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Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

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Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#11

Post by hutzlibu »

mathgladiator wrote: post #9
book-sandworm wrote: post #6

I was planning my future to first get great at Software development, then switch to game development once I got the skills. During that time I visited a few indie game conferences. I realised quite quickly how underfunded and overworked everyone was, trying to bootstrap companies on subsidies. Not with the intention to become the next unicorn, but just for the love of games. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't seem…

When I retire, I'm going to make online board games. I'm doing it from the ground up with my own programming language: http://www.adama-lang.org/ I'm going to build my own UI kit for canvas: http://www.adama-lang.org/blog/ui-flow-with-adama (I'm learning rust right now on the side) For the UI kit, I'm going to build a collaborative editor/IDE: no link yet, it's a thought experiment. The language makes the 'collaborat…

"THEN, after all of that, I'll ship a single game."

A long life to you then.

Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#12

Post by herendin2 »

It's a very interesting story.

Not just a mere failure, but a total wipeout.

Extremely simple games have succeeded before, eg Flappy Bird, as the author mentioned, so what went wrong here?

Maybe gameplay wasn't satisfying enough, due to a few annoying glitches and obstacles mentioned in the article, and probably the marketing was too weak?

Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#13

Post by watwut »

herendin2 wrote: post #12

It's a very interesting story. Not just a mere failure, but a total wipeout. Extremely simple games have succeeded before, eg Flappy Bird, as the author mentioned, so what went wrong here? Maybe gameplay wasn't satisfying enough, due to a few annoying glitches and obstacles mentioned in the article, and probably the marketing was too weak?

Those extremely simple games were outliers. Most failed. And after flappy, marker became super flooded with even more games.

Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#14

Post by at_ »

book-sandworm wrote: post #6

I was planning my future to first get great at Software development, then switch to game development once I got the skills. During that time I visited a few indie game conferences. I realised quite quickly how underfunded and overworked everyone was, trying to bootstrap companies on subsidies. Not with the intention to become the next unicorn, but just for the love of games. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't seem…

I don't know. This was an interesting read for me because I recently had an experience that was largely the opposite.

I made a game using free time after work that ended up being featured on most of the big mobile gaming sites, as well as within the App Store itself (on the top banner of the Games bit). It didn't make lifechanging amount of money by any stretch (per hour I think would have just about broken minimum wage by now), but a decent amount considering it was something I was doing for fun. The experience has made me very excited to a) continue to update this one and b) get started on my next game project, which I think has the potential to reach more people. Or at the very least, turn out to be more interesting.

If starting from nothing I think it's all down to either having a snappy and unique concept, and/or a snappy and unique visual style. The best bit is that neither of these things necessarily require lots of time to pull off, just luck (or whatever it is). I have no industry connections whatsoever and zero ad budget, but if you do something that hasn't quite been seen before, and that people/sites will have fun writing/talking about, it can get you a foot in the door. Maybe I'm being too optimistic and underestimating how lucky I got!

Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#15

Post by DetroitThrow »

at_ wrote: post #14
book-sandworm wrote: post #6

I was planning my future to first get great at Software development, then switch to game development once I got the skills. During that time I visited a few indie game conferences. I realised quite quickly how underfunded and overworked everyone was, trying to bootstrap companies on subsidies. Not with the intention to become the next unicorn, but just for the love of games. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't seem…

I don't know. This was an interesting read for me because I recently had an experience that was largely the opposite. I made a game using free time after work that ended up being featured on most of the big mobile gaming sites, as well as within the App Store itself (on the top banner of the Games bit). It didn't make lifechanging amount of money by any stretch (per hour I think would have just about broken minimum w…

I think your postmortem would be more interesting to read about than ops, frankly. It reads like the writer not only was expecting a larger degree of success for a not-so-interesting and expensive-to-make game, it also seems like he never found a group of people which enjoyed playing it.

In your case, it sounds like you would've been fine without external validation, invested not a huge amount of money into the project, and we're focused primarily on fun.

Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#16

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

>> Drunk Shotgun is a top-down mobile game where you control a character with a shotgun, who is constantly spinning and cannot stop because he's just too drunk. You tap the screen to shoot the shotgun to damage goblins coming at you and to move around the arena. Character himself cannot move freely due to his condition, but the shotgun recoil moves him allowing you to dodge attacks, gather power ups and move through the arena to get a tactical advantage. You can also tap&hold to engage bullet time allowing you to time your shot precisely and analyze the situation. Bullet time is not infinite and is replenished by defeating enemies. After defeating 99 goblins you face the final boss.

Pah. Another game that legitimises the perpetration of acts of violence against innocent goblins. In all honesty, this has gotta stop! Future generations will look down upon people of present times for deriving a sick pleasure by the shedging of goblin blood.

End violence against goblins in gaming!

Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#17

Post by DetroitThrow »

book-sandworm wrote: post #6

I was planning my future to first get great at Software development, then switch to game development once I got the skills. During that time I visited a few indie game conferences. I realised quite quickly how underfunded and overworked everyone was, trying to bootstrap companies on subsidies. Not with the intention to become the next unicorn, but just for the love of games. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't seem…

>Better value then most art or game dev schools.

While you could learn what the writer learned in a formal education setting, it very much seems like he could have learned everything he found out here from a few more chats or reddit posts with developers also in his situation.

Additionally, him launching the game seemingly without finding other people who really enjoyed playing the game feels like a major dissonance - I wish there was a concise way to put this without being harsh, but it reads like this was an expensive lapse in common sense and self awareness for someone who has the ability to build software for humans.

Re: Failure Story of the Drunken Shotgun

#19

Post by csours »

book-sandworm wrote: post #6

I was planning my future to first get great at Software development, then switch to game development once I got the skills. During that time I visited a few indie game conferences. I realised quite quickly how underfunded and overworked everyone was, trying to bootstrap companies on subsidies. Not with the intention to become the next unicorn, but just for the love of games. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't seem…

I graduated with a computer gaming and simulation degree and went to work in a factory doing tech support. I'm sure I was much happier doing that than I would have been doing game development.
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