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When Game Development Stinks

jeffwofford.com

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Re: When Game Development Stinks

#21

Post by alanfalcon »

austinl wrote: post #4

> “But look at that AI… look at those colors… look at that particle explosion!” Unfortunately, while I admire all of these things, there's not good selling points for most consumers anymore. Because of AAA titles, people come to expect things like good AI and good explosions, and are only disappointed when their expectation aren't met. To truly break out in the indie gaming market, you've got have very unique gamepla…

Can't recommend FTL enough. My wife and I like to play it together, making decisions together throughout the game.

It's like the video game analogue of Space Alert, a board game with a somewhat similar premise. Funny enough in this case the board game is real time and the video game has a (much needed) pause option.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#22

Post by danso »

So few Mac games make it down the transom that I do take note when they show up on Steam's list. Ultratron was one of them, though I didn't buy it because it didn't seem like something I'd be into. Whether or not the game deserves to be a blockbuster, it indeed stinks when hard-working developers don't have much of a net or runway to finally craft the next big indie hit.

That said, there still seems to be opportunities to break out for developers of all sizes. Recent success stories that come to mind:

* Faster than Light, a space sim just made for Star Trek fans...it reached $200K on Kickstarter -- 2000% of what they had initially asked for -- and it still seems to be selling well. I just bought it last week and it has ruined my free time (http://www.ftlgame.com/)

* Block Fortress - a ingenious mishmash of MineCraft, first person shooters, and tower defense. These developers (apparently, four brothers) also made the great Heroes and Castles, a first person tower defense game. And both of these games are dirt cheap with totally reasonable/optional IAP: http://foursakenmedia.com/

* Ridiculous Fishing - a casual iOS game made by some all-stars of iOS development, including Vlambeer and the guy (Zach Gage) who did the awesome SpellTower, one of the iOS games I've played the longest: http://www.ridiculousfishing.com/

* 10000000 - A match-3 dungeon game for the iOS that the creator made in his spare time as a labor of love...it caught fire when a TouchArcade editor discovered it. Addicting as hell: http://toucharcade.com/2012/08/01/the-toucharcade-show-bonus...

One of my favorite dev reads from last year was "Starcraft: Orcs in Space go does down in flames" (http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-d...), in which the Starcraft dev talks about how a completely faked game, Dominion Storm, forced Blizzard to reboot Starcraft (for the better)...the game was faked at E3, where companies spent hundreds of thousands of dollars just to secure floor space and throw big BS publicity stunts, because that was the only way to get press attention.

At least today, as a developer, you have options of getting yourself known and your work seen without having to jostle for floor space with the big boys.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#23

Post by jiggy2011 »

I don't know about anybody else but I'm starting to experience indie game fatigue about now. Every time I open up Steam there is some other "8 bit" sidescroller or zelda clone on offer for £2.99.

OTOH there are plenty of interesting RTS games I remember from the old DOS era that could make a comeback that would require art assets beyond pixelated sprites but still less technical than a modern AAA.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#24

Post by ricardobeat »

danso wrote: post #22

So few Mac games make it down the transom that I do take note when they show up on Steam's list. Ultratron was one of them, though I didn't buy it because it didn't seem like something I'd be into. Whether or not the game deserves to be a blockbuster, it indeed stinks when hard-working developers don't have much of a net or runway to finally craft the next big indie hit. That said, there still seems to be opportuniti…

I bought Ridiculous Fishing out of curiosity for the water-themed game mechanics, but it's a very poor game, specially with the coins/store crap. It was sitting at the top of featured games, makes me think it's success has more to do with the names behind it than the game itself.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#25

Post by L4mppu »

kevingadd wrote: post #9
DanBC wrote: post #6

What's a good source for information (reviews, let's plays, video reviews, etc) of best indie games? It's surprising just how uninformative some game websites are. That includes websites of the game devs.

There's no single good definitive source, but I'll link a few random ones I've seen point to cool stuff in the past: http://indiegames.com/index.html http://rockpapershotgun.com/ http://www.tigsource.com/ http://jayisgames.com/

There is also indiestatik ( http://indiestatik. com) which is entirely based around indie games.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#26

Post by SixteenBlue »

evo_9 wrote: post #14
dubcanada wrote: post #7

These games would most likely make money if he made them for mobile devices. Sadly he is making them for desktops where people expect triple A games and play only those. Cas, if you are listening... MOBILE!!!!!!

Cas didn't write Ultratron and mentions in the article he mainly writes flash and iOS games.

Cas is not the author of the article. Cas is a dev on Ultratron.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#27

Post by EvanKelly »

I think the phrase is a little overworn and misappropriated but I think it's a little bit applicable here:

"The customer is always right."

Recently I've seen this phrase thrown around more as a customer service mantra, and in those cases I don't think the customer is actually always right, though it may be the best course of action to act like they are.

In the case of a customer liking or disliking your game/app/widget. They ARE right. Or at least they're not wrong. I think the greatest point of this article is that the author (and hopefully the subject) enjoys developing the games they do. That's a good enough reason right there to keep doing it.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#28

Post by Detrus »

lmm wrote: post #13

On the strength of this article I downloaded the demo, and it was a long way away from "a visual lollipop of swirling color that leaves your eyes sparkling and pixelated for hours". In fact, it was deathly dull. I gave it five minutes and encountered nothing remotely resembling challenge or interest. The graphics aren't bad , but from the article I was expecting to be blown away; I saw nothing that hasn't been done f…

I played Ultratron too and it is a decent game but not very interesting. Revenge of the Titans on the other hand is an excellent, exciting game and I'm surprised it's not more successful.

It is worth adding more upgrades, mods and marketing to milk that cow.

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#29

Post by Zarkonnen »

evo_9 wrote: post #14
dubcanada wrote: post #7

These games would most likely make money if he made them for mobile devices. Sadly he is making them for desktops where people expect triple A games and play only those. Cas, if you are listening... MOBILE!!!!!!

Cas didn't write Ultratron and mentions in the article he mainly writes flash and iOS games.

Clarification: the article author isn't Cas. So the author writes iOS games, whereas Cas writes Java games. (Though they are Java games which cleverly bundle their own JRE, avoiding a lot of the horror that can come with it.)

Re: When Game Development Stinks

#30

Post by Zarkonnen »

L4mppu wrote: post #25
kevingadd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no single good definitive source, but I'll link a few random ones I've seen point to cool stuff in the past: http://indiegames.com/index.html http://rockpapershotgun.com/ http://www.tigsource.com/ http://jayisgames.com/

There is also indiestatik ( http://indiestatik . com) which is entirely based around indie games.

IndieStatik's really nice - lots of in-depth stuff as opposed to rewritten press releases. (OK, they gave my game a positive review, so maybe I'm biased.)
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