UNT Ads Case Study Jelly Button 20160420 - Unity Real-Time .

Jelly ButtonCase study1unity3d.com

How Jelly Buttonbrought theirdream game to lifeCreating a unique social experienceIt’s been downloadedover 50 million times.It’s the number onegrossing gamein 20 countries.Every month, it hasa combined totalgameplay time ofover 5000 years.What is it? It’s JellyButton’s free-to-play,multiplayer, multiplatform game, PirateKings, which wasmade with Unity.2unity3d.comJelly Button released Pirate Kings at the end of 2013 on iOS, on Android fivemonths later, and on WebPlayer (Facebook Canvas) five months after that. PirateKings offers a unique social experience. In other games, social interactions tendto be minor, but in Pirate Kings, they’re fundamental to the game. Players caninteract with their friends whether they’re online or offline, and they don’t haveto wait for a response to see the results. So, for example, they can steal theirfriend’s treasures or even attack their island, whether the friend is online or not.“The social interaction actually affects how you play the game, not just visually.And you can see the effect in real-time whenever you connect,” says RonRejwan, one of Jelly Button’s five founders and CTO. “We call this a Mingle playerexperience because it combines elements of both single and multi-player gamesin a unique way.”This unique social dimension can make the game experience very emotional,and Rejwan believes that it is a key reason for the game’s explosive popularity.“We’ve seen amazing growth with an especially engaged audience in SE Asia,”Rejwan says. “Players talk on online communities about how the game hasaffected their lives and friendships. There’s hundreds of reviews with someusers even warning not to play the game if your friendships are not strongenough to withstand social pirating. And that’s a sign of emotional engagement.People even share original videos and songs about their experiences interactingwith friends in the game. It’s amazing to see how it’s touching people across theworld,” he says.

The challengeHow to live up to your ownhigh standardsThe degree of success with PirateKings may have surpassed JellyButton’s expectations, but the levelof quality in their finished productwas the result of an ambitiousdevelopment process. Their recipefor creating original quality contentis to get feedback quickly from asmany people as possible within theirnetwork of game lovers, all of whomshare their high standards. Thisnetwork is comprised of their ownteam, family and friends. In order tosucceed, however, the process needsto be streamlined.“Making great games takes time.You need to investigate the idea andplay around with it,” says Rejwan.“We didn’t want to be like a factory,releasing 40 games a month. We aim3unity3d.comto release one or two games everyyear, but they have to push the limitsof product and technology. They haveto be mobile friendly, multi-platformand based on an original idea thatoffers a great experience.”Back in 2011, however, they had beenworking mostly with Flash, whichdidn’t enable them to get where theywanted to go.“It was a terrible experience, and weknew we needed for something tochange,” Rejwan says. “We’ve beenin this industry for a very long time,and it’s more than just a job. Gamesare important to us, and we knowthat if a game doesn’t live up to ourexpectations - in terms of great art,technical quality, and the overallexperience - then it’s just not going tobe good enough,” he says.

The solutionSometimes it takes a community todevelop a quality gameWhat Jelly Button needed was away to iterate as fast as possiblein order to get a proof of concept.The technology, community andcollaboration possibilities that Unitypresents have enabled them to testtheir concept very quickly.“Within a month, we can have aprototype where the core gamemechanics, the way it looks andbehaves, the features, and thecapabilities of the game we test, areall quite polished. And that means wecan get valid feedback quickly fromas many people as possible,” Rejwansays.to become a brand name for theindustry, one that inspires the nextgeneration of game players anddevelopers. And Unity is a big partof that. We take part in forums, lookfor and provide answers in QAs onthe Unity Community, and participatein live events. In fact, we’ve evenhosted several Unity meetups of ourown in our office. And we’re activelyeducating and cultivating a new cropof Unity developers in Israel.”Time-savers that let them get downto the nitty grittyJelly Button adopted the Unity Enginein 2012, and they’ve used it to developPirate Kings, and their second game,which will be released later this year.For Rejwan, it was love at first sight.One way Unity saves Jelly Buttontime is by enabling them to createprototypes that are very close to thequality of the future final version,and the integrated Unity Cloud Buildcapabilities are important in thisrespect. With Cloud Build, they cancreate builds for their team, focusgroups, and do QA without wastingtime on administration.“I guess you could call me anunofficial technical evangelist forUnity,” he says. “I really love theplatform. One of our aspirations is“Unity Cloud Build is an awesometool. We rely on it heavily. Integratingit to the Unity Editor was so quick;it took 10 minutes to set up and4unity3d.comliterally saved us dozens of hoursof manpower every month,” Rejwansays.The Unity Asset Store is anotheroffering that enables Jelly Button toprototype quickly. They use it to savetime by adding all kinds of gameelements quickly, which they don’tdeem crucial for them to develop inhouse.“Whether it’s gorgeous graphics, a 3rdparty IAP integration, or somethingelse that we buy, the Asset Storesaves us so much time in theprototyping phase and allows us tofocus on creating great games. It’sunbelievable. I don’t even know how itwould be possible otherwise.”The multi-platform capabilitiesin Unity also save Jelly Buttonconsiderable time and headachesby allowing them to work on severalgame versions in parallel withouthaving to manage separate projectsand duplicate code for iOS, Googleand Facebook. They can release thedifferent versions with very minoradaptations.

The facts in briefFounded in 2011, Jelly Button Games is afree-to-play mobile game company based inTel Aviv, Israel, with around 50 employees.Their premiere game release, Pirate Kings,has over 50 million downloads globally.The challengeA fast prototyping process was neededin order to streamline a developmentprocess aimed at producing one or twogroundbreaking games per year.The solutionThe Unity Engine, Cloud Build, AssetStore and Community have increased theefficiency of the development processenabling Jelly Button to focus on creatingand testing unique and innovative, highquality games.The results Can create basic prototype within days Integrated the Cloud Build collaborationtool in just minutes Saved dozens of developer hours monthlyThe resultsThe dreams that games are made ofUnity has helped the Israeli game developer stay trueto their core vision: To create original, premium qualitygames with unique and innovative social dimensions.“To sum it up inone phrase, Unityenables us toturn our dreaminto a reality.”Ron Rejwan,Jelly Button co-founderand CTOThe combination of the Unity platform, the integratedCloud Build and the Unity Community, where they canseek answers to niche problems and participate in theconversation, enables Jelly Button to focus on their goals.As a result, they’ve cut developer time significantly andcan create working prototypes very quickly.This has opened the door to the kind of long-term successthey can be proud of. And for Jelly Button, success isdefined as creating unique, quality games that stretch theboundaries of social interaction.“To sum it up in one phrase,” Rejwan says, “Unity enablesus to turn our dreams into a reality.”About Unity TechnologiesUnity Technologies is the creator of Unity, a flexible and high-performance end-to-end development platform used to create rich interactive 3D and 2Dexperiences. Unity’s powerful graphics engine and full-featured editor serve as the foundation to develop beautiful games or apps and easily bring them tomultiple platforms: mobile devices, home entertainment systems, personal computers, and embedded systems. Unity also offers solutions and servicesfor creating games, boosting productivity, and connecting with audiences including the Unity Asset Store, Unity Cloud Build, Unity Game PerformanceReporting, Unity Analytics, Unity Ads, and Unity Everyplay. Unity Technologies serves over 1 million monthly active developers including large publishers,indie studios, students and hobbyists around the globe. For more information, visit: http://unity3d.com/ads.5unity3d.com

Apr 20, 2016 · Unity Technologies is the creator of Unity, a flexible and high-performance end-to-end development platform used to create rich interactive 3D and 2D experiences. Unity’s powerful graphics engine and full-featured editor serve as the foundation to