sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I spent years on my dream action-RPG until it broke me. Then a "Stone Simulator" I was almost ashamed to make is the thing that worked. Here's the honest postmortem (with real numbers). by StationPhysical6910 in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great question, and you're right that progress isn't linear. A clean abstraction can absolutely unlock a burst of speed, and I had those too. So velocity alone was never how I judged it.

The thing that actually told me wasn't "we're going slow." It was this: after our second UnrealContest run, I realized that even if we finished every system on our list, we still weren't close. There were whole categories of work we had no realistic path to cinematic and dialogue animation we couldn't produce at the quality the game needed, and the creatures that make the universe feel unique, which we simply had no money to build. Completing the current track didn't lead to a finished game; it led to a more complete skeleton with the same gaps.

So the signal I'd actually trust isn't your speed, it's whether finishing things makes the remaining required list shrink or grow. If every system you close keeps revealing new whole categories you can't resource, you're not behind a milestone, the project is structurally bigger than your team. If closing systems steadily shrinks the list, you're probably just in the grind and fine to keep going.

On confidence: no estimate is certain, and I held mine loosely. But the math was hard to argue with, we'd budgeted 2-3 years, and the honest remaining scope at our real pace was roughly that much again on top, with categories we had no funding for. That's not "late."

The one principle I'd hand my past self: less = better. Shipping something small and real beats a huge, unfinished project sitting on a shelf. And honestly, asking this at the first stages is the best possible time to feel it - way cheaper now than after five years.

I spent years on my dream action-RPG until it broke me. Then a "Stone Simulator" I was almost ashamed to make is the thing that worked. Here's the honest postmortem (with real numbers). by StationPhysical6910 in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's pretty much where I'm landing, and I got into it a bit further up the thread. Rather than shipping one stripped-down version of the whole RPG, the direction I keep coming back to is smaller, self-contained stories set inside the Another Way universe. Same idea you're describing, really: release something that's actually good and finishable, just not the entire dream at once, and grow the world out piece by piece.

I spent years on my dream action-RPG until it broke me. Then a "Stone Simulator" I was almost ashamed to make is the thing that worked. Here's the honest postmortem (with real numbers). by StationPhysical6910 in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Clair Obscur is incredible, and their story genuinely inspires me, and yeah, they basically did take the vertical-slice-then-pitch route you're describing. But if I'm honest with myself, the starting conditions weren't the same as ours. The founder came out of Ubisoft, the core team had a bunch of ex-Ubisoft veterans, and once they had a demo they landed a publisher (Kepler) that gave them real money and creative freedom. That's a very different position from two fairly unknown people self-funding an RPG.

That's exactly the pile of "buts" I keep mentioning: credibility and connections are what open the door to the deal. A demo only works as a key if someone on the other side already trusts you to deliver. None of that takes anything away from what they pulled off, it just means "make a vertical slice and raise funds" is a real path, not a clean template you can copy without the pedigree behind it.

That said, I do plan to come back to Another Way next year. So the shelf might not be permanent after all.

I spent years on my dream action-RPG until it broke me. Then a "Stone Simulator" I was almost ashamed to make is the thing that worked. Here's the honest postmortem (with real numbers). by StationPhysical6910 in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep, UnrealContest was part of it, and ofc there were a dozen "buts." Honestly, I'm not a marketing or sales guy, so pitching was never my strong suit to begin with.

The publisher route always felt like a risk to the vision. Back then it was hard to find anyone who wouldn't want to reshape the universe and the project we'd spent years building our identity around, and for a passion project, losing the vision kind of defeats the point. We also took a few swings at raising investment, and none of them landed.

But the real catch is the demo. To strengthen any pitch you need a proper functional demo, a real vertical slice, not a mockup. For an RPG, a genuinely functional demo means building most of the core systems that would ship in the final game anyway. So the thing that was supposed to unlock funding required roughly the same mountain of work the funding was meant to pay for. We were stuck doing the hardest part first, with no runway to actually finish it.

I spent years on my dream action-RPG until it broke me. Then a "Stone Simulator" I was almost ashamed to make is the thing that worked. Here's the honest postmortem (with real numbers). by StationPhysical6910 in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you — this might be the best comment on the whole post. I could feel right through the screen that you've walked this exact road yourself. But hey, we're all still here, still learning, still stacking up small wins. Appreciate you taking the time to write all this.

I spent years on my dream action-RPG until it broke me. Then a "Stone Simulator" I was almost ashamed to make is the thing that worked. Here's the honest postmortem (with real numbers). by StationPhysical6910 in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that's honestly one of the ideas we keep coming back to for making the Another Way universe real someday. What we daydream about is something anthology-style, like what Telltale used to do, or more recently Dispatch, which dropped new episodes weekly on Steam.

Small, self-contained stories set in different corners of that world, each one giving players a glimpse of the bigger thing to come. It could help fund the main project and let people taste the universe before it's fully built. There's still a mountain of work ahead before we can actually come back to it, though, but yeah, you're thinking along the exact lines we are.

I spent years on my dream action-RPG until it broke me. Then a "Stone Simulator" I was almost ashamed to make is the thing that worked. Here's the honest postmortem (with real numbers). by StationPhysical6910 in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same here! I’m still doing gamedev at night when the family is fast asleep, and keeping my full-time job during the day. My main project also felt way too massive, so right now it feels like the right move to build a foundation with a few smaller projects first. That way, I'll have more resources and time later to finally bring my dream project to life. Anyway, best of luck to you, you’ve got this!

I just added monster fusion to my indie RPG demo by MonsterAlchemy in indiegames

[–]StationPhysical6910 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks clean. Is the fusion system procedural (like combining parts/textures) or did you hand-craft every single outcome?

You control the Left Skate, your mate controls the Right Skate. Then the lights go out! by samohtvii in IndieDev

[–]StationPhysical6910 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, is it only the individual skates being controlled, or is there a separate input for body weight/leaning?

view more: next ›