From Helix Soar to Little Farm Tale: How h8games reinvented itself

• Helix Soar introduced in 2018 with quick building time and reached over 800 million downloads.
• Partnership with SayGames sparked the studio’s pivot from hypercasual to hybridcasual.
• Little Farm Tale changed into a $1.2M per 30 days IAP good fortune whilst keeping up h8games’ hypercasual core.

Oleg Batrakov is CEO & co-founder at h8games.

Little Farm Tale: Idle Rich person, an idle arcade created through developer h8games and printed through SayGames, has grown to over $1.2M in per 30 days IAP earnings only one 12 months after its world release.

However at the back of this good fortune lies an extended adventure: from early top class experiments and painful screw ups, to the hypercasual generation topped through the explosive good fortune of Helix Soar – greater than 800 million downloads – and in the end to an entire reinvention of the studio within the hybridcasual house.

Early steps within the top class section

It began in 2016. Through that point, my spouse Oleh Khromov and I had already labored at a number of studios: we had each reached senior roles at Gameloft and later moved to Gumi, the place we had been tasked with development a big workforce for an formidable AAA undertaking – in spite of slightly working out the right way to make a AAA sport within the first position. Unsurprisingly, not anything got here out of it: inside of a 12 months the investment dried up and the studio used to be close down.

Each and every folks ended up with about $20,000. Shall we both return to full-time jobs or attempt to create one thing of our personal. We selected the latter. Again then, it in truth felt like 40 thousand greenbacks used to be sufficient to if truth be told construct “one thing significant.”

The workforce temporarily began to dissolve as folks left looking for solid salaries. By the point we launched our first sport, The Little Fox – a good looking and extremely unique top class runner – there have been most effective 3 folks left.

We had been impressed through Monument Valley – its aesthetics, its precision, its sense of a tiny, best international. We actually believed within the sport or even reached out to Apple to protected an article function. However we overpassed one thing obtrusive: our pals, whom we requested to check the sport, couldn’t even move the primary point. It used to be that tough.

We did get the App Retailer function nomination, however we earned most effective $8,000 to $10,000. It used to be not anything in comparison to the money and time invested. Nonetheless, we adopted the top class video games trail and made our subsequent sport – Pengy Has a Dream, much more experimental and sophisticated: avid gamers had to attract ice platforms within the air to assist the nature succeed in the tip of the extent.

Each initiatives had been business screw ups. After which got here the general straw: the Saint-Exupéry property filed a lawsuit in opposition to us for the use of fragments of The Little Prince in The Little Fox.

We relied at the rule {that a} paintings enters the general public area 60 years after the writer’s demise, however didn’t know concerning the exception: if the writer died within the conflict, the copyright time period is prolonged. We needed to urgently take away the sport from the shop.

Over the years, it felt like we had been repeatedly pushing in opposition to the wind. Regardless of how a lot effort we installed, it wasn’t getting any more uncomplicated – which intended we had been merely shifting within the fallacious path. After Pengy Has a Dream, we in the end reconsidered our solution to top class video games and made up our minds to concentrate on what we actually cherished: growing and refining mechanics.

The upward thrust of hypercasual, the age of individualism, and the painful courses of expansion

That is how our hypercasual generation started. We had been utterly out of cash, and Oleh used to be actually knocking on each writer’s door, sending out prototypes to any person who would have a look at them.

We labored in brief with Ketchapp, however the true leap forward got here in 2018, when Voodoo wrote to us and introduced an excessively beneficiant contract. Our first actual sport with them, Hearth Rides, took off straight away – for the primary time, we noticed actual payouts, numbers we had by no means even imagined. It used to be extremely motivating.

5 or 6 prototypes later, Helix Soar took place. We made it in an afternoon or two, and in trying out it confirmed a CPI of only a few cents and day 1 retention above 50%.

3 days after that, the sport used to be already reside within the retailer with 1,000,000 downloads. All of the adventure -from the primary construct to that first million – took simply a few weeks. It used to be a dizzying prime, the type of good fortune that outlined an generation: again then, it’s essential simply pour visitors into the sport and it could develop by itself.

Hypercasual utterly shifted our mindset. Coming from Gameloft and Gumi, the place the entirety revolved round groups, processes, and massive buildings, we had been in an international the place one individual may make successful in one day.

It used to be a time of sharp individualism and fierce festival – all over the place, now not only for us. After that first good fortune, it used to be simple to lose your head within the euphoria. It felt like it’s essential do the entirety by yourself – and get wealthy speedy. It used to be an actual rigidity check for our partnership. Oleh and I controlled to stick in combination thru that length, however it wasn’t simple.

After which we began to flow off monitor.

1. The generation of “virtually just right sufficient” prototypes

There used to be a length after we would make a prototype, see just right metrics, and easily abandon it. As an example, a quick-and-dirty prototype made in 3 days would display retention of 47% when the objective used to be 50%.

As a substitute of refining it for every other 3 days, we’d say: “No, this isn’t severe. We want one thing actually superb. Directly to the following one.”

On the identical time, competition watched our account like hawks. We’d post a prototype, and two days later clones would seem all over the place. The contest used to be brutal. Consequently, we weren’t completing our concepts – however others had been incomes from them.

2. The semblance that ability by myself can create magic

Then we swung to the other excessive: we believed that if we merely amassed a gaggle of gifted folks in a single room, nice video games would seem on their very own. We rented a area in Kharkiv, employed 5 sturdy builders, and each few days, I might drop through pronouncing, “Simply make one thing nice – like Helix Soar.” After all, not anything got here out of it.

Now I perceive why: with out inside self-discipline, no exterior device will ever paintings. You’ll’t merely rent gifted folks and be expecting them to win the Olympics – and that’s precisely what the hypercasual marketplace has transform: an Olympic-level festival.

You want to head thru dozens of prototypes in combination, burn your self on screw ups in combination, and develop in combination. To win the Olympics, you want actual coaching. It used to be crucial – and painful – lesson.

Second look and the go back to video games

We ultimately spent all of the cash we earned from Helix Soar – and now not simply on video games. We opened eating places, made track, and shot movies. Oleh opened a bar in Kharkiv, and I filmed a brief film that I’m now filing to global gala’s. It used to be a brilliant, ingenious bankruptcy – however already a long way from sport building.

Progressively, it changed into transparent: we had been status at a crossroads. Both we close down the studio and transfer on with a special existence, or we go back to video games – however this time in a mature, structured means, with out depending on natural inspiration and good fortune.

We selected the second one choice. We felt we needed to take that trail – that the revel in we’d accrued in sport building used to be too treasured to throw away.

We got here again to hypercasual – and temporarily realised the outdated engine wouldn’t get started anymore. In 2022, we began on the lookout for new companions – and that’s how we discovered SayGames. On the identical time, the conflict in Ukraine started. A part of the workforce shifted focal point, and a few folks left the rustic. After all, there have been 5 folks left – and that’s how we entered the following bankruptcy of the studio’s existence.

I consider our first seek advice from to the SayGames place of work in Cyprus very obviously. After an extended length of turbulence, it used to be the primary time I felt like I used to be in the end surrounded through authentic and vigorous folks once more, people who find themselves open-minded, take hits, experiment, and keep open to what comes subsequent.

With the publishing workforce, we straight away fell right into a discussion the place each side had been open to looking and attempting, in spite of our other backgrounds and demanding revel in.

Later, I had crucial dialog with Yegor Vaikhanskii, CEO and Co-Founding father of SayGames. I instructed him: “I need to optimise my involvement come what may – the consistent race is onerous.” Yegor answered: “In case you step again from this, nobody will construct it for you.” It used to be a dialog about duty – about the type of internal pressure that may’t be outsourced.

In case you prevent in need of this, not anything will transfer. After all, that non-public pressure is the one actual gasoline at the back of development.

The shift from hypercasual to hybrid and the start of Little Farm Tale

Our collaboration with SayGames marked a big shift in our considering – a transition from hypercasual to hybridcasual.

We got here in with a vintage hypercasual mindset: the one factor that issues is CPI, one killer mechanic, one sturdy advert hook. From day one, Yegor instructed us the other: “Don’t glance most effective at CPI. Have a look at LTV, in-apps and intensity. CPI will apply.” On the time, it gave the impression of heresy. 

The whole thing within us resisted – however there have been no actual possible choices, so we took the bounce of religion.

The primary makes an attempt had been painful. We made a racing sport impressed through marketplace leaders – however it had none of our core qualities: no tactility, no signature really feel, no soul. It used to be an try to transplant any individual else’s concept with out our personal which means at the back of it, and of course, it didn’t take root.

After that failure got here disorientation: hypercasual used to be death, our in-app makes an attempt weren’t running. One day it changed into transparent: we had to determine what “our” sport gave the look of. That required a fully other mindset.

The mechanics, the content material scope, the manufacturing procedure – the entirety needed to alternate. We had been getting into territory we had by no means labored in sooner than. SayGames helped us regulate our way and transfer towards hybrid-casual in a extra structured means.

That’s how the Little Farm Tale started.

Yegor introduced the speculation for the surroundings and the meta. We added our ASMR power – the ones tactile, “feelable” mechanics that make us satisfied to the touch and play with. However we had completely no concept the right way to design in-app monetisation. On each name, Yegor stored repeating: “You’re giving all your sport away at no cost.” And we had been terrified. It felt like if we raised useful resource prices, avid gamers would simply assume we had been being grasping and go away. 

The primary in-app that actually labored used to be born virtually accidentally – the employee. No longer an ideal steadiness design, now not a suave useful resource pack – only a tiny persona who is helping you at the farm. We added him as a result of we appreciated gazing him wave his little hand subsequent to the vegetation. Then we checked the metrics and noticed that just about everybody used to be purchasing him.

The employee changed into a bridge: a paid part that didn’t really feel manipulative, however as a substitute felt like a herbal continuation of our sincerity and the “human” a part of the sport. Lately it’s the best-performing in-app acquire within the undertaking.

In parallel, our inside standpoint used to be transferring. We compelled ourselves to play large free-to-play video games and put money into them to grasp the economic system from the interior out. We found out that in-apps also are a part of the sport, a particular more or less amusing, a mental revel in, now not only a monetisation mechanic.

Merely put, Little Farm Tale is a hybrid of 2 energies:

• our hypercasual tactility and ASMR really feel,

• and the intensity of hybrid design that SayGames introduced into the method.

We stayed true to ourselves: we embraced an concept that got here from outdoor, however achieved it our personal means.

How we construct a workforce: From serve as to creativity

Once we started running on Little Farm Tale and the initiatives that adopted, it changed into transparent that we didn’t simply desire a workforce – we would have liked our workforce.

In recent times, the “folks as purposes” mindset stopped running. There used to be a time when it’s essential “raise” a undertaking with software wisdom, common sense, or slender experience. Lately, 90% of the ones duties may also be treated simply through AI – and that flips the foundations of the sport.

We are living in a postmodern international the place purposes blur, and a workforce turns into a workforce now not on account of complementary laborious talents or shared KPIs, however on account of shared power – a vibe, a sensitivity to making one thing alive in combination.

Because of this our hiring way may be very other from the normal one. We will rent any individual whose formal ability point is objectively decrease, however who has one thing peculiar – no matter it can be: a way of favor, a peculiar pastime, some way of telling tales, a worldview, or a sensitivity to what’s going down round them. One thing that units them except being “only a serve as” and makes them alive. Abilities may also be upgraded. The workforce is helping folks adapt. The surroundings is helping folks develop. However this peculiar spark – that’s the factor that issues maximum, and it turns into a part of the product.

When the sort of workforce comes in combination, all of the “programmer stuff” fades into the background. Crew spirit stops being about HR actions, meetups, or pizza all the way through crunch, it’s one thing completely other.

Paintings turns into part of your existence, and a colleague turns into any individual with whom you percentage a significant portion of your time. They should be attention-grabbing, alive, authentic and any individual you experience running with on a daily basis.

And when that collective vibe bureaucracy, the very factor we had been chasing in the end seems: creativity.

No longer simply development practical prototypes, however making video games the place you’ll be able to really feel the human contact at the back of each element.

Conclusion

The adventure of h8games can’t be lowered to a easy linear trajectory. It’s extra like any lives lived within one studio: from makes an attempt at top class arthouse video games, during the euphoria of hyper-casual hits, to finding the true worth of the workforce, construction, and fair ingenious paintings.

Little Farm Tale changed into greater than a a success undertaking – it changed into the results of this inside evolution and expansion. And most likely, it’s most effective the start of the tale the studio is able to inform within the years forward.