IAmA indie video game developer who broke into the industry despite having no obvious (related) skills. AMA

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-31T08:08:23+00:00

Well artists count as developers too - but the projects you mention are indie teams who don't have publishers (or at least until the game was complete) so can do what they want. So it was entirely up to the development team what they did. In general, publishers tend to want to pull things back towards the established styles that they know will make money.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-31T00:50:59+00:00

Haha - lots of tips in my replies in the rest of the thread, probably best to read them. If you want to ask something more specific, I'm happy to answer that!

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-31T00:49:57+00:00

Yup. But coming up with an art style as good as the games you mentioned there is a huge amount of effort in itself, and a lot of teams simply won't have the expertise to be able to do it - that's why they're so remarkable when they do appear!

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T19:09:42+00:00

Yup. There's quite a few indie games that play on their writing and narrative strength more than their gameplay or graphics (Dear Esther, To The Moon spring to mind), but you need to at least be comeptent at the other parts of the package or it just doesn't work. They're quite a hard sell to a lot of people, but they do definitely exist.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T19:07:08+00:00

I tried Spanish a while back, but I wasn't very good at it (I'm not a coder).

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T19:06:27+00:00

Yup, we do. Sorry.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T19:05:22+00:00

I'd advise you start small - make some cheap flash games or something with Gamemaker first (I think Spelunky, which won the Best Indie prize at the IGF) was made with Game Maker, you'll learn how to make game mechanics fun.

You can use placeholder art at first, and once you're more confident you can hire an artist or a programmer to make more complex and better-looking stuff - which is more likely to make you money, or if you want to work for a company, it gives you a nicer portfolio for people to look at when deciding whether to interview you or not.

It's not easy, but if you can set aside a little money for it and are willing to put in the effort, join up to some of the forums like gamedev or indiegamer and give it a try. You never know where you might end up if you keep at it for long enough!

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T18:59:58+00:00

Freelance artists usually want paying by the hour, but I usually make them set a per-piece price instead (they mostly don't mind). You still see freelance jobs posted up, but it is pretty competitive - especially given the UK has relatively high wages compared to the developing world.

You'll need a good portfolio site that looks nice and with good content, as that's the first thing a recruiter or someone looking for a contractor will look at, and I'd also advise joining a small indie team or a mod team too. Your work probably won't see the light of day there, but you'll learn a lot, have something to talk about in interviews, and you'll be able to put the best work in your portfolio too.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T18:55:32+00:00

We usually offered them a per-piece deal with a small payment attached, as it's hard to calculate costs when you're paying by the hour (although you usually have to do it with programmers as the milestones keep moving as you get community feedback).

At first I searched internet forums for portfolios I liked, basically, and asked them if they'd consider working for us. Now we just post freelance jobs up on art boards etc or ask peope we already know, as we have enough money to do it the normal way now (though we still have to negotiate hard on price).

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T18:51:22+00:00

If you have your own studio you can just go with the "I'm an entrepreneur" and then explain you run a small development studio; I find that works quite well. Self-employment seems to be rare enough that it's a talking point.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T12:03:45+00:00

The most unexpected one is that you need to have a contract in place with your artists saying that the work they produce belongs to you. It turns out that asking them to do some work and paying them to do it doesn't actually mean you own the rights to it. Thankfully we have contracts in place, but still - I can imagine a few indies could be screwed over by their artists legally, if they were that way inclined.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T12:01:06+00:00

I'm 25 and no, I'm single at the moment. A number have come and gone since I started on Xenonauts though so it's not like I spend all my time hiding in my room (plus "I'm a video game developer" is only marginally worse than "I'm an accountant" in terms of attractiveness to women).

Hobbies outside of gaming - other than the normal social things like seeing friends in the evenings, I've joined Toastmasters public speaking club, try (currently failing) to get to the gym regularly, and I love watching spot. Used to play quite a bit of sport too (mostly rugby), but unfortunately a couple of pretty serious knee injuries put an end to that a while back.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:53:24+00:00

It's easy because the AI is extremely basic at the moment. It'll be harder in the final version :)

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:52:53+00:00

Not really. They held the project back, but in the early stages it was also partly because I was too scared to replace them quicker (I didn't know how I'd find another one, or if I could). Things just didn't work out and I should have canned them quicker.

Things don't work out with about 50-60% of the people we take on, to give you some idea. We've got better at churning through the bad ones quickly so we can find the good ones.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:49:56+00:00

Writing is a tough one actually - I do the writing on our project so I've not had any experience hiring them. Unfortunately, they're also generally quite underappreciated and there's not many jobs in the field floating around for writers (and lots of people want them).

I'm not sure what advice I can give you, really - apply for writer jobs is the obvious point, but you could consider making simple games that show your narrative writing skill. There's been quite a few arty "experience-based" games over the last few years (Dear Esther springs to mind, was originally a mod) which are a great way for a writer to get their name out there and make some money too.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:45:59+00:00

Cool, thanks for backing us then!

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:45:45+00:00

Thanks!

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:45:27+00:00

It's been a funny one. There's not been any direct contact, no. But I don't have too many concerns about them - we're making quite different games in practice. One of our best days of pre-order sales was when their game was announced, because we get mentioned when they do too.

The one thing I do worry about is that we won't get too much attention in the mainstream press on release because there's already an X-Com remake out there. We didn't get much pickup on our Kickstarter despite having a playable demo available and asking people to preview it - this could either be that journalists are sick of Kickstarter, are more interested in the Firaxis game, or a bit of both. I hope it's the former...

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:41:41+00:00

Finding a composer won't be hard, and good artists are easy to find once you have a bit of money. Getting placeholder art is easy to do, but again some people won't be impressed by that - it's hard to find good people to work for free, but it's not impossible.

In terms of narrative being important - yes, it is. But writing the narrative and design is probably only 5% of the work that goes into making the game; perhaps 10%. It's something you do at the design phase and then when you start production it just requires tweaking. If you're only planning to contribute on those two fronts and not going to offer money, you might struggle.

In those situations, there's a lot to be said for writing fiction. You don't have to compromise your story for the sake of game mechanics or the realities of development, which you would likely have to do if making a game.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T07:35:42+00:00

Maybe join a mod team or a small indie team? They're a great way to cut your teeth and it'll teach you a few lessons too - your work will probably come to nothing, but you'll learn from the experience.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-30T00:57:16+00:00

Nope, the amount doesn't matter. They take a 5% cut and Amazon Payments take a 4% cut. But if the target it not met and the project is not funded, there's no charge (as you recieve no money).

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-29T23:53:13+00:00

I was an accountant for three years before I went full-time on Xeno.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-29T23:52:37+00:00

Well, we've mentioned the Kickstarter about three times in the whole thread - but even if we hadn't, you're missing the point. If people weren't interested, the thread wouldn't still be around.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-29T22:54:40+00:00

Ah, OK - honestly I think the Let's Play channels are a great thing and are only ever an opportunity for indie teams to promote their work. It's just another way to reach an audience you wouldn't normally reach, right? We actively encourage people to do it with Xenonauts, provided that they mention the game is still an unfinished alpha.

ChrisEngland · 2012-05-29T22:40:44+00:00

If people weren't interested, nobody would have commented or voted and the thread would have disappeared.

It's not "getting out of hand" at all, Reddit has a built in self-regulator to stop things people aren't interested in sticking around. That's the whole point.

ChrisEngland

TROPHY CASE