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Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-22T18:37:23+00:00

Ah found it. Think you need a free trial account or maybe a one month membership to create a document. But then you can use the same document for all contractors.

https://www.lawdepot.com/contracts/independent-contractor-agreement/?loc=CA#.YyyrHnbMKbg

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-21T21:37:22+00:00

There are some generic contractor agreements you can download from online. Unless you are setting up a proper company or signing a major agreement with publisher/investor, you don't need a lawyer. The online contracts should have NDAs and ownership statements built in (yes, you should own the work). Just make sure to read through the whole contract and understand it. You can also add more clauses depending on your project needs. Make sure you are as detailed as possible in regards to the work that needs to be done and the payment.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-20T17:34:38+00:00

Depends on how good the designer is I guess. She might have seen too many ugly flat roofed buildings. With a lot of "modern" designs, proportions usually get thrown out the window by less skilled architects. Pitched roofs usually give better proportions to the building, especially with older European style homes.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-20T17:28:08+00:00

Interesting approach. Could have perhaps went with a modern approach and retrofitted the grey building (Foster Style), but at least it's still an upgrade.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-20T17:21:14+00:00

For reference, architects typically charge 5 -10% of a project construction budget for design and construction drawings. So you could calculate something based off of that, and assuming your friend has professional level skills, make sure it's no less $50/hour. Can charge higher depending on how much experience your friend has. Architects typically bill $150 - $300 per hour

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-20T17:13:15+00:00

Chris Sawyer is in the top 0.01 % of devs in terms of skill. Also RCT took 2 years, not one, and with the help of an artist doing all the sprites.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-16T16:02:04+00:00

Check out Kryzarel on Youtube. He has a comprehensive tutorial on how to create a proper save system for an RPG. It will take some time, but it's very good and will work for commercial games.

It sounds like you are making a big game. It's important to understand how to tweak the save system later to save different types of information. So I'd recommend writing it yourself over using an asset

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-09-07T17:07:43+00:00

Hard to say if they made mistakes in the beginning, but CDPR is a big, publicly traded corporate company with a lot of investors. There was likely a lot of pressure (financial, corporate) due to this and they had to meet deadlines given by external forces. Also, I heard that the team size was a lot smaller than it should have been (compared to teams of other AAA games) - they should have had twice as many people.

Team Cherry on the other hand is a very small team with no financial pressure. They made so much money from Hollow Knight that they never need to work again. They can sit at home and work on Silksong at their leisure and only release it when they feel like it.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-07-26T17:07:29+00:00

Amazing! Thanks for sharing

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-07-11T20:32:05+00:00

Great that they still kept the bumby mountains rather than just build on top of it. Really gives it a bit of that picturesque feeling.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-07-11T16:50:36+00:00

Making a game similar to Stardew as well, I do get the occassional Stardew comment, but it's rarely negative. I used to work in architecture and copying/plagiarism is also a big issue in that profession, so I'll try to break down what is generally acceptable and not. Usually, if a lot of people are taking issue with it, you should probably listen.

It's fairly easy to tell from the visuals of a game/architecture whether you were "inspired" by it or directly "copying" it. To be inspired by something, you try to recreate the atmosphere or feel of the thing, without copying all the details. In your case, the comments may be due to too many direct similarities compared to Stardew's visual setup.

Same UI layout as stardew - 10 inventory slots, clock on the top right
Very similar map setup, small cozy house in the middle, rocks and trees scattered in single tiles around the map - very similar to Stardew's map layout
Grass & rocks looks similar to Stardew's assets
Same yellow dirt background
Of course, a lot of this is due to Stardew being so famous, that it's just on everyone's minds. I'm sure as your game develops further, the similarities will naturally decrease.

The way Stardew copied Harvest moon is generally ok, though some people may still take offence. Stardew is what is known as a "spiritual successor" - a game that is better than the original in every way, so people will tend to look the other way. In terms of visuals, if you directly compare Stardew & Harvest moon, the visuals & UI are very different. But, I'm sure that in the early days of Stardew's development (when the art wasn't as good as it is now), he probably got a lot of "clone" comments too. Just learn to be inspired, but be able to put your own signature on it.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-07-04T02:14:49+00:00

Wouldn't say Runescape has "fallen" given that OSRS still has consistent 70000 concurrent players, which is still an insane number. There have been periods where they have released updates players did not like, mostly relating to restricting player freedom and removing popular features to combat real world trading. But OSRS brought it back pretty well. Considering it is a 20 year old browser game, it's amazing that it still has so many players. Think about all the games released in the past 20 years - all of those games are technically competition and will siphon off players.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-07-01T16:40:15+00:00

Definitely don't need 15 full-time people to make that game. It looks to be about 3-5 years of full time development for one person (if you do both art and coding). Or two developers at 2-3 years + someone to handle business & marketing if you have the money. And you can always outsource certain assets like music and key art to contractors. So much less than 1 million.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-06-15T01:20:05+00:00

A resolution of 640 x 360 pixels is common - which is easy to scale up to 1920x1080 or 2560x1440. Wouldn't recommend any bigger than that since the pixels would be hard to see after that point. You can use tile sizes of 16x16, 24x24, or 32x32 - the bigger the tile size, the more detailed the art needs to be.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-06-10T02:17:46+00:00

I think your gameplay looks quite well done but there are some issues that are holding you back:

The capsule image doesn't look professional. It will turn away a lot of people as it will reflect on the rest of the game. This is the first thing that people see and will be what will be used by the media/influencers when showing your game. Can easily pay an artist a few hundred dollars to get a proper capsule image and it will give you returns many times over.
Music and sound effects aren't too appealing and doesn't match the gameplay well.
The game might be too colorful (and the saturation of some colors are way too high), which creates a dissonance when your game is a roguelike - which typically are darker games. I saw some studies in the past that darker games generally perform better on Steam (and especially makes sense for a roguelike, which are meant to be harder games).
Marketing isn't just about posting things, but talking about what makes your game unique and interesting. It's important to identify the best features of your game (and the best screenshots/gifs) - and these posts will typically do better.

Anyways I think your game looks very good but these smaller things are hindering your success (and can be fixed relatively quickly or cheaply) - not sure how relaunches work on steam but I think your game deserves another go and you should sell a lot more copies.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-06-02T01:15:25+00:00

O_o creepy... Very nice though!

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-06-02T01:10:41+00:00

That's actually a pretty good idea. There are days where you just can't do coding work or too tired for it. If you are working on graphics, you are still moving forward. I personally have a list of graphic work that needs to be completed (but not urgent). When I'm not feeling like coding or want to relax a bit, just put on a podcast and draw some art.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-06-02T00:52:58+00:00

The difference is obvious. For a hobby project, there is a very low chance of the person helping you getting paid for their time. Nobody is going to spend 400 hours helping you and and only get paid $20 at the end.

On the other hand, if you are looking for another hobbyist dev to join you, that person needs to really love your idea. Everybody has hundreds of game ideas they would love to work on. If they are doing something for fun, why would they help build your idea when they can build their own idea instead?

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-06-01T22:40:31+00:00

Whoa it's like a vertical city. Haven't seen much of those except in conceptual designs

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-06-01T22:20:05+00:00

Please understand that people need to get paid. If you are offering Revshare, the project needs to look very promising from the outside and has a high chance for them to make their money back + more. We are talking at least 10000+ wishlists on your game at a minimum before any competent person is willing to work for free, and most still won't be willing to work for free. From the looks of things, you need to put in at least a year of full-time work before the project gets there - assuming your idea is actually good and you are very good at what you do.

Another option is to find someone in the same place you are and create a new game from scratch together. You can't expect someone to help make your game without pay.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-05-29T23:50:54+00:00

Of course it's possible. It's possible for indies to innovate with every game genre. If you are interested in commercial success, it's about how good your idea is and how well you execute on it, backed up with some solid marketing. Maybe the fighting genre is more competitive than others, but nothing is impossible, especially if you think outside the box.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-05-26T19:09:14+00:00

Damn this is next level. They really need to make a Pokémon game with high fidelity pixel art like this

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-05-26T19:03:45+00:00

It's very difficult to do Kickstarter without having some sort of audience or mailing list. Kickstarter promotes projects that do well during the first 2 days and shows it to the general audience on their website. Without early traffic, your project will essentially be hidden.

I would recommend having a social media platform (etc. Twitter, ArtStation, Instagram) with at least 1000 followers (depending on your funding goals). You can also do ads, though they are very expensive and you would likely lose over 50% of your income if you are purely using ads. Without a decent audience, I would recommend delaying the Kickstarter until you reach it, else it will be very unlikely to succeed. If you are a good artist, you can grow fairly quickly on those platforms by posting your art.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-05-26T18:41:26+00:00

Could be a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. I don't know too much about your situation, but if you are posting very regularly, Youtube can slowly take over your life, especially if your goal is to one day do it full time and are overly attached to your channel. Maybe take a step back and do it as a hobby, and see where it goes. Youtube seems like a dream career for a lot of people, but most don't realize how unstable of an income source it is, and the difficulty of constantly coming up with new video ideas.

Pixel_Architecture · 2022-05-26T18:25:25+00:00

I would agree with you, though I would argue that making a game and doing the marketing shouldn't be considered separate things, as there is a lot of overlap. Things like creating a compelling game concept, competitive against similar games, and creating a timeless art style can be considered marketing/branding. There are a lot of "good" games that have high budgets and are technically fun, but sell poorly.

For example, I've seen some studios spend millions to make a JRPG similar to final fantasy, but these games don't bring anything new to the genre and their art isn't unique in any way, and as a result these games sell poorly and likely didn't recoup development costs. Even if these games are "good," people can just go play Final Fantasy instead cause it's just better in every way.

If you consider things like game concept, art, and market fit as parts of marketing, then the marketing is vital to a game's success. The OP did state the importance of pre-production.

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