I noticed a curious thing, there is about the same amount (or even more) free/indie roguelikes than strategies. While roguelikes are a niche of a niche, definitely much smaller than strategies (because there are commercial strategies while there are no commercial roguelikes). So, the reguelikes to strategies ratio is not related to genre popularity...

I'll take this opportunity to pimp some promising strategy games from the devlogs:

Good idea. It's hard to find these on your own. I would even make a separate topic with list of all strategies (and all strategy like games since the definition differs ) on this forum.

Whoa! You included every single possible monetarization scheme

Freemium is NOT like demo at all. If you think even for a split second that freemium is like demo, don't attempt to make freemium, you will fail.

You have an obsession over pirates. Make a game worth pirating first, that's the real goal for an indie, not fighting pirates. You want to make a game that will be so tasty that it will be pirated a lot (and purchased a lot). Also, DRM is "passe" in indie products. No one does it anymore.

I will join the "cut down features" bandwagon too.
People frequently think that the point of cutting down features is to get more time to focus on important features instead. That's not fully true. You should cut down weak features (and I don't mean bad, just weak) even if you have all the time in the world. Each feature/mechanic adds complexity, confusion, distraction. So, each feature in its core is *bad*. So, the feature needs to offset it by providing additional fun (or other important value, not all features are for the purpose of fun, althrough most should). If the additional fun provided by the feature is lower than the complexity it causes it is a bad feature and should be removed.
Also, there is a cummulative cost of features, for example if there are 100 different features then the 101 will be negative to the game, even if it provides enormous amount of fun, simply the amount of features would cause player's brain overload after certain thereshold and they would be unable to play it even if it was an enormously fun game.

Set the game in like 1970, cold war times. This way you still keep it realistic but avoid most of the controversy. Plus, that persiod was way more interesting in terms in espionage
As for future setting, that's definitely a bad idea for this type of game. Usually if you play such games you want to be emerged in the "real thing". If you set it in future it will be fantasy (in such case you would better redo it into MenInBlack).

What multiplatform has to do with price? Why would anyone want to pay more to get the game for more than one platform? Why a Linux user would want, even for free, a Windows version?

I always though multiplatform only affects the number of potential consumers, not how much they are ready to pay...

D20 is the most popular one (free licence).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D20_System

And GURPS tries to minimize calculations and rolls, whereas I think with computer games, you could do a lot better.

Yes, that's unavoidable, all pen&paper system implementations will be inferior since these weren't designed with unlimited computing power in mind.

I checked release dates, if I were a hard die fan of 4x I would buy: Sword of the Stars in 2006, Sins of a Solar Empire in 2008, Civilization V in 2010. That's 1 game per TWO YEARS This market definitely is not flooded by AAA titles and there is a lot of room for indie games.

Plus, strategy gamers are very friendly to playing more than one game of the genre. For example if you are a fan of racing games and you find one you like you play it and probably not want to play others (because the sluggish controls, worse graphics, etc). On the other hand fans of strategies are eager to play inferior strategies and more than one strategy, because the fun comes from nuances of balance, different theme or basicly slightly different something, anything that will let you learn the game again and struggle to beat it again and the fun of discovering your optimum moves again. Strategy gamer is almost impossible to be overfeed (all these FreeCiv, FreeCol, FreeOrion which are basicly slightly different and clearly inferior clones of already existing games, someone make these, someone play these).

and each sub-genre is dominated by few really great AAA titles.

Such as?

Here is the full list of games released in recent years of several subgenres:
- empire builder - Civilization 5; end of list.
- non turn based 4x space - Sins of the Solar Empire; end of list.
- turn based 4x space - NA.

Also, here is the awesome graphics of an example AAA title
http://www.freegameempire.com/Img/Cache/Games/Space-Empires-Starfury/Screenshot-1.jpg
(this game was made by one guy, he released 5 sequels, sold in retail (I have a boxed version) not digital, translated to several languages )

I don't know about the niche thing, but the competition from AAA titles is irrelevant. Any fan of strategy games can easily afford to buy all AAA titles he wish and still he will have money left for more.

I recently finished this turn based strategy game.

http://rydia.net/udder/prog/strattech/index.html

Do you have any impressions how well strategies sell yet? Especially in comparison to other games you made previously (if you made any).

If you wanna build a good RTS you need

I would exclude RTS from the consideration completely, first you would need to compete with Blizzard which is not a smart move, second these are indeed hard to make. Or to put it shorter, I perfectly understand why there are so few indie made RTSes What I wonder is why there are so few non RTS strategies which are much easier to make and have basicly no competition from AAA titles.

No, unfortunatelly, I have no pre existing inspiration, made it all up. Also I don't recall any game that would have similar layout



As for text I think the thick white with black outline is the best. I think I should make the central background darker (so white text with black outline on darkish but not black background). What you think?

Any other ideas? This one is a layout I made up quickly, I'm not attached to it.

The game is a tycoon about game development (so "computerish" feel is desired). I need a comment on colours of the interface (even general one like make it darker/lighter would do). The most important one is the lightest gray area where text is being displayed (not sure what the colour of the text should be) and the bottom "status bar" where money and time and end turn button is displayed. The yellow ones on the second image are clickable buttons, these are used for various things on various pages.

I mostly need any feedback and ideas on the colours used (but if you have a good idea on shapes post too, ignore the small "pictures" these are placeholders). I need colour scheme that is readable and looks decent.

I frequently make strategies and while I agree balancing is more time consuming than in other game types it is nowhere near very time consuming. Compared to coding and art assets balancing is still very low time consuming. Also it is trivial and strightforward; play the game, check what options you used the most, make the cost of these options higher, repeat. It will take a few days at most (and the "work" consists mostly of playing your game and changing one number here and one there which is hardly exchausting).
But maybe it is the perception that balance is hard and time consuming is stopping devs from making these games? That might be true I guess...

I took me 15 years to finish my first computer game

W-w-what did you make?

Nothing I have not completed a single computer game in the first 15 years (fortunatelly, I finished during that time several boardgames which kept me from going insane ).

And what is the point of worldwide release but financial reward?

Games are meant to be played. If it is not played it is not a game. Period.

So, where does the motivation for making games come from? Games themselves.

Players. The game is irrelevant and has no value in itself. It is the enjoyment the player gets (OK, and money too for some people in some cases ). That's all it counts, that's what making games is about. If you are making a game in the sake of making a game it is simply an art and has nothing to do with making games.

This game begs for Colonization/Civilization movement style. In turn based games there is no need nor point for a delay in movement, I mean, it is not arcade so it does not affect anything and simply makes the player "waste time". Click and the unit moves to the destination in less than 1 second is the way to go.
Generally, I noticed you have a problem deciding what kind of time mechanic to use, "turn based" and "shows a progress bar while the character rests" does not fit. Eventually you will have to choose one and go all the way.

Resting.
Option 2 is the worst. For now I would ignore it and do other things first (resting is mostly balance thing, it's easiest and best to do when all core mechanics are in place already).

The key question, is your game to be about:
- exploration (you explore the new world to discover riches and take them back home)
- settlement (you build a permanent settlement in order to live in the new land)
Depending on this all features should be adjusted. For example if this is to be exploration then the land mass should be bigger, you start with one settlement on the coast and them make a network of settlements (like 10 tiles away of each other) in order to reach distand areas and explore (settlements provide supply and resting for explorers). If this is settlement game you build mostly in one place and try to make a production chain (the gameplay would gravitate naturally towards Sid Meyer's Colonization in such case).

I wanted to build a castle. I saw Minecraft videos, these proved I could build a castle if I buy it, so I bought it. The Terreria videos does not prove I can build a castle (at most it could be 2D castle which is not 3D because it can't convey all dimensions of my blueprints), so I have not bought it.
And that's it. It's all about me wanting to build a castle, not graphics, marketing, etc. The marketing merely made me aware of that game, nothing more, it didn't trigger me to buy it. It was my desire to build a castle which did it. It's all about my precious castle, all

I don't know the actual numbers and don't know how it relates to indie realities but: Settlers got 7 sequels, Civilization 5 + at least 5 expansions, 2 clones (Call to Power) and 1 offspring (Alpha Centauri). If these didn't sell they would not make them one after another... It does not look like a niche of a niche to me...

You will have to keep iterating until you get to the point when you feel it's ready for release.

I used to think this way too. I took me 15 years to finish my first computer game Feel free to test yourself if what I say is true

The difficult action for a lot of people is actually pulling out the credit card and typing in all the numbers...

No one enters CC numbers nowadays, everyone uses PayPal (I have been running MMOs for many years and I never got any request to enable direct payment via CC, PayPal+AlertPay+MoneyBookers combo gives you full worldwide coverage). Of course it might be that downloadable games players have different habits, but personally I doubt.

But as for "hassle to grab their wallet" I think it might be true.


This whole "pay what you want" has 2 problems to me:
- You pay before you play the game. So how can you evaluate how much the game is worth? What if you would want to pay more? Since you don't know how good the game will be you pay the minimum, then you play it, it's great but you already paid so you can't change your mind and even if you had the chance you probably would be too lazy to do so (grabbing the wallet TWICE syndrome).
- I though the pay what you want would remove the upper limit of how much you can pay (rich who are excited can play more than the standard price). But it seems there are basicly no people who payed above $20... So, it would make sense only if the default price (and cost of making the game) was very low.

Ehm... I feel a big disconnection here, what do you mean by obligatory multiplayer? There are few strategies that have really decent multiplayer and many have none at all. Where exactly have you seen multiplayer (excluding RTS)? Civilization which took 4 sequels to reach simultaneous turns? Tropico where you simply can't play vs other players? Creeper World? Sim City? City in Motion (that's a brand new game from Paradox! They definitely know how to make strategies. Not even a slightest trace of even the most primitive HotSeat)?

Archibald, sounds you just made up rules to follow. Kind of like a dichomy(however you write that).

I don't recall making up and posting any rule (yet) The two scenarios I posted are the extremes, your strategy usually falls somewhere between these two.

The majority of players or gamers(not fellow indie devs), don't really bother to search for games. They just get the games they somehow hear about in the biggest media and press channels.
Most indie games don't reach those major media and press channels.

So what? You can't reach the major media and press channels, you can't reach the majority of players. Why worry about majority then? Majority is irrelevant for an indie. Don't cater to audience you can't reach in the first place.
(and that one can be considered a rule I made up to follow )