Oh a suggestion.

Can you point out the fact that $10,000 worth of subscriptions didn't happen in a week, month, or even a few years? It took you a few games and persistence to get to that point.

Most people trying to market the game will not see that figure unless they devote as much time as you did. They can see some decent profit tho.

Ten grand in three weeks is certainly a good accomplishment. It's no trivial amount of pocket money, that's for sure.

I could use ten grand a year form now. I could use ten grand now. Hell, ten grand at any point would probably be useful.

But even still, that's not enough to motivate me to really start thinking about really serious development. The kind where you plan your game, write story lines and other such things.

I do have an idea, a small niggling that I don't think I've seen done in an MORPG before, or if it has, not well enough to grab my attention. I'd like to try it, but it'd cost a fair bit of money in the short term, and I don't trust myself to make that money back in the long term unfortunately.

Given my time restraints, I could probably pull something off in five or six years. But I do literally only have one day a week which I could dedicate to it, and it's safety is on the whims of people who may just unexpectedly drop by for a visit/LAN party.

Yes, it is.

By associating themselves with a popular IP, DBZ/Naruto/Final Fantasy fan games on BYOND are automatically having players funneled their way.

Given the minuscule "market share" that Final Fantasy holds on BYOND, I can't help but assume this is directed at me. Rest assured, I have been in the process of converting FFO into an original game for over 2 years. (Am I the only one here who still adheres to BYOND's admonition to NOT announce your games before they are ready?)

The Final Fantasy games on BYOND tend to be fairly decent, generally better than most fangames. (Silk, I sent you an email but my Thunderbird has been acting goofy so I'm not sure if it actually sent or not.)

AlEcyler wrote:

So I'm studying now and trying to program my own game. A bit curious as to hold long it took you to get yours out, what your design process looked like.

My first game ever took me about 2 weeks. It was something that I coded piece by piece as I learned, and the first release was very basic and buggy. That said, it felt amazing to make something that (kind of) worked and to see people play it.

The best way to learn is by doing. To start, design an incredibly simple game with no glitz or glam and force yourself to learn as you go along. BYOND has a very intuitive and easy to use language, but as with any language there is definitely a bit of a learning curve and it's easy to get discouraged. The best way to avoid that is to start small and give yourself incremental goals to work towards.

That's my design process: outlining everything, but setting small and manageable goals for myself. My motto is "don't over complicate things". Don't set out to create a game with 100 different types of monsters and 20 different character classes. Instead create a game with 3 character classes and 10 different monsters - you can always expand it later on.


AlEcyler wrote:

It'll take me a bit, since it's just me, but I look forward to being some healthy competition for you!

I look forward to it! I would love to see more motivated game developers on this site working hard and taking pride in their projects.

I love this article and I've always wanted to make my own game but what if i wanted to make a game based off a anime.
I mean I'm creative but I've always wanted to see the "Dot hack//" series become a glimmer of reality.
I plan to make my own game with my own original design and idea but i want to get as good as i am in pixel art as i want to be in programming.

Also NEStalgia is awesome , how to see many more updates and success.

I'd like to personally say that I was wrong to randomly barrage/slander you, and apologize for doing so.

Great article, also! You've seemed to perfected writing hooks.

PS: Some people have taken one look at Byond and thought its games were unprofessional and dumb from an outside glance. What you've done is automatically given us an opportunity to show what popular of a game that this site has, being featured on all of these different sites. Personally, I don't very much enjoy turn-based fighting games such as Pokemon or NEStalgia.

I know this is a tad late, but IF planning really does make a huge difference, expect friendly competition. I mean, I'd probably already be successful if I tried. The only reason I never tried was that mature byond members were to stretched out. Now that I know I'm one of larger numbers than I thought, I may try to compete.

Congratulations!

Interesting to drop back in on BYOND and see that this happened. :) I do believe you've missed a point, though I thought you were about to hit on it when you mentioned beating the fan games at their own... um, game.

That is, NEStalgia has a lot of the same "built in audience" appeal. No one's doing a web search for "8 bit era style MMO game that reminds me of the stuff I played growing up", but even if people don't know they're looking for it, they realize that as soon as they see it. In my mind, this is a big part of why Terraria exploded: it looks and to some extent feels like a late NES/early SNES game.

The key is that it's hard to fake or force that kind of appeal. If a hundred people start throwing together their own "original" retroclones, they'll have the same sticking power as a hundred new Dragonball or Pokemon games.