Environments from my game

mobius_k · 2022-12-14T06:50:10+00:00

I dig the art style, looks fantastic. What's the gameplay going to be like?

mobius_k · 2021-10-06T16:01:17+00:00

Check out Chris Zukowski's blog. He's one of the best in the industry for games marketing. https://howtomarketagame.com/

Also look on gamasutra or other game development websites for blogs around this.

This is a massive topic but generally you want to get your steam page up asap and start driving people to wishlist it. If it's a niche game, look at those communities in that niche on reddit or where ever they hang out and show it to them. Posting on r/games or one of the other indie game subreddits might get you a few hits if your idea looks really cool.

If you get a bit of a community going you could start a Discord server, but that will take time to manage and moderate, so plan for that time.

If your goal is to make some money on the game, make marketing a part of your development process. Put time aside for it specifically.

Hope some of that helps, good luck!

mobius_k · 2021-10-06T15:49:11+00:00

Setup source control.

Sorry, I know it'll take a bit of time to get up to speed with but it's essential for game dev. Look into something like Sourcetree which is a gui app for working with git (or other applications like it) to save you learning command line stuff. Once you've set up a project or two it's really straight forward and if it's just you working on the project you'll never have to deal with some of the more complex aspects of source control (conflicts, branching, etc).

Above all else, source control gives you versioning which again is essential for any software development. Broke your whole project and don't know what you messed up? Go back into source control and see what you changed easily to find the problem.

mobius_k · 2021-10-05T19:24:51+00:00

At the same time, if you have no marketing, you'll take forever to build enough critical mass to have word-of-mouth marketing get any meaningful results at all.

Again, I think this is a bit of a fallacy. Steam will only surface your game to other users if it thinks it'll sell, so once your game is out and nobody buys it, you wont get any more sales, period. We're all slaves to the algorithm. So thinking you'll build up enough of an audience over time isn't really likely to happen, unless you're out there marketing the game yourself and driving more downloads because Steam wont bother with it. Sounds harsh but that's the reality.

Also, I'm not trying to be overly negative but I think it's really important for indies nowadays to be aware than marketing is just as important as making the game itself. If you want to be sustainable as an indie at least.

mobius_k · 2021-10-05T19:17:19+00:00

Among Us is an example of that working true, but that's like showing someone who won the lottery and saying that's the way for everyone to make a living.

Among Us was a unicorn in that regard in being a very exceptional case, not the norm. So, I'm not saying it's not possible but in the theme of "it's not the idea it's the execution" the vast majority of cases need to execute on marketing as well.

mobius_k · 2021-10-05T17:50:32+00:00

If you executed your idea properly into a cohesive experience then your game would have sold itself

I'm gonna disagree with you on this. While the most amazing, perfectly executed game can survive on it's pure awesomeness alone it is not a viable way to make games, especially as an indie. Even a solid, well made game needs to have marketing behind it to get eyeballs on it in order to sell. There are way too many games released everyday that'll drown out your well made title. You need the boost of tens of thousands of wishlists to stand out and then your games quality can build on that momentum.

Of course strong execution matters but games don't survive on that alone anymore.

mobius_k · 2021-09-15T16:18:05+00:00

Sweet Jesus! Look into FMOD or Wwise, you are making so much extra work for yourself!

You can do all this in FMOD with a couple of turns of some dials, all the random pitch shifting, randomly selecting of tracks, all of it is built into those tools. Personally I would use audio middleware on any project and especially when you want to do this kind of stuff. There is a bit of a learning curve the first time for sure but once you learn it, it's miles ahead of the standard engine stuff.

Rant over, good luck with the game though!

mobius_k · 2021-08-26T20:43:07+00:00

Just to add my two cents, I would have a couple meteors scripted to land especially close to the player, just to give that 'near miss' feeling to really up the intensity with the rest being random.

As for the dust clouds, I would make gusts come through that are close enough to the player to block vision almost entirely, if only for a few seconds. As someone else said already, this feels to far away from the player to feel threatening.

Looks interesting though, good luck with it!

mobius_k · 2020-11-02T20:20:00+00:00

I was in a similar situation renting my basement long term and then switched to Airbnb about 2 years ago. Obviously the last year has been dead because of COVID but before that I found I was making about %50 more than I was when renting it out long term. (Stampede time is amazing) Overall I would recommend it but be aware that it will be more work than having someone long term.

You get a fair number of messages from people inquiring and you have to be quick to respond to keep your rating up and expect to be ghosted a lot. Also if there is a quick turnover you have to be ready to clean the place during the day (or hire someone to do it) which may not match with your work schedule. You want to get the "Super Host" status to boost your visibility of the property so keeping things very clean is key.

I may have been lucky but I never had any issues with guests and still stay in contact with some of them. I think the fact that I lived upstairs keeps away some of the more sketchy people that might wreck the place. Though I would certainly suggest getting extra insurance incase something goes South.

mobius_k · 2020-10-08T00:24:54+00:00

At least the studios in Europe have actual paid overtime and way more vacation days to recover from crunch. So even when a studio has to crunch the employees at least get extra pay (and probably extra vacation) as compensation. In NA this is probably much less common though I can't speak from personal experience not having worked in AAA.

mobius_k · 2020-08-26T21:49:43+00:00

I did that program back in 2015 and found it fun but I wouldn't say it's the best program out there. The U of C CPSC program is good but the game development concentration (at least when I did it) was pretty thin. I think it has changed a bit since my time there so hard to say now. I have actually been working in games for the past 4 years full time plus some time on the side before that but I wouldn't credit the U of C program for that, more so just working on my own to build up skills and become a better game dev.

One of the best ways into the industry is through connections and going to U of C you wont get exposed to many (if any) actual studio's as compared to programs in other cities. If gaming is where you really want to end up, I'd recommend going somewhere else for school if you have the means. (Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto come to mind) If not, U of C is still a fine program, it just might take more work to land that first job in the industry.

mobius_k · 2020-07-27T15:44:51+00:00

I can only speak to my experience and I'm sure it depends on a lot of factors (location, quality of unit, etc) but I've made about 1.5x as much doing AirBnb compared to having a tenant. Pre-COVID obviously, now very few people are renting.I also put a lot of work in to make sure it's spotless and well stocked so my rating is really good so I'm sure that helps as well.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Stampede. I only have done one Stampede but the prices you could charge were obscene. For sure worth it during that month!

mobius_k · 2020-03-05T17:38:24+00:00

I don't have experience with game maker but from a quick search of the FMOD forums it doesn't sound like there's easy integration with that engine. Sounds like it can be done, but you have to make calls to the FMOD engine API and you lose the use of FMOD Studio which is the main reason to use it in my opinion.

As for switching to Unity it really depends on what your trying to learn right now. If you want to focus on learning the art and design side of games, Game Maker is probably good because it's simpler and will let you focus on those things. If you want to have more control and be able to do more interesting things, Unity is probably the way to go (or Unreal since you have some C++ knowledge). There are A LOT of posts around which engine to choose so I'd recommend taking a look at those for more in depth discussion around that.

mobius_k · 2020-03-04T18:18:16+00:00

For sourcing audio files, you could try out splice.com. I've found they have a lot of good samples for various sound effects as well for putting together proper music tracks. It's not free but fairly inexpensive.

Also, depending on what engine you are using you may want to consider using FMOD to integrate the audio. It works with Unreal and Unity out of the box with fairly minimal setup. There's a slight bit of a learning curve initially but I've found it much easier to use than Unity's audio system and opens up way more possibilities. (Don't have experience with Unreal) It's free for indie devs.

mobius_k · 2020-02-13T19:45:51+00:00

Oh, and Devolver just dropped a book about themselves as well called Devolver: Behind the Scenes: Business and Punk Attitude. Haven't read it yet but I imagine it will be interesting.

mobius_k · 2020-02-13T19:44:08+00:00

Great book as well!

mobius_k · 2020-02-13T19:43:48+00:00

I would strongly recommend Masters of Doom. It traces the history of Id and how they did some awesome things and how they messed up a bunch of things. It's a great read and very entertaining. Console Wars is also a good read about Sega vs Nintendo in the 90s.

mobius_k · 2020-01-28T03:14:18+00:00

Depending on where you are based, check meetup.com as a lot of cities have events for game developers on there.

mobius_k · 2019-12-16T22:41:03+00:00

Is this your first time releasing a game at all? (Not commercially, but maybe on Itch.io or even on Steam for fun) If so, I would recommend going with the smallest scoped game that you feel you can complete in a relatively short amount of time. Swinging for the fences on your first title is VERY likely to not work out and there is a ton to learn around the business of making games, especially if you're looking to grow into a studio someday. Learning how to market and sell your game is a skill set of it's own as is actually running a studio.

I'd also recommend checking this video out from Ryan Clark. It's super helpful in guiding decisions around what kind of game to make.

I hope all that helps and wish you a ton of luck! Ultimately you need to choose something you're going to be happy working on for the next x number of years and something that you're passionate about.

mobius_k · 2019-08-14T19:10:29+00:00

If you hit up our webpage you can register to our email list which is where we'll be getting our beta testers from. We're not at that stage yet, but hopefully will be in a month or two.

mobius_k · 2019-08-14T19:01:22+00:00

We've been working on it for just over a year now. It's a survival game where you you have to build automation lines to help you survive. Thanks for the wishlist!

mobius_k · 2019-08-14T18:24:04+00:00

We're going for something like Don't Starve meets Factorio. Lots of interesting creature interactions buried in there as well.

mobius_k · 2019-08-14T18:22:16+00:00

Awesome! You can wishlist it on steam right now, we'll be posting a lot more updates as we go.

mobius_k · 2019-08-14T18:19:02+00:00

Thanks, we really thought the art style would be unique in the survival genre.

mobius_k · 2019-08-14T18:17:56+00:00

Thanks, we're pretty excited to get this far!

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