This article reflects information as of 2020. For the latest details, please contact us.
Written by: Tomohiro Koizumi, Representative Director, tentus inc.
While writing this article about that game's development, I happened to look at the site of the client I planned it for way back when, and… somehow, the service is still running today!!!
To think a game I made over 10 years ago is still active!!
Since it was a game built in Flash back then, it seems it's been renewed in various ways and made smartphone-compatible with added features, but the game's basic concept was unchanged.
I felt a little happy that I'd made a game still loved more than 10 years after release.
The Initial Request and the Real Challenge
This is a 10-year-old story, so I'm writing while pulling my memory together.
I believe the initial request was something like "We want to make a game so users visit the site every day, to revitalize the member site the client operates."
This order has two pitfalls.
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Most people who register on the member site do so mainly because of prize giveaways.
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Users merely coming every day doesn't revitalize the site.
That's the thing.
This is a common pitfall where the purpose and the method are reversed, so our first proposal wasn't about the game's content — it was to first make clear the existing "new-inflow numbers, first-month withdrawal rate, average continuation months," and then start from setting numerical goals for where and how they wanted to grow.
As a result:
・New inflow is already coming in through existing promotions, so it's not the challenge this time.
・They wanted to keep the first-month withdrawal rate down as much as possible.
・They wanted to raise the average continuation months as much as possible.
In other words, it became clear that the goal was not 【a game people come to every day】 but 【a game people play for a long time】.
Setting Motivation
The fact, noted in pitfall 1, that users' registration motive wasn't the game was also a problem.
Since inflow is based on existing promotions, most future new users, too, should be users who want prizes, just as before.
Telling such people "we made a game!" would clearly lead to a sad result.
So we set the motivation not as "playing the game" but as "being able to get a prize (maybe) by playing the game."
Planning the Game
Once this much was decided, the rest was easy.
・A game you can play over a long span
・Not a game for gaming fans.
・Something even people who don't game at all can play
・You can get a prize (maybe) by playing the game
In other words, it became clear we wanted a light game playable over a long span, with a bit of a gambling thrill too.
Once the scope of the plan was narrowed this far, the rest was up to the planner's skill.
After several planning meetings, the game content we decided on was…
Grow a Tree!
Putting it into words sounds sketchy.
But it's truly, simply, a game where you grow a tree.
Each day you can do three things — "watering," "fertilizing," and "weeding" — once per day.
By keeping this up, in a few days the tree grows and bears fruit, and shipping that fruit earns you the right to a prize drawing — content so basic that even a game planner would fly into a rage, questioning whether it's even a game.
Confirming the Motivation Once More
Since most users were, to begin with, users who wanted prizes, the lower the game's hurdle, the better.
No matter how much someone wants a prize, if the game is difficult or tedious, they'll drop off immediately — that was clear from the data so far.
So this time we prioritized a look that was truly simple, where all the rules could be explained on a single screen.
And Toward Squid-Jerky-Style Play
As you play, you find that the fruit harvest varies.
And while playing, various hints appear in various places.
"Take care of it every day and it'll bear lots of fruit."
"The tree is happy if you water it early in the day."
With these hints, users start to notice, "Huh? Maybe there's a strategy to harvesting a lot?"
If you can harvest a lot of fruit, you appear in the rankings, and the prize win rate goes up slightly too — that was the kind of mechanism we built.
In this way, by lowering the entry hurdle to catch light users and letting them discover the fun for themselves little by little as they played, it became content that has lasted 10 years, I think.
This time it became a game as content, but at tentus we join you starting from "what should we do first to achieve the goal?"
As a result, there are cases where handing out flyers in-store is better than doing something digital.
Marketing includes that too, so even without a clear image of "we'll make this!" as a deliverable, please just get in touch first.