Making a Game #6 - "For the Right Reasons"

Friends! It’s that time again, when I realise I should probably write a quick, pithy blog update about “A Nice Game About Balls” because I have, in fact, forgotten to do that.

So what’s been going down in game dev town?

A Boss! Kinda!

For the demo (more below), I’ve added an ‘interim’ boss. Players won’t directly engage with the boss at this point, but he’ll be there, being a nuisance to the players. He should be an imposing figure throughout exhibition matches.

Demo-specific UI!

Admittedly, this is very boring, but I’ve had to rethink how the demo (again, more below) vs. full game will work, re: user interactions and progress measurements/scoring. I’ve had to rebuild the main menu, and sub menus, and... that’s boring! But, kinda important! There’s no use adding lots of cool game features if people can’t even get to the game.

The long, painful slog to a playable demo!

As green as I am regarding game dev, I’ve incorrectly thought - not just once - that “after this next bug, tweak, feature... I should be ready to release an early demo!” and then I realise how far away I am from that.

I’ve heard people say both: “get your game in front of people as quickly as possible!” and also: “don’t put a buggy, broken game in front of people, you idiot”. I’m kinda erring more towards the latter in my current thinking.

It’s difficult enough to get people to play your game, so why treat them to a crappy experience? Would I look forward to playing the full version of a game where the demo was shoddy / broken? Likely not - unless it had enough that I could really see what the game devs are aiming for (and what they are aiming for is cool).

So yeah, I still don’t really know how far away I am from a demo. I’d say at least 80-90% of the way there? Yet there are many things I haven’t really considered, such as: localisation, audio-levelling, etc. etc. etc. oh, and... marketing?

Marketing panic

I’ve been focusing - I think correctly - on getting my game in a playable demo state, but I tend to read that marketing is kinda half of your game, and I haven’t really done much at all.

I don’t think I doubted it, but it seems true that marketing your game is the hardest part of game development. You’d hope that setting up a Steam page, tagging it correctly, adding a bunch of screenshots, a video, features, promotional blurb or two would find you some audience - maybe not a huge one - but you’d maybe hope more than the current worryingly minuscule amount I have (re: Steam Wishlists).

I’ve made the mistake (?) of researching how people market their games, and games currently doing a lot better than I am are getting laughed at by the kind people of Reddit. So, not... great.

I’ve been learning the basics of DaVinci Resolve video editing, and have been throwing together little clips from the game, including an improved teaser. Although the things I’ve made so far haven’t triggered the algorithm to scoop me up and plonk me in front of an audience, it’s been kinda fun to play around with.

Hopefully, as the development moves forward, I can make more little videos and create more engaging “content” - feels a bit dirty using that word.

And more!

There’s been a huge amount of smaller improvements (I have to remind myself that things get better every day), but it’s hard not to get increasingly stressed as time goes on... and time runs out!

“For the right reasons”

I’m realising this post sounds quite... bleak (probably because it is) as the reality of game development becomes ever clearer to me... but about a year ago, when I started giving a concerted effort to understanding/learning game dev - I wrote a note on my whiteboard saying “for the right reasons”.

I wrote this because if you’re going to focus your efforts on anything, it should be for the right reasons - duh. I don’t think many (sane) people take on the challenge of creating video games because they’re expecting to make millions £$£$£ and spend the rest of their lives writing off gold-plated Lamborghinis...

Instead, the reason to do it is that you want to - because you care - and because you take joy out of the act of being creative. I’ve already learned so much that a year ago I had no idea about, and that alone is the right reason.

I’ll keep reminding myself of that and keep plodding on as long as I can.