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From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

kellsgame.com

21–30 of 62 posts

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#21
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPLv3 is a very strange license to apply to artwork. It is specific to software. However I dont belive the is any intent for it to cover the game using the assets.

Sure. But CC-BY-SA 3.0 is a very standard license to apply to art, and has similar expectations for sharing your game with CC-BY-SA.

I don't know that it does have similar expectations for licensing your game under the same terms. This is ultimately for courts to decide. It's incredibly ambiguous if a game is a derivative work or a collection; The latter avoids virality.

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#22
post #14
post #12

Congrats on the release OP! For anyone reading, if you’re a programmer by training, I’d recommend literally any game engine other than Game Maker Studio for creating your game. Unity is a great choice for beginners that lets you program in C#. Game Maker Studio is specifically designed for people who are NOT programmers.

Unity suffers from being 3d by default (so you're kind of defaulted into "physics-activated 3d world" stuff), having very low discoverability of features, and a lot of googling to land on the Unity forums. If you're a programmer, there are a couple ways you can experience happiness: - Try one of the many "2d game library" things. They tend to be limited to playing sound, displaying gfx, and handling input. But if you…

Obligatory Godot shout out which unlike Unity had has "native" 2D support and is a pleasure to work in.

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#23
post #8

This article doesn't touch it as it's a new game they are developing, but I used to wonder a lot how much are indie game devs making? Is it worth it? Can one expect to earn like a full time job working on it?

Most indie game devs do not turn a profit on their work. The numbers vary from year to year but on average an indie game that launches on Steam earns in the $1000-5000 ballpark, which limits how much time you can profitably put into it.

Of course, if you can hit it big the numbers can be pretty good. But not many games manage to hit it big. It used to be much easier to get visibility as an indie a long time ago, but that's partly because there weren't very many indie games on storefronts like Steam, Xbox etc at the time so being there got you attention. Now hundreds of games come out every day and are competing with you.

I do know multiple indie devs who do it for a living, but they tend to have to supplement their game revenue with contract work, or they split the burden with a spouse who has a regular job.

Personally I've worked on multiple shipped indie games and have never earned enough off that to pay rent, though it was nice to get a few thousand in post-launch royalties over the span of a few years + the initial amount I earned working on it. I always had to supplement things with traditional freelancing or a day job.

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#25
post #12

Congrats on the release OP! For anyone reading, if you’re a programmer by training, I’d recommend literally any game engine other than Game Maker Studio for creating your game. Unity is a great choice for beginners that lets you program in C#. Game Maker Studio is specifically designed for people who are NOT programmers.

The best choice is the one that you, personally, will complete and build a full game in. Presumably OP knew how to use gamemaker studio, and could either choose between:

1) Starting to build the game straight away in Game Maker Studio

and

2) Learning C# / Unity and then starting to build your own engine and plug together tile editors and things which will then let you build the game.

In the case above, Option 1 will probably have more success as you are starting to build the thing rather than defering building the thing.

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#26
post #7

It seems the game use some assets from "liberated pixel cup" ( https://lpc.opengameart.org/ ) which are in GPLv3 / CC BY-SA 3.0. Does any one know how viral are this licenses with other assets and the game itself ? I would have avoided to use them for a commercial game personally but I'm maybe mistaken.

OGA has a FAQ that covers licensing, although it is not legal advice: https://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-proprietary

OP might be OK if they credit artists and publish all modifications made to the art.

Although if it was me I would be uncomfortable publishing a game using someone else's assets commercially anywhere unless I am backed by some BigCo with a legal team, licensing is too fraught.

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#27
post #8

This article doesn't touch it as it's a new game they are developing, but I used to wonder a lot how much are indie game devs making? Is it worth it? Can one expect to earn like a full time job working on it?

That's like asking 'how much are musicians/artists making'. Most are making near-zero. A few get lucky and are making many millions.

And while success requires a certain level of talent/skill, becoming a mega-hit seems very much about luck and being in the right place at the right time.

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#28
post #11
post #8

This article doesn't touch it as it's a new game they are developing, but I used to wonder a lot how much are indie game devs making? Is it worth it? Can one expect to earn like a full time job working on it?

Generally very, very little. You can generally take the number of Steam reviews on a game and multiply by 50 to get a rough, ballpark idea of how many sales the game has made. Considering this game has 3 reviews on Steam and costs $6, it’s unlikely the game has made over $1000 on that platform. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth making games, though! I’ve released two mobile games, still updating the second one, and al…

Doubtful it even made that much considering the author said most of the steam players were friends or family. That said, I don't think you should go into indie development trying to go viral and make a ton of money.

I love this blog post because it highlights how difficult, yet fun and challenging it can be to create a game from scratch. I've messed around with GameMaker Studio 2 several times and this post has inspired me to do so again. Compared to the competition it's a relatively simple game engine, but it can be fun just to mess around and see what you're able to create.

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#29
Thank you for the blog post!

This has inspired me boot up GameMaker Studio 2 again. I usually come back to it now and then just to mess around, not really with the goal of making anything complete.

It's been a while since I touched it last, but I made this back in 2018. Never worked on it past what's in the video but it was still fun to work on!

https://youtu.be/fMbm2ZVL7zs

Re: From throwaway side project to Switch in 2 years: my indie gamedev story

#30
post #29

Thank you for the blog post! This has inspired me boot up GameMaker Studio 2 again. I usually come back to it now and then just to mess around, not really with the goal of making anything complete. It's been a while since I touched it last, but I made this back in 2018. Never worked on it past what's in the video but it was still fun to work on! https://youtu.be/fMbm2ZVL7zs

Give a chance to Godot before committing to a close platform!

https://godotengine.org/

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