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Ramblings on Game Design
Ramblings on Game Design
| Name: | Joe Maruschak |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Jun 20, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  5.0 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Joe Maruschak |
Blog post
So the news is now out in the open, and everyone by now should know that GarageGames has acquired BraveTree Productions.
There was some concern in the news post, that Clark addressed in his blog. My feelings are much the same as Clarks, and I see this as a good thing for us, and a great thing for Indies in general.
I cannot talk much about what is going on behind the scenes, but good things are happening. Since we officially started as GarageGames employess, there has been a flurry of activity. Multiple projects are in the works, and the new interns are rocking the house, working on projects to extend and enhance t2d, starting on art path tutorials, and lending a hand on some big projects that are strategic for GarageGames in opening up the games market for Indies with good games.
It feels great not to be spending 2 days out of the week writing emails and talking on the phone. It is not that I did not like the people we were contracting for, it is just that our own games and tech were progressing slowly. We simply had too much going on.
GarageGames was also getting to that point where they had a lot going on.. so much that some of the smaller things were slipping through the cracks as everyone was working on 3 BIG initiatives and just did not have the time.
With the addition of our team, it is feeling good as we are starting to address a lot of the 'small' issues.. having meetings and setting up plans to fill in the gaps in the Torque tech and documentation, and make it easier for individuals to get started and to finish their projects.
There have been fears expressed that GarageGames in abandoning the Indies.. but this is very far from the Truth.
When we started BraveTree, we wanted to prove that we could make games with smaller teams and still maintain high quality. For me personally, it is a backlash against the EA thinking that games will have to cost more and be bigger. Game Development can be done cheaper and quicker than most think, and for a lot less money than people think. I am committed to it personally, and the tools and methodologies we are experimenting with are meant to show people that it CAN be done without a 50 man team and a 5 million dollar budget. We are a long way from competing with HALO, but it time, the gap will close.
And although you may not be able to start up a team and get a box deal right away, there is a path for an Indie Team to get their title on console.
With ThinkTanks for XBOX live arcade shipping in addition to Marble Blast, GarageGames now has 2 games on the consoles (with a 3rd on the way)..
I wanted to point this out as the Team that created ThinkTanks consisted of 3 people. The 'port' team for ThinkTanks consisted mainly of one person, John Quigley, doing the majority of the heavy lifting.
Total time spent on the project was the 18 man months for the original game, with another 10 man months for the xbox port. That is 28 man months total.. for a fully multiplayer game that is shipping on PC, Linux, Mac, and XBOX. Given that most of the big AAA titles requires man YEARS to complete.. I think this is a good sign that GarageGames is making good on its promise to deliver powerful tools into the hands of the masses.
ThinkTanks is not the biggest or best game ever, but it is a good game, that is a decent size, and resonates very strongly with its target audience. While not being as big a money maker as Zuma, it brings in enough that we were able to live off the income it generated, and use that $$ to grow the company. We did what Jeff suggested in his original IGC keynotes. We right sized our lives, picked an idea we knew we could complete, and found an underserved niche with a clear target audience.
On all counts, ThinkTanks is a resounding success for me. We did what I knew we could do when we started BraveTree, which was, to make a high quality game that we wanted to make, do it relatively quickly with a very small team, sell it online, generate enough revenue to stay in business, and achieve what was my dream, to take it all the way to console.. and all the while retaining ownership of the IP.
I point this out because our example proves that you can do it too. Most will struggle, but some will succeed, and I want to be that voice telling everyone that it is possible to make it happen. We did not start BraveTree with a bundle of money. We basically started from $0 and created everything you see.
If you have plans on making a game bigger than Half-Life 2 by yourself.. it is probably not going to happen. If you want to make a high quality game with great gameplay and great graphics and get it on console.. it IS possible.. and it is possible on a shoestring budget with a very small team.
I also want to point out something to correct a misconcpetion that some people have about GarageGames and BraveTree. We do work closely with GarageGames, and we do (did) share the same office building. Our co-habitation of the same office space happened several months after the shipping of ThinkTanks, when revenue from the game allowed us to get an office. During the production of ThinkTanks, GarageGames gave us no special help (unless you count Jeff Tunnells sagely advice). We had access to the same tools and code base that everyone else who has purchased the SDK has access to. We did exactly what we are advising everyone else to do. Focus on the game, make it fun, and then worry about how to make money with it. We did exactly that.
With all this talk of how you can succeed, I think it would be good if I started outlining some of the process we use that I alluded to in my last .plan.
This may ramble, and possibly end up covering several blogs, but I think it would be good to start at the beginning.
IDEAS
Ideas. What is a good idea and a bad idea. Jeff says "ideas are a dime a dozen". and I am inclined to agree. How does one separate the good ones from the bad. Well, when I have an idea, I ask myself some questions. The main one I ask is, "can this be done by the team we have". If the answer is yes, great.. if the answer is no.. then the idea sucks as a choice for prototyping. Sorry if this seems harsh.. but it is reality. If you have no way of finishing the project, there is not really much point in starting it. I have a backlog of ideas that are waiting in the wings once the team and tech have progressed enough to handle them. Ideas that are doable by the team you have are the best choices.
After you determine that the project is doable, you have to look at the intended audience. Who are you making the game for? As an Indie, you need to serve a market or you will not get sales. If the audience you are shooting to serve is already being offered enough, you will be in competition with them. It is best to choose a very specific niche and serve them. Serving the same niche as Unreal Tournament is not a wise move unless you can deliver everything the audience expects from a title in that niche.
As an example, I will use ThinkTanks. The intended audience for ThinkTanks is an audience I call ex-Doomers. This audience consists of individuals who used to be hard core doom addicts 'back in the day', but now have families, kids, and not a lot of time. What we wanted was to give to this audience an experience that was similar in feel to a shooter, but did not require the investment of 40 hours a week of constant online play to remain even slightly competitive. This was an easy target for us to shoot for, as I am clearly in the target audience. I know what I like and don't like about the current offering of games, and the game was crafted to respond to that. By all accounts, the audience we intended to hot was hit, and hit strongly. Strangely, it seems that we happen to have a dis-proportianate number of graphic designers and video professionals (on the mac) who LOVE our game.
lastly, there is something we (Jay Moore and I) called the 'duh' factor. The duh factor is the thing that communicates to the potential game demo-er what the game is. ThinkTanks is a great example. What is it about? duh-- tanks. In the sea of free demos out there, this jumps out to a potential customer. They see the name and the screenshot, and they have a pretty clear idea of what the game is about. Phil has hit upon the brilliant name of 'AirAce" for his game. One look at the name and a screenshot, and you 'get it'. Joshua Dallman made a really good choice with 'Shelled'. The Turtle/Artillery theme hit the mark.. the humor is apparent, and the shots of the big cannons let you know that this is an artillery game.
The best ideas are those that a game player can connect with immediately. If it takes longer than it takes to read the name and glance at a thumbnail for the potential downloader to 'get it'.. then you don't have the 'duh' and it would probably be advisable to rethink the theme or the name until the customer can get it right away.
It is not all just in the name.. it is the name and the look.. and what kind of response it brings up in the potential customer. In this case, baggage is a good thing. If you want to bring up memories of 'Terminator'.. and your game is meant to appeal to those who liked the terminator series, then visual associations with it are not at all a bad thing. The name helps a lot though.
So, that is, to me, what makes an idea good. It can be done by your team.. you know and understand the audience, and you choose a theme and name that will resonate with them very quickly.
IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation is where is all happens. A bad implementation can make a good idea suck, and good implementation can make a marginal idea sing. The people doing the implementing are the people who make a game. As a designer/director, the job is not to spell it out on paper and walk away.. it is to guide the process from start to finish.. Earlier I stated that ideas are a dime a dozen. This is why I expect each person I work with to be generating $3-$4 worth of ideas daily. The process of making the game is responding to what has been implemented, seeing what works and making it better, and chucking out that which does not work.
It is the people who are building the product who make it what it is.
A clear example of this was the new 'locking' reticle in ThinkTanks for xbox. We knew where we wanted to go, but getting there was a struggle. Clark, John, and Matt all took turns tweaking different parts of the new interface, and without them having a 'feel' for what worked and what didn't, I don't think the aiming model would have turned out as good as it did.
How does one implement an idea. It has been said before and I will say it again. Prototype and iterate. Iteration is key. Think about what is fun, put it into a prototype, and test it. Test it as often as you can and test it on people who are in your audience. Listen to feedback.
Those who saw early builds of ThinkTanks know that we practice what we preach.. Early builds of ThinkTanks has box tanks and box explosions with a stick for the weapon. It played well, and we invested no time in the art. If you want to keep the game cheap, delay the art production until as late in the process as possible, so that you don't end up spending a LOT of time making assets that will get thrown away.
I will have more on the actual prototyping and iteration process in a later blog, but I wanted to address more topics, and specifically,
THE DEMO
Almost without fail, most indie games I have seen have blown it on the demo. I try a lot of games, and most don't do the job of making the sale. Many times I enjoy the game, but I don't have a clear idea of what I would get if I get the full version. Other games don't do a good job of getting me into the game and getting the experience quickly enough to see if I like it. One demo in particular had officemate Mark McCoy remarking "seems like it might have been good, but I did not get that far into it as the shell kicked my ass".
If you want people to buy your game, you have to be sensitive to the consumer and create a compelling demo for them so that they get the experience of the game quickly, understand what they get IF they get the full version, and create compelling reasons for them to purchase.
Most demos I play seem as if they were done at the last minute, right before the game is shipped, and often are nothing more than a time limit on the full game.
Time Limiting can work, but not all games are the same, and not all games will benefit from the same demo strategy.
If there is one thing I would offer as advice to developers, it is to think about the demo strategy as early in the development process as possible (ideally during the design doc phase).
For ThinkTanks, we not only looked at games, but also all types of shareware that we use. FTP apps.. little utilities, etc.. and made a list of which ones we ended up purchasing, which one we did not buy, what strategies they used, and what we thought was successful.
What we settled on for ThinkTanks was a combination of feature limiting (making sure we made the features visible, but disabled), time limiting, and 'annoy' screens. The ones that worked best were the feature limiting of the tanks.. you got to see the tanks that you could not choose, and the 'kick' you get when playing multiplayer with the nag screen that reminds you that you are a demo.
We added a bunch of smaller 'annoy' features, like demo versions not saving the players name between games (so you had to keep retyping it in).. many small constant reminders that you are a DEMO and not a retail player.
We also tracked data on downloads and conversion to tune the demo, the text on the product page, etc.. to see what we could tweak to make the demo experience better.
ANALYSIS
Both Clark and I are data hounds. If it can be tested and measured, we like to test and measure it. This is not to say we are wholly analytical.. in fact, both of us consistently work from 'gut' feelings about things, and rely on a lot of intuition when making decisions. If it feels right, it probably is. BUT, we do like to double check our assumptions about things. This is why we track data both formally and informally. For optimization, clark does some really in depth analysis of the situation. It is really cool to see charts and clear data that backs up his assumptions on where problem areas are. For myself, at the IGC, I am walking around, watching people play games, timing how long they play, which games are showing up on the screens in the play area the most.. where people look like they are having fun, keeping an eye out for people struggling with interfaces.. all so I can learn and gather more information to make better decisions.
The more information one has, the better informed they are and the better decisions they can make.
ok, I am running out of steam for the evening, and tomorrow is Monday and I have a boatload of work to do, so instead of having this sit on my harddrive, I am just going to post it. I hope some of you find my thoughts useful, and if there is anything anyone would like me to expound upon, let me know.
As for the picture at the top of this blog, it has nothing to do with anything I wrote, I just hate having blogs without pictures.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 11/07/06 - Focusing development by way of bootstrapping 10/20/06 - New Human 2.0 09/30/06 - The Finish Line 09/03/06 - Value of a Thing 06/18/06 - The shape of things to come 06/11/06 - Starting a Studio: Things we did right 06/02/06 - You Can Do it! 09/05/05 - The importance of theme |
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Submit your own resources!| Andy Schatz (Jun 20, 2005 at 05:05 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Alex Rice (Jun 20, 2005 at 05:31 GMT) |
| Alex Rice (Jun 20, 2005 at 05:34 GMT) |
| Joe Maruschak (Jun 20, 2005 at 05:38 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
there was no learning curve for us. We all worked at Dynamix, where we had worked on multiple titles with the Tribes 2 engine (basically, old TGE) before starting BraveTree, so we knew what we were doing toolwise.. the 'building a smaller game, getting the size down for download, and the demo experience where the learning parts for us.. if we did it again, we might be able to shave off 2-3 man months using what we learned.
| Logan Foster (Jun 20, 2005 at 06:19 GMT) |
In comparison a game like Lore Invasion was roughly about 35 man months to get it to where it is at now. This is accounting roughly 5 or 6 people working for 2 years straight and about 8 hours a week minimal (though its likely a bit higher since some of us like Adrian and myself had about 8 months where we invested all of our time, 16 hour days into the project). I would guess that about a third to half of the time was spent learning TGE and being proficient in it, so even at best if we knew TGE really well it probably would have been an 18 month project just with TGE. So it definately was a long haul to get this far, very rewarding mind you but also a huge uphill battle all the way.
| Mathieu (Jun 20, 2005 at 08:58 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
One worst error I can see on some demos is when limited features are not explicitly shown as is.
Making a demo is really a job on is own.
| Martin Schultz (Jun 20, 2005 at 09:37 GMT) |
| Gary Preston (Jun 20, 2005 at 11:01 GMT) |
After a quick look through Gamasutra, I can see a couple of indie games that have had post mortems written for them. Does anyone know of any GarageGames product post mortems (other than Gish)?
| Chris Labombard (Jun 20, 2005 at 12:50 GMT) |
I am interested in hearing how you track your data... and what data (exactly) you track.
Also, implementation . . . There has to be more steps then refine -> reiterate -> repeat. Can you be more detailed? You must keep a log of development stages and milestones. Design first. Or do you whip up a quick prototype of gameplay and design on that ? What is the first step after prototype? Do you get all the features quasy implimented in rough form so you can start iterating on them ? How much time do you spend on design ? How do you determine if a feature is really important to the games success ?
Well, those are a few of my questions. I'd ask the rest, but I'm sure you don't have THAT much time.
Thanks again for this.
| Billy L (Jun 20, 2005 at 14:12 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Thanks for the informative Blog.
| Joe Maruschak (Jun 20, 2005 at 14:25 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
All of that will be addressed in the next blog.. it may possibly be spread over two blogs. As for more questions, ask away.. I always like to have a better idea of what people want of the knowledge I have gained. The better I can understand what it is that I have (in terms of knowledge/experience) the better I can tune my blog.
| Phil Carlisle (Jun 20, 2005 at 14:32 GMT) |
He's pretty much hit the nail on the head with everything he said above. It took me a good time to learn the same kind of things myself, in fact its taken me until we started Air Ace to finally "get it" as to how something like that works.
It just felt "right" when we did the first prototype of Air Ace. Thats perhaps not quite so obvious, but having a good feeling about the feasability of the project is a major thing here. Making sure you tackle a project that is *doable* is definitely #1 of the priorities. Dont waste time making things that you simply are incapable of delivering.
Another thing I'd add to Joe's list, is to make partnerships with other people! working with them on technology, or doing trade's for different efforts can pay dividends.
Anyway, Joe's plan is sage advice! This man knows!!!
| Joe Sulewski (Jun 20, 2005 at 15:02 GMT) |
Edited on Jun 20, 2005 15:04 GMT
| Chris Labombard (Jun 20, 2005 at 15:38 GMT) |
Publishing. There are so many avenues to publish through. What is the smartest strategy? Online? Find a publisher to put you in a box? Selling on your own site? Portals? Affiliates (Not exactly sure how affiliates work).... All of them?
Marketing. It is very difficult to build hype for indie games, and a lot of the indies (who have been successful) that I have talked to say don't worry about it. Market the game after it is finsihed. You seem to reflect the same opinion "Focus on the game, make it fun, and then worry about how to make money with it" ... When it comes to marketing, there are yet again tonnes of options. What is a smart marketing strategy to help ensure an indie game (with the smallest of small budgets) is succesful ? Most answers given (by random industry folks) are vauge. As you can tell, I am fighting to get an insight into this part of game dev for indies, but it seems to be very shrouded.
Marketing services. There are a few marketing services aimed at indies.. Specifically Joseph Liberman's vgSmart and Andie Clark over at PlanetSchnoogie ... Do you suggest utilizing some of there services or doing the marketing by yourself ?
Another thing is confrences. IGC (hosted by GG) seems too small to warrent travelling from Ontario (35 hour drive 1 way) ... What exposure potential lies in IGC ? Is there press there ? How much ? Do the games in the showcase get picked up by said media, or do they focus on the sessions ? GDC seems like the place to be for indies (IGF) ... How difficult is it to get into IGF ? What about there finals ? If you don't make it into the finals is there much opportunity to get picked up by a publisher ? Do publishers approach you, or do you "have" to set up pre arranged meetings with them (like E3) ... From what I hear, E3 is a dog and pony show that indies are best off not attending. Do you agree or disagree and why ?
Budget. What size budget did thinktanks take ? (I realize you may not be able to give specifics, I am just looking for a ballpark) ... Could that budget have been reduced, without harming thinktanks ?
In your opinion what is holding indies back ? Drive and determination ? Good ideas ? Nothing, they just aren't taking the opportunities presented to them ? It seems like the potential for indies are great... yet most indies aren't taking any of them...
| Phil Carlisle (Jun 20, 2005 at 18:16 GMT) |
We both probably got that from a bunch of marketing books from guys like Al and Laura Ries, Seth Godin etc. Well worth picking those books up.
What thinktanks and I believe Air Ace have going for us, is that we have a CLEAR niche, which we both target AND satisfy. We arent trying to be everything to everyone. As long as gameplay is there, we have a very narrow focus. Focus is an issue with marketing which I think indies can learn.
As for getting publishing and other such, from recent experience, making the right product will make opportunities happen. Having a clear product which is easy for people to conceptualize the gameplay, makes it easy to market.
I'm sure Joe will have more insights.
Just my 2$ents :)
| Chris Labombard (Jun 20, 2005 at 18:31 GMT) |
So how do you translate your great (and well branded) product into sales? How do you get people 'in the know' about your masterpeice ?
| Joshua Dallman (Jun 20, 2005 at 20:01 GMT) |
the "huh?" factor won't keep me from making the game, but it'll be a bitch to market by comparision
insightful read, thanks for the write-up! gg-joined or not, the bravetree story is inspiring.
| Matt Fairfax (Jun 20, 2005 at 22:09 GMT) |
| Phil Carlisle (Jun 20, 2005 at 22:44 GMT) |
I have a 100% clear picture in my head of the target audience. I had from day one, in that I AM my intended audience. I wanted an easy to pick up game that just had dogfighting in. Something as pure as Red Baron where you are instantly in the action. I'm a hard-core FPS player normally, so it had to appeal to the hardcore player, but as Joe mentioned, one that is slightly older now, with less time to play.
So targetting short-term play sessions, with intense action, in a dogfighting game (not "sim" as there are already plenty of those), I found a niche that exists that hasnt been served.
It turns out there is already a nice little niche of players I can tap into, they are VERY vocal about what they want and are incredibly supportive.
So I know that whatever happens, Air Ace has a good chance of getting a hardcore playerbase interested in playing, maybe a 2-300 strong playerbase to start off with who might automatically like my game!
What I'm saying is that I know my target audience, I contacted my target audience from almost the first day of the project, I showed the game to them, got feedback etc. I'll be doing that for a LONG time.
Listening to the players can do you a lot of good in getting interest. As these are the spreaders of the good news for your game. The generators of word of mouth, which is all important for indies!
| Chris Labombard (Jun 21, 2005 at 00:26 GMT) |
@Phil - yes, but from my perspecitve you are in a unique situation. You know and can contact your target audience... I don't see how I can do that.
Thank you, bioth of you, for your help. The more I talk with fellow developers, the more I learn how the whole system operates. :)
| Jaimi McEntire (Jun 21, 2005 at 02:12 GMT) |
| Alex Rice (Jun 21, 2005 at 04:05 GMT) |
| Matt Fairfax (Jun 21, 2005 at 05:09 GMT) |
Take a look at these two screenshots of the same game (BoomBall):
[image]http://www.rustycode.com/projects/boomball/th_boomball_action1.jpg[/image...We got a much larger response from those who played the left one (prototype) than from those who played the right one. Why? Because the first one really nailed the fun factor...by the time we had all of the pretty/glitz we had lost a bit of that fun factor and no matter how much worse the prototype looked it generated a *lot* more interest in the players.
Edited on Jun 21, 2005 05:10 GMT
| Joe Maruschak (Jun 21, 2005 at 05:28 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
at the first IGC, thinktanks had boxes for projectiles, boxes for explosions, and NO sound at all. It had one tank, without a brain, with a placeholder texture. It took second place in the awards. Having 'finish' on it can help, but if the game is fun, it will show, and people will play it and have fun. Boomball is a perfect example as well.. no offense to matt, tom, and wayne, but the prototype looked like hell... it sure was fun to play though.
it is never too early to get feedback, and although placeholder art can turn some people off, and lead to some useless feedback (like them telling you the textures look like crap), it can be enlightening.
@chris,
I am going to respond to your questions as soon as I have some time. it is too late tonite for me to start a coherent response..
| Joe Maruschak (Jun 21, 2005 at 14:39 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Quote:
Alright then... I will ask round 2 of my neverending questions.
Quote:
Publishing. There are so many avenues to publish through. What is the smartest strategy? Online? Find a publisher to put you in a box? Selling on your own site? Portals? Affiliates (Not exactly sure how affiliates work).... All of them?
any and all.. it really depends on the game and the audience. The key here is to maximize $$$ for the time spent. easy to think about if you use $$$ as the metric. If you sell from your own site, you keep 100% of the profit.. if you use a portal, you may get 25%... if you just set up your own website, you may get 20-30 visitors a day.. on a portal.. that number may be 10K people a day looking at your game.. maybe 1K people downloading it.. if your conversion rate (rate of demo players to purchasers) is decent (in the neighborhood of 2%) you will make 20 sales a day.. at 25%.. or $5 a unit ($100 a day).. if you sell from your own site, and you get 20-30 people a day.. and maybe 10 download it.. you will get .2 units sold a day... basically, one a week.. or $20 a week. so, you make more with bigger distribution. growing your own distribution network would be ideal.. but how much time, effort, and money does it take to grow it to the point where it is worth it? If it costs a year a labor to grow your distribution network (at a cost of what you value your time) could you grow traffic enough to equal the traffic of a distribution channel to make it worth it? Is it worth giving a % to an affiliate to get more exposure for your game (more exposure gives you more sales), when the person who is looking may have found your site anyway? I ask this as we did not do affiliate programs.. because when we did searches for terms like 'game', our site came up higher than some of the affiliate sites, and we did not do very much SEO (search engine optimization).. would it be a good move to give away % to someone who may actually be eating into direct sales and not really getting the traffic to make it worth it? It may make sense for some titles, may not for others.. it really depends on the game and the audience you are trying to hit. Where do they shop for games?
It all really comes down to trying any way possible to get your demo in front of a person who may purchase it. There are many ways to do this. With ThinkTanks, we just made the game, and ended up getting good reviews all over the place (which linked back to GG), put the demo up on a ton of sites (paid the small fee to get it listed), and had people contact us for permission to include the demo on CD covermounts for a lot of magazines. If the game is good, distribution opportunities will seek you out.
I would stay away from box unless you are approached by a publisher to do a box deal.. if you try to approach them, you will probably not have a lot of luck (unless you are lucky)
so, publish anywhere you can without giving away ownership... or getting a really bad deal.. think about $$$ and not % and you will make good decisions. (note that GG's % offering is the best for any online distributor)
Quote:
Marketing. It is very difficult to build hype for indie games, and a lot of the indies (who have been successful) that I have talked to say don't worry about it. Market the game after it is finsihed. You seem to reflect the same opinion "Focus on the game, make it fun, and then worry about how to make money with it" ... When it comes to marketing, there are yet again tonnes of options. What is a smart marketing strategy to help ensure an indie game (with the smallest of small budgets) is succesful ? Most answers given (by random industry folks) are vauge. As you can tell, I am fighting to get an insight into this part of game dev for indies, but it seems to be very shrouded.
if you don't have a marketing budget, don't spend too much time thinking about it.. make a great game, and people will like it and tell others. one easy thing to do is pay one of the online 'shareware' PAD file makers the $85 bucks or whatever to get your demo on like every site out there. Takes no effort, costs little, and gets your game in front of a lot of eyeballs. If the game is good, you will have no trouble in getting exposure.
With ThinkTanks, we relied a LOT on positive word of mouth. this is the most powerful tool in the marketing arsenal for any small group. Make it good, make it unique, and people will tell others.
also, talk about your game.. Joshua Dallman does a great job of just talking about his project.. as does Josh Ritter, and now, with AirAce, so does Phil Carlilse. Shamelessly self promote yourself and your title. For me, it is a little uncomfortable, as I am actually a pretty private guy who does not wish to be a rock star. I feel bad because I don't really want someone to search for my name and see me plastered all over the internet, and be seen as some sort of indie game John Carmack. I am just a guy who likes to make games. Means to an end though.. you have to get yourself out there, and let people know who you are and what your project is about.
If you have a good name for your game, talk about it all the time.. post about it.. get that name out there.. have the Search Engines pick up that name NOW, so when the game is ready to go, and people hear the name, they can google and see 100's of references to it. This is pretty much guerilla marketing.. there is a good book called 'Anatomy of Buzz" that is worth reading to get some insight.. but it can be dangerous if you start to overthink it.
Quote:
Marketing services. There are a few marketing services aimed at indies.. Specifically Joseph Liberman's vgSmart and Andie Clark over at PlanetSchnoogie ... Do you suggest utilizing some of there services or doing the marketing by yourself ?
never used them, so I have no opinion. We just made the game.. we (bravetree) suck at marketing.. we depend on our game being decent and the marketing smarts of our distributors.
marketing is a good thing, and the more you have of it, the better your project will be. Look into them, and if they seem like they will generate $$$ for you, use them. Don't put the cart before the horse though.. have a plan for getting the game done.. having a plan to market the game and no clear plan to finish it is a mis-allocation of resources (in my opinion)
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Budget. What size budget did thinktanks take ? (I realize you may not be able to give specifics, I am just looking for a ballpark) ... Could that budget have been reduced, without harming thinktanks ?
$0 was the budget. We lived off of our savings. We did not keep track of how much we spent.. it was about a years worth of actual living expenses.
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In your opinion what is holding indies back ? Drive and determination ? Good ideas ? Nothing, they just aren't taking the opportunities presented to them ? It seems like the potential for indies are great... yet most indies aren't taking any of them...
what is holding indies back? well, nothing.. many are doing it and succeeding. I think the biggest thing holding Indies back is that they have big ideas, they try to form a big team to do it, and they struggle with trying to keep everyone committed to a large project that is so out of scope for their teams abilities that they have no chance of success. When GarageGames first started, and the TGE became available, I expected to see more prototypes. What I see a lot of is a lot of inexperienced people trying to one-up Halo.. to make the next biggest baddest game ever. There are things going on that are more in line with what I expected to see. Mini One racing always impresses me when I see a screenshot.. it is a small, tight, great looking game.
I also see a lot of armchair game design. Often people complain about a lot of things that now that I am a designer, and before that a student of game design while working at a larger company, are obvious to me. More features does not mean better, bigger worlds does not mean more enjoyable (automatically). More realism does not equal more fun. There are reasons that games do what they do.. why certain features are what they are and implemented as they are. Professional Game Devs (those in the 'big' industry) are not stupid. they implement what they implement because it works. I don't see a lot a game play experimentation going on.. there are notable exceptions (blockland) that have generated a LOT of heat with the prototype.
If I had my dream come true, I would much rather see more people taking stabs at more 'mini' projects.. ones to cut their teeth on, to learn the tools, to learn about game design, to learn who is in the community and who they can work with.
I had expected to see more prototypes using content packs (which are growing monthly here on GG), where teams of 1-2 guys put together something cool and try to generate interest. Where are the games like Tennis Critters? (made by one person).
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also, implementation . . . There has to be more steps then refine -> reiterate -> repeat. Can you be more detailed? You must keep a log of development stages and milestones. Design first. Or do you whip up a quick prototype of gameplay and design on that ? What is the first step after prototype? Do you get all the features quasy implimented in rough form so you can start iterating on them ? How much time do you spend on design ? How do you determine if a feature is really important to the games success ?
I will save that for the next blog.
| Chris Labombard (Jun 21, 2005 at 15:28 GMT) |
I will probably wait until you post your next blog to ask round 3 (and probably 4) of questions. I hope it is soon.
"pay one of the online 'shareware' PAD file makers the $85 bucks or whatever to get your demo on like every site out there" Are you talking about programs like sharewaretracker and/or robosoft ?
Edited on Jun 21, 2005 15:35 GMT
| Matthew Langley (Jun 21, 2005 at 15:46 GMT) |
| Joshua Dallman (Jun 21, 2005 at 17:24 GMT) |
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at the first IGC, thinktanks had boxes for projectiles, boxes for explosions, and NO sound at all. It had one tank, without a brain, with a placeholder texture. It took second place in the awards.
that's a sobering lesson for all! personally, for me, it's pride that would keep me from showing off something that's technically sound and fun but with programmer art. I'm dying to show an early shelled build to associates for feedback, but not until the orc is replaced with a turtle tank.
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PAD file makers the $85 bucks or whatever to get your demo on like every site out there
do a google search for "bugged out rally" (in quotes). it's the racing starter kit moded with bug car models and little else for additions/changes. even the default torque textures are used for skyboxes and ground textures. and this modest little game scores 13,200 hits in google. 13k! if they can do it, so can you.
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Dallman does a great job of just talking about his project
it's simple: it's free advertising. if there should be (fingers crossed) a nucleus of users that find resonance with shelled through gg, they'll tell their friends and entice them to play it, who will tell their friends, etc. in business you learn that not only the cheapest but (paradoxically) the most effective form of advertising is word of mouth. I saw the new batman in large part because of a GG forum thread reviewing it positively. how's that for viral marketing? indie or corporate, it remains true.
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$0 was the budget.
I will share that my budget is around that of a late-model used car (which I've shared before). it doesn't take a rich uncle to make your game, if you cut the right corners, work with the right people, and scope it properly.
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I think the biggest thing holding Indies back is that they have big ideas
exactly. scale it back people, keep it simple, keep it small, keep it fun. look at old atari games for inspiration, that's where think tanks came from. maybe you're not so big on casual "arena" games. well, you have to start somehwhere. if you can't make a casual game, what makes you think you can make a serious game? I thought shelled would be a 2-3 month project (LOL!!!) when I started it. you'd be surprised how much work it really is to finish and polish a good fun game, even if it is simple. shelled is as simple as aim, shoot, repeat, and it's a one-year game -- and that's with a budget (modest as it is). if your budget is zero it'll be that much tougher. start small for success!
| Michael Cozzolino (Jun 22, 2005 at 15:13 GMT) |
1 Question multiple parts :)
How do/did you go about getting your "target audience" involved in testing the early prototypes? How did you approach them? Did you pay them? Feed them? Both? Offer them the game free when it's done? I'm not too good at organizing people to get together so any info would be great. Like difficulties of scheduling etc.
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