thebackalleys

Does anyone have general advice to building an independent game? Two main issues are marketing and finding art & music.

Our game's focus is on content and storytelling. In terms of technology, we aren't expecting to make major innovations, since our game is just a 2D platformer. But our vision is very keenly focused on having memorable characters and a compelling, well-written storyline. One of our sources of inspiration is Ghost Trick, an amazingly-well written game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Trick:_Phantom_Detective. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Trick:_Phantom_Detective.)

While conducting research on other indie games, we notice that the overwhelming majority of indie success stories focus on content creation, establishing a solid brand, and having generally memorable characters or a rich storyline. Although it's obviously true that you can have successful indie games based purely on programming mechanics and fancy art alone, these seem to be comparatively rarer.

Our team currently consists of just two people: me and a friend of mine. I do all of the story writing and character building, while my friend does all of the programming. We both share some responsibilities in marketing and other tasks. Looking forward, we will probably recruit another friend specifically as a marketing expert.

I know that you have no reason to believe me, but I can say with reasonable objectivity that I'm a good writer, and I know from experience that my friend is a good programmer. We are both hard workers and organized people, and we have been looking on at our project with a huge amount of self-awareness and scrutiny. At the same time, I'm also a dreamer and have been very dissatisfied with some of the writing that I've been seeing in recent indie games (which, for good reason, haven't exactly been edited by professional writers).

The inspiration for our game actually started in a Hackathon project we made a year ago, but we recently picked up the project again. So far, we've been working on it for four months. We are making serious project in developing both the storyline and the technology.

If any of you have advice for us, I would love to hear it.

i dunno man your taste in waifu's is seriously subpar

my #1 advice is always to keep it simple and small. most game projects don't get finished because a team gets too ambitious, and as you get deeper in to it you realize how much work has to be done and the project is abandoned because the workload is too much for too few people.  and i'm assuming you're both volunteering your time, so there's that to consider as well.

the good thing about starting out with small projects is that it's easier to figure out how long it takes to complete something. from there, you can determine the length of time it will take to make your next project with more accuracy.

i cant talk from a developer point of view, but i can say as a consumer that when i buy a game i dont really care about the story graphics platform ect i just want it to be fun

be it snappy responsive controls, rewarding content. im playing the game because im bored and have decided i no longer want to be bored anymore

I have been dabbling with game development for ages now, mainly just little things in RPG Maker because I find it easy to use. I wish I had some advice but all I have really done is experiment. Just start small I guess, tell small short stories to get to grips with developing and your games will grow bigger as your confidence grows.

A few other things I can think of off the top of my head.

-What platform are you developing for? And what software are you using?

-Determine your target audience early on and make sure the game sticks to that

-Design docs design docs design docs. Make a lot, for everything. You should also have a good elevator pitch for the game as well. A tip I heard recently that I like is to create one page (keep it light) that stuff on the most important elements of the game / your main goals with what you want with gameplay, player emotion, whatever. Then just keep it on your desk and always refer to it to make sure what you're doing is staying on track with your initial goals

-Test / iterate a lot. And get other people to play test as well, not just you guys. People get 'designer blinders' and don't realize a lot stuff about their design since they've been looking at it for so long. Also play the game like an idiot and try to break everything

-Going off what rtil said, keep it simple. Try and find 1-2 really good mechanics and make that the foundation for your project

-Even though your team is small, make a task list of some kind with everything that needs to be done. You can just use spread sheets (google docs), or use something like Trello. This includes bug tracking

-Organize some kind of pipeline for your design/art/engineering. The team is small so you have a lot of opportunity to be a little more freeflow, but having structure is good. "SCRUM" is a nice framework for small a big teams alike, but do whatever works

-Don't underestimate good audio


ok thats all for now

make sure it's fun

Ty cipher.

QuoteOrganize some kind of pipeline for your design/art/engineering

What exactly do you mean by a pipeline? Sounds like something I should be working on.

QuoteWhat platform are you developing for? And what software are you using?

We're developing for PCs using the Allegro framework on C++. We're currently deploying all our demos to Windows, but apparently with some tweaking we should be able to get OS X working too.

Quote from: soup on December  8, 2014 09:48 AM
i cant talk from a developer point of view, but i can say as a consumer that when i buy a game i dont really care about the story graphics platform ect i just want it to be fun

be it snappy responsive controls, rewarding content. im playing the game because im bored and have decided i no longer want to be bored anymore

Yeah, I know most gamers (esp. those who are willing to subject themselves to the torturous process of playing independent games) aren't looking for a serious storyline engagement when they play a video game. I'm very aware that being storyline-heavy is an easy way to alienate potential users.

My mode of attack as a developer is to "cross the chasm" by luring players in with colorful graphics, fun and smooth mechanical gameplay, and good music. As the players roam around in our world, I hope that they'll fall in love with our characters, engage themselves with the world and dialogue, crying when tragedy occurs and cheering when they meet success. In this way, they'll passively consume the story and probably enjoy it.

Your video game may end up as obscure and you will be directly in competition against other games with bigger promotion budgets.

You will need to shamelessly self promote your game. You will need to use creative promotional methods that will differentiate from other gaming companies for less money.

You will need to be a lot more creative with promotion.

You will need a title that can be easily found in search engines.

  The title of your game needs to be unique enough to crop up in search engines as the number one result.

My user name; "Mightydein" has cropped up in search engines because I registered that screen name on so many websites.

It is not too early for you to think up a unique title that will appear in search engines as the number one result.

Have you thought about distribution?

Who will be distributing the video game yourself?

Are you hoping to sale your game to a company?

How will you handle distribution of your game?

You gotta ask yourself these questions.

I hope my advice serves as helpful.

Thanks Mightydein.

QuoteYour video game may end up as obscure and you will be directly in competition against other games with bigger promotion budgets.

Sadly, I'm aware of this. I'm hoping that our product ends up being differentiated enough and of high enough quality that we can level the playing field somewhat.

QuoteYou will need to shamelessly self promote your game. You will need to use creative promotional methods that will differentiate from other gaming companies for less money.

Yeah, I'm ready for this. I'm planning on marketing the game very, very aggressively and going mega tryhard in terms of self-promotion.

QuoteThe title of your game needs to be unique enough to crop up in search engines as the number one result.

That won't be an issue. Our title is pretty catchy and unique.

QuoteHave you thought about distribution?

Probably Steam and Desura. We might try to join Humble Bundle.

QuoteAre you hoping to sale your game to a company?

Not really sure. Hopefully if our game is successful enough to be bought out then we can make a decision.

do you have awesome voice actors? cause ya know...  ;) i got your back

What makes a good game:
Achievements
Graphics
No Scopes

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Quote from: basketweaver on December  8, 2014 09:02 PM
Ty cipher.

QuoteOrganize some kind of pipeline for your design/art/engineering

What exactly do you mean by a pipeline? Sounds like something I should be working on.

Kind of just referring to your general production plan. It's a term you should understand a little bit if you're interested in that area of development, google has stuff.

Here's sort of like a simple type of design pipeline. Each time you do a cycle, the next one should be a little quicker, unless you're just doing small stuff. A really simple (but efficient) approach to design. There's a certain image I was looking for but couldn't find it, this is close enough.
(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgamedesignconcepts.files.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F07%2Fiterative.jpg%3Fw%3D450&hash=a6027b08f35a51d8cb5f97ce9bd1d16470e9fa4d)

Also, set some deadlines. What do you want to have done by X date? (setting deadlines also helps motivate you)

Also also, use version control. I've done projects with 2-3 people and just manually compiled from time to time. Not worth it, make a github server or something

Ah ok, so it's like a flow diagram/organizer thing. We have been doing ad hoc diagrams for this, but ok, this looks cool too.

We have everything on Bitbucket.

Yeah, I totally agree that deadlines are awesome in motivating people and exploiting Parkinson's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law). By Dec 21, we want to have a playable demo with a full level implemented. We also have various deadlines for Jan 30, March 2, Dec 2015, etc.

45 pages of the story script written so far. Potential teammates are all being lined up and evaluated. Wrote a 3 page business proposal and analyzed some market stuff. Developing a good culture among our teammates. Starting to wonder how far this can go (and obviously trying to avoid that arrogance that leads to indie disaster all the while).

45 pages? how long do you plan this thing to be?

Quote from: rtil on December 12, 2014 05:40 AM
45 pages? how long do you plan this thing to be?

I might take a year off of school to work on this. I know several friends of mine who have done that for their entrepreneurial ventures.

And it looks like 45 pages is not that long. With that number of pages I've finished off a substantial part of the storyline, and it looks like the entirety of Fire Emblem 7 is 216 pages of script-writing. On top of that, this game is intentionally dialogue-heavy so that more lines of text will tend to be associated with fewer chapters. I'm also double spacing a lot of lines.

Edit: Oh yea, and I forgot to mention that I'm including a lot of stage directions as well, which is missing from Fire Emblem's script

it's a bit trivial to compare it to a game like fire emblem, developed by a studio with plenty of cash on hand and a large staff. just be sure to overestimate the amount of time it's going to take to develop

When I compare it to Fire Emblem I'm purely talking about the relationship between page count and game length. I was saying that Fire Emblem basically translated 216 pages into full, ~20 hour game, so 45 pages with stage directions isn't necessarily super long.

But yes! Definitely keeping things modest as an amateur here. I know it's probably going to take hella long to finish and I'm already thinking of cutback measures in varying degrees should issues arise.

stage directions? cool. always the best way to be. you gonna use foley or preexisting sfx?

As someone who works in the video game industry right now:

-Gameplay is god. Art and music is secondary. Make your gameplay fun with boxes and placeholder art first, then worry about the art later. (once your gameplay is down, set up the architecture so that you can hire an artist to plug in stuff later. For example, set up the programming with placeholder art for calling in a character's run cycles, get that working, then hire an artist to draw out the frames later)

(we call these placeholders "stubs" by the way)

-Know your ABC's: Even the biggest teams need to prioritize features. For smaller projects, list out all the tasks you'll need to do to make a game and then hit the most important stuff first:

A level tasks: Your game will not function without this. Movement code, collision detection, attack code, basic UI elements, MINUTE TO MINUTE GAMEPLAY (VERY IMPORTANT), etc.
B level tasks: This will make a huge impact on the gameplay but ultimately isn't needed. Art and music actually fall into here (because you should be able to play the game with all different colored boxes). Stubs/placeholder art typically fall in here, but only if they provide gameplay feedback
C level tasks: All icing on the cake. Animated UI elements, camera shake, lens flares, cinematics


Get your A level stuff done first, then your B level stuff, then if you have time, your C level stuff

this is all I can think of right now but feel free to hit me up with any questions otherwise

Thanks, Thor. What exactly do you mean by minute-to-minute gameplay?

Quote from: Thor on December 13, 2014 03:23 AM
As someone who works in the video game industry

will this be on your tombstone?

Quote from: rtil on December 13, 2014 05:16 AM

Quote from: Thor on December 13, 2014 03:23 AM
As someone who works in the video game industry

will this be on your tombstone?

Quote from: basketweaver on December 13, 2014 04:30 AM
Thanks, Thor. What exactly do you mean by minute-to-minute gameplay?

minute to minute gameplay as in how exactly you want your game to go when a player's playing it. How should a player feel when playing it? Do you want an easy going side scroller that's mostly story driven? Do you want a really twitch based bullet hell sidescroller where the player regularly needs to dodge around and jump? What are the important gameplay elements in your game?

From there, the design can drive the art. Mirror's Edge, for example, colors all of the interactable environmental elements red to draw your attention to it against a mostly cold palette. For Infinite Crisis, because we had so many effects that we needed to provide gameplay feedback for, we came up with a color language of sorts: we made all "negative" looking effects dark purple, all healing effects green and white, all poison effects dark green and yellow, physical attacks were red and gold and magic/power attacks were blue (there were exceptions of course). Perhaps in your side scroller, yellow platforms maybe break 2 seconds after your character jump on them, green platforms serve as healing areas-- regardless of what your gameplay is, designing the art to provide gameplay feedback will help out your players' overall experience a ton (I once heard a story about one of the earlier FPS games (I believe it was Unreal edit: whoops, it was Bulletstorm) where the artists tried to make their exploding barrels green but playtesters never used them because they didn't know they would explode. Once they made the barrels red, more of their playtesters started shooting more of the exploding barrels in the game)

Also, I saw a talk at the Boston Festival of Indie Games given by one of the heads of That Game Company (the guys behind Journey) and the overall message of the lecture was "Keep to a feeling throughout the entire process"

They wrote down what they wanted the feeling of the game to be for Journey down on a big ol' whiteboard (just a sentence), and whenever they had a question about gameplay or art, they asked themselves if what they were working on helped push towards that thing they wrote down

Quote from: rtil on December 13, 2014 05:16 AM

Quote from: Thor on December 13, 2014 03:23 AM
As someone who works in the video game industry

will this be on your tombstone?

Not that, it'd probably be something a bit more profound like "feeerrrt"

Actually I'll take sausage and caramelized onions OH WHAT A 90s REFERENCE?!

Thanks for the post Thor. I totally agree with your post about minute-to-minute game design and didn't know that it was a word. I had kinda been using the ad hoc phrase "gameplay flow" which probably doesn't mean what I want it to mean. I'll definitely keep what you said in mind.

Also:

QuoteThey wrote down what they wanted the feeling of the game to be for Journey down on a big ol' whiteboard (just a sentence), and whenever they had a question about gameplay or art, they asked themselves if what they were working on helped push towards that thing they wrote down

Can you give an example of what you mean by "feeling"? Like:

"It should be smooth"?

"You should feel very heavy while moving"?

"You should feel like the world is very big"?

Quote from: basketweaver on December 13, 2014 08:07 AM
Can you give an example of what you mean by "feeling"? Like:

"It should be smooth"?

"You should feel very heavy while moving"?

"You should feel like the world is very big"?

This is where I wish I could remember what the lady giving the presentation said exactly. I know I helped shoot a video for that talk so I'll contact a friend who helped organize it to see if that video is online (as my google fu is turning up nothing)

But the "feeling" here is really a very high-level design goal-- these shouldn't directly describe gameplay, but gameplay should help create this. For Journey it could have been something like "Create a sense of wonderment through exploration and cooperation"


Throwing out other examples here: "Create a sense of urgent need and panic through a lack of resources," or "Make the act of building and creating satisfactory," or "Make the player love the light and hate the dark"

Thanks, makes sense.