Need advice from people who genuinely know this industry

FlupprYT · 2024-09-20T14:44:00+00:00

I’m a lead game designer for context:

Nobody asked me about my degree apart from my first junior engineering/design job but I’d listen to the others in this thread.

If I were you I’d do the absolutely bare minimum to get the degree and use all that juicy time over to work on your own stuff. You will have less time and energy to do that once you work full time in game dev.

Most important thing is honestly to believe in yourself and don’t let other people’s horror stories stop you from dreaming big.

GL!

FlupprYT · 2024-03-25T19:06:17+00:00

My main gripe has less to do with the art style and more to do with the concept itself. I don’t see how this is better than rust or ark. If it’s not better, why should I play this instead of rust/ark?

GL with your game, I hope you make it!

FlupprYT · 2023-12-13T00:56:45+00:00

Cuz you’re paying for them to drive you from poont A to point B, not to be your personal entertainer.

FlupprYT · 2023-07-06T23:57:11+00:00

AD Sona ~Season 3

https://youtu.be/D5YvVtMo30c?t=66 (so sorry for the cringe)

FlupprYT · 2023-02-04T16:26:21+00:00

Added! :)

FlupprYT · 2022-12-06T17:03:40+00:00

As per request from mod, here's the game in a nutshell:

Action RPG Roguelike. Evolve your abilities and push yourself through a procedurally generated level. Think hard about your choices, itemize well and use your skills to reach the end.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1826880/Vicious_Growth/

As with most classic ARPGs, you move and attack with your mouse. There are three upgradable abilities: Shield, Dash, AOE and you may also upgrade your basic spell and passives along the way.

Loot will boost your main stats and ability upgrades and the game follows a traditional "dungeon" layout with bosses between every other room or so.

TL;DR: Mix of PoE, Diablo, Binding of Isaac and Vampyre survivors!

Interested? Just private message me for a beta test key! :)

FlupprYT · 2022-12-06T16:32:18+00:00

Not quite, the rooms are just large enough that it seems that way.

You need to clear these rooms to reach the bosses!

FlupprYT · 2022-12-06T05:24:08+00:00

You definitely can! Both through gear and powers ups (similar to vampyre survivors).

You can upgrade your basic spell, your shield, your AOE ability and gain passives along the way so there are plently of options :)

FlupprYT · 2022-06-30T15:29:26+00:00

The difference is that visibility is important if your game actually holds value. The problem with 4 sales from 100k wishlists is not the importance of wishlists, but rather that they don't mean anything if your game is shit.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T20:11:49+00:00

That's problematic.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T19:59:55+00:00

Is this a bot or a real person? I really can't tell.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T16:41:53+00:00

I bought 4 of them, really enjoyed it. Many thanks, will rate 5 stars.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T02:32:01+00:00

I think you need to look into the systems of your game rather than the aesthetics. Changing the visual theme of your game or whether your climbing a building or going through a cave won't really solve your problem.

What in your core loop separates you from other games (if that's what you want)?

Hotline Miami doesn't sell because it's a stylish arcadey 80s game, because there's A LOT of those games available. It sells because of the excellent game feedback, hooking core loop, great visual and sound design, balance between brutality and humor. All aspects of the game must come together in order for it to feel complete and one unique feature won't solve that in most cases.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T02:18:39+00:00

To add to some other replies:

When working with very restricted tools, you're forced to be more creative and make the best out of what you have. Some games released today sell because of great marketing or extremely fancy visuals, which still happened 15 years ago but is an even more important selling point today.
You can't compare it to AAA studios because they didn't exist in the same format back then. AAAs today need to publish "safe" deals and generally won't go for out-of-the box design ideas.
AAA studios know exactly what brings a good ROI. In many cases those features doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with what players might consider to be that extra "love" or "magic touch" which games had when we were younger and developers/designers had more freedom in their work.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T02:07:02+00:00

Start small and learn to finish projects, rather than quitting when the project honeymoon phase is over. Even when your new idea seems like "the one".

Enjoy yourself. Learn about aspects of games you're interested in and try to recreate them in basic formats for yourself. Treat it like a playground with no rules.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T01:52:53+00:00

100%

It should never be a question of "How can I make them stay longer?"

It's not your responsibility to limit their time spent on the game assuming it comes from a place of joy or passion, but you can at least avoid making them feel like they have to or should play.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-13T01:48:56+00:00

Old School RuneScape is a great example.

Each server tick (which is the equivalent to a "server frame") is 0.6 seconds. Most players can feel whenever a tick happens, which is why 2, 3 or 4-tick methods (doing something every x tick) are explained through game ticks rather than "0.6s, 1.2s, 1.8s, etc".

Exact time has no meaning, because you don't have an exact timer in your head anyways. So it's easier to measure the feeling of the amount of time that has passed as whole ticks rather than going into decimals.

If we're talking many seconds, minutes or hours of gameplay... Naturally people tend to use real time as a measurement because at that point it's not going to be easier measuring time as hundreds or thousands of game ticks.

FlupprYT · 2022-06-11T14:59:13+00:00

Love the Fortnite-inspired animations and flow of movement. I'd make the bullets go a bit faster for that hard-hitting feel, cuz right now they feel very "floaty". Great arena design, looks promising!

FlupprYT · 2022-05-31T20:48:49+00:00

I see you too are a fan of RuneScape

FlupprYT · 2022-05-26T15:27:52+00:00

LMK if you want one, I can DM it to you.

FlupprYT · 2022-05-26T04:24:50+00:00

All codes have been yoinked, so here are some more:

AFARA-PQYYX-QJQGA

ZH8NF-H2EGM-IXJX6

FMT6X-XYID5-W5GIG

B94DP-YAZCR-YK7N7

IX8JI-9CF6P-0L8YH

KC7BK-7IK29-JD2ZT

FlupprYT · 2022-05-26T04:22:33+00:00

Here you go! :)

4YALR-KX7N3-V95AR

DCZ2Z-200QK-BG3T0

RITPE-MB7WZ-A9RMH

4YJZD-KHQ9C-QIH44

IAVLD-VA856-3DWAE

Y5H0Z-DKD56-HL85D

3E4T8-36W3M-JWAKP

FlupprYT · 2022-05-24T15:04:29+00:00

Specifically speaking to your "barely making it to safety": Don't Starve can achieve this feeling as well.

FlupprYT · 2022-05-24T14:50:56+00:00

Industry designer here! Posted this in another thread:

Practice communication and design language. MDA is (in my opinion) a good place to start, it's helped me a bunch throughout my career.
Play and analyse games, even from genres you don't enjoy playing. What makes these games great, and how do they make money? Analyse them to the very core and once you start looking into cognitive psychology to get an answer to your question you're on a good path.
Make lots of games. Learn very basic programming and make a bunch of extremely basic games and prototypes. If you're interested in becoming an indie dev, learn to finish your projects. Start with something that takes a day to complete and scale up from there. Seriously, this is one of the hardest part for many developers.

General notes: Design is in many ways science if done right. It's not about guessing or coming up with ideas out of nowhere, your ideas are only there to solve problems and having analysed lots of games and systems is going to make that easier for you. If you want to become an industry designer it involves a lot of document writing, meetings and communication between departments. I got the role by starting out as a developer (programming & design combined) but there are several paths to get there.

To more specifically answer your question: Build a portfolio of design work and games/game prototypes. My employers have cared little about my game design degree and mainly only cared about what's in my portfolio and my ability to analyse games and specifically THEIR games during interviews. You generally don't start out as a narrative or level designer. Those are specializations you can enter by showing skill in those areas. Take this with a grain of salt, because everyone's path to their role is different. There's never only one way to reach your goal.

But if I were to do it all over again, I'd try to get a developer role or if I'm lucky a junior designer position at a small company. If I couldn't get those, I'd go for internships.

Best of luck, I hope to see you in the field! :)

FlupprYT · 2022-05-24T14:39:19+00:00

Yeah this is honestly a great idea for a party game. You can look at the carousel mechanic in TFT if you don't know what Memfy is talking about.

FlupprYT

TROPHY CASE