GDC is so cool because you can have big game devs from AAA stuffs talking there and also indie game devs, in this place everybody is just a game developper :D
Wow, until now I had no idea that the guys who made Rogue Legacy made "Don't Shit Your Pants", that text-based flash game that I played like 10 years ago
1.5 years, 2 people = 1.5*240*8*2 = 5760 * 20$/h = ~115,000$ total dev cost, only 8h workdays w free weekends. Now you can halve that to account for them working only 4h/workDay, but it's still going to be ~50,000$
While they didn't break it down, I believe they only accounted for paying other people, not themselves. The other people in the project were hired to do art, sound and music. So it is far easier to imagine those jobs being done is far less time. So assuming they didn't bother to consider themselves as paid, their payment likely came after sales of the game.
@@PinkBunnyCorporation I think that too, but then it isn't the actual cost. You have to eat something and pay your rent, so you have to pay yourself a loan or live at other peoples expenses.
Okay so.. what did they inlcude in the 15k? Because just the cost of the developer that spend 1.5 years full time on this project would consume the 15k. I get that it's his own project, but he still needs to be paid (unless he lives and eats somewhere for free ).
Interesting video, but their new "Full Metal Furies" game isn't doing hot on steam. Only 18k owners 2 months after release. Game development is such a gamble. Some games, even clunky and bugged just "click" for players and get massive popularity, other games which have more effort put into them just don't.
That upgrade, increasing cost system is one of the reasons I stopped playing this. That and it seemed like even though I was upgrading my character, the difficulties of the enemies seemed to be scaling with me. That my character was getting better relative to the game world was not apparent.
They do scale with you. Otherwise you'd just become unstoppable not far into the game, overrunning everything in your path just because your stats got better. But you as a player are supposed to get better, get hit less, kill enemies more efficiently, etc. That's how you overcome the enemies getting stronger despite your upgrades. Maybe it just isn't a game for you, and that's fine. But there's nothing inherently wrong or problematic with the system they designed. I will admit that super late game, trying to get enough gold for even one upgrade does get frustrating, which is what eventually had me stop - because it felt like my progression came to a halt. But I still put in dozens of hours before that point.
@@turntsnaco824 They do actually scale? That's bonkers if true. I tried to search out the answer but got conflicting information. As for the system designed- yes there are actually things inherently wrong or problematic with it. That's true for any system, it's not specific to rogue legacy or roguelikes. The problem inherent in roguelikes (or roguelites) is repetition of content. Procedural generation games are actually designed to avoid that, to give new content everytime, but due to balance issues some content- specifically the weapons and enemies, stay the same. A first world area may look different, but it's still populated by the same pool of enemies and the same pool of loot, by and large. The second problem with roguelikes/lites is that while it's true they emphasize getting better with the game, that they really only reward high-level skill- it's not about being better, it's about being flawless, because you can often die in so few hit sin these games there is so little margin for error. This makes progressing to new areas especially hard because you're often killed very quickly and are only able to learn a little each time. As a result, experiencing the content is very bottom heavy which doubles down on the repetitive nature of the game. The problem I have is that even if I enjoy them, I invariably get bored of these games before I ever finish them, which leaves me not with a sense of accomplishment but abandonment. The requirement for near flawless play is a level of investment I don't find rewarding. I enjoy getting better against an enemy, I don't enjoy needing to be flawless against 30-such enemies. I want to be rewarded with new content, which for me means new enemies to fight, and new weapons to use, not fighting the same enemies with the same weapons over and over.
@@koalabrownie That may be the point of procedural generation in theory, but not in practice. In practice, it's to reduce the art budget without reducing content. Boot up minecraft. How unique is each world from each other? I agree with the 2nd problem, which is why I also would not like a level up system that scales enemies. Enemies in dark souls dont scale, so I can pile drive them when I return to weaker areas. That makes me feel extremely satisfied.
It's such a weird game to me. Back when it came out, I played it and I liked it quite a bit, but then I never finished the final boss. Then I came back to it sometime last year, and after playing quite a few other roguelites, I... really didn't like it. The meta progression and overall mechanics felt oddly tedious, and once you start to acquire enough upgrades, you just steamroll the first areas. So there is that weird sweet spot where you feel like you are good in some area, but then other areas either have enemies that feel too powerful, or just become moving money pinatas. If you really wanted to, you could just fail enough that you overpower your next obstacle eventually, and that's just kinda weird design to me. I wonder if Rogue Legacy 2 is doing better in that regard...
Minimal wage in Ontario in 2012: 10.25$. Assuming only one person worked on the game for 1.5 year full time - 827$ a month, so about 80 hours a month with minimal wage. Having more realistic representation of cost would be better for those kinds of presentations. Message like "games are cheap to make, all you have to do is live in cardboard box and don't buy food" isn't healthy.
MAybe the issue is the "marketplace" and the importance given to "money" and "capital" which both have absolutely no intrisic value. It's just made up, like god. Why wouldn't a creator be allowed to have a comfortable life, or a stay at home mom or dad? All those ADD value to society... only multinationals don't agree. Let's not play their games. Let's not be slaves to those.
The benefits is that the rich people overpowers the poorer masses. A typical anti democratic anti liberty economic system. This has to change. Yes, art has value and money does not, not by itself. We put value in it, that is why art can be bought with money. Art from thousands of years ago has still value now, "money" from then doesn't at all here. Most certainly not comparable to what it used to be. This is a broken system.
Uh? "Here is a brain teaser for you. What benefits are there in having a money-based economy?" I answered that one. Your question wasn't about art. I'm done with you, here's another conviction: I don't like manipulators. :)
I don't believe their budget claim. What did they eat during that time? How did they pay their rent? You can't pay 2-3 people for a year with only 17k.
After like 30 days I killed all the remix bosses so It is an acessible game for sure. Even a shitty player like me put an effort and beat it. Thanks for the awsome play, awsome challengenges and sorry for the poor english... One of my favorite games ever thanks
Rimgear Want to know how much money I've spent developing my personal engine over the past two years? Not a dime. Why? Because I'm salaried at another company and work on individual projects in my spare time. I imagine they did the same.
So, they wanted to create a "not perfect" game, and in the end they created a mediocre game with many design flaws. It's as if they had little faith in the project from the beginning.
You have to start with something. When you have nothing, you make do. That was literally the message of this panel. Did you even watch it? They made the best solutions with the time and budget that was possible. Out of it they created a game that sold very well for them, enough so that they recovered input costs in the first hour of sales.
I disagree with a thing they didn't improved the game mechanics after it's release and after they made their money. Because as they said "we never wanted a perfect game" and "time and budged" sounded like a poor excuses to me. Now with Steam Refund policy in existence I wonder if they could do the same thing with that attitude again. You have to set your bar higher just to see if you can do it, and in the end you will still sacrifice many planned features, but you will end up with much more polished product.
would you like it if you bought a cheeseburger and after taking a bite or two, someone came over and grabbed it and replaced the cheese with a different kind that they thought was better?
Why do you assume people that played the game didn't enjoy it? Adding features for the sake of having said features only allows more bugs which means more time and more money spent adding features which may or may not add anything that hooks people to the game.
GDC is so cool because you can have big game devs from AAA stuffs talking there and also indie game devs, in this place everybody is just a game developper :D
Wow, until now I had no idea that the guys who made Rogue Legacy made "Don't Shit Your Pants", that text-based flash game that I played like 10 years ago
AlexHoratio Same here. This is awesome.
I found out about it by reading about it in-game in Rogue Legacy.
1.5 years, 2 people = 1.5*240*8*2 = 5760 * 20$/h = ~115,000$ total dev cost, only 8h workdays w free weekends. Now you can halve that to account for them working only 4h/workDay, but it's still going to be ~50,000$
While they didn't break it down, I believe they only accounted for paying other people, not themselves. The other people in the project were hired to do art, sound and music. So it is far easier to imagine those jobs being done is far less time. So assuming they didn't bother to consider themselves as paid, their payment likely came after sales of the game.
so how did they eat/pay rent in meantime, since they said they were full-time?
@@PinkBunnyCorporation I think that too, but then it isn't the actual cost. You have to eat something and pay your rent, so you have to pay yourself a loan or live at other peoples expenses.
@@davidblau1062 I'm guessing they had savings or part-time jobs if they only worked 4 hours a day
Okay so.. what did they inlcude in the 15k? Because just the cost of the developer that spend 1.5 years full time on this project would consume the 15k. I get that it's his own project, but he still needs to be paid (unless he lives and eats somewhere for free ).
Gredes Work somewhere and then do this in your spare time. It's not that difficult.
He said he worked full time on this game, so he didn't have time for another job
Great game. Great talk.
I love the in-game Soundtracks.
Interesting video, but their new "Full Metal Furies" game isn't doing hot on steam. Only 18k owners 2 months after release. Game development is such a gamble. Some games, even clunky and bugged just "click" for players and get massive popularity, other games which have more effort put into them just don't.
That upgrade, increasing cost system is one of the reasons I stopped playing this. That and it seemed like even though I was upgrading my character, the difficulties of the enemies seemed to be scaling with me. That my character was getting better relative to the game world was not apparent.
They do scale with you. Otherwise you'd just become unstoppable not far into the game, overrunning everything in your path just because your stats got better.
But you as a player are supposed to get better, get hit less, kill enemies more efficiently, etc. That's how you overcome the enemies getting stronger despite your upgrades.
Maybe it just isn't a game for you, and that's fine. But there's nothing inherently wrong or problematic with the system they designed. I will admit that super late game, trying to get enough gold for even one upgrade does get frustrating, which is what eventually had me stop - because it felt like my progression came to a halt. But I still put in dozens of hours before that point.
@@turntsnaco824 They do actually scale? That's bonkers if true. I tried to search out the answer but got conflicting information.
As for the system designed- yes there are actually things inherently wrong or problematic with it. That's true for any system, it's not specific to rogue legacy or roguelikes. The problem inherent in roguelikes (or roguelites) is repetition of content. Procedural generation games are actually designed to avoid that, to give new content everytime, but due to balance issues some content- specifically the weapons and enemies, stay the same. A first world area may look different, but it's still populated by the same pool of enemies and the same pool of loot, by and large.
The second problem with roguelikes/lites is that while it's true they emphasize getting better with the game, that they really only reward high-level skill- it's not about being better, it's about being flawless, because you can often die in so few hit sin these games there is so little margin for error. This makes progressing to new areas especially hard because you're often killed very quickly and are only able to learn a little each time. As a result, experiencing the content is very bottom heavy which doubles down on the repetitive nature of the game.
The problem I have is that even if I enjoy them, I invariably get bored of these games before I ever finish them, which leaves me not with a sense of accomplishment but abandonment. The requirement for near flawless play is a level of investment I don't find rewarding. I enjoy getting better against an enemy, I don't enjoy needing to be flawless against 30-such enemies. I want to be rewarded with new content, which for me means new enemies to fight, and new weapons to use, not fighting the same enemies with the same weapons over and over.
@@koalabrownie That may be the point of procedural generation in theory, but not in practice. In practice, it's to reduce the art budget without reducing content. Boot up minecraft. How unique is each world from each other?
I agree with the 2nd problem, which is why I also would not like a level up system that scales enemies. Enemies in dark souls dont scale, so I can pile drive them when I return to weaker areas. That makes me feel extremely satisfied.
It's such a weird game to me. Back when it came out, I played it and I liked it quite a bit, but then I never finished the final boss.
Then I came back to it sometime last year, and after playing quite a few other roguelites, I... really didn't like it. The meta progression and overall mechanics felt oddly tedious, and once you start to acquire enough upgrades, you just steamroll the first areas. So there is that weird sweet spot where you feel like you are good in some area, but then other areas either have enemies that feel too powerful, or just become moving money pinatas. If you really wanted to, you could just fail enough that you overpower your next obstacle eventually, and that's just kinda weird design to me.
I wonder if Rogue Legacy 2 is doing better in that regard...
Minimal wage in Ontario in 2012: 10.25$. Assuming only one person worked on the game for 1.5 year full time - 827$ a month, so about 80 hours a month with minimal wage. Having more realistic representation of cost would be better for those kinds of presentations. Message like "games are cheap to make, all you have to do is live in cardboard box and don't buy food" isn't healthy.
being a game dev isn't healthy to begin with lel :]
You don't achieve anything without taking risks.
MAybe the issue is the "marketplace" and the importance given to "money" and "capital" which both have absolutely no intrisic value. It's just made up, like god.
Why wouldn't a creator be allowed to have a comfortable life, or a stay at home mom or dad? All those ADD value to society... only multinationals don't agree. Let's not play their games. Let's not be slaves to those.
The benefits is that the rich people overpowers the poorer masses. A typical anti democratic anti liberty economic system. This has to change.
Yes, art has value and money does not, not by itself. We put value in it, that is why art can be bought with money.
Art from thousands of years ago has still value now, "money" from then doesn't at all here. Most certainly not comparable to what it used to be.
This is a broken system.
Uh?
"Here is a brain teaser for you. What benefits are there in having a money-based economy?"
I answered that one. Your question wasn't about art.
I'm done with you, here's another conviction: I don't like manipulators. :)
Interesting video
I love Rogue Legacy, never got around to finish it because I'm a fuking noob, but still enjoy the game.
I don't believe their budget claim. What did they eat during that time? How did they pay their rent? You can't pay 2-3 people for a year with only 17k.
Could be living at home with parents.
After like 30 days I killed all the remix bosses so It is an acessible game for sure. Even a shitty player like me put an effort and beat it. Thanks for the awsome play, awsome challengenges and sorry for the poor english... One of my favorite games ever thanks
Please do Maniac Mansion!!!!!!!
I want to play DS2D.
Go play salt'n sanctuary
Less than 15k cost for 1.5 year. Wow, that's ridiculous ...
Rimgear Want to know how much money I've spent developing my personal engine over the past two years? Not a dime. Why? Because I'm salaried at another company and work on individual projects in my spare time. I imagine they did the same.
You know, Lee seens like a nice guy, but Lee looks creepy
So, they wanted to create a "not perfect" game, and in the end they created a mediocre game with many design flaws.
It's as if they had little faith in the project from the beginning.
You have to start with something. When you have nothing, you make do. That was literally the message of this panel. Did you even watch it? They made the best solutions with the time and budget that was possible. Out of it they created a game that sold very well for them, enough so that they recovered input costs in the first hour of sales.
I disagree with a thing they didn't improved the game mechanics after it's release and after they made their money.
Because as they said "we never wanted a perfect game" and "time and budged" sounded like a poor excuses to me.
Now with Steam Refund policy in existence I wonder if they could do the same thing with that attitude again.
You have to set your bar higher just to see if you can do it, and in the end you will still sacrifice many planned features, but you will end up with much more polished product.
would you like it if you bought a cheeseburger and after taking a bite or two, someone came over and grabbed it and replaced the cheese with a different kind that they thought was better?
@@foreignuser_ I like that analogy
Why do you assume people that played the game didn't enjoy it? Adding features for the sake of having said features only allows more bugs which means more time and more money spent adding features which may or may not add anything that hooks people to the game.