Quite some time after this video I got this game really super cheap on a Steam sale, because i had remembered it from this video. And I can see why the sales are so low. This is an EXTREMELY niche game. It's a very very difficult platformer that there definitely is not a huge market for. It doesn't have the Metroidvania thing going for it like other difficult platformers (Ori, Guacamelee, Hollow Knight) have. The screen rotating mechanic is hard to get used to as well...I'm not susceptible to motion sickness like a lot of people are, but even without that it gives the game a really niche aesthetic in addition to the niche mechanics. I'm not saying it's a bad game, it's good for what it is, but even though I do tend to like platformers it was hard to get into.
Interesting to hear the mention of Desura several times; failure of an indie game delivery platform. I lost about a dozen indie projects when that disappeared, most being this kind of small scale slow-burn type of project. Over saturation is probably one of the biggest factors. Even when you go shopping and see two dozen flavors of pasta sauce, which do you think sell most? Traditional and marinara. Nobody wants to spend an hour contemplating on that stuff, simple and straightforward sells; too much fluff just turns people off. Trends would be a big factor as well, Meatboy got very popular and became one of the early indie games to make mainstream through XBox Live and such. Similar platformers thought following that trend would be a quick cash-in. Very quickly consumers found how tiresome it became, and probably even quicker because we went through the same trend after Minecraft became huge. It's true there is no secret to success, you're looking at a crap-shoot at best. But there are definitely ways to increase the odds by being passionate and standing out from the crowd, we still have breakaway successes today like CSD, Dead Cells, and Kerbal Space Program. Was it their marketing that made them successful? Or was it some indescribable attraction that drew more people to check them out? Was it just the right place at the right time? Maybe some combination of these factors, but I think the passion of the developer plays the most significant part. Creating something you truly love and believe in translates to the final product itself, and your fans will see that, word of mouth counts for a lot. Finally what you consider "success" is a bit subjective, depending if the dev is doing this part time, on the side, or as a main source of income. Indie devs relying on this as a sole income would be well advised to think again. Especially if you have little or no experience in the field, and no name to speak of. Keep your day job and do it for fun, even if it does become "successful". Until you need to focus full-time on development, don't expect it to be a full-time job, same with TH-cam creators. Keep the passion, but don't over inflate your ego and even selling 20 copies over a year might seem like a success to you, at least that many people appreciated your work right?
feel like the only way for a INdie game to succeed is to market off-platiform. Valhelm "came out of nowhere" to most ppl but actually they had 10k wishlists prior to release only use Steam for ppl to download.
I recently released my new roguelike brickbreaker, Roguebreaker, a loveletter to the 80s, and has only sold 89 copies. The market is definitely still tough in 2018. You can blame a ton of stuff, but it's hard to get the eyeballs. I get about 200-250 storepage views a day and that becomes 0-1 sales a day. It's tough because on one hand, I am very happy with how fun Roguebreaker is, and how good it looks and feels. But on the other, you have to take a hard look at the market, and even if there was several games with 20k copies sold, there was dozens and dozens of failed low quality brick breakers. I thought that mine would stand out, and in a certain sense it does, but it's just not enough. I've made 4 games now across 8 years of time, and it always comes back to the amount of people aware of the game, rather than the game itself. Also, now that it's 2018, we've raced to the bottom. Games are 99c all over the place. Roguebreaker's 3.99 instead, because I still need 27 sales a day to pay rent, and I don't think I could pull in 3x as many sales, even if I cut the price down by 75%. This is a great video though, market's tough, and you need to resonate with people.
Man, didn't play your game, but it just looks bad from the start. Some of you guys just have bad taste. I've watched some examples of "failed indie games" and people make assumptions why it failed - from those that i've seen, they just look bad from the first second. Your's is not different. What can be more banal and cheesy than 80's sunset on ocean wallpaper? And the first parallax (where the game happens) visually just have zero connection with that wallpaper. So it looks cheap. The very first thing about the game is that potential player must like it from the first second, from the moment he saw first screenshot. Or at least not dislike it. It happens subsonciously. Your game can have even the most innovative and addictive gameplay, but if it looks bad from the start - nothing can help.
I didn't want to insult you. It's just design thing is the MAIN thing. People must like it instantly. Look at Undertale and Stardew Valley. Visual design instantly makes people feel comfortable and cosily. I think that's at least 70% of success. Those guys just have great aesthetics taste/feel. Especially that Stardew guy. He redrawed things several times to make it perfect. He understood that subconsiously.
Your game has 3 resolutions on 1 screen: wallpaper (lowest res), gameplay part (higher res) and part with points (highest res). This creates subconsious dissonance in a brain.
Good video. Alot of interesting points. Its hard trying to find and build an audience. And even harder to sell things to them. Alot of it is luck,talent, and more luck.
I could only watch a few seconds of this vid - spinny cam made me motionsick so hard it's not even funny. That's at least a few % of people who do not agree with the statement that the game is good.
1 year later. The rotating screen thing. I can do a lot of pixel art games. But the 'indie' (small/shareware) guys do a lot of that. So it's saturated. That can be a good thing! If 'indie' dev embraced that to be the B movie houses of games? and leaned well into making the games over the top? Plus focus on a specific theme, and treat their games as old school shareware? Ie it may or may not sell. I've tried to do mostly or more indie games. And eeef. oof. It's so hit and mis! Downfall: nice light arcadey game, Stardew Valley: ????, but then their's shovel knight. -_-. AVGN does it better Cinamascare hired (or tried to) some smaller guys and... I guess AVGN the game is MIA indefinatly. DeadCells:I fail to get the big deal, just repetive burnout that's not fun. But then Mutant Football League is pretty fun in small amounts. I tend to like pixel graphics, especially in moderation. Indie guys lean into them, because, umm reasons? oO Just in the comments of a old video alone their are a lot people tired of the nestolgia factor indie studios lean into.
This doesn't look like a bad game by any means, but it looks like a very difficult, very niche game, with limited appeal outside of the audience that is hardcore into these types of games (which is really small). It looks like the developer was just wanting it to be a lot less niche than it is.
I'm totally agree with you. I think it was developer mistake to make this game so cheap. He could instead promote this game to a hardcore comunity, interest them in speedrun and make current price ten times more. And fix some issues.
I think he hit on it- that it's not just 1 component. It's a combination of the game itself, viral marketing, being on the right storefronts (availability & saturation), and low pricing. But in the end a lot of it is just luck, sort of like which memes take off. Meatboy also had an entire romantic mythos surrounding the development and the developers in the form of Indie Game The Movie.
Unfortunately the very harsh reality that I only accepted recently after many years in denial is this: the vast majority of people who play video games AREN'T INTERESTED IN PLAYING A BIG VARIETY. There's a reason why there's a giant gap between the very best selling games and the almost best selling games. We have to realise that if somebody has a game they like and it is already giving them what they want and continues to give them what they want, what incentive do they have to try anything else? Even another popular game isn't likely to peak their interest unless their friends are playing or it has serious marketing and acclaim behind it. There is no shot in hell someone is going to try a no-name indie game. Gaming may technically be "bigger than ever before" but the overwhelming majority of players are paying attention to essentially just the top 1%. Since this video, the situation has only gotten far worse with literally tens of thousands of games releasing every year on Steam.
I can't remember the name, but there was a game that came out around the same time where you clipped pictures of platforms in the levels and pasted them to make a path for yourself.
Yeah it is an outlier, its a case of niche. If you have something, you have something. It doesn't make sense to try and find a game pattern, it is where there is none, it is disingenuous to yourself to do so, and anyone who is aware of what is out there in the market. Kind of like making a match 3 game. Just don't bother, but you can create a game that is a match 3 game, if you have a point of difference that has some sort of value, but otherwise don't bother. You could make a match 3 game for a specific Smart Watch, on a Tuesday in 2019 and will sell well, but do it for steam and put on the PC, who gives a fuck?
No? Most platformers aren't difficult or only seem difficult when you play for the first time (or if you have really slow reflexes). It was originally a genre oriented on kids after all
@The Stalker Lmaooo. Point in case why there are many pixel graphic games. The game shown here might really have been a pain in the ass for the creators to make due to that. Besides, a "pixel graphic" game is adhering to a specific audience who grew up with these games, likes some nostalgia and actually have their own money to buy this unlike the fortnite kiddies and those adults who try to impress them.
3 years later it's worse. Pixel art is fine in of itelf I like it with platformers because I prefer 'older style' games. But that only means I don't like games that have 999 layers of mechanics. and try to have Hollywood movie style cinamatics that are playable. I like my games leany to the arcadey (uncomplicated) and light download size. Alas that's not a lot of us that like that. people look at arcadey and arcade style and go "oh it's to cutesy" and "that looks to kiddie" and not even try the game.
![ทุกครั้งที่หลับตา (Lucid Dream) - AYLA's [ Official MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4i1OBAQyv58/mqdefault.jpg)
Quite some time after this video I got this game really super cheap on a Steam sale, because i had remembered it from this video. And I can see why the sales are so low. This is an EXTREMELY niche game. It's a very very difficult platformer that there definitely is not a huge market for. It doesn't have the Metroidvania thing going for it like other difficult platformers (Ori, Guacamelee, Hollow Knight) have. The screen rotating mechanic is hard to get used to as well...I'm not susceptible to motion sickness like a lot of people are, but even without that it gives the game a really niche aesthetic in addition to the niche mechanics. I'm not saying it's a bad game, it's good for what it is, but even though I do tend to like platformers it was hard to get into.
Reminds me of couldren. This is much faster, but trying to remember patterns and timing is key.
TH-cam... stop linking me old TB content. My heart can only take so much.
:*(
Rip, I will forever miss these discussion videos, no one did it better :(
Interesting to hear the mention of Desura several times; failure of an indie game delivery platform. I lost about a dozen indie projects when that disappeared, most being this kind of small scale slow-burn type of project.
Over saturation is probably one of the biggest factors. Even when you go shopping and see two dozen flavors of pasta sauce, which do you think sell most? Traditional and marinara. Nobody wants to spend an hour contemplating on that stuff, simple and straightforward sells; too much fluff just turns people off.
Trends would be a big factor as well, Meatboy got very popular and became one of the early indie games to make mainstream through XBox Live and such. Similar platformers thought following that trend would be a quick cash-in. Very quickly consumers found how tiresome it became, and probably even quicker because we went through the same trend after Minecraft became huge.
It's true there is no secret to success, you're looking at a crap-shoot at best. But there are definitely ways to increase the odds by being passionate and standing out from the crowd, we still have breakaway successes today like CSD, Dead Cells, and Kerbal Space Program. Was it their marketing that made them successful? Or was it some indescribable attraction that drew more people to check them out? Was it just the right place at the right time? Maybe some combination of these factors, but I think the passion of the developer plays the most significant part. Creating something you truly love and believe in translates to the final product itself, and your fans will see that, word of mouth counts for a lot.
Finally what you consider "success" is a bit subjective, depending if the dev is doing this part time, on the side, or as a main source of income. Indie devs relying on this as a sole income would be well advised to think again. Especially if you have little or no experience in the field, and no name to speak of. Keep your day job and do it for fun, even if it does become "successful". Until you need to focus full-time on development, don't expect it to be a full-time job, same with TH-cam creators.
Keep the passion, but don't over inflate your ego and even selling 20 copies over a year might seem like a success to you, at least that many people appreciated your work right?
feel like the only way for a INdie game to succeed is to market off-platiform. Valhelm "came out of nowhere" to most ppl but actually they had 10k wishlists prior to release
only use Steam for ppl to download.
I recently released my new roguelike brickbreaker, Roguebreaker, a loveletter to the 80s, and has only sold 89 copies.
The market is definitely still tough in 2018. You can blame a ton of stuff, but it's hard to get the eyeballs. I get about 200-250 storepage views a day and that becomes 0-1 sales a day. It's tough because on one hand, I am very happy with how fun Roguebreaker is, and how good it looks and feels.
But on the other, you have to take a hard look at the market, and even if there was several games with 20k copies sold, there was dozens and dozens of failed low quality brick breakers. I thought that mine would stand out, and in a certain sense it does, but it's just not enough. I've made 4 games now across 8 years of time, and it always comes back to the amount of people aware of the game, rather than the game itself.
Also, now that it's 2018, we've raced to the bottom. Games are 99c all over the place. Roguebreaker's 3.99 instead, because I still need 27 sales a day to pay rent, and I don't think I could pull in 3x as many sales, even if I cut the price down by 75%.
This is a great video though, market's tough, and you need to resonate with people.
Man, didn't play your game, but it just looks bad from the start. Some of you guys just have bad taste. I've watched some examples of "failed indie games" and people make assumptions why it failed - from those that i've seen, they just look bad from the first second. Your's is not different. What can be more banal and cheesy than 80's sunset on ocean wallpaper? And the first parallax (where the game happens) visually just have zero connection with that wallpaper. So it looks cheap. The very first thing about the game is that potential player must like it from the first second, from the moment he saw first screenshot. Or at least not dislike it. It happens subsonciously.
Your game can have even the most innovative and addictive gameplay, but if it looks bad from the start - nothing can help.
I didn't want to insult you. It's just design thing is the MAIN thing. People must like it instantly. Look at Undertale and Stardew Valley. Visual design instantly makes people feel comfortable and cosily. I think that's at least 70% of success. Those guys just have great aesthetics taste/feel. Especially that Stardew guy. He redrawed things several times to make it perfect. He understood that subconsiously.
Your game has 3 resolutions on 1 screen: wallpaper (lowest res), gameplay part (higher res) and part with points (highest res). This creates subconsious dissonance in a brain.
He never answered because you are righ
A bleak picture painted that holds even truer four years on.
Good video. Alot of interesting points. Its hard trying to find and build an audience. And even harder to sell things to them. Alot of it is luck,talent, and more luck.
I could only watch a few seconds of this vid - spinny cam made me motionsick so hard it's not even funny. That's at least a few % of people who do not agree with the statement that the game is good.
Ironically this game has now 500k sales. RIP TB*.
Really want to vote 5 stars for fireboy and watergirl on hudgames. It's a great game.
Rip legend.. We miss you brother.
1 year later. The rotating screen thing.
I can do a lot of pixel art games. But the 'indie' (small/shareware) guys do a lot of that. So it's saturated. That can be a good thing! If 'indie' dev embraced that to be the B movie houses of games? and leaned well into making the games over the top? Plus focus on a specific theme, and treat their games as old school shareware? Ie it may or may not sell. I've tried to do mostly or more indie games. And eeef. oof. It's so hit and mis! Downfall: nice light arcadey game, Stardew Valley: ????, but then their's shovel knight. -_-. AVGN does it better Cinamascare hired (or tried to) some smaller guys and... I guess AVGN the game is MIA indefinatly. DeadCells:I fail to get the big deal, just repetive burnout that's not fun. But then Mutant Football League is pretty fun in small amounts.
I tend to like pixel graphics, especially in moderation. Indie guys lean into them, because, umm reasons? oO
Just in the comments of a old video alone their are a lot people tired of the nestolgia factor indie studios lean into.
It really doesn't look fun. That is a relief.
The tragedy is when the game is good and still fails.
This is game is pretty successful now
I love platformers, puzzle games, and metroidvanias. However, I cant play a game like this, it's far too dizzying.
This doesn't look like a bad game by any means, but it looks like a very difficult, very niche game, with limited appeal outside of the audience that is hardcore into these types of games (which is really small). It looks like the developer was just wanting it to be a lot less niche than it is.
I'm totally agree with you. I think it was developer mistake to make this game so cheap. He could instead promote this game to a hardcore comunity, interest them in speedrun and make current price ten times more. And fix some issues.
It's like super meat boy in difficulty terms
I think he hit on it- that it's not just 1 component. It's a combination of the game itself, viral marketing, being on the right storefronts (availability & saturation), and low pricing. But in the end a lot of it is just luck, sort of like which memes take off. Meatboy also had an entire romantic mythos surrounding the development and the developers in the form of Indie Game The Movie.
Unfortunately the very harsh reality that I only accepted recently after many years in denial is this: the vast majority of people who play video games AREN'T INTERESTED IN PLAYING A BIG VARIETY. There's a reason why there's a giant gap between the very best selling games and the almost best selling games. We have to realise that if somebody has a game they like and it is already giving them what they want and continues to give them what they want, what incentive do they have to try anything else? Even another popular game isn't likely to peak their interest unless their friends are playing or it has serious marketing and acclaim behind it. There is no shot in hell someone is going to try a no-name indie game.
Gaming may technically be "bigger than ever before" but the overwhelming majority of players are paying attention to essentially just the top 1%. Since this video, the situation has only gotten far worse with literally tens of thousands of games releasing every year on Steam.
Is that character a kittenpus?
RIP Totalbiscuit
I remember beta testing this :)
19:11 so damn true
It looks like absolute trash. Why did they expect to do much better when they dont put in the time to make it good, or even decent
19:10
F to this game and Biscuits...
Dumbass
Didnt Tb do another video like this, where he focued on this puzzle platformer where you where supposed to take pictures and such?
I can't remember the name, but there was a game that came out around the same time where you clipped pictures of platforms in the levels and pasted them to make a path for yourself.
@@its_just_matt Yes thats the one. I am sure of it.
Yeah it is an outlier, its a case of niche. If you have something, you have something. It doesn't make sense to try and find a game pattern, it is where there is none, it is disingenuous to yourself to do so, and anyone who is aware of what is out there in the market. Kind of like making a match 3 game. Just don't bother, but you can create a game that is a match 3 game, if you have a point of difference that has some sort of value, but otherwise don't bother. You could make a match 3 game for a specific Smart Watch, on a Tuesday in 2019 and will sell well, but do it for steam and put on the PC, who gives a fuck?
What is going on in this comment section.
nothing ... just that tb's wife opened replys after his passing
12:32 Platformers are meant to be hard. Git gud.
No? Most platformers aren't difficult or only seem difficult when you play for the first time (or if you have really slow reflexes). It was originally a genre oriented on kids after all
Can i take a second of your time to talk with you about superfighters deluxe? A 2D shooter in steam ☺
Steam is absolutely bombarded with these pixel graphic games....just too many
@The Stalker Lmaooo. Point in case why there are many pixel graphic games. The game shown here might really have been a pain in the ass for the creators to make due to that. Besides, a "pixel graphic" game is adhering to a specific audience who grew up with these games, likes some nostalgia and actually have their own money to buy this unlike the fortnite kiddies and those adults who try to impress them.
3 years later it's worse. Pixel art is fine in of itelf I like it with platformers because I prefer 'older style' games. But that only means I don't like games that have 999 layers of mechanics. and try to have Hollywood movie style cinamatics that are playable. I like my games leany to the arcadey (uncomplicated) and light download size. Alas that's not a lot of us that like that. people look at arcadey and arcade style and go "oh it's to cutesy" and "that looks to kiddie" and not even try the game.
@@hiiambarney4489 lol I think that's because of being made with game maker, and RPG maker.
Its not decent. Its aweful.
fourth.
Second?
First?
lol