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The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

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Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#41

Post by archagon »

Sevores wrote: post #40
archagon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you played it? It's like watching an animated movie. There is negligible repeated content, at least as far as the art and levels are concerned. Unlike 99% of iOS games, I felt as satisfied in level 1 as I did in 10. (And in fact, some of the best content is in the last few levels.) Everything feels alive and dynamic, from the crows to your friendly neighborhood totem. I even felt feelings . In an iOS game. Can y…

I have. It is like an animated movie. Very pretty, but while the mechanics could be deep, I felt that the levels themselves were not. Unlike for example Braid or recently The Swapper, there were no epiphanies, just “rotate all the things and try to tap on the correct tile”. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected a puzzle game, but this sort of space bending would really lend itself to more interesting problems to solve.

I hear the DLC and RED expansion (not for sale anymore?!?) expanded on the mechanics quite a bit.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#42

Post by pervycreeper »

Sevores wrote: post #15
archagon wrote: post #9

Personally, I'd like to think that the good games will still rise to the top. Monument Valley wasn't a fluke; it's a game based entirely about the art and the content, rather than stale one-off game mechanics that could be cloned in an afternoon. It got noticed because it was deep and unique. (Did they even do any marketing?) I've rarely found a game with that same level of quality that got no attention[1]. Most of t…

Deep and unique? It’s like a mashup of Naya’s Quest [1] and Fez [2] (or Crush or Super Paper Mario). [1]: http://terrycavanaghgames.com/nayasquest/ [2]: http://fezgame.com

Not to mention that the "gimmick" is taken from a couple of M.C. Escher prints.

Gamers are easy to impress, I suppose.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#43

Post by GFischer »

Sevores wrote: post #40
archagon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you played it? It's like watching an animated movie. There is negligible repeated content, at least as far as the art and levels are concerned. Unlike 99% of iOS games, I felt as satisfied in level 1 as I did in 10. (And in fact, some of the best content is in the last few levels.) Everything feels alive and dynamic, from the crows to your friendly neighborhood totem. I even felt feelings . In an iOS game. Can y…

I have. It is like an animated movie. Very pretty, but while the mechanics could be deep, I felt that the levels themselves were not. Unlike for example Braid or recently The Swapper, there were no epiphanies, just “rotate all the things and try to tap on the correct tile”. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected a puzzle game, but this sort of space bending would really lend itself to more interesting problems to solve.

People spent A LOT of time on "animated movies" like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, Monument Valley is better I guess :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Lair_(1983_video_gam...

Mobile Phone games are suited for that kind of gameplay (and Dragon's Lair has been re-released for iOS I read), everything old is new again I guess :)

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#44

Post by debacle »

sago wrote: post #28
dirkk0 wrote: post #22

"For the lone game programmer that day has already arrived. Twice." If one sees 'the art of lone game programming' as a genre then this might be true. One successful lonely game programmer leads to a gold rush of many lonely game programmers digging the iKlondike for gold. But I am pretty sure that there is always room for the brilliant idea that no one can grasp when you pitch it. I personally would have talked Notc…

Except that the myth of the one-idea-making-a-fortune is mostly that. A myth. Minecraft, as incredible as it was, wasn't the only game of its kind. People routinely underestimate the role of luck in these things. There is room for the one great idea. But the point is that the minimum production values on the platforms that sell that idea has risen beyond one person now. As it did in the 16-bit era in the late 80s and…

Have you played any of the similar pre-Minecraft games? They are all almost universally completely different from Minecraft - interacting with the voxel environment is not the main point of the game.

Minecraft drew heavily from other games, yes, but it was also revolutionary and one of the first games to have such an open development cycle. There is a reason that such a poorly designed and buggy game is arguably the biggest indie franchise of all time.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#45

Post by archagon »

sago wrote: post #28
dirkk0 wrote: post #22

"For the lone game programmer that day has already arrived. Twice." If one sees 'the art of lone game programming' as a genre then this might be true. One successful lonely game programmer leads to a gold rush of many lonely game programmers digging the iKlondike for gold. But I am pretty sure that there is always room for the brilliant idea that no one can grasp when you pitch it. I personally would have talked Notc…

Except that the myth of the one-idea-making-a-fortune is mostly that. A myth. Minecraft, as incredible as it was, wasn't the only game of its kind. People routinely underestimate the role of luck in these things. There is room for the one great idea. But the point is that the minimum production values on the platforms that sell that idea has risen beyond one person now. As it did in the 16-bit era in the late 80s and…

I disagree. There are no "minimum production values" if your game is good enough. A ton of popular indie games today (Hotline Miami, Risk of Rain, Gunpoint, Valdis Story, Terraria, many of Vlambeer's games...) are still made with pixel art using GameMaker, for example.

Minecraft succeeded not because it was one out of a hundred block-based games that got lucky, but because it had a perfect mix of simplicity (slick interface and controls), immediacy (play in your browser), wonder (explore forever in any direction), and persistance. I guess you could point to Infiniminer before it, but if you've ever played it, you'll know that it was slow and clunky in a 90's sim-game kind of way.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#46

Post by vlunkr »

ANTSANTS wrote: post #38

More like, the iOS app store gold rush ended. The indie dev scene is thriving on PC. Stop throwing your time and money away developing for a platform overwhelmingly used by people that don't really care about your games, that are looking for brief distractions while they wait in the checkout line, and by and large refuse to pay even a dollar for the privilege. Don't blame the industry because you avoided the platform…

I think you're right. I know I've lost faith in mobile gaming because for every fun game I've played I've deleted 20. I'm sure there are good games out there, but how can you find them in a sea of garbage and flappy clones? On the other hand, Steam has plenty of great Indie games (selling for more than one dollar!) with plenty of reviews around so you know what's good.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#47

Post by munificent »

ANTSANTS wrote: post #38

More like, the iOS app store gold rush ended. The indie dev scene is thriving on PC. Stop throwing your time and money away developing for a platform overwhelmingly used by people that don't really care about your games, that are looking for brief distractions while they wait in the checkout line, and by and large refuse to pay even a dollar for the privilege. Don't blame the industry because you avoided the platform…

> The indie dev scene is thriving on PC.

Back when I was a console developer at EA, the ambient wisdom was that the money was falling out of (non-online) PC games in large part because of piracy.

Is that not the case? Do you happen to have numbers on what the PC game industry is like? How much of this is because of Steam?

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#48

Post by munificent »

GuiA wrote: post #31
archagon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a puzzle-box/adventure-game-type experience — mostly a beautiful and interesting toy to fiddle with in your hands. Some people enjoy that, others don't. I personally love it, and I can see that a lot of App Store gamers do too. In that particular genre, it's a gem! From what I've read in interviews, the team was comprised of about 6 people, and they didn't do any marketing or advertising. Another recent example…

Were you on Twitter in the weeks before the game released? They did tons of promotion. It's not billboards on 280, but that's not how advertising is in the App Store world. As far as the game experience, it's far from being in the best of its genre (and I know many game designers who agree on that point). People like it because it's artsy and lends itself nicely to casual play, which is fine. But whatever, that's bes…

> from being in the best of its genre

I loved Monument Valley and would be delighted to find more games in that vein. What do you have in mind?

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#49

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

jonshariat wrote: post #19
archagon wrote: post #9

Personally, I'd like to think that the good games will still rise to the top. Monument Valley wasn't a fluke; it's a game based entirely about the art and the content, rather than stale one-off game mechanics that could be cloned in an afternoon. It got noticed because it was deep and unique. (Did they even do any marketing?) I've rarely found a game with that same level of quality that got no attention[1]. Most of t…

One note about Monument Valley though: When they added new levels and charged for it, there was a big backlash at first. Luckily there was a counter backlash but it still shows the expectations of most gamers in the apps store. Especially on Android.

There's a huge sense of entitlement with respect to iOS and Android apps. People want the world for free, and $1 means they OWN you.

The race to the bottom with free being the default has spawned this attitude. And the economics work out so that an indie developer can't really break even on free; you need 10s of millions of users to produce a reasonable income from ads. You can be a critically acclaimed indie game and only have a few million users.

Sure you can create a "fremium" game that sucks either time or money from users (where you basically charge people so that they can play the game less; addiction is a terrible thing). But if you don't want to be making freemium games (there's a formula you typically need to follow for them to be successful), you're stuck charging.

Here's the worst part: If you decide to make a "demo" for your game so that people can try before they buy, then when they reach the end of the demo, MANY people will end up leaving a 1-star review "SUX costs money!!!!!". Ratings are life in the app store: If someone sees an app with less than 3 stars, they're far less likely to grab it.

So because of poor user behavior, now you're stuck NOT offering a demo for people to play -- or you have to release your game as "fremium" even if it's not designed to suck people's wallets dry, which (as I've experienced firsthand) is a recipe for failure. At least my game has 4+ stars; not that it helps.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#50

Post by archagon »

munificent wrote: post #48
GuiA wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you on Twitter in the weeks before the game released? They did tons of promotion. It's not billboards on 280, but that's not how advertising is in the App Store world. As far as the game experience, it's far from being in the best of its genre (and I know many game designers who agree on that point). People like it because it's artsy and lends itself nicely to casual play, which is fine. But whatever, that's bes…

> from being in the best of its genre I loved Monument Valley and would be delighted to find more games in that vein. What do you have in mind?

Not OP, but you should totally try Windowsill, Botanicula, and EYEZMAZE's series of GROW Flash games. :)

Oh, and Fez, of course.

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