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Did I just waste 3 years?

infinitroid.com

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#151

Post by Negitivefrags »

wainstead wrote: post #45
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.

In "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup," Rob Walling states three wrong reasons to launch something: 1. Having a product idea 2. To get rich 3. Because it sounds like fun This and other books on launching your own thing stress that you first have to find a market, then fill that market's needs. In the world of indie games I can't even imagine what that would be.

There are even now niches in gaming that are under served, and games in these niches are much easier to market.

You can engineer a relatively high chance of success but it requires two things:

1) Actually picking an under served market. Meteriodvania style games are not one of these, there are a ton of game out there fulfilling that need.

2) Really really understanding the audience. You have to know what details of the previous games in the genre were actually important, and what were not which you can innovate in. Even the tiniest details can be super important.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#152

Post by cousin_it »

Mortiffer wrote: post #2

Whats the equivalent of testing your business idea before building a business in the gaming world ?

Don't start by trying to test your idea. That's already getting ahead of yourself. Instead, start by identifying and checking the assumptions behind your idea.

For example, let's say you want to make a retro platformer. The assumption is that many people would be interested in a new retro platformer. That's easy to check: browse through Steam's new releases, find the 10 newest retro platformers, and see how much interest they get. Heck, even imagining that exercise could be enough to make you change course.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#153

Post by epx »

Games are a lot like movies industry. #metoo's, low median pay, too many hours put into flops. This kind of effort is best financed by deep pockets that can eat the loss.

One area you might reuse your talents and efforts, is gambling industry. It is another toxic environment, I take antidepressants since 2003 since I worked once with a client of this industry, but the payout is at least certain.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#154

Post by Nokinside »

aphextron wrote: post #137

You made the mistake of thinking that anyone would care how many hours you spent optimizing some C++ function that does something already solved a hundred times in a hundred different game engines. It's a natural tendency for all programmers. But making a game in 2018 is far more of a creative endeavor than anything to do with programming really. You need a massive amount of top notch artwork, music, 3D modelling, sh…

If a lone programmer wants to write tight code for games, they should build game engines or libraries that games can use and then sell those to game developers.

There exists large value added chain for specialized tools, arts and libraries.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#156

Post by orangecat »

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…

#1 and #2 are strongly related. Procedural generation makes it much harder to create a sense of a coherent world, rather than a series of disconnected mini-games.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#157

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

themodelplumber wrote: post #59
lasagnaphil wrote: post #49

'Infinitroid is a roguelike (or rogue-lite) sci-fi platformer with procedurally generated levels and deeply customizable weapons" The problem is that the "roguelike" "metrovania" "platformer" genre is oversaturated with so many indie games, so if you're going to grab some money with it it's better gotta be absolutely perfect. From my first impression I don't know if the mechanics are solid, but the art and sound seem…

Also for some of us, combinations like "roguelike" and "platformer" require special mental gymnastics just to imagine :-)

The most popular/successful combination of those two buzzwords is probably Spelunky.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#158

Post by Jugglerofworlds »

zeroname wrote: post #127

The game looks bad . You will not get a foot in the door with a game that looks like this in 2018. It looks like amateur/programmer art. There are some people that aren't bothered by that, but when it comes to media the looks are paramount. If this game had an appealing art style, it might stand a chance in the already saturated market of Metroidvanias.

I completely agree. Every time I see one of these posts bemoaning their sales stats, the game inevitably looks bad. The genre that this game is in is completely saturated, so nobody is going to spend their money on crap when something that looks 10x better is available. While the indie scene is is definitely now over-saturated, the real problem here is the lack of honest feedback to the developer.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#159

Post by rolleiflex »

izacus wrote: post #121
meritt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

With engines like Unity and Unreal, supporting multiple platforms (including modern consoles like PS4, Xbox One and Switch) has a level of complexity of writing a portable Electron app. As an indie developer, you need to maximize that market coverage (and develop with portability in mind). Having said that, it's probably not the primary reason why his game failed.

- Linux desktop market share is tiny. My own app supports Linux, but I'm 100% aware that I'm doing it at a loss in every possible way, it's a passion project. Bang for buck is terrible, so you need to justify as a labour of love.

- The amount of pain one needs to endure to get a Linux desktop to work as it should is huge, and there are several competing packaging providers with no clear winner, and all have very much hidden gotchas that they do a poor job of explaining ahead of time.

- Making a cross-platform Electron app that behaves well and up to to snuff on Windows, Mac and Linux is not even close to easy. The fact that JS theoretically works on all three platforms buys you way less than most people think.

Source: I'm making a cross platform Electron app that supports Linux.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#160

Post by tomrod »

redisman wrote: post #98
tomrod wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They're completely different games from different teams on the same publisher. I think Starbound released later too.

Ah, that makes sense. I thought Chucklefish was the pseudonym for the developer. Today I learned.
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