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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
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Hey there guys,
Just thought I'd share that "The Other Brothers" will be available on April 4th, 2013 for iOS! We are excited!
Will buy!
Chopper Mike is live!! Enjoy!
Click for App Store...
Click for Google Play...
It says it's compatible with the iPhone 3GS, which is worrying. I added a thing to require a front facing camera, so it should be impossible to download. If anyone has a 3GS and is willing to try downloading it, I'll be your friend forever! Will reimburse if it does let you buy it!
Bought.
It's really great to see these games being released. Pretty happy for you guys.
I use perforce, which is free for a small number of users. I set it to save as text and there have been no problems. From within my project directory I have the Assets and ProjectSettings under source control, plus the AppController.mm and info.plist for iOS. That's it! Has worked perfectly when switching between PC and Mac, (the server is running on the PC).
Whatever you go for, source control is super useful. I'm on the fourth branch of Chopper Mike now, for various reasons. And I have an Ouya branch, which is pretty much a straight copy, but with modified project settings and manifest - build configurations per platform would be awesome!
Thank you! Enjoy!
Technobabel
Member
I can't really give you an accurate number because I didn't book the booth, my publisher (Devolver Digital) did, and I shared it with another developer. DD also paid for most of the swag (big banner, pins, cards). I paid for the flight, hotel, food, and cabs (everything but flight was split with the other dev).
Here is the setup before doors opened the first day. The main issue with our location (against the wall behind a bunch of much bigger booths) is that none of the bigger media came through. But I was busy enough with regular attendees that I think I was able to leave my booth once to use the bathroom over the whole show. Didn't get to see anything until after close each day.
Look for the game on Steam and iPad March 28th for $2.99!
Well that's wicked. Might have the PC version available later today BTW..
I'm going to get it for the iPad.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
check your pms, razu
So excited right now, we just announced our game: Assault Android Cactus!
Here's a youtube link to our reveal trailer.
There are only 3 of us on the team, and two of us left our jobs to do this full time. I couldn't be happier with what we've made and I hope that comes through in the trailer
Screens:
If you like what you see then please check out our Greenlight, or visit the development blog.
Really looking forward to posting more in this thread now that I can talk all about what I'm working on. Reading this thread can be quite motivating actually
While I'm pretty confident in making a good game at this point, I guess the real challenges are going to come from trying to get the word out. Oh well, there's never been a better time to make indie games so I can't complain too much!
Here's a youtube link to our reveal trailer.
There are only 3 of us on the team, and two of us left our jobs to do this full time. I couldn't be happier with what we've made and I hope that comes through in the trailer
Screens:
If you like what you see then please check out our Greenlight, or visit the development blog.
Really looking forward to posting more in this thread now that I can talk all about what I'm working on. Reading this thread can be quite motivating actually
While I'm pretty confident in making a good game at this point, I guess the real challenges are going to come from trying to get the word out. Oh well, there's never been a better time to make indie games so I can't complain too much!
So excited right now, we just announced our game: Assault Android Cactus!
Here's a youtube link to our reveal trailer.
There are only 3 of us on the team, and two of us left our jobs to do this full time. I couldn't be happier with what we've made and I hope that comes through in the trailer
Screens:
If you like what you see then please check out our Greenlight, or visit the development blog.
Really looking forward to posting more in this thread now that I can talk all about what I'm working on. Reading this thread can be quite motivating actually
While I'm pretty confident in making a good game at this point, I guess the real challenges are going to come from trying to get the word out. Oh well, there's never been a better time to make indie games so I can't complain too much!
Whoa! That looks amazing
Paddington Bear
Member
Chopper Mike is now available for PC(£1.99/$2.99): vamflax.com/ChopperMike
I went with BMT Micro, and I'm waiting for Desura to go live, hence the 'Coming Soon!!'.
I really have no idea what to expect from them, so will report back with my findings!
Hopefully I'll get it submitted to the Mac App Store tomorrow.. And I guess, the Mac version on Desura too?
Exciting!
I went with BMT Micro, and I'm waiting for Desura to go live, hence the 'Coming Soon!!'.
I really have no idea what to expect from them, so will report back with my findings!
Hopefully I'll get it submitted to the Mac App Store tomorrow.. And I guess, the Mac version on Desura too?
Exciting!
mourad louali
Member
Chopper Mike is now available for PC(£1.99/$2.99): vamflax.com/ChopperMike
I went with BMT Micro, and I'm waiting for Desura to go live, hence the 'Coming Soon!!'.
I really have no idea what to expect from them, so will report back with my findings!
Hopefully I'll get it submitted to the Mac App Store tomorrow.. And I guess, the Mac version on Desura too?
Exciting!
Can't wait to buy it for Mac! How are the sales on iOS and Android going?
Considering the £0.00 marketing budget, sales are pretty good on iOS. Android.. may as well have not bothered, but maybe it'll keep selling for a hundred years and catch up!
Response to the Mac version has been surprisingly good. Will hopefully submit it today!
So party?
Alright. Thx.
@Paz: Ah, that's cool. Love the dynamics of the ground floor. But music is the
crap.
@Paz: Ah, that's cool. Love the dynamics of the ground floor. But music is the
crap.
Hey now! I guess the style is not for everyone heh.
Jeff van Dyck is composing the soundtrack for the game/trailer and I'm pretty happy with how things are going so far, it's still very early days but he's one of the most talented guys I've ever worked with (heck, he won a BAFTA for his work on the Total War franchise) so I'm not too worried about that part turning out great.
But since it's a PC game you are welcome to just off the music and play your own MP3
ConvenientBox - Thanks for the kind words mate!
Also, dealing with the Greenlight process has been interesting so far... Reminds me a bit of the iOS gamble where you have no idea if anyone will notice your game exists.
Considering the £0.00 marketing budget, sales are pretty good on iOS. Android.. may as well have not bothered, but maybe it'll keep selling for a hundred years and catch up!
Response to the Mac version has been surprisingly good. Will hopefully submit it today!
I'm in doubt if I will ever port my game Snails to Android. Maybe I'm not going to bother...
Am not questioning the talent of the musician by any means. It's possible
that he makes two other random compositions and I'm fully blown away. Mind
you, the first ten seconds of the music are way cool, but then it becomes
quite repetitive for a long time until it chances at the end to some extend.
I use Unity, so it took near zero effort. If I had ported native code over, I'd be a little disappointed for sure!
I'm not saying every game will perform like mine. Just that so far, people who have bought it on Android are in an exclusive group of gamers
As others have said, get featured, or prepare to be a cult classic at best! ;D
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I wrote my game in objective c. Thought about redoing it in c++ for android, but unless there is some miraculously huge demand for it I don't think I will even bother.
I use the cocos2d-iphone for my game and am heavy on the objective-c side.. so porting won't be that easy (i assume). Sometimes that really bothers me. Especially since i learned about the JavaScript wrapper for cocos2d.. man, wish i took that route.
but.. it' s my first game and i will be more than happy to release on at least one system. iOS should not be that bad of a choise.
but.. it' s my first game and i will be more than happy to release on at least one system. iOS should not be that bad of a choise.
I use Unity, so it took near zero effort. If I had ported native code over, I'd be a little disappointed for sure!
I'm not saying every game will perform like mine. Just that so far, people who have bought it on Android are in an exclusive group of gamers
As others have said, get featured, or prepare to be a cult classic at best! ;D
Android can be tough market; especially since they changed the new releases list to "top new", and you might not get any exposure at all at release. You'll get a bit more exposure by default when you launch on iOS, also Google's way of selecting featured games are a bit different. On iOS you generally get one shot at getting featured the week you're released, since apple checks everything. On Android there's really no control over the new releases, but Google might notice your game eventually.
Even before getting featured my experience with Gunman Clive wasn't quite as dire on Android though (or not as great on iOS depending on what the actual numbers are). It was smaller than iOS, about 1/3rd of the sales after a month, but still enough to make it worthwhile, and at that point both markets were down to about the same levels; then it got featured and more than doubled the iOS numbers
I downloaded Torque3D 2.0 last night. I'm not sure I heard about it last year when it went to the MIT license, but it seems like a nice place to start if anyone is interested in messing with a free 3D engine that gives you full source code and a super permissive license. Plus, within a week or two the github source may get Oculus Rift support merged in, from the sounds of it.
The downside is that it's not for the faint of heart. The tutorials and videos that exist seem to mostly still apply to the older versions of the engine. Plus, running the basic FPS tutorial level on my computer, it was nearly impossible for me to even get 60 fps in windowed mode in some areas. Partly this seemed to be lighting, and partly not, and it was not maxing out my CPU. So, I'm guessing if someone wanted to do a high-quality level, they might have to look into some video optimizations of their own.
All that said, it's still neat to see an engine, editor, etc. that is completely open for whatever you want to do, if only you have the time and knowledge to muck with it.
The downside is that it's not for the faint of heart. The tutorials and videos that exist seem to mostly still apply to the older versions of the engine. Plus, running the basic FPS tutorial level on my computer, it was nearly impossible for me to even get 60 fps in windowed mode in some areas. Partly this seemed to be lighting, and partly not, and it was not maxing out my CPU. So, I'm guessing if someone wanted to do a high-quality level, they might have to look into some video optimizations of their own.
All that said, it's still neat to see an engine, editor, etc. that is completely open for whatever you want to do, if only you have the time and knowledge to muck with it.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
For anyone who has enjoyed configuring Provisioning Profiles for iOS.. Submitting a game for Mac App Store takes things to a whole new level of awkward!!
What's different?
Has anyone ever used any text to speech libraries? I'm thinking about having a Star Trek style computer "AI" that will help the player out (notifications, tutorials, etc) and I thought it'd be really fun for it to be able to say the player's name.
Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations.
Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations.
The whole pissing about with entitlements, provisioning, and icons in the right format.. in Terminal.
I would have thought Unity would have produced a legal Mac App Store pkg... but no
Diablohead
Member
I wanted to relax today so I decided to spent a little while recreating planet Zebes from Super Metroid with my game, I might leave it in there as an easter egg
Glad to hear that, a lot of iOS games without any advertising just dissapear and do no good, hopefully you can keep the sales burning, but I do suggest that you find some cheap advertising space on review websites to keep it up there.
Considering the £0.00 marketing budget, sales are pretty good on iOS. Android.. may as well have not bothered, but maybe it'll keep selling for a hundred years and catch up!
Response to the Mac version has been surprisingly good. Will hopefully submit it today!
Glad to hear that, a lot of iOS games without any advertising just dissapear and do no good, hopefully you can keep the sales burning, but I do suggest that you find some cheap advertising space on review websites to keep it up there.
Why would you do that?
Member
So I finally released my word game on Android.
Play Store link
I am very happy that, for the first time, I can say I released something.
However, my download count sits at 0, and searching for the game by name doesn't even show it in the results. It's only been a few hours, but that concerns me. How would I go about fixing this?
I see plenty of apps that somehow get into the "trending" or "top new free" lists, and I wonder how I can get in the list, too.
I already did things like make the logo attractive (I actually learned Blender just to model and render a 3D logo) but if nobody sees the logo in the first place, nobody will download it.
So any ideas or places to read?
Interesting post. I highly doubt Google would do that for me, but it's nice that you don't have only "one shot."
However, getting in the "top new" categories is one shot only since it's only for apps less than a month old. I've read others stating that it's important to get exposure there if you can, even if it's just in one subcategory like games -> casino.
I must say, that is some nice pixel art.
Play Store link
I am very happy that, for the first time, I can say I released something.
However, my download count sits at 0, and searching for the game by name doesn't even show it in the results. It's only been a few hours, but that concerns me. How would I go about fixing this?
I see plenty of apps that somehow get into the "trending" or "top new free" lists, and I wonder how I can get in the list, too.
I already did things like make the logo attractive (I actually learned Blender just to model and render a 3D logo) but if nobody sees the logo in the first place, nobody will download it.
So any ideas or places to read?
Interesting post. I highly doubt Google would do that for me, but it's nice that you don't have only "one shot."
However, getting in the "top new" categories is one shot only since it's only for apps less than a month old. I've read others stating that it's important to get exposure there if you can, even if it's just in one subcategory like games -> casino.
I must say, that is some nice pixel art.
OccamsBlender
Member
Delicious eye candy as usual.
Do web adverts like that really work? Talking to Apple about getting featured seems like it's worth more effort than some banner ads somewhere. What are Touch Arcade's prices like?
I wanted to relax today so I decided to spent a little while recreating planet Zebes from Super Metroid with my game, I might leave it in there as an easter egg
Glad to hear that, a lot of iOS games without any advertising just dissapear and do no good, hopefully you can keep the sales burning, but I do suggest that you find some cheap advertising space on review websites to keep it up there.
Do web adverts like that really work? Talking to Apple about getting featured seems like it's worth more effort than some banner ads somewhere. What are Touch Arcade's prices like?
Take a look at this:
http://blog.efrontlearning.net/2011/01/free-and-open-source-text-to-speech-tools-for-elearning.html
Festival, eSpeak, or Flite might work for you.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I just registered with the tax office as a business and for goods and services tax so I can sell on the app store, and I have no idea what any of it means. I think I should probably talk to an accountant at some stage...
Festival looks interesting, might give it a try.
Today I've realized that the PS4 is my dream machine for three reasons;
BSD, C/C++11, and 176GB/s main memory bandwidth.
Man, that really rings in my ears. And I want to develop awesome games for
the PS4 and want to spend a serious amount of time into it. Simple as that.
Anyone here has a similar ambitions? We may perhaps join forces.
The latest article about
"Sony kills concept approval, makes moves to get indies onto PS4", sounds
promising at least. The PS4 is so powerful that it can serve as an indie
devkit all by itself, which would cut the cost for indie developers in buying
a professional unit (utilizing additional debug chips and interfacing stuff).
BSD, C/C++11, and 176GB/s main memory bandwidth.
Man, that really rings in my ears. And I want to develop awesome games for
the PS4 and want to spend a serious amount of time into it. Simple as that.
Anyone here has a similar ambitions? We may perhaps join forces.
The latest article about
"Sony kills concept approval, makes moves to get indies onto PS4", sounds
promising at least. The PS4 is so powerful that it can serve as an indie
devkit all by itself, which would cut the cost for indie developers in buying
a professional unit (utilizing additional debug chips and interfacing stuff).
So excited right now, we just announced our game: Assault Android Cactus!
Here's a youtube link to our reveal trailer.
There are only 3 of us on the team, and two of us left our jobs to do this full time. I couldn't be happier with what we've made and I hope that comes through in the trailer
Screens:
If you like what you see then please check out our Greenlight, or visit the development blog.
Really looking forward to posting more in this thread now that I can talk all about what I'm working on. Reading this thread can be quite motivating actually
While I'm pretty confident in making a good game at this point, I guess the real challenges are going to come from trying to get the word out. Oh well, there's never been a better time to make indie games so I can't complain too much!
Wow, love the music and bullet-hell like gameplay. Can't wait to actually play it.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Looks great, Paz
Mr_Appleby
Member
Yep I've been watching your posts with great interest, though going that low level is a bit beyond me at the moment. That's what I get for dropping out of maths/high-school.. lots of playing catch-up in that area in particular.Watching Mark Cerny talk about doing hidden-line removal when he was 12 made me have a bit of a "maybe i'm just an idiot" moment. I have huge respect for those early 3D guys like freescape, braben & bell, the dude (name I can't remember) that wrote battlezone, and so on. that whole look was part of my childhood and i've always been fascinated by it.
imo that is not a bad location at all. I think Trendy was there last year with Dungeon Defenders. People coming in can see your booth and you get exit traffic as well. I don't know the lay out for this year, but there was a AAA booth which drove traffic as well.I can't really give you an accurate number because I didn't book the booth, my publisher (Devolver Digital) did, and I shared it with another developer. DD also paid for most of the swag (big banner, pins, cards). I paid for the flight, hotel, food, and cabs (everything but flight was split with the other dev).
Here is the setup before doors opened the first day. The main issue with our location (against the wall behind a bunch of much bigger booths) is that none of the bigger media came through. But I was busy enough with regular attendees that I think I was able to leave my booth once to use the bathroom over the whole show. Didn't get to see anything until after close each day.
Look for the game on Steam and iPad March 28th for $2.99!
The important thing is you were there! I'll be sure to pick it up on PC.
I think single side booths last year (The small wall ones) were $500, so yours I'm guessing was $1-2k. No idea on the TV hookups, etc. Internet was hundreds for your booth.
Someone feel free to correct me.
Gave you a thumbs up on Greenlight. A lot of nice stuff in that trailer.So excited right now, we just announced our game: Assault Android Cactus!
Here's a youtube link to our reveal trailer.
There are only 3 of us on the team, and two of us left our jobs to do this full time. I couldn't be happier with what we've made and I hope that comes through in the trailer
If you like what you see then please check out our Greenlight, or visit the development blog.
I hope it goes well for you! This thread motivates me as well
Any shot at a handheld or PC version? I didn't realize it was mobile and my phone isn't great or Apple.I wanted to relax today so I decided to spent a little while recreating planet Zebes from Super Metroid with my game, I might leave it in there as an easter egg
Glad to hear that, a lot of iOS games without any advertising just dissapear and do no good, hopefully you can keep the sales burning, but I do suggest that you find some cheap advertising space on review websites to keep it up there.
Art looks really nice. You have parallax scrolling?
I see you got your hex map back in too.
I wanted to relax today so I decided to spent a little while recreating planet Zebes from Super Metroid with my game, I might leave it in there as an easter egg
Glad to hear that, a lot of iOS games without any advertising just dissapear and do no good, hopefully you can keep the sales burning, but I do suggest that you find some cheap advertising space on review websites to keep it up there.
Looking good!
I do wonder about advertising. It's not like the game will disappear from the store, so I may try it when I spot a lull in releases
I'm in Top New Paid, in general and arcade, and it's not exactly set the world on fire! Glad I'm not relying on it for a living! Although, I would lose some weight..
But give it some time, the store seems to update at unusual intervals. Just keep on refreshing!
A good idea to get a explanation of the important points, but, it's really not that difficult.
Might as post here as well.
A little bit of history.
I've been making games for long time now. It all started back in 2006, when we moved to a new house without any sort of internet connection. Anyway, during that time, I started experimenting with programming, starting with C, CoolBasics, AGS and eventually Game Maker.
I've made dozens of games with Game Maker and it was obviously a very cool and fun way to make games. I myself am not really a programmer person, so it was really fun to learn with Drag&Drop.
During the years 2009-2012, I experimented with a lot of concepts that I thought were really cool, but there were two problems: I abandoned most of my work. Secondly, Game Maker wasn't as versatile as I wanted it to be.
So I started experimenting with the Unity Engine and I learned it pretty quickly. I did a few prototypes of my previous projects, but still couldn't get the motivation required to complete any of these; I still lacked skill!
Then during one night last November while browsing the depths of the internet, I found something really interesting and yet disturbing at the same time. So I went to bed and just as I was about to doze off, an idea popped to my head that gave me enough motivation to start a new project.
I've been working on this project for four months now. Unfortunately I cannot reveal any information (for now), but here's a screenshot from a recent build:
It has sort of became a hobby of mine and I've learned new skills along the way. I've even learned to make my own 3D assets, which a huge thing for me. I always thought modeling was really hard, but it is suprisingly fun! UV mapping still sucks. I still have a lot of work ahead, but hopefully it pays off.
A little bit of history.
I've been making games for long time now. It all started back in 2006, when we moved to a new house without any sort of internet connection. Anyway, during that time, I started experimenting with programming, starting with C, CoolBasics, AGS and eventually Game Maker.
I've made dozens of games with Game Maker and it was obviously a very cool and fun way to make games. I myself am not really a programmer person, so it was really fun to learn with Drag&Drop.
During the years 2009-2012, I experimented with a lot of concepts that I thought were really cool, but there were two problems: I abandoned most of my work. Secondly, Game Maker wasn't as versatile as I wanted it to be.
So I started experimenting with the Unity Engine and I learned it pretty quickly. I did a few prototypes of my previous projects, but still couldn't get the motivation required to complete any of these; I still lacked skill!
Then during one night last November while browsing the depths of the internet, I found something really interesting and yet disturbing at the same time. So I went to bed and just as I was about to doze off, an idea popped to my head that gave me enough motivation to start a new project.
I've been working on this project for four months now. Unfortunately I cannot reveal any information (for now), but here's a screenshot from a recent build:
It has sort of became a hobby of mine and I've learned new skills along the way. I've even learned to make my own 3D assets, which a huge thing for me. I always thought modeling was really hard, but it is suprisingly fun! UV mapping still sucks. I still have a lot of work ahead, but hopefully it pays off.
Why would you do that?
Member
I'm in Top New Paid, in general and arcade, and it's not exactly set the world on fire! Glad I'm not relying on it for a living! Although, I would lose some weight..
But give it some time, the store seems to update at unusual intervals. Just keep on refreshing!
That's good to know, thanks. So I guess I shouldn't worry so quickly.
Did you do anything to promote your game and get those initial downloads?
I've been working on this project for four months now. Unfortunately I cannot reveal any information (for now), but here's a screenshot from a recent build:
It has sort of became a hobby of mine and I've learned new skills along the way. I've even learned to make my own 3D assets, which a huge thing for me. I always thought modeling was really hard, but it is suprisingly fun! UV mapping still sucks. I still have a lot of work ahead, but hopefully it pays off.
I like. I'd like a Slender like this
I'd probably have a heart attack, but I'd play!That's good to know, thanks. So I guess I shouldn't worry so quickly.
Did you do anything to promote your game and get those initial downloads?
Well, I made some trailers, then proceeded to email everyone on the Internet. The trailers have had over 9,500 views, (that's just on my YouTube channel, the videos have been copied elsewhere too), so they were worth the pain to make!
Also, you see older games in different sections like What We're Playing, and the special topics they put together.. We live in hope
This is the hard part for me. I'm relatively new to the industry and follow absolutely nobody , and don't know who to follow to promote our game. Slowly but surely I'm getting there, and I actually got an email from a french journalist who wrote an article about my game! I'm guessing once we release a playable build, I'll start emailing everyone I can think of.
Yeah, great times. Breaking the frontier in 3d graphics at that time must
have been such an amazing feeling. But the cool thing is that anyone can redo
it any time. And I can tell you, one gets a similar feeling doing it today
as they got many, many years ago. But also all the headaches!
Ahh ... thehidden-line problem, yeah, it's actually not an easy task if you can't use
Painter's algorithm (i.e. overdrawing) or a Z-buffer algorithm due to
performance and memory limitation. Speaking about the math, well,
that's something most people drop as soon as possible. Luckily, I realized
early enough that all the flashy graphics are based on just one thing,
mathematics. Many I knew were gone the API/SDK way, i.e. OpenGL and friends,
years ago to get some cool graphics on the screen quickly. They all wanted to
make games etc. The truth is, none of them does it today. Despite the good use
of tools while in the right hands, tools foster many people to stop thinking.
They become bounded by the ability of the tool over time. If the tool can't do
it, they can't do it either. Anyhow, it doesn't help you anything. The only
thing that helps is actually doing what's necessary, independently of whether
we land on the surface of mars, or whether Cerny has spoken about hidden-lines
years ago, or whatever I have to say for that matter. xD
Lens flares are back! This time everything will be fine, MrOddbird. Going......
by your picture, there is light at the end of the tunnel!
But at times this
light might come from a fast approaching train. So you better watch out!
light might come from a fast approaching train. So you better watch out!
but because it teases me! Good job! :+
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