Fancy Skulls - development diary, entry number 1
Look, I am a real indie game developer! And all because I do computer games.
For more than a year now I've been working on Fancy Skulls , a first-person shooter with random level generation and permanent death, it's easier to say that this is a bagel shooter.
I will talk about what I have already done, what I learned, and what I am going to do next. Maybe it would be worth waiting for the game to be over and write a post-mortem, but then I’ll forget something and be lazy about something, and it’s like a show. What is all over? Will my game in Steam get through Greenlight and thanks to this in a dress coat and a monocle in my left eye, will I be walking along Nevsky Prospect in lacquered slippers with white gavels? If so, how and when? What are gaiters? Stay with us and you will find out.
What I have done.
I made a game that is in an earlier version. Probably somewhere between alpha and beta.
It has
In the amount of 135. That's it.
')
The gameplay goes like this: at the level there are several rooms when the player enters the room the doors are closed, then after some player action from the eggs that stand in the room the opponents "hatch". When they are all killed, the doors open. The emphasis in the game is not so much on the reaction and speed as on tactics - the opponents are different and you need to choose someone to kill before someone later. The same weapon can be modified, for example, to make the machine gun shoot mini-bombs with velcro, a shotgun with lightning, and a revolver would give a coin after 12 hits on opponents in a row without a miss. Well, items that add abilities like polymorph, or flight.
Here, for example letsplay , one of the previous versions.
In October 2012, I began leading a blog on TIGsource , an indie developers forum, where you can see how the game has changed over time. I started working on the game a little earlier.
Now I sell the game through the Humble Widget on the game page , which looks like this:
From the moment of release in mid-August 2013 to today (January 24, 2014), 139 copies were purchased from the site (gross - $ 1 273.04).
The store IndieGamesStand 12 copies (gross $ 76.88)
Pay what you want deal December 2-5 on the same IndieGamesStand, 1,043 copies (gross $ 1,490.65)
Gross - excluding VAT, distributor fees and payment systems.
Nothing that would make someone whistle and start to envy, yes. Why so?
First of all, the game is still in development, so I didn’t lean much on marketing. But I didn’t completely neglect them either, of course. I sent a bunch of keys for the game to different YouTube that make short “first look” reviews. The result is such a list . In the gaming press, I also almost did not write.
There are practically no permanent years of playplay, which I think is very important nowadays to draw attention to the game, especially this kind - the game that is meant to be played many times, it becomes better to play differently, because things change, how levels are built, opponents.
The reason is the same - it’s not quite ready to play, and despite the fact that the reviews are generally positive, I think that we need to improve the dynamics and make the game more exciting, which I am working on right now.
Another difficulty - despite the fact that when I started developing any FPS roguelike was not in sight, except that a couple of abandoned or protracted projects) now their pond (Paranautical Activity, Tower Of Guns, Eldrich, Heavy Bullets, Rogue Shooter, etc.). We are tweeting with some developers and they are great guys. But I sometimes feel sad about the fact that I didn’t work faster and more and didn’t release Fancy Skulls before they played their games, because then everything could have been a little different. Despite the fact that my game is different from them, and no one blames me for plagiarism, every time I hear “Paranautical Activity” in the review I sigh heavily.
But, I am not going to give in and I think, having put enough efforts, I can make the game excellent and successful.
What i learned
I mean, as an indie developer in general, and not just on this project.
The most important skills are the skills to work and learn. What is funny about this, it seems, is that where little is taught. This is more important than the ability to write code, draw, model. They are not afraid to make a mistake, to experiment, not to give up when everything turns out badly, to acquire new skills. Continue to work on the project, when there is a bug in it, which is unclear what it is why, why why aaaaa, why I do all this.
If you know how to write code for a game does not automatically mean that you can write it.
These are separate topics, but at a glance what I consider the most important is that in order to learn you need to do many small projects, they are not afraid that in the beginning they will turn out to be not so good. Tolerate and keep doing. Sooner or later it will turn out well.
To work, that lists, to break into small subtasks, even smaller, until the task ceases to frighten. Cross out and get pleasure from it.
A game with excellent gameplay but without any animations and effects at all will attract less attention than a game in which everything is polished and sticks, responds to every player action and looks delicious, but the game mechanics are rather weak. Video on the topic .
Marketing and PR is very important. And it becomes more important. Now we are watching indie boom. Perhaps even your mother in the evenings indulges in a game maker. And all the more difficult to stand out among the masses of games. Even in the Steam now comes out a few games a day. Simply put, if you just make a cool game, but do not make an effort to show it and hand it to the players - it is likely that no one will know about it! Doing this you need to start the sooner the better. Show cool screenshots, start a blog, send an alpha version to YouTube (this is of course not for all games).
YouTubeers and streamers (those who broadcast the game online) are now very popular and thanks to them the game can get a greater share of attention. There is also a feeling that they are becoming more significant than the “traditional press”, especially if we consider that if they write about the game once on the site, the series of flysplays will remind about it.
Twitter can be very useful both for communicating with other developers simply to support the type of question-answers and jokes, as well as a way to tell about your game (also see the #screenshotsaturday hashtag). Thanks to twitter, I took part in the sale of NotOnSteam, which I wrote about on Habré. Also, quite recently, I saw a humble account tweet about various games with their widget lately, and asked them to tweet about my game - the result of about 800 visits and 14 sales on this and next days, there was zero on the previous day of sales.
Also reddit - in addition to all sorts of different posts that you can think up, there is also a weekly post Screenshot Saturday in r / gamedev, which can also attract attention if you have cool screenshots (especially GIF) and post them too late.
I also recorded a couple of annals of my game to show and tell it. To do this, I spent some time recording the game in Spelunky with comments. This is not easy for a number of reasons - you need to learn to play and say something meaningful, it was necessary to overcome the constraint on how your own voice sounds in the recording and on what I say with an accent, as well as solve a number of technical issues - how to record and how to record to be heard. But, it was quite fascinating.
Also, the best advice from different smart people about how to make games and not games, I gathered on this page (English), but there are translations: Manifest indie developers written by Edmund Macmillen (Super Meat Boy, Binding of Isaac, Gish ) , About finishing games, Derek Yu (Spelunky)
But, from time to time, I get a feeling that I have no idea what I'm doing. But, I heard that this is normal.
What am I going to do next
To continue to improve the game, namely, to add surprises, now the game can be monotonous, modify the visual, slowly add content. I hear feedback from the players, I do it carefully, because players can usually point out the weak points correctly, but rarely can they understand what the problem is and how to fix it. And sometimes they jump straight to suggestions about what needs to be changed, and you need to understand what the original reason for these wishes is.
I'm going to post the game in some other shops soon. Humble promised to take the game in the Humble store, but the date is not yet known. I think about Desura, Greenman Gaming and Gamer's Gate. I also wrote off with GOG.com, but they said to contact them when the game is closer to the release, because they do not publish games with “early access”.
Well, in the future, I certainly want to see my game on Steam. To do this, go through Greenlight , a system in which you need to collect enough votes from existing users. Recently, endorse games have become large lots, so it is somewhat easier. Valve plans to abandon Greenlight in the future and make Steam more open. Then they will probably have to solve the problem of the visibility of games, because if earlier it was worth the game to go out in Steam - and she already had a huge audience. Now, as I mentioned the games coming out more and more attention, each game gets less. But, the game in Steam still means lack of financial worries for a long time. Especially after participating in sales.
But the gaiters are such fastened lining on the shoes initially to protect it, but then they were worn because it became fashionable.
I hope all this will seem interesting to someone, despite some confusion of presentation.
If you have suggestions for the next note or questions - write in the comments.
Update: since the topic was transferred to “I am PR”, I declare directly, I will be very grateful to the votes:
For more than a year now I've been working on Fancy Skulls , a first-person shooter with random level generation and permanent death, it's easier to say that this is a bagel shooter.
I will talk about what I have already done, what I learned, and what I am going to do next. Maybe it would be worth waiting for the game to be over and write a post-mortem, but then I’ll forget something and be lazy about something, and it’s like a show. What is all over? Will my game in Steam get through Greenlight and thanks to this in a dress coat and a monocle in my left eye, will I be walking along Nevsky Prospect in lacquered slippers with white gavels? If so, how and when? What are gaiters? Stay with us and you will find out.
What I have done.
I made a game that is in an earlier version. Probably somewhere between alpha and beta.
It has
- 17 upgrade items
- 16 items with spells
- 7 types of weapons
- 65 mods for weapons
- 14 types of opponents
- 16 kinds of strange trees
In the amount of 135. That's it.
')
The gameplay goes like this: at the level there are several rooms when the player enters the room the doors are closed, then after some player action from the eggs that stand in the room the opponents "hatch". When they are all killed, the doors open. The emphasis in the game is not so much on the reaction and speed as on tactics - the opponents are different and you need to choose someone to kill before someone later. The same weapon can be modified, for example, to make the machine gun shoot mini-bombs with velcro, a shotgun with lightning, and a revolver would give a coin after 12 hits on opponents in a row without a miss. Well, items that add abilities like polymorph, or flight.
Here, for example letsplay , one of the previous versions.
In October 2012, I began leading a blog on TIGsource , an indie developers forum, where you can see how the game has changed over time. I started working on the game a little earlier.
Now I sell the game through the Humble Widget on the game page , which looks like this:
Note about the widget
Getting it was not so easy, I sent three emails to Humble support before I was answered. Now, after the opening of the Humble Store , a page appeared in the certificate , where the forms that need to be filled out are indicated.
Before I received this wonderful widget, I used BMT micro. The widget is better because, in the first place, it is much easier to generate review codes, in the second, it has more confidence, few people know what the Humble Bundle is. The only minus of Humble is that new versions should be sent by mail and wait until they are uploaded to the server.
Before I received this wonderful widget, I used BMT micro. The widget is better because, in the first place, it is much easier to generate review codes, in the second, it has more confidence, few people know what the Humble Bundle is. The only minus of Humble is that new versions should be sent by mail and wait until they are uploaded to the server.
From the moment of release in mid-August 2013 to today (January 24, 2014), 139 copies were purchased from the site (gross - $ 1 273.04).
The store IndieGamesStand 12 copies (gross $ 76.88)
Pay what you want deal December 2-5 on the same IndieGamesStand, 1,043 copies (gross $ 1,490.65)
Gross - excluding VAT, distributor fees and payment systems.
Nothing that would make someone whistle and start to envy, yes. Why so?
First of all, the game is still in development, so I didn’t lean much on marketing. But I didn’t completely neglect them either, of course. I sent a bunch of keys for the game to different YouTube that make short “first look” reviews. The result is such a list . In the gaming press, I also almost did not write.
There are practically no permanent years of playplay, which I think is very important nowadays to draw attention to the game, especially this kind - the game that is meant to be played many times, it becomes better to play differently, because things change, how levels are built, opponents.
The reason is the same - it’s not quite ready to play, and despite the fact that the reviews are generally positive, I think that we need to improve the dynamics and make the game more exciting, which I am working on right now.
Another difficulty - despite the fact that when I started developing any FPS roguelike was not in sight, except that a couple of abandoned or protracted projects) now their pond (Paranautical Activity, Tower Of Guns, Eldrich, Heavy Bullets, Rogue Shooter, etc.). We are tweeting with some developers and they are great guys. But I sometimes feel sad about the fact that I didn’t work faster and more and didn’t release Fancy Skulls before they played their games, because then everything could have been a little different. Despite the fact that my game is different from them, and no one blames me for plagiarism, every time I hear “Paranautical Activity” in the review I sigh heavily.
But, I am not going to give in and I think, having put enough efforts, I can make the game excellent and successful.
What i learned
I mean, as an indie developer in general, and not just on this project.
The most important skills are the skills to work and learn. What is funny about this, it seems, is that where little is taught. This is more important than the ability to write code, draw, model. They are not afraid to make a mistake, to experiment, not to give up when everything turns out badly, to acquire new skills. Continue to work on the project, when there is a bug in it, which is unclear what it is why, why why aaaaa, why I do all this.
If you know how to write code for a game does not automatically mean that you can write it.
These are separate topics, but at a glance what I consider the most important is that in order to learn you need to do many small projects, they are not afraid that in the beginning they will turn out to be not so good. Tolerate and keep doing. Sooner or later it will turn out well.
To work, that lists, to break into small subtasks, even smaller, until the task ceases to frighten. Cross out and get pleasure from it.
A game with excellent gameplay but without any animations and effects at all will attract less attention than a game in which everything is polished and sticks, responds to every player action and looks delicious, but the game mechanics are rather weak. Video on the topic .
Marketing and PR is very important. And it becomes more important. Now we are watching indie boom. Perhaps even your mother in the evenings indulges in a game maker. And all the more difficult to stand out among the masses of games. Even in the Steam now comes out a few games a day. Simply put, if you just make a cool game, but do not make an effort to show it and hand it to the players - it is likely that no one will know about it! Doing this you need to start the sooner the better. Show cool screenshots, start a blog, send an alpha version to YouTube (this is of course not for all games).
YouTubeers and streamers (those who broadcast the game online) are now very popular and thanks to them the game can get a greater share of attention. There is also a feeling that they are becoming more significant than the “traditional press”, especially if we consider that if they write about the game once on the site, the series of flysplays will remind about it.
Note about YouTube
Now those who make gaming videos on YouTube have difficult times, because Google has gone crazy and constantly turns off the monetization of the video due to claims that almost anyone can put up, the system works automatically, it can be challenged, but there are cases when the developers video about their own game was marked as copyright violation because of the music. Therefore, now developers specifically indicate that they allow to monetize their games. However, this does not always help.
Twitter can be very useful both for communicating with other developers simply to support the type of question-answers and jokes, as well as a way to tell about your game (also see the #screenshotsaturday hashtag). Thanks to twitter, I took part in the sale of NotOnSteam, which I wrote about on Habré. Also, quite recently, I saw a humble account tweet about various games with their widget lately, and asked them to tweet about my game - the result of about 800 visits and 14 sales on this and next days, there was zero on the previous day of sales.
Also reddit - in addition to all sorts of different posts that you can think up, there is also a weekly post Screenshot Saturday in r / gamedev, which can also attract attention if you have cool screenshots (especially GIF) and post them too late.
I also recorded a couple of annals of my game to show and tell it. To do this, I spent some time recording the game in Spelunky with comments. This is not easy for a number of reasons - you need to learn to play and say something meaningful, it was necessary to overcome the constraint on how your own voice sounds in the recording and on what I say with an accent, as well as solve a number of technical issues - how to record and how to record to be heard. But, it was quite fascinating.
Also, the best advice from different smart people about how to make games and not games, I gathered on this page (English), but there are translations: Manifest indie developers written by Edmund Macmillen (Super Meat Boy, Binding of Isaac, Gish ) , About finishing games, Derek Yu (Spelunky)
But, from time to time, I get a feeling that I have no idea what I'm doing. But, I heard that this is normal.
What am I going to do next
To continue to improve the game, namely, to add surprises, now the game can be monotonous, modify the visual, slowly add content. I hear feedback from the players, I do it carefully, because players can usually point out the weak points correctly, but rarely can they understand what the problem is and how to fix it. And sometimes they jump straight to suggestions about what needs to be changed, and you need to understand what the original reason for these wishes is.
I'm going to post the game in some other shops soon. Humble promised to take the game in the Humble store, but the date is not yet known. I think about Desura, Greenman Gaming and Gamer's Gate. I also wrote off with GOG.com, but they said to contact them when the game is closer to the release, because they do not publish games with “early access”.
Well, in the future, I certainly want to see my game on Steam. To do this, go through Greenlight , a system in which you need to collect enough votes from existing users. Recently, endorse games have become large lots, so it is somewhat easier. Valve plans to abandon Greenlight in the future and make Steam more open. Then they will probably have to solve the problem of the visibility of games, because if earlier it was worth the game to go out in Steam - and she already had a huge audience. Now, as I mentioned the games coming out more and more attention, each game gets less. But, the game in Steam still means lack of financial worries for a long time. Especially after participating in sales.
But the gaiters are such fastened lining on the shoes initially to protect it, but then they were worn because it became fashionable.
I hope all this will seem interesting to someone, despite some confusion of presentation.
If you have suggestions for the next note or questions - write in the comments.
Update: since the topic was transferred to “I am PR”, I declare directly, I will be very grateful to the votes:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/210138/
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