Ultimate Indie Gamedev Genre Tierlist
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 พ.ค. 2024
- We're doing something different for this one, Tier Lists! We all love to play various game genres, but what about making them...? Thomas and Marnix sit down to discuss what are the best (and worst) game genres for making your own game as a beginning indie dev.
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Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:47 Shooters
02:22 Sandbox Survival
04:57 Platformer
06:52 Top-down Strategy
09:47 Sim games
12:46 Puzzle
15:03 RPG
18:28 MOBA
19:53 Rythmn
22:58 Racing
26:05 MetroidVania
27:47 Outro
---
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Just one gamer's opinion, but the best game for an indie dev to make is the game they themselves have always wanted to play but never found on Steam or wherever they get games. Where there's a spark of passion, there's the potential to create something that players can feel that passion in when they play your game.
Passion is what keeps you going when you hit obstacles.
While I definitely agree, I think those kind of projects are often too large in scale for a single person and or beginner to complete by themselves. It also doesn't get you thinking as much about what makes a game good and playable (because you are only thinking of your fantasy)
@@FuturepointmusicAlso a valid point.
I guess the solution is to try to find that good balance.
Pick a genre that is easy to make in terms of scope, but a genre that you still enjoy a lot.
I love RPGs, but I'm definitely not gonna make the next Legend of Zelda or Oceanhorn with my current level. But I love platformers, specifically metroidvanias and they're relatively easy to make and plan, so I went with that.
So I get to make a game that has a good market, with it being under a reasonable scale in terms of scope while still being able to our my energy into a genre I'm passionate about. Win-Win.🙂
when that game happens to be an mmo (:
What if their passion is to gouge customers with micro transactions? Then you get an EA developer:)
"From a marketing standpoint? OOOOFFF" is all you need to hear about platformers
Marketing for platformers should singlehandedly bring it down at least two tiers. No other genre is absolutely flooded like platformers.
@@NoneNullAnd0Metroidvania and Rogue-Likes is way worse
@wellingtonribeiro847 In terms of sheer content? I wouldn't disagree.
However, you also have to account for demand. Roguelikes, in particular, are still viable even with the market flood because there is a ton of demand (same goes for metroidvania but to a lesser extent). On the flip side, platformers are not a comparatively popular genre.
@NoneNullAnd0 I disagree. Metroidvania and Rogue-likes are niche genres. They weren't very popular for a long time. Right now, they are trending, but trends don't last forever, like Minecraft, Battleroyales. On the other side plataformers have been around since the NES and doing very well, especially because they are accessible for casuals. But I'm inclined to advise people not to make any of those 3, but let's be honest, there's a influx of indie games in general, so is not worse to take a shot in any type of game if you have a somewhat original idea.
@@wellingtonribeiro847 Well, if you're also accounting for future predictions, sure, I won't disagree with you. I don't have much of an understanding of future predictions, but I do acknowledge its importance. What you are saying sounds right.
Survival sandboxes are VERY hard to make. I have been working on one for a long time now and managing all the resources, crafting systems, procedural worlds, saving and loading, it’s all a TOTAL NIGHTMARE! I would urge people to only start a project like this if you have a lot of experience
Good luck!
I've never even dabbled in developing, and even I was thinking it had to be one of the most difficult. You see (or at least used to see) double and triple A devs releasing absurdly buggy survival games all the time, so I'm not sure what gave them the opinion that it wasn't one of the worst first games to develop.
I feel like they are more technically easy but the workload to make them is more daunting. I have a similar project myself, it's 2D in my case but all the subsystems take a lot of work to make.
I m a bit late, but survival sandbox doesn't mean map is procedural. For example, ARK is not procedural. I agree that procedural (with saving/loading of them) is the biggest difficulty (that's probably why a lot of games don't do it) if you make it but otherwise crafting, inventory, gathering are not the most complex mechanics out there and there are thousands of tutorials for that.
and good luck!
@@Fox13440 I think the main challenge is the sheer amount of things that need to be implemented and balanced. You need various ingredients, materials, craftable items that also need to have a function, building mechanics, food, hunger, health, combat, etc. In addition it needs to have something unique and preferably it should allow for various forms of play styles and creative problem solving. For many beginners it'll be hard to make good gameplay that keeps players engaged for hours, and that is vital for a survival sandbox. Also most players want multiplayer in survival games, which adds another level of complexity-- especially making a game that is balanced for single and multiplayer.
Making a basic survival sandbox can be quite easy, making a game that people will actually play will be a lot more challenging.
I think it's worth mentioning that while Undertale was indeed made by just one person (with a handful of others contributing a little), he did receive 10x his Kickstarter funding goal.
Great video but needs 2nd part. You should add
- Turn Based
- Text Based
- CYOA
- MUD
- Bullet Hell
- Beat 'Em Up
- Fighting
- Management
- Tycoon
- Idle
- Incremental
- Hyper Casual (don't waste time just throw it to G tier)
- Walking Sim
- Visual Novels
- not sure is it a genre but shopkeeping stuff
- Endless Runner
- Local Multiplayer and so on...
Would love to see more contents like this. I am trying to figure out which genre game I should make, it has been weeks, still couldn't chose yet. I have ideas but if I like and I'm able to develop that game, I feel like I can't sell that game. I'm literally trapped in analysis paralysis.
The 2nd part just got released 😉 -M
@@bitemegames No way, what a coincidence 😅
Oh man, I haven't seen anyone mention a MUD in forever
What are CYOAs and MUDs?
@kigamezero8636 gonna assume CYOA is Choose Your Own Adventure. MUDs are Multi-User Dungeons that, at least in my experience, were all online text based MMOs basically. You had your characters/classes, world maps and dungeons, loot and pve/pvp etc.
For racing games: You don't need to have it just about cars. Just anything you can race with: tanks, boats, airplanes, hovercrafts, mechs, animals, people, wheels, etc.
Wind-up trams. Never forget the wind-up trams.
Good point, maybe on my endless list a short animal racing games... :D
thanks!
If someone ever tries to make Snail Racing Simulator, I wouldn't expect it to be a hit!
Now I feel like a racing game about cable cars would be a funny idea.
Mech combat racing sounds metal af
Also some of the most fun racing I’ve ever experienced is racing couches and Porto potties in wreckfest
Visual novels are pretty beginner friendly as well. It's of course very niche but, it has it's public. I think it could be present in this list as well.
Check out the sequel if you haven't yet! We've covered VNs in part 2, personally I think they are a really good way to get into gamedev if you have some narrative skills. -M
For a racing game - you need a non-racing twist.
Racing, but it's a rhythm game where you need to shift gears manually to a track and match your turns to the music.
Or like like road rash where you can beat other bikers and push them off the bike. And also there's a chance you can finish a game on foot because you crashed near the finish line and it's closer to you than your bike. Plus it had awesome soundtrack and the one that was released for PC and ps1 had hilarious caricature backgrounds which is also a hook in some sense.
I think John gunre-mashups in general are a great way to stand out.
First thing that comes to mind is Rocket League, It's a sports + racing.
Silica RTS plus first person shooter.
Split gate. Halo + Portal. (Both FPS but you get the picture)
Well we tried making a racing game on a internship in a team of three people. The largest trap from what I heard from the two programmers on our team were the physics. They were probably busy with that for the largest portion of the project.
Physics and feeling are probably some of the hardest parts to get right, you can get 80% of the way in a relatively short time, but your game will most likely not feel right, especially if you are diving into the math surrounding the physics it can become a challenge. -M
I like how you each presented a unique point of view and gave push back to each other. It really helped me understand the thought process behind this stuff
Hello BiteMe Games! First of all, thank you so much for your content and advice. I just discovered you guys, and it has been a pleasure to watch the videos that I have so far. That being said, it was also a bit heartbreaking. Lol I felt called out, which leads me to my question. Unfortunately for your poor eyes, I feel like I have no choice but to include a backstory and context here. XD Please bear with me. I apologize in advance....
As a backstory, I'm coming out of a difficult three-year long battle with my health and dealing with being medically retired from the military before even finishing training. I am about to essentially be paid to be permanently ill because of early military training gone wrong. It's hard to say whether this is good or bad news? lol
Before that, the pandemic halted my life and barely budding career (I had just graduated with bachelors degrees in physics and aerospace engineering), during which time I had a good year to fall in love with game development, and then for the 3 years after in which I was struggling with this condition, I poured myself into the game design for a massive game (space genre, like a combo of Mass Effect and Outer Wilds to give analogies)... meaning story-writing, game design, and even some development when I could muster the energy. It was an outlet for me during a difficult time, and as with any writer, I attached it to my struggle and became highly committed to it . Hell, I even invested in assets for it (being pretty immobile leads to lots of time to see sales on the asset store lololol).
Because of how emotional this time of my life was, I am still very attached to this game idea, and I feel like the story reflects the state I was in… Now the problem is, of course, as your videos paint clear as day, this is an extremely unachievable game for an early game developer. It has all the problems of an RPG and open world game combined, not to mention a space/flight simulator (though my aerospace engineering and physics background might help with that). XD
Now, the purpose of this giant message is to ask this. In your opinion (which is far more experienced than mine lolol), is there an alternative to giving up on this game idea entirely, or halting work on it indefinitely? Could I possibly design the game mechanics and such through the design of smaller games? That way, I am still gaining experience designing smaller more achievable games, while simultaneously working towards this larger “magnum opus” of a game?
Thank you for suffering through this stupidly massive message. XD I welcome your response, and am grateful for your time.
Id say horror could be easy for a solo dev. Especially like an escape room type of horror game.
Great video!
For others sayin, "Make the game you want to play regardless", yes. Go with passion as it will carry you through the VERY hard times of development, but to add to that frequent comment, "Make games that you can actually finish", and "Stay creatively flexible". Are you really so limited that you HAVE to start your MMORPG dream game today? Are your dreams in game dev really that limited? Surly you have more within you that you can start first....and if going forward as a business...you better lol.
I say this as one who is also scaling down his game choice that admittedly is in the upper tiers as far as genres according to this video, but scope wise I'm still not ready for (mostly financially). So looking towards a smaller yet effective game that I still want to play, but with much more limited resources to use, that I can realistically finish effectively.
I wish you luck!
"Are you really so limited that you HAVE to start your MMORPG dream game today? Are your dreams in game dev really that limited? Surly you have more within you that you can start first..."
Yeah, kinda. I realized that MMORPG works the best when world is already based around stories that had place with characters you can recognize. This is why making RPG first would be great start. Since scope is a big thing, you can always release chapter by chapter and get funding from early access. Well, at least that's what I hope to achieve. Anyway, it's just a hobby so if I "fail" as not get some recognition or success, I will at least have fun doing so. I don't worry about finances because I am not doing it full time. Unless it becomes good enough to earn money this way.
Thank you. This is a very charming video, and a great idea. Maybe you should do a series of these tier list videos: "easiest genre to market", "most art intensive", most programming intensive, most popular (by sales numbers), etc.
regardless of genre. Make something that YOU want to play. However niche that may be. Reasoning is that if YOU want to play it others similar to you will also want to. But most importantly have a key mechanic and base everything around that.
Great video btw thanks :)
Making a game is such a massive endeavour, I cant see how you can make one that doesnt passionate you. Especially for so many, its an hobby you do in your free time. My current project get me out of bed, and I may pass too much time on it in my free time than I should, but I love it!
I lawl'd pertty hard when he said everyone will google unity and then the whatever they put in the S tier. Great vid. Not tilted in the least about the genres not fitting exactly in the respective tiers. I actually appreciate how you guys did it.
In my opinion:
Shooters - B/F
Sandbox Survival - B/F
Platformer - S/F
Top-down Strategy - E/F
Sim games - B/F
Puzzle - A/F
RPG - E/F
MOBA - E/F
Rythmn - B/F
Racing - C/F
MetroidVania - A/F
On rhythm games, I think modding tools are important. Especially if you have limited song choices in-game
Super underrated channel! I'm making a pixel art farming "simulator" (its sorta a fast pasted sim like overcooked) wish me luck lol. I also wishlisted your steam game. Looks good!
Amazing video, loved it! Will definitely be coming back to this guide next time I decide to start a new project/
I've enjoyed many of your videos and I've been incorporating some of the things that you guys have been presenting. You guys always have great ideas. Thanks!
Love your videos! Ive been working on a sanbox rpg kinda inspired by stardew valley mixed with studio ghibli's universes. Im solo developer working only in my free time and sometimes at work (night shift so i have free time there too). Its been my dream project since i was like 15, i knoe it will take ages, but ill keep working on it. Your videos help a lot!
Same! I wish you the best of luck, honestly!
The explanation is very helpful, this video really helps me a lot in choosing the genre of the game to be made. Thank you :)
Good luck! -M
As a gamer I'm drawn to roguelikes and Vampire survivor likes. Simple games that don't need too many changes to be original and is fun even with small complexity. It is also very expandable with different abilities, animations, stats and effects. All with minimal changes in the core gameplay. Sounds like a perfect learning tool and with how many people there are who play these games until they unlock everything it's easy to get a slice of the pie. Always love to add a new one to my collection anyway xD
You all just wanted us to cover more and more genres, so now we have 2 sequels already, go check them out for more!
Part 2: th-cam.com/video/pGIOchadV2M/w-d-xo.html
Part 3: th-cam.com/video/85nrx1SMk44/w-d-xo.html
FYI on the sim games section, when you said you need to know the business talks, the word you are looking for is domain. If you are making an Insurance game, then you would need to understand the insurance domain, etc.
Thank you very much for this video.
My first game was a basic arcade game and my second one is going to be a simple 1 bit style puzzle game
Survival games are pretty hard I'd say. Also there are lots of them, but there's barely any difference. Gather stuff, build a shelter, craft things, gather more stuff. Rinse and repeat.
One thing I will never understand is why it's called RPG when there are no roles to play.
Like, battlefield multiplayer or Papers, please has more role-playing than some RPGs. I think this is the main problem for me in games. It all comes down to numbers in a character sheet, but RPG is supposed to be much more than that. Also most of these games have a preferred/imbalanced way of playing. Like, if there are guns - you probably won't have a good experience as ninja or speaker because most of encounters end in a massive shootout.
I personally don't count the “RPG element” as RPG element.
This has to do with the origins of tabletop RPGs. When D&D was first created, it was an offshoot of a miniatures wargame called Chainmail, and the earliest D&D books actually assumed that you had and were familiar with Chainmail. Back then, "role" was synonymous with your job, not your character's overall persona like an acting role would be. Fighter, magic-user, and even certain races(that were treated as classes in their own right early on) like elf and dwarf. Over time, the parts that set D&D apart from Chainmail became more prominent and now we use the term role in more of the acting sense than the job sense.
Early cRPGs were based on these older tabletop RPGs back when the term was still used in the sense of "job." Of course, characterization became a larger part of cRPGs as well over time, though due to time and tech constraints this was (usually) handled differently. In a lot of cRPGs(both western and jRPG) you're essentially handed fully-fleshed-out characters who change(or don't change) in ways that are pre-set by the game developer. Look at something like Final Fantasy X - the characters are who they are at the beginning of the game, and they develop in the same way for every player who plays it and end up the same at the end regardless. A lot of cRPGs have this aspect of little to no control over how your characters change(personality-wise) over the course of the game.
That's not to say no games do this - you have your early Fallout games(maybe more, but those are the ones I'm personally familiar with), your Baldur's Gates, and plenty more. They give you a lot more control over your character's personality and how they go about things. But even they have their limitations - even something like the *very* impressive Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't give you as much freedom in this regard as a tabletop RPG does.
So yeah, it basically comes down to gaming history, when the terminology was coined and adopted, and what it meant at that time. Language has drifted a bit, but the terms were already well-established by that point.
I recommed RPG Maker as first game engine for beginner. You dont have to learn coding and you can create quite a lot of content in short time.
It's kind of niche tho.
Gamemaker is similar but more versatile
I am a fan of RPGmaker games
RPGmaker is very focused, but it can teach you the basics of workflow, logic and game design... and how much effort it can be to make a game even within the limitations of such an engine. Alternatively, if you don't want to be restricted to making a JRPG-style game, something like Construct or GDevelop are very good options for beginners wanting to make games through clicking instead of coding... and offer the ability to extend your skills with actual programming languages like Javascript and Typescript.
I'm making a top-down strategy myself, think a mix of Civilization and Stellaris in a fantasy setting. The most difficult thing so far is the AI, mostly because I lack experience, but also because it requires you to have most features pretty much already done, and that's only the beginning.
Great video! Question: Where would you put fighting games on this tier list? More specifically 2D(Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Guilty Gear) vs. 3D fighting games (Tekken, Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter).
It's nice to see a channel talking about the business instead of the programming. I'm going to check you guys out a little more in depth!
I agree with most of these. It’s a fun dive into thinking of these for indie dev starting out in genre thinking.
For puzzle games I might aim for higher tier. Just because you know how the mechanic works. I have to say good luck making intellectually good puzzles or skewing the difficulty on them as well as making them engaging. I’d put them in B to low C. This would be a big reason why a lot of those immersive games move to “exploration” as their genre and skip the puzzles, due to the difficulty of making good puzzles yet alone enough to be engaging or hard enough or fun enough.
Great video! I personally started with a first person game and I believe you learn a lot making one.
no thank u man 🙃
I'd like to make a farming sim RPG similar to SDV or Harvest Moon, but with my own spin obviously. Except I realize this is such a big game to make with all the different systems similar to something in a survival crafting game. And, of course, elements from a RPG. My plan is to make smaller games (maybe or maybe not commercial titles) to get the experience working on different systems I want to include in a farming sim RPG. And then, after that, when I'm finally ready to make a commercial product, I really did want to think of ways of how I could reduce scope of a game like that to get the experience releasing a commercial game. I'm hoping that by the time I'm ready to make my second game then I'll have the skills necessary to pull off a decent farming/slice-of-life kind of game. It definitely does depend on your situation as well though. Financially and how good of a game dev you are if it's just going to be a solo project.
Good luck!
@@bitemegames Thanks! And thanks for making these videos. Only recently came across you guys and have been appreciating your content. Have yet to check out your devlogs, but good luck to you as well!
I am making a Top Down shooter. Very approachable for a first game.
Best of luck to you!
Same :D
Project overkill!
Imo for rpg genre what the most important is behavior story line, cause even if ur main story game is bad there would still be people who love to play and explore ur side quest and want to know more about the world u were written. If u has a good main story but bad backstory it's will still be count as a bad game. +other mechanic in the game... imo game designer is the core here.
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Anything relate to game that involve with esport. It's need more than one company (Yes! More than one company!!!), the easiest example here is MOBA genre. You should never think like: oh I has this hero idea, I have to design only 10 heroes and my game is finish. No... as someone who work between competitive and tier 1 tournament scene there are other people that u have to work with, like for example: marketing promote, stable finacial source to show other organizer that u has enough money to complete the event(if this is a team game it will be an organization, and most of the time for the early year you will have to pay them to join in the scene, mostly will be a big name team for example like "FaZe, G2, FNATIC..."). Tournament Managing company if u don't have any inner source(like ESL, do a sign of 70'30% cost for 3 years, I can't expose the exactly cost but would be around 3 million dollar+) Caster team, mostly this part is outsider team as well. A round number is already around 20 million, this could cost more if you weren't their regular company name, like a new company that has never do these event before. So yeah I wont put it in an F tier but impossible tier rank.
Thanks for the video ‘ what do you think about classic survival horror genre like old resident evil games and tormented souls’ I am a big fan of these games with this fixed camera angels and puzzles , what do you think about it as first game to do?
AFK/semi-afk games are also really easy to make, and can be really addictive if done right.
In this tierlist, where did u place foghting game online ?? Like smash Bros or tekken. Ig it's like MOBA, difficult to build in server side but in my point of view it would be easier.
Hey guys, some random game lover, and aspiring dev over here.
So i wasn't aware of your games or company but it's very refreshing and fun to see games devs making some videos like that.
I mean, as gamers we all one day, dreams of making "your own game" so it's cool to see your opinions as professionals.
Subbed & wishing you luck with Forge Industry
I made a rhythm game for a college programming class and creating a script for the song mapping and timing was a nightmare - I got it working though, but it's still a lot more challenging than you'd think - especially if you have varying difficulties. I didn't have enough time to figure it out, so I made a separate script where it recorded my key inputs and I just winged it, and it used those inputs as the mapping. lol
I would have cheated and made a manual rhythm and rune it.
Platformers are easy to make but hard to sell. As there is a lot of competition. It really need to be unique to have any chance to sell. S tier in complexity and F for marketability So it should be C IMO. :)
one thing i want to mention is that indie racing games are a very good option if you avoid the realism route. there was a cool indie racing game that's been out for a year or two now that focuses on soapbox racing (no acceleration). i don't remember what it was called but i'm pretty sure the name was in german? that was a really cool game, and it very much WASN'T reallistic. as far as i know, it's still recieving updates.
Trust me
As someone who has tried to make FUN arcade car physics that still follow the basic physics principles for actual car behavior for 7+ years without using Unity's WheelColliders (because they suck), it's not easy in the slightest.
It's easy to make something appear as a car but have it control nothing like it. But racing game fans want something that actually controls like a car, even if it's arcade-y. Like the old Need for Speed Underground games for instance. They're 100% arcade games but the principles of racing still apply, because the cars do behave "realistically"
Which means you need to learn tire physics to some extent. You can't just "well apply opposite force of direction" as that will just make the car either grippy af and constantly flip over, or always be very drifty like all those mobile racing games nowadays.
I've come close, with dynamic grip loss when the car's angle vs speed is too great for instance, but it's not easy in the slightest. Especially once you get to simulation something like an engine, transmission etc.
Car physics operate on a closed loop. The driven wheels their RPM feed the engine RPM when the clutch is engaged (which in an arcade game is pretty much always), and the engine RPM feeds the driven wheels their RPM. Trying to even understand that system and how one affects the other with longitudinal grip forces etc is hard if you're not someone that had advanced physics.
even do I respect your opinion I desagree with you guys, as a game dev my self, I would never pick a platformer as my first project, is good to learn the engine but onn average they make 1500k earnings compare with 3D games whhich makes 44,000k earnings, survival sanbox is hard to develop but is one of the most rewarding genres ever, same with simulations, I did not make this up I gattered this information from Chris Zukowski which is onne of the best games marketer out there.
We recently had a chat with Chris about this too, and I believe he also brought this up. It's a really interesting point! My personal opinion has remained largely the same though. In this video I tried to take several parts of GameDev into consideration, like how easy it is to learn, marketability, market potential,etc. Platformers can also be 3D, just think about Mario. I like that you shared your view! Thanks!
-T
Hey, great vid.. Im programmer for about 10y of exp, but not in gaming and jist starting as a side project.. what I can say is if you want to start making game in the context of genre even easier than platformers are... tower defence game.. those are mostly super easy to do.
I also wont agree with fpses - those are kinda hard from the start: you have the challenge to make an multiplay game (and you already said its not that easy) and/or handle AI behaviour that is also triky and not that easy to make for someone that hasnt touch that topic already.
You should have two tier lists on this, one based on gameplay design and success rate(how desired that genre is for an indie) vs the technical difficulty of actually getting it done. Plus getting MetroidVania there is a bit of a cheat, since it's basically Platformer + RPG lite.
Seems like the pitfall in every genre is how many items or elements you have to make and fine tune. Resource management and survival games has tons of items (trees, planks, crafting, inventory, etc.). Racing game has tons of cars with unique feel. Platformer has unique enemies and you need to define the game mechanics (attacks, jumps, special moves, etc.) Seems like each genre has its own set of items you have to make.
Right thats it! I am making my D-Tier RPG grandiose Cyberpunk Game on my own!
Very Interesting !! Enjoyed the video a lot, ill take advice ! Thanks
I needed this video. Thanks for putting this out.
The way you put genres between tiers infuriates me
I can’t mention enough how good and valuable this video is to someone like me starting out learning Unity!🎉
If the game you are building is your hobby and not the main source of income:
1) Build systems: character customization, train tracks, inventory, crafting, ...
2) Put the systems on a marketplace (optional).
3) Once ready, use those systems to make a game.
4) Keep testing if the gameplay is good with human people
5) Once it's good enough, pick a niche and apply an art/story layer.
This how I am planning to do it, I'm in step 1.
This list does not cover marketing because it's another list. I would prefer to partner up with people/publishers in that domain instead.
Advice - You don't make a good game by making a collection of systems and then sticking them together. You make a good game by having a solid gameplay/experiential concept, and then developing and tailoring systems required to make that work.
The approach you described has a huge risk of adopting systems because you CAN, not because you should.
Survival is easier than a First Person Shooter?... Considering all the extra systems you have to make and manage that feels so wrong... (specially since many survival games ARE FPS games too, and if not you still have to handle combat and enemies anyway since most Survival games have combat).
Out of interest. If you compare the top down strategy genre to tycoon games. Which do you think would be harder to make. As tycoon games are also very mechanic focused but very hard to balance.
Thanks for the list. This was fun to watch.
How would you rate space games (AAA example: Elite Dangerous, No Man's Sky; Indie example: Between the Stars, SpaceBourne)?
Trying to get the physics right on a racing game is pure nightmare. I saw some indie teams having dedicated physicians just for getting the drifting right. And I think the biggest problem is, that everyone and their mother has played Mario Kart and will measure your game on that. If your game feel just slightly more clunky than Mario Kart, it won't be succesfull I think.
And even lets say you get the physics right and have some fun mechanics. You then have a nice track but no opponents. YOu either face the same problems with a MOBA or you have to implement very smart AI that is well balanced. For me personally, it sure is E-Tier
In my opinion, the least successful indie games are "MMOs", open world RPGs and crafting/survival games. They all fall under the issue of having too much complexity for a new person/studio to make. The most successful indie games are passion projects, genre-defining or defying or simple titles that neatly fit into a relatively simple genre on paper without being too unique like FPS or platformers.
i'm making an RPG with the goal to have it last 2 to 5 hours :) a short hike is such a good example :)
Nice man! I’m planning on making an rpg myself. What is the idea is your game? Which engine?
how do people find video game composers?
I want to know your opinions on some missing genre: Card game, board game, fighting game, sport game, etc.
To this, I would add bullet heaven style games. They are increasingly popular and easy to make.
Check out our sequel: th-cam.com/video/pGIOchadV2M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=MC8AOo465at7COJX&t=1050 -M
visual novel: no need for programming knowledge as engines available for it. S tier for writers. point and click adventure: S tier for artist. walking simulator: S tier for architect.
Not bad but this list is more about what's easiest for a programmer to make.
They talked more about mechanics not necessarily genre. Like you can have a narrative focused shooter, or a puzzle shooter, or a shooter that's platforming heavy.
Even Superhot is really more a puzzle game than a traditional shooter, which is what made it stand out.
This is a good list of which mechanics are easier to make, but the tier list came out to be more about how many mechanics a game has instead of how difficult they are to make.
A survival game is literally just an FPS, but with more fiddly mechanics to account for. Both more difficult to develop in general and harder to get 'right' and set apart from others like it.
Minecraft, Core keeper and Don't starve are examples of survival games that aren't first person shooters. While they do often go together it is not a must in my opinion.
Technically, Factorio is a third person survival sandbox shooter.
I would have included side-scrolling shooters and put them at the top of the list.
What do the letters S, and A to F represent?
I don't understand why people always say give up on an MMO. On mobiles there some simple and great MMOs now like Curse of Aros. They're definitely achievable.
shouldve divided the tier list into 2
one for "ease of creating" and another for "able to make it stand out"
For a 'first game' I would go for an Idle Cookie Clicker style game.
Open world is a nonstarter. What about a limited action rpg like dark souls???? I'm working on a prototype for something like that, it'll be mostly linear and focused on the combat mechanics. There's 3 of us rn, but i have some friends i can corrupt. Is this a bad idea fory first game? I really love it, it's based on Dante's inferno, and doom, but with a lot of controls from elden ring. Probably too ambitious but I'm gonna take it level by level and see how it goes. I've sadly tasked myself with making all the assets. Wish me luck
Check out our sequel, where we also cover soulslike and action adventure games th-cam.com/video/pGIOchadV2M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9LcGD80hAY8dx7T-&t=88
Basically, we put it as B tier, I think if you're not solo, it is doable. When I read your mini-pitch, I am also intrigued already (I have too many hours in Doom), so I wish you the best of luck at least. -M
@@bitemegames thanks a ton, I'll watch it. I'm pretty sure I can at least pull off a vertical slice by the end of next year. If I can figure out whether or not IK is even kinda feasible for this. Have a great day.
Amazing Vid!
What do you think about rts?
I wished you guys would add card games xD
However here i go making an rpg realistic strategy simulator just to remove the last bit of sanity
>If I have a simulator about farming I'm never gonna implement planes
@
>Meanwhile cropdusters:
I would love to work with a group/team for developing... I'll keep looking..😅
Oh bummer. RPG is set so low. That is the genre I really like. I was wondering what to do to start. I am not much of a platformer person. I was thinking of having a game about navigating a maze. It can be like Zelda without puzzles or enemies. It can even be like Pac Man without enemies. Zelda games are action adventure, not RPG. Breath of the Wild is action adventure too. I noticed that flaw in the video.
Overall this video is very informative. I would like to see a part two. I got a request. Where do fightingting games fit? I dabbled with Super Smash Brothers a little bit. I get the gist. It would be nice to make something like that, but simpler. I can cut out the multiplayer part, the huge lineup of characters, and the fancy graphics. I would also like for a fighting game to be turn based instead of action based. I don't want to get into anything fancy, like classes, attack effects or button combos. Wouldn't that be easy to implement in a basic form. No fancy frills here. Just have two characters beating eachother up until one of them passes out. When I strip down an RPG to its basic form, it does resemble a fighting game. The origional RPG is Dungeons and Dragons. When I look at the main book, the Players Handbook, the vast majority of the rules connect with combat in some way. The rules for the other aspects, socializing and exploration, are a lot more sparse. A maze game and a fighting game would be good practice for an RPG. The maze part is good for developing dungeon environmrnts.
i pretty much agree! other genre are maybe tower defence?
hey congrats on the launch
Great video!
I think you are being too narrow with your scope of what is a [genre]
With simulators there are 2 types as well. One is very visually and game play realistic, the other one is more mechanically and physic realistic.
Train Sim World 4 - You play with real trains, on realistic schedules, being punished for deviating from procedures.
Derail Valley - You pick train, cargo and path, you can push your train to the limits, beyond the official speed limits. The simulation comes from physics, which are are satisfying even if you derail.
With shooters you have Realistic, but you also have Arcade and 'Boomer' such as Splatoon, Deep Rock Galactic and Ultra Kill. You don't have to go with realism on ether graphics or physics.
How the heck are you guys just at 7.79K Subs? I'm shocked... It's too low compared to quality what you offer in your videos! I was assuming you have more than 100K already. You deserve it! Thanks for keeping me engaged in game dev by your content! I wish you success! Peace! ✌
Thanks for the kind words ♥ -M
What about horror? I feel like as soon as you have atmosphere and maybe a story it can be alright. Not a game dev (yet). It can be like an RPG but with way less scope. As long as it is scary it could have potential, and then the unique component aspect. I think having a unique component is critical in making a game that could get popular (I want to make an RTS but it is also an action packed top down shooter or sometthing. Perhaps with time travel)
Horror is one of those genres that only really popped up on my radar recently through an article from Chris Zukowski. It's actually a pretty good genre for indie devs, as it also usually has lower expectations in terms of polish and length. I'm just hella scared of anything horror, so the thought never crossed my mind before. But we'll probably make a sequel at some point where we cover this genre more in-depth as well.
howtomarketagame.com/2023/10/02/every-indie-game-developer-should-make-a-horror-game/
-M
You forgot one very important genre, the most selling one tbh, it is coop game, like 4 players coop based games. I know it is not really a "genre" per say, but it can be, when you see phasmophobia, lethal company and more...
If I have learned anything from this video, it's that the genre question is entirely irrelevant unless it's online multiplayer.
I think you forgot Mascot Horror Games, surprisingly easy to make and mass-produce, and is basically a cheat-code for an instant micro-popularity
Indeed, if you're not a scaredy cat dev, they are an easy A or maybe S tier. -M
OSU started on the DS, and slowly exploded globally once it was made for computer.
For rhythm games, can't you just get royalty-free music?
Most of Beat Sabre has a similar feel.
you cant forget twisted metal for the racing games
Platformers are harder to sell than Metroidvania genre, so I would switch tiers.
Where’s the fighting genre? Beat em ups? Fight games! What about mystery or suspense games? Scare games? Pet games?
There are 2 sequels on our channel 😉 -M
My first two games were FPS games both took me about 3 months to make and in total they sold around 300 copies so it was quite sad to see that from a passion point of view.
How much did you price them for
@@cameronwolf4997 one was 3$ the other 1$
Nice video! I've been wanting to make an online TCG with a friend, and I'd be interested to know how hard that would be :p
1) Can you do the art yourself? That's going to be a very big part of making a card game, so if you have some in-house art skills, that would be great (AI generated won't work if you're planning on releasing to Steam)
2) The multiplayer part may be a bit tricky, but since it won't be real time in the same way as an FPS game for example, it should still be doable.
Overall, I think the biggest challenge may be standing out as to what makes your game unique, but from a programming/mechanical perspective, it should be doable. -M
Hey guys! MOBA like games fall in the same category as the mmo? Shouldn't even try cause of the multiplayer difficulties and the maintenance cost?
Sorry, i typed my question right after the mmo and before you reach the mobas! Thank you!
You forgot Adventure and tycoon games.
We decided only to cover a small list so we don't make the video hours long. These can be great additions for a potential next tier list!
can we talk about the type of budget and staff needed for all these games.
I gotta disagree that solo developers can't or shoudn't develop RPGs. I think people need to stop thinking in scopes of Skyrim or Stardew Valley in terms of what an RPG is, and expecting to make the next greatest hit of all time. Of course that could be said for any genre. You wouldn't and shouldn't go into a platformer with the expectation of creating Super Mario's newest rival on the market. You're not even gonna come close to that. Just aim to FINISH the game and complete the project.
So, in terms of an RPG; think of the first Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. Use that as your scope and build from there. They are very simple, but they deliver a fun gaming experience and classic fantasy story-line. They allow the player to explore, talk to NPCs, discover hidden items and such, but it's all extremely simple in terms of scope and development. It wont be the greatest RPG, or the greatest game in general, but it can be A great game and RPG if you put the time and effort into it without breaking your scope with feature creep. Or worse, for RPGs anyway, content creep. If a developer is just starting out or they are a small team of 2-3 people, you shouldn't be aiming to make a smash hit anyway. Just build the best game you can and get it done!
Keep it simple! Keep it safe! Lol
I don't agree with your opinions, but that's normal I guess.
Every game has it's challenges and making a good plattformer can be as hard as making a good rpg.
An RPG might be harder because usually the scope is bigger, but a plain Plattformer without RPG elements usually doesn't sell well or is boring.
Apart from Massive *, I would say the details are important and no particular game is "harder" than the other one. I highly suggest you gamejam all generes then you see for yourself.
In an indie game dev cycle, three phases are the hardest.
1) Polish. This can be insanely hard for a plattformer, which needs slick controls
2) Content. Here is an RPG fir example pain. Also a Puzzle Game is insanely painful here. You have to make beginner Level absolutly stupid Puzzles to explain your mechanics and so on.
3) Marketing/Selling your game. This is what the tierlist absolutly ignores. Even high quality Plattformers don't sell. There is a good talk from black forest games about that. They made gianna sisters. Obviously for every genere you find a super successful one, but look at the avg./mean ones and check what is possible for you to achieve.
Currently one of the strongest indie game genere is deckbuilding games. They sell pretty good and are easily doable for a solo dev.
My 2 cents, I have many more things to say but lets cut it here
Nice work