Glitch Factory x Unity | Case study
Created from a love of 2D game design and a desire to tell meaningful stories through games, Glitch Factory began its tale in Brasilia, Brazil, back in 2012. After partnering with Memora Processos Inovadores, the team worked on a local multiplayer espionage game titled Party Saboteurs. Taking what they learned from the development cycle, Glitch Factory soon began working on the story of No Place for Bravery.
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The challenge
Take player feedback from the open beta to improve gameplay experience before launch.
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Launched
September 2022
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Platforms
Windows, Nintendo Switch™
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Engine
Unity
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Genre
Role playing, action, adventure, fighting
Brave enough to best your enemy
Building off their experience from Party Saboteurs, the team wanted to create a new game with a focus on storytelling. Creating a meaningful story with a good combat system is no easy feat, and Glitch Factory needed to know how players felt and interacted with the first stage of the game.
With development time moving at a good pace, the next step was to see if the difficulty was too high. The first-time player experience (FTUE) was crucial to the success of the game as it would set the groundwork for how well players engaged with No Place for Bravery.
Having already built a strong history with Unity Plus, the team decided to turn to Unity Analytics solutions for support.
The results
- Meaningful data collected on FTUE
- Impactful improvements to the overall gameplay and difficulty level
- Time saved by tackling the biggest hurdles allowing for a successful launch of the final product
About No Place for Bravery
No Place for Bravery is a 2D top-down action RPG which weaves together high-quality visuals, a stirring soundtrack, and intense combat moments into a tale of moral dilemmas and personal reflection of your choices. The story follows an old and ambitious warrior, Thorn, as he roams a vicious war-torn world in search of his lost daughter.
With its beta release in February 2021, during the Steam Festival, it received high acclaim for its retro aesthetic filled with new mechanics. The final version launched in September 2022 and has already been a fan favorite in the indie game category.
Sharpen your sword for combat
Having built the base of the game in Unity Plus, things started looking like they were in shape to be put to the test. A beta was the first step in getting player feedback, focusing on various KPIs like level progression and difficulty. This information would help the team to better understand the overall player experience in the early levels.
It wasn’t enough to just get the game in the hands of players. A proper analysis of key moments needed to be done to ensure No Place for Bravery was where it needed to be. Because the combat system and level progression was meant to emulate a Souls-like difficulty, Event Tracking and Funnels were put in place to determine if the game was even playable.
Using Unity Analytics solutions, various events like “tutorial_start” and “tutorial_complete” were heavily monitored to ensure players understood the gameplay mechanics, while also clearing the levels in a reasonable amount of time.
Analyze, parry, and counter
The beta provided the team with concrete information to take back and analyze. The festival concluded and key questions like game difficulty and interest in the combat system needed to be evaluated.
Looking at the data, the team identified that the core mechanics of the game were accepted pretty well by the players, allowing for minimal adjustments needed to be done.
Next, the time comparison between when “tutorial_start” and “tutorial_complete” stood out. Even though the combat system seemed to be understood, players took longer to complete the tutorial due to high difficulty in enemies.
Knowing this, elements like damage and enemy health were adjusted to allow for a more steady progression curve in game difficulty.
Having applied all the necessary adjustments, No Place for Bravery was ready to launch in September 2022. Even with a small team, Glitch Factory was able to bring their project to the beta stage, pinpoint the key spots where the game needed to be evaluated, and had a successful launch of the final product.
“We've been using Unity for almost ten years now and we have absolutely nothing to complain about. I believe it was the first major decision that we took as a company/college project back in 2010. Since it was the biggest engine at the time, the most accessible, and the one that most of our friends were using, it was an easy decision. The Unity community and forums were the major reasons that made us stick with Unity all this time.”