Did I just waste 3 years? • Hacker News Board

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#501

Post by fphhotchips » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

sago wrote: post #483

Yes. You did. Sadly. And it is very little to do with luck or numbers or the state of the industry. Good indie games: 1. are almost never distinguished by programming (the days of Doom are gone and you are not John Carmack). Far too much time is spent coding. Use existing tools. Code only gameplay. 2. are much more about art. The trailer looks like programmer art: no coherent style, no direction, no class. If this is…

Can agree with all of these critiques of the game.

In particular, this feels like a game that was created in a weekend or two in Gamemaker. The UI is quite simple, the mechanics (or at least the ones I saw in 10 minutes of poking around) are unoriginal, and the enemies all seem to be variants of "fly/walk towards me".

There's no feeling behind the gun, there's no real feedback when I get hit, I have no idea how much life I have left (yes it's in the UI, but it's not prominent at all).

If I had to guess where the 3 years of effort has gone into, I'd suggest it was the level randomiser. That's a big mistake, and one probably made by a programmer mindset rather than a game design one. The game isn't fun, so it doesn't matter how much replay-ability there is. Whereas if the game were fun but not replayable, I'd probably buy it on the promise of a randomiser coming.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#502

Post by Magnets » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #259

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is why i feel compelled to think about things that are necessarily localized. how the hell can you compete with the whole world?

You're not actually competing with the whole world, though, just whatever else is similar to someone's interests. In this case... "metroidvania" is a very oversaturated market, and a lot of games do it better.

But you are actually competing with the whole developed world. There may be localised tastes or patterns to follow but your competition is from the whole world.

Your market is the whole world too.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#503

Post by tcfunk » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

fiblye wrote: post #444

fileeditview wrote: post #430

After being active in the indie game dev scene for many years I see this kind of story again and again. I see many people ask why didn't it work or others say he should have done better marketing. I think they all don't understand the real problem. You have to look at really successful indie games, such as Terraria, Factorio, Mini Metro, Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, Papers Please.. and there are many more. If you…

>You have to look at really successful indie games, such as Terraria, Factorio, Mini Metro, Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, Papers Please.. and there are many more. If you look at these games do you really think there is an alternative reality where they would not sell many copies? I don't. Very much yes. Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't…

> being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage

I don't think this is good fortune so much as a good pitch, a good product, and a lot of persistence.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#504

Post by BacioiuC » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

Probably late to the party but almost a year ago I had my gamasutra blog post about failing to sell 700 copies of my game, to stay in business, featured on HN.

It's been almost a year since then. I kept updating the game, doing quality of life improvements and actively engaged with the people and reviewers playing it. I also kept people up to date with twitter and talked about the game every chance I had.

Hacker News initial exposure helped me sell about 200 copies and by March I passed my 700 copies goal. Enough to stay in business but, by then, I already moved cross-county and got a few consulting gigs happening.

Almost a year later I have over 4700 copies sold on steam with the total amount of copies sold being around 6000. The game was only recently added to a bundle that added ~1000 copies ("retail activations" are still happening). I'm at a point where I am so grateful for the luck I had after the initial HN exposure that now, one year later, I'm releasing the biggest update ever for the game and I finally got a professional artist to help me upgrade the graphics.

What I want the dev to know is that there's still a chance, but in my case, I already managed to secure enough money from my consulting gigs so updating the game and working on it was done on the side and I could afford to do some more marketing and sink time in it. If you are not financially dependent on the game, keep working on it and slowly build up your fanbase and outreach. Take note of people's feedback and if a common theme occurs maybe do something about it.

Hope you'll end up being happy with your project. If it reaches Steam I'll be your first buyer. On your site, I tried purchasing it via paypal and I cannot get pass the re-captcha. I'm trying to click on the "I'm not a robot" checkbox and nothing is happening. Might want to look into that.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#505

Post by stubish » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:46 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #390

jrochkind1 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... you still gotta pay for food and a place to live, start with, at the moment. If we didn't have to worry about money, then fewer of us would have to... worry about money when making art.

In general, that is true. I should have been more specific: > We now have enough people with skills, experience, tools, and free time necessary to produce a quality indie game and a desire to make one, that the market price is far below the cost of production, and rapidly approaching zero. Where "free time" is that not used up by work that pays for food etc. Which does mean that people for whom art is a hobby are des…

Absolutely. I predict that more and more Indy games will be created by the retired, and the starving. Same as happened with novels and other arts like painting and photography.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#506

Post by chaoticmass » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

>I’m not a dumb guy—I got good SAT scores. I’m disciplined, I have a good work ethic, and I love what I do. I’m a lifelong learner, always evaluating my work and experimenting with new approaches. Should I be failing this badly?

This paragraph reads like the guy thinks all of this means he deserves success. I can't say I feel bad for this guy.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#507

Post by jondubois » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #488

jondubois wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The currencies of developed countries are pegged to the US dollar and so their reserve banks are just copying whatever the Fed is doing; their main goal is to make sure that the value of their currencies doesn't change too much relative to the USD. All countries reinforce the same economic distortions on a global scale.

Any evidence of that pegging? The relatively stable exchange rates can be explained by entirely orthodox inflation targeting together with purchasing-power-parity pretty well.

The interest rates of developed countries tend to follow each other. Interest rates are one of the main mechanisms used to control the money supply.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#508

Post by evrydayhustling » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

tokyodude wrote: post #337

evrydayhustling wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Dev tools are for all intents and purposes at this point free. Unity is free, Unreal is free, several other engines are free or close to free. "online media w/ads" is somehow exploiting devs? That seems really reaching. App stores might be over priced but they are world wide. Compared to before app stores when there was no way to reach a global audience. It's easy to argue both ways. As for ads they aren't special to…

I said "stoke and profit off of", not "exploit" - devs have free choice and simply need to get informed about where their incentives are (mis)aligned. I also never said these platforms don't do anything to create value. The issue is that they can prosper even if the typical dev is throwing his time into the meat grinder, and devs should realize this rather than assuming that because a market is large it is viable for the average (or even above average) participant.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#509

Post by RestlessMind » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

chaoticmass wrote: post #506

>I’m not a dumb guy—I got good SAT scores. I’m disciplined, I have a good work ethic, and I love what I do. I’m a lifelong learner, always evaluating my work and experimenting with new approaches. Should I be failing this badly? This paragraph reads like the guy thinks all of this means he deserves success. I can't say I feel bad for this guy.

Anyone who has studied hard, possessing a good work ethic, willing to learn lifelong and open to new approaches does indeed deserve success. What else would you have them do - walk over coals?

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#510

Post by xamuel » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

mikemotherwell wrote: post #265

Nokinside wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

... or call it a hobby. Just because someone does the same thing they make a living from for fun, doesn't mean it isn't also a hobby. It's weird, that because people pay coders for some of the work they do, expecting money gets wrapped up in what is a hobby for so many. Programming is fun for a lot of people. They love the process, enjoy the reading and learning, get a kick out of things like optimising code for a sp…

Reminds me of MUD games from the mid 1990s. A big MUD might've had three or four talented programmers, a dozen or so level designers, and dozens of administrators. All putting serious time into the MUD, and all without the faintest thought of making money out of it.