mid_gen's Launch a Game Studio Thread

[throwaway4372]

On demos - quite a few times recently I've played a demo and feel like I've played enough of the game, got my weekend of entertainment out of it, and feel like there's no point buying it now. I feel a bad for the dev who's work I got for free, but ultimately I don't buy the game, I feel like they made a mistake by releasing a demo. If the game is priced fairly, and honestly represented on the store page, and not bad enough to warrant a refund, then the player will buy it, get their weekend of fun out of it, feel fine about that, and the dev has been paid.

In some cases, the demo has been released far in advance of launch, and even if I intended to buy the game, by the time the game launched it has changed a lot or I've moved on to other things and lost interest - so if you are set on releasing a demo, your idea of releasing it at launch time at least helps with these issues.

 

[TNA]

Yeah I agree. Would not do a demo.

 

[mid_gen]

On demos - quite a few times recently I've played a demo and feel like I've played enough of the game, got my weekend of entertainment out of it, and feel like there's no point buying it now. I feel a bad for the dev who's work I got for free, but ultimately I don't buy the game, I feel like they made a mistake by releasing a demo. If the game is priced fairly, and honestly represented on the store page, and not bad enough to warrant a refund, then the player will buy it, get their weekend of fun out of it, feel fine about that, and the dev has been paid.

In some cases, the demo has been released far in advance of launch, and even if I intended to buy the game, by the time the game launched it has changed a lot or I've moved on to other things and lost interest - so if you are set on releasing a demo, your idea of releasing it at launch time at least helps with these issues.

Yeah I agree. Would not do a demo.

I find the idea of demos a little daft when Steam has such a generous refund policy.

Game is really coming together now I’m just trying to tighten up the combat loop UX.

Some of the stuff I’ve slaved over the last month has really come good, when an enemy beam weapon rakes across the ship and carves a big gouge out of the armour, it glows and leaks gas and sparks….looks awesome. Really leaning into that vibe of your trusty ship wearing its battle scars. You need to rebuild up the armour with repair drones. The different components of the ship are connected with conduit (reactor -> weapons etc) which can be severed if exposed by armour being ablated away. Got a few little bits to add there.

Today though first job is writing up contract to engage the concept artist to add some character art for the different factions you can speak to.

 

[loftie]

Cool looking game so far, well done! Think I saw this thread when you first made it then completely forgot about it. While not really alike, the space combat had me thinking about Sword of the Stars and Birth of the Federation.

 

[mid_gen]

Cool looking game so far, well done! Think I saw this thread when you first made it then completely forgot about it. While not really alike, the space combat had me thinking about Sword of the Stars and Birth of the Federation.

Cheers!

Although the macro structure of the game is somewhat based on the classic roguelite tropes (choose your path, upgrades, branching dialog etc) and loosely inspipred by FTL, the main combat loop itself is purely based on an idea I've had knocking around in my head for years. It does make it kinda hard to describe in an elevator pitch, but I'm happy it's something novel and interesting.

Fundamentally, I'm making something that I want to play, and I'm hoping there are enough middle-aged sci-fi nerds like me who are into the same thing to make it a success

Today I'm prototyping mirror fields (yes, inspired by Ian M Banks), making defensive field projectors that can reflect beam weapons. Should be fun. Really pushing on the 'wow' features to get a trailer together before the end of the year.

 

[loftie]

Sounds like a good plan tbh. Your passion for it will show through if you enjoy what you're making, and I believe you'll end up with a better game as a result. Whether others will like it is a different story, but that can be the case even if you aim for something 'mainstream'.

I've only ever read a couple of IMBs books, so I'm unfamiliar with mirror fields. Do they act like a projection in front of the ship or is it a bit like Star Trek shields going around it?