Poki Developer Spotlight: Blumgi Games - Part 1

At Poki, we’re proud of the diverse talent and games that make up our platform! Hundreds of creators call Poki their home, and we’re launching our Developer Spotlight series to shine a light on those voices.

 To kick off this series, we have a previous resident of our blog returning to share new insight three years after his last appearance - Blumgi Games.

Loïc Roger is the solo-developer behind Blumgi Games whose catalogue of games include classics like Blumgi Slime, Blumgi Merge and Blumgi Bounce. Beginning his career in animation, Loïc worked across multiple media formats, and found game development to be the most enjoyable, setting him on a career path in mobile gaming before pivoting to becoming a web game developer after discovering Poki.

In this interview, we asked Loïc about his history, what drove him towards web gaming and what his creative process is when it comes to designing games for the web specifically. 

Let’s set the scene, how did your career in gaming get started? I believe you were in animation first, before moving to develop mobile games?

Loïc Roger: Yes, that’s right. I got my first animation job at a French company called Ankama. They are well known in France for a very popular MMORPG called Dofus but they didn’t only make games; Ankama creates video games, comics, TV shows, toys and more, all usually within the shared Dofus universe. When I joined they were starting a new animated TV show called Wakfu, that was based on the Dofus game, and I was an animator on that. Because Anakama is a "transmedia" company, it meant I was able to do different kinds of jobs beyond animation, and so I also tried my hand at video game creation. I fell in love with the process. 

In animation, it is very linear. You make a scenario, then a storyboard, then the animation, and so on. What I loved when I explored the video game creative process was being surprised by my own creation. Sometimes things happen that you didn’t expect or plan; it’s like a communication with the game itself. Something emerges from the process, and that’s what I fell in love with. 

Slowly, I moved more into mobile gaming because it allowed me to work in very small teams on projects that could be featured worldwide (on Apple, for example).

Were you making mobile games at the same company, or was this at a different company?

It was the same company at first. I made two games there that were very successful, made in a small team of two—just one developer friend and me. For me, it was magical that you could make a game with only two people, whereas in animation, you need a huge team for even just a minute of footage. It takes a lot of communication and planning. In comparison, I felt a lot of creative freedom in mobile gaming. So that really kickstarted my journey as a game developer.

Is that also why you eventually went from mobile to doing your own individual projects on Poki—to get that ultimate creative freedom? You were like, "I’m doing this all on my own now."

Yeah, that’s exactly what I loved and what I was looking for after making games in larger companies. Later, I moved to another company called Madbox and made another game with a programmer that was very successful called Stickman Hook. At some point, I thought to myself that I had made multiple successful games for companies and maybe I didn’t need a huge team to make a living from my own games.

However, I knew mobile was very competitive. When I was at Madbox, small studios struggled because big companies spent so much money on user acquisition. I knew it would be very difficult for me as a solo developer to be visible on mobile. One of the games I made at Madbox was published on Poki; that’s how I first encountered you. 

And that game was Stickman Hook?

Yes it was. At the time, a good game developer friend of mine, Colin Lane, was already a Poki developer and that’s when I got in touch to ask, "What is Poki exactly? What are you doing? Are you interested in Stickman Hook?" 

At that time, Stickman Hook was ranked second in the US app store - it was a crazy time. I remember you said, "Yes, yes, yes, we want it!" 

(laughs)

When I decided to go indie, I remembered that Stickman Hook did very well on Poki, although it was hard to know if it was because it was already a big game or if it was because that kind of game is good for web gaming. 

I figured I had a better chance of being visible on Poki than on the mobile store. I had no idea if I could make enough money to make a living, but I decided to try. 

I went to Amsterdam to meet the team in person because I wanted a human relationship. I didn’t want to be just a number like you are on Apple or Android. I was looking for a long-term relationship built on trust, and that’s exactly what I found with Poki. 

Was it difficult making your first game on Poki, or did it feel natural given your history in mobile gaming?

In terms of game design, it was very close to my experience in casual mobile gaming. I felt they were the same kinds of games, so I wasn't lost. I knew the audience.

The challenge was that I had never made a game fully alone. I had always worked with programmers, though I used Construct 3 (a web game engine) to prototype my games in the mobile industry. I was autonomous enough to try ideas, and I was lucky because Construct 3 worked perfectly with Poki, especially with constraints like low build sizes. I decided to leave Madbox, use my savings, and learn on the go.

That sounds like quite the risk!

Yeah, it was a little scary making my first game because I wasn't sure if I could actually finish it. But everyone at Poki was confident in my skills, and I was able to ask for help from other developers for technical things like integrating the SDK. In the end, I realized Poki had made it really easy for developers who don't have high technical knowledge to create and launch games. You make a build, push it to the website, and it just works.

How did the Poki team support you with your first game?

I asked my account manager what was important for web gaming. He told me the audience was casual, which I already understood, but he emphasized the importance of a small build size, mainstream themes, and onboarding players.

Onboarding is the hardest part of web gaming. It’s like a TikTok audience - you have to be very direct. When you launch a game, you only have a few seconds to convince the audience to play. You have to remove anything that distracts them. Your game is in a window, but other games are just one click away. If there is any friction or complexity, they will leave your game immediately, creating a negative loop in the metrics.

But the opposite is also true: if the game is rewarding and launches fast, it creates a positive loop. That’s not easy for people coming from Steam or premium games. 

Did you utilize Poki’s Playtest offering?

I use it a lot. If I’d had this tool in the mobile industry, it would have been a game-changer. In mobile, you have to pay for user acquisition and then guess player behavior based on numbers and charts. It’s like a black box.

What Poki’s playtesting tool brings is video feedback. You can launch a test and within minutes, have video recordings of people playing. I use it to see if players are actually experiencing what I designed. You can see if they understand the tutorial or if they are playing in a different way than intended.

We also have tests with 500 players that give us funnel metrics. If fewer than 50% of players pass the first minute, the onboarding isn't good enough or the game isn't fun. It’s better to know that early before you put in the effort to make 50 more levels. Once I have those metrics, I can build more content and remove any friction.

The only danger is that a designer can rely too much on metrics and lose the original vision. It’s important to have a direction and use the tools to see if people are following it, rather than changing everything every time a metric fluctuates.

It would be great to hear more about your game design process now. How do you come up with your ideas? Does Poki help in that process at all?

I think it's a different relationship with different designers depending on their individual needs. I’m someone who is quite autonomous, and so I was given a lot of freedom to be creative. My account manager told me early on, "You are the designer; we trust you." I love that. If I have a question, I can ask, but otherwise, I’m autonomous.

My ideas come from different places. Sometimes it’s just a random idea I’m excited about. Other times, I take it as a challenge based on platform constraints, like making a game with only one button because I know the audience likes to "zap" through games.

One of my favorite methods is taking a mechanic from a game I loved in my childhood and making it the center of a casual game. For example, I love Worms Armageddon. Stickman Hook came from my love for the Ninja Rope item in that game. I tried to make a game just about using a grappling hook and adapted it to mobile constraints: one button, touch to hook, release to fly.

That makes a lot of sense for Poki’s "instant play" style.

I’ve released 12 games so far on Poki, and from that experience I have noticed that there is a direct relationship between simplicity and success. It is always my simplest games, often the ones I made the fastest, that make the most money. 

(Laughs) That’s always the way, isn’t it?

Yeah (laughs), it’s crazy. 

I failed on a recent game I made last year because I tried to make the game "deeper," but in reality I actually just made it more complex. On Poki, complexity is a "no-go." If the UI is complex or they don't understand the goal instantly, there is zero engagement. Complexity doesn’t mean deep though, that’s where I tripped myself up.

Loïc had so much to share with us that this interview has been split into two parts, so stay subscribed to the blog and don’t miss out on part 2 of our Developer Spotlight for Blumgi Games. In that part we talk about creating art and animation for web games, the viability of web gaming for developers aiming to make a living and Loïc shares the personal story about the creation of his favourite Blumgi game.