After months of reading the few articles I could find about creating local multiplayer games for tablets, I finally released one of those games a few weeks ago. So now I can share my experience and illustrate it with data for a more business, less emotional, oriented post. And it fits perfectly with the recent call for blogs!
 

Maybe it’s because I’m an only child, but I have always been in love with local multiplayer games. It started with NES and SNES, continued with arcade and even went to board games… but I have failed to find the local multiplayer excitement I once had, on tablets and phones.

Of course, some games of this category are really great, like Badland, or unique experiences like Spaceteam. But there are so few examples that reach that level of quality!

So why aren’t there many local multiplayer games on tablet, whereas there are tons on consoles? I think it’s because local multiplayer on mobiles is not a profitable market. Too few players are willing to play them, even less are willing to pay for them.
 

Well, that might sound like a disappointing introduction for this post, but if you are still trying to build the next local multiplayer mobile game, let’s list the DO’s and DON’Ts. I will start with the latter, with back up data from my latest game release called Swoc: of Swords and Blocks (a match-3 game with solo + local multiplayer), with figures from Appannie for market analysis and examples from games I enjoyed.

DON’T:
 

I think you got my point in the intro, so here are some facts:

I found one! A marketing screenshot about Badland multiplayer (sorry, in french :-) )
 

It may sound similar to point 1, but it also applies to games that blend solo and local multiplayer modes. And making only a bit of money out of a game doesn’t mean you want to make an absolute 0.

Monetization on local multiplayer games is very simple :

Most popular In App Purchases in SpaceTeam shows content dominating customization
 

What I’m calling metagame here is the largest loop of gameplay of your solo mode.

I did this error with my game. In Swoc, you can play up to 4 people at once on the device. So I needed to have 4 unlocked characters from start, in order to have multiplayer available. That only left me with 2 characters (I had 6 designed overall) to unlock in solo mode, which is not enough by far to give a good replay value to the game. I’m working on a content update with 3 new characters to play, so in the end it should be alright for Swoc, but remember to be cautious about the interactions between your solo content and your multiplayer content.
 

That one is obvious. You are working on a mobile game, don’t expect a solo guy to play more than 20 minutes in a row. And don’t expect 4 guys drinking beers and talking to focus more than 5 minutes! That’s why Fingle or Bam Fu are well designed.

Of course, I made this exact mistake with Swoc as well, as the game sessions turned out to be longer and longer with every iteration while developing the game, but I haven’t found a solution yet. So be aware of this problem from the start, or your design basis could be totally flawed for multiplayer.

DO:
 

I told you that less than 5% people played multiplayer game in Swoc. Well, at least it can be played with 2, 3 or 4 players, both in a cooperative or competitive fashion. Imagine if I designed the game to be played with only 4 people cooperating? That would have led to even less multiplayer action.

You must allow a 2 player mode. And anything between 2 and your max players should be tried as well. If your core design supports it, offer different game modes too, like what is offered in King of Opera.

It’s already rare to gather local multiplayers, so don’t add anymore walls to their experience!
 

Multiplayer mode selection in Swoc: make it simple!
 

Still, be aware that many devices do not support more than 5 simultaneous touches, and most recent devices support 10 touches. When you see a game like O, you can realize how much these limitations can hurt a crazy design involving 8 people at once.
 

If you are working on Free to play, you already know how hard it is to create a tutorial. You might even come to the conclusion that your game should have no tutorial. And you’re 100% right for local multiplayer.

First reason is that it’s very unlikely that all people would agree in watching game rules quietly before playing.

Second reason is that the very few rules of your game are often taught better by a player than by your game: someone in the group bought your game, right? So he must know the basis, and he will teach the others how to play by answering their questions and demonstrating the game, something no tutorial can ever do.

Then, behind the tutorial, remember that you need a juicy game with tons of feedback so that everyone figures out what happens on the board. Heavy feedbacks will also help people being convinced on first sight!
 

This point seems obvious again, but I remember my first games on Badland, and it was painful to see people not figuring out what color they picked or what they are supposed to do to fly. Even Bam Fu requires a run or two to be understood by everyone!

I must admit it’s another failure on Swoc side: it’s just a match-3 game… but there are tons of details to understand, to a point that it’s too complicated for local multiplayer.
 

You need tons of random, because random creates unfairness and unfair games are the best for local multiplayer. You absolutely don’t want to have a predictable game where it’s always the same guy that wins, because this is competition, and it’s better online than local. Asher Vollmer (the guy behind Threes, which was cloned as 2048) recently streamed his next project, called Close Castles. While it looks fun, I think the absence of any randomness will give him headache for balancing, and might result in a single strategy dominating the game.

Randomness will keep the players on the edge of their seats until the end of every game, and it will make them want to play again and again to have the tiniest chance of being in the lead this time. It will make them laugh, pray and make fun of the others, isn’t it what games are supposed to be?
 

I can tell you this because I play that way, and I’ve seen friends do the same. Players will cheat. They will abuse what they can. They will start gently, then someone will do something crazy and everything will go wrong. So you should not design games which fail once someone presses a button on the other side of the tablet, because it will happen a lot. Imagine a RTS on a tablet where you can control enemy units… that won’t make sense! Even in Tiny Wings or Badland, people will try to press others’ part of the screen, but it’s fair, as it often will end up being lethal for the trouble-maker as he might lose concentration on his own character.
 

But this is also the fun part of the local multiplayer design! Offer people a fair experience, but show them that it can go crazy easily. I think the UI design of Spin Wars or Wepad might have hurt their sales (but I still like these games!), because their controls were too far on the edge of the screen to make people interact with each other.
 

Wepad controls are on the edge of the screen for a more "console", less "party" approach
 

But the fun part is that there are no rules in solo games too. I remember playing Flight Control with friends, each of us having to handle planes of 1 color. It was incredible to see the multiplayer power of a solo game! I played Hopeless in duo too, each of us having to take care of half of the screen. Of course this lead to situations where we didn’t know if an enemy was in the left or right part of the screen, and it leads to more fun and more deaths.

Too long, didn’t read?

If you’re creating a local multiplayer game for tablets, my advice is :

Resources
 

Reach me on twitter: https://twitter.com/BaptisteVillain

Thanks to Alice for proofreading.