This post was originally published on 2012-02-20. Unfortunately, Doki Games was one of the projects I had to cancel in order to study in the US.

You may remember that I decided to start my own flash game portal in order to complement my flash games :)….well the site us up and running as we speak (and by speak I mean…you read). The portal’s name is Doki Games, and  I have a few thoughts that I want to share about the development of the site…let’s start!

About the games on Doki Games

Since the “conception” of the site I wanted to have quality over quantity,  I had to play hundreds of games to pick the +-50 that I have right now.  I  think that I forgot just how many bad flash games are out there :S. Just that experience will help me a lot when taking criticism for my own games :p.

Anyway, most of the games are from mochi media, that is mainly because the parser that I made only works with mochi games (right now…more sources to come). I also added some other games “by hand” that I know are great 🙂 like Bubble Tanks Tower  Defense  O__O I REALLY LOVE that GAME!.

I noticed that the update rate of the mochi streams is kind of slow…so I’ll be adding lot’s of “custom” games in the near future 🙂 and I’ll try to add some more sources to my parser too.

About the development process

I’m using Server Groove to host the portal, and I think that it’s the best hosting for my current needs 🙂 THE BEST. If anyone needs quality PHP web hosting I would recommend Server Groove.  Besides the hosting, I think that I managed to make the site very fast.

The website was done in less that a month, that in itself is a proof that I’m not the same developer…I might be a little better now. The small development time also could be explained by my launching approach….right now instead of launching a “complete” site, I’m just launching a minimum viable product.

The current Doki Games has just enough  features to be launched and NO MORE. It doesn’t even have game pagination…but it doesn’t need all that right now :). In a few weeks I’ll be launching Doki Games 1.1 with some features to improve this current version.

Why is Doki Games better than Juegos.com.sv

Wow…this post is really getting larger that expected…I’ll try to be brief from now on. Why exactly is Doki games better than juegos.com.sv? well….let’s see:

• The upload process is faster. I even made a program that helps me to review and upload games 🙂 do you want to see it? here is it:
  I  made the uploader in C# and Mono. The uploader is also a minimum viable product :p I’ll upgrade the uploader along with the main site 🙂

• Also :s I  know now what to expect about the development of a flash portal. Back when I started juegos.com.sv I expected huge loads of traffic by the first week….now at least I know that I have to wait 2-3 months to START seeing some results…and maybe even a year to start making profits.I Also learned that SEO takes time (lots of time) to work, but it works 🙂 that’s for sure 🙂 So My goal for this year is only to cover the hosting costs =).

• Now I actually have a “marketing” plan for the site 🙂 even if the plan very weak…is still better that my previous plan; which could be resumed as “hoping for the best”

• I have a clear idea of what the style of Doki games will be, and I’m designing the site and content to support that style 🙂 If later I need to create some more portals (oh God…please don’t :p) to incorporate more styles…I would be able to.
• I made the site from scratch using a PHP framework as a base :). Since I know all the source code of the site I’ll be able to modify it with ease 😉
• Finally, all the plans that I had for juegos.com.sv will be used now in Doki Games

The road ahead

What can we expect for the next versions of Doki games?. I will be continuously adding small stuff like ratings, play counts, social buttons, etc, but the main updates will be related to the number of games on the site. My main concern is creating a site where you can easily browse and discover quality games.

You will notice that right now the layout of the site is really simple, that is due to the lack of games.I’ll be adding  games to the site and when I have “too much” games for the current layout I’ll change it to a more  fitting one 🙂 that will be the process. I can’t go crazy with features right now since all of the “big” features require a healthy amount of games.

That’s all folks!