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Mobile Publishing
"Bit Heroes" Hacks 'n' Slashes onto Steam

Bit Heroes, the massively successful mobile and web hit, is now available on Steam! Founded in 2017, Bit Heroes developer Juppiomenz was a side project created by three industry veterans while working at other companies. With millions of plays and downloads, Bit Heroes is now a full-time passion that continues to expand onto more platforms and communities. Juppiomenz has been nominated for "Best Indie Developer" by the Mobile Games Awards and more recently announced as a Google Play Best of 2017 winner for the "Most Social"

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Art & Design
Fixing Your Game's Perceived Slowness with Elevators

Spending months on optimization only to realize your game still feels slow can be pretty demoralizing. Try as you might, eventually you’ll reach a point where the technical solutions are simply too expensive to justify. What do you do then? Your game still feels slow and players won’t accept it. Luckily you have other options. Let’s talk about elevators Wait, what do elevators have to do with video games? Loads! Trust me, this’ll make sense. Solving the problem of perceived slowness can be tricky, but it

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Web
November 2017 Contest Winners

Each month, developers win cash prizes for having the highest-rated new games! Click here for official rules. Check out the official contest page here. Congratulations to the following developers! TOP WINNERS 1st Place: $1,750 Wondrous Lands by drakonian_lord 2nd Place: $1,250 Shift by GuardAngelGames 3rd Place: $1,000 Realm Revolutions by e_cha 4th Place: $750 Hat Wizard by taccommandeur 5th Place: $500 Heart of Galaxy: Horizons by Cheslava 1st RUNNERS-UP! 6th Place: $400 Revenge of the Kid by danishgoel 7th Place: $400 Outfoxed by aliu139 8th

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Mobile Publishing Dec 14, 2017
"Bit Heroes" Hacks 'n' Slashes onto Steam

Bit Heroes, the massively successful mobile and web hit, is now available on Steam! Founded in 2017, Bit Heroes developer Juppiomenz was a side project created by three industry veterans while working at other companies. With millions of plays and downloads, Bit Heroes is now a full-time passion that continues to expand onto more platforms and communities. Juppiomenz has been nominated for "Best Indie Developer" by the Mobile Games Awards and more recently announced as a Google Play Best of 2017 winner for the "Most Social" category. The popular fantasy-themed dungeon crawler is bringing its nostalgic 8-bit inspired style to PC for the first time. Players start their adventure in "Bit Valley" by fighting waves of pixelated monsters in turn-based combat. As they defeat new monsters and bosses, players have the option to recruit their enemies to battle alongside them; even the most legendary bosses can be tamed... On their quest to conquer each map, they collect mountains of loot to forge thousands of unique armor sets and powerful weapons. Players express their unique

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Art & Design Dec 12, 2017
Fixing Your Game's Perceived Slowness with Elevators

Spending months on optimization only to realize your game still feels slow can be pretty demoralizing. Try as you might, eventually you’ll reach a point where the technical solutions are simply too expensive to justify. What do you do then? Your game still feels slow and players won’t accept it. Luckily you have other options. Let’s talk about elevators Wait, what do elevators have to do with video games? Loads! Trust me, this’ll make sense. Solving the problem of perceived slowness can be tricky, but it helps to think of the problem as a perception issue. There’s a story called “The Elevator Problem” that I first read in a 37signals blog post. Apparently it’s been around for a while, so you may have heard of it. The short version goes like this: A building is receiving complaints that the elevator wait times are too long. They consult a variety of experts who recommend all sorts of expensive and invasive solutions. One suggests installing mirrors next to the elevator doors so people can use the

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Web Dec 07, 2017
November 2017 Contest Winners

Each month, developers win cash prizes for having the highest-rated new games! Click here for official rules. Check out the official contest page here. Congratulations to the following developers! TOP WINNERS 1st Place: $1,750 Wondrous Lands by drakonian_lord 2nd Place: $1,250 Shift by GuardAngelGames 3rd Place: $1,000 Realm Revolutions by e_cha 4th Place: $750 Hat Wizard by taccommandeur 5th Place: $500 Heart of Galaxy: Horizons by Cheslava 1st RUNNERS-UP! 6th Place: $400 Revenge of the Kid by danishgoel 7th Place: $400 Outfoxed by aliu139 8th Place: $400 Decubed by say892 9th Place: $400 Karta Quest: Chapter 1 by Moczan 10th Place: $400 GetStar by truefire 2nd RUNNERS-UP! 11th Place: $250 Attack of the Mutant Cyclopes by tapark 12th Place: $250 Forgotten Dungeon by kor6k 13th Place: $250 Loot Collector Beta by arispen 14th Place: $250 Retro Combo by Oscuraluza 15th Place: $250 Coven by eshleman202 .contest-winners { font-size: 0; } .contest-winners h3 { margin-bottom: 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; } .contest-winners img { display: block; height: 180px; margin-bottom: 12px; width: 100%; } .contest-winners li { display: inline-block; font-size: 15px; list-style: none; margin:

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Engineering Dec 05, 2017
Welcome to SS-Hell

The Long Ago Kongregate has been around for a relatively long time. We were around when Flash was cool, and also when it became uncool. We were also around when SSL was considered an optional luxury that added significant overhead and latency to network requests. Thus, we built our site with the assumption that HTTP was a fine protocol to use most everywhere, and SSL should just be used "as needed" -- for authentication, purchasing, and other sensitive data. That assumption held up for over a decade, but in recent years there has been a large movement toward using SSL everywhere, with search engines and browser vendors alike starting to punish sites for serving up un-encrypted content. Visiting Kongregate using HTTP on modern browsers was starting to become a scary and confusing experience for our players, so we decided it was time to bite the bullet and switch to using HTTPS wherever possible. The Basic Challenge Converting to SSL can be a daunting task for even simple sites without much user-generated content. Here is a short list of

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Game Development Nov 28, 2017
Oops I Did It Again: Finding Flow in Hard Games

pictured: Thumper Dark Souls is more likely associated with anguish than euphoria as a series, but it -- and other notoriously difficult games -- are where we can find some of gaming’s most pleasurable moments. If you work through your urges to throw your controller at a wall, you might be lucky enough to experience the joy that keeps us all coming back for more “YOU DIED” screens. We’re going to delve into what leads to these experiences, why they feel so good, and how they can be designed. That feeling? It’s called “flow.” Named by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in the 1970s in response to interviewees describing the feeling as being carried along by water, flow is a deep, pleasurable immersion in the activity you are engaged in. Most commonly used in reference to creative pursuits like painting or performing music, this experience is absolutely found in games as well. To find yourself in a state of flow, first there are some parameters: You know your goal You know how to accomplish your goal You are receiving feedback

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Developer Spotlight Nov 23, 2017
On the Front Line: A Wartide Dev Q&A

We sat down with gaming studio Outact to talk about their new game, Wartide: Heroes of Atlantis, now available for Android and iOS devices! KONG: Outact formed in 2014; can you tell us a bit more about how the studio came to be and what inspired your direction as a studio? Outact: Many of us have been working together for nearly a decade and some over two decades. As a team, our history can trace back to Iron Lore Entertainment, where some of us developed the highly acclaimed ARPG Titan Quest. Prior to forming Outact, we spent 5 years at Tencent, where our core cross-continent team was formed and strengthened. In summer 2014, when the concept of Wartide came up, it took us no time to build the company and begin this journey... KONG: Your team is spread across different countries. Does working from multiple locations have an impact on the way you do business? Why did you decide to stay so international? Outact: We believe the quality of a studio, and therefore the quality of the games we create,

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Mobile Publishing Nov 16, 2017
Kongregate & Hyper Hippo Launch "AdVenture Capitalist" Sequel "AdVenture Communist" on Mobile

AdVenture Communist, the BEST clicky idle game ever made by human beings, probably, is now on mobile devices! Hyper Hippo's follow-up to the genre-defining idle simulation game, AdVenture Capitalist, AdVenture Communist continues to innovate on the idle genre with a complex game economy that brings a strategic element to the gameplay. "AdVenture Communist is more than AdVenture Capitalist with potatoes. It's a game that gives players the true 'socialist' experience -- with more complex economies, resource scarcity, and lots of people doing what the government says. But it's still got that strangely addicting feel you've come to expect from the world of AdVenture." - Cody Vigue, Hyper Hippo Creative Director / Lead Designer. In AdVenture Communist, the player must assume the role of Glorious Leader, and grow their tiny country into a global communist superpower! Do this by farming potatoes, digging up precious ores, and doing just like a ridiculous amount of task delegation. As your country attracts more comrades, you must assign them to be farmers, miners, nurses, and even soldiers -- and boy, are they excited to

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Marketing Nov 14, 2017
Crafting X-statements

At Kongregate we have the privilege of working with a wide variety of game developers, many of whom are enthusiastic to open up their game pitches with an x-statement. X-statements attempt to summarize a game succinctly using two subjects, often referencing other video games, mechanics, art styles, or popular media. Very often they look like this: “My game is Crossy Road meets Mad Max.” “What if Towerfall had Dark Souls-style sword combat?” “I’m working on a game that is Cooking Mama meets Elite Beat Agents.” Developers view x-statements as a thesis to a game pitch. Well-crafted x-statements can evoke both a sense of gameplay and market positioning, transporting a reader to really understand where your game is going. Likewise, a poorly crafted x-statement can be damaging, setting the wrong tone and ultimately damaging the concept or creating confusion around what is being created. As a publisher, x-statements give us a glimpse into the mind of game developers. An x-statement says a lot about how game developers think they should be marketing a game to their audience. It shows succinct

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Web Nov 13, 2017
October 2017 Contest Winners

Each month, developers win cash prizes for having the highest-rated new games! Click here for official rules. Check out the official contest page here. Congratulations to the following developers! TOP WINNERS 1st Place: $1,750 Aground by clarusvictoria 2nd Place: $1,250 ZS Dead Detective - Brain Drain by Lu_Muja 3rd Place: $1,000 AntiVillain 1 - Welcome To Chaos City by VasantJ 4th Place: $750 Push by targaciej 5th Place: $500 Pixoji by ZBlip 1st RUNNERS-UP! 6th Place: $400 Squid Ink by LollygagGames 7th Place: $400 Boo by bontegames 8th Place: $400 Reaper of the Undead by PixelPacket 9th Place: $400 Idle Ants by scorzy88 10th Place: $400 Midnight Spooks 2 by esthetix 2nd RUNNERS-UP! 11th Place: $250 Hexa turn by wonderDev 12th Place: $250 Cubito Mayhem by oultrox 13th Place: $250 F.H. Memento: Playground by FMStudio 14th Place: $250 Song for a bird by bontegames 15th Place: $250 Idle Fight by truefire .contest-winners { font-size: 0; } .contest-winners h3 { margin-bottom: 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; } .contest-winners img { display: block; height: 180px; margin-bottom: 12px; width: 100%; } .contest-winners li { display:

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