ID:1810938
 Mar 15 2015, 4:48 pm
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I think I am seeing lots of teams and lots of people wanting to complete a big game and even possibly get it on Steam. Is that true? If so, why did only 1-2 or so video games actually make it on Steam? And how many games were actually completed out of how many teams were worked on? And how many games actually made money? The thing is I see a lot of failed projects on here. I am contacted a lot when I want to work for a team or for a single person. I want to work for money, so I shouldn't work for a team promising money only after the game makes it as only few teams succeed at it?
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Okay how can teams actually SUCCEED? I hate seeing so many aspiring teams/leaders fail at their own projects. What does it take to succeed?
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Good organization, attainable goals, bringing aboard the right people for the right jobs, and preventing interpersonal conflict between team members.
Not only that, but a good team feeds off one anothers' energy/enthusiasm. If you have even one negative/mean-spirited person on the team, it can cause the whole team's morale to come crashing down. The biggest part for being successful is realistic and attainable goals. If you set the scope of your project too big, you are increasing the odds for failure. If you set goals that aren't within your team members' ability to attain, you are going to be setting yourself up for failure. If you bring on team members that aren't willing to learn and try new things, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you bring on people that are unskilled or have a bad attitude, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you can't self-criticize and realistically judge your ability vs your goals, you are setting yourself up for failure. If your project isn't well thought out and well organized, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you aren't immensely lucky, you will fail anyway. The best thing you can do to ensure that your team won't fail? Don't fail your team. In the event of failure? Learn from your mistakes and don't give up. | |
Funny I have been watching this and other Extra Credits videos. I make games too but my scope is almost always way too big. I need to learn this better.
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I think it's okay if the scope is large. As an mmo you want to work towards large goals and large amounts of content. But you definatley shouldnt release it like so. Your first entry should be limited to a number of goals and than add on during release.
Organization is the biggest key. What is your game doing? What is it trying to acheive? Do you have the ambition to make this work without monetary gain? Basically you can't just be concerned about money, it shows your lack of motivation or passion towards a product. Without passion you aren't going to get far. You should take bussiness risks and not play it safe with only monetizing products. I go to school, am a manager and making my game. I am fully aware my game could make nothing despite all the work I put into it, and you should be aware of that reality as well. I'm solo so I've never had to work with a teams but ter covered that. Though psychology is my field of study so it's not like I wouldn't know how but ter did a good job in explaining that. I personally just didn't want team members to change my vision. Also confidence. You need to be able to have confidence in your ability and ignore the Internet haters. Make the game you want and have fun. Though I focused on individual characteristic, you should want a team who all shares these I think at least. | |
Also don't make a large team. A sprite game Id say 1-2 makes for your first project. Maybe once you get the hang of it add 2 more. But don't hire or work with 20 people. I've seen this done before. I'd say a sprite game should never have more than 4 people unless it's triple A
edit: just look at hello games. 4 people and their making the most expansive game to ever be created. | |
If you can't complete a small mini-game, don't even attempt a medium-sized game. Get that through your head early on.
Go ahead and just try making the most polished, beautiful, and fun mini-game ever. I did this a while back to prove my point to someone that I can "indeed" make a game with ease. It was a 3D project with nothing but cubes. Cubes everywhere. And their colors and physics is what got the few people I let play it to love it so much and want more levels. The game mechanics? Simple. Move with WASD or arrow keys. Avoid enemy cubes that move in a path. Reach the goal cube. Repeat on the next map. Not only that, I made a map creator. So, you can make your own levels. There could have been more content. But, it was a GIAD project. I wasn't going to waste time on a project I didn't have a strong love for. -- With these small and beautiful games, you can do what Ter has said. Make a portfolio. That's exactly what I am working on right now. Making "a lot" of small games and picking the ones that will explicitly represent my skills as a developer. This includes my skills with art/sound/design and not just programming. As well as my ability to work with others. If you can't make a game by yourself, and only by yourself, don't expect to make one with someone else. Give it a try. Start small and grow big. | |
A lot of BYOND games suffered from a terminal case of setting the bar too high and announcing themselves to the community way too early.
We can learn a lot from the successes that BYOND already has which deploy this sort of sleeper shark mentality, where they put in a simple core loop of actions for the players to do and progress, it is a highly efficient and highly do-able methodology. This core loop is fleshed out with as little obsession over detail as possible and only the most game breaking problems get looked at again. The numbers do exist and if you do the maths, you will find that the perfect BYOND game formula is; 1 unisex base sprite, 2 transformations, 4 funny coloured races, 6 player classes, 8 different hairstyles, 10 equippable items, 12 unique player skills and 14 enemies. The 4 races will always use the same base with different colouring. The 6 classes will be based on obscure concepts that people will never have seen put together before such as Reaver, Deceiver, Non-believer, Freezer, Griever and Beaver. Of course, that example would only truly shine in a dark game. The 10 equippable items should be Boots, T-shirt, Pants, Coat, Bandana, Wings, Sword(always on your back), Ninja Scarf, Shoulder pads and Sunglasses. These may come in re-coloured versions with altered stats however. The 12 unique skills will be things that are easily reused and renamed for use on multiple classes, an example would be the Deceiver's "Stealth" ability doubling as the Beaver's "Burrow" ability and the Non-believers "Invoke Revolt" skill being the same thing as the Griever's "Summon Haters" ability. The 14 enemies will be things like Slimes and Rabbits, which are simple to sprite, as well as humanoid enemies like Outworlders, which just use same base sprite as the player. These can also be re-coloured for stronger versions to imply more content. The 2 transformations available will increase your stats and can do any one of the following; make an aura around you which comes in a variety of colours, give you white wings, give you black wings, leave fire where you walk. A big giant frog that only has 1 south facing idle state, who tells you where to go sometimes would also be pretty good and a brilliant name for your game such as Legalolz Online is crucial. | |
I forgot the most important thing, a 4000x4000 map to give the impression of a highly expansive world to explore.
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Cranimus wrote:
...and announcing themselves to the community way too early. One thing I've been taught in terms of everything you do, "Never tell people what you are going to do. Just do it. Otherwise, they'll either do it before you or ruin your chances of doing it." People apparently get a kick out of either putting you down, degrading you and ruining your chances at any form of success, or stealing your ideas and making them their own. It's an odd world we live is. But, this is something to follow. Now, I'm not saying don't announce things at all until you're done. What I'm actually saying is don't announce an idea. Announce a creation. And continue announcing after every big update to your creation. It creates a fan-base to help prepare for the the day that you actually need people to play and advertise for you. And this form of advertisement will create a ripple-effect. It's free, effective, and nobody is forced to do anything. They talk about something they love in such a way that they express their love for it and get other people to do the same. How big the ripple becomes is up to you and your connections with your fan-base. | |
I'm sorry if some people missed the point I was making as it may have sounded too cynical when really I was simply listing what has worked for BYOND games in the past, with a distinct lean towards implied content and economical decision making.
This was not to insult the games here but to simply point out that if a team did fail, it was probably because they were not economical, they went too far out of their comfort zone and their motivation faltered at unreasonable goals, which at the first few lines of code seemed like no big deelz. Take a look at mobile phone games or even facebook games as examples instead then, you will find that they are often very economical and yet are insanely popular with players who are highly addicted to the core loop, such as clicking patches of dirt to water them, or trying to line up 3 of the same fruit. I'm not saying you need to be bloodsucking scumbags like them, but that as long as you give players; 1) a bit of customization. Which is most of what my previous post talked about, if you did those things and put it all together you would have a tonne of different looking and skilled characters walking around. 2) the ability to interact with other players that goes beyond just chatting to eachother. This could be partying up to help eachother in a game with quests, PVP in a heavily action oriented game, Trading in a game that relies mostly on collecting or crafting. Other people are the factor that make doing the same thing fun and unique each time, the same thing applies to going down the pub. 3) something for the player to achieve or aspire to. Since BYOND is all about MMO style gameplay, they would be the best places to look, usually it involves trying to get the ultimate items by running the same 7 dungeons everyday until you have enough super currency to just buy it all from the vendor. By all means tweak the formula, but don't go too far all at once. Atmosphere and style are the most important factors that seperate your game from the rest. I really just want to see another golden age for BYOND but without the licensing issues this time around and with the webclient on its way, it would be even better this time. | |
I didn't think you sounded cynical. Maybe a bit sarcastic in some areas.
Though I am trying to make my game in the direction you are saying. Though with my own style, and just a lot of stuff from other games I have found fun. Xirre: I find the community too niche. Not many have even the knowledge to do things I can do with dream maker and I'm not even close to the best. Plus if your idea was truly good people wouldn't be able to mimick it. That's how I at least see it or probably wouldn't have the same passion as you to keep mimicking it. Though I revealed what I think a very good interface to interact with npcs and no ones bothered to copy that even though it only took me a few hours to do. Most games don't bother to do more than the tab system for there interface, even sadly the most popular ones. Then there are some games like "rise of the Pirates" which was so close, so close to a good game(it is a good game I played it a lot). They just needed more content and it was a bit too monetary. There needs to be money made but also you shouldn't have too pay to get good enough drops to level. With enough adjustments and content it could I think have gotten really popular. But than the creator just gave up for reasons I am not aware of. | |
Most hobby game projects EVERYWHERE fail. BYOND is not unique in this respect. It's just part of the trade.
If you want to freelance for even a decent amount of money, you are going to need to build up an impressive portfolio and you are going to want to get your name out there. When you get good, and you get well known, people start bringing paid work to you.