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[Eigen]

Recently I've been thinking more and more about what I'm doing and why. That is, putting endless hours into programming, drawing, composing and other things to make a game. I don't have much social life, so spending time on the computer after work is the best thing I could do.

On one hand I love it. I like making games, it's been my lifelong dream ever since I was a kid and looked into game files with Norton Commander thinking how on earth did anyone write this. On the other hand, why bother if nobody plays the game anyway. My latest game has been up nearly a month and after promoting the game in many forums, Facebook and other places it's only gotten 59 downloads so far. That's ... nothing. The game is free.
The forum topics have gotten a total of thousands of views but nearly no replies.

"Why is this?" I think to myself. I know it's not the most interesting game in the world but there should be plenty of players out there for this genre (puzzle). Have I simply not found them? I also sent the game to several review/game-hosting sites but haven't heard back from these. Probably because the game looks simple and not much eye candy and they can't be bothered. Here I was thinking I'd keep the visuals simple and functional instead of cluttering things with unnecessary details. Do I have to add flashy graphics and effects where-ever possible just to get people to download it? I mean, really?

All this makes me think it's not been worth it. Yes, I'm happy about the fact I completed something but that does not last long. What counts is the feeling you get from players playing and enjoying your creation (doing guesswork here).

I'm currently in the process of porting the game for iOS/Android, which is quite far along but I'm not sure I'm going to complete it. I'm not sure about spending the 99$ on the developer account to sell it on the App Store. I'm not lacking motivation, it's just the lack of result after releasing the game I'm worrying about.

Has this ever happened to you and if it has, how do/did you cope with something this demotivational? I don't want to give up on my dreams so easily ...

Forget it, consider it a worthwhile lesson and move on making new games?

Sorry for the topic, I'm a little bummed and it's raining outside.

[keo]

no motivation is like the seasons, you are always going to take some no matter at what point in life you think you are. if you are always being swayed by what you are feeling it's most likely you won't get anywhere, you just have to work through it.  If not just take a break from it and come back.  Deciding whether something isn't for you just on one bad or less than desired experience is a little silly.  You also don't hear about all the games developers worked on before that one title that finally made them known, not to say that everyone who works damn hard will get known.  To me if you're working on something you genuinely enjoy then it doesn't matter what kind of reception it receives, and if you finish all the more self-respect, you have something to be proud of, taking what you learned from that experience you can work on a more ambitious project.  if anything you're building a portfolio of work that can be shown off.

also same questions going on here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=24661.0

[Paul Eres]

think of it this way: 59 downloads is about what you can expect. take a look at yoyo games game list, it has a listing of tens of thousands of games that were made in game maker. you know how many of those games have less than 100 plays? over 50% of them -- that's tens of thousands of games. many of the games that have very few plays have months of work put into them

i used to make ohrrpgce games; typically my games would have download numbers in the low hundreds. a game that me and a friend worked on for years, and was popular in the community (got in first on the top 30 list of ohrrpgce games several times) had about 700 downloads. it was by far my most-downloaded game, and i had been making games for ten years at the time

so basically, i'm not sure what to say other than that your expectancies are too high. 59 people is still 59 people. that's more than can fit in a room comfortably at once. that's bigger than most university class rosters. that's bigger than a soccer team. be proud of those 59, and try to increase it next time

but no, i would not try to sell that game on iphone, judging it from those screenshots. at least not without a massive graphics overhaul

[Eigen]

Thank you, that's what I was hoping to hear. I guess you're right, I was expecting too much and I should be proud of what I have. And I am, really. It's just when I see games like Draw Something sell like crazy on the App Store I feel sad. Not jealous but sad. I'm not saying the developers didn't put effort into it but it's a craze and definitely nothing memorable. It has no value and yet it makes millions.

Back to the drawing board then, literally.

[Paul Eres]

i've never heard of "draw something" but i just looked it up; it seems like mario paint? it's not too surprising that it'd be successful

at least half of a game's popularity is marketing, too. but marketing is a lot easier when a game looks interesting to play

[randomnine]

Draw Something is basically Pictionary. It gives people an excuse to draw, to socialise, and it's incredibly easy to pick up; any five year old can finger paint. It encourages people to do something creative and share it without worrying that it's crap, and that's huge for most people (who don't consider themselves "creative" and are scared of looking like failures). It has serious immediate value outside of itself as a game.

There's no point in being bitter! Getting attention for your work is hard, for sure; there are a lot of games out there and it's a hit-driven industry (with something like 1% of the games getting 90% of the attention). It's something that will come more easily with every project you do as your games get better and you get a handle on what makes people go "whoa", so you've just got to keep trying.

Speaking of eye candy... making your game look nice may feel like a distraction but it's sending a quality signal to people through screenshots, telling people it's been well executed in at least one area so is likely to be well executed in others. It doesn't have to have cheap flashy effects and so on... it just needs to look interesting, different and well-made. There are enough games out there that you probably only have the game title and one screenshot to make an impression, so you need to make it count.

If this project's sapping your energy and you don't really feel like it's going anywhere I'd suggest dropping it and taking a break from development until you feel inspired to start on something new. Once you're feeling inspired again take a hard look at this game, figure out what you could do better and outdo yourself in every single way on the next one. You've already got this far - build on this experience and your work will just keep getting better

[Pedrosanchau]

The fact is: What are you searchign by making videogames?

If you're searching recognition in the eyes of other people, i don't think it's the better (even if as it was said 59 people is good).

I think it is useful to think of what we do sometimes: Why do i do it? Is the benifit really interesting?

For example, i play guitar but not for anyone, just for the pleasure to improve. Result: even a lot of effort worth something for my "soul". I'm happy whatever the result or the training.

So, to sum up. Is it just a loss of motivation? in that case, it is totally normal.

Or do you really know what you are seeking and what you need to fill this void?

[PompiPompi]

Well, it's a learnning process.
I made a game called "Labyrinthica: The Quest of Lima". I worked on it for 2 years, and sold it. So I made about 300$ for something I worked on for 2 years(and didn't get the money yet because I need to fill some taxes forms).
Apart from bad coding practices, Labyrinthica was not polished enough. That means the visuals were awkward, and the interface was awkward.
So yes, polish and visuals matter a lot, it's rare for a game to have such a brilliant gameplay so that people can not care about visuals.
Think of games you played, visuals add a lot, without visuals it's mostly abstract forms. As much as visuals seem unimportant to you, visuals play an important part of the game. Not only to look pretty, not only functional, but good visuals can enhance whatever you are doing. If it's to shoot zombies, or slash dragons, or to push crates, visuals matter.
Apart from that, polish matters too. That mostly means you know when you need to redo something because you know it's quality is not good enough.
With Labyrinthica I always thought "Oh, this is just my style, I just do what feels right to me, why people focus on visuals? Gameplay is more important!".

I am currently working on Sumerian Blood, and I am still not sure this game will pay off financially. Or even pay off more than a ridiculous small amount of money. But I do know this game is a lot more polished than Labyrinthica, and I do know it has more chances.

So, you never know when your game is going to be successful or not, but you always learn, and at some point(hopefully) you will hit it.

[Udderdude]

You should judge your own games by your own metrics of success.  Appeal to popularity is a logical fallicy, after all .. :p

I have tried your games and they're well designed and pretty fun.  Could use better art, but what couldn't?

[Irock]

You need to realize that graphics and polish are important. The fact is, people prefer when games look better. Looking at your box pushing game, the problem with the graphics isn't that they're simple; I've seen plenty of games that have simple graphics that I like. The problem is that, well, they don't look all that great.

Flashy effects fall into the realm of polish. Polish makes actions in the game feel more satisfying. Instead of making an enemy just disappear when it dies, you make it explode. Just a few days ago, I made a GUI element simply slide in from the top of the screen. It was okay, but to make it more satisfying, instead of instantly stopping it in position, I made it bounce up and down as if a rubber band were attached to it. It didn't improve the gameplay from a technical perspective, but it made the menu feel so much more satisfying. Little things like that add up.

Indie games are becoming more impressive every day, so you have to do what you can to make yours seem great enough to capture players. There's nothing wrong with putting effort into things that aren't gameplay. If you don't, you're just screwing yourself over.

[JOBA]

Srsly dud, you expect people to actually download and play this?
You should be happy that even 59 people downloaded this.

Thanks to the internets, people have become pretty good at dismissing and filtering content.
It took me exactly two seconds to dismiss your game - 1. sokoban, 2. generic, tab-closed.

There's shit-ton of content fighting over peoples time so you better make sure it stands out.

[Derek]

It's not just the graphics, but the stories and overall themes of your games. I actually find them to be kind of humorous (in a very deadpan sort of way), but I wouldn't have taken the time to look if not for your post. To say it's subtle is an understatement.

It might be worth collaborating with a friend on the stories and characters for your friends. Ideally, someone who's not also an engineer and can look at it from a different perspective.

And personally, I wouldn't worry about selling anything at all until you have a bit of an audience with freeware. Trying to randomly make it big in the mobile market won't get you anywhere, imo.

If you enjoy game-making, there's no need to give it up. You're doing the right thing by asking people how you can improve... and you will if you keep thinking about it like a problem to solve.

[Paul Eres]

yeah, i agree with derek. i find it odd that so many people just jump right in to thinking they can make commercial games with their first or second game. it takes a lot longer than that to learn game development. it happens occasionally but it's not common. build up a fan base and some name recognition with freeware first, that's how most successful indies did it

i've recommended this to people before, but don't try to get into commercial games unless you can make a freeware game that gets about 50,000 downloads. the reason for this has to do with conversion rates; typically 1% of people who download a game's demo will buy it. so with 50,000 downloads you can expect 500 sales, which is about the point that it's worth the extra time it takes to sell a game rather than just to give it away for free. i went into commercial games after i made a freeware game that had 45,000 downloads (a game maker game called alphasix)

also: think of downloads as a measure of your marketing skill and your name recognition / fame, not a measure of your game development skill. because it's much more closely tied to the former than the latter. notch could make the worst game ever (not that he would) and it'd get over a million downloads. someone unknown could make the best game ever and it might only get a few hundred downloads (example of that: glum buster)

[Jackson31]

... Here I was thinking I'd keep the visuals simple and functional instead of cluttering things with unnecessary details. Do I have to add flashy graphics and effects where-ever possible just to get people to download it? I mean, really?

After having a look at your games I think the reason they aren't getting the attention you want is pretty clear,

I don't want to say "yes, you need fancy graphics to sell a game" because that's an overly simplified way of looking at the issue

Think about this, what can a potential player see, touch, feel, smell, hear that will make them think "I will play this game now instead of 1000 others out there"

In your case you seem to have promoted the game purely through text and screenshots (images).
Therefore, for you, the only thing that can possibly attract a potential player is your visuals, and in this context, they do need to look good or otherwise interesting in order to draw a player in.

For this reason I'm a big fan of video promos for games, Think about the example of Fez for a second, if all people had seen was screen-shots, it wouldn't matter that they may have read about the 'world-turning' mechanic that the game uses, people wouldn't see it and wouldn't care.
However through the Fez trailer people can see this novel mechanic in action and strait away can say to themselves "I want to experience this game, because it does something that 1000 other games don't do"

The more I've meditated on the 'business of gaming' the more important I've found it to ask the questions "Why would anyone choose to play this? What makes it worth it/original/different/fun/whatever?"

Once you find what that thing is, and learn how to show it to your audience properly, people should gravitate to your product

Good luck on future products and remember that mistakes are the way we learn what not to do

[Paul Eres]

i think a big issue is that "first games" -- games by complete beginners -- have a certain "look". the OP's games definitely have that look. it's not so much that the graphics are *bad*, it's more that they scream "beginner"

more examples of that look (from a random search on google for "game maker"):











these games tend to have certain characteristics

1. highly saturated clashing colors
2. the level is on a single screen
3. tiles are all of uniform size, with no "transitions" between the tiles, leading to a checkerboard look, the tiles may not even repeat correctly between tiles of the same type
4. they look like they used the spraypaint tool
5. they use primitive shapes like circles or rectangles as game objects
6. lack of variety in the sprites (for instance, using the same sprite for the player as for enemies, just coloring them differently)
7. the sprites often have very few frames of animation (perhaps only one or two frames per direction)
8. the backgrounds are often stock textures, often of clouds (my games are guilty of this, though -- look at immortal defense's backgrounds sometime)