Galactic Slice: A Unity case study
With a game that was already seeing fantastic returns from the Google Play store and Apple App Store, solo developer Jonathan Concepcion began researching additional avenues for distributing his mobile game. His major goal was to increase visibility and availability of his title without requiring a team to make it happen. While doing so, he discovered alternative app marketplaces, and found that Unity, his development platform, also provided a way to easily publish games to these new app stores.
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The challenge
Publishing his mobile game to as many app stores as possible without requiring huge amounts of time or needing to hire a team to help him
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Platforms
Android, iOS
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Team members
Jonathan Concepcion, solo developer
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Company
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
UDP makes mobile game publishing simple for solo devs
Galactic Slice, the one-man development studio responsible for the mobile title OneBit Adventure, uses the Unity Distribution Portal (UDP) to make its game more accessible and discoverable to global audiences without needing a team of people to accomplish it.
The results
- Support from the Unity Distribution Portal team, and clear documentation, made setting up OneBit Adventure in UDP easy
- Galactic Slice efficiently published its game to the Samsung Galaxy Store through UDP, opening its game to 400 million new monthly users across 188 countries
- Built-in localization tools on several UDP partner stores ensured the game reached additional regions and demographics
From retail to roguelike
Concepcion took a circuitous route on his way to creating his casual roguelike/sprinter hybrid, OneBit Adventure. Like most of us, he started in customer service and retail to pay the bills, working as a crew member at McDonald’s and eventually a cashier at Woodman’s Food Market. He was simultaneously going to school for his bachelor’s in game design, as he had wanted to become a game developer for quite some time.
Press “start” to begin
“I’ve been a gamer since I was a little kid,” says Jonathan. “Playing Game Boy and classic NES is what inspired me to learn game design, and it’s what ultimately inspired OneBit Adventure.” But getting into the industry proved to be quite difficult. “I had an internship where I learned a lot about making video games, but after that I didn’t get right to it because it was very hard to find a position.”
In 2019, after a back injury sidelined him at home, he decided it was time to focus his energies on what he had learned in school. All of this culminated in Jonathan forming Galactic Slice and developing his first game. There were obvious challenges in securing an audience, along with traveling this development path largely unaided, but through it all he was able to create a fun and interesting game on his platform of choice. Since then, he’s gone on to see 300,000 downloads of OneBit Adventure.
Trust in Unity led to UDP
Concepcion zeroed in on Unity as he was learning how to design games. “I came upon Unity during my internship, and I loved that the Personal edition was free to make games. I particularly loved the free asset packs, as they allowed me to use what was already there and tweak them to fit the design and gameplay elements I wanted to create.”
As for his vision for OneBit Adventure, “I wanted to make a sprinter/runner game that required players to think through their progress with tangible goals. This is what led to the roguelike mechanics and level design. I also wanted to make it really accessible, so rather than look to a PC or console release, I turned to mobile.”
Finding more fans
After initially submitting the game to Google Play and the App Store, he learned that there were many other game stores, and therefore more untapped opportunities to distribute OneBit Adventure far and wide. As Concepcion began searching for ways to submit to these other marketplaces, it wasn’t long before he discovered the Unity Distribution Portal.
“I found UDP, and while I was initially concerned I wouldn’t be able to quickly learn how to use it, the conversations I had with Unity reps, plus my existing trust in Unity, led me to give it a shot.” He goes on to say that entry into the ecosystem was initially challenging but relatively painless overall, and he understood the value of all these stores being integrated and monitored through one centralized portal.
UDP unlocks Galaxy Store’s 400M+ monthly gamers
One store in particular stood out on the UDP partner stores page for Concepcion. “Some aspects of signing up for the Samsung Galaxy Store were complex, but that didn’t come from UDP. It was store-side stuff that needed to be taken care of in order to complete UDP integration. Once I understood how that part worked outside of UDP, it all came together.”
It’s no surprise that Concepcion determined the Samsung Galaxy Store was worth the initial sign-up process. Here are just some of the stats:
- 2 billion+ Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets have been sold since 2019
- 400 million users visit and interact with the Galaxy Store every month
- 450 million apps are downloaded monthly
- 5 billion apps have been downloaded since the store’s inception
- 188 countries across the globe enjoy the Galaxy Store’s app offerings
This amounts to almost 25% of the 1 billion total users that UDP can unlock. Most importantly, accessing this user base was not a monumental task for the Galactic Slice founder. He tells us, “I’ve been using UDP for about a month, and so far it’s been simple to use.”
Growth through localization and global accessibility
A key component of OneBit Adventure’s design was its appeal for global audiences. “The game was built in English, with Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, French, and Turkish translations.” Concepcion really appreciated the fact that several UDP partner stores can streamline localization of games for additional regions and countries.
“A big value for me is having those utilities right in the portal to integrate localization more easily because I’ve wanted to make the game available to many more people. This, in combination with the global distribution possibilities through all these stores, will allow me to create more awareness and share my project worldwide.”
When asked what his plans are for the future of Galactic Slice and OneBit Adventure, Concepcion says, “I’m looking forward to seeing how UDP helps me to scale visibility and sales for my game even more. I think the much higher availability through these stores will help me reach more users and give more people a chance to have fun playing OneBit. I will also be getting the game translated into Korean, and publish it to ONE store soon through UDP.”
With 300,000 downloads already and (hopefully) many more to come, Galactic Slice’s global success story has only just begun.