build a sustainable business with revenue and employees, you're going to need to be able to make tough decisions, project-altering decisions even, based on financial constrains (or, let's hope, newfound financial liberties $$$). 

Beyond the balance sheet and the profit / loss report, you should really have a cash flow document. We've only done a proper one recently, and we're a bit late, but it helps us clarify how much time we have to work on features and prepare for the future. Even if it's not 100% set in stone... projections are often way off, but that's okay! It's better to have it and be way off than not to have it at all, because the internet exists and you can now alter documents without having to put them on punch-cards.

Online is out of Beta, Twitch Votes and New Content!

Hi UCHers! This week's update comes in the form of a video, which will help describe all of the new things we've tweaked and added to Ultimate Chicken Horse. To make sure you have the newest stuff, make sure you Verify your Game Cache the next time you play. Take a look at the new things:

Grab the 4-pack of UCH (on sale until September 26th!) and play online with friends or join the vibrant community; there are always several matches available online for you to join, and the new updated lobby shows you the best matches possible based on skill, connection quality, and other factors.

We've also added Twitch integration, where Twitch streamers can have their audience vote on which blocks will appear in the Party Box. Once the chosen platform is placed, the names of the people who voted will pop out of it.

Next up is a new level, the Pier!

This level features a giant wave that the players need to run away from... don't get caught underneath! The level makes for an interesting dynamic when players have to place obstacles on the path with the added pressure of constantly needing to move forward quickly.

Our newest block added to the game is a punching plant which gets angry when you come near it, then punches out in a fit of flowery rage a second later. If you get caught in its range, you may regret it.

We're pretty excited to have these updates out, and we're still working hard on the game. Next up is a big new feature, please follow us on your favourite social media site to stay informed!

What are you most excited about? What would you like to see next? Be sure to Tweet at us and let us know :) We're going to start working on Sandbox mode shortly, which we'll talk more about in future updates. Stay posted!

For the full list of changes in this newest update, you can see the patch notes here. 

Impressions from Boston FIG

Last weekend, at MIT in Boston, was the Boston Festival of Indie Games. The BFIG is a smallish expo that showcases games mostly from the Northeast US and Canada, and is more relaxing version of something like PAX. 

Last year, Clever Endeavour went and had a great time. This year, Richard went down with a couple of the members of Artifact 5, another Montreal game development studio, and recorded his impressions. Below are his opinions, not that of the company.

A Few of the Best Games That I Saw

Anamorphine, the game by Artifact 5, was awesome of course and their new demo was good enough to earn them the prize for best experimental game. I know them well though, so I'm going to talk about games that I hadn't seen before.

Perception was a great looking game where you play as a girl exploring an old, seemingly abandoned house. Not quite horror, the game freaks you out a little bit and gives you clues as to what's going on in the world as you explore it. The graphics were outstanding and the audio was perfect; the creators of the game are mostly ex-Irrational Games people (the ones who made Bioshock) so we can expect great things. 

Inari was a mobile game where you play as a cloaked cat who jumps and bounds off of objects. It's a platformer with a beautiful art style, almost low-poly looking but in 2D. Great colours and depth to the scene backgrounds make it beautiful, and the mechanics are fun though limited. 

Lastly, I really liked Dragon Dad. This game was a bit like 'Dumb Ways to Die' for mobile or Warioware, where it's made up of small quick-time events and has a sarcastic, witty bit of humour between. The game is made by a games lab at a university in Boston and one of the undertones of this game is environmental awareness; some of the mini-games involve sorting recycling from garbage, biking quickly, or closing the fridge. Subtle, but nice messages. 

I didn't play everything, so I'm sorry if I missed you! 

Some Trends That I Noticed

There seemed to be some recurring themes this year, as there have been every year. This year shifted a little bit though, and we saw a lot of the following:

- Local multiplayer, single-mechanic arena games: I have no issue with this, except for the "single-mechanic" part. Many games seemed to be local multiplayer battle games that focused on one very specific thing, without variation. I think that games like Towerfall or Starwhal which focus on one mechanic still have enough variation (types of arrows in Towerfall, level changes in Starwhal) that this keeps things alive beyond what a simple, single-mechanic game could. These games also have extremely deep mechanics that are very difficult to master.

- Survival and crafting: lots of this stuff. Lots and lots and lots. It seems everyone just wants to craft! Except me.

- VR: I found slightly less VR than there was last year for some reason... but it seems that at every show there are many VR games that range from proof-of-concept demos to full games. Unfortunately I didn't see many full games.

So that's all for this week folks, we'll be back next time with some game updates!