|
If I kickstart a game, should I start the kickstarter in October or wait until after the holidays? Ugh, paged. My thinking is that October will be fine, it's far enough away that the peasantry will still have money to drop, but I'm sure someone else knows more. If not early October I'd probably wait until late January
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 23:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 14:38 |
|
|
I was curious, out of the thousands of dollars I've dumped into Kickstarter and Shadowrun Returns is probably the most sparse description for anything I've ever backed. But that proposed by Jordan Weisman, the creator of Shadowrun himself so the pedigree sold the game. The Valdis Story Kickstarter was the most impressive from a team of literally 2 people. They had a demo-able product, finished art, and a solidified concept. This is what a Kickstarter should look like from unknowns and I backed it immediately. If you're not at that stage then don't bother, you're wasting your time. Count Uvula posted:If I kickstart a game, should I start the kickstarter in October or wait until after the holidays? I don't know any correlation between Kickstarter success and the date. I would say you should do things in the Fall or Spring because that's when video game news and interest is at its highest. You might get more visible coverage in the Summer but most people don't care about video game news in December or the middle of Summer. al-azad fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Jul 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 23:52
|
|
|
Basically, Kickstarter is not an investor meeting. You can't run up in there and talk about your big plans that you need big money for. And dang I just looked up Night in the Woods and they asked for 50K. Hyper Light Drifter aimed for 27K! How does 95K even come into play as a realistic target?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 00:48
|
|
|
Well, frankly, for what it's worth, I think that most Kickstarters in general severely underestimate the cost of developing games.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 02:28
|
|
|
I posted earlier in the thread about asking for people to test my game. The guys in the IRC already played it, but here you go anyway: http://stompyblondie.itch.io/pixelpics?secret=Xv63oOS1FroCs1stf%2fLubZNsD3Y%3d It's a Nonogram/Picross game. Haven't put the Linux build up yet (as of posting) but if any of you Windows people could tell me if it crashes I'd be very appreciative. mutata posted:Well, frankly, for what it's worth, I think that most Kickstarters in general severely underestimate the cost of developing games. I agree with you. I'm just one person but I don't think I could run a successful Kickstarter that would keep me for a year. Babby Sathanas fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Jul 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 03:18
|
|
|
mutata posted:Well, frankly, for what it's worth, I think that most Kickstarters in general severely underestimate the cost of developing games. I feel like very few people even understand the time and effort it involves to actually develop a game in general.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 04:09
|
|
|
Babby Sathanas posted:I posted earlier in the thread about asking for people to test my game. The guys in the IRC already played it, but here you go anyway: http://stompyblondie.itch.io/pixelpics?secret=Xv63oOS1FroCs1stf%2fLubZNsD3Y%3d It's a Nonogram/Picross game. Doesn't crash, seems fine. Might even buy it when I next have cashmoneys. ToxicSlurpee posted:I feel like very few people even understand the time and effort it involves to actually develop a game in general. Very much so.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 05:04
|
|
|
Count Uvula posted:If I kickstart a game, should I start the kickstarter in October or wait until after the holidays? I wouldn't do it later than October, and I would try very hard to not have it end IN October (because you'd be up against the Steam sale somewhere in there - fine for the middle weeks, BAD NEWS if you're in your final few days). I'd probably have it end on November 7th, or thereabouts.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 05:07
|
|
|
I ran my Kickstarter at like the worst time ever; right before Christmas and right when the PS4 and XBox One released. It still succeeded, so... well that doesn't really tell you anything because there are so many factors, except that it is possible to get a reasonable amount of funds no matter what time of year it is.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 06:44
|
|
|
The Armikrog guys said they regretted having their Kickstarter run through E3. And the last minute push is huge (I think Armikrog got like 40% of its funding in the last 3 days) so you definitely want it to end in the first week of the month when people have money in their pockets.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 08:10
|
|
|
I think cheap kickstarters are usually not looking for their whole budget I think they just need a little polish money. Contract a bit of art or music / sound stuff. Not fundamental development.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 09:04
|
|
|
My kickstarter ended in December. This was a big mistake as I wasn't able to make many/any tax deductible purchases before the year was over. Taxes were not fun. Moving on though, here are some gifs for fun. I'll probably post more tomorrow: a few new ships  
Coldrice fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jul 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 09:22
|
|
|
Coldrice posted:My kickstarter ended in December. This was a big mistake as I wasn't able to make many/any tax deductible purchases before the year was over. Taxes were not fun. Loving that submarine-style ship. Requesting old-school muscle car styled ship.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 10:14
|
|
|
Plenty of useful KS advice here. The goal amount is a funny one, because it seems if you are in any way realistic people back away from the 'crazy high' goal. I guess KS is a means to finish off a game (funding wise) rather than a way to fully fund your idea - unless you are really lucky. It appears kickstarter will be coming to Ireland at some point (no official confirmation or timings yet), so I'll certainly have to think about it for Guild of Dungeoneering (or possibly next-game)
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 11:00
|
|
|
It is? Thats great, I've had friends resort to indiegogo for stuff but it doesn't have the same prestige somehow.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 11:22
|
|
|
JamieTheD posted:Doesn't crash, seems fine. Might even buy it when I next have cashmoneys. Thank you  I appreciate it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 11:30
|
|
|
retro sexual posted:Plenty of useful KS advice here. The goal amount is a funny one, because it seems if you are in any way realistic people back away from the 'crazy high' goal. I guess KS is a means to finish off a game (funding wise) rather than a way to fully fund your idea - unless you are really lucky. If by "fully fund your idea" you mean "go from literally nothing to something" then no, no one is going to give you money unless you're a video game celebrity. Here's another example of a good Kickstarter: Jenny LeClue. I don't know who any of these people are but that pitch video is amazing and the art gives me the impression that they have more than just mockups and conceptual ideas on their plate. Coldrice posted:My kickstarter ended in December. This was a big mistake as I wasn't able to make many/any tax deductible purchases before the year was over. Taxes were not fun. What was your Kickstarter and where can I see more Star Trek Squids?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 12:33
|
|
|
Making a side scrolling beatemup with Shoehead.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 16:35
|
|
|
It's happening!
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 17:15
|
|
|
Shoehead posted:It is? Thats great, I've had friends resort to indiegogo for stuff but it doesn't have the same prestige somehow. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-mims-beginning al-azad posted:What was your Kickstarter and where can I see more Star Trek Squids?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 17:19
|
|
|
Thanks to people from the thread who tested my game, and especially thanks to the IRC chat for testing! I've officially launched my first game anyway - pretty exciting! http://pixelpicsgame.com The first sale was made just before I uploaded a fix that broke an important feature in Windows, so that's hilarious. I've never had to support users before oh no!
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 18:07
|
|
|
poemdexter posted:Making a side scrolling beatemup with Shoehead.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 19:44
|
|
|
That side-scrolling beat-em-up looks really nice. Hell yes, woo!
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
I'm working on a simple platform game on Game Maker. Right now just barebones collision detection and ripped assets. I hope to have slopes tackled real soon.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 20:20
|
|
|
I'm currently working on porting ServiceStack.Text to Unity3d because I'm tired of there being poo poo for json serialization options for Unity and gently caress paying for that Json.Net port. Also, holy gently caress it is so much faster than Json.Net from my testing it's kind of ridiculous. I still need to look into garbage generation and memory utilization though. I just don't feel like shelling out $200 for dotTrace/dotMemory.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 20:32
|
|
|
Seven Force posted:I'm working on a simple platform game on Game Maker. Right now just barebones collision detection and ripped assets. I hope to have slopes tackled real soon. Already pretty much caught up on that $50K kickstarter guy :P
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 20:40
|
|
|
I've been dabbling with Construct 2 for a platformer game I'm developing slowly. I like what it allows me to do and I can see methods of making essentially whatever I want work. The real question is, should I put the time into learning how to do the same in Unity and accept the fact that while I will do this much more slowly, that ultimately it'll give me more control? My rationale for using Construct 2 was that it's got a really useful interface and appears to have all of the necessary tools I need to make my vision into something tangible. Also because of The Iconoclasts being made in its predecessor. For a breakdown in what I'm looking to achieve, it's a movement/exploration based platformer where you explore a crashed alien ship and uncover technologies to help you explore more and more sections. My ideal is to allow for multiple methods of dealing with problems (not infinite solutions, but say you have the high jump instead of the wall crush, you can jump over a wall instead of breaking through another one to get to the same area) so that it handles the idea of total linearity. Weapons are one of 6 kinds and they can be customized as you go through the game, including 2 unique upgrades for each weapon out of a pool of about 7 choices. Ammunition is handled a lot like Mass Effect's heat clips where you can fire until you overheat. The sort of "magic" is in the form of metaphysical manifestations, or as I call it, Metafestations. In lieu of using say, grenades and explosives, I opted to have these metaphysical abilities be the equivalent of them. You can produce a plume of flame to burn organic material that may regenerate to halt your progress, a jolt of electricity to power up a distant console and activate it, a sonic shockwave to shatter certain materials and affect objects through barriers, and create a delayed explosion that you can guide through vents or other small spaces and detonate to destroy hard to reach objects. I thought about using a currency for it, taking notes from the latest castlevania games for 3DS and DS, and I'm still not sure if I want to do that just because of my severe dislike of grinding in that regard. The gameplay is slightly reminiscent of Mega Man X for SNES (or Mega Man Zero for GBA) in that you rely on your movement abilities to avoid damage and overcome obstacles. You still need your extra tools to handle some other things, but the idea is that you become a better player to match your new toys. The player has a quick-recharging armor bar that absorbs damage until it breaks, then you take life damage and if you run out of life that's all folks. Much like Castlevania Symphony of the Night, there is a path that allows the player to play "beyond" the basic ending by collecting a special upgrade that unlocks an entirely new area of the game and a few new tricks (as is the case for most of the Castlevania games where you properly complete some random task or have the right souls equipped). I'm aiming at a ginger pace of maybe 6-9 hours for the first time player without any help, and god only knows how quick I can blast through it otherwise. Sequence breaking isn't necessarily impossible, but as I mentioned before, I'd like people to feel less railroaded and more encouraged to play with their toys to find alternate paths. The game contains two central "hub" like areas, one at a time (as one gets destroyed fairly early in the game) which allow you to switch out weapons, upgrades, and check information on files you find throughout the game. You have a slight "guide" that helps you through parts of the game in the form of letting you know where particular collectables are located within the ship. He functions as more of a task manager than a narrator though. There are small cutscenes that let you know things are happening alongside your actions but actual story saturation is rather low. The end of the game features more plot explanation and twists (really only three twists, I can tell you if you'd really like). Working title is "Junktown" but that's always up to be changed based on what I find I like more and more as development continues. I have a GDD started and am adding to it. All of the ideas are in my head and it's just a matter of transcribing it into the document. I'm planning on doing the coding, art, and concept on my own and asking a friend to do sound. I've checked into nearly everything I need to try in Construct 2 and I don't see anything I can't do with it. I read earlier that if it works, do it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 22:03
|
|
|
retro sexual posted:Already pretty much caught up on that $50K kickstarter guy :P Great. $5000k stretch goal will have him interact with damage blocks.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 23:27
|
|
|
Pretty much the last version of Gunnihilation's Flash prototype: Finally got rid of the hideous old crosshair, dimmed ragdolls and backgrounds so they don't hide important stuff, playing with a simpler status bar and enabled some more test levels with the City tile set too. If you'd like to give it a try: http://zealousquakefan.com/games/rng/play.php I've started rebuilding it in Unity:  So far it's been okay. Was initially confusing trying to recreate Box2D's Presolve behaviour. I'm assuming that you can't get this in Unity because the performance hit for calling C# from the physics solver would be too great? I not looking forward to working on the visuals. I'm so used to blitting and know nothing of all these 3D meshes with their materials and draw calls and batching etc. Unity does make me more tempted to try some game Jams, since it is so easy to chuck stuff in and get things bouncing around Not really a game yet, but uploaded it for giggles. Sweeping ragdolls around is quite fun. http://zealousquakefan.com/games/rng/gunn2084web.html
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 00:59
|
|
|
I've put some time of my own into a small Construct2 powered Metroidvania-like. The engine is really powerful and I continually find new things to do or more efficient ways to do other things. I'd advise that I had to use a custom player movement plugin because the default one doesn't support variable jumping (tapping button for a small jump, holding for a higher jump) but maybe the official plugin will include that at some point. For now I'd advise that you start a pretty basic project and slowly branch it out. For me I started on some basics like player movement, a basic enemy or two, and some rough combat system and then I worked on getting the player movement feeling tight. I spent dozens of hours with just one screen as a test bed for new ideas. Some things worked, and other ideas I had from the beginning turned out to be not fun. For a game like this I'd try to focus on making a small demo to see if the concepts work. Plan out a simple goal and try to accomplish that before making the final game right from the start. I personally planned out about 12 connected rooms with a few different enemies and traps to fill them, a couple of upgrades to collect that finally allow access to a boss. Once you've made that and tweaked it to the point of feeling good, it's much easier to start branching the game out.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 02:15
|
|
|
Fina posted:I've put some time of my own into a small Construct2 powered Metroidvania-like. The engine is really powerful and I continually find new things to do or more efficient ways to do other things. I'd advise that I had to use a custom player movement plugin because the default one doesn't support variable jumping (tapping button for a small jump, holding for a higher jump) but maybe the official plugin will include that at some point. Oh absolutely, as I've been going I make small example versions of everything I wanna do. I have a working model with rapid fire, charge fire, alternate fire, double jump, and hanging from ceilings that work nicely. Doing custom movement is already pretty simple, in fact I learned a good amount about it through implementing a double jump. I was looking up how to get a push sensitive jump and that was my next project to work on. Between updating the game document and making small versions of working models, I've been handling my newborn son as well. So hence the slow process. I'm thinking I'll probably produce a cohesive demo version that uses all of the main mechanics and ends with a boss fight, then work on modules. Thankfully the general concept for the game is already completely thought out. It's a quasi-futuristic setting (think Alien style future) with some post apocalyptic tidbits. If I had to describe it, it would be mega man x in a borderlands/fallout setting.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 03:36
|
|
|
I just completed my first game, Six Chamber Hoedown! I made it for Insanity Jam 2, based on a random prompt: "A twin joystick game where you obey the loudest wasteful gunfighters." It's a game inspired by those scenes in old Westerns where a guy shoots at another guy's feet and orders him to dance, except stretched out for the entire length of a (badly-composed) song. Took me about ten days to make, but you can play the whole thing in under a minute. It's really nothing new, design-wise. Mostly just me learning how to use Game Maker.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 04:34
|
|
|
I don't know if it's just my computer or what, but the game started out at a slow pace and just got slower and slower, and slower. This made the game extremely easy. There was also no music playing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 07:44
|
|
|
I haven't been in this thread in months and I don't know why. You folks are all doing some pretty drat spiffy things! In the last couple of weeks I've been working on a simple tile matching game inspired by a game called "LYNE." I just released a prototype and would love some feedback. [link] (fixed the link) D_W fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Jul 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 13:28
|
|
|
So I went to my first "at a location" Game Jam this weekend, the Indie Galatic Game Jam, centered around space and space education. http://itch.io/jam/indiegalactic#entries. I, of course, helped make a dating sim where an astronaut dates the planet Mars, called Astronaut No Baka. http://lockemurph.itch.io/astronaut-no-baka  a..as..Astronaut-sempai!
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 22:38
|
|
|
It's been ages since I posted in here, and same with being in IRC. Feels weird. A few months ago I had some issues pop up in my personal life. poo poo got crazy and gamedev stopped dead. Then a guy I was working with bailed on me and that killed the project completely. It sucked, but I had stuff going on so I didn't worry about it. Last night (well, a few nights running now) I had time and wanted to get into it again on a project, but I can't for the life of me get motivated or inspired. And I've found that the time away has ruined my already sub standard (but passable) ability to code, which has left me even more deflated. Has anybody experienced this, and if so, how did you get passed it? I'm so keen to start, yet... nothing. And I'm not sure how to tackle it at all. I know a small project might be the way to go, and yet everything I come with doesn't motivate me at all. Is it a case of "just do it?" or should I just keep baking ideas until something feels right? This feels decidedly EN, but I'm hoping somebody in here has faced a similar issue, and might be able to point me in the right direction.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 09:06
|
|
|
I have two things I usually do when that happens. The first is to sit down and force myself to code something. It doesn't really matter what it is that I work on, and even if I only work on it for a fraction of the time I normally would in a day, I do a little bit of coding over a few days. It seems like that helps it catch my attention and I work my way back up to the amount of time I was spending on it before. The second is usually for when I left something large and complex half finished. I pick something else, smaller and easier to wrap my head around, and work on that for a few days. If I feel like I've got the juices flowing again after that, I go back to my bigger half finished feature. But really the biggest thing is probably to just work on something and not worry about how long you've been away. It'll come back pretty fast once you actually get started again.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 09:52
|
|
|
I love making textures and bespoke 'assets' from scratch. I've only really modded for crappy MDickie games and am looking to get my feet wet. I downloaded Game maker on steam and will give that a go, I'd love to make a Wrestling/Jurassic Park related project but we'll see. Is game maker pretty good, I see that a few people have said it can potentially promote bad habits (e.g the Drag and drop system). I'm not at any stage to even comprehend a potential product, I've never programmed anything short of one shockwave/flash project back in college. In an ideal world I'd love to work in a team and make stuff relevant to my interests but I'm feeling going solo is the way to go for now, here's a few of my texture works. A 2D project sounds delightful and I have no problem creating assets, in actual fact it's my favourite thing to do come to think of it!    G.Maker - Good for someone like me to start?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 14:25
|
|
|
simosimo posted:I love making textures and bespoke 'assets' from scratch. I've only really modded for crappy MDickie games and am looking to get my feet wet. I downloaded Game maker on steam and will give that a go, I'd love to make a Wrestling/Jurassic Park related project but we'll see. Either GM or Unity are both great places to start. Game Maker has an easier learning curve, but has some limits on what you can pull off, but for 2D it would be fine. Just try and avoid 3D in it. Unity will take longer to learn, but is VERY worth it. You can then go on to change every aspect of your game, and then move into 3D later on in life and not have to worry about relearning loads of stuff. Fiddle with both, see what you like more.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 14:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 14:38 |
|
|
Sounds good, I just want an outlet for my graphics. Even a top down Jurassic park project where a car goes along the track, and you can see the ground move. Baby steps Are the terms/languages interchangeable in the gaming/programming world. If I learn things in Game Maker can I take that knowledge with me to another program (e.g Unity). Sort of like going from Paint shop pro to Photoshop, a jpeg is a jpeg.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 15:05
|
|