A bit of backgroundSo I wrote the original
shooter and it turned out to be quite a bit of fun, surprisingly, but it never really crossed my mind to make it into an actual thing. It was really fast-paced right to the point kind of game. You entered the game and were immediately in midst of action. That's a
good thing.
Last fall I participated in a local game jam cranking out the demo of TBMRTS game. It felt and looked a lot better than the crude prototype but as it turned out, the real-time strategy isn't fast paced game genre enough for this. You spent most of the time on your own trying to select the barracks to train some units and the text-input controls were tedious more than anything. Reaching another player to engage in combat was a rare occasion and most of the players never got there. Learning that was a
good thing.
These two
datapoints lead me to believe I should take the best of these two games and make something out of it. So I'm taking the hectic right-in-your-face gameplay of the shooter with improved visuals and a bit more gameplay depth of the RTS and hoping for the best.
I opted for Greenlight to see what the general reception would be and, of course, for the prospect of Steam. I wish it were, but it simply can't be a free-to-play game because of the cost of the server upkeep which is something I can't promise to be able to pay out of my own pocket for any longer period of time. There are certainly other commercial platforms out there should the GL campaign fail but we'll see about those if it happens. Most likely I'll get back to Pioneers (which is still my first love). I wholeheartedly believe in free games and making stuff just because you enjoy it but ... there's a limit to everything. If I have to choose between paying rent and running the game server I'll choose the former.
Dang it, too much whining.