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Nihilo
A throwback to the 90s Post Apocalyptic/Cyberpunk era. Nihilo follows protagonist Estes and his party as they journey to uncover the truth behind The Calamity.
A throwback to the 90s Post Apocalyptic/Cyberpunk era. Nihilo follows protagonist Estes and his party as they journey to uncover the truth behind The Calamity.
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Writing the End of the Game
Good! Though, I suppose I should also try to finish Soul Sunder alongside it, just to have more context and see how well they connect et al. (I played it on the hard mode up to about the time you get bombs in the lava dungeon, then hit a bug in that version. I've got a new machine now (one reason I have been reviewing more MV games recently), so I suppose I might as well redownload it.
Writing the End of the Game
Oh wow, things have surely moved on since I last looked at this game. Now that I am officially back to reviewing, I wonder if there's a point in looking at the current final demo? (I still remember The Tenth Line review situation, and while I am confident it won't repeat itself, Corfaisus did make a valid point back then that it was unrealistic to expect a game in the end stages of development to change.)
Getting To The Next Level: Is Patreon a good idea to consider moving forward?
Well, I don't really know much about Patreon, but I'm guessing it's unlikely to backfire (Unlike Kickstarter, where failures do generate stigma.), but won't be a game-changer either. I just checked out JoSe's Patreon again and it's at 46$/month, while unity's is at 28$/month so something within that range after a few months' time is realistic. Whether or not that's worth the effort is entirely up to you.
The Kickstarter route, however, is something I believe you are right to have reservations about. As far as games in our engine go, I think the only successful Kickstarter was for OMORI, and while it was a pretty great success as far as fundraising goes, it could hardly be any more different to your game stylistically. Under its trailers, people already wage fandom wars between it and Undertale, which, let's be honest, is never going to happen here. Other, more applicable examples are OMNIS: The Erias Line (game's demo was showered with praise here, and for good reason, yet the Kickstarter for the full, Unity-made game was disastrous, both due to failure to build up connections with media outside of RMN, and the nihilistic tone of the pitch - probably the surest poison to one's prospects there, given the fate of this other, once enormously promising project.) and Shadows of Adam (technically custom engine, though no-one could tell the difference), which succeeded after a tense campaign that gave its creators a lot of grey hair, built enough connections with game media to ensure it had Youtube playthroughs + Metacritic score right out of the gate...all for a launch that, I think it's fair to say, we all wished would be better..
Point is, the entire kind of 90's style JRPG is niche. The most high-profile effort to fill it, by Squenix-published I Am Setsuna, hasn't gone over that well and was considered a failure by them. This is actually good news for you, because that unfortunate game at least made mainstream reviewers pay attention to this style of game for the first time in years. Like it or not, Chrono Trigger is old and far from most people's reference frames, while most people are happy enough with the current real-time Tales of.. and Final Fantasies. Game journalists are no different to their colleagues in other fields, in that they do not deal in completed, concrete products (that's our job) but in growing, self-perpetuating meta-narratives. Simply showing your game as is at whatever stage of development you consider presentable and/or invoking 20+ y.o games entire generation has not played is unfortunately liable to get you filed into "another quirky game from a no-name dev on that outdated engine that weirdly refuses to die" meta-narrative in the minds of most journos, and consequently in the "not worth writing about, won't make waves anyway" category.
To be fair, most indie games fall into that category by now, and statistically, we are not really doing worse then, say, Visual Novels or Adventure Game Studio point-n-clicks. In both cases, breaking out of that requires a clear hook that'll allow for creation of a new meta-narrative. Playing on contrast with Setsuna, targeting those 26% of its Steam owners who were sufficiently disappointed by it to leave a negative review, to position yourself as the Astroneer to its No Man's Sky without ever saying that out loud - I believe this is ultimately the best pathway to success, and which will enable both a successful fundraising campaign (whether Indiegogo, Kickstarter or even Fig) , and above all, good sales at the end of the line. Of course, that also requires playing it (assuming you haven't already) and knowing where it went wrong, both in your own opinion and according to those dissatisfied by it, so that you can signal strength in those same areas from the start.
In all, this is my take on the matter. You may disagree, but I hope it was at least worth reading.
P.S. And I agree with others, stay away from Early Access. I don't think I can recall a single linear, plot-driven game that entered it and lived to tell a happy tale. (I think Yesterday Origins fared decently, but it was 80%+ finished since it only spent there 2-3 months, and thus neither here nor there.)
The Kickstarter route, however, is something I believe you are right to have reservations about. As far as games in our engine go, I think the only successful Kickstarter was for OMORI, and while it was a pretty great success as far as fundraising goes, it could hardly be any more different to your game stylistically. Under its trailers, people already wage fandom wars between it and Undertale, which, let's be honest, is never going to happen here. Other, more applicable examples are OMNIS: The Erias Line (game's demo was showered with praise here, and for good reason, yet the Kickstarter for the full, Unity-made game was disastrous, both due to failure to build up connections with media outside of RMN, and the nihilistic tone of the pitch - probably the surest poison to one's prospects there, given the fate of this other, once enormously promising project.) and Shadows of Adam (technically custom engine, though no-one could tell the difference), which succeeded after a tense campaign that gave its creators a lot of grey hair, built enough connections with game media to ensure it had Youtube playthroughs + Metacritic score right out of the gate...all for a launch that, I think it's fair to say, we all wished would be better..
Point is, the entire kind of 90's style JRPG is niche. The most high-profile effort to fill it, by Squenix-published I Am Setsuna, hasn't gone over that well and was considered a failure by them. This is actually good news for you, because that unfortunate game at least made mainstream reviewers pay attention to this style of game for the first time in years. Like it or not, Chrono Trigger is old and far from most people's reference frames, while most people are happy enough with the current real-time Tales of.. and Final Fantasies. Game journalists are no different to their colleagues in other fields, in that they do not deal in completed, concrete products (that's our job) but in growing, self-perpetuating meta-narratives. Simply showing your game as is at whatever stage of development you consider presentable and/or invoking 20+ y.o games entire generation has not played is unfortunately liable to get you filed into "another quirky game from a no-name dev on that outdated engine that weirdly refuses to die" meta-narrative in the minds of most journos, and consequently in the "not worth writing about, won't make waves anyway" category.
To be fair, most indie games fall into that category by now, and statistically, we are not really doing worse then, say, Visual Novels or Adventure Game Studio point-n-clicks. In both cases, breaking out of that requires a clear hook that'll allow for creation of a new meta-narrative. Playing on contrast with Setsuna, targeting those 26% of its Steam owners who were sufficiently disappointed by it to leave a negative review, to position yourself as the Astroneer to its No Man's Sky without ever saying that out loud - I believe this is ultimately the best pathway to success, and which will enable both a successful fundraising campaign (whether Indiegogo, Kickstarter or even Fig) , and above all, good sales at the end of the line. Of course, that also requires playing it (assuming you haven't already) and knowing where it went wrong, both in your own opinion and according to those dissatisfied by it, so that you can signal strength in those same areas from the start.
In all, this is my take on the matter. You may disagree, but I hope it was at least worth reading.
P.S. And I agree with others, stay away from Early Access. I don't think I can recall a single linear, plot-driven game that entered it and lived to tell a happy tale. (I think Yesterday Origins fared decently, but it was 80%+ finished since it only spent there 2-3 months, and thus neither here nor there.)
Anti-gameplay
author=kumada
I've played one game (Gods Will Be Watching) that took the "the player should know it was mostly just luck that they won" and ran with it as far as the idea would go. Unfortunately, it was memorable mostly for how it took an awesome concept ("what horrible things would you be willing to do to the few in order to save the many") and made it feel grindy and boring by taking accountability for the player's success or failure away from the player and giving it to the RNG.
Hey, Gods Will Be Watching had some truly awesome OST, too!
To the point I decided I might as well just not play the game itself.
And as for the blog post itself, I'm reserving judgement until I play the demo (might wait until its next version, even) but like others, I have some reservations about the idea.
In Memoriam
Tumbling Apart has been greenlit! Thank you so much for the support!
FEAR & HUNGER - TEASER DEMO + INTERVIEW
Wouldn't it be more convenient for everyone if you were to do this through SurveyMonkey or something?
Devlog #1: Moving forward. Standing still.
Have you heard of VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action? If not, I think you might find it quite helpful, since it really nails the whole "bartering as a way to connect with people... and getting dragged into their personal storylines" part, as evidenced by its sales and near-perfect userscore.
Element Properties in Enemy Attack Skill Names?
Element Properties in Enemy Attack Skill Names?
author=Feldschlacht IVauthor=LockeZGood thoughts, and those things are precisely what I'm trying to avoid.
When the player spends most of the game upgrading their armor to objectively better versions in each town, without ever having different elemental options until maybe the last few dungeons, there's really nothing they can do to prepare for enemy different types of attacks anyway. If they learn Protect and Shell at the same time, with the same character, they can probably just cast both of them instead of having to pick one.
If all of the above are true, there's almost no point in enemy attacks having different types in the first place; all it does is provide a little variety in which characters survive and which die. If that variety is all you're going for, which is true in Final Fantasy games for example, then it doesn't really matter whether the player can figure it out or not.
This is kind of what I was getting at earlier: I agree with everyone about the text + icon design solution thing, but it interests me less then the overall balance of elements. In my experience,at least, games that have strong elemental systems often end up clearly biased, with some elements cropping up far more then others, and thus being the priority to protect from/counter against. I'm interested in how you plan the elemental distribution to go, so to speak.
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