Night in the Woods dev slams crunch work culture: 'people are going to die'

Launch Day. The end of a chapter in a game developer's journey and a big step forward for your game. Releasing your game to the public is a big deal, and we would like to share our Bouncy Smash launch day experiences, mishaps and advice with you.

Below are three tips we have for game developers gearing up for launch day. We hope they'll help you successfully smash this next chapter of your game's life cycle!

Share your game. If you have an opportunity to attend a convention or get your game in front of people prior to launch day, do it. Share it and watch people's faces as they play it. Seeing a smile erupt on somebody's face just because they crushed a baddie in something you created from nothing is a hard feeling to explain — joy mixed with disbelief mixed with self-doubt.

Sometimes, you won't launch on your launch date, and that's okay. We planned to release Bouncy Smash in November 2017, then that turned into December 2017. Ultimately, we released on February 20, 2018. Like every other setback that happened in the development of Bouncy Smash, delaying our launch proved to be a serendipitous occurrence. We've learned to roll with the punches and not get caught up in the failure of our best laid plans.

Surround yourself with people who have done it before. Whether they're your friends or paid consultants, having people with a deep knowledge of the industry around you will help you make the best decisions possible. Without the people we had in our corner, we would have made countless mistakes that could have easily derailed everything we were trying to build.

We hope this advice is useful to you as you prepare to launch your game. If you've already launched, please leave your advice in the comments!

Kat @ IV Studios

submitted by /u/katastrophic88
[link] [comments]

The Paradox Podcast - S02E05 - What Is Wrong With User Reviews? by Paradox Interactive

Posted: 09 May 2018 06:59 AM PDT

submitted by /u/theyre_not_their
[link] [comments]

WIP Wednesday #96 - Thanos Fortnite

Posted: 09 May 2018 08:17 AM PDT

What is WIP Wednesday?

Share your work-in-progress (WIP) prototype, feature, art, model or work-in-progress game here and get early feedback from, and give early feedback to, other game developers.

RULES

Do promote good feedback and interesting posts, and upvote those who posted it! Also, don't forget to thank the people who took some of their time to write some feedback or encouraging words for you, even if you don't agree with what they said.
Do state what kind of feedback you want. We realise this may be hard, but please be as specific as possible so we can help each other best.
Do leave feedback to at least 2 other posts. It should be common courtesy, but just for the record: If you post your work and want feedback, give feedback to other people as well.
Do NOT post your completed work. This is for work-in-progress only, we want to support each other in early phases (It doesn't have to be pretty!).
Do NOT try to promote your game to game devs here, we are not your audience. You may include links to your game's website, social media or devblog for those who are interested, but don't push it; this is not for marketing purposes.

Remember to use #WIPWednesday on social media for additional feedback and exposure!

Note: Using url shorteners is discouraged as it may get you caught by Reddit's spam filter.

All Previous WIP Wednesdays

submitted by /u/VarianceCS
[link] [comments]

Naming my castaway life raft survival game

Posted: 09 May 2018 09:13 AM PDT

I'm working on a PC 2D sandbox survival game which involves surviving by yourself in an ocean/island environment after a shipwreck starting with only a life raft. There aren't any enemies other than the environment and the main goal is to survive and craft new things with the final goal of escaping or getting rescued.

I've been stuck on naming the game and trying to find a name that doesn't sound too abstract or sound too much like another game. I've tried combining words related to the game but haven't found anything that sounds right. Also just using normal words could make it hard to find on Google.

Does anyone have either any name ideas, or any suggestions as to how I could go about finding a name?

submitted by /u/SquashFruit
[link] [comments]

Don't Know Where To Start, and I'm Feeling Lost

Posted: 09 May 2018 06:56 AM PDT

So I read the posting guidelines but am unsure if this post is a-ok or not. So if it isn't, my apology to the mods.

This post is kind of about me needing to ramble to people who (I hope) will understand me in some aspect, while also trying to just get advice on what the hell to do. So here goes.

I am a software student currently in the last legs of my program. Last summer I was able to get myself a co-op position doing software work. Even after my co-op term ended my boss asked me if I wanted to stay on with the company working part-time while I was in school, and full-time when I'm done. Honestly, I need the money, so of course I didn't turn that down. Almost every day I talk about what I do and someone makes the comment, "You don't sound like this is what you want to be doing. Why did you go to school for this?" And the simple answer is; this isn't what I want to be doing.

I went to school because I want to make video games. I love the creativity of the medium, and I know I have the drive to see myself succeed when I get the wheels going. But here's the problem, I can't get the wheels going right now.

My plans last year were to work on some small projects on the side on days where I had time after work. But between my co-op, my other job (have to pay off that student debt somehow), and trying to keep in actual contact with my girlfriend, there was never any time. Any time I did find I was too mentally and physically exhausted to really do anything other than lie down and take a nap.

So then school rolls around. And while I ended up working less hours, I still had both jobs, my personal life, and now school piled on top of them. So still, I had no time to sit down and do anything. Eventually I bought myself a small notebook and would just jot down ideas I had throughout the day, since that at least was something. But it still felt like I wasn't getting anywhere.

So now I'm back to the spot I was in last year. I'm working full-time again at this software job, part time at my other job, and trying to make time for a small personal life. And it just feels like I'm never going to escape this to do what I actually want to do. I feel like I'll never actually have the time or the energy to pursue what is honestly my dream.

So I guess at the end of all the rambling what I am really asking is, where do I even start with trying to develop a game when I don't have a lot of spare time on my hands? Even the idea of a small mobile game feels impossibly daunting to me right now.

submitted by /u/Skitzafreak
[link] [comments]

Posted: 09 May 2018 11:14 AM PDT

I've been writing a video game narrative for a while now using a simple word processor like Microsoft Word, but it just feels too unorganized and doesn't fit well when crafting massive worlds and character dialogue. Are there any good programs to recommend for writing video game narratives? Maybe even something used to help organize branching dialogue choices?

submitted by /u/Speady99
[link] [comments]

Showing debug/console functionality in my 2D C++ Game Engine

Posted: 08 May 2018 08:09 PM PDT

Hey all,

Just wanted to share some of the next steps I've taken with my small C++ engine.. if you missed the first post, click here.

This time around I focused on debug functionality

Added Platypus - a class that contains configs that the code can pull or modify
- Can also read from a 'platypus.ini' file so that I can trigger debug functionality or test specific flows from boot
Added a Console - allows the code to ask Console to draw text or primitives on screen either in world space or in screen space
- Also provides the ability to modify Platypus configs in real time

Here's some gifs:

Drawing debug logs on screen, setting a Player Info config so I can get some more debug info about the player, and setting a Camera Target config so that I can see what the camera's doing:

https://imgur.com/a/wqoosBu

Camera Target debug in action in a map larger than the screen

https://imgur.com/a/UETY1GC

That's it for now!

submitted by /u/progrematic
[link] [comments]

Racing simulator for a car hoisted on a four post in a climatic chamber

Posted: 09 May 2018 07:02 AM PDT

Hi Everyone,

I am a mechanical engineering student with the project to create a racing simulator. I have access to a four post shaker providing upward and downward movement for cars. This means I have the ability to stimulate any road type, banks/turns, pot holes, and speed bump with a car raised on the hoists.

In doing this, I have a car to use, and a flexible budget to create this video game. I would like help getting started and where I should look to create this video game and how I could go about to match what the driver is seeing to the movement of the car.

Any Ideas help!

submitted by /u/Bruugy
[link] [comments]

GDC 2018 Guerilla Marketing Campaign Postmortem

Posted: 09 May 2018 10:30 AM PDT

submitted by /u/IndieWolverine
[link] [comments]

Creative Commons 3.0 and Game OST's

Posted: 09 May 2018 10:06 AM PDT

No idea if this would be better suited to /r/legaladvice

Hey, indie developer getting ready to launch a demo and kickstarter soon for my visual novel RB: Axolotl. When I was toying with prototypes for my game, I ended up using some Anttis Instrumentals I found off this subreddit, which fall under the Creative Commons license 3.0.

I've grown quite attached to this music, and would like it to be used in the full game, with given attribution obviously. Right now about half the tracks in the game are being made by my musician, and the other half are the Anttis tracks. I would like to offer an OST as part of my upcoming kickstarter, and eventually an OST for the game, but what do you all reccomend I do for the other half of the tracks? I can release my musicians as the OST, but it's missing half of them. I am already going to message Anttis directly, but would I just put a link to the rest of the tracks that I used? It would feel to crummy to literally just package his music, even if I did use it in my game with attribution.

submitted by /u/Actawesome
[link] [comments]

Right methodology for estimating the number of players of 2D MMORPG?

Posted: 09 May 2018 09:30 AM PDT

I'm trying to find out a way to reliably estimate the total number of players over time of 2D MMORPG, in the context of market research. I find it very hard to find official numbers, so I try to estimate them using other publicly available numbers. I find Steampsy ranges very broad and would like to try to achieve more precise numbers. Also, many games of that category are not available on Steam (but when they are I still try to leverage Steam data, see below).

In this post I'll explain what numbers I use and how I extrapolate them to achieve estimates. I'll make my assumptions explicit for them to be discussed. I'll show the result of this approach for about 20 games fitting the "2D MMORPG" category.

I'm very interested in any and all feedback. Criticism of the assumptions, ideas of additional numbers I could use, anything that comes to your mind that could make the final estimates more accurate.

Numbers

I have identified three publicly available and relatively precise numbers that can be used as indicators of the amount of active, committed players over time:

Number of Steam reviews (if the game is on Steam). I make the assumption that only people who have played the game will write a review. I also expect that only a very small fraction of the players will bother writing one: I estimate that 2% of players write reviews.
All-time peak of concurrent players from Steam Charts (if game on Steam). I assume that at most 10% of the players tend to be playing at the same time.
Number of subscribers to a game's subreddit. I make the assumption that only people who play the game will subscribe to its subreddit. I also expect that only a small fraction of the players will be committed enough to do so, which I estimate to 5% of the player base.

Estimation

I gathered these three numbers (when possible) for several games. Here is the very basic formulas used to produce an estimate:

reviewsEstimate = nbReviews*50 (based on my 2% assumption) concurrentEstimate = allTimeConcurrentPlayersPeak*10 (based on my 10% assumption)

redditEstimate = nbSubscribers*20 (based on my 5% assumption) NbPlayers = MAX(reviewsEstimate, redditEstimate, concurrentEstimate)

In plain English, I extrapolate the three numbers based on my assumptions, and my final estimate correspond to the highest of the three. I'm sure there is plenty of room to improve this!

Data

The data I have collected, together with the estimates I made, are available in this Google Sheet for you to review. With concrete examples of games you may be familiar with, it may be easier to criticize the approach.

For example, from this document, one would say that Realm of the Mad God has had about 1,317,050 players in the course of its existence.

Discussion

I'm pretty sure these estimates are relatively bad at the moment and that they underestimate the real numbers, but it's a starting point.

There are several points that can be discussed (in the context of this specific category of games):

Are these three numbers valid measures to use to estimate the total number of players over time?
Are there other easily available numbers that could be used in addition to these?
Is it a valid to assume that 2% of players review games? Should it be higher or lower?
Is it a valid to assume that 5% of players subscribe to a game's subreddit?
Is it valid to assume that at most 10% of the players can be playing concurrently?
Is the max an appropriate aggregate function? Would another function (min, mean,...) make more sense?

My hope is that the collective experience of the community here might help to converge towards reasonable answers to these questions, and ultimately to reliable estimates.

submitted by /u/jerome_renaux
[link] [comments]

Games and Culture

Posted: 09 May 2018 08:14 AM PDT

submitted by /u/lewisparr
[link] [comments]

Why You Need to Evaluate Your Opportunity Cost with Michael Futter (Podcast Interview)

Posted: 09 May 2018 06:59 AM PDT

submitted by /u/TChan_Gaming
[link] [comments]

Selling unreleased game(code base, artwork, social media etc)?

Posted: 09 May 2018 06:49 AM PDT

Hi,

Is there a place where you can sell an unfinished unreleased game? Is there website, like craiglist for apps?

The game would include the name, artwork, current codebase, social media channels and support from the dev.

submitted by /u/RockySuperG
[link] [comments]

More like shower thoughts, Do you ever think if your indie game is good enough to a crowdfunding campaign?

Posted: 09 May 2018 05:03 AM PDT

Title, sometimes when you work alone w/o money is hard to tell if you're doing a good job, and sometimes feels like you're wasting your time and no one will ever play your small game

submitted by /u/JuanPaixao
[link] [comments]

Full Breakdown - Animated Realtime Model Nimmersatt

Posted: 09 May 2018 03:05 AM PDT

submitted by /u/enamaye
[link] [comments]

Breaking News

Programming29

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Night in the Woods dev slams crunch work culture: 'people are going to die'

Night in the Woods dev slams crunch work culture: 'people are going to die'

Numbers

Estimation

Data

Discussion

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular

Blog Archive