I am working on my Trial -> Full version upsell strategies and was hoping to get some input and opinions from others.

My current plan is to make my trial version unlimited in terms of how long you can play it...but some of the features will be disabled.

For example, one of the games has 3 gameplay variations...and only 1 of them would be available in the Trial version. Some options (such as Full-Screen mode) might also be disabled in the Trial version.

For games that have "levels", I would only allow playing through about 10% (or so) of the game--enough to, hopefully, get hooked.

I think the method of giving them everything but limiting the number of times/days they can run the game can also work...but I'm leaning towards unlimited use of the Trial version with a disabled feature-set. This removes the time pressure in some ways...but I'm not sure if that's good or bad in terms of generating more sales.

I have also been thinking that telling them about a bunch of great features that they don't have access to (but can imagine since they have played/trialed the game) might also be a mental motivation to purchase (assuming they have been having fun with the Trial version).

Thanks for any input.
-Scorpio

I'm close to releasing a collection of seven classic board games (Othello, Connect4..)

All the games have five AI levels. The unregistered version will give access to the first four levels for all the games. The number of uses is also limited to 10. After the 10 uses, only the easiest AI level remains usable.
No other features are disabled (undo, two-player hotseat mode).

>My current plan is to make my trial version unlimited in terms of
>how long you can play it...but some of the features will be
>disabled.

I use to do this. I think it depends on the game though. With something like Aargon for instance, once you solve a level it's pretty much solved and there's not much replay value, so limited levels works well in that case, however with an arcade game that has replay value I would combine feature/level limitation with a x many days lockout. I did this with A Snake's Life after it was released and the version that locks after 15 days sells better than the level limited version.

>Some options (such as Full-Screen mode) might also be disabled
>in the Trial version.

I would never disable an option like fullscreen mode. To me this is akin to a utility disabling a feature. When I download a utility to see if it will do the job I need to do, and then find that greyed out, I can't evaluate the program so I never buy. That's why 30 day trials tend to be better for utilities. IMHO Full screen mode is not really something that people will consider a registration incentive, they will just be annoyed.

>I have also been thinking that telling them about a bunch of
>great features that they don't have access to (but can imagine
>since they have played/trialed the game) might also be a mental
>motivation to purchase (assuming they have been having fun
>with the Trial version).

This is the kind of incentive you want to make very clear. As clear as possible. Take a look at the games dexterity sells. You'll notice many of the puzzle games use a grid format for level selection. On the grid it's always very clear what you don't have. It's a nice visual cue to all you're missing. The more visual, and clear you can make the "difference" between your trial and the full version the better off you are. A grid with levels clearly locked out is better than just some text on a buy screen because often people won't read your buy screen incentive text.

Suppose for instance you game had a really cool level where dragons were introduced. A picture of a dragon in the game and a selection that looks intreauging but pops up a dialog saying something like "sorry, this level/mode only supported in the full version" is better than a line of text on the buy screen which says siomething like "get new levels with dragons, elves and more..." -- although I'd probably have both.

Depending on the style of game a grid interface won't always work, but if you're creative you can replace it with a progress map or some other clear indicator of progress and lockout.

There's much more to say I suppose... probably a subject that someone could write a book on ....

The general rule I like to use when considering registration incentives is: "Show me; don't tell me." It's best to show the player visually what they'll get in the full version as opposed to just telling them. This isn't always practical in a pure sense, but showing buttons for 50 more levels can be better than writing "Get 50 more levels," for instance.

Thanks for the response guys. Shortly after I wrote my post, I decided against disabling specific features (like Full-Screen) mode.

I am actually going to experiment with two of my games. One is going to just have a limit...the other is going to disable some play modes but have unlimited usage.

For the limited use version...what are people's thoughts on limiting number of days vs number of runs?
-Scorpio

I'll mention one other point. To a certain degree registration incentives are determined by the style of game. With a puzzle game that has specific puzzles like Fitznik, limiting levels can be very effective, but with a puzzle game that has unlimited replay value like mahjongg, you might want to do a 15 day limit, or use some nags. (probably both - you need to give them a reason to buy... if the reason is more tileset graphics in mahjongg, but they're already happy with the default that's not much of an incentive) Otherwise I expect people will just play the free game until they're bored and move onto another free demo.

For us, we've decided to go a slightly different route. We wanted to give some context to the puzzles in Katsu's Journey, some purpose to them other then just solving them. We decided to intersperse some story between the levels in the game to accomplish this and help the player relate more to the games character. In fact the game has 6 different regions, a bamboo forest, a snowy mountain, a castle, and so on. We also have 6 well defined objects that interact with one another in clearly defined ways to produce different problems and solutions. We decided to have 5 levels per area and to introduce the items progressively through the game. The items often interact with more then one of the other items, so as we introduce new items the options available to the player (and game designer) increase.

The shareware version will include the first area in the game, the story is designed to hook people’s attention and the demo ends in a mysterious mini climax. The idea is to try and play on peoples impulse to find out what happens next and convert that into an impulse to buy the full version. We will also entice them with screenshots of the remaining items in use as well as the new areas they will be able to explore when the purchase the full version.

The gameplay is designed to be instantly fun and not require any specific time commitment from the player. It will be fun in 5-10 min segments as well as 1-2 hr segments.

Some of this stuff may seem pretty "pie in the sky" and "overly ambitious" for a puzzle game and there's no way for me to refute that. All that I can say is that we're very excited about the possibilities and we hope it will be wildly successful. If it turns out we are wrong and the game flops miserably, we will have enjoyed every moment of creating it and will take what we've learned and apply it to our next project.

Originally posted by Dan MacDonald
Some of this stuff may seem pretty "pie in the sky" and "overly ambitious" for a puzzle game

I think it's quite a good idea and need not be too ambitious depending on how it's approached. Actually, my new game DropTarget, due out some time this month, uses a similar mechinism. There's a story element to drive the puzzles and give the player an overall objective aside from solving the puzzles themselves. I have an intro segment, an intermission and and end story, so it's not too heavily story oriented, but just enough to drive players forward. That was a suggestion I also had made when I played Fitznik.. that it would have been nice to have some overall objective, like save the princess say, rather than just solve the levels for their own sake. In a way this starts to head back into the territory of adventure games, but with well defined similar puzzles, rather than the every puzzle is different, Myst style play.

I don't see that having a story necessarily negates any suggestions made though. A cliff hanger is an excellent idea, but even with story based play you can make "how much more" story there is clear using some mechanism that fits the game. In droptarget there's kind of a map of the kingdom you work your way though, and it's clear how many areas haven't been visited.

That's pretty much how we're doing it as well. We have a main screen with an island shot with the various areas represented on the screen. A forest, castle, mountain etc. The first area will be in and around a small village; players enter a story already in progress and spend the demo finding out what's already happened and what's about to happen. The story will be interposed between levels as images and some text or we may actually implement a simple conversation system in game (game play and resources permitting).

Players of the demo will be able to click the regions of the map they can't visit yet and see some of the content the can expect from those areas in the full version.

The idea is to stick with the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle for all these elements so that they are realistically achievable. I'm curious to know if people like Steve or Lerc feel something like this would be welcome addition to a puzzle game?

(it probably wont change my decision to do it, but I’m interested in their perspectives)