How I tried to get into game development and failed • Hacker News Board

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#51

Post by jmull » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 7:30 PM UTC

I love reading this kind of open, honest postmortem.

By the way, I think the people here saying things like, "Oh, he should've just done x, y, and z to solve his problems," are most likely kidding themselves.

Developing and releasing decent software is hard. Making a financially successful indie web game is even harder, no matter your process because a substantial parts art and luck which are inherently not predictable.

The author seemed to pretty successfully developed and released the game and did a half-decent job on marketing it despite being a complete novice in that area. All and all, a pretty nice accomplishment.

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#52

Post by matwood » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 7:34 PM UTC

swat17 wrote: post #20

stevenwoo wrote: post #2

It's more like he saw a type of game that made a lot of money that seemed not that technologically advanced and thought he could replicate the monetary success and this part was like a lot of apps - it's not the making of the app that is hard - it's making an app that people want/need to use in numbers to support the development. I mean no disrespect because his team did succeed in producing an online only game so th…

It seems so obvious reading his post that he went at this backwards. The basic idea of developing and iterating on a lightweight MVP is completely absent. I'm genuinely curious - because I see this error replicated all the time when engineers try to take a side project to market - why otherwise rational people do this. This approach is obviously doomed to failure. I understand that as programmers we enjoy solving tec…

I think it depends. A lot of people claim a side business/project, but in reality they are just learning new tech. Learning new tech is perfectly fine!

I think what you are arguing is for people to just be honest with themselves.

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#53

Post by cr0sh » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 7:51 PM UTC

Matheus28 wrote: post #21

Shorel wrote: post #3

Please, don't use the term 'an io game'. It really makes no sense.

I'm the guy that made Agar.io, and I personally hate that term, but I don't think we'll ever win the war of getting people to stop calling those browser MMO games "io games"

I love that game! Never was super good at it, but it's a nice diversion all the same...

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#54

Post by nxsynonym » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:02 PM UTC

fragsworth wrote: post #8

The author didn't fail, he just changed direction slightly and is still working on the game. A more apt title: "A story about how I tried to get into game development and didn't finish yet"

or even "A story about how I tried to get my game to go viral and failed".

The game exists, and it's playable. Is it perfect? no. Is it making tons of money? no. But it was developed - you only "fail" to get into game development if you stop trying to make improvements/changes/optimizations.

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#55

Post by jmull » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:02 PM UTC

swat17 wrote: post #20

stevenwoo wrote: post #2

It's more like he saw a type of game that made a lot of money that seemed not that technologically advanced and thought he could replicate the monetary success and this part was like a lot of apps - it's not the making of the app that is hard - it's making an app that people want/need to use in numbers to support the development. I mean no disrespect because his team did succeed in producing an online only game so th…

It seems so obvious reading his post that he went at this backwards. The basic idea of developing and iterating on a lightweight MVP is completely absent. I'm genuinely curious - because I see this error replicated all the time when engineers try to take a side project to market - why otherwise rational people do this. This approach is obviously doomed to failure. I understand that as programmers we enjoy solving tec…

Well, wait a minute.

The author started with a simple, fun-to-play game, worked on it iteratively until it reached a certain level, did a release push, and continued to iteratively improve the game. (I realize that "fun-to-play" is subjective, but that's the author's call at that point.)

I'm trying to see how this is fundamentally at odds with what you're thinking the approach should be?

If you, as the creator of a game, think dealing with the lag is necessary to making your game fun, then how could you possibly justify not resolving it prior to release?

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#56

Post by bane » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:08 PM UTC

Something lots of people in the tech community get really hung up on is focusing on tech and technique rather than what the technology is doing for the user.

There are writeups on here fairly frequently that talk about successful companies being successful despite their product being built on barrels of spaghetti code. This is because those companies are focusing on accomplishing something for the user, not trying to impress with their coding skills (something the customer is not ever likely to see).

Games are kind of an ultimate distillation of this phenomenon, they are required to provide a single thing to their user (fun) and anything else is distraction. Games which focus on other things aren't going to make it.

Some of the best game designers in the world will ruthlessly focus on designing core mechanics first, with very very basic technology and will work out the necessities of what the game is supposed to do to create fun first before almost any other work is done. This extends to hyper-technical 3d first person shooters as well, with entire games being sketched out with cubes and basic geometry in order get the gameplay perfected. Once that's done, these core mechanics are documented and the rest of the presentation is swapped in. As the game develops, it's checked against this set of documented standards and tested tested tested to make sure key elements haven't been lost.

Application development can learn lots from successful game development shops: walk-up interfaces, teaching mechanics, application flow, presentation and so on. It's almost worth studying game development more than other application development models.

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#57

Post by endemic » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:10 PM UTC

disease wrote: post #47

dvt wrote: post #43

I don't mean to be dismissive, but here are the main issues I see with the process (and the final product): - Bottom line, the game is not particularly fun, novel, or difficult. You'll notice that games like Flappy Bird, Agar.io, Papers Please, etc. are at least one of the three. Bist.io is not the type of game that will ever go viral. - You spent money on AdWords but didn't spend money on sponsored Youtube, Instagra…

I think your first point is the one that matters the most. The primary thing you should be thinking about here is "how compelling is this going to be to the intended audience?" If you can get to the point where you can hammer out a game in a weekend, which isn't that difficult, I'd suggest building a simple game that showcases the concept that you find compelling and submit it a game jam like Ludum Dare. You're going…

I think a great example of this is Derek Yu's "Spelunky." He made a quick 'n dirty freeware version, which turned out to be massively popular, then remade a polished commercial version. It was easier for him to pitch the publisher since there was already a working, popular prototype.

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#58

Post by k__ » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

I tried game development multiple times and it was the reason why I started programming in the first place, modding etc. pp.

But the huge problem for me is content.

I often end up with a nice idea and implementation, but the whole images, models, animations, sound and effects stuff bores me to death.

It feels like code is only 20% of the whole thing and the rest is basically mechanical repetition.

But that's what makes it look cool, it's like... I'm done implementing and getting all the controls right and I feel like I can't see the whole thing anymore, but then it gets nice graphics and sounds and it feels like a whole new game, haha.

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#59

Post by eric_h » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:17 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #36

swat17 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems so obvious reading his post that he went at this backwards. The basic idea of developing and iterating on a lightweight MVP is completely absent. I'm genuinely curious - because I see this error replicated all the time when engineers try to take a side project to market - why otherwise rational people do this. This approach is obviously doomed to failure. I understand that as programmers we enjoy solving tec…

Because primary and secondary market research is a skill just like programming, takes time to master and many just think that asking a few people unfocused questions constitute research. The easy way to gain knowledge is build things and see if it works which is crazy expensive. Even the famous MVP is just a catchy name for market research that has gotten out of control due to the unfortunate decision of putting "pro…

> Even the famous MVP is just a catchy name for market research that has gotten out of control due to the unfortunate decision of putting "product" in the acronym.

I think the general problem with MVPs and their development and usage is really that people put significant focus on the 'M' and the 'P' and very little to the 'V', which IMO is the most important letter in that acronym.

Re: How I tried to get into game development and failed

#60

Post by 21 » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 8:30 PM UTC

Danihan wrote: post #33

21 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are millions (ok, maybe not) of web games. How do you describe a particular genre? The one obvious thing this particular kind of games had in common when they appeared was the .io domain, thus the name. Go to cursors.io, agar.io and slither.io. Now find a short phrase to describe all three.

Multi-player browser game.

Quake Live is also a multi-player browser game. Same for Travian.