Thank you! I had heard DQ was a big boost in visibility, but I didn't really realize how big it was until after I hit that. Absolutely critical to hit 10 reviews!
Please keep making games! With all these big companies releasing trashy games, it feels like there is a good games drought. Indie is the future of gaming, with ease of access to information about game dev and learning as a whole, I can't wait to see what indie games get released!
These big publishers used to hire and support small studios with devs that have passion just like indies then they became controlled and HR hires diverse and all went to sh!t
Nice to hear that you are jumping straight into the next one. I think 3 months sounds like a reasonable project time for a solo dev. The feedback from each release will be so valuable. Best of luck and don't let the scopecreep get ya.
Thanks! I'm really aiming for about 2 months but leaving it at 3 just in case life has other plans. Especially being solo, there are so many things that can take you out for a couple weeks.
Congrats! You're already part of a small group, people who have shipped a real game people want. I'm excited for your next game, making two games will put you in an even smaller group.
I strongly believe knowledge (all aspects of dev+publish) you gained from this project will help you greatly. Good luck with the current project and in the future!
Thank you! So far my goal is to release another game before the end of the year. It's going to be a bit tough, but I've got this. Appreciate your support
Glad to hear it! It really is a totally different world than what you see as a player. So many things to juggle at once haha. Yep Trace Hunters was in the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles fest. I'll probably do a video at some point to talk about non-fest vs. fest sales numbers as well
Hey man, as a game dev myself all I can say is that getting a game out at all is more than what most people can accomplish. Being an indie game dev is hard and I congratulate you for releasing your game! Staying consistent on a project is something that is hard for me so I am really impressed that you pulled through. I like that you still see the good side in things like all the experience you got and people you met. Just remember that there are a lot of indie game developers that put in lots of work in many games before they finally blew up (scott cawthon for example) so I'll be interested to see if you manage to cook up another game. Subscribed
Thank you! Consistency is really hard to be honest, especially when interruptions come up that you can't control. Just gotta keep at it and make progress every day, even if it's small. The number of games that some people have released is utterly amazing (I was looking through Scott's history). Gotta start somewhere so for now I'm cooking #2 :)
This video reminds me of the LEAN Startup. In that you aim to sell a non-existing product then work with your customers to solve problems, to reduce waste - but in this case it's more feedback from the audience and audience building.
I do like that book, so probably not a coincidence haha. I haven't really figured out how to apply some of the same principles to games, but we'll get there.
Thank you! Hope you enjoy it. I'll have a few more of these financial overview type videos as I hit other milestones with Trace Hunters. Sharing some numbers from my recent fest participation soon :)
congrats on getting some success. I still don't have my game on steam yet but I'm trying to push MVP version of my game and hopefully I'll see the direction I want to go.
If you're planning on a Steam release and close enough to be approaching MVP, get that store page up! Getting your page up as soon as possible helps you start building your wishlists. No need to have a demo or playable build yet :)
@@MoonMantisGames 2 things, I don't have money for it yet. and I need proper mockup to make steam page. as I said, I still don't have firmed direction for my game. it's gonna be decide after I finish the MVP and see how things work.
Very valuable video, thanks for sharing. As for the new game, horror games generally do well for indie devs and it seems like it's cheaper and you can really make the game small, but use it for the plot sake. Good luck 👍
Thank you! That's my feeling about horror games as well. Hoping to use that to lean a bit further into plot development but also get the game out somewhat quickly compared to Trace Hunters.
silly party games are another indiefriendly genre atm but i feel like its heading towards oversaturation. Yes content creators are looking for new games they want to play with friends (and sometimes with viewers) but i feel like competing against dev teams as a solo just leaves u potentially getting unseen. Horror might not have as big of a chance to go viral as party games but horror streamers do try and find new games to play constantly (just yesterday talked with one who has 300+ horror games on her steam library atm) - it should be constant enough revenue as long as the game is at least average.
@@samamies88 that's kind of how I'm feeling about the party/rage game genre at the moment. Still may prototype something at least to see, but I feel like the Steam appetite for horror is just unending haha
It looks good for what kind of game it is. It's all about what audience is going to be open to playing a game. If this was integrated into a game where the driver could leave the vehicle, you'll have something entirely different. This looks like a good game.
Thanks! Ya, I do feel like the niche for people who might like Trace Hunters is very small. I remember looking at some point and there are something like 700 titles with the "Vehicle Combat" tag on Steam
I'm currently in a similar range in terms of wishlist numbers for my upcoming game. It's good to know where I should set my expectations. 😅 But congrats on releasing a game! Many don't reach that achievement.
Ya, it can be a bit demoralizing to see those low wishlist numbers. End of the day I think it's important to separate yourself from your work a little bit and focus on what you can improve. Best of luck with your game, who knows maybe you'll be able to build more wishlists before launch!
I aim to please. There's a sales update after my first discount period (during a Steam fest) too: th-cam.com/video/jJ3k0VJ975g/w-d-xo.html You'll have to wait about 32 seconds to get what you want on this one though ;)
From looking at the steam page; it seems you made a halo warthog game, and seems to be more prototype with fun mechanic, than warthog game direction with finely assembled mechanics from game genres that have been thoroughly broken down and understood. You need something more mechanically foundational to first release into early access, where's the potential is immediately evident, and can be built upon over the course of 1-4 years before full release. All I can suggest is, delve deep into the successful games in and adjacent to your genre, and find what they have in common. You will begin to boor and even hate the sum of parts. But there is an exploration magic that pulls them all together, and that is what your players will be seeing for the first time.
not saying to work harder for more complexity and polish, but smarter with how you use the fundamental systems. incremental games exist, and vampire survivors sold millions of copies.
from what I have seen through youtube game play is that it is very dark. I found the enemies hard to see. The other thing was that there was no mini map. This is pretty standard and was surprised to see it missing.
I have a tendency to use those dark scenes a bit too much in my videos tbh. The majority of the game is actually during the day, roughly dawn/dusk time. Instead of a mini-map there are world markers for various mission objectives. That one was intentional and at least in early playtests not many people missed it so wasn't a priority
Nice tips thanks a lot, and the game looks pretty decent! If you can update it with new maps like snow, forest it would give it much more variety... I would like to destroy helicopters, something bigger instead of those minirobots... and a few final bosses to make it more epic!!
Thank you soo much for making this video! I'm interested in following your path of Indie game-development and becoming a developer too. This does give me alot to think about in terms of Marketing, Wishlists, Social media & Game scope. i'm really curious and would love to hear a bit more about scope if you're willing to do a video on it(or a comment reply 🙂)
Hey, thanks for watching! Glad it was useful for you :). I'll see if I can think through how to cover that in some way. Looks like you already found my scope creep video haha
@@Marandal Ah my bad I thought I saw a comment from you on that one, but it was a different video. Here's the link for convenience. Hope it helps! th-cam.com/video/Vj1-YDDxXlM/w-d-xo.html
You already have a lot of (deserved) praise in the comments, so I will blunt. Is your intention to be a successful game dev, or a GameDev TH-camr? - I am frankly a bit weary of low effort 'game makers' as content creation because it set ups a false equivalency, I would prefer to watch somebody actually trying to make a succesful and marketable game. Which take years, not 6 or 3 months. A recent example could be Eastshade Studios, video title "My Wife and I Made an Indie Game and it Made Millions!" Whichever path you plan to take, I wish you luck and success!
I can confirmed that your phone can listen to your conversations. But there are more clues for them to pinpoint your interests than just conversations. you might searched for something similar or signal that you're looking for this or worrying about this. dude, everything we do even the most subtle action give out a lot of information about our worries and potential solutions. I'd say just embrace it rather than resist it, you'll be happier this way.
dayium, i hope some of those mighty 72 views from the gameplay video translated into sales, anyway you get the most sales when you go for the 75% discount, but most people just like collecting games and won't play them. Good luck for the next game man.
Do not even think about releasing your game, if it doesn't have at least 7.000 wishlists. In the games that I released, it was the bar to put my game in the popular upcoming. Wishlists come significantly faster after getting it. If your game can't get to that point, you need to think about how to showcase it, and if you can't think of anything, it means the game is not marketable, shut it and work on a better concept. Best regards! Edit: It's all about the algorithm, the rich get richer is the main concept of Steam, the more sales you have, the more Steam shows your game, and then the more sales you get. That's why, if you can't even make the algorithm to move, there's no point in putting the game there.
Well as you might know just making a good game ain't cutting it , you have to promote your game aggresively because we live in a world where all entertainment is competing for user's attention if you ain't competing for it you ain't getting nowhere
What game devs skills did you have when you started? 7 months sounds short but I'm curious how much time was invested before that. I'm considering game dev and while I have a few small ideas that make for a decent first game, I'm not sure how much time I'd need to spend on core skills first.
That's a tough one unfortunately. Tbh though, I'd say just start doing it. You'll learn what you need as you're going. Transfer learning is also a huge help and most likely you can transfer skills from somewhere to give you a boost. Here's a few things that helped me transfer skills to game dev: I've been building software products of all kinds for about 15 years professionally and quite a bit before that otherwise. I started tinkering with game dev with Unity about 3 or 4 years ago just as a side thing, no serious time commitment. Trace Hunters was the first time I used Unreal Engine (outside of poking around on some sample projects). The non-technical side I've played music since I was a kid and got into music production over the last 5 years or so as a hobby. 3D art I had some transfer skills from 3D modeling for other things + I have a decent vector math background. I just lack artistic skill lol. 2D I've done some basic things over the past years and started learning art theory/illustration within the past year. Reading/writing have also been things I've done for most of life.
You may want to put a bigger discount on this. Looking from my gamer glasses, I wouldn't be willing to pay 5$ on this game as there are so many alternatives that are available on similar price point. But if it was around 1$ I can see myself buying it just to spend 10-20 mins for fun. That may result in your sale numbers sky rocketing because it becomes so cheap that you can buy it without running a decision-making process.
Took me a while to get to this because there's a lot to talk about here. Thanks for the comment :) For the moment I'll be adjusting discounts periodically to see how that affects wishlist conversion. Immediately going to $1 would cut out any potential sale from less discounted amounts along the way. It would be a bit more complex, but I may do a video on discounting/buyer behavior at some point 🤔 From selling other kinds of products I can say that often the price (below some value) isn't a determining factor in why people choose to buy. Unless its an extremely price sensitive market there isn't much difference between say $5 and $1 in terms of opportunity cost for buyers. What often matters more is that there is that the product is simply discounted. I think Chris Z had a blog post on this with Steam games as well if you're familiar
Another thing that might help. I am from a third world country where $5 becomes $10 after taxes on buying with foreign currency, so there is also the thing where you could make a regional price in places like Latin America (except maybe Brazil and Chile where they are better off economically).@@MoonMantisGames
@@EzequielBarron Thanks for the suggestion :). Trace Hunters has regional pricing for quite a lot of regions so you *should* be able to pay with your local currency.
Okay this is maybe an extreme proposal, but I think your game would be amazing if it had multiplayer. Maybe a consideration. The mechanics look really well done.
So I had originally planned for co-op multiplayer, but that was one of the things I cut to launch the game. I don't think that's going to make it into Trace Hunters, but I will probably re-use some of the multiplayer code for other games though!
Hello sir. Your video is very informative and inspiring. I like to know how you became a full time game dev without a youtube channel. Are you working in a game studio? The answer would be helpful for me as I am completing my graduation in a couple of months and planning to go indie.
Thank you! And congrats on your upcoming graduation :) I worked in various tech jobs before I went full time on game dev. I had started making hobby/learning focused games before that though for about 2 or 3 years (not all the time, just on and off over that period). If you're thinking of going full time indie after graduation, probably the biggest thing you can do to help you succeed is to go into it with several partners so that you can share the work. Ideally also helps you round out the programming, art, business, etc skills more than a single person could do. Keep in mind though that this is extremely financially risky if you're depending on your games to pay your bills and building funds with another job would possibly help you in the long run. Just some thoughts, hope that helps!
imho creating shovelware is not a way to become commercially viable dev. From what i have seen theres nothing new in your game we already didnt seen 20 years ago. Look up a game called "Infestation" from year 2000 or "recoil" from 1999, seeing your trailer just reminded me of that one and i want to play those instead If you look up successes, you find EVERY SINGLE ONE have something new to them, something that makes them stand out or did something never done before for example, just doing component damage would turn it into a unique experience because 99% of games have healthbar
Most of the assets in Trace Hunters are from the marketplace, though I made handful. I edited the marketplace assets in various ways to fit together a bit better and generally work for what I was trying to do. Especially being solo and bootstrapped, making everything from scratch would be an expensive and timely undertaking.
@@MoonMantisGames When you have that asset flip look it will be a natural turn off to potential buyers. The art won't be cohesive and flow with harmony, it looks like it's from a bunch of games, kind of like dressing up with a bunch of random clothing. And art is KING when it comes to potential buyers, it's like dating you wouldn't go out with ugly looking partner most likely. It's your first impression and it's already not looking good by default. When you make a game that looks like an ASSET FLIP it makes people think it's bad because all the other games that are bad that is asset FLIPPING, you are associating that in your customers head when you do that. The game also doesn't really show anything that fun besides shooting enemies with a car with bland looking UI and upgrades, there is no HOOK to catch customers. If you don't learn these lessons early your next game will already be starting off 10 steps backwards.
Doom dev took over 90 games before he got one. Thanks for the video, it's a hard one... but even harder to release a complete game :). Hope you have more success in the future.
Hi, very interesting video. Thanks for sharing! It seems like you might not plan on updating Trace Hunters any further, but if you think you'd be interested in a playtest video with some design feedback let me know.
@@DanielBradler Hope you enjoy it if you do! It just went off discount, so the next discount period won't be until about a month from now in case you were waiting :)
Man tbh, this would have been better as a mobile game where people get it for free, and you get revenue from ads. It is good you are creating, but nothing in this makes me want to play it. The gameplay loop could be more exciting. U got to give people something new and take risks. You obviously have talent. Team up with some story tellers and do some market research.
Thanks for the thoughts. Admittedly I have a huge amount of actual story for Trace Hunters, though most of that just didn't make it in the game. Instead you get a little glance via the in-game chatter.
For sure! I am planning to do a video to talk about having the game on discount both during a Steam fest and during non-fest time. I think that should be an interesting comparison. Roughly speaking for now though during my last discount (for the Steam Planes, Trains, Automobiles fest) I saw a slight uptick in sales, but nothing too much different than baseline.
@@MoonMantisGames I’m currently using UE5 as well. I’m taking a course for UE5 and Blender. I picked the UE5 course because it focuses more on C++. My end goal is to work as a programmer or lead for Xbox Game Studios
@@CO-ZEntertainment You might want to put some C# in the mix there too. It's somewhat common at Microsoft and might help if you have experience with it in a non game dev environment
It was fairly short for me, around 3 days or so. I was approved the first time at each approval step. I paid really close attention to the page requirements and followed Chris Z's "How to Market a Game" guide for Steam pages.
Hi, I just looked into the steam page of your game and the requirements are a GTX 1060 6Gb, Do you think that making a game with lower requirements could be better? Or you think it could be worse for you? I am saying that because I like to play indie games once they usually have lower requirements, I don't know how many people like me are out there, but your game couldn't run on a non gamer computer apparently. Thanks for the content
Thanks for stopping by! It's an interesting thought. In terms of the GTX 1060 requirement, that is the lowest end GPU I have to actually test builds with. I don't have data to back it up really, but from anecdote it seemed most PC players I talked to had at least something on that level. Going even lower might be a way to get the more "non-gaming" market on board, though admittedly most of these ppl I talked to use Mac and not PC. I did find that I can run Trace Hunters a mid-range Lenovo Thinkpad without dropping quality to "low". It is def not a gaming computer, and I had minimal issues with performance on it. Most of the meshes in my game use Unreal's Nanite, which more or less streams texture data from disk as needed to help with GPU load. As long as you have an SSD and at least something like Intel UHD integrated graphics it *should* work relatively ok.
@@MoonMantisGames Or "how to now that you need an upgrade" ;D I run a 1060 3gb. Jesus. Seems that if I keep it running for 2 more years I'm gonna have trouble even opening steam ;D
@@mateuszundead3423 haha I'm not one to talk when it comes to keeping a machine running. Before I built my new one last year, I had used the same rig for around 15 years. It was no small feat keeping it sort of up to date and running
Thanks for the wishlist! Not currently looking for playtesting for Trace Hunters since it released in July, but maybe for some upcoming games. I'll talk about those at some point in later videos :)
Bro, 3 months? How are you going to make a good game in 3 months? Your problem wasn't the time spent. You didn't have a hook. There are other vehicular combat games out there. You need something nobody else has or a combination of major elements that truly set you apart from all of your competitors.
its that kind of mentality that is the reason the game industry is dying out. you are happy to praise mediocrity and not complain so devs keep doing it. they steal a living. as for games in the past 10 years there have been a few but not many and thats my entire point anyway. they make a template release it as early access or for free and say hey we might actually add some content and be bothered to make an engaging game a few years down the line once we have taken your money and wasted your time
So happy to see that your game got over 10 reviews on Steam! Hope that visibility will help sales, too!
Thank you! I had heard DQ was a big boost in visibility, but I didn't really realize how big it was until after I hit that. Absolutely critical to hit 10 reviews!
Please keep making games! With all these big companies releasing trashy games, it feels like there is a good games drought. Indie is the future of gaming, with ease of access to information about game dev and learning as a whole, I can't wait to see what indie games get released!
I plan on it! Odds of success increase with every game you release. At least in my book :)
These big publishers used to hire and support small studios with devs that have passion just like indies then they became controlled and HR hires diverse and all went to sh!t
Getting those first 10 reviews are so critical to any success.
For sure, that boost from discovery queue was way bigger than I thought. Hoping those wishlisters decide to buy at some point!
Hey congrats on finishing a game! That's so cool.. and hitting the 10 review mark is awesome.
Thank you! It was cool to see the effects of discovery queue after 10 reviews.
Nice to hear that you are jumping straight into the next one. I think 3 months sounds like a reasonable project time for a solo dev. The feedback from each release will be so valuable. Best of luck and don't let the scopecreep get ya.
Thanks! I'm really aiming for about 2 months but leaving it at 3 just in case life has other plans. Especially being solo, there are so many things that can take you out for a couple weeks.
Thanks for sharing your experience, and good job on shipping your first game :)
Thanks! Looking forward to getting the next one out too :)
Congrats! You're already part of a small group, people who have shipped a real game people want. I'm excited for your next game, making two games will put you in an even smaller group.
Thank you! I'm planning to join the >3 commercial games shipped club personally haha. Hopefully the next two have even more appeal :)
Thanks for the video! Fellow indie dev here as well. Always nice to see post-mortem stuff like this.
Totally! Thanks for watching and hopefully it helps you out with your games :)
I strongly believe knowledge (all aspects of dev+publish) you gained from this project will help you greatly. Good luck with the current project and in the future!
Thank you! So far my goal is to release another game before the end of the year. It's going to be a bit tough, but I've got this.
Appreciate your support
This is so fascinating to see behind the scenes. I see it's on sale right now
Glad to hear it! It really is a totally different world than what you see as a player. So many things to juggle at once haha.
Yep Trace Hunters was in the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles fest. I'll probably do a video at some point to talk about non-fest vs. fest sales numbers as well
Hey man, as a game dev myself all I can say is that getting a game out at all is more than what most people can accomplish. Being an indie game dev is hard and I congratulate you for releasing your game! Staying consistent on a project is something that is hard for me so I am really impressed that you pulled through. I like that you still see the good side in things like all the experience you got and people you met. Just remember that there are a lot of indie game developers that put in lots of work in many games before they finally blew up (scott cawthon for example) so I'll be interested to see if you manage to cook up another game. Subscribed
Thank you! Consistency is really hard to be honest, especially when interruptions come up that you can't control. Just gotta keep at it and make progress every day, even if it's small.
The number of games that some people have released is utterly amazing (I was looking through Scott's history). Gotta start somewhere so for now I'm cooking #2 :)
Only just found your channel. Trace Hunter looks really good. Great reviews on Steam . I will pick it up next week. :)
Thank you! Hope you enjoy the game :)
This video reminds me of the LEAN Startup. In that you aim to sell a non-existing product then work with your customers to solve problems, to reduce waste - but in this case it's more feedback from the audience and audience building.
I do like that book, so probably not a coincidence haha. I haven't really figured out how to apply some of the same principles to games, but we'll get there.
Thank you for sharing! I’m going to check out this game right away.
Thank you! Hope you enjoy it.
I'll have a few more of these financial overview type videos as I hit other milestones with Trace Hunters. Sharing some numbers from my recent fest participation soon :)
congrats on getting some success. I still don't have my game on steam yet but I'm trying to push MVP version of my game and hopefully I'll see the direction I want to go.
If you're planning on a Steam release and close enough to be approaching MVP, get that store page up!
Getting your page up as soon as possible helps you start building your wishlists. No need to have a demo or playable build yet :)
@@MoonMantisGames 2 things, I don't have money for it yet. and I need proper mockup to make steam page. as I said, I still don't have firmed direction for my game. it's gonna be decide after I finish the MVP and see how things work.
Very valuable video, thanks for sharing. As for the new game, horror games generally do well for indie devs and it seems like it's cheaper and you can really make the game small, but use it for the plot sake. Good luck 👍
Thank you!
That's my feeling about horror games as well. Hoping to use that to lean a bit further into plot development but also get the game out somewhat quickly compared to Trace Hunters.
silly party games are another indiefriendly genre atm but i feel like its heading towards oversaturation. Yes content creators are looking for new games they want to play with friends (and sometimes with viewers) but i feel like competing against dev teams as a solo just leaves u potentially getting unseen. Horror might not have as big of a chance to go viral as party games but horror streamers do try and find new games to play constantly (just yesterday talked with one who has 300+ horror games on her steam library atm) - it should be constant enough revenue as long as the game is at least average.
@@samamies88 that's kind of how I'm feeling about the party/rage game genre at the moment. Still may prototype something at least to see, but I feel like the Steam appetite for horror is just unending haha
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Congrats on getting your game out there, huge achievement!
Thank you! Good luck releasing yours as well :)
It looks good for what kind of game it is. It's all about what audience is going to be open to playing a game.
If this was integrated into a game where the driver could leave the vehicle, you'll have something entirely different.
This looks like a good game.
Thanks! Ya, I do feel like the niche for people who might like Trace Hunters is very small. I remember looking at some point and there are something like 700 titles with the "Vehicle Combat" tag on Steam
I'm currently in a similar range in terms of wishlist numbers for my upcoming game. It's good to know where I should set my expectations. 😅
But congrats on releasing a game! Many don't reach that achievement.
Ya, it can be a bit demoralizing to see those low wishlist numbers. End of the day I think it's important to separate yourself from your work a little bit and focus on what you can improve.
Best of luck with your game, who knows maybe you'll be able to build more wishlists before launch!
Thank you for telling me what I came for in the first few seconds
I aim to please. There's a sales update after my first discount period (during a Steam fest) too:
th-cam.com/video/jJ3k0VJ975g/w-d-xo.html
You'll have to wait about 32 seconds to get what you want on this one though ;)
Glad to see you got this released. Sorry this didn't go as well as you hoped.
Thank you! I'll get 'em next time. Best of luck on Mighty Marbles :)
From looking at the steam page; it seems you made a halo warthog game, and seems to be more prototype with fun mechanic, than warthog game direction with finely assembled mechanics from game genres that have been thoroughly broken down and understood. You need something more mechanically foundational to first release into early access, where's the potential is immediately evident, and can be built upon over the course of 1-4 years before full release.
All I can suggest is, delve deep into the successful games in and adjacent to your genre, and find what they have in common. You will begin to boor and even hate the sum of parts. But there is an exploration magic that pulls them all together, and that is what your players will be seeing for the first time.
not saying to work harder for more complexity and polish, but smarter with how you use the fundamental systems. incremental games exist, and vampire survivors sold millions of copies.
from what I have seen through youtube game play is that it is very dark. I found the enemies hard to see. The other thing was that there was no mini map. This is pretty standard and was surprised to see it missing.
I have a tendency to use those dark scenes a bit too much in my videos tbh. The majority of the game is actually during the day, roughly dawn/dusk time.
Instead of a mini-map there are world markers for various mission objectives. That one was intentional and at least in early playtests not many people missed it so wasn't a priority
Nice tips thanks a lot, and the game looks pretty decent! If you can update it with new maps like snow, forest it would give it much more variety... I would like to destroy helicopters, something bigger instead of those minirobots... and a few final bosses to make it more epic!!
Thanks for the ideas! I'll keep those in mind if I make any DLC for Trace Hunters.
Thank you soo much for making this video!
I'm interested in following your path of Indie game-development and becoming a developer too.
This does give me alot to think about in terms of Marketing, Wishlists, Social media & Game scope.
i'm really curious and would love to hear a bit more about scope if you're willing to do a video on it(or a comment reply 🙂)
Hey, thanks for watching! Glad it was useful for you :).
I'll see if I can think through how to cover that in some way. Looks like you already found my scope creep video haha
@@MoonMantisGames oh scope creep haha.
I'll go watch that right now!
@@Marandal Ah my bad I thought I saw a comment from you on that one, but it was a different video.
Here's the link for convenience. Hope it helps!
th-cam.com/video/Vj1-YDDxXlM/w-d-xo.html
@@MoonMantisGames Thanks!
You already have a lot of (deserved) praise in the comments, so I will blunt. Is your intention to be a successful game dev, or a GameDev TH-camr? - I am frankly a bit weary of low effort 'game makers' as content creation because it set ups a false equivalency, I would prefer to watch somebody actually trying to make a succesful and marketable game. Which take years, not 6 or 3 months.
A recent example could be Eastshade Studios, video title "My Wife and I Made an Indie Game and it Made Millions!"
Whichever path you plan to take, I wish you luck and success!
I see my phone has been listening to my conversations again.
?
I can confirmed that your phone can listen to your conversations. But there are more clues for them to pinpoint your interests than just conversations. you might searched for something similar or signal that you're looking for this or worrying about this. dude, everything we do even the most subtle action give out a lot of information about our worries and potential solutions.
I'd say just embrace it rather than resist it, you'll be happier this way.
dayium, i hope some of those mighty 72 views from the gameplay video translated into sales, anyway you get the most sales when you go for the 75% discount, but most people just like collecting games and won't play them. Good luck for the next game man.
Thank you! Hopefully Trace Hunters still has a bit more in it. Either way, the next one will be better :)
Scifi is my favorite genre. If the new game is in this genre, I can join you as an experienced artist.
I love sci-fi! At least for now I'm looking to experiment a bit more with modern day or fantasy-ish settings. Appreciate the offer!
Do not even think about releasing your game, if it doesn't have at least 7.000 wishlists. In the games that I released, it was the bar to put my game in the popular upcoming. Wishlists come significantly faster after getting it. If your game can't get to that point, you need to think about how to showcase it, and if you can't think of anything, it means the game is not marketable, shut it and work on a better concept. Best regards!
Edit: It's all about the algorithm, the rich get richer is the main concept of Steam, the more sales you have, the more Steam shows your game, and then the more sales you get. That's why, if you can't even make the algorithm to move, there's no point in putting the game there.
Well as you might know just making a good game ain't cutting it , you have to promote your game aggresively because we live in a world where all entertainment is competing for user's attention if you ain't competing for it you ain't getting nowhere
What game devs skills did you have when you started? 7 months sounds short but I'm curious how much time was invested before that. I'm considering game dev and while I have a few small ideas that make for a decent first game, I'm not sure how much time I'd need to spend on core skills first.
That's a tough one unfortunately. Tbh though, I'd say just start doing it. You'll learn what you need as you're going. Transfer learning is also a huge help and most likely you can transfer skills from somewhere to give you a boost. Here's a few things that helped me transfer skills to game dev:
I've been building software products of all kinds for about 15 years professionally and quite a bit before that otherwise. I started tinkering with game dev with Unity about 3 or 4 years ago just as a side thing, no serious time commitment. Trace Hunters was the first time I used Unreal Engine (outside of poking around on some sample projects).
The non-technical side I've played music since I was a kid and got into music production over the last 5 years or so as a hobby. 3D art I had some transfer skills from 3D modeling for other things + I have a decent vector math background. I just lack artistic skill lol. 2D I've done some basic things over the past years and started learning art theory/illustration within the past year. Reading/writing have also been things I've done for most of life.
That's 369 more dollars than I've made doing gamedev💵🤑
Congrats! 👍
You may want to put a bigger discount on this. Looking from my gamer glasses, I wouldn't be willing to pay 5$ on this game as there are so many alternatives that are available on similar price point. But if it was around 1$ I can see myself buying it just to spend 10-20 mins for fun. That may result in your sale numbers sky rocketing because it becomes so cheap that you can buy it without running a decision-making process.
Took me a while to get to this because there's a lot to talk about here. Thanks for the comment :)
For the moment I'll be adjusting discounts periodically to see how that affects wishlist conversion. Immediately going to $1 would cut out any potential sale from less discounted amounts along the way. It would be a bit more complex, but I may do a video on discounting/buyer behavior at some point 🤔
From selling other kinds of products I can say that often the price (below some value) isn't a determining factor in why people choose to buy. Unless its an extremely price sensitive market there isn't much difference between say $5 and $1 in terms of opportunity cost for buyers. What often matters more is that there is that the product is simply discounted. I think Chris Z had a blog post on this with Steam games as well if you're familiar
I don't know how long your game is but a dollar is ridiculous super bad advice @@MoonMantisGames
Another thing that might help.
I am from a third world country where $5 becomes $10 after taxes on buying with foreign currency, so there is also the thing where you could make a regional price in places like Latin America (except maybe Brazil and Chile where they are better off economically).@@MoonMantisGames
@@EzequielBarron Thanks for the suggestion :).
Trace Hunters has regional pricing for quite a lot of regions so you *should* be able to pay with your local currency.
Okay this is maybe an extreme proposal, but I think your game would be amazing if it had multiplayer. Maybe a consideration. The mechanics look really well done.
So I had originally planned for co-op multiplayer, but that was one of the things I cut to launch the game. I don't think that's going to make it into Trace Hunters, but I will probably re-use some of the multiplayer code for other games though!
Hello sir. Your video is very informative and inspiring. I like to know how you became a full time game dev without a youtube channel. Are you working in a game studio? The answer would be helpful for me as I am completing my graduation in a couple of months and planning to go indie.
Thank you! And congrats on your upcoming graduation :)
I worked in various tech jobs before I went full time on game dev. I had started making hobby/learning focused games before that though for about 2 or 3 years (not all the time, just on and off over that period).
If you're thinking of going full time indie after graduation, probably the biggest thing you can do to help you succeed is to go into it with several partners so that you can share the work. Ideally also helps you round out the programming, art, business, etc skills more than a single person could do. Keep in mind though that this is extremely financially risky if you're depending on your games to pay your bills and building funds with another job would possibly help you in the long run. Just some thoughts, hope that helps!
@@MoonMantisGames Thank you sir. It helps a lot.
imho creating shovelware is not a way to become commercially viable dev. From what i have seen theres nothing new in your game we already didnt seen 20 years ago. Look up a game called "Infestation" from year 2000 or "recoil" from 1999, seeing your trailer just reminded me of that one and i want to play those instead
If you look up successes, you find EVERY SINGLE ONE have something new to them, something that makes them stand out or did something never done before
for example, just doing component damage would turn it into a unique experience because 99% of games have healthbar
I watch the trailer and it does have a asset flippy vibe look to be honest, gameplay looks like halo warthog vibes.
Most of the assets in Trace Hunters are from the marketplace, though I made handful. I edited the marketplace assets in various ways to fit together a bit better and generally work for what I was trying to do. Especially being solo and bootstrapped, making everything from scratch would be an expensive and timely undertaking.
@@MoonMantisGames When you have that asset flip look it will be a natural turn off to potential buyers. The art won't be cohesive and flow with harmony, it looks like it's from a bunch of games, kind of like dressing up with a bunch of random clothing. And art is KING when it comes to potential buyers, it's like dating you wouldn't go out with ugly looking partner most likely. It's your first impression and it's already not looking good by default. When you make a game that looks like an ASSET FLIP it makes people think it's bad because all the other games that are bad that is asset FLIPPING, you are associating that in your customers head when you do that. The game also doesn't really show anything that fun besides shooting enemies with a car with bland looking UI and upgrades, there is no HOOK to catch customers. If you don't learn these lessons early your next game will already be starting off 10 steps backwards.
Doom dev took over 90 games before he got one. Thanks for the video, it's a hard one... but even harder to release a complete game :). Hope you have more success in the future.
I was reading about that the other day, absolutely crazy but also seems fun to do haha. Here's hoping #2 is bigger!
Hi, very interesting video. Thanks for sharing! It seems like you might not plan on updating Trace Hunters any further, but if you think you'd be interested in a playtest video with some design feedback let me know.
Thanks for watching! You're right, I don't have plans to expand Trace Hunters any further for now. I'll keep you in mind though
Is there still a demo available? The game looks really interesting. You seem to be really humble. I wish you all the best in gaming development!
I apparently missed this somehow!
No, the demo was removed when the game went live.
@@MoonMantisGames ah, I see.
Well, I might just buy it and check it out.
@@DanielBradler Hope you enjoy it if you do!
It just went off discount, so the next discount period won't be until about a month from now in case you were waiting :)
@@MoonMantisGames we will see. Thanks for the heads up.
Love making games first, and the money will eventually come second. I hope so anyway, because I have the first part. lol
Haha hopefully so. Good luck on the sales!
Man tbh, this would have been better as a mobile game where people get it for free, and you get revenue from ads.
It is good you are creating, but nothing in this makes me want to play it.
The gameplay loop could be more exciting.
U got to give people something new and take risks.
You obviously have talent. Team up with some story tellers and do some market research.
Thanks for the thoughts. Admittedly I have a huge amount of actual story for Trace Hunters, though most of that just didn't make it in the game. Instead you get a little glance via the in-game chatter.
Can you try to put it on sale and tell us if that does anything?
For sure! I am planning to do a video to talk about having the game on discount both during a Steam fest and during non-fest time. I think that should be an interesting comparison.
Roughly speaking for now though during my last discount (for the Steam Planes, Trains, Automobiles fest) I saw a slight uptick in sales, but nothing too much different than baseline.
I hope your next game does better I believe in you. What Engine are you using?
Thank you! I hope so as well haha.
I'm using Unreal 5
@@MoonMantisGames I’m currently using UE5 as well. I’m taking a course for UE5 and Blender. I picked the UE5 course because it focuses more on C++. My end goal is to work as a programmer or lead for Xbox Game Studios
@@CO-ZEntertainment You might want to put some C# in the mix there too. It's somewhat common at Microsoft and might help if you have experience with it in a non game dev environment
How much was the game sold for on Launch? If you don’t mind.
The base price is $5.99, but I had a 10% launch discount so the price there was $5.39.
@@MoonMantisGames ty
how much did the steam process take you?
It was fairly short for me, around 3 days or so. I was approved the first time at each approval step.
I paid really close attention to the page requirements and followed Chris Z's "How to Market a Game" guide for Steam pages.
Hi, I just looked into the steam page of your game and the requirements are a GTX 1060 6Gb, Do you think that making a game with lower requirements could be better? Or you think it could be worse for you? I am saying that because I like to play indie games once they usually have lower requirements, I don't know how many people like me are out there, but your game couldn't run on a non gamer computer apparently.
Thanks for the content
Thanks for stopping by! It's an interesting thought.
In terms of the GTX 1060 requirement, that is the lowest end GPU I have to actually test builds with. I don't have data to back it up really, but from anecdote it seemed most PC players I talked to had at least something on that level. Going even lower might be a way to get the more "non-gaming" market on board, though admittedly most of these ppl I talked to use Mac and not PC.
I did find that I can run Trace Hunters a mid-range Lenovo Thinkpad without dropping quality to "low". It is def not a gaming computer, and I had minimal issues with performance on it. Most of the meshes in my game use Unreal's Nanite, which more or less streams texture data from disk as needed to help with GPU load. As long as you have an SSD and at least something like Intel UHD integrated graphics it *should* work relatively ok.
@@MoonMantisGames Or "how to now that you need an upgrade" ;D I run a 1060 3gb. Jesus. Seems that if I keep it running for 2 more years I'm gonna have trouble even opening steam ;D
@@mateuszundead3423 haha I'm not one to talk when it comes to keeping a machine running. Before I built my new one last year, I had used the same rig for around 15 years. It was no small feat keeping it sort of up to date and running
How many games have you done before this?
Trace Hunters is my first commercial game.
I've made several others, mostly prototype projects or game jams, over the past couple years though
You need to blink some more. Nice effort, and good luck in future.
Through years of training I have evolved beyond the need to blink. Efficiency is up 20%.
Thanks for watching :)
which unreal engine version do you use?
For Trace Hunters, Unreal 5.3. I'm currently prototyping in 5.4 for my next ideas though.
wishlisted.. if you need play testers to help out new game trace hunters im down lol
Thanks for the wishlist! Not currently looking for playtesting for Trace Hunters since it released in July, but maybe for some upcoming games. I'll talk about those at some point in later videos :)
Bro, 3 months? How are you going to make a good game in 3 months?
Your problem wasn't the time spent. You didn't have a hook. There are other vehicular combat games out there. You need something nobody else has or a combination of major elements that truly set you apart from all of your competitors.
69 😼😼 NICE
I totally got a screenshot of that before it hit 70 😅
Your game has cool visuals but the gameplay is dull and does not offer interesting material for content creators.
Imagine if you had a good original idea instead of copying some previous design
Damn Ricky, what if you actually published your own game instead of ripping on other people who have achieved more than you.
Name one original game in the past 10 years
its that kind of mentality that is the reason the game industry is dying out. you are happy to praise mediocrity and not complain so devs keep doing it. they steal a living. as for games in the past 10 years there have been a few but not many and thats my entire point anyway. they make a template release it as early access or for free and say hey we might actually add some content and be bothered to make an engaging game a few years down the line once we have taken your money and wasted your time
@@RickySpanish-RS No one reading allat + cope
@@heavygaming6596 yeah i forgot people cant handle more than a sentence in the modern day, enjoy your basic life.
There's too much stuff...