UPDATE: After some further thought and team discusison, we have decided to shelve Songs of Everjade, and focusing fully on our next game, instead of trying to salvage this mess. --- Videos like this are always painful to make, edit, and upload. But I believe they are extremely important to make. Your first game won't be Stardew Valley, Lethal Company, Palworld, or whatever other big game is the current hotness. There are tens of thousands of you watching our videos. Out of those, only a tiny fraction will actually be able to release their game on Steam. Let alone gross $1.000, $10.000 or more. And that's ok, you're not a failure if your first game doesn't get $100k in publisher funding, or becomes a top seller when you release. We're not publisher-funded, we're not VC-backed, we don't have any relevant industry experience, and don't really have any real mentors other than you guys commenting on our videos. We're just 4 friends who decided to take a plunge when our risk was still relatively low. Of course, we'll mess up, fail our marketing, make ugly games, and many more mistakes. But I think we are also developing a lot of clarity and wisdom through these fuckups. We're going to just keep going, and eventually make a banger of a game. I believe Guild Architect will be that game. So about Songs of Everjade, we really aren't certain what to do with it, I wasn't kidding in the video when I said the viewer hive mind will influence that heavily. Whilst SoE isn't in a releasable state currently, that doesn't detract from the fact that I myself am damn proud of what we've been able to do in a mere 5 months from game inception to now. Would it suck if we never got to put the game on Steam? Yes. But it would suck even more if we put a broken, buggy mess of a game on Steam, let alone charge money for it. The skills our team has learned over the past months working on SoE aren't wasted, we can now implement features in 1/4th the time it used to take with Forge Industry, and are much more aligned working together as a team. All this to say, thank you for being here with us, and following us along this journey. Things like our Patreon, AdSense, and (occasional) sponsorships have allowed me to pay the rest of the team (I haven't earned anything personally in the past 10 months since quitting my job, everything goes directly into BiteMe and making a better studio/games/videos). I will keep sharing this kind of "real" content, even if that means I'll be making a video at one point "7 tips for gamedevs transitioning to OnlyFans". Thank you, and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts. -Marnix
Hey thanks for making this video, I know it's difficult but I'm glad you can look back on SOE's development and see some good parts of the development instead of just focusing on the negatives like some people do lol
you guys actually did great with your first game, Forge Industry; top 22% in revenue of all steam games with a 80% positive rating. Powerlust 8:57 just launched with $1500 as of today but that already puts it in the top 40% of all steam games for revenue, in other words 60% of the 105,000 steam games made less than $1500 in their lifetime. And most Indies give up after their first or second game so keep going and keep sharing your learning progress
People always wonder why developers have so many abandoned projects. This is the reason! Sometimes it’s just hard to know how a game will workout till you actually make a good chunk of it.
Sometimes you never know which ones are going to stick! And by making a ton of projects you learn so much! Alot of which you can use on future projects. You never fail if you learn@@TESkyrimizer
The lighting really hurts more than anything. Basically, two main things: 1.) Don't use black for darkness. Grey really dulls your screen. This is unpleasant to look at. Try a dark shade of blue or green. You want a cool colour that is not dull, but still does it's job of remaining in the background. 2.) The gradual dimming of light prevents the darkness from being treated as negative space. It is not allowed to fade from your attention. Make the light dim faster. Increase the radius of the fully lit area as appropriate. I am sure there's a lot more to work on, but that's what gives off bad first impression. Art doesn't have to be amazing, but your composition should be solid. Even if you are a programmer commissioning the art, take some classes. You don't need to develop the technical skills to make art, but understanding the fundamentals will be worth it.
I disagree that they should refine this game, but agreed that gaining some basic art skills would be useful. Used to be that everyone got a little bit of arts education in school (US, K-12), but that's been on the decline, sadly.
I was thinking about how the art was unpleasant to look at and how the lighting looked so amateur but I couldn't put my finger on why that was, thank you for the explanation! I'm a programmer working with art assets so visuals aren't my strong suit as well, so your comment really helps.
I agree, it's really not a pretty game, if I saw this on the steam store I'd scroll right past, but it's not as though it has a solid gameplay hook either so probably worth just shelving.
The stats show you aren't going to make money from it. So it's harsh and sucks to throw away that time investment, but you should stop development asap and move those resources over to the other game you're making which is showing more promise. Think of it this way, spending a couple thousand more dollars (weeks of work) getting SoE to a "better" state to release, won't make you that money investment back. Forge industry barely made 10k. Doesn't make business sense to spend that time to release a game people won't buy. Wishlisters are waiting for a FINISHED game. Not one that was shipped out immediately in the demo state because it's future was grim. I'm not sure who would buy that. If your other game is looking more promising, spend those resources to make that game better and get it done faster. That's a better use of resources and time. It sucks but SoE is not going to make your money back and will only hurt your studio reputation. Not worth it IMO. Best of luck, I hope the next game is received better!!
I mostly agree, but I also think before making the final decision to pull the plug, at least try and distill the game down to "what makes my idea fun" and see if you are just executing it wrong. If you can't find that, then scrap it and move on.
every game is a learning process not just with only goal of making money... out of projects i did in the last 30 years, only 1 out of 9 made serious money. rest went to zero or breakeven at best, so you can never know what hits, it's a game of numbers...
I agree, I honestly wonder if Forge Industry could perform a lot better with some more loved poured into the game fixing issues that their clearly aware of and polishing the game more. The game already has a response; a lot of the groundwork is done, it's more on correcting the path rather than creating a new one. That's just my thoughts though, they may have more research that says otherwise. But yeah, I would avoid putting more work into SoE.
Agreed - time to cut-bait. Maybe SoE can be viable yrs from now, or the assets can be reworked, but for now, Next Fest gave them their answer, they just need to listen.
One thing that was striking when I saw the screenshots is the inconsistent artstyle: the MC is not contoured, and various background objects are; pixel sizes are inconsistent between various things (it would probably look better if you held on to a single pixel size and optionally add hires UI elements); the main pixels are a bit too big (the objects have too few pixels to them); shading is flat (objects look pasted into the backgrounds). Then, the screenshots do not show any unique mechanics. So the overall impression I had is that it is a formulaic and cheaply made roguelite and I'd rather play (or replay) something else. And this is before I scrolled down to read the description. In contrast, Forge Empires has a consistent lo-poly 3D + hi-res 2D aesthetic, and looks like it does something different mechanically from other automation games (I can't say what's different, but it certainly FEELS different). It looks interesting enough that people might give it a try. I'm downloading a demo right now.
Love the transparency, dislike the framing. The game is not a failure. You guys learn from the process. You made a game, that's farther than most people that WANT to make games even get. Calling it a fail so many times in a row re-wires your brain to think that you actually bad at this. You aren't. This is a learning experience, and it's not always about the result, it's about your process. Basically every single successful developer made or attempted dozens of games before landing a true hit, and all of the games in that process are a part of the success. It's not like they failed miserably dozens of times and then all of a sudden they landed a hit. Framing is important.
What about open sourcing it as failed project on the asset store for people to learn how a game with this scope and timeline can look like in the real world?
Big reason ive moved over to 3D is because i think the bar for pixel art is so high that its no longer a good option without a great artist on the team. While on the other hand your last game looked charming even with simplistic visuals.
I really like how real this channel is. None of that "make a game in 2 minutes" TH-cam shite that's been baiting begginer developers into idleness. Actual self criticism and reflection. I believe that after you get to work your game will ascend.
Guys thanks so much for being open and transparent about the struggles you're going through -- believe it or not, it is still inspiring to watch, and it earns you a lot of sympathy (I know, that means squat in terms of revenue) My first instinct with SoE would be to shelve it for now... like, you know the expression, "don't beat a dead horse" -- sometimes you just have to accept that you're not going to make any money out of something you put a lot of effort into... it sucks arse to consider some of your investment a write-off but ultimately I'd say *time* is the currency that really matters here. Spending more time on SoE will likely yield nothing, so it's probably a better bet to focus that time and energy on your next game. With the SoE assets though, maybe you can bunch it together into an assets pack and sell it for a small amount? It prolly won't recoup your losses but it might soften the blow a little bit. I was wondering too how much effort it would be to repurpose SoE into a sort of community experiment: release the game as a free moddable thing (you've got the main mechanics working) and allow individual artists to add their own sprite monsters / enemies, tinker with anim / combat timing and so on -- make it interesting to them by offering some revenue strings if they manage to make the game wishlist-able again. Document those efforts in your youtube channel by hosting regular update sessions on that collective effort. Turn your current fail into collective social fun. I dunno, just some ideas.
I unfortunately don't have any good suggestions or advice to give you, as I am not a professional developer. But I really praise the seriousness with which you approach the game dev business! I follow a few channels that from devs sharing their journey, and you are the only ones who are really talking about business and marketing. And what i mean by "really" is that you don't just do videos with general principles: you share what you do, you share the results, successes and disappointments alike. So thank you for documenting your journey with such honesty!
In the spirit of brutally honest comments. A rougelike needs amazing art and amazing game feel. Yours looks like a gamemaker game that was cobbled together with free asset packs. I have 0 desire to spend time playing that game. It just doesn't look fun or interesting or even visually appealing. Forge Industries almost looks good. Gamewise and mechanics wise it looks like a proper studio game that could be fun. It's something that looks like it was so close to being a great game but the art looks like nobody spent any time making it look good. It doesn't pop. Simple colours, simple models, no shaders or polish. If I were you guys honestly I would just take Forge Industries and trick it out with fantastic visuals, add some new mechanics and fix some design problems and release it again under a new name as a spiritual successor. It's so close to being really good already, it just looks terrible. It would be so time and cost efficient to do a spiritual successor to forge industries. Why throw the whole thing out and start a new game when you spent so much time doing the difficult part of a popular but underdone genre but you just missed the mark on a few key issues. This is something the studios figured out 20 years ago. Build on your last game. Make forge industries a stunning eyecatching game that looks sick in little promo videos. Improve the tutorial and pain points. Add some fun mechanics that you wanted to add but didn't have the time. Don't spend 6 months refactoring it. Drop the name so there's less association with the underperforming title. I would bet my life it will sell better then Forge Inustries. It will also be way way way faster than starting a new sim game from scratch. It will be another title on steam that will bring in cash and fund development of a different sim game in Unity in future. But even if you decide to go ahead with the new sim game straightaway I will say that the couple of short clips you put in here look 100 times more appealing than SoE. The very early visuals look cool and I can't relate it to a game I've seen or played already so it gives me a feeling of originality and curiosity to find out how it will work or what the mechanics are. From about 10 seconds of clips I find myself more drawn to finding out more about it and wanting to watch the first devlog about it. I had literally none of that feeling about SoE as it looks so genric and soulless compared to other games in that genre. The new one looks innovative.
yes great advice to rebrand the Forge Industries into Forged Empires with much better art but keeping things that worked, that will save time instead of starting from scratch every time. Remember Petroglyph, they keep re-releasing same RTS , 8-bit army, then 9 bit army, every time same game but new sales.
Warning! Brutally honest opinion incoming: First off, I love the channel and I want you guys to succeed. Second, I make games for a living but I've had to let my entire team go just to keep going solo. So I've been in similar positions and I'm not just some internet know it all who has no skin in the game. While I do think Chris is right about genre being an important part of a successful game, I think games in any genre can still make decent money on Steam if they're high quality and are properly marketed. I think genre only really applies when you're trying to make a BIG game. Like $200k+ revenue. But even so, genre is important and you will have to push harder, even for smaller games because you will have more competition. That said, I think the reason your game failed at Next Fest (here comes that brutally honest part) is because it just simply looks very amateur. It gives off a "my first game" vibe thanks to the artstyle and gameplay and I truly think that's what killed it. I think the reason simulation and automation games can get away with lower quality or even novice art is because the focus isn't smooth gameplay and clean animations. You're not roleplaying a badass ninja slicing up enemies, you're just snapping conveyor belts together. I truly think that art sells games and then the mechanics win the review scores. Having a well designed game is incredibly important for the momentum of your game, but you really need those high quality thumbnails and screenshots to get the ball rolling. We can't rely on gameplay to do the talking anymore like Minecraft did. Those days are over for indies thanks to all the competition. Anyway, I wish you guys only the best of luck and I highly suggest you hire an experienced artist or buy some premade assets for your next game. If you really want custom art, use placeholder art to secure funding with a publisher or Kickstarter, then hire an artist who has proven they can bring that level of quality to the table. P.s. Sorry for the novel!
In the end, you're not wrong, this is very much "my first game" in regards to 2D games, and we went in with completely wrong expectations in terms of pixel art. As for our next game, we got two 3D artists working on that now, so I personally think it's just best to shelf this one, go in hard on our next one. That one also goes back more to the management genre and programming approach which we're better at. We just have to learn and try not to make the same mistakes. Thanks for leaving your lil' novella, and I'm happy that you like the channel! -M
@@bitemegames I think learning and moving on with that knowledge is success in itself. Not many indies can do that. Can't wait to see more about the next game!
I'm not an indie developer, only a developer, so I don't know the hurdles of indie marketing first-hand, but I think you guys really need some artists. Both games are lacking a lot graphically and there is no good "feel" because of lack of graphical polish. I know graphics isn't all, but no matter how good they are, because of the graphics they look amateur, I wouldn't click on them
Yup. Even compared to Factory Town which just screams programmer art its polished to a certain level, Forge Industry looks more like a 3 day game jam to be honest.
There are two approaches you can take here: 1) Make the game you want to make and not worry about the financial viability. 2) Make a game that is aimed at commercial success. That will require coming up with a lot of ideas, testing them early and often with the audience, then scrapping what isn't resonating with people. You guys always seem really dedicated and I have no doubt you can make a commercially successful game if that's what you are aiming for, but you will need to "fail faster" as wise people once said.
*Option 3:* Find the intersection of what you like and what the market wants, and build that. A Chinese mythology version of Hades would've been awesome, but: A) it would've required stepping up their art, music, writing, UI/UX, and combat design skills, and of course, way more than 5-6mos. And B) it would need to be on console, or better yet, mobile. Zukowski is right about Steam's tastes, but you don't have to only build for Steam.
@mandisaw I honestly agree 1000% but I think this is in the territory of the very rare developer that can follow their creative vision and compromise on commercial viability. That's an extraordinarily rare ability in business. It's easy to say the words and much harder to execute on. What I am seeing from this team is a love a of a particular genre, but having trouble stepping outside it to add their own personality to it. Luck for them, that only takes a single step to cross that line. They are really close.
@@theebulll It's not so much rare, as it requires a lot of planning & research, and being honest with yourself about what you want, what you can do, what the market is, etc. Made my early games with very limited art & good UI b/c I knew my strength was in programming and UI design. Went for Android since that fit my target audience, skillset, and it had a low cost of entry. For my game in production, I logged a good couple yrs on market research & competitor-analysis, putting out feelers in genre communities, defining the overlap betw my vision & what players expect & wish-for. Figured out what my goals were, what the budget range should be, and what skills I should buy vs build in tandem with development. We'll see if it pays off 😁 Following your heart is great, but your head needs to at least come along on the ride 😅
My very first project is a Sierra-style text parser-based adventure game done outside an engine environment. Not the least demanding idea for a debut, but comes with a bonus: I am genuinely excited by it, I keep thinking about the algorithm as I walk or exercise, and it just feels so awesome whenever I move this one step further and get to observe the results live. Another Roguelite would have been far easier and most likely more profitable (not that I care that much), but I would absolutely never be able to get hooked up on it. The genre just feels so bland and boring, I'd never be able to enjoy making a game like this and everybody playing it would be able to smell it from a mile away.
I agree with what someone said. It feels like passion, interest, idea wasn't there for this specific game. You weren't breathing or dying to literally get idea out of yourself and that can easily show. You treat it more like a job, even if you are indie. You could see that pixel art lacks polish, fights are not exciting, progression isn't interesting either. You were looking for ideas and maybe even though this is a good one and had some interest in it but not enough to keep torch burning till the end. I would take your own advice, cut the scope tremendously and focus on polish. You can release short game but releasing bad game is detrimental. Unless you do that for free or at this low price entry, it was $3 no less or something like that by what you mentioned. Anyway, good luck guys. Thanks for sharing everything with us, love your transparency. Hope that your next project will bring this excitement to you.
I appreciate your honesty. I think you guys are doing well, the problem is that your in it to make a living lol. That puts you at a disadvantage to many indie game devs who are in it to make something they love. This means they can produce games that don't perform but still feel successful because they made a good game.
That is something that I've learned as well, sure on the one hand you're competing with the greedy AAA studios that pump out shit games. On the other hand you're competing with people who work 5 years on a game and then release if for free/peanuts with hours of solid content. I guess that's why all gamedev YTers makes courses about gamedev instead of games. -M
@@bitemegamesDevs charging too little for their games is a great topic for a video. Zukowski had a couple charts on that a year or so back, but it's still true.
I appreciate the perspective. Videos like this are important because indie dev is so glamorized. People might not realize that making games is so hard and that failure is common. It's nice to hear your story because it's relatable and reminds me that making games is hard for everyone, not just me.
Standing out is really the key. With Roguelites being such a saturated genre, you have to REALLY stand out in terms of quality, uniqueness and potential to get a lot of attention. If you're kinda just doing what most others are doing, and what you're showing is not close to the top in terms of quality, it's basically going to get drowned. Even if there are hundreds of entries to choose from, if you're one of the very best then word-of-mouth will supercede that hurdle, but if you're just middling nobody will talk about you, as most people will generally only talk about one game that they saw that was really cool.
Second post. You said it yourself, SoE doesn't have many weapons, doesn't look great, and doesn't play well. This was also echoed by your testers. This likely means the core of your game needs to be reworked, and as you said, it's hard to say how much work that would actually take. Many indie devs spend 2-7 years to make their "hit" game. You guys need a profitable business fast and can't afford that risk. However, you guys found semi-success in Forge Industry. Any profitable business finds a need, develops a product, and if it sells, keeps iterating on that until they stabilize. You found your marketable product in management sim games. They may not be the game you want to make, but if you keep working on what you can make work, you can expand your horizons in the future. Look at Thomas Brush as an example. He made Coma, Penstripe, and then Eversong. Comma was his first hit and he kept iterating on that type of game. Now that he's financially secure and built up his brand, he can safely work on a new type of game and not be sunk if the game under performs.
One interesting thing I observed with Next Fest was the featured streaming slots did very little for wishlists. I have a similar wishlist trajectory as you did (big spike in first 2-3 days then falling off). My first featured stream had ~70 average viewers, but the second stream had ~1000 average viewers!! I thought there would be a wishlist spike after the second one but it was only 2 higher than the previous day... and continued falling down to zero in the following days.
Love your videos guys. As someone who has released a couple of mobile games and is working on his first Steam Game (2D top-down pixel art game....) one thing I have found is that if you iterate on what you know, the next iteration is always better. if you guys have built experience in sim/factory games, I think if you were to build on this the next game would be better, and you already have an audience that is baked in for that kind of game. Songs was a nice idea, but that niche theme is very very niche, nevermind it being 2D or a roguelite, and the audience you have developed probably does not care for it at all. Wishing you the best on the next project.
I really appreciate the openness and showing the struggles of being a game developer. I hope everything goes well for you guys! As an amateur game developer who just started making more seriously last year, I can say that it's not easy. These kinds of videos really help me a lot, keep them coming!
For your third game, if I were you I would take the time to make prototypes and test ideas until you have something fun that you like, and that you really want to work on. Genre popularity matters, but working on a genre you love and know well is even more so.
I'm gonna say "shelve it". Keep it in your back pocket, and especially keep the feedback you received in mind as you work on other projects. Not the specific, but extract the general core of those suggestions because they often reveal deeper insight into what your players notice/value/like/hate beyond the specifics of this one game.
As I mentioned in a previous video about Forge... I found the lack of a tutorial frustrating BUT the main reason I didn't buy it after trying it... was... as I mentioned... it lost my progress. As soon as the game lost my progress I didn't trust it. Why should I invest more time into a game that loses my progress? I know it was a demo, but, it deflated my fun I was having in the demo. I looked for an update to say "We found the bug and fixed it" but I didn't see that. It's been a few months now since I played it, I forget exactly what I did now, but, please make sure in the future your saves are more robust! Nothing kills fun more than losing progress.... I'm old... 54... I don't have time to fiddle in my older years. Thank you for your youtube videos. I like to see how things are. I would love to see videos on how to bring graphics from the outside world, into the game and stick things on the screen. Last game I made was for the Commodore 64... last Utility I made was for DOS in 1998 for a family member. I miss programming. :)
Hey guys, I love your channel, I am really really happy that I found you because you always have so much positive energy and this also gives me motivation :D I will try to share my thought with you, about why I wouldn't buy your RL on steam if I'd randomly find it directly on steam without any context of super cool guys behind the project. It will be just a simple list telling more about what kind of player I am and how I see this project. - I love roguelikes - I am also a developer and from my perspective the easiest roguelike you can work on is crappy action-rl (easiest I mean technically), then a bit harder is crappy turn-based-rl, then muhc much harder is good roguelike (no matter action or turn-based, because if you are working on ultra good game, the genre doesn't really matter -> You are creating loop hero and then just earning milions.). And well... - Unfortunately your game looks like crappy action-rl tier game (that's my feelings). And I see 4 main problems I have with the game that steam page showed me, here they are: 1. The game looks like mobile port, the circle below the character looks terrible and cheap. 2. Lighting in the game sucks, srsly, simple circle shapes are good when you just watched first tutorial in your life and you are going to start working on your first game ever. Pixel art is stylized graphic and you just didn't stylized the look of the lighting. 3. Developers have no idea about how big a single pixel on the screen is. You have all pixel scales in your game. There are elements which have 4x4 pixels, 3x3, 2x2 and 1x1. This thing just tells the player "We just get some assets from the internet and rescalled them as needed, we didn't do much work." 4. Scope. The game looks like it just has this one green biome with ultra low amount of content. 1-4. So summing that points: From player's perspective I see a cheap mobile port, not port of a game, but port of a technical demo. Devs didn't put much work into it, just used free solutions like free lighting asset for unity, and just bought some PA sprites. The game looks like everything is running on bought assets/systems/single unity components. I'd say that's just a 2$ game that I wouldn't buy because it's a 2$ game. I watched other video where you tell that you put your demo too early and yeah, probably that's the problem too. From the game with a demo (or just one that want me to WL) I expect that the devs clearly will tell me how much content will be in final game. And your steam page is really bad written. You just wrote a few typical sentences from the internet A FEW TIMES xD if you press ctrl+F and write "HUNDREDS OF ITEMS" you will find 4 places where this sentece was used... BOY! I can see only a gif with 8 items... Also three places where "4+" is (its about the characters). Four places where "procedurally generated" is. I get it ok? It's a roguelike, also you don't need to tell me that the procedurally generated levels are "beautiful", pls. - I don't like your capsule. It looks like the capsule is trying to market totally different game. Haha yeah I know that you bought it because Chris said you need a high res capsules and splashes even for every pixel art game but.. xD If just the first screen of the game would show me the character from the capsule in pixel art, and INTERIOR biome that I would match with the buildings from the capsule, and some RED trees (that are on the capsule), then yeah, it would have much more sense then. Wish you luck guys! And I hope my msg isn't too salty, but you know, when hundreds of people just write you "Wow, amazing project!" you will feel like you are working on something really really good, but then if you fail... you will totally don't understand where the hit came from. Have a nice day!
I wish hundreds of people wrote "wow amazing project"... But no, your points are valid, as for the scope, that's the issue we talk about, the game doesn't have enough content yet to be worth it to release, but it also doesn't seem to be worth investing further into to bring the scope into something better. -M
@@bitemegames Well, the more I am looking at the gameplay the more I like the game. The game itself isn't a failure or smth, for now is just correct, like other 97% games on steam. If you really want to create an action-roguelike, you SHOULD invest mooore into this project, because the project itself isn't a problem, the problem is you didn't invest much enough yet. You have around 10-20% of what you should already have to release a demo (and I am just talking about the content here), and there is so much aspects you didn't touch... yet? I'd say YET, but here we go again, developers of that 97% of games doesn't dive hard into quality and polishing. You know, all such stuff like UI animations, Camera features (cutscene movement, shaking, zooming in/out), narreative, worldbuilding, cutscenes etc etc etc. For me personally it's really problematic when on trailer the game is trying to featuring... movement system, swinging weapon... you know, I saw 3 screenshoots I know that this is game having movement 8-dir top down movement system and combat. I want to be burst with amount of many other features I cannot notice on the screenshoots. It's stupid to say but if you'd spend another 2 years with this project, it would be an awesome awesome game :D But from the other side... if you start making new game and will want to release a demo after 6-12months of work... wouldn't the situation be the same? You will have a new game, but still this will probably be one of that 97% of steam games, that are not on polish level making them something more that 100k of other games around them. I released my first game on nintendo switch (only on nintendo switch), I spent 1 year of work (in free time, I had normal full-time job back then) and earned less than 1k$. I figured out that I don't want to make small games. I started new project and it will be really big game for a single dev, but I gave myself 5 years to finish it. I am pretty sure it will be more profitable and also more enjoyable for me to work on something like that. I don't need to have a stupid gimmick to catch player' eyes because I already have much systems built around the game what makes it indie premium (or will make i hope :D) I don't know, making small games wasn't for me.
This is an exact demonstration of the sunk cost fallacy - it is human nature to not want to give up something that we have already invested time or money into. So good job shelving it. That being said you know what the game is missing now - something to make it really unique and fun and preferably also not another rouge light. Put it on the shelf and maybe one day a brilliant idea might come along that could transform it into something new and amazing. In the startup world this is called the pivot and usually involves identifying a different customer demographic.
I've said it in some random video of yours a few months ago and I'll say it again here: You should work on forge industries more. Not because it's good, but because it has a potential to be good and your improvements might drive sales up. You making a game for 5 months and releasing only to repeat it again means that you'll always compete with a product that's just 5 months worth. The real value is created when you stretch it to ten months, twenty months, etc. Just look at the first iterations of Factorio... If someone can make your game in a few months, they will. The more you invest, the harder it is to compete with you. There is really no value in making 10 bad games instead of one good.
Gonna be some though love: Honestly I think the main issue is that the game has no selling point: It's a roguelike in a sea of roguelikes with gameplay that looks somewhat fun but not very different, the video showcases a very generic artstyle and a very common setting, as there are many, many games based on chinese mythology. Speaking of Chinese Mythology, I feel like you guys severely underestimated just how many there are, there's lots and lots of chinese games that get released weekly with that theme, and quite frankly at this point most of them get played despite being in the wushu/medieval chinese/chinese mythology setting and not because of it. You basically made a game in an oversaturated genre with an overused art style in an oversaturated setting, you guys kinda set yourself up for failure.
I actually liked this video much more than most gamedev videos because we can learn so much more from the failures. I love your approach to this. It's really honest and you're confronting these harsh realities in a very positive way. I can see the amount of work you've put in but you're also not irrationally attached to one game idea and you realise that if it doesn't fit your overall goals then it's best to pivot early. This video is really helpful to me and likely many other people too
It is always easy to look at a project like this and point out flaws. Many flaws are subjective like why is there a male in the capsule and a female in the trailer. This looks very inconsistent. Also one big marketing reason to have a character on a capsule is to recognize a face because our brains love to see eyes and faces. The face is barely recognizable. Also the character in the capsule feels out of place maybe make him face the other way around. When I watch the trailer it annoys me that there are so many low hanging fruits, which aren't picked. E.g. make the water tiles move, this is easily done with noise and a small shader. You have those light pole thingys, make them emit a light. Don't make everything one brightness. Imagine the scene in the trailer where those 2 big fires next to the statue turn on. It is a moon light scene tinted a little blueish and then those big lights turn on emit light. Much more impact. The game lacks Juice everywhere. Honestly the graphic style is not that bad, IMHO the VFX and effects are not good. Releasing a demo to next fest and you say yourself we made a rougelite and the combat sucks is insane to me. I think if you just had shapes circled, boxes and triangles with a vfx galore and a combat that feels awesome. It would perform better. You have to understand why a genre works and you have to love the genre. If you guys don't play rougelites don't make one. Or at least take a week and as a team play all rougelites out there and get a grasp what the genre is about. I would be more than happy to talk with you guys about things like this. Feel free to get in touch. Keep your heads up. We all learn and fail and maybe my opinion is garbage, who knows xD. Haven't played the game tbh. A failed next fest doesn't mean that you can't make a successful game, but I don't feel like your heart gets excited when you talk about the game. And that is concerning!
As a roguelike enjoyer, I have to disagree with you on the implication that the genre is a problem. You are right that many devs tried to make roguelikes, but there is still a staggering lack of good roguelikes out there. Looking at your game, it's hard to see what you were going for other than taking the combat system from stardew valley, making some slight changes and making that into a "roguelike". Instead I recommend looking at decent 2D roguelikes, where they focused on making a good gameplay experience with play sessions in mind. E.G. Risk of Rain 1: Split into 7 stages. Each stage requires you to find the teleporter to reach the next stage, and each teleporter is guarded by a boss and many monsters, requiring the teleporter to charge for a certain amount of time too, the final stage is guarded by the strongest boss, you must find tons of items and survive against many dangerous monsters to reach the end. 30-60 minutes gameplay session. The character classes are also well-designed and based on the different enemy types and items they can synergize with well. That's a well defined formula and pretty unique (at the time of them creating it). When I look at your game, I don't see a great roguelike formula on display. I understand that you've shelved your game now, but if you ever return to it, I recommend you rework it after researching some decent roguelikes. With that and good marketing, I'm sure you can make a great game.
This video must have been hard to make, so I truly thank you for sharing this with us. 👍We learn much more from this kind of experience than from stories with survivor bias. Don't give up guys!🔥
Guys, Thanks for the vid. Watching many of yours. Transparency is the main reason why I watch. That said - I believe your main problem is, as I see it: You are overlooking game design as a separate field of knowledge completely, therefore you seem to make more mistakes while prioritising workflow on the content of the game. For example in the video you talk about adding more tiles, while your enemies suck. In a game about killing enemies. You catch my drift? It is vitally important that weapons feel good and USEFUL as well. Also why Chineese mythology? I mean you don't even seem like a chineese culture enthusiasts, are you? I mean you might lack the energy within to stand out Lore-wise, and visually as well. Well, you fucked yourself there I might be saying stuff you are painfully aware of (I've seen the pinned comment), but did you concider hiring a game-designer part time? Big respect anyways! Looking forward for your next content. Much love!
Honestly, what this sounds like is a combination of what your team mentioned in terms of genre but also the importance of building a prototype that's fun to play and makes sense before committing. This way you can see what works before investing too much. Nonetheless thank you for sharing. It's super insightful
saw my game while you scrolling the roguelike section yay hahaha I got similar numbers on wishlists with the festival, the ruler for roguelikes got higher after Hades for sure, people expect some gorgeous stuff on screen. One thing I was discussing today with some friends is about U.I, it really has the power to make the game shine (or don't if it's bad). As indies, is kind of tough working on U.I. but it's surely something that players pay much attention, and also VFX, I suppose roguelikes are games for people that like lots of stuff popping on the screen LOL Thanks for sharing your experiences guys, it's surely a tough position but the humblety and commitment you guys have will grow into better results, really wish you guys the best!🙌🙌🤘
Love the honesty, and especially you being able to be so honest about this and have humor in tough times. The comment "We nailed neither" made me subscribe as an indie dev myself doing this part-time without monetary risk. I think there's also merit to having many projects in a similar genre. I had a project as well that I realized was just not fun, but because it was in a similar genre I was able to take many of the features I implemented there to the game I actually was happy with, so it didn't feel like a waste of time. Improving the combat may feel like a waste of time if the Player Controller is not something you will use in a future project.
Sticking to one genre also helps build your brand. SoE and Forge Industry have few players in common, so you couldn't really use the first game's success as leverage. If you really want to experiment with other genres, release them under a separate banner, like how book publishers use imprints.
Really appreciate the perspective of this video. Sorry for your difficulties, I'm sure it can't be easy but sometimes scrapping a project is the best way to move forward. You both are clearly very passionate about statistics and numbers. Maybe there's a game in that somewhere?
I understand the feeling. Before my current project, I was working over a year on a 2d platformer and I thought I had something then I pitched my vertical slice to a bunch of publishers and realized my game sucked and turning it around would take too much time. I basically put that project on pause the the steam page still exists, I told myself if I have the resources and the market seems like a better time for a 2d platformer, then I'll come back around to it.
Your videos are very refreshing: authentic and not just showing success but failure too (failure is where we really get to learn stuff in my experience)! If it was me I would just put the game into the failed projects folder and move on, I didn't hear you give one good reason *why* you should continue with it, even releasing it as a free-to-play game would take more effort that doesn't seem worth it right now (and "we already spent so much time/effort/money" is not a good reason to *do* anything). Also when describing your aims with the game it seems your main goal was to learn stuff, so I say: mission accomplished! Next project!
I'm thinking about Cult of the Lamb. That game started out as a girl scout troop with swords. Same thing with Ape Out. They took a radical turn, tried new things, and followed the fun.
Your vids are always super-interesting, giving your honest thoughts about game dev, right down to sales/data. My 2 cents (which you can completely ignore! ;) I'd probably park SoE, based on what you said. 2d pixel art is so hard, unless you perhaps go for a super-retro style (?). Currently it seems to be in the 'middle' a bit, neither modern nor retro. And I do think it needs something unique to stand out (mechanics and/or graphics). Level and enemy creation is a lot of work, if you feel the core gameplay isn't there. It does maybe lack something in the 'juice/feel' department too; quite slow paced, not many enemies or effects on screen. That's not to say abandon it forever. I have a lot of prototypes on my drive... and one or two I can now see something new in, some change of direction that might totally transform it. Parking games for a while can help you spot things. Your experience with next fest etc will pay off I'm sure. Put everything into the next project. I think making a game that *YOU* want to play is a key thing too. Yes, releasing in popular genres makes sense, but if you make something very close to games you like yourself I think that passion translates into the product. This helps motivate me with projects: *I* want to finish it and play it! I think it might also be worth doing a v2.0 Forge Industries at some point (if you aren't planning it already), with some fancier graphics / lighting / Post proc, tweaked UI? Its already quiet an appealing looking game, but a minor upgrade would make it look even better. all the best 👍
Palworld was basically that team's earlier game, Craftopia, that didn't do well. They incorporated some of the feedback, polished it, and improved their skills, and released a way better game 👍
Glad you guys are sharing everything. I think the roguelite genre isn't the problem, its a solid genre, you just need to make sure your game stands out in a meaningful way
It's a little hard to watch this and not try to send some encouraging words, which honestly I think would be misplaced here. This videos shows a lot of self-awareness and the ability to analyze the market. I think you are pretty much right on the mark. I would arrive at the same major conclusion as you - genre. I'm somewhat biased since I don't like roguelikes, but I couldn't tell you how many times I have clicked on an awesome-looking store page only to see the word "Roguelike" somewhere in the description and immediately click off. And I've talked to others who are the same way. I think the desire to play a game over and over and over again is somewhat niche. Not that factory games aren't niche, but though they have become a little bit FOTM since Factorio and Satisfactory, there still isn't a market glut like with roguelikes. What to do with SoE? Certainly don't put much, or any, work into it. No good reason to put even more time and money into a sinking ship. Better to scrap it or shelve it to maybe revisit at a later date.
I am sorry to see you guys not doing great :( I could say your next game seems more visually appealing though, I am interested in that one! For the Songs of Everjade, I have couple of opinions, if I may, • First of all, low density pixel art works for slow paced games, where as a fast paste games like Songs of Everjade, it's best to use high density pixel arts, not that it's important for this one, but for next next game maybe :) • Second, if I were you, I would not publish Songs of Everjade as a game, especially not a free one. Instead, I would sell the parts as assets. I mean, you have a combat system that is fluent, you have boss fight system, you have a inventory and power up system, at least 3 asset packs lying here, and if you have the reselling license for the art that's 4 or 5 asset packs that you can sell. I know it wouldn't be desirable as selling the game, but this in my opinion, is the best way to salvage otherwise failing game.
You really can't take shortcuts with art and polish. Art direction doesn't need to be in relation to "every other smash hit roguelite", it needs to be consistent and stylized. You get some beautiful looking games by people who can't design more standard styles, but the direction is consistent; a bunch of wonky sprites by themselves look bad, but bring them all together and you got something fresh and exciting.
I think the main problem with Songs of Everjade is that it doesn't have any kind of hook. To stand out from the endless other games out there you gotta have a visual/thematic/story/mechanic hook (can have more than one). When you tell someone about your game there should be something cool that catches their ear immediately, otherwise you're just "some game" and not "that game". I would even say that action games also need to have higher standard of visuals from other genres to stand out from the competition.
The hook was "Hades, but Chinese mythology". Very solid, but I'm not sure they understood it themselves. Needed a clearer vision & more time in the oven, but folks would wishlist just on the hopes that they could pull it off.
@@mandisaw 1. To be "like hades" you really need to nail the visuals, combat feel and maybe having a character driven story. Just being a rogulite doesn't make you "like hades" in that crowded genre. 2. I really don't think that's a solid enough hook, might work just for having Hades's production value but this game is far from it.
@@mandisaw I don't know about the general player population, but for me, Hades doesn't ring any bell and Chinese mythology rings the "get the heck out of here" bell.
@@fantasy9917 Everyone's different 😅 Hades was a massively popular, GotY for 2020, major cross-platform title. It's theme was Greek mythology. And Chinese/"Asian" mythology is a well that a lot of games drink deeply from, to good success. So it's not a crazy combo.
@@Chen_Ash For sure, they could not achieve anything close to Hades' prod values. My point is that "Hades but Chinese" tells players exactly what you're trying to achieve, which is essential for wishlists/mktg. And it helps provide a vision for the artists/team to coalesce around. They could have come up with other hooks from that central one.
Okay, so I watched your video. Im not a dev, im just a guy who plays a lot of games. I think you ahve two conflicting ideas. 1) You want to make an interesting game on a setting you're interested in. 2) you want to churn content to make money. I think you need to choose one of these and go with it. If what you want is to make money than just drop this title and make something in the wheel house that you know your fans enjoy. Jumping from builder to a completly different genre is a bit silly in my opinion because you not only kill off the base you had but you also let go of building on that experience. If you wan to make something interesting: Your pixel art is bad. I know you think it is good, but it is bad. Youre wrong that it could not succeed because it is a rouge lite. Gamers dont care that it is 'just another rouge lite' they will care if it looks cool and is fun to play. That's it. WHen you played the first clip of the game I immediately knew why you were not getting much response. It looks like a quick rpg maker game. You are right that you are competing in a very artistic medium and that is why you MUST improve your pixel art game. A far eastern chinese setting WILL do well and i'd love to see something like this, but you are going to have to have passion and from my perspective as a consumer I see none. Hades, hollow knight, shovel knight, all the castlevania clones, they all did well because they communicated a passion. This does not have that which is why I think youre struggling with it. Anyways, that is just my thought as a normal consumer. good luck to you guys!
I appreciate your honesty, that's truly inspirational. It's also important to note that roguelikes/lites is a wide genre. I feel like the world doesn't need another action roguelike (dead cells for example) whereas bullet heaven/reverse bullet hell still feels hot.
I know a lot of people say you guys should just scrap it and move on, BUT...Id look at it like this instead: The time spent on the project is already spent/wasted, whenever you release it or not, that already happened. Think about it like this, What if this game was dropped in your lap by someone else that had built it, but for some reason couldn't finish. Sure, it might need some more work, but you basically got a "free" game handed to you, that you might be able to sell for like 5 dollars with a few weeks of work. Like you guys said, you still need to eat and pay rent. I would set up a plan to figure out the minimum amount of work to get this out of the door (no extra features, just bug fixes and the must haves) and allocate around 1-3 weeks to get that done, then move on as quickly as possible to something more viable.
Based on nothing but this video, I wonder if the problem doesn't lie in your elevator pitch. Your first game sounds to me like "fantasy Factorio", and I'm like "hey that could be cool". While the new one you describe as "Asian rougelite", which doesn't really tell me much. Even though I enjoy stuff like Wuxia, "Amazing cultivation simulator" etc and I also play rougelites. So I kind of hit both niches and sounds like I should be your audience. So for the next project perhaps it'd help to try to define the niche a bit more or use more storytelling (even for yourself) to define what the game is about. And what fantasy are you trying to sell. Hope it helps a bit, and sorry if it's out of context, I saw one or two of your videos in the past, but I'm not all that familiar with what you guys do. But I do enjoy the honesty and the vibe you have here. Good luck!
Every "character" has to hit their lowest point before they can rise and be succesful in their journey/story. You are young, talented and ambitious! And most of all - you are brave! You are brave enough to start your own studio, brave to share so much of your story, brave to admit mistakes and brave to accept criticism. You are miles ahead of 99.999% of humanity! Regarding the game - I'm more of a puzzle/point&click adventure kind of girl, so not really your target market. Regardless I think you summed up your lessons very well - the market for this genre is over-saturated and art style + mechanics can't compete to other popular titles. Take a break to get inspired, don't push yourselves too hard. You'll know what to do in the end. And don't listen to comments that accuse you of being too money orientated. You are a business, that's what you are supposed to do. It's easy to criticize when they are envious or when they are too scared to do the steps on their own.
Since you asked what you should do. Here are some thoughts: 1) Fail fast and kill off your game (or shelve it). The dev from the conference talk you mentioned, focussed on match games he got really good at that one thing and found his niche. Having a portfolio of games that all look kind of meh and have nothing to do with each other won't lead to sucess because you won't be able to build up repeat customers or a fanbase and you won't be building on the knowledge you acquired on the previous game as efficiently. Have a thread of continuity whatever that is for you, it doesn't mean you can't genre hop but don't jump to different extremes and throw everything out from your last project to start from the bottom. If you want to experiment with different genres for inspiration, do some internal game jam style projects and have some fun with that. 2) You guys have a great postmortem and are obviously good at analysing things with hindsight, is there anything you can do to improve your research and planning before you go forward with a project in future? Thinking pixel art is easy shows you might have done poor research this time round. Pixel art is really hard to get right and this is not a secret. Better research and planning will save you a lot of pain and money. If research and planning is not a strong suit, then you definitely need to implement the fail fast and fail early strategy so you can use your excellent hindsight skills to great effect. 3) How many people play tested the game before you put it onto Next Fest? How much feedback are you getting from outside of your own team? It might not be enough. You probably need to get more so you can find out things like your weapons are slow and your combat sucks early. If you haven't seen the conference talk by the Slay the Spire devs, "'Slay the Spire': Metrics Driven Design and Balance", I highly recommend farming it for tips on how to get feedback and utilise feedback effectively. They were getting feedback before their game got past the placeholder art stage and iterated on it really quickly. If they'd have found out the game was not resonating with people they wouldn't have made the $$/time investment in better art. 4) Having only two weapons, especially in this genre, seems odd. What are the game mechanics that you thought would make this game enjoyable and make people want to play again and again? You need a hook. If you don't have one in your future games you will have the same problem. 5) It is concerning that you are saying it will take too long to change the combat or add enemies from a code point of view. Is your code modular and loosely coupled or is it closely coupled? You should be able to iterate quickly and be able to reuse code across projects. If your code isn't designed for this now, then invest time in making it so. If it's just because people have already moved onto your next project then the answer to your question, 'what should be done with this game?' seems to have been answered. You've moved on. Concentrate on the next thing fully. The positives from this game are not really discussed. What do you guys like about the game? Can you reuse anything?
I am a huge fan of Roguelite games and would love to check out more but... it is just a saturated market. The only ones that I am going to have time for are ones that stand out above everything else. Songs of Everjade looks fine enough, but what makes it special? Does the team working behind it have any credits to why they are speaking on Chinese mythology? Or was there someone who worked on the game that provided history, that could be interesting. Beyond that unique mechanics or modes that stand out would be a draw for me personally. I appreciate your video and it takes a lot to sit down and speak about this. Thanks!
A safe move would be to drop this project, and work on a "Forge Industries 2" version. So you can leverage the existing gamedesign, and revamp it visually and in terms of balancing. It should be quicker to finish than a completely new IP and gamedesign.
I think there is a lot of money to be made in horror. It's pretty easy to make horror games with stuff like Horror Engine, they're usually pretty short, so people don't really stay on the same game for months. You have people like me who buy literally every single new horror game that comes out, no matter how trash they are.
I you hate this game as much as it sounds like, nobody else is going to love it either. Either give it proper attention and make it the game that you actually wanted to make, or just move on.
Passion is a component, but not the whole picture. You can 100% dislike or be disappointed in what you created so far, and still be a great dev. It’s honestly more about skill and persistence than passion, to move a masterpiece to the finish line (lots of skill there). Being honest with yourself if the product isn’t up to par is the only way it can be molded into something far superior.
Hi I do feel for you guys, really like your realism and honesty. My opiniom would be ( probably one you already did ) List out all of the feedback Then do a cost benefit analysis on each item Then order them on that result Then look at the time ( resources ) available at your disposal. And then choose what you can insert that wil make it atleast a 1 - 5 dollar game. Them release it. I do not think you should write it off. As when you do that you loose but by actually just releasing it you atleast have the chance of making something. Even if it is more advice for the next project
I feel like you guys don't really like the game yourselves, so if the developers don't like the game, is it reasonable to think anyone would buy it if you do release it? IDK what you should do, but here's a different idea, what has plenty of problems but would be a bit of a shot in the dark. Could you edit it quickly to release on mobile? It seems like a short game with not much content, but if you are referring to it as a roguelite then I'm assuming it has at least some variation and replayability . So if runs take just like 15 minutes then it probably has decent potential for a mobile audience. And from what I've seen the controls are pretty simple. Could fit a bit better and maybe have less competition as a mobile game than a steam game. Good luck and I look forward to seeing what you guys end up doing
9:41 median play time for Songs of Everjade demo was 7 mins, forge industry was 12 mins if I remember correctly. Chris Zukowski said 25 mins or more is good for demo median play time (to get to that 7k wishlists and benefiting from streamers like Splattercatgaming playing your demo), something to keep in mind for your next game demo: Guild Architect 10:41 think about what your players want to do again and again for 25 mins, what gameplay actions bring the most satisfaction and reward? good luck and if you do decide to improve Songs of Everjade, please play Hades 3:13 as a case study and take notes on the combat, forget the flashy visuals, what is the feel and variety of the combat? PS. Thanks for posting your videos
I believe arnold Schwarzenegger has said somewhere and swears by it. make something great and then make sure everyone knows about it. meaning dont do anything half ass (art, gameplay, fun value, etc all has to be great. then go full out on marketing it. share it where gamers are, and spend on ads for the social channels that the gamers are. if you do these two things well, i dont think it matters what kind of game you make. pricing strategy is the only other thing i think that needs smart moves behind it. edit: get a full time artist with a great portfolio as soon as youre able. dont under value the work they do, good art can sell your game for you, it cannot be half assed and the last thing is that good art takes time and refinement.
First off I appreciate you showing everything about your development journey. You guys may need a better gameplan for the future. You've got the drive to work on things together which is great but I personally think you really need a hook for the audience because which neither of your games seem to have to me. I don't see why i would play your game over another if I were to be blunt. Be it in art direction, setting or gameplay. For your team I'd focus on two things, gameplay hook and art hook. If you do either one of these good enough you can just focus on just one of them but generally you want to do something with both to stand out. Like yeah dwarf fortress can hyperfocus on gameplay or gris can hyperfocus on art but that''s a lot to do well and generally you want balance. Pixelart can definitely be a trap, animating pixel art is time consuming. The lower bit you go, the better. Titan souls for example is lower bit to make it easier to make assets by lowering detail while still looking really nice. They also do things like boss fights efficiently, like one boss just has these moving floating hands which you don't have to animate. Or using 3d models with pixelart textures to avoid animating tediously. But honestly i'd recommend researching artstyles you can do efficiently and fast making it cheap while still looking good. 3d is good and efficient, you can fake pixelart with 3d like a short hike did. You can make something lower poly but with cel shading and nice colors Or something inspired by tunic which uses lighting and color lut's to make simpler models really feel so much better If you can get a good gameplay hook going I think you really could go a lot further than your previous game did :) You guys have the drive, you just need to channel that energy into a game that can connect with players!
We're in a very similar situation. My solution? 'Love Birds' will be free to play, I'm spending less time on updates, and we may release before 1.0 (Currently we're on 0.88). I've been marketing it for over a year, and we've only gotten 518 wishlists. I truly love our game, but it's already great and it isn't getting much traction. Plus our next game is a multiplayer fps, which will most likely do much better. Don't feel guilty for acknowledging the role luck plays in our lives, sure we can nitpick but at the end of the day we're all gambling.
I had to go look it up, man you guys have a very unique style. It's sad to hear it didn't perform to expectations. Imo it's likely overly niched, survival, cardboard cut outs, birds/animals. All of those things likely work individually, stacked it's just to niche
I think this is actually a good experience. This way you don't waste money/time on something that won't work out in the end. So it is better to discover this as early as possible in the development. I think it makes sense to have some kind of user case studies (which is what a demo is) every other month or so. Just to make sure that the project is on track and will generate some money in the end.
I appreciate postmortems like this. I hadn't heard about the game, but I took a look at the Steam page and gave the demo a try. First of all, the main thing that sticks out to me is that the demo feels more like a hobby project than an actual game. In fact, if it were me, I would never have released it in this state. The UI feels a bit clunky and the interaction feedback is almost non-existent. The chat messages should be at the top of the screen, or at least the middle, not at the bottom. Also, I personally hate it when I'm walking around and I'm abrupt interrupted by some tutorial. I understand that you want to teach people the mechanics of the game, but there are more intuitive ways to do this. Or heck, its a rogue-like - let people figure it out by themselves. The controls aren't terrible, but also feel a little clunky. At one point, the directional wheel was locked to point up, and I was confused what was going on (bug?), and I thought the stride attack with the sword was strange in that i could attack in one direction but move in another. That seemed very atypical to me. Now looking at the art, its very vanilla, which isn't a problem in it of itself, but it lacks identity. If you showed me 30 other rogue-likes on steam, i bet you they would look artistically similar. Besides that though, the art needs more contrast. Everything is so blended in together. Add some outlines around entities that are interactive to make them pop out more. Overall, some vibrancy to the colors would do a lot for the art. Lastly, your game really needs a "hook", something to make it unique to others or at least something interesting that's going to get people excited. The genre alone will not do that for you. It has to be some sort of interesting gameplay mechanic(s). Without that, your game will never stand out. I personally don't think you guys need to shelve this game. What I think you need is to sit down and brainstorm some ideas about what the hook of your game is going to be. This may mean you have to prototype various things and see what sticks, but that is what you should focus on. I feel like if you just move on to making another game, you'll fall into the same trap. Anyways, just my 2 cents.
I feel bad for you guys and have been in similar situation before. The best thing you can do is shelve it, if the core mechanics aren’t fun then hold on to your pixel art and animations and in the future when you have more skills/knowledge/ideas you can use them in a new game, and take advantage of that head start. Good luck with the next one
Most indie games never turn a profit, if that was the metric for success than nobody would make games. Treat it as a learning experience, be happy with the fact that you actually created something, go from there. Also, it helps to realize when you can't make a living as a game dev... and to go find a sustainable job . The difference between choices made when you're doing something for fun/as a hobby versus to survive are significant. You'll need to make far fewer concessions if the primary goal is making something you love, instead of needing to pay your bills.
You could also argue that most indie games never turn a profit because most indie games are not good. There aren't many true hidden gems at all, I really can't even think of a single good game that has gone unplayed or didn't at least turn a profit.
Man, that's a bummer, but I believe if you make something more personal, something that only you as a team can make, you'll do a lot better! You have the talent and the heart in the right place, is just a matter on focusing on something that's true to you.
If you are planning to release it as a free-to-play game, then I recommend releasing it at (or slightly before) the release of your next game, link it to your real game, and consider it as a marketing vector. Of course, you don't have to release it as a free-to-play game. You could port the code and assets to use as a minigame in your current project, where it wouldn't have to meet the standards of a fully-fledged game. Alternatively, you could keep it in reserve until you want to cannibalize the code / assets / ideas for something else. There are many ways to pivot / utilise your work, so you shouldn't feel like you have wasted effort.
For porting the game as a minigame there are a couple of ways to do it. First way is like Celeste, where they included the pico8 version of their game inside the full release. Second way is like Danganronpa V3. They have several barely functional minigames nestled inside a well made 'visual novel' - 'point and click' hybrid. They help introduce difficulty and increase engagement by providing a break from the passivity of the game's main genres. Since your has a historical setting it should be possible to shoehorn into most settings as an in game analogue for reading about something historical. On the latter subject of reusing assets, pixel art is very good for this, since it is much easier to modify than other forms of art. This should allow you to have a broader range of applications available.
I also made a chinese methedology action roguelike for a game jam a while ago, and was planning to make it into a full game. This video was really helpful to let me rethink what the art of my game should be, and potential marketing problems i might encounter. Thanks! .
thank you for this info! this means a lot to me, because I made a steam page for the first time and seeing what to expect is very important. In my opinion the genre is not really the problem, I don't really know how the algorithm works, but if the CTR would be better then maybe the visibility would be promoted, and for this it's important to have a good thumbnail maybe? Don't know, I'm really new with this, but the journey is really fun!
I am very glad to be part of your therapist team :) As an encouragment: I think your channel has the potential to shape a big chunk of the next generation of indie gamedevs! Thanks for sharing.
I will say what needs to be said. Next fest showed you what the launch would look like. The conversion rate is not there. It doesn't make sense to push it more imho unless you specify what exactly is the gameplay loop that differentiates it from the rest and what makes it unique and fun compared to all of the competition. I don't see the hook in this game and that is why I never felt passion for it. I thought it is maybe just me, now it seems like more ppl feel like that. I still wish you guys great future and will be watching your videos, it is always interesting to see the same struggles I had on this indie journey.
sorry to hear. even tho i personally love video games and have played literally thousands, as well as know the work and pain behind them, i still don't touch many more and frankly am very critical of ones that use age-old art techniques or fall short of either highly original mechanics or very visually-stunning gameplay. Look at Stardew Valley for example and how that took off. completely IMO, it took the solid Harvest Moon formula of "farm life sim" and expanded on it in every way, as well as reached out to people's fantasy for a sim life, AKA more indepth character personalities and dating. anyway, sorry for ranting but i'm taking my grand ol time making my game in my off work time (even with a family) because I feel like the pressure of full time, both timewise and trendwise, creates a far worse game and at that point, why make it at all? again, at least IMO, i know many people who make tabletop games cuz the act of making a game is fun, regardless of money or even quality, and i get that feeling. the world is harsh. as a wise woman once said, "i do not have a dream job, i do not dream of labor."
If basic gameplay isn't fun, variety won't help. IMO, if you are to touch up the art, prioritize making the main poses and fx of the attacks very impressive. Right now, it looks stiff. For a game that's supposed to be fast paced, you want dynamic poses and animations. Art and animation affect how people perceive your controls. Sloppy timing and messaging hurt. But depending on your finances, you may be better off cutting your losses. In my humble experience, for every game shipped, there is at least 1 shelved.
"Great, we nailed neither" But you both nailed the 'bye' in the end and that's all I needed. Good luck guys, with the next game, the trope of that looks promising.
Here are the questions I would ask you. Will your next game help feed the sales of your previous games? Does releasing a second game help show the range and talent your studio has? Can SOE help bring in any gamers for your third game? If the answers are all no, then I would shelve it for your next release. As long as the code is in a good place, you can always pick it up after your next release. Maybe you would want to alter the genre or game play or something. But if releasing this game isn’t going to help you in the future, I can’t see how it would make sense to pump more work into it that could be spent on your next game.
So a few recommendations I'd give. First is "kill your darlings," as in, it's okay to just quit. It's not like it's a wasted effort, you clearly learned a lot from the time you spent invested into the project, even if it doesn't end up as a finished project. Most importantly, you learned what you're *not* good at, which brings me to my second point -- stick to your strengths. While I don't believe you can be typecasted into a genre, your first game on Steam leads the expectation of your next -- so considering this game is a complete different direction than Forge Industries, that means you really can't bank on your existing audience to carry over, which means you have to lift more weight to get to where you need to go. That leads me to my last point -- you need to lead with passion. I'm not saying you aren't passionate, but to the last points you made in the video, if this was any other developer who was dedicated to realizing a roguelike game and telling the story of Chinese mythology, they'd extend deadlines and do the fine tuning that needs to work in order to make it happen. I'd estimate this would take months if not years to really get right and build the right audience. You don't have that luxury, given your small time window and scope, it just feels like it was just a by-the-numbers business decision, so you have to treat it that way, unfortunately, whereas a hobbyist can probably afford sinking in deeper and eventually turn around a very polished, bespoke product that people care about. Not to destroy your spirits further, but TH-cam recommended me, on a whim, a devlog about a roguelike game ala Hades based in Chinese mythology. Granted, their channel is very small, but they likely have a localized install-base (Chinese speaking audience) and have a very strong artstyle (funny enough, it was literally all the recommendations I made in my last comment -- i.e. isometric, inkstyle sprites, etc). To further validate your thoughts here, the roguelike genre is so saturated that even the niche you thought you had is already being done by a different company across the globe and has no relation to your work. If you make the decision to continue Songs of Everjade, you need to go all-in -- that is, really invest into putting this world, characters, art, etc. into this. But if you're just trying to allocate X months to develop Y product to make Z profit, stick to what you know and build off your existing strengths. I think you already know what the answer is, but just know that failing fast at this stage is preferrable from a business standpoint.
Also, just as a follow-up to that last point, usually large studios, despite being very technical and business oriented, hire artistic/creative people to direct things they're passionate about, which usually lends to warmer reception. That allows them to be project agnostic and supporting multiple games at a time while still being able to produce very bespoke products. This doesn't apply here, but the takeaway is that you can't rest on the laurels of technical skills alone to get you there -- at least not for a project like this.
I would guess that the 50th percentile indie dev doesn't even make minimum wage, despite having actual skills. Many make well less than that. It's a brutal industry. It's something to go for only if you are highly passionate or can tolerate the risk of failure. It is also extremely hit or miss, so you have to know when to move on if there is no chance of a hit. Of course one advantage is that you always have the chance of high success, regardless of how many prior failures you have, especially if you continue to gain experience. Nobody will care about what happened before that if it happens.
Really appreciate this kind of honest introspective look into the game development business! The talk about genre is also something not many devs mention, but such an important decision when you want to make a commercial successful game. 🙌 I agree with your decision to shelve it! I guess just make sure your next game has trains in it? 😂
I think Nextfest is saving you a lot of grief and letting you know that the game doesn't stand out to consumers and its best to cut your losses, learn your lessons and pivot to a less saturated genre/style for the next project.
I wouldn't say Songs of Everjade isn't a bad game, but it is an average one. The gameplay looks fun enough, but nothing super mindblowing. I'd say the art is decent as well, but it is pretty conventional. There isn't really an element to get hooked onto, especially like you said with how many roguelikes there is out there.
As an aspiring solo indie who hasn't even started yet, this feels like a flash forward to what might happen to me. I can't fully relate to your struggles yet, but I do feel for the "doing what you like but also earn money for a living" bit near the end. I still think this is insightful for me, thanks.
Im the developer of artificial life 2061, I have polished years a game that was too simple (only saved by a great narrative) and kind of succeeded, but I won't recommend it. Just release that game, it looks passable, some people will like it, and then you can start the next with full force as soon as possible. Steam prize developers with many games get more buyer confidence so this game will be supporting your next games, that is the best value that can give you at this point. Is not to be sad, a huge achievement is to launch, and will be there for people who like it, they sooner or later will find it, also don't gift it, keep a reasonable price, so the game will be recovering the investment slowly but forever. Seems that you are great programmers and not so great artist so use that, make a very simple graphics game but with a great technical core, those small machine simulators by example. Or a mini metro that should be in your ballpark. Focus in your strengths, avoid your weakness, only like that you will be reaching a wow level.
What I just thought about, would it not be better as a small indi gamestudio to stick to a game genre? Improving in every new game release on mechanic, ideas and graphics, AND riding on the coat-tails of the last game, and leveraging the created fan of the last game. abit like "the spiderweb software" did. (GDC talk "Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way")
UPDATE: After some further thought and team discusison, we have decided to shelve Songs of Everjade, and focusing fully on our next game, instead of trying to salvage this mess.
---
Videos like this are always painful to make, edit, and upload. But I believe they are extremely important to make.
Your first game won't be Stardew Valley, Lethal Company, Palworld, or whatever other big game is the current hotness. There are tens of thousands of you watching our videos. Out of those, only a tiny fraction will actually be able to release their game on Steam. Let alone gross $1.000, $10.000 or more. And that's ok, you're not a failure if your first game doesn't get $100k in publisher funding, or becomes a top seller when you release.
We're not publisher-funded, we're not VC-backed, we don't have any relevant industry experience, and don't really have any real mentors other than you guys commenting on our videos. We're just 4 friends who decided to take a plunge when our risk was still relatively low. Of course, we'll mess up, fail our marketing, make ugly games, and many more mistakes. But I think we are also developing a lot of clarity and wisdom through these fuckups. We're going to just keep going, and eventually make a banger of a game. I believe Guild Architect will be that game.
So about Songs of Everjade, we really aren't certain what to do with it, I wasn't kidding in the video when I said the viewer hive mind will influence that heavily. Whilst SoE isn't in a releasable state currently, that doesn't detract from the fact that I myself am damn proud of what we've been able to do in a mere 5 months from game inception to now.
Would it suck if we never got to put the game on Steam? Yes. But it would suck even more if we put a broken, buggy mess of a game on Steam, let alone charge money for it. The skills our team has learned over the past months working on SoE aren't wasted, we can now implement features in 1/4th the time it used to take with Forge Industry, and are much more aligned working together as a team.
All this to say, thank you for being here with us, and following us along this journey. Things like our Patreon, AdSense, and (occasional) sponsorships have allowed me to pay the rest of the team (I haven't earned anything personally in the past 10 months since quitting my job, everything goes directly into BiteMe and making a better studio/games/videos). I will keep sharing this kind of "real" content, even if that means I'll be making a video at one point "7 tips for gamedevs transitioning to OnlyFans".
Thank you, and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
-Marnix
Hey thanks for making this video, I know it's difficult but I'm glad you can look back on SOE's development and see some good parts of the development instead of just focusing on the negatives like some people do lol
If I wanted to do my own analysis of why the game is not selling, would it be best to leave it as a comment or make it into a Steam thread?
@ProxyDoug I'd do it as a comment, or as a post in our Discord. -M
gamedev onlyfans 😭😂
you guys actually did great with your first game, Forge Industry; top 22% in revenue of all steam games with a 80% positive rating. Powerlust 8:57 just launched with $1500 as of today but that already puts it in the top 40% of all steam games for revenue, in other words 60% of the 105,000 steam games made less than $1500 in their lifetime. And most Indies give up after their first or second game so keep going and keep sharing your learning progress
I appreciate your guys transparency even with the failures.
Then you’ll enjoy their next videos also 😂
@@Oryssounet If they were transparent, we wouldn't see the issues no?
People always wonder why developers have so many abandoned projects. This is the reason! Sometimes it’s just hard to know how a game will workout till you actually make a good chunk of it.
ugh. why are we diddling away our finite time on this earth making subpar abandoned projects 😭😭😭
Sometimes you never know which ones are going to stick! And by making a ton of projects you learn so much! Alot of which you can use on future projects. You never fail if you learn@@TESkyrimizer
The lighting really hurts more than anything. Basically, two main things:
1.) Don't use black for darkness. Grey really dulls your screen. This is unpleasant to look at. Try a dark shade of blue or green. You want a cool colour that is not dull, but still does it's job of remaining in the background.
2.) The gradual dimming of light prevents the darkness from being treated as negative space. It is not allowed to fade from your attention. Make the light dim faster. Increase the radius of the fully lit area as appropriate.
I am sure there's a lot more to work on, but that's what gives off bad first impression. Art doesn't have to be amazing, but your composition should be solid. Even if you are a programmer commissioning the art, take some classes. You don't need to develop the technical skills to make art, but understanding the fundamentals will be worth it.
I disagree that they should refine this game, but agreed that gaining some basic art skills would be useful. Used to be that everyone got a little bit of arts education in school (US, K-12), but that's been on the decline, sadly.
I was thinking about how the art was unpleasant to look at and how the lighting looked so amateur but I couldn't put my finger on why that was, thank you for the explanation! I'm a programmer working with art assets so visuals aren't my strong suit as well, so your comment really helps.
the ugly shadow effect jumped out first to me as well. It should also probably be a pixel-art circle, and probably a dark blue or dark purple.
I agree, it's really not a pretty game, if I saw this on the steam store I'd scroll right past, but it's not as though it has a solid gameplay hook either so probably worth just shelving.
I hope they see this comment, really useful advice!
The stats show you aren't going to make money from it. So it's harsh and sucks to throw away that time investment, but you should stop development asap and move those resources over to the other game you're making which is showing more promise. Think of it this way, spending a couple thousand more dollars (weeks of work) getting SoE to a "better" state to release, won't make you that money investment back. Forge industry barely made 10k. Doesn't make business sense to spend that time to release a game people won't buy. Wishlisters are waiting for a FINISHED game. Not one that was shipped out immediately in the demo state because it's future was grim. I'm not sure who would buy that. If your other game is looking more promising, spend those resources to make that game better and get it done faster. That's a better use of resources and time. It sucks but SoE is not going to make your money back and will only hurt your studio reputation. Not worth it IMO. Best of luck, I hope the next game is received better!!
I mostly agree, but I also think before making the final decision to pull the plug, at least try and distill the game down to "what makes my idea fun" and see if you are just executing it wrong. If you can't find that, then scrap it and move on.
every game is a learning process not just with only goal of making money... out of projects i did in the last 30 years, only 1 out of 9 made serious money. rest went to zero or breakeven at best, so you can never know what hits, it's a game of numbers...
I kinda agree
I agree, I honestly wonder if Forge Industry could perform a lot better with some more loved poured into the game fixing issues that their clearly aware of and polishing the game more. The game already has a response; a lot of the groundwork is done, it's more on correcting the path rather than creating a new one. That's just my thoughts though, they may have more research that says otherwise. But yeah, I would avoid putting more work into SoE.
Agreed - time to cut-bait. Maybe SoE can be viable yrs from now, or the assets can be reworked, but for now, Next Fest gave them their answer, they just need to listen.
One thing that was striking when I saw the screenshots is the inconsistent artstyle: the MC is not contoured, and various background objects are; pixel sizes are inconsistent between various things (it would probably look better if you held on to a single pixel size and optionally add hires UI elements); the main pixels are a bit too big (the objects have too few pixels to them); shading is flat (objects look pasted into the backgrounds). Then, the screenshots do not show any unique mechanics. So the overall impression I had is that it is a formulaic and cheaply made roguelite and I'd rather play (or replay) something else. And this is before I scrolled down to read the description. In contrast, Forge Empires has a consistent lo-poly 3D + hi-res 2D aesthetic, and looks like it does something different mechanically from other automation games (I can't say what's different, but it certainly FEELS different). It looks interesting enough that people might give it a try. I'm downloading a demo right now.
I love the attitude towards transparency and calling a spade a spade. I wish you guys success.
Thanks
These videos are the reason I watch your channel and not others. You show the good, bad, and the ugly. I'll continue supporting, don't give up!
Love the transparency, dislike the framing.
The game is not a failure. You guys learn from the process. You made a game, that's farther than most people that WANT to make games even get.
Calling it a fail so many times in a row re-wires your brain to think that you actually bad at this. You aren't. This is a learning experience, and it's not always about the result, it's about your process. Basically every single successful developer made or attempted dozens of games before landing a true hit, and all of the games in that process are a part of the success. It's not like they failed miserably dozens of times and then all of a sudden they landed a hit.
Framing is important.
What about open sourcing it as failed project on the asset store for people to learn how a game with this scope and timeline can look like in the real world?
I second this, a pre mostly made project that I could just make a bunch of assets in my spare time, just to see "how" would help 1000%
Big reason ive moved over to 3D is because i think the bar for pixel art is so high that its no longer a good option without a great artist on the team.
While on the other hand your last game looked charming even with simplistic visuals.
I really like how real this channel is. None of that "make a game in 2 minutes" TH-cam shite that's been baiting begginer developers into idleness. Actual self criticism and reflection. I believe that after you get to work your game will ascend.
Guys thanks so much for being open and transparent about the struggles you're going through -- believe it or not, it is still inspiring to watch, and it earns you a lot of sympathy (I know, that means squat in terms of revenue)
My first instinct with SoE would be to shelve it for now... like, you know the expression, "don't beat a dead horse" -- sometimes you just have to accept that you're not going to make any money out of something you put a lot of effort into... it sucks arse to consider some of your investment a write-off but ultimately I'd say *time* is the currency that really matters here. Spending more time on SoE will likely yield nothing, so it's probably a better bet to focus that time and energy on your next game.
With the SoE assets though, maybe you can bunch it together into an assets pack and sell it for a small amount? It prolly won't recoup your losses but it might soften the blow a little bit. I was wondering too how much effort it would be to repurpose SoE into a sort of community experiment: release the game as a free moddable thing (you've got the main mechanics working) and allow individual artists to add their own sprite monsters / enemies, tinker with anim / combat timing and so on -- make it interesting to them by offering some revenue strings if they manage to make the game wishlist-able again. Document those efforts in your youtube channel by hosting regular update sessions on that collective effort. Turn your current fail into collective social fun. I dunno, just some ideas.
Serious lack of trains tbh
Needs more cowbell
Got to appeal to the germans and medium functioning autists. ❤❤
@@grant_vinealways
And Fishing
should be Trains of Everjade, biggest problem imo
I unfortunately don't have any good suggestions or advice to give you, as I am not a professional developer. But I really praise the seriousness with which you approach the game dev business! I follow a few channels that from devs sharing their journey, and you are the only ones who are really talking about business and marketing. And what i mean by "really" is that you don't just do videos with general principles: you share what you do, you share the results, successes and disappointments alike. So thank you for documenting your journey with such honesty!
In the spirit of brutally honest comments. A rougelike needs amazing art and amazing game feel. Yours looks like a gamemaker game that was cobbled together with free asset packs. I have 0 desire to spend time playing that game. It just doesn't look fun or interesting or even visually appealing. Forge Industries almost looks good. Gamewise and mechanics wise it looks like a proper studio game that could be fun. It's something that looks like it was so close to being a great game but the art looks like nobody spent any time making it look good. It doesn't pop. Simple colours, simple models, no shaders or polish.
If I were you guys honestly I would just take Forge Industries and trick it out with fantastic visuals, add some new mechanics and fix some design problems and release it again under a new name as a spiritual successor. It's so close to being really good already, it just looks terrible. It would be so time and cost efficient to do a spiritual successor to forge industries. Why throw the whole thing out and start a new game when you spent so much time doing the difficult part of a popular but underdone genre but you just missed the mark on a few key issues. This is something the studios figured out 20 years ago. Build on your last game. Make forge industries a stunning eyecatching game that looks sick in little promo videos. Improve the tutorial and pain points. Add some fun mechanics that you wanted to add but didn't have the time. Don't spend 6 months refactoring it. Drop the name so there's less association with the underperforming title. I would bet my life it will sell better then Forge Inustries. It will also be way way way faster than starting a new sim game from scratch. It will be another title on steam that will bring in cash and fund development of a different sim game in Unity in future.
But even if you decide to go ahead with the new sim game straightaway I will say that the couple of short clips you put in here look 100 times more appealing than SoE. The very early visuals look cool and I can't relate it to a game I've seen or played already so it gives me a feeling of originality and curiosity to find out how it will work or what the mechanics are. From about 10 seconds of clips I find myself more drawn to finding out more about it and wanting to watch the first devlog about it. I had literally none of that feeling about SoE as it looks so genric and soulless compared to other games in that genre. The new one looks innovative.
yes great advice to rebrand the Forge Industries into Forged Empires with much better art but keeping things that worked, that will save time instead of starting from scratch every time. Remember Petroglyph, they keep re-releasing same RTS , 8-bit army, then 9 bit army, every time same game but new sales.
Warning! Brutally honest opinion incoming: First off, I love the channel and I want you guys to succeed. Second, I make games for a living but I've had to let my entire team go just to keep going solo. So I've been in similar positions and I'm not just some internet know it all who has no skin in the game.
While I do think Chris is right about genre being an important part of a successful game, I think games in any genre can still make decent money on Steam if they're high quality and are properly marketed. I think genre only really applies when you're trying to make a BIG game. Like $200k+ revenue. But even so, genre is important and you will have to push harder, even for smaller games because you will have more competition.
That said, I think the reason your game failed at Next Fest (here comes that brutally honest part) is because it just simply looks very amateur. It gives off a "my first game" vibe thanks to the artstyle and gameplay and I truly think that's what killed it. I think the reason simulation and automation games can get away with lower quality or even novice art is because the focus isn't smooth gameplay and clean animations. You're not roleplaying a badass ninja slicing up enemies, you're just snapping conveyor belts together.
I truly think that art sells games and then the mechanics win the review scores. Having a well designed game is incredibly important for the momentum of your game, but you really need those high quality thumbnails and screenshots to get the ball rolling. We can't rely on gameplay to do the talking anymore like Minecraft did. Those days are over for indies thanks to all the competition.
Anyway, I wish you guys only the best of luck and I highly suggest you hire an experienced artist or buy some premade assets for your next game. If you really want custom art, use placeholder art to secure funding with a publisher or Kickstarter, then hire an artist who has proven they can bring that level of quality to the table.
P.s. Sorry for the novel!
In the end, you're not wrong, this is very much "my first game" in regards to 2D games, and we went in with completely wrong expectations in terms of pixel art.
As for our next game, we got two 3D artists working on that now, so I personally think it's just best to shelf this one, go in hard on our next one. That one also goes back more to the management genre and programming approach which we're better at. We just have to learn and try not to make the same mistakes.
Thanks for leaving your lil' novella, and I'm happy that you like the channel! -M
@@bitemegames I think learning and moving on with that knowledge is success in itself. Not many indies can do that. Can't wait to see more about the next game!
How and where to find artists like thaat
I'm not an indie developer, only a developer, so I don't know the hurdles of indie marketing first-hand, but I think you guys really need some artists. Both games are lacking a lot graphically and there is no good "feel" because of lack of graphical polish. I know graphics isn't all, but no matter how good they are, because of the graphics they look amateur, I wouldn't click on them
Yup. Even compared to Factory Town which just screams programmer art its polished to a certain level, Forge Industry looks more like a 3 day game jam to be honest.
There are two approaches you can take here:
1) Make the game you want to make and not worry about the financial viability.
2) Make a game that is aimed at commercial success. That will require coming up with a lot of ideas, testing them early and often with the audience, then scrapping what isn't resonating with people.
You guys always seem really dedicated and I have no doubt you can make a commercially successful game if that's what you are aiming for, but you will need to "fail faster" as wise people once said.
This is the best advice!!
*Option 3:* Find the intersection of what you like and what the market wants, and build that. A Chinese mythology version of Hades would've been awesome, but:
A) it would've required stepping up their art, music, writing, UI/UX, and combat design skills, and of course, way more than 5-6mos.
And B) it would need to be on console, or better yet, mobile. Zukowski is right about Steam's tastes, but you don't have to only build for Steam.
@mandisaw I honestly agree 1000% but I think this is in the territory of the very rare developer that can follow their creative vision and compromise on commercial viability. That's an extraordinarily rare ability in business. It's easy to say the words and much harder to execute on.
What I am seeing from this team is a love a of a particular genre, but having trouble stepping outside it to add their own personality to it. Luck for them, that only takes a single step to cross that line. They are really close.
@@theebulll It's not so much rare, as it requires a lot of planning & research, and being honest with yourself about what you want, what you can do, what the market is, etc. Made my early games with very limited art & good UI b/c I knew my strength was in programming and UI design. Went for Android since that fit my target audience, skillset, and it had a low cost of entry.
For my game in production, I logged a good couple yrs on market research & competitor-analysis, putting out feelers in genre communities, defining the overlap betw my vision & what players expect & wish-for. Figured out what my goals were, what the budget range should be, and what skills I should buy vs build in tandem with development. We'll see if it pays off 😁
Following your heart is great, but your head needs to at least come along on the ride 😅
My very first project is a Sierra-style text parser-based adventure game done outside an engine environment. Not the least demanding idea for a debut, but comes with a bonus: I am genuinely excited by it, I keep thinking about the algorithm as I walk or exercise, and it just feels so awesome whenever I move this one step further and get to observe the results live.
Another Roguelite would have been far easier and most likely more profitable (not that I care that much), but I would absolutely never be able to get hooked up on it. The genre just feels so bland and boring, I'd never be able to enjoy making a game like this and everybody playing it would be able to smell it from a mile away.
I agree with what someone said. It feels like passion, interest, idea wasn't there for this specific game. You weren't breathing or dying to literally get idea out of yourself and that can easily show. You treat it more like a job, even if you are indie. You could see that pixel art lacks polish, fights are not exciting, progression isn't interesting either. You were looking for ideas and maybe even though this is a good one and had some interest in it but not enough to keep torch burning till the end. I would take your own advice, cut the scope tremendously and focus on polish. You can release short game but releasing bad game is detrimental. Unless you do that for free or at this low price entry, it was $3 no less or something like that by what you mentioned.
Anyway, good luck guys. Thanks for sharing everything with us, love your transparency. Hope that your next project will bring this excitement to you.
I appreciate your honesty. I think you guys are doing well, the problem is that your in it to make a living lol. That puts you at a disadvantage to many indie game devs who are in it to make something they love. This means they can produce games that don't perform but still feel successful because they made a good game.
That is something that I've learned as well, sure on the one hand you're competing with the greedy AAA studios that pump out shit games. On the other hand you're competing with people who work 5 years on a game and then release if for free/peanuts with hours of solid content. I guess that's why all gamedev YTers makes courses about gamedev instead of games. -M
@@bitemegamesDevs charging too little for their games is a great topic for a video. Zukowski had a couple charts on that a year or so back, but it's still true.
I appreciate the perspective. Videos like this are important because indie dev is so glamorized. People might not realize that making games is so hard and that failure is common. It's nice to hear your story because it's relatable and reminds me that making games is hard for everyone, not just me.
Standing out is really the key. With Roguelites being such a saturated genre, you have to REALLY stand out in terms of quality, uniqueness and potential to get a lot of attention. If you're kinda just doing what most others are doing, and what you're showing is not close to the top in terms of quality, it's basically going to get drowned. Even if there are hundreds of entries to choose from, if you're one of the very best then word-of-mouth will supercede that hurdle, but if you're just middling nobody will talk about you, as most people will generally only talk about one game that they saw that was really cool.
Second post. You said it yourself, SoE doesn't have many weapons, doesn't look great, and doesn't play well. This was also echoed by your testers. This likely means the core of your game needs to be reworked, and as you said, it's hard to say how much work that would actually take. Many indie devs spend 2-7 years to make their "hit" game. You guys need a profitable business fast and can't afford that risk.
However, you guys found semi-success in Forge Industry. Any profitable business finds a need, develops a product, and if it sells, keeps iterating on that until they stabilize. You found your marketable product in management sim games. They may not be the game you want to make, but if you keep working on what you can make work, you can expand your horizons in the future.
Look at Thomas Brush as an example. He made Coma, Penstripe, and then Eversong. Comma was his first hit and he kept iterating on that type of game. Now that he's financially secure and built up his brand, he can safely work on a new type of game and not be sunk if the game under performs.
One interesting thing I observed with Next Fest was the featured streaming slots did very little for wishlists. I have a similar wishlist trajectory as you did (big spike in first 2-3 days then falling off). My first featured stream had ~70 average viewers, but the second stream had ~1000 average viewers!! I thought there would be a wishlist spike after the second one but it was only 2 higher than the previous day... and continued falling down to zero in the following days.
Love your videos guys. As someone who has released a couple of mobile games and is working on his first Steam Game (2D top-down pixel art game....) one thing I have found is that if you iterate on what you know, the next iteration is always better. if you guys have built experience in sim/factory games, I think if you were to build on this the next game would be better, and you already have an audience that is baked in for that kind of game. Songs was a nice idea, but that niche theme is very very niche, nevermind it being 2D or a roguelite, and the audience you have developed probably does not care for it at all. Wishing you the best on the next project.
I really appreciate the openness and showing the struggles of being a game developer. I hope everything goes well for you guys! As an amateur game developer who just started making more seriously last year, I can say that it's not easy. These kinds of videos really help me a lot, keep them coming!
For your third game, if I were you I would take the time to make prototypes and test ideas until you have something fun that you like, and that you really want to work on. Genre popularity matters, but working on a genre you love and know well is even more so.
I agree. A good enough game despite the genre can basically, itself make it popular.
And let a lot of people play the prototype . Gamers, non-gamers, grandmas, kids. If 9 out of 10 think it's fun and has potential, go for it.
you guys are so real, wish you the best and love your content. Please keep up the transparency
I'm gonna say "shelve it". Keep it in your back pocket, and especially keep the feedback you received in mind as you work on other projects. Not the specific, but extract the general core of those suggestions because they often reveal deeper insight into what your players notice/value/like/hate beyond the specifics of this one game.
Maybe it's good idea to pause this game and focus 100% on Guild Architect. You can always comeback to finish it
As I mentioned in a previous video about Forge... I found the lack of a tutorial frustrating BUT the main reason I didn't buy it after trying it... was... as I mentioned... it lost my progress. As soon as the game lost my progress I didn't trust it. Why should I invest more time into a game that loses my progress? I know it was a demo, but, it deflated my fun I was having in the demo. I looked for an update to say "We found the bug and fixed it" but I didn't see that. It's been a few months now since I played it, I forget exactly what I did now, but, please make sure in the future your saves are more robust! Nothing kills fun more than losing progress.... I'm old... 54... I don't have time to fiddle in my older years.
Thank you for your youtube videos. I like to see how things are. I would love to see videos on how to bring graphics from the outside world, into the game and stick things on the screen. Last game I made was for the Commodore 64... last Utility I made was for DOS in 1998 for a family member.
I miss programming. :)
Hey guys, I love your channel, I am really really happy that I found you because you always have so much positive energy and this also gives me motivation :D
I will try to share my thought with you, about why I wouldn't buy your RL on steam if I'd randomly find it directly on steam without any context of super cool guys behind the project. It will be just a simple list telling more about what kind of player I am and how I see this project.
- I love roguelikes
- I am also a developer and from my perspective the easiest roguelike you can work on is crappy action-rl (easiest I mean technically), then a bit harder is crappy turn-based-rl, then muhc much harder is good roguelike (no matter action or turn-based, because if you are working on ultra good game, the genre doesn't really matter -> You are creating loop hero and then just earning milions.). And well...
- Unfortunately your game looks like crappy action-rl tier game (that's my feelings). And I see 4 main problems I have with the game that steam page showed me, here they are:
1. The game looks like mobile port, the circle below the character looks terrible and cheap.
2. Lighting in the game sucks, srsly, simple circle shapes are good when you just watched first tutorial in your life and you are going to start working on your first game ever. Pixel art is stylized graphic and you just didn't stylized the look of the lighting.
3. Developers have no idea about how big a single pixel on the screen is. You have all pixel scales in your game. There are elements which have 4x4 pixels, 3x3, 2x2 and 1x1. This thing just tells the player "We just get some assets from the internet and rescalled them as needed, we didn't do much work."
4. Scope. The game looks like it just has this one green biome with ultra low amount of content.
1-4. So summing that points: From player's perspective I see a cheap mobile port, not port of a game, but port of a technical demo. Devs didn't put much work into it, just used free solutions like free lighting asset for unity, and just bought some PA sprites. The game looks like everything is running on bought assets/systems/single unity components.
I'd say that's just a 2$ game that I wouldn't buy because it's a 2$ game. I watched other video where you tell that you put your demo too early and yeah, probably that's the problem too. From the game with a demo (or just one that want me to WL) I expect that the devs clearly will tell me how much content will be in final game. And your steam page is really bad written. You just wrote a few typical sentences from the internet A FEW TIMES xD if you press ctrl+F and write "HUNDREDS OF ITEMS" you will find 4 places where this sentece was used... BOY! I can see only a gif with 8 items... Also three places where "4+" is (its about the characters). Four places where "procedurally generated" is. I get it ok? It's a roguelike, also you don't need to tell me that the procedurally generated levels are "beautiful", pls.
- I don't like your capsule. It looks like the capsule is trying to market totally different game. Haha yeah I know that you bought it because Chris said you need a high res capsules and splashes even for every pixel art game but.. xD If just the first screen of the game would show me the character from the capsule in pixel art, and INTERIOR biome that I would match with the buildings from the capsule, and some RED trees (that are on the capsule), then yeah, it would have much more sense then.
Wish you luck guys! And I hope my msg isn't too salty, but you know, when hundreds of people just write you "Wow, amazing project!" you will feel like you are working on something really really good, but then if you fail... you will totally don't understand where the hit came from.
Have a nice day!
I wish hundreds of people wrote "wow amazing project"...
But no, your points are valid, as for the scope, that's the issue we talk about, the game doesn't have enough content yet to be worth it to release, but it also doesn't seem to be worth investing further into to bring the scope into something better. -M
@@bitemegames Well, the more I am looking at the gameplay the more I like the game. The game itself isn't a failure or smth, for now is just correct, like other 97% games on steam. If you really want to create an action-roguelike, you SHOULD invest mooore into this project, because the project itself isn't a problem, the problem is you didn't invest much enough yet. You have around 10-20% of what you should already have to release a demo (and I am just talking about the content here), and there is so much aspects you didn't touch... yet? I'd say YET, but here we go again, developers of that 97% of games doesn't dive hard into quality and polishing. You know, all such stuff like UI animations, Camera features (cutscene movement, shaking, zooming in/out), narreative, worldbuilding, cutscenes etc etc etc. For me personally it's really problematic when on trailer the game is trying to featuring... movement system, swinging weapon... you know, I saw 3 screenshoots I know that this is game having movement 8-dir top down movement system and combat. I want to be burst with amount of many other features I cannot notice on the screenshoots. It's stupid to say but if you'd spend another 2 years with this project, it would be an awesome awesome game :D But from the other side... if you start making new game and will want to release a demo after 6-12months of work... wouldn't the situation be the same? You will have a new game, but still this will probably be one of that 97% of steam games, that are not on polish level making them something more that 100k of other games around them.
I released my first game on nintendo switch (only on nintendo switch), I spent 1 year of work (in free time, I had normal full-time job back then) and earned less than 1k$. I figured out that I don't want to make small games. I started new project and it will be really big game for a single dev, but I gave myself 5 years to finish it. I am pretty sure it will be more profitable and also more enjoyable for me to work on something like that. I don't need to have a stupid gimmick to catch player' eyes because I already have much systems built around the game what makes it indie premium (or will make i hope :D) I don't know, making small games wasn't for me.
This is an exact demonstration of the sunk cost fallacy - it is human nature to not want to give up something that we have already invested time or money into. So good job shelving it. That being said you know what the game is missing now - something to make it really unique and fun and preferably also not another rouge light.
Put it on the shelf and maybe one day a brilliant idea might come along that could transform it into something new and amazing. In the startup world this is called the pivot and usually involves identifying a different customer demographic.
I've said it in some random video of yours a few months ago and I'll say it again here: You should work on forge industries more.
Not because it's good, but because it has a potential to be good and your improvements might drive sales up.
You making a game for 5 months and releasing only to repeat it again means that you'll always compete with a product that's just 5 months worth.
The real value is created when you stretch it to ten months, twenty months, etc.
Just look at the first iterations of Factorio...
If someone can make your game in a few months, they will. The more you invest, the harder it is to compete with you. There is really no value in making 10 bad games instead of one good.
yeah, I've said it on Long term financials of an indie "failure" video - try to push your daily sales up, don't act like they are failure.
Gonna be some though love:
Honestly I think the main issue is that the game has no selling point: It's a roguelike in a sea of roguelikes with gameplay that looks somewhat fun but not very different, the video showcases a very generic artstyle and a very common setting, as there are many, many games based on chinese mythology.
Speaking of Chinese Mythology, I feel like you guys severely underestimated just how many there are, there's lots and lots of chinese games that get released weekly with that theme, and quite frankly at this point most of them get played despite being in the wushu/medieval chinese/chinese mythology setting and not because of it.
You basically made a game in an oversaturated genre with an overused art style in an oversaturated setting, you guys kinda set yourself up for failure.
I actually liked this video much more than most gamedev videos because we can learn so much more from the failures. I love your approach to this. It's really honest and you're confronting these harsh realities in a very positive way. I can see the amount of work you've put in but you're also not irrationally attached to one game idea and you realise that if it doesn't fit your overall goals then it's best to pivot early. This video is really helpful to me and likely many other people too
It is always easy to look at a project like this and point out flaws. Many flaws are subjective like why is there a male in the capsule and a female in the trailer. This looks very inconsistent.
Also one big marketing reason to have a character on a capsule is to recognize a face because our brains love to see eyes and faces. The face is barely recognizable. Also the character in the capsule feels out of place maybe make him face the other way around.
When I watch the trailer it annoys me that there are so many low hanging fruits, which aren't picked. E.g. make the water tiles move, this is easily done with noise and a small shader.
You have those light pole thingys, make them emit a light. Don't make everything one brightness. Imagine the scene in the trailer where those 2 big fires next to the statue turn on. It is a moon light scene tinted a little blueish and then those big lights turn on emit light. Much more impact. The game lacks Juice everywhere. Honestly the graphic style is not that bad, IMHO the VFX and effects are not good.
Releasing a demo to next fest and you say yourself we made a rougelite and the combat sucks is insane to me. I think if you just had shapes circled, boxes and triangles with a vfx galore and a combat that feels awesome. It would perform better. You have to understand why a genre works and you have to love the genre. If you guys don't play rougelites don't make one. Or at least take a week and as a team play all rougelites out there and get a grasp what the genre is about.
I would be more than happy to talk with you guys about things like this. Feel free to get in touch. Keep your heads up. We all learn and fail and maybe my opinion is garbage, who knows xD.
Haven't played the game tbh. A failed next fest doesn't mean that you can't make a successful game, but I don't feel like your heart gets excited when you talk about the game. And that is concerning!
That's some awesome advice!
As a roguelike enjoyer, I have to disagree with you on the implication that the genre is a problem. You are right that many devs tried to make roguelikes, but there is still a staggering lack of good roguelikes out there. Looking at your game, it's hard to see what you were going for other than taking the combat system from stardew valley, making some slight changes and making that into a "roguelike". Instead I recommend looking at decent 2D roguelikes, where they focused on making a good gameplay experience with play sessions in mind. E.G. Risk of Rain 1: Split into 7 stages. Each stage requires you to find the teleporter to reach the next stage, and each teleporter is guarded by a boss and many monsters, requiring the teleporter to charge for a certain amount of time too, the final stage is guarded by the strongest boss, you must find tons of items and survive against many dangerous monsters to reach the end. 30-60 minutes gameplay session. The character classes are also well-designed and based on the different enemy types and items they can synergize with well. That's a well defined formula and pretty unique (at the time of them creating it). When I look at your game, I don't see a great roguelike formula on display.
I understand that you've shelved your game now, but if you ever return to it, I recommend you rework it after researching some decent roguelikes. With that and good marketing, I'm sure you can make a great game.
This video must have been hard to make, so I truly thank you for sharing this with us. 👍We learn much more from this kind of experience than from stories with survivor bias. Don't give up guys!🔥
Hey Darenn! good to see you here
Thanks mate! @@AbdurrahmanKhallouf
Guys, Thanks for the vid. Watching many of yours. Transparency is the main reason why I watch.
That said - I believe your main problem is, as I see it:
You are overlooking game design as a separate field of knowledge completely, therefore you seem to make more mistakes while prioritising workflow on the content of the game. For example in the video you talk about adding more tiles, while your enemies suck. In a game about killing enemies. You catch my drift?
It is vitally important that weapons feel good and USEFUL as well.
Also why Chineese mythology? I mean you don't even seem like a chineese culture enthusiasts, are you? I mean you might lack the energy within to stand out Lore-wise, and visually as well. Well, you fucked yourself there
I might be saying stuff you are painfully aware of (I've seen the pinned comment), but did you concider hiring a game-designer part time?
Big respect anyways! Looking forward for your next content. Much love!
Honestly, what this sounds like is a combination of what your team mentioned in terms of genre but also the importance of building a prototype that's fun to play and makes sense before committing. This way you can see what works before investing too much. Nonetheless thank you for sharing. It's super insightful
saw my game while you scrolling the roguelike section yay hahaha I got similar numbers on wishlists with the festival, the ruler for roguelikes got higher after Hades for sure, people expect some gorgeous stuff on screen. One thing I was discussing today with some friends is about U.I, it really has the power to make the game shine (or don't if it's bad). As indies, is kind of tough working on U.I. but it's surely something that players pay much attention, and also VFX, I suppose roguelikes are games for people that like lots of stuff popping on the screen LOL Thanks for sharing your experiences guys, it's surely a tough position but the humblety and commitment you guys have will grow into better results, really wish you guys the best!🙌🙌🤘
Love the honesty, and especially you being able to be so honest about this and have humor in tough times. The comment "We nailed neither" made me subscribe as an indie dev myself doing this part-time without monetary risk. I think there's also merit to having many projects in a similar genre. I had a project as well that I realized was just not fun, but because it was in a similar genre I was able to take many of the features I implemented there to the game I actually was happy with, so it didn't feel like a waste of time. Improving the combat may feel like a waste of time if the Player Controller is not something you will use in a future project.
Sticking to one genre also helps build your brand. SoE and Forge Industry have few players in common, so you couldn't really use the first game's success as leverage.
If you really want to experiment with other genres, release them under a separate banner, like how book publishers use imprints.
Really appreciate the perspective of this video. Sorry for your difficulties, I'm sure it can't be easy but sometimes scrapping a project is the best way to move forward. You both are clearly very passionate about statistics and numbers. Maybe there's a game in that somewhere?
I understand the feeling. Before my current project, I was working over a year on a 2d platformer and I thought I had something then I pitched my vertical slice to a bunch of publishers and realized my game sucked and turning it around would take too much time. I basically put that project on pause the the steam page still exists, I told myself if I have the resources and the market seems like a better time for a 2d platformer, then I'll come back around to it.
Your videos are very refreshing: authentic and not just showing success but failure too (failure is where we really get to learn stuff in my experience)!
If it was me I would just put the game into the failed projects folder and move on, I didn't hear you give one good reason *why* you should continue with it, even releasing it as a free-to-play game would take more effort that doesn't seem worth it right now (and "we already spent so much time/effort/money" is not a good reason to *do* anything). Also when describing your aims with the game it seems your main goal was to learn stuff, so I say: mission accomplished! Next project!
I'm thinking about Cult of the Lamb. That game started out as a girl scout troop with swords.
Same thing with Ape Out. They took a radical turn, tried new things, and followed the fun.
Your vids are always super-interesting, giving your honest thoughts about game dev, right down to sales/data.
My 2 cents (which you can completely ignore! ;) I'd probably park SoE, based on what you said. 2d pixel art is so hard, unless you perhaps go for a super-retro style (?). Currently it seems to be in the 'middle' a bit, neither modern nor retro. And I do think it needs something unique to stand out (mechanics and/or graphics). Level and enemy creation is a lot of work, if you feel the core gameplay isn't there. It does maybe lack something in the 'juice/feel' department too; quite slow paced, not many enemies or effects on screen.
That's not to say abandon it forever. I have a lot of prototypes on my drive... and one or two I can now see something new in, some change of direction that might totally transform it. Parking games for a while can help you spot things.
Your experience with next fest etc will pay off I'm sure. Put everything into the next project. I think making a game that *YOU* want to play is a key thing too. Yes, releasing in popular genres makes sense, but if you make something very close to games you like yourself I think that passion translates into the product. This helps motivate me with projects: *I* want to finish it and play it!
I think it might also be worth doing a v2.0 Forge Industries at some point (if you aren't planning it already), with some fancier graphics / lighting / Post proc, tweaked UI? Its already quiet an appealing looking game, but a minor upgrade would make it look even better.
all the best
👍
Palworld was basically that team's earlier game, Craftopia, that didn't do well. They incorporated some of the feedback, polished it, and improved their skills, and released a way better game 👍
Glad you guys are sharing everything. I think the roguelite genre isn't the problem, its a solid genre, you just need to make sure your game stands out in a meaningful way
It's a little hard to watch this and not try to send some encouraging words, which honestly I think would be misplaced here. This videos shows a lot of self-awareness and the ability to analyze the market. I think you are pretty much right on the mark.
I would arrive at the same major conclusion as you - genre. I'm somewhat biased since I don't like roguelikes, but I couldn't tell you how many times I have clicked on an awesome-looking store page only to see the word "Roguelike" somewhere in the description and immediately click off. And I've talked to others who are the same way. I think the desire to play a game over and over and over again is somewhat niche.
Not that factory games aren't niche, but though they have become a little bit FOTM since Factorio and Satisfactory, there still isn't a market glut like with roguelikes.
What to do with SoE? Certainly don't put much, or any, work into it. No good reason to put even more time and money into a sinking ship. Better to scrap it or shelve it to maybe revisit at a later date.
I am sorry to see you guys not doing great :(
I could say your next game seems more visually appealing though, I am interested in that one!
For the Songs of Everjade, I have couple of opinions, if I may,
• First of all, low density pixel art works for slow paced games, where as a fast paste games like Songs of Everjade, it's best to use high density pixel arts, not that it's important for this one, but for next next game maybe :)
• Second, if I were you, I would not publish Songs of Everjade as a game, especially not a free one. Instead, I would sell the parts as assets. I mean, you have a combat system that is fluent, you have boss fight system, you have a inventory and power up system, at least 3 asset packs lying here, and if you have the reselling license for the art that's 4 or 5 asset packs that you can sell. I know it wouldn't be desirable as selling the game, but this in my opinion, is the best way to salvage otherwise failing game.
You really can't take shortcuts with art and polish. Art direction doesn't need to be in relation to "every other smash hit roguelite", it needs to be consistent and stylized. You get some beautiful looking games by people who can't design more standard styles, but the direction is consistent; a bunch of wonky sprites by themselves look bad, but bring them all together and you got something fresh and exciting.
You guys are great. I appreciate these conversations for sure! Its just nice to see guys keeping it real. Wish you guys the best!!!
I think the main problem with Songs of Everjade is that it doesn't have any kind of hook.
To stand out from the endless other games out there you gotta have a visual/thematic/story/mechanic hook (can have more than one).
When you tell someone about your game there should be something cool that catches their ear immediately, otherwise you're just "some game" and not "that game".
I would even say that action games also need to have higher standard of visuals from other genres to stand out from the competition.
The hook was "Hades, but Chinese mythology". Very solid, but I'm not sure they understood it themselves. Needed a clearer vision & more time in the oven, but folks would wishlist just on the hopes that they could pull it off.
@@mandisaw
1. To be "like hades" you really need to nail the visuals, combat feel and maybe having a character driven story. Just being a rogulite doesn't make you "like hades" in that crowded genre.
2. I really don't think that's a solid enough hook, might work just for having Hades's production value but this game is far from it.
@@mandisaw I don't know about the general player population, but for me, Hades doesn't ring any bell and Chinese mythology rings the "get the heck out of here" bell.
@@fantasy9917 Everyone's different 😅 Hades was a massively popular, GotY for 2020, major cross-platform title. It's theme was Greek mythology. And Chinese/"Asian" mythology is a well that a lot of games drink deeply from, to good success. So it's not a crazy combo.
@@Chen_Ash For sure, they could not achieve anything close to Hades' prod values. My point is that "Hades but Chinese" tells players exactly what you're trying to achieve, which is essential for wishlists/mktg. And it helps provide a vision for the artists/team to coalesce around. They could have come up with other hooks from that central one.
Okay, so I watched your video. Im not a dev, im just a guy who plays a lot of games.
I think you ahve two conflicting ideas.
1) You want to make an interesting game on a setting you're interested in.
2) you want to churn content to make money.
I think you need to choose one of these and go with it. If what you want is to make money than just drop this title and make something in the wheel house that you know your fans enjoy. Jumping from builder to a completly different genre is a bit silly in my opinion because you not only kill off the base you had but you also let go of building on that experience.
If you wan to make something interesting:
Your pixel art is bad. I know you think it is good, but it is bad. Youre wrong that it could not succeed because it is a rouge lite. Gamers dont care that it is 'just another rouge lite' they will care if it looks cool and is fun to play. That's it.
WHen you played the first clip of the game I immediately knew why you were not getting much response. It looks like a quick rpg maker game. You are right that you are competing in a very artistic medium and that is why you MUST improve your pixel art game. A far eastern chinese setting WILL do well and i'd love to see something like this, but you are going to have to have passion and from my perspective as a consumer I see none. Hades, hollow knight, shovel knight, all the castlevania clones, they all did well because they communicated a passion. This does not have that which is why I think youre struggling with it.
Anyways, that is just my thought as a normal consumer. good luck to you guys!
I appreciate your honesty, that's truly inspirational.
It's also important to note that roguelikes/lites is a wide genre. I feel like the world doesn't need another action roguelike (dead cells for example) whereas bullet heaven/reverse bullet hell still feels hot.
I know a lot of people say you guys should just scrap it and move on, BUT...Id look at it like this instead: The time spent on the project is already spent/wasted, whenever you release it or not, that already happened. Think about it like this, What if this game was dropped in your lap by someone else that had built it, but for some reason couldn't finish. Sure, it might need some more work, but you basically got a "free" game handed to you, that you might be able to sell for like 5 dollars with a few weeks of work. Like you guys said, you still need to eat and pay rent. I would set up a plan to figure out the minimum amount of work to get this out of the door (no extra features, just bug fixes and the must haves) and allocate around 1-3 weeks to get that done, then move on as quickly as possible to something more viable.
Based on nothing but this video, I wonder if the problem doesn't lie in your elevator pitch. Your first game sounds to me like "fantasy Factorio", and I'm like "hey that could be cool".
While the new one you describe as "Asian rougelite", which doesn't really tell me much. Even though I enjoy stuff like Wuxia, "Amazing cultivation simulator" etc and I also play rougelites. So I kind of hit both niches and sounds like I should be your audience.
So for the next project perhaps it'd help to try to define the niche a bit more or use more storytelling (even for yourself) to define what the game is about. And what fantasy are you trying to sell.
Hope it helps a bit, and sorry if it's out of context, I saw one or two of your videos in the past, but I'm not all that familiar with what you guys do. But I do enjoy the honesty and the vibe you have here. Good luck!
Every "character" has to hit their lowest point before they can rise and be succesful in their journey/story. You are young, talented and ambitious! And most of all - you are brave! You are brave enough to start your own studio, brave to share so much of your story, brave to admit mistakes and brave to accept criticism. You are miles ahead of 99.999% of humanity!
Regarding the game - I'm more of a puzzle/point&click adventure kind of girl, so not really your target market. Regardless I think you summed up your lessons very well - the market for this genre is over-saturated and art style + mechanics can't compete to other popular titles. Take a break to get inspired, don't push yourselves too hard. You'll know what to do in the end.
And don't listen to comments that accuse you of being too money orientated. You are a business, that's what you are supposed to do. It's easy to criticize when they are envious or when they are too scared to do the steps on their own.
Since you asked what you should do. Here are some thoughts:
1) Fail fast and kill off your game (or shelve it). The dev from the conference talk you mentioned, focussed on match games he got really good at that one thing and found his niche. Having a portfolio of games that all look kind of meh and have nothing to do with each other won't lead to sucess because you won't be able to build up repeat customers or a fanbase and you won't be building on the knowledge you acquired on the previous game as efficiently. Have a thread of continuity whatever that is for you, it doesn't mean you can't genre hop but don't jump to different extremes and throw everything out from your last project to start from the bottom. If you want to experiment with different genres for inspiration, do some internal game jam style projects and have some fun with that.
2) You guys have a great postmortem and are obviously good at analysing things with hindsight, is there anything you can do to improve your research and planning before you go forward with a project in future? Thinking pixel art is easy shows you might have done poor research this time round. Pixel art is really hard to get right and this is not a secret. Better research and planning will save you a lot of pain and money. If research and planning is not a strong suit, then you definitely need to implement the fail fast and fail early strategy so you can use your excellent hindsight skills to great effect.
3) How many people play tested the game before you put it onto Next Fest? How much feedback are you getting from outside of your own team? It might not be enough. You probably need to get more so you can find out things like your weapons are slow and your combat sucks early. If you haven't seen the conference talk by the Slay the Spire devs, "'Slay the Spire': Metrics Driven Design and Balance", I highly recommend farming it for tips on how to get feedback and utilise feedback effectively. They were getting feedback before their game got past the placeholder art stage and iterated on it really quickly. If they'd have found out the game was not resonating with people they wouldn't have made the $$/time investment in better art.
4) Having only two weapons, especially in this genre, seems odd. What are the game mechanics that you thought would make this game enjoyable and make people want to play again and again? You need a hook. If you don't have one in your future games you will have the same problem.
5) It is concerning that you are saying it will take too long to change the combat or add enemies from a code point of view. Is your code modular and loosely coupled or is it closely coupled? You should be able to iterate quickly and be able to reuse code across projects. If your code isn't designed for this now, then invest time in making it so. If it's just because people have already moved onto your next project then the answer to your question, 'what should be done with this game?' seems to have been answered. You've moved on. Concentrate on the next thing fully.
The positives from this game are not really discussed. What do you guys like about the game? Can you reuse anything?
I am a huge fan of Roguelite games and would love to check out more but... it is just a saturated market. The only ones that I am going to have time for are ones that stand out above everything else. Songs of Everjade looks fine enough, but what makes it special? Does the team working behind it have any credits to why they are speaking on Chinese mythology? Or was there someone who worked on the game that provided history, that could be interesting.
Beyond that unique mechanics or modes that stand out would be a draw for me personally. I appreciate your video and it takes a lot to sit down and speak about this. Thanks!
A safe move would be to drop this project, and work on a "Forge Industries 2" version. So you can leverage the existing gamedesign, and revamp it visually and in terms of balancing. It should be quicker to finish than a completely new IP and gamedesign.
I think there is a lot of money to be made in horror. It's pretty easy to make horror games with stuff like Horror Engine, they're usually pretty short, so people don't really stay on the same game for months. You have people like me who buy literally every single new horror game that comes out, no matter how trash they are.
I you hate this game as much as it sounds like, nobody else is going to love it either. Either give it proper attention and make it the game that you actually wanted to make, or just move on.
Passion is a component, but not the whole picture. You can 100% dislike or be disappointed in what you created so far, and still be a great dev. It’s honestly more about skill and persistence than passion, to move a masterpiece to the finish line (lots of skill there). Being honest with yourself if the product isn’t up to par is the only way it can be molded into something far superior.
Hi
I do feel for you guys, really like your realism and honesty.
My opiniom would be ( probably one you already did )
List out all of the feedback
Then do a cost benefit analysis on each item
Then order them on that result
Then look at the time ( resources ) available at your disposal.
And then choose what you can insert that wil make it atleast a 1 - 5 dollar game.
Them release it.
I do not think you should write it off. As when you do that you loose but by actually just releasing it you atleast have the chance of making something. Even if it is more advice for the next project
I feel like you guys don't really like the game yourselves, so if the developers don't like the game, is it reasonable to think anyone would buy it if you do release it?
IDK what you should do, but here's a different idea, what has plenty of problems but would be a bit of a shot in the dark. Could you edit it quickly to release on mobile? It seems like a short game with not much content, but if you are referring to it as a roguelite then I'm assuming it has at least some variation and replayability . So if runs take just like 15 minutes then it probably has decent potential for a mobile audience. And from what I've seen the controls are pretty simple. Could fit a bit better and maybe have less competition as a mobile game than a steam game.
Good luck and I look forward to seeing what you guys end up doing
9:41 median play time for Songs of Everjade demo was 7 mins, forge industry was 12 mins if I remember correctly. Chris Zukowski said 25 mins or more is good for demo median play time (to get to that 7k wishlists and benefiting from streamers like Splattercatgaming playing your demo), something to keep in mind for your next game demo: Guild Architect 10:41 think about what your players want to do again and again for 25 mins, what gameplay actions bring the most satisfaction and reward? good luck and if you do decide to improve Songs of Everjade, please play Hades 3:13 as a case study and take notes on the combat, forget the flashy visuals, what is the feel and variety of the combat? PS. Thanks for posting your videos
I believe arnold Schwarzenegger has said somewhere and swears by it. make something great and then make sure everyone knows about it. meaning dont do anything half ass (art, gameplay, fun value, etc all has to be great. then go full out on marketing it. share it where gamers are, and spend on ads for the social channels that the gamers are. if you do these two things well, i dont think it matters what kind of game you make. pricing strategy is the only other thing i think that needs smart moves behind it.
edit: get a full time artist with a great portfolio as soon as youre able. dont under value the work they do, good art can sell your game for you, it cannot be half assed and the last thing is that good art takes time and refinement.
It’s great to see your channel growing! I wish you the best in your quest to make something fantastic, in the meantime I really like your videos 😊
First off I appreciate you showing everything about your development journey. You guys may need a better gameplan for the future. You've got the drive to work on things together which is great but I personally think you really need a hook for the audience because which neither of your games seem to have to me. I don't see why i would play your game over another if I were to be blunt. Be it in art direction, setting or gameplay. For your team I'd focus on two things, gameplay hook and art hook. If you do either one of these good enough you can just focus on just one of them but generally you want to do something with both to stand out. Like yeah dwarf fortress can hyperfocus on gameplay or gris can hyperfocus on art but that''s a lot to do well and generally you want balance.
Pixelart can definitely be a trap, animating pixel art is time consuming. The lower bit you go, the better. Titan souls for example is lower bit to make it easier to make assets by lowering detail while still looking really nice. They also do things like boss fights efficiently, like one boss just has these moving floating hands which you don't have to animate. Or using 3d models with pixelart textures to avoid animating tediously.
But honestly i'd recommend researching artstyles you can do efficiently and fast making it cheap while still looking good. 3d is good and efficient, you can fake pixelart with 3d like a short hike did.
You can make something lower poly but with cel shading and nice colors
Or something inspired by tunic which uses lighting and color lut's to make simpler models really feel so much better
If you can get a good gameplay hook going I think you really could go a lot further than your previous game did :) You guys have the drive, you just need to channel that energy into a game that can connect with players!
We're in a very similar situation.
My solution? 'Love Birds' will be free to play, I'm spending less time on updates, and we may release before 1.0 (Currently we're on 0.88).
I've been marketing it for over a year, and we've only gotten 518 wishlists.
I truly love our game, but it's already great and it isn't getting much traction. Plus our next game is a multiplayer fps, which will most likely do much better.
Don't feel guilty for acknowledging the role luck plays in our lives, sure we can nitpick but at the end of the day we're all gambling.
I had to go look it up, man you guys have a very unique style. It's sad to hear it didn't perform to expectations. Imo it's likely overly niched, survival, cardboard cut outs, birds/animals. All of those things likely work individually, stacked it's just to niche
I think this is actually a good experience. This way you don't waste money/time on something that won't work out in the end. So it is better to discover this as early as possible in the development. I think it makes sense to have some kind of user case studies (which is what a demo is) every other month or so. Just to make sure that the project is on track and will generate some money in the end.
I appreciate postmortems like this. I hadn't heard about the game, but I took a look at the Steam page and gave the demo a try. First of all, the main thing that sticks out to me is that the demo feels more like a hobby project than an actual game. In fact, if it were me, I would never have released it in this state. The UI feels a bit clunky and the interaction feedback is almost non-existent. The chat messages should be at the top of the screen, or at least the middle, not at the bottom. Also, I personally hate it when I'm walking around and I'm abrupt interrupted by some tutorial. I understand that you want to teach people the mechanics of the game, but there are more intuitive ways to do this. Or heck, its a rogue-like - let people figure it out by themselves. The controls aren't terrible, but also feel a little clunky. At one point, the directional wheel was locked to point up, and I was confused what was going on (bug?), and I thought the stride attack with the sword was strange in that i could attack in one direction but move in another. That seemed very atypical to me. Now looking at the art, its very vanilla, which isn't a problem in it of itself, but it lacks identity. If you showed me 30 other rogue-likes on steam, i bet you they would look artistically similar. Besides that though, the art needs more contrast. Everything is so blended in together. Add some outlines around entities that are interactive to make them pop out more. Overall, some vibrancy to the colors would do a lot for the art. Lastly, your game really needs a "hook", something to make it unique to others or at least something interesting that's going to get people excited. The genre alone will not do that for you. It has to be some sort of interesting gameplay mechanic(s). Without that, your game will never stand out. I personally don't think you guys need to shelve this game. What I think you need is to sit down and brainstorm some ideas about what the hook of your game is going to be. This may mean you have to prototype various things and see what sticks, but that is what you should focus on. I feel like if you just move on to making another game, you'll fall into the same trap. Anyways, just my 2 cents.
I feel bad for you guys and have been in similar situation before. The best thing you can do is shelve it, if the core mechanics aren’t fun then hold on to your pixel art and animations and in the future when you have more skills/knowledge/ideas you can use them in a new game, and take advantage of that head start. Good luck with the next one
Most indie games never turn a profit, if that was the metric for success than nobody would make games.
Treat it as a learning experience, be happy with the fact that you actually created something, go from there.
Also, it helps to realize when you can't make a living as a game dev... and to go find a sustainable job . The difference between choices made when you're doing something for fun/as a hobby versus to survive are significant. You'll need to make far fewer concessions if the primary goal is making something you love, instead of needing to pay your bills.
You could also argue that most indie games never turn a profit because most indie games are not good. There aren't many true hidden gems at all, I really can't even think of a single good game that has gone unplayed or didn't at least turn a profit.
Please keep going guys! I hope you guys will find the success you are searching for!
Hey guys, you just gotta work on that Fishing/Train game.
Man, that's a bummer, but I believe if you make something more personal, something that only you as a team can make, you'll do a lot better!
You have the talent and the heart in the right place, is just a matter on focusing on something that's true to you.
If you are planning to release it as a free-to-play game, then I recommend releasing it at (or slightly before) the release of your next game, link it to your real game, and consider it as a marketing vector.
Of course, you don't have to release it as a free-to-play game. You could port the code and assets to use as a minigame in your current project, where it wouldn't have to meet the standards of a fully-fledged game.
Alternatively, you could keep it in reserve until you want to cannibalize the code / assets / ideas for something else.
There are many ways to pivot / utilise your work, so you shouldn't feel like you have wasted effort.
For porting the game as a minigame there are a couple of ways to do it.
First way is like Celeste, where they included the pico8 version of their game inside the full release.
Second way is like Danganronpa V3. They have several barely functional minigames nestled inside a well made 'visual novel' - 'point and click' hybrid. They help introduce difficulty and increase engagement by providing a break from the passivity of the game's main genres.
Since your has a historical setting it should be possible to shoehorn into most settings as an in game analogue for reading about something historical.
On the latter subject of reusing assets, pixel art is very good for this, since it is much easier to modify than other forms of art. This should allow you to have a broader range of applications available.
I also made a chinese methedology action roguelike for a game jam a while ago, and was planning to make it into a full game. This video was really helpful to let me rethink what the art of my game should be, and potential marketing problems i might encounter. Thanks!
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thank you for this info! this means a lot to me, because I made a steam page for the first time and seeing what to expect is very important. In my opinion the genre is not really the problem, I don't really know how the algorithm works, but if the CTR would be better then maybe the visibility would be promoted, and for this it's important to have a good thumbnail maybe? Don't know, I'm really new with this, but the journey is really fun!
I am very glad to be part of your therapist team :) As an encouragment: I think your channel has the potential to shape a big chunk of the next generation of indie gamedevs! Thanks for sharing.
I will say what needs to be said.
Next fest showed you what the launch would look like. The conversion rate is not there.
It doesn't make sense to push it more imho unless you specify what exactly is the gameplay loop that differentiates it from the rest and what makes it unique and fun compared to all of the competition. I don't see the hook in this game and that is why I never felt passion for it. I thought it is maybe just me, now it seems like more ppl feel like that.
I still wish you guys great future and will be watching your videos, it is always interesting to see the same struggles I had on this indie journey.
Was there any coverage from TH-camrs/Streamers? Did you send out mails?
sorry to hear. even tho i personally love video games and have played literally thousands, as well as know the work and pain behind them, i still don't touch many more and frankly am very critical of ones that use age-old art techniques or fall short of either highly original mechanics or very visually-stunning gameplay. Look at Stardew Valley for example and how that took off. completely IMO, it took the solid Harvest Moon formula of "farm life sim" and expanded on it in every way, as well as reached out to people's fantasy for a sim life, AKA more indepth character personalities and dating. anyway, sorry for ranting but i'm taking my grand ol time making my game in my off work time (even with a family) because I feel like the pressure of full time, both timewise and trendwise, creates a far worse game and at that point, why make it at all? again, at least IMO, i know many people who make tabletop games cuz the act of making a game is fun, regardless of money or even quality, and i get that feeling. the world is harsh. as a wise woman once said, "i do not have a dream job, i do not dream of labor."
If basic gameplay isn't fun, variety won't help.
IMO, if you are to touch up the art, prioritize making the main poses and fx of the attacks very impressive.
Right now, it looks stiff. For a game that's supposed to be fast paced, you want dynamic poses and animations.
Art and animation affect how people perceive your controls.
Sloppy timing and messaging hurt.
But depending on your finances, you may be better off cutting your losses.
In my humble experience, for every game shipped, there is at least 1 shelved.
"Great, we nailed neither"
But you both nailed the 'bye' in the end and that's all I needed.
Good luck guys, with the next game, the trope of that looks promising.
Here are the questions I would ask you. Will your next game help feed the sales of your previous games? Does releasing a second game help show the range and talent your studio has? Can SOE help bring in any gamers for your third game? If the answers are all no, then I would shelve it for your next release. As long as the code is in a good place, you can always pick it up after your next release. Maybe you would want to alter the genre or game play or something. But if releasing this game isn’t going to help you in the future, I can’t see how it would make sense to pump more work into it that could be spent on your next game.
So a few recommendations I'd give. First is "kill your darlings," as in, it's okay to just quit. It's not like it's a wasted effort, you clearly learned a lot from the time you spent invested into the project, even if it doesn't end up as a finished project. Most importantly, you learned what you're *not* good at, which brings me to my second point -- stick to your strengths. While I don't believe you can be typecasted into a genre, your first game on Steam leads the expectation of your next -- so considering this game is a complete different direction than Forge Industries, that means you really can't bank on your existing audience to carry over, which means you have to lift more weight to get to where you need to go. That leads me to my last point -- you need to lead with passion. I'm not saying you aren't passionate, but to the last points you made in the video, if this was any other developer who was dedicated to realizing a roguelike game and telling the story of Chinese mythology, they'd extend deadlines and do the fine tuning that needs to work in order to make it happen. I'd estimate this would take months if not years to really get right and build the right audience. You don't have that luxury, given your small time window and scope, it just feels like it was just a by-the-numbers business decision, so you have to treat it that way, unfortunately, whereas a hobbyist can probably afford sinking in deeper and eventually turn around a very polished, bespoke product that people care about.
Not to destroy your spirits further, but TH-cam recommended me, on a whim, a devlog about a roguelike game ala Hades based in Chinese mythology. Granted, their channel is very small, but they likely have a localized install-base (Chinese speaking audience) and have a very strong artstyle (funny enough, it was literally all the recommendations I made in my last comment -- i.e. isometric, inkstyle sprites, etc). To further validate your thoughts here, the roguelike genre is so saturated that even the niche you thought you had is already being done by a different company across the globe and has no relation to your work.
If you make the decision to continue Songs of Everjade, you need to go all-in -- that is, really invest into putting this world, characters, art, etc. into this. But if you're just trying to allocate X months to develop Y product to make Z profit, stick to what you know and build off your existing strengths. I think you already know what the answer is, but just know that failing fast at this stage is preferrable from a business standpoint.
Also, just as a follow-up to that last point, usually large studios, despite being very technical and business oriented, hire artistic/creative people to direct things they're passionate about, which usually lends to warmer reception. That allows them to be project agnostic and supporting multiple games at a time while still being able to produce very bespoke products. This doesn't apply here, but the takeaway is that you can't rest on the laurels of technical skills alone to get you there -- at least not for a project like this.
I would guess that the 50th percentile indie dev doesn't even make minimum wage, despite having actual skills. Many make well less than that. It's a brutal industry. It's something to go for only if you are highly passionate or can tolerate the risk of failure. It is also extremely hit or miss, so you have to know when to move on if there is no chance of a hit.
Of course one advantage is that you always have the chance of high success, regardless of how many prior failures you have, especially if you continue to gain experience. Nobody will care about what happened before that if it happens.
Only about 10% of games released each day get into popular upcoming and those will often make
This is becoming my favorite indie game channel. Your honesty is so refreshing. We really need your voice in this scene!
Really appreciate this kind of honest introspective look into the game development business! The talk about genre is also something not many devs mention, but such an important decision when you want to make a commercial successful game. 🙌
I agree with your decision to shelve it! I guess just make sure your next game has trains in it? 😂
I think Nextfest is saving you a lot of grief and letting you know that the game doesn't stand out to consumers and its best to cut your losses, learn your lessons and pivot to a less saturated genre/style for the next project.
I wouldn't say Songs of Everjade isn't a bad game, but it is an average one. The gameplay looks fun enough, but nothing super mindblowing. I'd say the art is decent as well, but it is pretty conventional. There isn't really an element to get hooked onto, especially like you said with how many roguelikes there is out there.
the amount of honesty and transparency that comes through in these videos is really incredible
As an aspiring solo indie who hasn't even started yet, this feels like a flash forward to what might happen to me.
I can't fully relate to your struggles yet, but I do feel for the "doing what you like but also earn money for a living" bit near the end.
I still think this is insightful for me, thanks.
Im the developer of artificial life 2061, I have polished years a game that was too simple (only saved by a great narrative) and kind of succeeded, but I won't recommend it.
Just release that game, it looks passable, some people will like it, and then you can start the next with full force as soon as possible.
Steam prize developers with many games get more buyer confidence so this game will be supporting your next games, that is the best value that can give you at this point.
Is not to be sad, a huge achievement is to launch, and will be there for people who like it, they sooner or later will find it, also don't gift it, keep a reasonable price, so the game will be recovering the investment slowly but forever.
Seems that you are great programmers and not so great artist so use that, make a very simple graphics game but with a great technical core, those small machine simulators by example. Or a mini metro that should be in your ballpark.
Focus in your strengths, avoid your weakness, only like that you will be reaching a wow level.
What I just thought about, would it not be better as a small indi gamestudio to stick to a game genre? Improving in every new game release on mechanic, ideas and graphics, AND riding on the coat-tails of the last game, and leveraging the created fan of the last game. abit like "the spiderweb software" did. (GDC talk "Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way")