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Did I just waste 3 years?

infinitroid.com

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#111

Post by ztjio »

skybrian wrote: post #87
Retra wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super Metroid is literally my favorite game, and I don't really have a strong urge to play this. Metroid is an exploration-based game. The game rewards you for finding secrets and for knowing how to get places. It teases you to find a way to break sequence, and much of the replay-ability of that game is based on the possibility to do that and to bask in what you've already learned about the world. Procedural generati…

I'm curious about where the story happens? I've played a rogue-like (Pixel Dungeon), while I found it fun, I didn't think it had much of a story. Are others better?

In Sproggiwood, the story takes place around dives into the dungeons. Each dive is "rogue like" but the overall progression outside each dive is persistent.

I think this is the best way to do a random dungeon roguelike with a story.

That said, I wouldn't sell Sproggiwood on its story in particular, just the arrangement of everything. The game is fun because it's a good bite size style of roguelike for a phone with interesting/fun mechanics in play.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#112

Post by lostgame »

ioddly wrote: post #4

Not sure what OP's background is, but if he's not in the tech industry and wrote a complex C++ game engine, plus a website with Flask+SQL on his own, I'd say he has a potential career as a software developer there.

Sure.

But why did he do that to start? Seems like focusing time on the content instead of the engine would’ve made him feel like he ‘wasted’ less time.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#113

Post by scaryclam »

VLM wrote: post #93
acangiano wrote: post #11

He doesn't mention how many hours he spent marketing it. I suspect not that many. I fully sympathize with his struggle, but this is a trap most programmers fall into so easily. Market need/fit > Marketing > Design > Programming when it comes to software products. You can't just build it and expect that they will come, unfortunately.

Its not necessarily marketing in the sense of A/B testing his game play or fictional background or artwork or whatever, but consider general user experience stuff. So I hear its a cool rogue-like but unlike the fifty indie rogue-likes I have languishing unplayed in my steam account already, I can play this one in the browser, whoa cool, technically impressive and maybe fun too. So I go to the web page expecting a sli…

This is exactly why I fell off of the aquisition pipeline as well. I actually went looking to find out what the game was about. Cool, a play now link! Err...I'm not playing yet and there's a barrier to entry and lots of text and nah! Back to HN.

Put up some screenshots, even a game play video, give me the short version and let me get playing.

Edit: went back and found the screenshots on the home page, so apologies for missing that. Though missing them was quite easy, perhaps consider putting others on some of the play now pages, etc

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#114

Post by [deleted] »

tomrod wrote: post #96
stupidcar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's clearly not entirely true though, because there are hits. They're just extremely rare, but extremely visible. You can read interviews with the Stardew Valley guy all over where he talks about spending 4 years working solo on his game, refusing to give up on realising his artistic vision. Then he releases and it's a mega-hit. That's a very seductive story. This isn't a problem unique to indie games. Every creat…

Wasn't Stardew Valley basically built from the earlier game Starbound?

[deleted]

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#115

Post by [deleted] »

sweden wrote: post #99
jtchang wrote: post #9

What is the target market for the game? I played Metroid when I was a kid on NES and the original gameboy. Games these days are a lot about marketing and huge budgets. The indie ones that do well need to be targeted as well as refreshing. Some hard thoughts just watching the video and reading a bit about the game: 1. I don't really like the graphics as much as I liked the original Metroid. This is probably just a per…

I consider myself as a big fan of Metroidvanias, I'm even the kind of person who actively looks for new games in this genre, and those were my thoughts as well. I would even say that this game manages to hit the 3 points in which I avoid on a Metroidvania: 1. Rogue-like. I really dislike rogue-like, no special reason, just a personal preference 2. Lack of a plot. I appreciate the feeling of exploring a world the feel…

[deleted]

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#116

Post by meritt »

sweden wrote: post #99
jtchang wrote: post #9

What is the target market for the game? I played Metroid when I was a kid on NES and the original gameboy. Games these days are a lot about marketing and huge budgets. The indie ones that do well need to be targeted as well as refreshing. Some hard thoughts just watching the video and reading a bit about the game: 1. I don't really like the graphics as much as I liked the original Metroid. This is probably just a per…

I consider myself as a big fan of Metroidvanias, I'm even the kind of person who actively looks for new games in this genre, and those were my thoughts as well. I would even say that this game manages to hit the 3 points in which I avoid on a Metroidvania: 1. Rogue-like. I really dislike rogue-like, no special reason, just a personal preference 2. Lack of a plot. I appreciate the feeling of exploring a world the feel…

> Also... no Linux version? Really?

You're criticizing an indie game developer who feels he just wasted 3 years of his life making a failure, for not spending the extra year or whatever it'd take for it to be cross-platform?

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#117

Post by j_coder »

You need to find as soon as possible trusted people that can tell you how bad is your idea/game play/sound/narrative so you can fix it or do something else. Most will just be polite to you or be trolls.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#118

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #69
tokyodude wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the industry is set up to stoke and profit handsomely from people mis-assessing their own chances. how so? how does the industry profit from people mis-assessing their own chances?

Here are some things you can sell to indy devs while they are working: dev tools, hardware, books or online media w/ ads, conferences, certificate programs focused on game dev, marketing opportunities. Then, when they are done, you get to skim big chunks of their revenue with app store, payment processing, etc. Don't forget to sell additional advertisements, to other game devs, on top of the places where you list the…

I doubt most of these tool companies make much of their money from small indies. For one, a lot of these small indies seem obsessed with writing their own tools (there was a good article on here a few months ago about "how to take seven years to ship your indie game"). For another thing, a lot of the biggest tools are moving a model where you pay out of royalties rather than up front (Unreal Engine being a recent high profile example). Precisely because so many indie devs want to use these tools but can't afford them, so this payment model allows them to pay off the back end rather than up front.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#119

Post by sweden »

meritt wrote: post #116
sweden wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself as a big fan of Metroidvanias, I'm even the kind of person who actively looks for new games in this genre, and those were my thoughts as well. I would even say that this game manages to hit the 3 points in which I avoid on a Metroidvania: 1. Rogue-like. I really dislike rogue-like, no special reason, just a personal preference 2. Lack of a plot. I appreciate the feeling of exploring a world the feel…

> Also... no Linux version? Really? You're criticizing an indie game developer who feels he just wasted 3 years of his life making a failure, for not spending the extra year or whatever it'd take for it to be cross-platform?

I would say that nowadays is not that difficult to have a game that works on both Windows and Linux.

Also, it is a legit thing to point out when and developer complains about the lack of sales.

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