| Oh what a wonderful saga! |
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| Written by DrMistry |
| Thursday, 23 December 2010 12:31 |
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So much going on, so little time!· Man it's been one crazy year.·It started with Space Pirates (and I still shiver when I think about that release!) and is going to end with Xenocide going to marketplace.· That's 4 games in a year - not bad at all.·While I think it's fair to say that Xenocide is the closest I've come to a "pro quality" game I'm proud of them all.· They've all got great reviews, I've learned more about programming and design, and I've had one hell of a good time.· And to top it all off, I've been given the huge honour of being named as one of 5 industry "angels"for the year!· If there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that being an indie dev is about a lot more than coding and designing all hours of the day and night.· Some people are really cut out for all the press stuff, but while I enjoy writing press releases and giving interviews (I think I've done about 5 this year and enjoyed them all) it really isn't my strongest suit.· It's even more important to get yourself a good reputation on XBLIG than in other indie arenas, mainly because we've had so little positive publicity and that can be a strain for some developers.·Another important thing to get going with is community interaction - even if you're not commercially successful, having a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the community is invaluable.·I enjoy helping people, and every once in a while I need help too, and the AppHub crowd have been great again this year - through the transition from the Creator's Club to the AppHub, the move from XNA 3.1 to 4.0, the various problems and debates in the community and the sometimes overwhelming negativity of some areas of the games "press" I think we've acquitted ourselves well and come out the other side stronger. One thing which has disappointed me slightly is the all too frequent wailing from people about slow or low sales.· If I had a dollar for every developer who claimed that it's impossible to make a living from XBLIG, I would have about $200 to spend on booze this Christmas.·Thing is, at no point has ANYONE said "hey, you can make big bucks from XBLIG!" and in fact even in the early days the excellent MVPs on the site have been warning that it's a HUGE risk to put all your eggs in the XBLIG basket.· If this year has proved anything, it's that XBLIG is not the place to be if all you're interested in is sales.· That's not to say that you can'tmake money, but you HAVE to be realistic.· Once you accept that you need to produce exceptional games and get a little lucky with your release to have a big hit, your life will be easier and more fulfilled!· But everyone has different visions of where we're at and where we're going, so I'm not going to rag on anyone too hard :) So where am I going now?· What do I see coming over the Alps?· I have solid plans (and some working code) for 3 games in the first half of 2011 - they're all platform-RPG hybrids, based on the same engine (which I'm working on right now) and will feature something which has been lacking from my work this year - humor.·The first game, called Yo-Yo-Yo, is set in an urban environment and sees the main character rounding up a set of friends in order to remove a pernicious influence from the streets using some real retro fun - yoyo combat, hula-hoop battles, spraypaint jetpacks and a tartan iguana.· I'm hoping I can avoid using any conventional weapons in the game, because we've all seen it before and it's not really a reality I want to reflect.· The second game, provisionally titled Summer City Nights, has a similar theme except that you're a bumbling cop who's charged with rescuing the city Mayor from kidnapping liquorish dealers.· Finally (and this is the one I'm most looking forward to writing) a game which may or may not be called The Missing Boa Constrictor.· Fans of The Goon Show may recognise the title, and that's all I'm going to say about that game.·I may also have an idea for a grungy supernatural game based on the same engine called Pixiecato, which my 13-year-old daughter has been asking me to write for years!·After that I'm going to devote some serious consideration to a Space Pirates game for PC as well as Xbox, but that's not going to happen until maybe August, so we'll see how things go... Well, it's been a mad year. Exciting, thrilling, frustrating, puzzling, controvertial, fun, hilarious and shocking. That's the life of the indie game developer, and I love it. Here's to a merry Christmas, a happy new year, and more of the same to come! Pip pip! |
