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Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

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Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#101

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

rolha-capoeira wrote: post #86
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just took a peak at SimAirport... just insane. As someone whose coding has amount to little else but a few small webapps here and there, it completely and utterly boggles my mind that a single person would be able to accomplish something like that. I was aware of the RollerCoaster Tycoon person, but I figured that was an abherration. Completely amazing and awe-inspiring. How on Earth do you get going on something l…

Well, 1) we have no idea how long it took to develop SimAirport. I'd be curious to know! And 2) Rollercoaster Tycoon IS an aberration, since it was written in Assembly by one person!

r/suddenlycaralho ?

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#102

Post by luxuryballs »

YesBox wrote: post #59
luxuryballs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you immediately blocked on discord after sending the rejection message making it impossible to even say “thank you, good luck” in response, so there was no feasible way to reply or stay in contact or even follow your game, and I remember thinking he’s going to regret treating people this way later on when it comes time to build a community around his game… lesson learned now I hope?

I just checked my discord and I dont have anyone blocked. I close/leave conversations so I dont clutter my inbox, so maybe discord internally severs the connection? (That would be really good to know moving forward). (edit: I also dont recall "immediately" closing any chats, but I may have?) Anyways, sorry you feel that I wronged you, it really was not my intention. I received over 30 responses last time and it's a l…

not my discord, but either way, just be careful what you tell people if you don't intend to follow through... and now that you can see my responses I can finally say: thanks for taking the time to video chat with me and good luck on your project!

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#103

Post by luxuryballs »

bkanber wrote: post #95
YesBox wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked my discord and I dont have anyone blocked. I close/leave conversations so I dont clutter my inbox, so maybe discord internally severs the connection? (That would be really good to know moving forward). (edit: I also dont recall "immediately" closing any chats, but I may have?) Anyways, sorry you feel that I wronged you, it really was not my intention. I received over 30 responses last time and it's a l…

This type of interaction is exactly why I stopped running communities online. People thrust their expectations upon you and then expect you to do either mental labor to meet those expectations, or emotional labor to make amends for not meeting their expectations that you never consented to in the first place. It burnt me out very quickly.

lol there were no expectations other than those that were presented, we had a face to face call during which I suggested an idea: send discord invites to a secondary server so all the people who didn't fill the open slot could meet up since they were seeking similar connections and later during that same call he literally said "funny you should say that because it turns out that's exactly what I am doing!" but this was a lie or at least immediately forgotten (which is what made the "that was my plan all along" part seem like a lie)

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#104

Post by hitpointdrew »

mywittyname wrote: post #85
hitpointdrew wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of makes me sad. I feel like this is a terrible trend that is/has basically ruined gaming. The way I see it, making a game is art. I want to make games to express my ideas, and my feelings, and I want to do the best I can to convey those feelings and ideas in my games. The moment you start seeking player feedback for your game you are no longer making art, you making a product. I suppose that is all well an…

Not every artist is Michelangelo. Collaboration and feedback can be extremely helpful for creative endeavors. Successful writers have editors, successful musicians have producers, successful directors have EPs, etc. Sometimes the one-man-army approach works, but especially early on, it's best to get feedback.

> Collaboration and feedback can be extremely helpful for creative endeavors. Successful writers have editors, successful musicians have producers, successful directors have EPs

Fair enough, sometimes art is collaborative, but even in your example it's collaborative with a very small group of experts, who also have skin the game. It isn't collaborative with 80 different arm-chair musicians, or 100's of arm-chair writers. Seth McFarlane doesn't give a rats ass what YOU think would be funny in family guy, nor should he. Taylor Swift isn't soliciting her fans if they think a key change in a song is a good idea.

So why in video game dev is it expected that the devs have public discords where anyone can jump and and spout off anything, and that they pay attention to, and incorporate, every suggestion from some random steam comment?

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#105

Post by adanto6840 »

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #35
adanto6840 wrote: post #4

I started a small "no-name" studio to build games handful of years ago. Built and released two games thus far -- SimAirport & SimCasino. I'd potentially be interested, my email is in profile if you'd like to reach out. :)

Looking good. Do you agree with the 1:20 review:sales ratio? BTW plz ignore if you don't want to disclose thanks.

I think that the ratio has substantial variance; it has also changed over time, somewhat dramatically, as Valve/Steam have made changes & added features/UI/UX that I suspect are intended to increase the % of users who leave reviews.

About 5 years ago, the belief was that the ratio was in the realm of 1 : 50-100 -- based on my own data & data shared with me by other indies. Even then, there was substantial variance; genre, theme, price point, developer involvement, discounts, review score (proxy for player experience/overall game quality), etc -- were some of the key variables that I believed were having a significant impact on review-to-sales ratio variance between games.

Over time, changes to the UX have been made (by Valve/Steam) which appear to have increased the rate at which players leave reviews -- quite substantially, it seems.

On the whole, I think that a far higher percentage of players are leaving reviews now (ie a lower review-to-sale ratio), but I also believe that the variance is even higher now than it was before. It's still helpful for making estimates, but I don't think it's as highly-correlated as it once was (~5yr ago it was much more consistent & highly correlative).

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#106

Post by bkanber »

luxuryballs wrote: post #103
bkanber wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of interaction is exactly why I stopped running communities online. People thrust their expectations upon you and then expect you to do either mental labor to meet those expectations, or emotional labor to make amends for not meeting their expectations that you never consented to in the first place. It burnt me out very quickly.

lol there were no expectations other than those that were presented, we had a face to face call during which I suggested an idea: send discord invites to a secondary server so all the people who didn't fill the open slot could meet up since they were seeking similar connections and later during that same call he literally said "funny you should say that because it turns out that's exactly what I am doing!" but this w…

Calling them a liar publicly when you didn't have all the context definitely counts as asking them to do emotional labor for you.

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#107

Post by drusepth »

opyate wrote: post #8
quaintdev wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this is on front page with just 1 comment indicates there are not many solo game developers

Perhaps folks aren't putting their hands up, because they're not all full time, and don't necessarily want to join a community on Discord.

Especially one with such a high time/mental commitment, as there isn't a lot of that left to spare when you're a solo game dev.

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#109

Post by drusepth »

dimgl wrote: post #39

I was a building an action RPG for six months. I made a ton of progress. Then I just gave up due to life situations and I haven't picked it up since. I'm itching to get back on it, but not being an artist is really hurting my game development journey. I need a partner for the art, or I just won't be able to make the game at all. It's unfortunate.

I put out a small card game demo a while back using Midjourney assets for most of my art. The tech has wildly improved since then (this was ~v2 and we're about to see v5, Stable Diffusion is out now and actually good, and many companies are starting up specifically to provide AI assets to game developers), so I would imagine you could get pretty far without an artist now. At the very least, you can definitely produce a good-looking demo with enough reference material to hand off to an artist before a final release. Feel free to hit me up via email (profile) if you aren't familiar with the tech; if you're on Discord or something I'm usually around to give some tips & pointers when indie devs have questions. :)

Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

#110

Post by kirab »

chaostheory wrote: post #100
YesBox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll clarify: I created a small community where everyone knows everyone's face/name. I am really restrictive with the number of people in the server not because I want exclusivity per se, but rather that I dont want to lose the deeper connections you develop with people in a small community. There's about 10 of us total right now. It also helps that everyone is on the same page (serious about releasing their game) so…

You’re saying that you don’t want exclusivity, but that’s what you have with such an arbitrary constraint. People are right to call you out.

They want a tight-knit group. Which is inherently exclusive but that's not the predominant attribute.
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