Ideas for games that I have in development

[UberScout]

My #1 goal for a career choice is to become an indie game developer, and the game I wish to develop has actually been in development ever since age 14, when I first started studying game development.

In fact I've had two ideas for games, one of which is like I said, in development limbo, still, and the other having a secret message about the most commonly-appearing problem that Autistic people face with communicating.

The first game has been given many names, but I finally decided on a final name recently: "Child Of Crystal". Its premise focuses on the presence of Starseeds, Rainbows, Crystal Children, and Blue Rays (trust me, Google is your friend) in the world, hoping to work together through their own "missions" to bring humanity together in what we call the Age of Aquarius.
A unique feature that I have incorporated into this game is that I am its protagonist, along with a few other playable avatars, and the story revolves around my own personal mission to find purpose and realize what I am supposed to do with the knowledge I gain throughout time. (You'll understand this more once the game gets developed.)

The game is planned to be an Action/RPG of sorts, in the style of a "doujin" hobbyist game. You will travel across many different types of areas and settings, learning powers to use not only for self-defense but to influence the world around you as well, in an effort to make it a better place, making your powers and auras stronger and stronger as you gain experience. But there is a catch, as I have taken inspiration from a game called "inFAMOUS": You must decide whether you are a "True Lightworker" who uses his power for good, and be a good person, or you are a "Full Shadowseed", a self-proclaimed division of Starseed that does not care how things turn out for the world, and only uses their powers however they want, seeing no point in making the world a better place.

What will you do? Will You Heal A Wounded World? Will You Shape Your Own Face Of Humanity?

It is Not What You Do With Your Power; It Is What Happens To What It Touches. (the slogan I made for the game)

The second game I have an idea for is similar to the first, but is a little different. I call this game "MouthSpeak Nation", and despite the bizarre choice of name, I have come up with a unique premise for this one;

Everyone in the known world only speaks their own language, and no two people speak in the same dialect. Therefore, communication is only possible through constant translation and bruteforced interpretation.

The secret message with MouthSpeak Nation is about Autism, and the most common problem it addresses is that when a person with Autism tries to explain something in great detail to someone, no matter how it's worded, the recipient can't seem to make heads or tails of what they're trying to say.

Being misunderstood or misinterpreted from simply speaking the human language has got to be the most difficult thing to experience and live through, not to mention probably extremely annoying.

MouthSpeak Nation will also be an RPG, but there won't be any real combat, it will be more or less an adventure game. Puck, a boy who gave himself his name through a hasty translation of his parents' language, is on a quest of sorts to uncover what caused everyone in the known world to invent and speak their own individual languages, why they chose this way of life, and how it can be fixed so that everyone can understand each other. What he doesn't know is that there IS in fact a small section of his home land that speaks the same tongue... but it's part of a shadow society that has done more than he realizes is going on with the nation. Are they the ones behind the world's linguistic problems? Did they do this? And what is this strange "Project Bronze Nova"?

 

[Mr Allen]

I have a game idea that might've worked well, it's kind of a Lemmings clone about Beavers making Dams to keep Rivers from rising.

If I had the programming skills, a license to create Xbox games and a PC that would run Unity, I could be on a winner.

 

[UberScout]

Allen, my advice to you, in the world of game development:

Is follow this golden rule:

For the love of all that is good and holy, all that is righteous, MAKE SURE YOUR IDEA IS EXECUTED PROPERLY!!

That's not said to be mean. That's said because if you have an idea for a game and it is too poorly executed it will easily earn the title of kuso-ge in less than a short time.

If you have the idea of beavers building dams to keep from flooding their home, for example, I don't think it work as an XBox game, because a Lemmings clone would need a precise way to control all the units, eg, a cursor on the screen. I mean there MIGHT be a way to make it work, but I'm not far enough into game dev to know the ins and outs of input and output.

 

[Misery]

Something like Lemmings could definitely work on a console. It was done on the ancient SNES after all. That version had no real problems at all. The main important thing for a Lemmings-ish game is to make sure that the player has the ability to assign skills or give orders while paused.

Anyway, to anyone planning on making a game, I say.... good luck to ya. Gonna need it. Actually making a game is easier than it's ever been, with so many tools, but getting it NOTICED by people is damn near impossible. Alot of dev studios have now fallen due to this, and there really isnt anything anyone can do about it. Doesnt matter how great the game in question is if nobody knows it exists... and there's no good way to get the word out there.

Been through that one, and it suuuuucked. The game I worked on reviewed very well but only sold "kinda okay maybe", not as much as it needed to, which ended up being a problem for the studio I was contracted to. The game has an expansion now, but I worked on that on a volunteer basis just to help them out, since things werent going well. Bloody frustrating... the game really did come out quite well.

If you wanna be an indie dev, dont automatically expect it to be a fully paying career. Go into it expecting it to be a not-really-paying-you sort of hobby instead, as that's what it is for alot of them right now.

Can thank freaking Steam for that. They opened the blasted gates, and now everything is flooded.

 

[UberScout]

Well, right now, Child of Crystal is planned to be totally free-to-play.

I MIGHT start taking donations, which could help my family, but I want people to have the choice to play my game without having to pay anything just to have the game.

Also, Toby Fox made Undertale by himself, and Deltarune. Pixel, a guy from Japan, made Cave Story by himself.

If they can do that and have people say good things about their games, then so can I.

 

[Autistamatic]

I have only one desire from a modern game: a sense of story. If you can do that and it's a good story, I may buy it

 

[Misery]

Well, right now, Child of Crystal is planned to be totally free-to-play.

I MIGHT start taking donations, which could help my family, but I want people to have the choice to play my game without having to pay anything just to have the game.

Also, Toby Fox made Undertale by himself, and Deltarune. Pixel, a guy from Japan, made Cave Story by himself.

If they can do that and have people say good things about their games, then so can I.

That's... not what I meant, actually.

The problem indies face isnt about reviews. It's not about whether people say the games are good or bad. It's about people knowing their games exist in the first place. Pixel made his game loooooooooooooooong before the Great Indie Flood. He actually had very high chances of getting noticed in the first place. Cave Story is actually quite old. It was the same with Spelunky, another really famous indie game. Back when those were initially made, NOTHING was flooded. Indie releases were comparatively sparse. It was easy for indie gamers to browse new releases without actually missing anything.

Toby, on the other hand, got lucky. No... BEYOND lucky, creating his game after the flood had already begun. Same with FNAF really, another famous example made by one guy, Scott Cawthon. With that game, some Youtubers, very very specific ones, just happened to randomly latch onto it, and off the train went. Without them to boost notice, it wouldnt have BEEN noticed. In fact, FNAF originally had a kickstarter to try to create the first game. Almost nobody actually paid anything to it. It got zero attention on it's own, and completely collapsed (how/why he ended up just doing it WITHOUT that afterwards, I do not know). Cawthon actually had another game that wasnt just good, but was freaking brilliant, called The Desolate Hope... but again, it was ignored. Even AFTER he became famous, hardly anyone knows it exists. And seriously, it's a GREAT game. But that didnt matter. Quality alone doesnt get you noticed.

Generally, for an indie game to get picked up by the community at large, one of two things has to happen: 1. Someone big on Youtube or Twitch spots it, and actually decides to spend some of their video-making or broadcasting time on it. Or 2, you have a large publisher with enough resources behind it pushing it for quite awhile before it even releases (as was the case with Enter the Gungeon, for instance). This can also happen with kickstarters, sometimes a big Youtuber or whatever will point out a really promising kickstarter and give it a push. That one is more rare though.

For *most* games.... not some, but most... it doesnt matter how good they are, they simply wont get spotted. And how can they? Steam, the vendor that most PC gamers use and the one that basically has control of the market, gets giant piles of new releases every single day. UNFILTERED new releases, which makes that count even higher. And unless a particular developer is ALREADY BIG, their game actually does not get featured on the front page. As in, it literally doesnt even appear there. That's been a BIG complaint among indie devs in the last year or two. Because again, how is anyone supposed to know a game has just released if even the vendors never bother to mention it? It's completely unfair, but Valve couldnt care less. It's gotten SO bad that alot of indie fans dont even browse the store's front page or main interface anymore, because there's no point.

THAT is why I always warn potential future devs to not try to make a career of it, or to get too emotionally invested in it or something. It can lead to serious financial trouble (or lots of depression). They go in with the assumption that they're going to make enough to get by... and then the game, even if it's amazing, just cant sell, because nobody knows it exists. And believe me, it's MORE frustrating if the game really is amazing. I already know two developers who are, right now, going through exactly that, despite having made amazing games (seriously, one of those two games is the one that I consider the best I've seen all year). I try to help them when I can but it aint like I can do much for them. It's not been pleasant to watch.

Anyway, I aint trying to tell you not to do what you are doing. I'm just giving a bit of a warning, as someone that wishes I'd gotten the same warning two years ago. It's important to understand what the market is REALLY like before diving in, regardless of exactly what you are making or why you're making it. Even if the game in question is going to be free.

Whatever you do though, good luck in it. Hell, when you have something playable... post it here! We seem to have very few gamers here, but you can probably still find some to act as testers and give a bit of feedback. Everyone loves feedback. Usually.

 

[AloneNotLonely]

I think you mistake quality for widespread appeal. A game can be amazing and pretty much perfect (To the Moon), but if it doesn't have widespread appeal it won't make you rich. If you want to get rich off of it, you need to make something with widespread appeal (Minecraft) and good monetization and get it out to a reasonable group so that it can snowball by word of mouth.

If you have a game with such appeal then you could ask youtubers to cover it if you want to get it out there. If the game has such appeal, you will find a youtuber or twitch streamer that wants to cover it. Maybe not PewDiePie, but even someone with 100k subs is going to get it out there. However, if you keep asking people to put your artsy "who cares" games out there, you are not going to get them to pay any attention when you do get it right, so don't waste that ammo on games that you think are that but actually aren't.

 

[Theta.G]

Rule 2. Protect your work!
Don't share key details about the gameplay that a studio could just steal and do it better because they have more resources, combine skill and money behind them.
Copyright what you can.
Once you finally put the project out there it could get stolen and rebranded. despite your best efforts. Which would mean your game could be hidden / unlisted for months while the publisher tries to figure out who is wrong and who is right. By that time the thieves have changed enough skins to release your game before the case is resolved. Search Engine Optimization and marketing / advertising much better than you were able to. Which, to the public eye when you can finally release your game will look like a clone of the thief's version.

It's a tough and an unfair world for indie game devs. If you do this solo no matter how good your game is the odds of a financially successful game are similar to that of small lottery. like a 50/50 draw at a football game.

Another big problem with being a career indie game dev is one simply does not have the time to master the skills necessary. You are going up against small studios. A team of individuals who specialize in an area. 10+ year programmer. 5+ year animator. 15+ year designer. 10+ year music producer. 8+ year individual with advertising experience. 12+ psychology sleuth who can bring it all together. 5+ creative writer.
Your also going up against big studios who, for anyone one project will typically have people with a combine experience to the overall project of 5,000 years.

If you've only been coding for 1-2 years and want your game to have live multiplayer functionality with other complex mechanics involving the network or other well... the logic puzzles will be more likely to beat ya down.

What i am saying is as an individual the odds of success are extremely slim even if your gameplay mechanics are fantastic. Sure we all hear stories about that "solo" indie dev who made it big. However, that's comparable to the steve jobs's of the world. Unseen factors, these solo indie devs most of the time had enough money to out source many things. Which doesn't really make it solo does it. Also, the length of time it would take 1 individual to make the game on their own... is ridiculous. By the time you actually finish it some other studio who could do it faster would have already done and released the essence of your project @ high quality.

Now... if you were to form or join a small game studio. A small team. A coder / programmer, artist, animator, advertiser. Your odds of success improve by 100 fold. But remember, everyone who is in indie game development wants to make their own game. A solo indie dev who achieved success is inspirational but not feasible. Everybody with ideas see themselves as a game designer / everyone in the industry is a game designer / dreamer yet you NEED to develop a skill. Everyone has ideas. A small percentage of them have the skills to execute those ideas. Master art, animation, coding whatever. If you don't have the level of expertise to make someone else's game through to the end, even a simple platformer then nobody is going to work with you. Imagine you had an idea for a flying island resort. Ok, then you go and ask people to make you a flying island resort for free... it's like that. You may have to compromise and help others with their projects first before they do you a solid in the future. Aka you have to have skills that will be useful to others as well. Or if you happen to have the $ you can just hire them but lets be real if that was the case you wouldn't be a solo indie dev, if you're serious about it.

Unfortunately good ideas are just that. Ideas. Thoughts without form. Everyone has good ideas, few act on them.

If you're serious about this explore what holds you back from forming or joining a team. That's the key to success here. That 50/50 football stadium draw becomes a 50/50 draw in a medium sized classroom.

Just to further put things into perspective this would be like making it big as a solo musician. We don't say these things to crush your dreams. As misery has said he wished he knew what he knew 2 years ago. This advice comes from a place of experience. The real nature of the beast past inspirational stories that don't tell you for every successful solo indie game dev there are thousands who poured their life in their projects, some very good projects and didn't reach any notable heights in sales.

Work smarter not harder. If you want to be a career dev you can still develop many skills but you must specialize in one.& join or form a stable team.
Don't get suckered by underdog stories.

 

[Misery]

Rule 2. Protect your work!
Don't share key details about the gameplay that a studio could just steal and do it better because they have more resources, combine skill and money behind them.
Copyright what you can.
Once you finally put the project out there it could get stolen and rebranded. despite your best efforts. Which would mean your game could be hidden / unlisted for months while the publisher tries to figure out who is wrong and who is right. By that time the thieves have changed enough skins to release your game before the case is resolved. Search Engine Optimization and marketing / advertising much better than you were able to. Which, to the public eye when you can finally release your game will look like a clone of the thief's version.

It's a tough and an unfair world for indie game devs. If you do this solo no matter how good your game is the odds of a financially successful game are similar to that of small lottery. like a 50/50 draw at a football game.

Another big problem with being a career indie game dev is one simply does not have the time to master the skills necessary. You are going up against small studios. A team of individuals who specialize in an area. 10+ year programmer. 5+ year animator. 15+ year designer. 10+ year music producer. 8+ year individual with advertising experience. 12+ psychology sleuth who can bring it all together. 5+ creative writer.
Your also going up against big studios who, for anyone one project will typically have people with a combine experience to the overall project of 5,000 years.

If you've only been coding for 1-2 years and want your game to have live multiplayer functionality with other complex mechanics involving the network or other well... the logic puzzles will be more likely to beat ya down.

What i am saying is as an individual the odds of success are extremely slim even if your gameplay mechanics are fantastic. Sure we all hear stories about that "solo" indie dev who made it big. However, that's comparable to the steve jobs's of the world. Unseen factors, these solo indie devs most of the time had enough money to out source many things. Which doesn't really make it solo does it. Also, the length of time it would take 1 individual to make the game on their own... is ridiculous. By the time you actually finish it some other studio who could do it faster would have already done and released the essence of your project @ high quality.

Now... if you were to form or join a small game studio. A small team. A coder / programmer, artist, animator, advertiser. Your odds of success improve by 100 fold. But remember, everyone who is in indie game development wants to make their own game. A solo indie dev who achieved success is inspirational but not feasible. Everybody with ideas see themselves as a game designer / everyone in the industry is a game designer / dreamer yet you NEED to develop a skill. Everyone has ideas. A small percentage of them have the skills to execute those ideas. Master art, animation, coding whatever. If you don't have the level of expertise to make someone else's game through to the end, even a simple platformer then nobody is going to work with you. Imagine you had an idea for a flying island resort. Ok, then you go and ask people to make you a flying island resort for free... it's like that. You may have to compromise and help others with their projects first before they do you a solid in the future. Aka you have to have skills that will be useful to others as well. Or if you happen to have the $ you can just hire them but lets be real if that was the case you wouldn't be a solo indie dev, if you're serious about it.

Unfortunately good ideas are just that. Ideas. Thoughts without form. Everyone has good ideas, few act on them.

If you're serious about this explore what holds you back from forming or joining a team. That's the key to success here. That 50/50 football stadium draw becomes a 50/50 draw in a medium sized classroom.

Just to further put things into perspective this would be like making it big as a solo musician. We don't say these things to crush your dreams. As misery has said he wished he knew what he knew 2 years ago. This advice comes from a place of experience. The real nature of the beast past inspirational stories that don't tell you for every successful solo indie game dev there are thousands who poured their life in their projects, some very good projects and didn't reach any notable heights in sales.

Work smarter not harder. If you want to be a career dev you can still develop many skills but you must specialize in one.& join or form a stable team.
Don't get suckered by underdog stories.

Ehhh... to be honest you dont really need to worry much about being copied and such in the indie market. That would happen in the AAA market, oh yes. But indies, not really. On paper that seems like a threat, in practice it just doesnt really happen. Hell, the developer I work with outright offered a bunch of assets from their biggest game (AI War) for anyone at all to use. I or anyone else could take any of the graphics from that game and make some other game with it (and indeed, a couple of people did exactly that). Which wouldnt be the first time. If you've ever heard of a game called Realm of the Mad God, that game also used assets that were offered up from someone else. Typically it's just done to help others out (seriously, none of this was paid).

When it comes to IDEAS, most devs want to do their own thing. There IS a high chance that any idea you have has actually already been done before... never make the mistake of thinking that what you're doing is unique. Always go in assuming that someone may have done it before, even if you havent heard of such a thing. But yeah, even here, the chances of ideas being stolen are nearly nonexistent. Hell, ALOT of indie devs do things like devblogs, where they talk about all sorts of ideas/concepts for their games DURING development. They'll say "Hey yeah, we have THIS idea, and that's what we're going to be working towards for 1.0!!!".

Keep in mind, this is a market where it's extremely common for games to be offered up on Steam or elsewhere when they're not even finished yet. Early Access and all. If someone REALLY wanted to steal an idea, it's going to happen one way or another. But I think what people have discovered is that those that go around doing that, are also lazier than a box of cats. You've heard of asset flips? Yeah. THAT is the result of a developer wanting to do that sort of thing. Probably this is why nobody really worries about it.

However: The idea of CLONING a game is absolutely true. Not only true, but accepted. Even the game I made, with that dev studio, is a clone of Binding of Isaac. There's nothing wrong with cloning something. But if you want to actually get anywhere with that you need to put your own twist on it (that's the whole bloody point, after all). The important thing with cloning though is that developers need to NOT try to make a game JUST because something is popular. Dont make a Fortnite-ish game simply "because Fortnite is big". It'll show in the final product. Make it because you genuinely WANT to, because you genuinely have some ideas/concepts you want to try with that formula. That's how a clone should be made. Like, the idea for the one I worked on was "We all really love Binding of Isaac, let's put our own spin on it. What if it was also a bullet-hell game? In space?" Kinda like that.


Also yes, I'll agree with what you said about "dont get suckered in by underdog stories". That's a great way of putting it. On the other hand though, dont think that everyone MUST have a team to make a good game. The trick of it though is that those who do that, USUALLY can make their own art/sound in addition to the coding. But honestly even games that are mostly made by one person often actually do involve some others helping on the sides. PURE solo work is very, very hard. But really, each dev must do whatever works best for them.

I would also STRONGLY suggest making some experimental games. Also known as "B-games". These are often made for practice, and pretty much always done solo, not for actual release, however there are places where people do in fact release exactly this sort of game (usually for other devs and design enthusiasts in the community to try, not for consumers). Some do actually go on to become something bigger, but dont expect that. This sort is made to get experience and maybe show off proof of concept to other devs for feedback. "Game jam" games also fit into this category. The game Celeste is an example of this sort that went on to become something bigger.


Oh, and I have one more big tip, probably the single biggest tip I could give, I almost forgot this one:

DO NOT. I repeat, DO NOT try to make a multiplayer-focused game early on, or even as a small studio. Dont. Freaking. Do. It. THIS is the death of many, MANY studios. In order to make a multiplayer game that doesnt DIE IMMEDIATELY, you *need* to already have some real clout in the industry. After all, if the community isnt large enough to make it EASY for players to find matches at any time.... the game falls apart, collapses entirely. Usually, devs find this one out the hard way. If multiplayer is to be a thing in your game... make sure it's a SIDE thing. Just an option, added to the real meat of the game, the singleplayer content.

 

[Theta.G]

Ehhh... to be honest you dont really need to worry much about being copied and such in the indie market. That would happen in the AAA market, oh yes. But indies, not really. On paper that seems like a threat, in practice it just doesnt really happen. Hell, the developer I work with outright offered a bunch of assets from their biggest game (AI War) for anyone at all to use. I or anyone else could take any of the graphics from that game and make some other game with it (and indeed, a couple of people did exactly that). Which wouldnt be the first time. If you've ever heard of a game called Realm of the Mad God, that game also used assets that were offered up from someone else. Typically it's just done to help others out (seriously, none of this was paid).

When it comes to IDEAS, most devs want to do their own thing. There IS a high chance that any idea you have has actually already been done before... never make the mistake of thinking that what you're doing is unique. Always go in assuming that someone may have done it before, even if you havent heard of such a thing. But yeah, even here, the chances of ideas being stolen are nearly nonexistent. Hell, ALOT of indie devs do things like devblogs, where they talk about all sorts of ideas/concepts for their games DURING development. They'll say "Hey yeah, we have THIS idea, and that's what we're going to be working towards for 1.0!!!".

Keep in mind, this is a market where it's extremely common for games to be offered up on Steam or elsewhere when they're not even finished yet. Early Access and all. If someone REALLY wanted to steal an idea, it's going to happen one way or another. But I think what people have discovered is that those that go around doing that, are also lazier than a box of cats. You've heard of asset flips? Yeah. THAT is the result of a developer wanting to do that sort of thing. Probably this is why nobody really worries about it.

However: The idea of CLONING a game is absolutely true. Not only true, but accepted. Even the game I made, with that dev studio, is a clone of Binding of Isaac. There's nothing wrong with cloning something. But if you want to actually get anywhere with that you need to put your own twist on it (that's the whole bloody point, after all). The important thing with cloning though is that developers need to NOT try to make a game JUST because something is popular. Dont make a Fortnite-ish game simply "because Fortnite is big". It'll show in the final product. Make it because you genuinely WANT to, because you genuinely have some ideas/concepts you want to try with that formula. That's how a clone should be made. Like, the idea for the one I worked on was "We all really love Binding of Isaac, let's put our own spin on it. What if it was also a bullet-hell game? In space?" Kinda like that.


Also yes, I'll agree with what you said about "dont get suckered in by underdog stories". That's a great way of putting it. On the other hand though, dont think that everyone MUST have a team to make a good game. The trick of it though is that those who do that, USUALLY can make their own art/sound in addition to the coding. But honestly even games that are mostly made by one person often actually do involve some others helping on the sides. PURE solo work is very, very hard. But really, each dev must do whatever works best for them.

I would also STRONGLY suggest making some experimental games. Also known as "B-games". These are often made for practice, and pretty much always done solo, not for actual release, however there are places where people do in fact release exactly this sort of game (usually for other devs and design enthusiasts in the community to try, not for consumers). Some do actually go on to become something bigger, but dont expect that. This sort is made to get experience and maybe show off proof of concept to other devs for feedback. "Game jam" games also fit into this category. The game Celeste is an example of this sort that went on to become something bigger.


Oh, and I have one more big tip, probably the single biggest tip I could give, I almost forgot this one:

DO NOT. I repeat, DO NOT try to make a multiplayer-focused game early on, or even as a small studio. Dont. Freaking. Do. It. THIS is the death of many, MANY studios. In order to make a multiplayer game that doesnt DIE IMMEDIATELY, you *need* to already have some real clout in the industry. After all, if the community isnt large enough to make it EASY for players to find matches at any time.... the game falls apart, collapses entirely. Usually, devs find this one out the hard way. If multiplayer is to be a thing in your game... make sure it's a SIDE thing. Just an option, added to the real meat of the game, the singleplayer content.

Lol i've always been so torn on that issue. From my perspective, it's about properly identifying what's "missing" from the market. Filling the void that many players have. Did identify something that was missing and would be huge very soon, it was 3 steps ahead of the natural progression of gaming.
Crushed by the weight of pure solo work the project died. I killed it. 2 years later lords mobile hit the market and milks everyone. Which is almost identical to what i was making at a core level of gameplay and game design. (Not the skins or art) That's besides the point though. If someone is making a platformer, shooter, junk that's already been done a million times over sure you know it would be great to share and have a dev blog. Get people paying attention to your game, future buyers. Noone is going to steal it because of unique characters, art or story. Not even a 1 or 2 off gameplay mechanic because fundamentally it's not much different from everything else out there. Simply putting a spin on a game with some easy to implement "unique" features isn't enticing enough for others to steal. However if you have identified a void and you know how it is going to be filled. Something like Smash Bros in a time when there are no multi player fighters like that in existence on their respective platforms it's best to stay tight lipped because other experienced people who have their own small studios can and will recognize what you have, take it, run with it and finish it before the indie dev ever will. I personally know 2 people / studios that have done this already. And there are many other stories online from other game devs that had stuff like this happen to them.

Cloning... That is something i've always wanted to figure out how to do. Are you talking about decompiling a game and modifying existing code, getting source code, or slowly rebuilding it from the ground up?

I agree with experimental games as well it provides small and moderate difficulty for implementing certain game mechanics... If you get permanently stuck then scraping it won't matter much.

As for multiplayer even as a side thing it's still incredibly complex. Yet in high demand. Especially if reaction time is a factor / lag compensation. For some platforms it's even a requirement if you want to be successful on that platform.

 

[Misery]

Lol i've always been so torn on that issue. From my perspective, it's about properly identifying what's "missing" from the market. Filling the void that many players have. Did identify something that was missing and would be huge very soon, it was 3 steps ahead of the natural progression of gaming.
Crushed by the weight of pure solo work the project died. I killed it. 2 years later lords mobile hit the market and milks everyone. Which is almost identical to what i was making at a core level of gameplay and game design. (Not the skins or art) That's besides the point though. If someone is making a platformer, shooter, junk that's already been done a million times over sure you know it would be great to share and have a dev blog. Get people paying attention to your game, future buyers. Noone is going to steal it because of unique characters, art or story. Not even a 1 or 2 off gameplay mechanic because fundamentally it's not much different from everything else out there. Simply putting a spin on a game with some easy to implement "unique" features isn't enticing enough for others to steal. However if you have identified a void and you know how it is going to be filled. Something like Smash Bros in a time when there are no multi player fighters like that in existence on their respective platforms it's best to stay tight lipped because other experienced people who have their own small studios can and will recognize what you have, take it, run with it and finish it before the indie dev ever will. I personally know 2 people / studios that have done this already. And there are many other stories online from other game devs that had stuff like this happen to them.

Cloning... That is something i've always wanted to figure out how to do. Are you talking about decompiling a game and modifying existing code, getting source code, or slowly rebuilding it from the ground up?

I agree with experimental games as well it provides small and moderate difficulty for implementing certain game mechanics... If you get permanently stuck then scraping it won't matter much.

As for multiplayer even as a side thing it's still incredibly complex. Yet in high demand. Especially if reaction time is a factor / lag compensation. For some platforms it's even a requirement if you want to be successful on that platform.

What I mean by "cloning" is simply taking an already existing game, using it as a concept base, and going from there. You're not actually using any of it's code/assets. Brawlhalla, for instance, is a clone of the Smash Bros series. Enter the Gungeon is a clone of Binding of Isaac. Rimworld is a clone of Dwarf Fortress. Some clones will end up twisting things heavily, others will have a tendency to stick a little too close to the source material. Regardless though, boatloads of fantastic games come as a result of it, and it's been done since the very beginning.

As for multiplayer in high demand, on one hand this is true, but my point is that almost all indie devs simply arent in a position to make it happen. Multiplayer-ONLY games, is what I mean.

The thing about multiplayer-only games: Players have no patience with them. When someone wants to play a match, they dont want to be waiting 20 minutes. They want to be able to play the game they paid for (or the game they just downloaded) right the hell NOW. They also dont want to just fight the same very few opponents over and over and over (and they sure as hell dont want to have to just play against bots).

There is one, and ONLY one way to avoid those two things: Have a community that is large enough. Have enough players online FROM THE START to make sure that matchmaking is quick, and enough players to make sure that matchmaking will always lead you to new opponents. This is why big-name games are the ones that survive, because they can have a huge community literally before the game is even playable.

There are some games that can develop a very strong multiplayer component as they go along... such as Minecraft for instance... but when it's from an indie dev, it needs to start out with a very strong singleplayer side (which Minecraft also did). Smaller devs going for JUST multiplayer (bots dont count, for singleplayer) will almost always fail. They just dont have the clout to bring enough people in to create the necessary community to make a multiplayer-only game work. There are occaisions when they can sorta-kinda get one going, but only for a short time. And of course there's the occaisional total-exception-to-the-rule, but that's very rare. Hell, even Brawlhalla, I just spotted that they have Ubisoft behind them... that explains a few things.

On top of all of that though, there's also the threat of a bigger, already-existing multiplayer game of the same type sucking up all of your players. Most people that are really into competitive gaming will pick one, and ONLY one, game in a particular genre to stick to. Any competitive game takes a ton of time and practice, after all, so most people dont have the option to do more than one. Maybe two sometimes.

Hell, this is even a problem among the AAA crowd. Remember the MOBA genre? Everybody and their grandma tried to make one. And I dont mean indies... it was all the AAA guys. But almost all of them collapsed, since DOTA and LOL already had everyone's attention, and nobody wanted to divide their attention between more than one game (makes sense with how freakishly complicated competitive games are). Even groups like EA, with all of their money and evil schemes, just couldnt make it happen.

Or the fighting game genre. There are like 20 billionty 2D fighters out there. But very, very few of them have much of a following. Many games in this genre will show up, stand there for awhile, and then just pop like a bubble, fading into obscurity immediately. I suspect this is one of the reasons why many fighter series (that are already successful) will tend to have VERY frequent releases/updates: It keeps the franchise in the news and relevant, and keeps people talking about changes, so it doesnt ever fall behind and risk being overtaken.

Multiplayer-only games in general take a heck of alot of resources to work, and "community" is one of those resources.

Having games that have both singleplayer AND multiplayer components on the other hand, can be done by anyone.... just dont go into it EXPECTING the multiplayer side of it to get a real following. The best thing that most smaller devs can do is to just add simple-yet-fun co-op to an already strong singleplayer concept. Just make sure the game doesnt REQUIRE co-op.

 

[Mr Allen]

Allen, my advice to you, in the world of game development:

Is follow this golden rule:

For the love of all that is good and holy, all that is righteous, MAKE SURE YOUR IDEA IS EXECUTED PROPERLY!!

That's not said to be mean. That's said because if you have an idea for a game and it is too poorly executed it will easily earn the title of kuso-ge in less than a short time.

If you have the idea of beavers building dams to keep from flooding their home, for example, I don't think it work as an XBox game, because a Lemmings clone would need a precise way to control all the units, eg, a cursor on the screen. I mean there MIGHT be a way to make it work, but I'm not far enough into game dev to know the ins and outs of input and output.

On the contrary, the original Lemmings was released on nearly every format ever back in the day, from the Amiga to the ZX Spectrum, and even a Game Boy version came out.

And then a few years later they brought out Lemmings 3D, but it wasn't as good as the original despite the fancy 3D graphics.