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[I_smell]

I DON'T KNOW WHICH FORUM THIS GOES IN, BUT FEEDBACK IS WHAT I WANT SO I HERE IT IS.

Everyone wants to make a commercial game at some point.
I've bin making Flash games for about 3 years and I've got no complaints: It's easy, they distribute themselves, and I'm fuckin trippin duckets bro.
iPhone
Now- I'm hearing alot about this Apple iPhone. The SDK's free, there's like a billion apps right now, people buy shit on it like crazy, and Flash developers are taking a shot 1 2 3. So I'm sitting here thinkin why not?
Robot Dinosaurs
At about that time, my last game got featured on Bytejacker, and then JayisGames.com, Destructoid, The Escapist, and then a guy made a painting of it. I'm not showin off or anything, but if I could choose one game to try n sell, this'd be it. Also it plays with one button.
If I turned this one level one boss into three levels three bosses more enemies more powerups actual good graphics, then that could really work.
It's not a totally flawless plan
I don't know OpenGL, or any big boy code for that matter, and I don't own a Mac. Is it worth learning it and buying one for a project like this? An alternative would be to go to a studio like Alcomi who port Flash games to iPhone. They gave me a quote of 2-3 weeks and $4000. That's still a considerable investment. The original Flash game sold for $4000. If I spent that on development, would I ever make it back? I don't know. Should I even care about money? I'm in College with £6000 so I could deal with spending some of it.
So I think I've got three options:
I buy a Mac and learn the necessary scripting language (I'm very slow by the way) and smash this out myself
I make a new and upgraded Flash version, send it off to this studio along with $4000 and actually release an actual game on an actual platform for people to actually buy
Or drop this project because it's a stupid idea and finish this Flash game I've been making since about Septembe 2008

Should I attempt a commercial game or am I just crazy?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

That dino game is pretty great. I died on the first boss though. It's not perfectly polished, but it's fun and you've a good sense of gameplay, which is all you need. Commercial games are the same, except they need a bit more polish.

Anyway, seems like you're acting like this is some huge life-changing decision -- it's really not. Just make a commercial game and see what happens. If it helps you feel better, go to some big portal like Big Fish Games and look at all the terrible games that sell well. Anyone looking at those has to think "I can do better than that."

[JoeHonkie]

Seriously, what's the worst that can happen?  If it doesn't do well, you'll learn some lessons out of it, and it if does do well... :D

WARNING: AMOUNT OF MONEY EARNED MAY NOT BE IN LAUGHING YOURSELF TO THE BANK TERRITORY.

[moi]

That dino game is pretty great. I died on the first boss though.

Ahahahahaha I didn't die on the first boss.
That's the only boss BTW, there's only one level in the game

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

ah, thought it was longer. yes, commercial games probably need to be a bit longer than that game if that was all there is to it. but he probably knew that.

anyway, will try the game again now. can't let moi beat the game and not me.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

now the earth is safe for 10 jillion years

[thomasmahler]

I would buy something like Robot Dinosaurs that shoot beams when they roar on XBLA

[Eclipse]

I DON'T KNOW WHICH FORUM THIS GOES IN, BUT FEEDBACK IS WHAT I WANT SO I HERE IT IS.
[...]
Should I attempt a commercial game or am I just crazy?

it's only me or ALL THE URL in the message are broken?


edit: yes, they are


EDIT: played the game and it's DINO-TASTIC :DDD  and YES you should try to make a full lenght shooter! (but maybe not on the iphone)

[I_smell]

Oh yeah, they were. Well all forums work differently so that happened.

I don't think XBLA is as much of a viable idea, because people have to buy points to buy games, so there's no instinctive purchases. Also everything has to be within a certain price, and most people expect alot more from a game on there. Ontop of that, is has to be certified by Microsoft.
Publishing on the iPhone seems to be alot more possible.

[JoeHonkie]

Oh yeah, they were. Well all forums work differently so that happened.

I don't think XBLA is as much of a viable idea, because people have to buy points to buy games, so there's no instinctive purchases. Also everything has to be within a certain price, and most people expect alot more from a game on there. Ontop of that, is has to be certified by Microsoft.
Publishing on the iPhone seems to be alot more possible.

Even if your game doesn't work right it will be in the top 10% of iPhone games!

[Greg Game Man]

drop this its a stupid idea! finish your flash game

[medieval]

It's fairly easy to earn money off of a Flash game, I think. cactus' xWUNG, Benzido's QWOP and ChevyRay's SkullPogo got quite some money just by putting ads in their game. I heard cactus even earned over $1000 (Then again that could be my failure to remember things properly, BUT ANYWAY you can make good money off of ads)

[skaldicpoet9]

 

Something awesome just happened.

That game is friggin' great.

I would have to agree with the Michael and Greg: flesh out Robot Dinosaurs and try to generate some ad revenue. This game would be blog material for sure and then you'll get a crap-load of hits. People love Dinosaurs man, especially Dinosaurs that shoot lasers when they roar.

btw do you remember the Terrible Thunder Lizards on EEK! The Cat? :D

[I_smell]

It's fairly easy to earn money off of a Flash game, I think. cactus' xWUNG, Benzido's QWOP and ChevyRay's SkullPogo got quite some money just by putting ads in their game. I heard cactus even earned over $1000 (Then again that could be my failure to remember things properly, BUT ANYWAY you can make good money off of ads)

Did I not mention I made $4000 on Robot Dinosaurs? It says it right there on the page.
I'm not doing this for the money, I'm doing it cos it'll be a cool achievement. I'm just nervous about investing in it, because a) My games usually cost nothing to make, and b) I usually drop them a week after starting them.

[JasonPickering]

i would stick with flash.

but i have a question. so this game was featured on several websites, earned you $4000 and has an awesome painting made of it. How is it not a commercial game? I guess my question is what would you need to do to consider it a commercial game?

[I_smell]

I don't know, I thought the difference was whether or not you have to buy it.

The opinions seem to have balanced out again now.

[Eclipse]

I guess my question is what would you need to do to consider it a commercial game?

Not use flash.

[thomasmahler]

Not use flash.

I'm still new to this whole indie thing, but I think that's sorta true. The only flash games I ever bought was the stuff from the Samorost guys. And I only bought that because I thought the art direction for Samorost was incredibly beautiful.

Usually, there are a bunch of pretty shitty limitations when a game is based on flash. The last game that I thought was pretty cool but was lacking thanks to flash was Nevermore 3. Is there no way to create proper loading / saving using flash? Don't give me password systems or let me re-run through a game for 30 minutes if I can't complete it in one run - cause I won't do that. Ever.

Flash seems to be a pretty awesome platform for games now, but most of the time when they're being deployed to the user through websites or whatever, you get to play them in a tiny window without any option to use your controller or change the controls, save / load and stuff - They're not convenient and I guess that's one of the bigger reasons why people won't buy that stuff. At least that's my reason if the game doesn't have something instead that it excels at (like the art direction in Samorost).

[William Broom]

I'm 99% sure that you can do loading and saving in flash.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

you can, there are plenty of games that do it. it's supposedly harder and more tricky though, you have to use cookies rather than normal files, but it can be done.