I Spent 4 Years Making a Game Which Will Never Release
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ต.ค. 2024
- #gamedev #indiegame #pcgames
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Im no expert in any way, but i dont think that possible failure of this game should be a reason to be sad, or , especially, give up. This is your first game, it is INCREDIBLY rare for someone`s first game to succeed. Many creators of super successful indie games spent decades making games that no one played for just one gem
He should give up if these are the games he's making.
exactly this! even some AAA developers today didn't become a success on their first game, they started out making small games, failure after failure until they eventually hit it big.
@@paytonestrada7746 You should make games if you think it's this easy to do.
@@117-0 It's easy to do if you want to make asset flip trash like this guy.
Wow, this game looks super ambitious for a first game. Even if it fails, you could probably go to a studio and say "I made this" and get a job much more easily than most people.
It looks like a generic asset swap you can make in a week.
@@paytonestrada7746 finally a single person stopped to f-ing masturbate on a trash
and said at least a single sentence of truth.
@@paytonestrada7746you clearly know nothing about gamedev. Multiplayer is a whole new bag of worms, making this work on dedicated servers probably took months alone.
@@paytonestrada7746 That's such an over the top exaggeration
@@Desmond-Dark No, that is the reality.
Sadly I think youre right. Its so hard to compete with other games in the shooter genre. But this is incredibly impressive for such a small team. I didnt realise the game you showed on screen was your game for a second. It looks promising though, dont give up with it man. You have something impressive here.
It's hard to compete when you make a bad game.
Reading the comments I think some people didn't watch the full video... In fact, I know they didn't, because of of them say "after watching 40 seconds" bruh... These guys received an offer of $100,000 for a portion of this games revenue... Clearly publishers was potential with it. It might not be perfect and needs a lot of work, but if offers like that are being thrown around then publishers must have enjoyed the game after trying it and wanted to invest to help make it even better.
Overall it looks great for a team of 10 people who have 0 experience, this is far better than what a LOT of gamedev newcomers make
As another indie game dev, I think there's some notes to take here, (and I want to note that all these statements are based on this video alone)
Firstly, this game doesn't look exciting: PvP is a massive market and to perform well you have to stand out, and based on the 10 minutes of gameplay I just watched, it looks like a Halo clone.
Secondly, you state that there is loads of maps, skins, weapons and gamemodes: as an indie game, these features should come long after the main gameplay has proved itself.
Thirdly, graphics: this game lacks a definitive visual style, the game is in Unity despite looking like a custom engine, and more importantly the UI is a mishmash of consistency with some elements looking way more finished than others, and many visual effects look unfinished or incomplete, leaving it feeling like polish was left on the table in lew of content.
To summarise: this game looks to offer nothing new in terms of gameplay, while looking largely unfinished and having the graphical style of a AAA game from the early console era.
As a developer, I see bad misprioritisation of features.
And as a gamer, I see nothing that draws my eye towards the game.
Halo was a huge inspiration, the idea was to capitalize on the fact that Halo is not third person, and doesn't run on mobile (our game does, and it looks identical, which alone is impressive) but what ended up happening are many of the things you pointed out. Priority shifted from polish of a small product, to creating a product far too large and ambitious for a small team, that was all half baked. We're all newcomers to the space, and things were often left unpolished because we simply didn't know how to polish them, for example we never, during the entire 4 years of development, had a single animator, level designer, texture artist, or concept artist working with us. These things would be done by people who were learning on the job while their primary skill was elsewhere. (For example, I'm a graphic designer and have some marketing knowledge, but I ended up doing the level design, UI/UX, social media, marketing, and some sound design) so what you end up with is simply lack of experience and people needing to wear many hats.
What this game really needed, is the investment. It needed assistance from a team that has released similar titles, to come in and help establish a clear goal and polish the product. But that never happened. And I wish it did. Maybe there's a chance someone sees it and wants to take a portion of the business in return for polishing, if not then it's simply a portfolio piece and learning experience for many involved
@@Nadestraight Again, changing a game from first to third person isn't a unique change, while I understand that you feel that your team didn't have the necessary skills for many of the tasks required to make the game, this is where the indie rule comes in, either change the base feature to bring it back within your teams' skillset, or spend the time to become experienced in the skills required (an example of the first being ULTRAKILL, Hakita didn't have experience in modelling or texture art, and this ended up defining the games psx artstyle).
Money and experience cannot solve all problems (especially in gamedev), just look at Concord: that had a massive budget and some of the most experienced gamedevs ever, despite this, it completely flopped due to being unpolished and lacking a unique feel.
I'm a team of 1 working on my own games, and whenever I look at an idea, before anything else, I ask: how is this unique, and what does this draw from.
Then I will try to workshop the idea into my skillset, I have very little experience with audio so it has always taken a backseat in my games leaving more room for things such as complex movement and map design, if I can't find a way that I could succeed with an idea, it can often be that the idea was bad to begin with.
TLDR: Regardless of team size and experience, a game must be unique, if it isn't, then its not a great game.
@@Nadestraight lol why don't you press like on this comment? You only endorse ass-licking, right boi? Ass licking community of "PALS" that just polish your butt to the shine.
Again this is only partly true. Before this game, I was a QA tester for Splitgate, I also joined them as a cosmetic artist later. As someone who was close to that game... It's literally Halo with portals. Yet it raised $100,000,000. You CAN create something which simply changes one or two aspects and it can succeed.
Sometimes, gamers don't want something incredibly different, they want something that feels familiar and close to home, but they also want a polished product that is bug free and full of content. This is most common with multiplayer shooters specifically.
@@Nadestraight I feel you miss what I mean by that, changing POV and adding portals to a game are very different changes, one simply changes a player's perspective on a game, and the other completely redefines the combat, mechanics, skill set, map design etc.
Just because a change can seem small, doesn't mean it has little impact on a game (sometimes it can be the smallest things that have massive impacts)
Also, I cant think of any older-style games that have done well in recent history, if people want nostalgia they will go and play the original, and most newer games are doing what I said, taking something that works and expanding or changing it, just look at Valve who have redefined the MOBA with Deadlock, it draws upon other games, but doesn't look or feel anything like them.
I'm not saying people shouldn't develop older-style games, but to design for that and expect it to compete on the market with so many new and exciting ideas is somewhat silly.
There's 8 people playing now :D
We _love_ you man.
Roblox recreation when?
Gods i just read ur replies man. You take no critique of this trash. If everyone who plays it say`s it has potential and it`s great why is no one actually playing it. Sometimes haters are just people telling u the truth
I get a rig in due time and I hope that I will be able to try it out.
@@LUPIPUPI1 I've been taking critique of the game for 4 years man, we do look at the comments, every single one, even the ones that are just as simple as "The game sucks" or "it's just Halo"
I'm aware the graphics are less than to be desired, this frustrates me more than anyone in these comments and I knew this years ago. I pushed for better visuals as a creative person, but I am only 1 voice and therefor the majority vote was lesser visuals in favor of performance and mobile porting (which again, I think a mobile port was a stupid idea for a small team)
I'm also aware the game looks generic in terms of visuals, taking too much inspiration from Halo and not enough unique ideas etc.
More often than you probably think, I am on the side of the critique lol. Even if the replies look like I'm not.
Dang man sorry to hear that you'll have been better opportunities next time, I pray that your doing well.
you can put your prayers right into your damn dirty butt. Capish?
I get where y'all are at (I've released a gaggle of games over the years, a few of which on Steam) and it can be really demoralizing. Multiplayer indie games are hard, especially when so many current MP shooters are free and built around monopolizing players time and being sticky.
I've hopped in and played a couple hours. I feel like it's a solid base game, but lacks something that stands out as uiquely Cross Planet, you know it's not got a single specific "Thing", feels more like a learning project that lacks a singular focus. Get a distinct "NOVA: Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance" vibe in that it feels very generic scifi, gameplay feels like Unreal with a dash of modern Halo, which isn't bad, but again lacks a specific selling point or hook to drag in a new player.
I really respect the impulse to release it for free when it becomes clear that it's not going to work out, so many games would shut down and release nothing, and IME getting a real release out is the hardest part of gamedev.
Releasing to silence fucking sucks, but it's unfortunately part of most every modern indie dev's journey.
The idea from the very beginning was kind of "Lets combine aspects of tons of popular games into one" which is what likely led to a generic scifi look and feel, rather than th core focus/ and specific thing. Our USP (Unique Selling Point) was always "Third Person Halo" and "Halo on Mobile" which on paper are great, since those things didn't exist, but without the funds to market that to millions of players, the game sadly gets referred to as a copy/ ripoff haha.
Always funny to hear people say it feels like Unreal! It's Unity, but from day 1 we've always been told it felt like Unreal, which isn't a bad thing I guess?
Overall like you say, it was a learning project and our first ever game! If we ever dive into gamedev again, we'll likely tackle a much smaller project that is more realistic for such a small team, and take the things we learned with us
@@NadestraightSorry, when I said it "feels like Unreal" I should have clarified that I meant the Unreal games (specifically UT 2k4). I can definitely see where you'd be coming from with the "3rd Person Halo" and that's not a bad spot to start, but you quickly run into the issue of people's investment in Halo, not only in time but in battlepasses and customization and just emotional investment. Without a sufficiently different mechanic/gimmick/aestetic/etc it's hard to get your friends to try a smaller, lower budget, less cohesive version of something they already have and like.
Again, I'm happy I got to get hands-on and play with it, and I hope y'all learn from what didn't work and either work to fix it or get something even cooler rolling in the future. Making games is hard as fuck.
There's so many multiplayer shooters why would I want to play this
Because pew pew
Pew pew
@@Nadestraight because you suck. And you did 0 good job there. Just an f-ing zero. FACE THE TRUTH, genz "BHGLOGGER"
Pew pew
The answer is that you wouldn't. Looks pretty bad if I saw so myself.
I feel like this is a problem of scope. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make a multiplayer FPS game, and for a passion project this looks very polished.
However, you talk about “the FPS market” and marketing budgets, etc. You can’t compete against them. You just can’t. What you need to do is make sure it can be fun with small groups of friends or communities. This means dedicated servers or peer2peer, ways to direct connect, bots, balancing for smaller player numbers etc.
I don’t think you need to lie down yet. Shift your focus, and you can find a market, even if it’s small.
We have both dedicated servers and peer to peer, and bots too haha 😅
The fact is other games like this are just much more polished and have a budget to reach new players. Plus, they have more features such as matchmaking (ours broke, we used to have it) voice chat in game, in game stores, thorough progression systems, friend systems / invite system, etc. There's a lot that goes into a game like this which we don't have
@@Nadestraight I think it'd also help to find a niche; find a kind of shooter than doesn't have a lot of games like it. For example, literally every indie dev is making that "super fast-paced wallrunning parkour Titanfall clone" type FPS (or a DOOM/Quake knockoff) right now. Something more grounded, like classic Halo, definitely is missing nowadays. However, what made Halo stick was it's lore and singleplayer campaign.
Would it be worth battening down the hatches and making an 8-hour AAA campaign? Probably not. Maybe a mode like Spartan Ops for Halo 4, which has a bit of a story element and has players cooperatively fighting NPC enemies? Maybe.
If you are looking to try and compete with COD and Apex and stuff, I think you have the wrong mindset. Even AAA games fail to compete with those juggernauts.
I just wishlisted the game! Plz don't give up it looks so good 🙏 NEVER BACK DOWN NEVER WHAT!...
never give up!
don't f-ing scream here, you assbrain loser. You do not even understand what you're talking about here.
I like the look of it, its very halo but somewhere between Halo 3 and Halo Infinite in speed, quite a nice balance. If I had a decent gaming laptop I'd install this
When you go indie you really need to fill a niche or create something quirky. If your game looks 99% like any other existing game, your game has 99% chance of failing.
I hope you can always remember the joyful and fun times you had while making it. :)
Also, you have a really cool thing to show for all your time. But more than that you LEARNED SO MUCH.
We all need to download and wishlist the game to boost it's numbers and help new people find it!
Why should be promote a bad game just because some l*ser on YT is crying about it?
why? this is garbage, why do I download and wishlist it? Just because some random spiderman-lover and loser told me to do so? Who you are?
You inspire people to NOT do this with your very existence.
I just found out you were making a game 💀
haha well now you know!
Actually really cool, I am into arena fps(even really niche ones) and I didn't even know this existed. Really shows how difficult it is to reach people.
I really want to play more indie pvp shooters but they usually reach 0 players in the first weeks and then you cant find matches, its messed up.
Yeah I've tried a few over the years that have very low player numbers, marketing is half of the battle with these kind of games, if nobody knows you exist then the game dies
lol you're brain dead mawaka... FPS? Open your full of sheit eyes please.
Battlebit was also made by 3 people and sold 3.66 million copies on Steam
I played that for a couple hours but never touched it again 😅 yet other people have thousands of hours on it, just different tastes I guess
This looks familiar 👀 and looks great! 😎
Its cause No one knows what makes it special it looks like any old 3rd person shooter.
not just no one knows. It's also no human being is able to actually recognize anything good in it.
Probably, because it's just not.
interesting watch, I'll need to try it out, i hope you and your team find success in some way. thank you for all your hard work
lol this dude tried it and was left without eyes as an outcome.
@@mykyta1235 huh
Making and sustaining an FPS is extremely intensive; after you've got the foundations done (developing the game and attracting players), you'll always be in a constant war with cheaters. That being said, it really looks like you guys did an amazing job and are extremely passionate about what you made! Depending on how modular the tech/framework is, you may be able to sell the project as a proto-typing kit to another company or split it up on a per-module basis to sell micro-solutions on a marketplace.
I really hope you and your team don't give up on game development and maintain your passion for development as you raise through the industry!
Sorry to hear that mate, that’s rough. I’ve recently had to abandon a project I spent a year on due to it’s scope and lack of appeal. Think it would be good to take a break and return to start a new project, preferably one with smaller scope.
Sorry to hear where this game ended up. It feels like you shot for the moon but didn't leave the atmosphere. I hope the demo is enjoyed and your future projects are more successful.
one thing you could do is take the PvE aspect and make it it's on separate smaller more tight nit experience as a prequel or building block for the bigger pvp game mode way later on because foundationally theres something there and while the shooter market is saturated there's still a strong market for super engaging co-op PvE action
Yeah funnily enough this is an ongoing discussion in the team haha. It was always PvE that got publishers attention too!
I have a lot of empathy and respect for the journey you and your team embarked on. That being said, there was another route available that has worked for other devs, which doesn't mean it would work for you, but it's the route I would have chosen.
When I look at your game I see a good amount of content, maps, and modes, but the problem is all of that content isn't compelling. The alternative route is focusing on a very small slice of gameplay that **is** very compelling for players, investors, etc.
There are certain situations where quality over quantity is just a better approach. One map but with far better animations, effects, and gameplay hooks, hooks that make a player go wow that looks really fun. That's the route I would have went, not look what we have (not much) but look what what we can expand upon if given the resources.
We live and we learn, you can continue chasing your passion if you so wish. You're not where you thought you'd be but time enables amazing things.
Sad to see, I played this at the start of the year and it felt really good, and looked promising.
Also hate seeing some fo the comments here, some people clearly do not understand gamedev and how long this stuff takes.
You should still be proud of what you managed to make as new developers!
So what if they dont? Everyone works hard in every profession. That doesnt entitle you to anything.
just because it takes a long time doesn't mean anything. final product is all that matters. this looks cheap
The use of heavily stylized graphics would make your game stand out. Right now its this photorealistic look that makes my eyes glaze over. I did think it looked like halo, and halo is a watered down console version of the shooters I grew up playing.
Project this size is a no easy task, respect brother, respect.
Can you give some advice on directing projects like this?
I might do a video on something like this, like a lessons learned/ advice!
@@Nadestraight That would be really helpful. Thanks bro!
@@Nadestraight how can you do such a topic if you haven't learnt literally ANYTHING from this? You just whine about failure. And you like it when people lie to you about its actual "quality".
I'm gonna try this out I've been looking for something like this
Appreciate it :)
I dont get why you'd chose to pour time and money (at least that much) into something you know will fail. No shame in making something small to start, and going bigger once you think youve got a chance
We didn't know at the beginning, and it did start small, but it's easy to lose control and the scope of the project increased way too much, many first time Devs are victims of not staying within realistic boundaries
@@Nadestraight yeah makes sense. Still probably wise to keep that in mind during the project rather than after
What was your vision?
Tell us why you built this.
Maybe it can be salvaged. Controls look good.
personally i think the game does not have to be on AAA level , sure you can try to compete at that level but will be hard, lowering the level you can try to compete could be a good try. As others mention the game looks nice , reminded me of some old school shooters used to play which is cool
Word of unsolicited advice, you should *really* listen to your haters a little more than the ones kissing your butt. It's not easy, but cast aside any ego or pride and hear some of them out. You seem passionate about the product you're trying to sell here, and clearly your team put in the work to get it to this point. Heck, most people don't even reach the point of releasing their game. But that passion can blind you and put you on the defensive which can prevent growth. The graphics seem to be the point of contention here, and personally I agree. I feel like if you went with a retro style, any jankiness or unpolish could be more easily overlooked. That Ps1/N64 style has been making a triumphant come back in the indie scene, and I can see this game in that style doing a lot better.
But, who knows, what do I know? Game development is a wild frontier of uncertainties and it ultimately falls to you and your team to decide what is best. I hope you all find a way to carve a path forward and climb whatever obstacles are in your way. You've made it this far, you're on your path to releasing it. Don't let the hate beat you down, *use it.* Best of luck.
If you it can't be AAA then just focus on making a it an excellent AA experience.
Is there a kickstarter I can donate to support this? It looks awesome
No Kickstarter, the reality is we need tens of thousands of dollars to achieve the end goal, which we wouldn't get from a Kickstarter as we're not big enough / known enough to get that many donators. I'd rather not take money from people unless it's a guaranteed goal reached and we can deliver
Ill check this out with some friends
Definitely more enjoyable with a group of 4+ if you can get some friends together! If you need extra players, I can likely hop on for some games too :)
@@Nadestraight Great! I've got 6 of us ready to play today or tmrw
Personally, I'd never heard of this. Have some engagement. I hope the discoverability helps.
PvP is the hardest market to catch as well
Yeah, so much competition and choice, you have to really stand out and marketing is a huge factor too
While it sucks, as someone who isn't a fan of indies I can understand the lack of any big reaction. A game that looks a lot like Halo with no PvE at all (even though I'm aware that making AI is hard) sounds like a game that already lives on borrowed time.
We used to have PVE, we actually added PVE to our game before Halo even added it to their latest game 😅 but we decided to focus on polishing PvP some more rather than having 2 styles of gameplay that were half baked. Looking back on it, I wish we focused more on PVE, it was really loved at the events we went to as it could be enjoyed as a solo player rather than needing other players online to experience the gameplay loop
Nobody asked a third person halo on pc.
Well... Halo just announced third person on PC yesterday 😅 literally due to demand. So this comment is just factually wrong.
Hindsight is 20/20 for most of these issues. But..
50% of revenue is a huge number. You were right to reject that. If the game was successful you need a clause for this proportion to decline with success.
Like 25% over 500,000. 10% over 1,000,000. And ideally get 100% at some point.
Yeah 50% is a big number, but some percentage of a game that has a few hundred players is better than 100% of a game that dies on day 1 😅
If it was 70/30, we would have accepted it on the spot
2:53 i believe this might be the problem. Unfortunately this videogame effectively already exists. And it seems like your view of disappointing results for something that someone else already offers is "We just didn't have enough marketing budget", which i would dare say, probably won't get you guys very far. Don't mean to throw shade here in the absolute slightest, you guys have done far more than i or most people commenting could. But the reality of it is, i feel like i'm looking at "Section 8" again, but unfinished, ironically "again".
If i could give you any advice it would be: Don't try to "break into genres", you're just cloning games by doing that, and it's also one of the biggest problems in the industry currently, and a big part of the reason why the industry is on a downturn. And the few people you manage to capture with shooter iteration number 754, probably won't give you enough financial support, so you'll feel the need to squeeze them with mtx, just to get by and pay the bills, ultimately landing you in the same place as most of the industry, with a game that not even you will be proud of.
Most game devs try to switch to web development or something similar. This is the reason why. Game devs make half of what they would have made in Microsoft or something similar. Cant blame the companies either as the business model sucks.
lmao mate shouldve started a project in scope for the dev team size
Super common gamedev mistake, if we make a new project it'll be something we think we can make in like 6 months instead
@@Nadestraight better pick up on publisher offers too mate, couldve had 3 devs working full time for a year straight getting paid great wages with advertisement budget left at the end kickstarting your studio, but instead...
The issue here besides the obvious things you already mentioned is what is new here?
Looking at the gameplay for the first time now, and like why would anyone care about a very old concept basically, looks like a game from the early 2000's all of the weapons, maps, powerups etc this has been seen too many times. Like sure you guys spent a lot of time, but you spent time basically making a copy of a copy, that is a copy of something else. I don't see anything original / new, which for me personally I don't even care to try it to figure out if there is something that would catch my attention. You would have fared better if you made this in Roblox tbh. And it's weird to not push for iron sight view when it's being proven that it makes the most sense in 3rd person shooters, you don't need all of these different weapons when you don't even have a good gunplay loop that people want to play and come back to.
Hopefully your team learned this crucial lesson it's about actually making something new, the ~80% of indie games failing it's because they are just making copies of what already exists and not improving it in any way or adding their own special twist to the formula. Spend more time on the idea and that concept that catches peoples attention then push forward into dev time, you can't just make something amazing while in dev hell it's never gonna happen unless you have such creative power from your team but it's so rare you can't count on that at all.
Marketing sure that is a thing but at the same time for games it's actually not that hard to spread it like wild fire, but again the thing people see needs to be engaging from the start.
So I ask again what new ( or even an upgrade of an existing feature, or some new twist where you either focus on like one aspect like design, gunplay, etc. ) thing was introduced into this game?
Not every game has to offer something new. There are plenty of throwback titles which succeed through refinement and satisfying gameplay loops, presentation or storytelling.
@@BearOdysseyTV Name one title? There are none that are remotely successful and have at least 500-1000 daily players.
And again what has been refined in this game? Basically nothing from the gameplay shown.
@@BearOdysseyTV I agree with this, a lot of players also love to say that games need something new, but then complain about it being "too different" or "confusing" etc when it releases 🙃 people want something they can easily play, something they feel familiar with from the moment they pick it up
@@carter3217 Are you gonna play this game then? How long till you drop it? Hours or days?
@@tips1pxl Space Marine 2.
100'000 for 50% of your project's gains...
If it becomes a hit, you get scammed. If it makes no money, you waisted more time of your life on it.
100k$ = one computer scientist for one year. It is not much.
Scammed but millionaire probably. Op got greedy and got nothing. Happens all the time. They should've bent the knee.
I'm patiently waiting for some indie developers to outdo Killing Floor.
PVP seems fruitless when that's all GaaS is right now.
Respect for your effort
why? What exactly do you respect? And you're no one to make your "respect" valuable. Better go and respect your grandma. At least she probably gives a f about it.
It reminds me of some old game
Well its probably doing better then concord thats a win!
Double concords players today 😂😂😂
Only 4 min in but I want to say that budget does play a role, however I don't think it's that big of a deal. There are many resources you can get for little to no money and make a good game. From the gameplay footage I've seen here I can say that at least in my opinion, the game looks incredibly bland and generic. Desaturated, generic si-fi dudes in third person shooting each other with weapons I've seen millions of times before in bland environments.
The market is already saturated with too many multiplayer shooters, if you want to break through it's not enough to just make an OK looking and feeling game. Even if the budget was higher, you'll still have trouble. You really need something that looks unique in order to stand out, spending millions of dollars on marketing is an outdated strategy, an exciting product will generate excitement through word of mouth alone.
Blaming the budget and team size in my opinion is missing the real problem, which is the lack of creativity.
A lot of people that watch the gameplay and don't actually play the product say things like this, but no exaggeration 90% of people that actually try the game say it has potential.
Now, it's true that some of the things you say are a big factor, I've known this for years. The amount of times I personally have pushed for things such as unique weapons and a consistent look to make them feel like a family... Sadly, I'm not the only decision maker, and in the end there were a lot of cut ideas that were more unique, mostly because we're all newcomers and sometimes, simply didn't know how to achieve what we envisioned.
I think overall what we have is a solid foundation to build on, but we as a team can't build it any further, at least not without spending another 4 years on it. Which, we don't want to do.
@@Nadestraight
I'm not saying the game doesn't have potential. However I think people greatly underestimate the impact visuals have on a game's success, most people do judge the book by the cover. One of the worst things people can do is remove unique ideas in an attempt to be more marketable as all they're doing is removing reasons for others to care.
As for the game right now, I would personally go back and stylize the materials, make things more vibrant, add more unique alien stuff in the maps, etc. That's the lowest effort way to try and course correct things without full on adding new weapons/mechanics or re-doing models and animations.
Anyway it's not a big deal, first step of succeeding is trying and failing. I wish you luck on your next project :)
If you can make it so Low end PCs can run it, I’ll download it
Also what if there was a single player campaign?
It should run on low end PCs! It runs on my freinds £500 laptop!
@@Nadestraight no like mine has 4gb ram and intel core i3
@@Nadestraight is legit potato
@@piggyproalice2 Ahh, the minimum requirements are quite low but not THAT low haha. I doubt we'd be able to achieve that sadly
No offense man, but it just looks like a janky, budget Halo with no real direction. I'm no game designer, but it looks pretty uninspired, you need a unique selling point that sets apart your game from all the others. If I'm a player looking for a multiplayer shooter, why would I play this over Halo, or Apex, or the countless other polished and refined games out there?
Having so many different modes kinda shows that you don't really know what you want your game to be. Maybe instead of having all these different game modes, you should have focused on one vision, that nobody has done before, and followed that through.
I agree with some points here but not others. While true that the game wasn't unique, I would rephrase the second point to "too inspired by Halo, with the only USP being third person" rather than just uninspired.
I also have the mindset of "why would I play this over halo or apex, etc" and this is something I tried to relay to other team members many times. Sometimes, people just don't agree on things, and it can be hard to convince someone that their creation is not unique enough and doesn't entice players over other games etc. Without getting into the politics of it, I was not the shot caller on every decision.. another aspect of gamedev that hurts many titles.
Lastly, the many game modes thing, I don't agree with your point here. Many games have 20+ game modes, especially in the shooter genre. Think about how many have deathmatch, capture the flag, a hill zone mode, specific weapon modes, etc. That's just a common aspect of arena shooter, and those modes are often derivatives of others so they're not actually that hard to create.
So I'm in agreement with some things, but others not so much
@@Nadestraight
- a perspective switch to third person is hardly a unique selling point, it changes almost nothing
- this goes back to what I was saying, you need *one* vision, not a jumbled mess of several. It sounds as though the team structure was not thoughtfully considered.
- two points; firstly, those gamemodes have all been done a hundred times before, again no USP, and secondly, as a small indie game having so many gamemodes spreads your playerbase too thin.
I'll also add another thought which is that the art direction is very inconsistent. None of the assets feel cohesive, almost asset-flip esque (whether that is true or not i don't know), but nevertheless it conveys a low sense of quality which will most likely cause potential newcomers to steer clear (I know that's most likely how I'd feel if I saw the game on Steam). Presentation goes a long way.
Again though.. I'm not a game designer. Its ultimately up to you to decide what the shortcomings were and where you need to improve
Halo but third person is not a unique selling point. Especially when third person was an option in past halo games
looks fun imma play it
it can be harsh to hear, but without watching full video i already can tell, that graphics suck. Like, i really dont want to be rude, especially without reason, but this is REEEEALY uninspired style, its literaly Halo + default UE style, both are kinda overused, and seeing in ammature game makes its even worse. Still, i see after ~~4 minutes of watching that game isnt hollow, i really think its not. But its just.... This Ain't It, Chief
Graphics were so much better 2 years ago, there's old videos of the game that look like a AAA current gen game, but when we had that level of graphical fidelity, half of our users couldn't run the game because their PCs weren't powerful enough, which was a big reason for the downgrade. Personally I wish we never downgraded, as someone who's a creative. But, the majority of the team said "graphics aren't everything" and that's true, graphics don't make games. And as an indie team we need as many players to be able to run the game as possible. It's a difficult balance. Some players really get turned off by older looking graphics, others don't care.
Not recommend. There are traps for any sponsors. I seen thing go wrong. Still it cool you work hard to develop online game. Which is not easy plus sci fi game. It depend on the market target and people likes. Like Battlebit remaster those dev didn't gave up. It only been thtre people working on the game for online fps. They work hard to make the game fun. So your not alone with other indie dev. For example hello game they working on their own make player enjoy the game. It not easy job for them.
Maybe it's because I have been trying to get into hobby gamedev myself, but I can easily tell how big of a undertaking a game like this is.
For me the main reason of ur failure is lack of a market - I simply don't think enough people want to play a game like this (sadly).
The game itself doesnt look bad at all to me - to each their own I suppose, something like graphics cannot be defined as "good" or "bad", it is in the eye of the beholder, and to me this game looks cool.
Anyways I hope youre proud of what you achieved, and I hope you read this comment since so many of the comment had a "negative" vibe to me, and I just wanted to give some feedback from someone who is genuinely impressed of what you and your team have created.
After further reading of the comments I realize that alot of the comments are "positive" as well, just wanted to add that.
Yeah it's a strange one, as it's obviously part of a Very saturated market and there are many comments that talk about the game 'not doing anything new' or 'there are others just like this, so it's generic'
However, it's actually very niche. A third person arena shooter is not something you come across every day, and doesn't have a huge market, a lot of our users were in their 20s or older, and were attracted to the game because it's nostalgic. You end up with a strange dynamic where at face value you look very generic and uninspired etc, but when you actually play it and stop to think for a second, it is very niche
343 literally stole your game.
24 hours after we release 💀😂
Imma be honest, your game looks so generic it's the type of thing that I played in elementary/middle school when I wasn't paying attention in class and needed something quick to waste time on so I just googled "free shooter game" or something like that and played on the school computer. Then when I got home I played something less generic like r6 or apex. However there was this one game called krunker I really liked.
I honestly can't tell if this is satire haha 😅 to me, Apex and R6 look really generic these days too, Apex looks like every other Sci-fi BR and R6 looks like every other Present day - Modern shooter, same as cod, battlefield, etc.
Maybe there's just so many games these days that everything is starting to look like something else
before watching the video im guessing that its just a copy paste of most other games
It has some unique aspects to it, and it's not a hero shooter or battle royale etc, it's an arena shooter which is quite old fashioned. It does take a lot of inspiration from things like Halo or Quake and copies elements of them though, but many games do
@@Nadestraight yeah that was just my assumption when clicking on the video, lack of time and resources is a much more valid reason
Bro I can look at this game and tell you in 5 second what's wrong with it.
First off all it looks like Halo 2 rip-off (Maybe it's not true but that's the first impression of a player that saw gameplay and most people will just don't care about the game at that point and not even finish watching a trailer for example)
Second of all animations look like from roblox. Gun Sounds are horrible. Graphics look like from xbox360.
Maybe if if was a different genre those downsides could be ignored but there is a LOT of TPS on the market and I have no Idea why somebody would chose to play this game over anything else.
This is not a hate comment this is an honest advice.
We don't have an animator so that's why they're janky, again we're a tiny team, we worked with what we had.
It is very Halo inspired, so you assume correct there. And graphics, I agree, the graphics suck, lol. They used to be so much better, but we had to downgrade them so that more machines could run the game. Which I hated doing but at the time it made sense from a business perspective.
@@Nadestraight A good pc game will allways outsell a cross platform game
You should give up, why bother?
The game is out, that was the bare minimum so it's likely that we will move onto something else in the future that's more realistic
However, I feel like your comment gives off very negative vibes. Hope you get some positivity in your life instead of spreading hate / negativity in TH-cam comments dude
it sucks?
Taste is subjective
So far everyone that plays it says it's fun and impressive for a small studio, we just don't have the time to polish it more and don't have the money to push it to more people
I’m 10 seconds into the video, and I can tell you why, it’s because it’s generic slop, if it was good people would want to play it.
Literally everyone that plays it says it's good... We had like 30 new people try it yesterday. Stop hating 😂 as I said, we just don't have the money to market and polish it
@@Nadestraight like the great philosopher asmon said "you cant polish a turd", im not hating honestly, we live in the era when people are eager for new good games, when indies are ahead of triple A studios in so many ways, and theres a lot of success stories of gamedevs that built amazing games alone, but in your head those excuses make more sense
@@NunoSobrinho-jw8ekof course you're an asmon fan. That explains it.
@@carter3217 nice way to completely disregard my point and shut down the conversation, that attitude is the root of your failure, but keep coping dude.
just dont make pvp games. There is 0 point as a indie dev.
Yeah, if any of us do gamedev again I'm sure it'll be a single player experience
@@Nadestraight you can do multiplayer but only coop type games. Even if your game got popular cheating woudl just kill it off in 1-2 months tops.
100%, glad you didn’t sugar coat it. Bloated genre, cost to maintain servers and peoples attention span, etc. Indie games are more likely to be successful whenever they are co-op PvE or single-player, and will typically have a longer lifespan and lasting relevance if they are successful.
Unfortunately my comments will help this video, but I'm ready to sacrifice this to tell the truth.
Reading recommended reqs from steam store page:
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel i7-9700k
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: Radeon RX 5700 XT or Nvidia RTX 2070
LOW END. God damn, and it's 22 gigs...
This what happens when talentless person has too strong ungrounded imagination.
That's reccomended to get high quality graphics settings, the game actually runs at 60fps on hardware from like 6 years ago haha, we put a lot of time into optimization. My friend runs it on his laptop which doesn't even have a decicated GPU
Some red flags
-no real hook
-no idea of your minimal viable product
-"17 game modes" what is the core experience you want the player to have???
-should have focused on one platform
-paying to show your game at events is a waste of money as an indie
-you needed a demo
-you need to start marketing very early on in development
-you didn't mention any kick starter but it could have been a way to fund the game and build a community
I won't lie game looks kinda fun in some instances.
This might have been a success with half the stuff you added and polished the game and saved those extra ideas for updates or a sequel. You say you need a ton of money to market in the shooter genre when splitgate was able to achieve what you were doing.
Just wanna clarify a few of these, as some of this is incorrect:
- The huge list of game modes is very common for this genre, you even mention Splitgate, which has 15-20 game modes, as does Halo, Call of Duty, and more.
- We never paid any money to attend events, we received free entry and only paid for travel cost and any accomodation/ hotels.
- This is the demo
- We did start marketing early on. Our first event attendance was 1 year after development, we've been showing the game and making videos, attending event etc since 2021.
@@Nadestraight
-yes splitgate has alot of game modes but you can tell its focused its deign around death match and KotH. all the modes are derrived from that foundation. Quality over Quantity.
-you may not have paid for entry but travel costs and hotel is still an expense. if you were a "pro" studio would you not write this off as a business expense? sure its good experience but as an indie you have to stretch your money as far as possible, the return on wishlists isnt good and feedback can be gained cheaper
-my comment was unclear "you need a demo" should have been what i meant was you just released a public demo recently you would have benefitted from releasing one much sooner.
you complain about marketing is hard for your genre but arnt doing thing that made other game successful an early demo to start generating buzz, press kits, streamers , ect is very important
You should really look up Chris Zukowski and his materials on "how to market a game". Breaking into the shooter genre isnt impossible. and i think he would give you some important insight in the best practices and steps you need to take for release.
you have alot of wishlists, some smart decisions now can save this game. if you email chris he can probably consult with you on how to save your game