Exclusive | Behind the popularity of Travel Frog: 4 people developed it for 10 months, relying on one strong point to win over Chinese players

Recently, a game called "Travel Frog" has swept various rankings and our circle of friends.

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On January 21, Travel Frog ranked first on the free list of the APP Store in China, and it has maintained this position to this day. On TapTap, Travel Frog has a score of 9.8. This game, which was released in mid-November 2017, has touched countless young people in China in the past two weeks. Almost everyone can see their friends showing off their "frog son".

The popularity of Travel Frog in China has surprised its production company. Hit-Point is a Japanese game company founded in 2007. It has developed 30 games in the past ten years, mainly in the casual mobile game business. In addition to Travel Frog, another popular game in China, Cat Backyard, is also the product of the company. This product exceeded 19 million downloads in July last year.

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To this end, AI Finance had an exclusive interview with Mr. Uemura, the planning director of Hit-Point's "Travel Frog".

AI Finance: What do you think about the popularity of this game in China?

Uemura: "Travel Frog" has been available for download since late November 2017. Since our goal was to gradually spread the game within Japan, we were very happy and surprised when the number of Chinese players gradually increased even though there was no Chinese version.

The same goes for "Cat's Backyard", which received positive reviews from overseas players. Although I thought "it has reached a certain level of numbers", I didn't expect to receive so many positive reviews from Chinese players.

AI Finance: What is the scale of product development and operation costs, and what is the initial estimated download volume?

Uemura: I can't tell you the exact cost. We have four staff members and it took us about 10 months to develop it. The initial estimate was to aim for 1 million downloads, but now (as of January 23, 2018) the number of downloads from the Apple Store has reached 3.6 million.

AI Finance: Who is the target audience of the product?

Uemura: Unfortunately, we didn’t do any user information analysis, but judging from social networks and reviews, the majority of players are young women. Although the main target audience during the planning stage was women in their teens and twenties (10 to 30 years old), in order to make the game cover all age groups, from those who are used to playing games to those who don’t usually play games, we took them into consideration during the development of the game.

AI Finance: How are the subsequent updates and operations of the game planned?

Uemura: Although there is no confirmed date, as the game spreads more widely, updates on travel destinations, souvenirs (gifts to bring back), and photos are already planned. In order to allow players outside of Japan to enjoy the game, we will discuss localizing the game in the near future, starting with Chinese players, so please look forward to it overseas.

AI Finance: Are there any Chinese agencies you are currently in contact with?

Uemura: We are very grateful to many people who have come to us for consultation. We are still discussing this.

AI Finance: What do you think is the core competitiveness of this type of game in the industry?

Uemura: Like Travel Frog and Cat's Backyard, because it is planned, developed, and operated by a small number of employees, it is easier to accept opinions. Although we do set development deadlines, we put quality first, and I think this is our strength.