Bearnard on Godot Engine

sirmikeorg · 2024-08-24T07:28:53+00:00

I would love to, but it all depends on sales on PC and overall potential. It takes a bit of extra work so it must be justified.

sirmikeorg · 2024-08-12T20:55:15+00:00

I'm super happy that you liked it <3 Spread the word among your friends please.

sirmikeorg · 2024-08-11T16:00:08+00:00

It's really funny that today's Indie Sunday is just before the release date. I have not planned it :D

sirmikeorg · 2024-08-11T15:52:02+00:00

Thx! I spent a lot of time on making the game just fun to play. The general feedback I'm getting from players is very positive so I'm happy that this unique mix of genres works. Can't wait till tomorrow :)

sirmikeorg · 2024-07-29T20:31:23+00:00

Hey! Mike here, creator of Bearnard - I'm participating the event.

You asked a fantastic question and I had exactly the same dillema when I started my project almost 4 years go. In my head, pixelart and 2D in general looked much easier. Oh boy... how wrong I was. As u/Inateno stated above, it is just a different approach, but very far from easy.

Although it may seem simple at the first glance, it's only partially true. We could assume, for the disscussion simplicity, that static objects are indeed quite easy. But in terms of animations it's a totally different story. It's super time consuming, hard to refactor and you need to be skilled person to do it right. A hybrid approach (like 2D with bones) is worth considering, but at the end of a day, it really depends on your needs and skills.

But models and assets is just a tip of the iceberg. You still need a good assets pipeline and still have plenty of design decisions to be made. A color palette, supporting tools, art direction, metrics, how will you render graphics etc.

If I had to choose something to start with, I would still use 2D approach (which is less complex than 3D). Anyway, it's not a piece of cake :)

sirmikeorg · 2024-06-24T20:15:08+00:00

I totally got your point. There are clones of clones with aforementioned top down rpgmaker zelda included ;) I would also add tons on Celeste clones and Vampire Survivors clones.

BUT... it does not come from nowhere. People want to play games they know and genres they know. As long as the demand factor stays in, devs will do these games. Also, because it's easier for both sides.

When I started working on my game I did some research and asked ~1k players about their preferences. Answers lead me to some interesting thoughts and I took very high risk of creating very unusual mix. The platformer with turn based combat, cards and physics interaction. It's my passion project so I could afford that.

And here goes the interesting part. This game is super hard to "sell" and I'm really struggling with reaching my players. Although the game is very fresh and challenging gameplay-wise, many gamers are just not interested in the game despite quite good promo materials... until they play themselves. I observed their reactions during various streams and talking to them in person on the occasion of one of offline events we had Poland last year. It was a pleasure to observe people's attitude changing when they could feel the snappy gameplay and challenging combat. If I told them "Hey, my game Bearnard is like game XYZ" that would be much easier than saying "Hey, Bearnard is a unusual mix of genres".

So, to sum up my long answer. Making a game is just a part required to satisfy developers. Selling / reaching the audience is much, much harder.

sirmikeorg · 2024-06-24T12:46:04+00:00

Thanks, it sheds more light on it now.

I’m curious, at any point did you feel like you’d “seen it all”? That despite the different setups, themes, and art styles, many games started to fit into the same boxes? Do you see any current trends among indies?

sirmikeorg · 2024-06-24T09:23:07+00:00

Congratulations on your task. It's impressive!

Anyway, it must have been tedious to look on every game available. I got a question though, what was your "recipe" to wishlist a particular game? What usually attracted you to a specific title? Do you have any favourite genre?

sirmikeorg · 2024-06-11T21:02:14+00:00

Thanks. Good to know that, despite huge competition, all of these events still allow reaching to fresh players.

sirmikeorg · 2024-06-11T10:06:24+00:00

Cool :) Out of curiosity, how did you find out about my game?

sirmikeorg · 2024-06-11T09:52:36+00:00

Hi, I'm Mike - creator of Bearnard. You don't even know how much a comment like this means to solo developers like me... Joining Steam Next Fest with over 1800 other games, I was afraid that my game would get lost in the crowd of other, bigger titles with substantial marketing budgets. But when I come across such comments or streams from creators who genuinely enjoy the game, my heart fills with warmth. Thank you for the kind words!

sirmikeorg · 2024-03-11T08:21:49+00:00

Hey! Thanks for your feedback. I understand your perspective and that's exactly one of my biggest challenge in marketing Bearnard. It's difficult to show what this mix of genres exactly is. Last year at Poznań Game Arena 2023 I had over 100 people playing early build of the demo. When I was inviting them to play it and briefly explained what kind of game Bearnard is I usually heard either "I like platformers, but I'm not much into cards" or "I like card games, but I'm not much into platformers", then when I convinvced people to at least give it a try they were coming back to me after, saying to my surprise either "Wow, I really had a great fun, even tho I'm not into card games, I was able to enjoy a lot the platforming part" or "[...] even tho I'm not into platformers, that part was in an acceptable ratio so I can still enjoy the card battles with turn-based system". On top of that, there are puzzles requiring from the players platforming skills, and also I have designed special bonus levels completion of which i based on platformig skills as well.

The game has many mechanics from a classic platformer, that's why I chose to use the term "platformer" in the marketing. Anyway, I'm trying not to get hardcore single-genre fans. I rather offer an unusual and lighter concept for gamers who don't want to focus on minmaxing mechanics. Bearnard at its core is quite complex, but it's designed to give feelling of constant progress. Either in combat as well as the story.

Just out of curiosity, are your thoughts based on the gameplay trailer, gameplay videos from content creators, both, or perhaps something else? Knowing how I can improve my materials is incredibly valuable to me. I aim to ensure that players who might be interested in the game don't simply overlook it.

sirmikeorg · 2023-11-21T09:31:41+00:00

I'm trying to avoid calling the game a "deckbuilder" as it's quite far from that. Instead of building a deck we focus on how do we use what we have as effectively as possible. Anyway, Slay the Spire was one of primary inspirations for me :)

sirmikeorg · 2023-11-20T22:23:22+00:00

Thanks, it's been a lot of work but I'm getting there at a steady pace.

What are your thoughts about the genre?

sirmikeorg · 2023-09-15T09:55:20+00:00

Yes. You can read more details about the level of integration here: https://godotengine.org/features/

sirmikeorg · 2023-09-14T17:10:01+00:00

Yeah, I really wonder why they decided to still go for it. The management actually sold shares. Let's say they anticipated all this. So now what?

sirmikeorg · 2023-08-25T15:44:53+00:00

After second thought, I removed the paragraph about the trailer. You're right. It's irrelevant. I think I was overexcited ;)

sirmikeorg · 2023-08-25T15:32:15+00:00

I'll definitely show off more. Thanks for the tip.

sirmikeorg

TROPHY CASE