Case study
Mobile game development

Dice Journey

Dice poker

Customer country

Development timeline

Budget

Developed in collaboration with

Team

Murka

Ukraine

2013 February → 2013 September = 180 days

$60 000 + % of Revenue Share

10 professionals

3 engineers
1 manager
2 artists
1 consultant
3 game designers

Vision

Dice Journey is a dice poker game for iPhone and iPad.

There are 6 game worlds in the game:
•‎ mafia;
•‎ casino;
•‎ pirates;
•‎ hunters;
•‎ vampires;
•‎ the circus.

Each world is distinguished by art, characters, musical accompaniment and behavior of AI opponents.

The essence of the game: in each world there are 4 characters (1 boss + 3 NPCs), which differ in logic and the increasing difficulty of passing. The task is to defeat the enemy, for this the player receives in-game currency and boosters. Duration of the game depends on the bet size. Bigger bets give you a chance to win more chips.

Turn consists of 3 rounds (3 dice rolls). The sum of the points is doubled if the winning combination is collected in the first round. When the player does not collect any combination, he receives 1 skull. 3 skulls subtract 500 points.

Boosters help you get more points. The in-game currency is used to purchase - Dice Dollars. Only 1 booster can be used in 1 turn.

If you win by one star advantage, a new enemy is opened. Defeating all opponents with 3 stars grants one unique aura. The aura gained once will appear in all the worlds, including the new ones.

Gameplay

Development

Development from idea to release took 180 days.

During this time we are:
•‎ Implemented Apple Game Center achievements.
•‎ Developed and implemented 4 types of boosters.
•‎ Monetized the game by selling in-game currency.
•‎ Implemented 2 game modes: with bots and real opponents.
•‎ The game was translated into 4 languages: English, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.
•‎ We have developed logic for each character - these are AI opponents with different difficulty levels.
•‎ Implemented game mechanics and sprite animations on Cocos2d, used the iOS SDK to render the interface
•‎ We reduced the weight of the application to increase the number of installations and integrated only the first world into the installation file of the game. The rest are loaded after the first launch.

And also made for each of the 6 game worlds:
•‎ own art;
•‎ gaming tables;
•‎ game elements;
•‎ 6 types of characters;
•‎ musical accompaniment.

Game tables

Game mechanics

Real-time competition

Competitions with real opponents in realtime mode or bots if number of online users is insufficient.

Multilanguage interface

•‎ amount;
•‎ 2x points;
•‎ repeat the round;
•‎ additional round.

The game has been translated into 4 languages:
•‎ English;
•‎ Russian;
•‎ Chinese;
•‎ Japanese.

Boosters

Winning combinations

•‎ Poker. All five dice showing the same face. Gain points: 1500 + additional round.
•‎ Quads. Four dice showing the same face.
•‎ Full house. A three-of-kind & a pair.
•‎ Straight. Five sequential dice (1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6). Gain points: sum of the faces * 30.
•‎ Triple. Three dice showing the same face
•‎ Two pairs. Two faces of one kind and two faces of other kind.