I was talking with my family over dinner about my process for walkthrough creation, and it dawned on me that there are 3 very specific steps in the process.

Step 1: Exploration. The first time through a level or game, it’s all about figuring out HOW to beat it. Whether it is a tricky level late in a game or a point and click adventure, the first step towards showing others how to beat it is to do so yourself. This is not always easy, and I often find myself trying many different methods in an attempt to find the correct one. For point and clicks, this usually involves randomly clicking everywhere in the game with everything in my inventory, along with trying to combine anything with something else… whatever I can do to progress in the usually linear nature of the game. In level-based puzzle games, this means trying every route available or clicking pieces in every possible combination or firing a projectile at many different angles/strengths. The goal is always the same… find a way to solve the level/game.

Step 2: Memorization. Once you know how to beat a level or game, you need to do it in a way that clearly shows others how to do it as well. In a level-based game, you want the solution to each level to be fluid. You do not want pauses, mistakes, backtracks, misclicks, or extra moves shown… this will confuse someone trying to copy you. The same is true in a full-game video. To do this, you need to run through the game or level multiple times until you have it memorized and can do it without making a mistake. I will often record my memorization playthroughs, as I will do them without a break to keep the solutions fresh in my mind. Then, when I have it down, I easily transition from memorization into the 3rd step…

Step 3: Optimization. This goes hand in hand with memorization, but merits its own step. Memorization has no specified number of attempts to it, but when it is done correctly, it IS the Optimized run that I will upload. It is also during the memorization runs that I will look to fine-tune my method, so that the final optimized product is as flawless and close to optimal as possible. A walkthrough should not just show the solution, it should be of a level of success and mastery that people strive to match or surpass it. Anyone can record themselves beating a game; a walkthrough should be something you’re proud of… an accomplishment of your victory over that particular game.

Well, that’s at least how I do it.

So crazy to think… amazing really. For a walkthrough to have so many views. This is the only level’s walkthrough hit 3 million views today. Yay!

Use Boxmen will hit 2 million very shortly as well.

Don’t think I’ll have any new 7 digit milestone posts for a while. Oh well.

Bidding ended last week, and the game is now LIVE on GamesButler.com. Big thanks to Dom for the sponsorship, quick payment, and quick add to his site.

PLAY DITLOID.

And, of course, if you need help… here’s the walkthrough. But be warned, you may accidentally see the solutions to levels other than the one you want.

Didn’t get a chance to post about it yet, but I hit 500 videos last week with my 2nd half walkthrough of Pipol Smasher. Not too shabby, although I had 410 on Jan 6th, which means I’ve only uploaded 91 videos in the past 6 months. This makes sense though, since in early 2009 I was uploading walkthroughs to any game I could find. Now, I’m only uploading walkthroughs where I can monetize them.

Also had a 5th video hit 1 million views, and a 6th that should hit 1 million today (999,000 as of midnight).

Here is a breakdown of my videos by views, of July 09 vs July 10:

Are there any statistics/data that you guys would like me to show? I plan to do an update of Top Sponsors / Devs by views later this month.

My Game is progressing. Getting the art coordinated is proving to be quite challenging, and a slow process. Hard to judge how the programming is going, but I’m being assured that it’s mostly done. Custom music is also progressing slowly.

I’ve been talking to Synth a decent bit recently, and we’re looking at a June 18th re-launch of the site. Synth believes that all data will be recovered.

Walkthroughs are continuing, steadily. My daily views seem to be constant above 80k/day, which is good. Would be nice if I could get that up over 100k.

Was offered some level design work on Crush the Castle 2, which I accepted initially… but after about an hour working on it, it was pretty clear that my cbf level outweighs the offered cash. Those castles are just so damn intricate. So many small details to them. Instead, I wrote up some general level ideas that hopefully will be useful to Joey.

Life is moving quickly. Less than 1 month until all my stuff gets shipped back east, and 1 month until we fly away from LA. Will have to start packing shortly. We have a new kitten, which complicates the move a bit… but Whorli just can’t say no to kittens.

So, the initial response to the game has been quite divided, which is what we expected.  There are those who think it’s funny and like it and those who don’t and don’t.  Very, very little middle ground.  As a result, it did ok on Kong (and got a pity badge from Greg), but has seen very little early pickup from distribution.  More on that aspect of the game’s success will be known in a week or two.

What interests me so much is that the walkthrough has been viewed over 21,000 times.  It’s not like the game is hard, at all.  Not even remotely.  Yet 21,000 views.  I’m quite shocked by this, and don’t really know what to attribute it to.   I understand that there have been 74,000 clicks on the walkthrough link…  but that makes a bit more sense, given there is an achievement for it; but for 30% of those clickers to view it?  Either they really like me or they are dumber than I thought.  Not sure which is better.

I typed “Walkthrough” into my YouTube search bar and waded through the 1st 17 pages of results, which takes us down to 200,000 views per video.  ”Walkthrough” returned the results of any video with the word Walkthrough in either the title or description of the video.  This should be a pretty all-inclusive list, barring any games besides Ice Breaker that have a crapton of videos for 1 game (I just happened to know about the walks for those games, so I knew to check…  no one of the vids has 200k+ views).

The List: Game Name (# of Vids) – Total Views in Millions – Ave Views/Vid

1. Red Remover (2) – 11.4 – 5.7
2. This Is The Only Level – 2.8
3. Wake Up The Box – 2.6
4. Poptropica: Nabooti Island – 2.0
5. Cover Orange – 2.0
6. Use Boxmen – 1.8
7. Roly-Poly Eliminator – 1.6
8. This Is The Only Level TOO – 1.1
9. Poptropica: Big Nate Island – 1.0
10. Wake The Royalty (2) – 1.7 – 850k
11. Poptropica: Astro Knights (4) – 2.8 – 700k
12. Fragger (2) – 1.4 – 700k
13. Poptropica: Spy Island (3) – 1.9 – 633k
14. Demolition City 2 (3) – 1.9 – 633k
15. Poptropica: Counterfeit Island (4) – 2.2 – 550k
16. Poptropica: Mythology Island (4) – 2.0 – 500k
17. Demolition City (2) – 1.0 – 500k
18. Crush the Castle: Players Pack (4) – 1.3 – 325k
19. Stadium Sneakout (10) – 1.0 – 100k
20. Ice Breaker (40) – 1.8 – 45k
21. Ice Breaker: Red Clan (40) – 1.4 – 35k

These are video groups done by 1 person; no mix and matching.  Also, no 1 game/island had more than 1 person with 1 mil views on their walkthrough… although 1 or 2 of the Poptropica Islands were close with a 2nd.

Analyzing the list shows very specific types of games that meet this list: Poptropica, Phuzzles, and Puzzle Platformers account for 19/21.  CtC:PP is a physics game, but not a phuzzle… and Stadium Sneakout is a point & click that doesn’t really belong on the list at all because each video is :08-:30 long.  The top17 are 6 Poptropicas, 8 Phuzzles, and 3 Puzzle Platformers.  Finally, I made 8 of the top 18 (8 of 12 if you discount Poptropica).

If you know of any game that I missed, please let me know.  :)

I’ve met my fair share of sponsors and developers. I have talked to many others. I get access to games early. This is my job. Yet there are still a handful of developers that when I even think about their upcoming games, I get all giggly inside and think how cool it is that I get access early. I won’t give you any names of who these developers are (I don’t think it would be appropriate), but their games are just so cool that I lose some of my professionalism and feel like a little kid. Those are the games that feel like the farthest thing from work.

Now, why do I bring any of this up? I do have a practical reason. There is 1 developer in particular who I was thinking about earlier today… because I’ve done some work on his games and done a walkthrough or two, yet never charged him for it. I just WANT to help him… no return needed. Plus, I still generate some revenue from the vids, so it’s not like it’s completely free. But I was analyzing the difference of how I feel about the games of this guy compared to my normal situation where I’m being compensated for my time and feedback. I was thinking about whether it’s right for me to not charge one person and charge others, purely because I like his stuff more. And I’m ok with it. The rationalization that makes the most sense to me is because I’m a fanboy. I have my share of my own between FFR, Kong, and YouTube, so I understand how they think and act… and my behavior is quite in line with that.

So I am still a fanboy of certain developers. And I like that I am.

PS – To any developer reading this… don’t get any ideas. .

So after all this type and posts and whatnot… the game is now out. Play it. Post comments telling me your thoughts on it.

Play TITOL2 here on Tasselfoot.com. Play TITOL2 on Armor Games.

If you need assistance (you probably will… the game is harder than the first!), try this.

January was shaping up to be a very bad month for me… worst since June, when my content still hadn’t really taken off yet. Then this weekend happened, and while the month was still sub-par compared to the previous few, it at least made it respectable. Why was January going to be such a bad month? A few reasons that I can think of… I was away for almost 3 weeks at the end of Dec / start of Jan, and made almost no videos in that time. Between Dec 11th and Jan 14th, I didn’t have a single monetized video do even 50k views… and all told, I only made about 20 vids. Not many games released over the holidays, and those weren’t very good. Also kids off from school go away on vacation during this time, etc etc.

This weekend changed that. The past 7-10 days, some good games started to hit my plate… i remain, werebox, and foreign creature 2. The planets aligned, you could say. The result was 3 of my 4 best days in terms of both ad impressions and money made (excluding my one crazy click-fraud day) and 3 of my 5 best days ever in terms of views (including #1). First, weekends always produce more views than weekdays… for obvious reasons. But what happened this weekend to cause this massive jump? Let’s look at these graphs I pulled from Insight:

(ignore that it says 1/30/10… for some reason Insight always displays the graphs as 1 day earlier than they actually are).

The least expected, and biggest, reason for this weekend’s success is that Addicting Games added This Is The Only Level to their site on Friday, leaving in the walkthrough link in-game. This pulled in 40k+ hits alone, each day… compared to the 4-6k/day it had been doing for the past few months. Second, WereBox… although I’m not 100% sure why yet. It’s on BubbleBox, but didn’t take off until 3-4 days after release. It’s on a few other mid-large portals (notdoppler, gamesfree.ca, etc), but none of the largest ones (just went onto Kong today)… yet it pulled in 25-30k for the past 3 days. Third, i remain was given a completion badge on Kongregate on the 26th (Tues), so it was already starting to taper off by the weekend. It also has yet to hit any of the other large portals. So those 3 alone were 80-85k/day views (out of the 150-160k for each day). Add to it Foreign Creature 2, Cargo Bridge Armor Edition, Alice is Dead Ep2, and Demo City 2 all contributing 5k+ each and then 400 other videos, it works out to 150-160k a day.

Basically, what this says to me is that this was one hell of a weekend… and it might not be over with yet. Numbers are definitely dropping big time today, as expected, but when WereBox and i remain hit the other large portals, it should jump their numbers big time. Plus I have 2 videos sitting finished on my desktop for Kongregate (one probably won’t do very well, the other will do at least decently with upside potential to do well). I have 2 games waiting to hit my desk for another site, one of which will do VERY well. And, let’s not forget about TITOL2… which might be released as early as Friday of this week.