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[PompiPompi]

I am thinking of working on a new game.
I always thought the approach of "creating a community" and "creating buzz" while you develope the game is a good approach. But I am not so sure, especially for certain kin dof games.
I wish to know what you think of developing a game "in secrecy". I mean, just develope it and don't post any screenshot or anything in a public website or gamers' website.
The issue with publishing your work before it is done, is that it takes a while to complete your game. And after the initial enthusiation, the fans usually forget about your game and arn't as excited as they were a year ago when you showed the concept and first screenshots. I would think. I never had many people excited about my games in anyway.
Also, the game I wish to work on is going to be super fun(a clone of a classic game), but isn't going to have tons of art work or tons of stuff to show.
So, do you think I should develope this in private? Or should I always show what I am doing?

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I intend to sell this game.

[Nix]

Well, definitely develop a bit in private until you have something to show. Don't put up screenshots of a rotating rectangle or a Hello World or anything like that. Just posting an idea won't hurt anything, but you're unlikely to garner any interest. Once you have something cool to show, different people have different philosophies. I'm collaborating on a project called Solar Reboot. I like to just share everything every step of the way, from brainstorming to doodles of level designs to code snippets and line counts and videos of in-progress, buggy, editors. The artist (my collaborator), on the other hand, prefers to release carefully curated snapshots of our progress to avoid giving the impression that 75% of what we do is shit. So he just likes to show the 25% that isn't.

On my personal project, Iron Town, I'm just sharing everything I'm doing because it's fun. The important thing to realize is that we're all indie, not AAA, so general interest is created not by pumping resources into marketing, but by doing something that people think looks fun. Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, Overgrowth, etc. have all been very transparent about their development and have found pretty large success. I don't believe that's necessarily because they did a great job marketing (though Overgrowth, arguably, has), but simply because their games looked like a lot of fun.

A counter-example is SpaceChem. Not a lot of people knew anything about it until it appeared one day on Steam, yet it grew very popular very quickly because it was just plain fun.

tl;dr: do what you want. If you have fun sharing what you're doing as you develop, do it. If you're embarrassed by in-progess stuff or just don't want to keep up with updates and development, then don't.

I've only released one game though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

[ANtY]

I think there are many ways to develop games. Wolfire's guys show everything they do, some ppl don't show anything before release, some show something once a month or even more rare.

[PompiPompi]

My thought is, that it also depends on the type of game.
A game like Minecraft that has on going development. Sort of "games that are never finished".
Big ambitious games with a lot of content and a lot of stuff to show can benefit from this.
However, some games are more... restrained?
My fear of releasing stuff about my game is that it will lose it's impact when actually released. Because new things are more exciting.
I wasn't able to make many people interested in my games while developing them, so I much rather take this approach instead. Also, if I choose to abort the project, I am not going to dissappoint anyone.
It feels to be a lot better for me to develope THIS SPECIFIC GAME this way.

I guess the next question is... how do you make your game successful with this approach of instant release?

[Nix]

Make sure it's a good game and make sure people know about it when it's released

[ANtY]

It'll be hard for u to get covered by press when your game isn't recognizable, etc.


Also when I work on a project alone I like to public each step of its development, but when I work with team I don't public each screenshot, etc.

[bateleur]

I agree completely with Nix's last comment, but would also add: Make sure it's easy to buy.

People's purchasing decisions are often slightly impulsive (even when they're good decisions). Put even a tiny obstacle in the way of purchase and you'll lose a lot of sales. (This is why Amazon's "one click" thing is such a big deal.)

[PompiPompi]

Hmm, the only issue might be lack of testers. :/
I have a few, but it always feels like there are never enough testers.