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[MDave]

Okay; what's your end goal? Is it to land a job at a games company, or is it to make a game you would play?

If it's the former, unfortunately industry jobs are largely pigeon holed, especially at larger studios; for example, if you want to be an animator, just start animating, build a showreel and start applying. Places where 'jack of all trade' skills are appreciated, are at smaller startups, and in todays climate, the likelihood is that you'll be doing work on mobile games - if you just want an industry break, don't turn your nose up. Work is work, and outside of the extremely lucky few, everyone in the industry has done 'the hard yards' on shitty shovelware, and literally nobody in a recruitment position is going to sneer at you if your showreel is things like toilet duck commercials.

If it's the latter, take one of your prototypes and bring it to completion; have a start screen, a win condition with an ending, and a fail condition with a game over. You don't need more than that, but obviously that's where your design chops come in.
For example, your first prototype third person action game could be something as simple as a 'horde mode' style fighter, score based, survive as long as you can on a single map (or have a variety of maps to choose from). This can obviously be expanded upon hugely, if you find it interesting to work on, or you feel it has promise as a full title; different enemies with different AI. Boss fights. Puzzles. A 'campaign' where you move from scene to scene. Whatever. If you want to know if its worth investing time into, release it to the public; if its something you do not consider worth charging money for, then don't - put it up somehwere like Kongregate / GameJolt / Itch.io and see if people are interested. See what feedback comes back from players. See if any requests you think would be worth it are made, and consider implementing them.
Anything you release can always be considered a 'prequel' for an iterative project based upon those foundations, and can be used as the basis for a Kickstarter campaign or Steam Greenlight Early Access release, and you would be automatically ahead of many similar entries by virtue of having a 'demo' people can play as proof of concept that you are capable of doing what you say you will.

Thank you for the advice, its not falling on death ears I assure you! I do want to make games that I would play, because I want to create something that takes risks in terms of game mechanics and design. But is still realistic in its goals as something achievable. I don't want to get into the professional industry as much to be honest, at least not until I am content with finishing one game of my own from start to finish.

I did create a design document for the 3rd person action game, biggest problem for continuing is the parts of the game I try to do by myself (level design, AI, some advanced Unity scripting) are quite lacking, hah. I will start off simple though, like you said just create a start and an end to a level, give the player something interesting to do in between. I need to focus on one thing at a time and finishing it, instead of bouncing around off different jobs when I get bored / procrastinate / burn out from doing just one haha.

Thanks for the advice again! I have a clearer idea on what I want to do now. But yes, indie games and eventually releasing on digital store fronts is what I want to do more so. Demos are definitely something I want to do as well, player feedback is invaluable! I will make a post here in the future when I have something more complete for others to try out. I'm all fired up now!

 

[Vanguard]

edit: deleted

 

[exmachina64]

So i may (i'm still cautious!!) start to work on my own game, for the second time in my life. I hope this time it goes to the end of it.

I present to you Hampoo, the breatlhess explorer! It'll be a challenging retro platformer with a nice gimmick, in some sort of quackshot vibes!

I'm not an animator (nor good with characters) to begin with but it'll be charming anyway.

He's cute.

 

[mourad louali]

Yeah, but because its gross, it means its taken before any other remunerations are calculated, so it would actually be:
$10
* -20% gross sales tax (EU example) (-$2)
* -30% gross retail cut / platform holder fee (-$3)
* -5% gross engine licence (-$0.50)
leaving you with (taxable) $4.50 net

So I went and researched this and per Tim Sweeney, sales tax/VAT aren't included.

And from the Steam FAQ :

5. Do the steam royalties apply before or after VAT/country specific taxes?
Taxes are removed before calculating royalties.

So for our EU example :
$10
* -20% VAT (-$2)
$8
* -30% gross retail cut / platform holder fee (-$2.4)
* -5% gross engine licence (-$0.40)
leaving you with (taxable) $5.20 net

low res pay still applies though

 

[Makai]

So i may (i'm still cautious!!) start to work on my own game, for the second time in my life. I hope this time it goes to the end of it.

I present to you Hampoo, the breatlhess explorer! It'll be a challenging retro platformer with a nice gimmick, in some sort of quackshot vibes!

I'm not an animator (nor good with characters) to begin with but it'll be charming anyway.

Looks like Paddington!

 

[HellBlazer]

Looks like Paddington!

Heh, I thought the same thing.

 

[RelentlessRolento]

So i may (i'm still cautious!!) start to work on my own game, for the second time in my life. I hope this time it goes to the end of it.

I present to you Hampoo, the breatlhess explorer! It'll be a challenging retro platformer with a nice gimmick, in some sort of quackshot vibes!

I'm not an animator (nor good with characters) to begin with but it'll be charming anyway.

Hot dang! Yeah I'm learning with my game how intense character creation a d animation can be... And I'm saying that with a background in motion graphics >_<

 

[liliththepale]

I'm working on shops right now. Originally there was going to be a general store that sold basically everything you need in the game, but then I started trying to flesh the town out more so it made sense to expand things further out.

So now, instead of buying your first sword and shield at the general store, you have to go to the blacksmith instead. And different potions have to be located at different locations, and the cold-weather clothes have to be purchased at the clothing store. I've already shown a bunch of the tavern art before but here's another couple screens. Then below that I have the general store and one of the medical shops (both only the screen shown below, not super expansive like the tavern will be). There are competing physicians in the town with different ideologies so this is the fancy, "proper" doctor with straightforward healing potions. The other one will be more alternative medicine themed with less direct effects.

Turned Inn

Sojourner Outfitters

A Doctor Who Cares

Something I started debating recently is whether I should let the player know she can go to all of these stores or have her figure it out herself.

In the old CRPG Star Control II, you start out in the game with a ship on the outskirts of our solar system and are given virtually no directive. Most players will travel to Earth by intuition and there discover the main plot of the game, as well as get hooked up to a base where all your future upgrades will be fabricated, but technically speaking it's possible to complete the game without ever visiting Earth.

So I kind of want to do something similar. Design the map so players are encouraged to explore all the shops and see what they have to offer, but make it technically possible to win should one or all of the stores be avoided outright. Any thoughts on this?

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I think that design strategy is really cool and adds a lot of replay.

 

[WaterAstro]

Anyone have info on how much cut does Kickstarter and Patreon take?

I assume that Kickstarter takes the cut, and if you're giving Steam keys as reward, that's another cut.

 

[Jumplion]

Turned Inn

Sojourner Outfitters

A Doctor Who Cares

Love those backgrounds. I'm in the process of setting an attack plan for how I'll approach making art/assets for my own game. I'm probably overkilling on how cautious I'm approaching an art style that's just sticks and figures but I trust my fingers as far as I can throw them.

 

[liliththepale]

Love those backgrounds. I'm in the process of setting an attack plan for how I'll approach making art/assets for my own game. I'm probably overkilling on how cautious I'm approaching an art style that's just sticks and figures but I trust my fingers as far as I can throw them.

That's much of the reason for this game's art style. Well, more specifically that's much of why I was using this style and similar in previous projects, and I haven't kicked the habit. It's been a lot of work trying to balance where to fill something with a bunch of detail and where to leave more open.

I think I'm at a good threshold artistically, but economically it probably isn't feasible to keep up at this rate. Either that or there will be lots and lots of clone props. We'll see.

I have the luxury of no deadlines and no budget right now, so I can art all I want. But who knows what the future holds?

I think it's good to know your limits, and there's something universal about stick figures that says let's just focus on the action and what's happening in the scene, which is a useful phenomenon to leverage if you're short on art time or talent.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Anyone have info on how much cut does Kickstarter and Patreon take?

I assume that Kickstarter takes the cut, and if you're giving Steam keys as reward, that's another cut.

KS is up to 10%.

Steam is 30% of all sales.

 

[correojon]

I almost finished the first level, time to improve performance a bit! - Proceeds to unwillingly destroy the collision system and now game´s broken in 200 places

I'm working on shops right now. Originally there was going to be a general store that sold basically everything you need in the game, but then I started trying to flesh the town out more so it made sense to expand things further out.

So now, instead of buying your first sword and shield at the general store, you have to go to the blacksmith instead. And different potions have to be located at different locations, and the cold-weather clothes have to be purchased at the clothing store. I've already shown a bunch of the tavern art before but here's another couple screens. Then below that I have the general store and one of the medical shops (both only the screen shown below, not super expansive like the tavern will be). There are competing physicians in the town with different ideologies so this is the fancy, "proper" doctor with straightforward healing potions. The other one will be more alternative medicine themed with less direct effects.

Turned Inn


Sojourner Outfitters

A Doctor Who Cares

Something I started debating recently is whether I should let the player know she can go to all of these stores or have her figure it out herself.

In the old CRPG Star Control II, you start out in the game with a ship on the outskirts of our solar system and are given virtually no directive. Most players will travel to Earth by intuition and there discover the main plot of the game, as well as get hooked up to a base where all your future upgrades will be fabricated, but technically speaking it's possible to complete the game without ever visiting Earth.

So I kind of want to do something similar. Design the map so players are encouraged to explore all the shops and see what they have to offer, but make it technically possible to win should one or all of the stores be avoided outright. Any thoughts on this?

Cool backgrounds, love the Outfitters one with all the clocks.
About the "optional" shops, in these kind of choices I think it´s better to give options to the player. Design the map so it guides the player to the shops, as it will surely be helpful for new players. But also keep the option to easily skip them so players in successive playthroughs can avoid them without too much hassle (maybe skipping them will require some skill new players won´t know of, but experienced players can identify immediately). Also, if the shops are something the player will visit regularly in a normal playthrough keep the map simple: don´t force the player to go through all the town to get to the shop he wants to go, that will be tiring the 4th time. Add shortcuts so everything is accessible easily, you can make the town a small puzzle for the player to unlock all these shortcuts and make it a really cool place instead of just a hub that forces him to walk around for 2 minutes every time.

 

[WaterAstro]

KS is up to 10%.

Steam is 30% of all sales.

I just looked up Patreon, which takes 5%.

I actually wonder... since there's no transaction for Kickstarter rewards, how does Steam take 30% of a game you're "giving away for free"? Do they take money from you if you ask for free keys to your own game?

 

[liliththepale]

Cool backgrounds, love the Outfitters one with all the clocks.
About the "optional" shops, in these kind of choices I think it´s better to give options to the player. Design the map so it guides the player to the shops, as it will surely be helpful for new players. But also keep the option to easily skip them so players in successive playthroughs can avoid them without too much hassle (maybe skipping them will require some skill new players won´t know of, but experienced players can identify immediately). Also, if the shops are something the player will visit regularly in a normal playthrough keep the map simple: don´t force the player to go through all the town to get to the shop he wants to go, that will be tiring the 4th time. Add shortcuts so everything is accessible easily, you can make the town a small puzzle for the player to unlock all these shortcuts and make it a really cool place instead of just a hub that forces him to walk around for 2 minutes every time.

I kinda know what you're talking about, but it always bothers me personally when I'm playing a game and going through what's supposed to be a bustling town and it's actually just a single street, or worse a handful of buildings. I've always considered that failing to be a limit of artists' time, but now you're reminding me that it could be a design decision as well to streamline the experience.

Some of the LEGO games have pretty large hub worlds where different shops for unlocking cheats or custom characters are all over the map and I've definitely gotten lost in those worlds before. Yet I think in some respect it can be enjoyable to get slightly lost. Not with frequency, but on occasion in a relatively safe environment with all sorts of things to hold your attention, getting lost in the wonder of it all is interesting to me.

Fortunately, I think I'm at an advantage by making a 2D game here. I can draw buildings in the background and give the illusion of a much greater space than I've actually created without worrying about how to block most of it off from exploration. Shops that the player can enter will all be in a row on the main street without interruption and they'll be pretty clearly labeled.

I almost finished the first level, time to improve performance a bit! - Proceeds to unwillingly destroy the collision system and now game´s broken in 200 places

Yikes. Are you deactivating instances at all? If not is that an option?

 

[correojon]

I kinda know what you're talking about, but it always bothers me personally when I'm playing a game and going through what's supposed to be a bustling town and it's actually just a single street, or worse a handful of buildings. I've always considered that failing to be a limit of artists' time, but now you're reminding me that it could be a design decision as well to streamline the experience.

Some of the LEGO games have pretty large hub worlds where different shops for unlocking cheats or custom characters are all over the map and I've definitely gotten lost in those worlds before. Yet I think in some respect it can be enjoyable to get slightly lost. Not with frequency, but on occasion in a relatively safe environment with all sorts of things to hold your attention, getting lost in the wonder of it all is interesting to me.

Fortunately, I think I'm at an advantage by making a 2D game here. I can draw buildings in the background and give the illusion of a much greater space than I've actually created without worrying about how to block most of it off from exploration. Shops that the player can enter will all be in a row on the main street without interruption and they'll be pretty clearly labeled.

Even though I love Shovel Knight, I was always bored when returning to the city or when having to go all they way on the map to the Pond to refill my potions, streamlining those parts would´ve been a great choice IMO. I think it´s really important to value the player´s time and not force him (or at least limit it as much possible) to do anything that doesn´t add any value to the experience.

Have you thought about adding events? That would infuse some life to the town and make it a bit different each time. Like maybe a house catches fire and blocks the path so the player has to find a new way around, or someone steals the key to the Potion shop, so you have to look for the thief and get it back...Or just something cosmetic, like a hat festival where everyone is rocking new colorful hats. Even with a linear layout this could make the town something different every few visits and make it more interesting.

Yikes. Are you deactivating instances at all? If not is that an option?

Sort of, I´m not using GM´s built-in functions but I´m using a self-made system that does something similar (and works better in the tests I made). The problem was that I was doing too many collision checks, I built the system for the player and later made the enemies and powerUps use it to move around, but it was too expensive for so many instances. So I simplified it and performance got a nice boost. The game seemed to like the changes...until collisions started to fail randomly everywhere I know where the bugs may be more or less, but these bugs that only happen sometimes take a lot of time to isolate and kill

 

[liliththepale]

Even though I love Shovel Knight, I was always bored when returning to the city or when having to go all they way on the map to the Pond to refill my potions, streamlining those parts would´ve been a great choice IMO. I think it´s really important to value the player´s time and not force him (or at least limit it as much possible) to do anything that doesn´t add any value to the experience.

Have you thought about adding events? That would infuse some life to the town and make it a bit different each time. Like maybe a house catches fire and blocks the path so the player has to find a new way around, or someone steals the key to the Potion shop, so you have to look for the thief and get it back...Or just something cosmetic, like a hat festival where everyone is rocking new colorful hats. Even with a linear layout this could make the town something different every few visits and make it more interesting.

I already have some events planned. Some characters move around town as the day progresses (think Majora's Mask) and there are at least two big scenes that take place in the town square. I like your idea of a fetch quest or similar for that. It could be a great way to encourage deep exploration of the town once the player is already invested in the game and knows the ropes.

Shovel Knight, I actually think they ought to have expanded it further if possible. Granted, I played through the game without ever using the ichors because I rarely needed them, so maybe that would have colored my impressions differently. But I loved all the character they put into the town and would have loved to see even more.

Sort of, I´m not using GM´s built-in functions but I´m using a self-made system that does something similar (and works better in the tests I made). The problem was that I was doing too many collision checks, I built the system for the player and later made the enemies and powerUps use it to move around, but it was too expensive for so many instances. So I simplified it and performance got a nice boost. The game seemed to like the changes...until collisions started to fail randomly everywhere I know where the bugs may be more or less, but this bugs that only happen sometimes take a lot of time to isolate and kill

Yikes, that doesn't sound fun. Best of luck!

 

[correojon]

I already have some events planned. Some characters move around town as the day progresses (think Majora's Mask) and there are at least two big scenes that take place in the town square. I like your idea of a fetch quest or similar for that. It could be a great way to encourage deep exploration of the town once the player is already invested in the game and knows the ropes.

Sounds great, loved Majora´s Mask system

Shovel Knight, I actually think they ought to have expanded it further if possible. Granted, I played through the game without ever using the ichors because I rarely needed them, so maybe that would have colored my impressions differently. But I loved all the character they put into the town and would have loved to see even more.

That may have been the problem: the world and the characters looked interesting, but they only had a couple lines each so you could discover everything in a couple of visits and from there on the town became just a hub (except for the secret battle with the guy in the hat shop). I was let down by there not being anything else, in part because the script was really fun. it would´ve been a great opportunity to flesh out the story or give more background to the different Knights.

Yikes, that doesn't sound fun. Best of luck!

Thanks, I´ll try to make a replay system so once I trigger the bug I can replicate it. It may be more work than trying to adress the bug directly but this way I´ll be 100% sure that I´ve got rid of it and it may become useful for other situations, even as a game mechanic with a little tweaking.

 

[LordRaptor]

So I went and researched this and per Tim Sweeney, sales tax/VAT aren't included.

Huh, I always assumed gross percentiles were pre-tax.
That Tim Sweeney answer as to why they're billed via Switzaerland is hilarious though - "complicated accounting stuff" being "that's a corporate tax avoidance scheme"

How does Steam take 30% of a game you're "giving away for free"? Do they take money from you if you ask for free keys to your own game?

steam take a percentage only via sales made through store.steampowered.com - you can generate as many steam keys as you want for free and distribute them however you see fit.

Even though I love Shovel Knight, I was always bored when returning to the city or when having to go all they way on the map to the Pond to refill my potions, streamlining those parts would´ve been a great choice IMO. I think it´s really important to value the player´s time and not force him (or at least limit it as much possible) to do anything that doesn´t add any value to the experience.

The danger of this line of thinking is how many of your game choices can be reduced to "Why can't I just do that from a pause screen menu?"

 

[Nezzhil]

Finally, the development of our game Tankr is finished and will be available on Steam this June 6 (the next monday)!
Our game is an arcade battle arena mix-up of BattleCity, Bomberman and Wii-Tanks. The game have a four player local co-op campaing of 100 levels, local and online 4-player deathmatch modes and a map editor for the deathmatch games.

This game took to us more than a year to be developed (with zero budget), a development with a lot of difficulties, errors, failures (the KS campaing still hurts...) and stress, but with a lot of learning, some joys and always motivated.
We don't know if the game will be well received or not (it's really hard to be visible to the press!), but we're are very happy to have self-published a (small) fully featured indie game for pc.

I share with you the launch trailer. I hope you like it

We're working in a demo for the launch day, and after the release, we will continue to work to port the game to Mac and Linux (as we promised), and try to fix all the bugs and errors than could appear after the release.

I forgotten it before! We'll do a streaming on twitch today at 18:00 CEST. You can watch it here.

 

[correojon]

The danger of this line of thinking is how many of your game choices can be reduced to "Why can't I just do that from a pause screen menu?"

Agree, you should take care: What I meant is that if you´re going to force the player to take some "extra steps" to do simple actions that could be achieved with some button clicks in a menu, then better make those extra steps enjoyable and not repetitive. Or better yet, add some value, something that a menu can´t give you. In Shovel Knight´s case, adding more lines to the characters, making them share some info about the cool bosses, the story or making the characters have some simple story arcs would´ve made those journeys back to town much more enjoyable.

 

[LordRaptor]

Agree, you should take care: What I meant is that if you´re going to force the player to take some "extra steps" to do simple actions that could be achieved with some button clicks in a menu, then better make those extra steps enjoyable and not repetitive. Or better yet, add some value, something that a menu can´t give you. In Shovel Knight´s case, adding more lines to the characters, making them share some info about the cool bosses, the story or making the characters have some simple story arcs would´ve made those journeys back to town much more enjoyable.

Yeah. I think the worst example I have seen is Fable 3 where all equipment and gear changing has to be done via teleporting 'home' and going to one of multiple different rooms, physically walking up to the equipment / gear you want to equip and action buttoning it before being teleported back to where you previously were.

 

[orioto]

Looks like Paddington!

Haha well actualyl not really it's a hamster, not the same face and not dressed the same (he's dressed as Nathan Drake by the way cause why not, except he did it with it's pajama, and with an Indiana Jones hat of course)

 

[ThePhotoshop]

In the old CRPG Star Control II, you start out in the game with a ship on the outskirts of our solar system and are given virtually no directive. Most players will travel to Earth by intuition and there discover the main plot of the game, as well as get hooked up to a base where all your future upgrades will be fabricated, but technically speaking it's possible to complete the game without ever visiting Earth.

So I kind of want to do something similar. Design the map so players are encouraged to explore all the shops and see what they have to offer, but make it technically possible to win should one or all of the stores be avoided outright. Any thoughts on this?

I like the idea of allowing that, but I think Star Control gets away with it because Earth is such an immediate point of reference that, yeah, intuitively most players will visit it first. I'm not sure of the narrative setup here but if you're a stranger visiting this town for the first time, there's far less intuition to draw on. My first thought would be to find an inn or a pub, and I'd assume there'd be some dialogue or clues as to what the rest of the town offers in there.

 

[superNESjoe]

Anyone have any tips for preparing a Kickstarter? I have one launching at the very end of June. I've started contacting some outlets already, and have a few contacts of mine that have been aware of it for weeks and helping out with PR but in general I gotta say I'm not 100% sure how to succeed.

I have attempted Kickstarter 3 times with different projects, and only succeeded once. That one time I don't even count since it was a really low goal and was funded almost entirely by family and friends.

Past groups I was affiliated with that went under, as well as projects that didn't receive funding and never released seem to stick to my reputation. It's been 4+ years since the last "amateur failure" I was affiliated with. After forming my new company I've failed at Kickstarter twice, yet one of those failed games still saw a commercial release anyway and it is one of 3 games I've brought to retail (on Steam and then Xbox One). I have a partnership with Sony and Microsoft to bring this upcoming project to both consoles, and every project I've started or been a part of in the past few years has been brought to completion.

What is the best way to get that across, to establish confidence in backers? I see so many Kickstarter projects fail, how do I leverage my completed retail projects and project management skills in an effort to show why this is a project that won't fall through?

What do you look for on a Kickstarter page to establish confidence? Does having three published titles (on platforms like Steam and Xbox One) make a difference? Does it make a difference if the project page details existing familiarity and relationships with the two lead platforms?

 

[Nezzhil]

Anyone have any tips for preparing a Kickstarter? I have one launching at the very end of June. I've started contacting some outlets already, and have a few contacts of mine that have been aware of it for weeks and helping out with PR but in general I gotta say I'm not 100% sure how to succeed.

I have attempted Kickstarter 3 times with different projects, and only succeeded once. That one time I don't even count since it was a really low goal and was funded almost entirely by family and friends.

Past groups I was affiliated with that went under, as well as projects that didn't receive funding and never released seem to stick to my reputation. It's been 4+ years since the last "amateur failure" I was affiliated with. After forming my new company I've failed at Kickstarter twice, yet one of those failed games still saw a commercial release anyway and it is one of 3 games I've brought to retail (on Steam and then Xbox One). I have a partnership with Sony and Microsoft to bring this upcoming project to both consoles, and every project I've started or been a part of in the past few years has been brought to completion.

What is the best way to get that across, to establish confidence in backers? I see so many Kickstarter projects fail, how do I leverage my completed retail projects and project management skills in an effort to show why this is a project that won't fall through?

What do you look for on a Kickstarter page to establish confidence? Does having three published titles (on platforms like Steam and Xbox One) make a difference? Does it make a difference if the project page details existing familiarity and relationships with the two lead platforms?

I only can say one thing, build awarenes about your project to make it visible before the launch of the KS campaing. I'm sure that you know that, but it's the only true thing that I learned after our failure KS campaing.
Other things like "lot of info and details about the project", "partnerships with console editors", "past projects" and other things are always good, but I saw a lot of KS that have all of this and failed.

Good luck and keep up the spirit!

My teammates are streaming our game right now! Thrilling!
Streaming done, tomorrow more. Countdown here

 

[RelentlessRolento]

Wotan Kickstarter launches this Monday June 6th! Wooh! Now onto cleaning up non game odds n ends

 

[WaterAstro]

steam take a percentage only via sales made through store.steampowered.com - you can generate as many steam keys as you want for free and distribute them however you see fit.

Oh that's sweet. So kickstarter seems like a pretty good deal then.

Reward through kickstarter for 10% cut, and hand out free keys without getting 30% cut from Steam.

 

[Retro_Stew]

Hey pals!

I wanted to share a project a friend and I are working on (in our spare time) for a few years now.

The game is called Highway Runners and is a retro-inspired racing game for iOS and Android, aiming to provide players the same sense of freedom that Outrun did, while offering challenges adapted to this era's way of playing and platform specificities.

My friend Brunni (http://www.mobile-dev.ch/index.php) did the coding and I'm making the graphics. It's actually in beta test for some friends on iOS.
If everything goes well, we should release it this summer. (We're still looking for some music/sfx composer. We posted an ad on Reddit...)

Here are some screens, hope you like it!

And a screen of our level design tool, specially created for the game development.

 

[mStudios]

I dunno if I posted this or not, but here we go.

 

[WaterAstro]

Hey pals!

I wanted to share a project a friend and I are working on (in our spare time) for a few years now.

The game is called Highway Runners and is a retro-inspired racing game for iOS and Android, aiming to provide players the same sense of freedom that Outrun did, while offering challenges adapted to this era's way of playing and platform specificities.

My friend Brunni (http://www.mobile-dev.ch/index.php) did the coding and I'm making the graphics. It's actually in beta test for some friends on iOS.
If everything goes well, we should release it this summer. (We're still looking for some music/sfx composer. We posted an ad on Reddit...)

Here are some screens, hope you like it!

And a screen of our level design tool, specially created for the game development.

Nice, just like Outrun. I guess you tilt to steer?

 

[ThePhotoshop]

Anyone have any tips for preparing a Kickstarter? I have one launching at the very end of June. I've started contacting some outlets already, and have a few contacts of mine that have been aware of it for weeks and helping out with PR but in general I gotta say I'm not 100% sure how to succeed.

I have attempted Kickstarter 3 times with different projects, and only succeeded once. That one time I don't even count since it was a really low goal and was funded almost entirely by family and friends.

Past groups I was affiliated with that went under, as well as projects that didn't receive funding and never released seem to stick to my reputation. It's been 4+ years since the last "amateur failure" I was affiliated with. After forming my new company I've failed at Kickstarter twice, yet one of those failed games still saw a commercial release anyway and it is one of 3 games I've brought to retail (on Steam and then Xbox One). I have a partnership with Sony and Microsoft to bring this upcoming project to both consoles, and every project I've started or been a part of in the past few years has been brought to completion.

What is the best way to get that across, to establish confidence in backers? I see so many Kickstarter projects fail, how do I leverage my completed retail projects and project management skills in an effort to show why this is a project that won't fall through?

What do you look for on a Kickstarter page to establish confidence? Does having three published titles (on platforms like Steam and Xbox One) make a difference? Does it make a difference if the project page details existing familiarity and relationships with the two lead platforms?

I'd be happy to take a look at your preview page and PM you some feedback if you like?

 

[superNESjoe]

I'd be happy to take a look at your preview page and PM you some feedback if you like?

I appreciate that! I'm hoping to have the preview page mostly done this weekend, I can PM it to you then?

 

[ThePhotoshop]

I appreciate that! I'm hoping to have the preview page mostly done this weekend, I can PM it to you then?

Sure, no problem.

 

[Sàmban]

wow, this is gorgeous! Great shapes and color usage.

If I could make a small note, you have the lighting on the trees coming from directly above, yet the shadow they cast is off to the down-left side slightly. If the light actually came from directly above as the highlights suggest, the shadow wouldn't be visible. Conversely, if the shadow is accurate, then the highlights should be up-right somewhat.

looking great man, the color palette reminds me of hyper light drifter.

Thanks for the feedback guys! Now that I think about it, the game does look a little hyper-light-ish. I changed the color pretty drastically and added some nice lighting effects! Now I need to start placing enemies.

 

[Blizzard]

I dunno if I posted this or not, but here we go.

I don't think you posted it. Your backgrounds remain an inspiration for me to learn art so I can do that sort of style. : )

 

[Michael Armbrust]

I had the fun realisation a few nights ago that the platforming puzzles in my game suck too much!

Their primary purpose is to break up the monotony of solving harder puzzles and ease players into the game. With my current implementation though, they just sour the experience. For the moment I'm prototyping new puzzle mechanics and seeing if anything feels really great. If not, the plan is to scale back the platforming puzzles and make it more walking focused like Myst or The Witness.


I also played Braid for the first time, but I was shocked at it only being ~5 hours. For some reason I've been thinking my puzzle game needed to be double that. How do you handle game length?

 

[Noogy]

Hey pals!

I wanted to share a project a friend and I are working on (in our spare time) for a few years now.

The game is called Highway Runners and is a retro-inspired racing game for iOS and Android, aiming to provide players the same sense of freedom that Outrun did, while offering challenges adapted to this era's way of playing and platform specificities.

My friend Brunni (http://www.mobile-dev.ch/index.php) did the coding and I'm making the graphics. It's actually in beta test for some friends on iOS.
If everything goes well, we should release it this summer. (We're still looking for some music/sfx composer. We posted an ad on Reddit...)

Here are some screens, hope you like it!

Man that looks hot! Would love to see it in motion! I'm a big sucker for racers of that era, attempting 3D effect with sprites. I particularly love stuff like tunnels done with sprites... such a crazy great look.

 

[correojon]

I had the fun realisation a few nights ago that the platforming puzzles in my game suck too much!

Their primary purpose is to break up the monotony of solving harder puzzles and ease players into the game. With my current implementation though, they just sour the experience. For the moment I'm prototyping new puzzle mechanics and seeing if anything feels really great. If not, the plan is to scale back the platforming puzzles and make it more walking focused like Myst or The Witness.


I also played Braid for the first time, but I was shocked at it only being ~5 hours. For some reason I've been thinking my puzzle game needed to be double that. How do you handle game length?

Hey, what did you think of Braid? I finished it last week after having it in my backlog for a long time and was a bit letdown....The game´s good, but everyone always reffers to it as a masterpiece and I was expecting something more. I don´t know if it can be considered a platformer, I think it´s mainly a puzzle game with some platforming.

About game length: I wouldn´t make it a primary objective, that could easily lead you to putting in content that only adds length but not value and that will eventually hurt your game. Anything you put in the game should have some objective besides adding length.

 

[Retro_Stew]

Nice, just like Outrun. I guess you tilt to steer?

Yeah, that's right! The game screen is moving as you tilt. It works the same way as Truckers Delight.

Man that looks hot! Would love to see it in motion! I'm a big sucker for racers of that era, attempting 3D effect with sprites. I particularly love stuff like tunnels done with sprites... such a crazy great look.

Thanks! We're waiting to have proper sounds effects and music to make a gameplay video, but we'll make one soon.

 

[LordRaptor]

I also played Braid for the first time, but I was shocked at it only being ~5 hours. For some reason I've been thinking my puzzle game needed to be double that. How do you handle game length?

Hey, what did you think of Braid? I finished it last week after having it in my backlog for a long time and was a bit letdown....The game´s good, but everyone always reffers to it as a masterpiece and I was expecting something more. I don´t know if it can be considered a platformer, I think it´s mainly a puzzle game with some platforming.

The thing Braid does (and World Of Goo does as well, the other poster child for New age Of Indie) is each world introduces a new gameplay concept based on the overall mechanics, and then each level in that world fully explores that concept, then you move on to the next world.

Basically the game doesn't outstay its welcome and feels consistently fresh while you're playing it; it ends when there's nothing left in each of those design spaces to explore, rather than iterating on those concepts just to make the game longer.

e: by contrast, Limbo - an already really short game - runs out of ideas really early on, and by the end has devolved into bullshit trial and error instadeath Rick Dangerous style platforming that sours the overall experience

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

File this under the "weird things", but...

Given that I have a map that I'd like to not use the orthogonal camera (being a Unity 2D project) and would prefer to use a perspective camera (so the world map appears to shrink as the distance goes farther, like [insert SNES JRPG here]).

One way would be to "duct tape" the camera to the player character (which always exists) as a child to it, and tweak the player's rotation so that it ends up appropriately skewed, but this seems very hacky.

Pretty much the things it has to do:

Keep the player character centred on the display
Creates a perspective effect
Don't end up also skewing the player (this is the hard part): needs to stay looking 1:1 and unskewed like in normal maps

 

[correojon]

The thing Braid does (and World Of Goo does as well, the other poster child for New age Of Indie) is each world introduces a new gameplay concept based on the overall mechanics, and then each level in that world fully explores that concept, then you move on to the next world.

Basically the game doesn't outstay its welcome and feels consistently fresh while you're playing it; it ends when there's nothing left in each of those design spaces to explore, rather than iterating on those concepts just to make the game longer.

e: by contrast, Limbo - an already really short game - runs out of ideas really early on, and by the end has devolved into bullshit trial and error instadeath Rick Dangerous style platforming that sours the overall experience

But isn´t that pretty standard design since like forever? Maybe I´d appreciate it more if I had played it when it came out and could compare it with the "standard" indie games of the time. I also think that having nothing to tie the challenges inside a level together, with some levels even having just long walks with nothing to do between challenges, is a big weak spot in the design. Like "here´s puzzle 1" and "over there puzzle2". I think this may be a clear example of what we were talking before, that felt like a way to not use a menu but in a way that really didn´t add anything of value to the game.

 

[AusRoachman]

Decided to continue with my fantasy voxel look and mix abit of card style game . Over the next week I hope to import lots of different variations of units and randomly build the players deck.

 

[Minamu]

But isn´t that pretty standard design since like forever? Maybe I´d appreciate it more if I had played it when it came out and could compare it with the "standard" indie games of the time. I also think that having nothing to tie the challenges inside a level together, with some levels even having just long walks with nothing to do between challenges, is a big weak spot in the design. Like "here´s puzzle 1" and "over there puzzle2". I think this may be a clear example of what we were talking before, that felt like a way to not use a menu but in a way that really didn´t add anything of value to the game.

Braid also has a major focus on story, so the gaps in gameplay can probably be blamed on that, if that's your cup of tea. Have you read the story theories regarding nuclear weapons? The story is pretty well intertwined with the gameplay and level design iirc, so any discrepancies might be there for other reasons than what one would imagine.

 

[LordRaptor]

But isn´t that pretty standard design since like forever? Maybe I´d appreciate it more if I had played it when it came out and could compare it with the "standard" indie games of the time. I also think that having nothing to tie the challenges inside a level together, with some levels even having just long walks with nothing to do between challenges, is a big weak spot in the design. Like "here´s puzzle 1" and "over there puzzle2". I think this may be a clear example of what we were talking before, that felt like a way to not use a menu but in a way that really didn´t add anything of value to the game.

Yeah, maybe it is a 'there at the time' thing and as you correctly point out, Braid is essentially a puzzle game rather than a platform game (its just wrapped in a platform games clothing, like Spelunky is a rogue-like/lite wrapped in platformer clothes) but it's actually fairly common for a game to run out of ideas and be self-conscious about its length so start adding 'padding' and recycling ideas and either layering or iterating them.

Braid is pretty short, but it - presumably deliberately - is short because of its 'one and done' use of mechanics; its pretty easy to imagine it could easily be 3-4 times longer by having 'mashup' worlds where multiple previous mechanics are entwined, or where previously used puzzles are recycled, but with more difficult reflexive challenges (and veer into 'real platformer' territory), but I think it would run the risk of becoming a slog to get through.

I think it's probably a case of it being slightly better to leave a player satisfied and wanting more, than to be overly familiar and beginning to be bored

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Decided to continue with my fantasy voxel look and mix abit of card style game . Over the next week I hope to import lots of different variations of units and randomly build the players deck.

Looks really nice there.

I wish I was good at doing art...

 

[AusRoachman]

Looks really nice there.

I wish I was good at doing art...

Thanks but these are mostly store bought sprites imported to voxels . I wish I could do art as well but thankfully there's a huge amount of awesome art to buy and use .

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Thanks but these are mostly store bought sprites imported to voxels . I wish I could do art as well but thankfully there's a huge amount of awesome art to buy and use .

Aha!

Sometimes I'm tempted to store-buy a bunch of art assets, but I think I'd rather keep the graphics drawn myself. As of now I'm still redoing tilesets... sometimes things looked "wrong" so I just went and redid things. Like how you hate the mountains look, so you just throw out everything related to it and redid everything... (And made the world map 3-layer, so I can have ocean tiles animate as a whole; mountains and forests won't have to fight with edges of ground areas; and no need to redraw everything once I implement "deep/shallow" ocean separation.

It does makes me wonder if having an additional artist is worth it, but on the other hand, this is basically a $0 solo project.

I'm definitely needing help with the music and sound effects in the end, though.

Now, back to fixing the UI mess-ups and making sure the character data storage is exactly the way I want it to be. Thinking of going about it by having the characters be permanently assigned to six sets of internal variables, and the game would store character codes separately for sorting/display/formation/battle use only. (Fixed characters.)