Thread 3826755

Hi there:
For the past 6 months I've been developing an early prototype for attracting some talent to a passion project in which I'm willing to go all in with my life savings (I can afford to lose them without much worry).
It's a top-down dungeon crawler roguelike, turn based, but with real care for the aesthetical aspects and a very (I hope, it is to me) intricate story, mature, complex, with deep character development and many mechanics mostly known to the lovers of the subgenre.
Around 5 months ago I managed to pitch a cool idea and a working microprototype to a very talented coder who has been working on the project full time (remaking everything from scratch) for the past month now.
A couple of weeks ago I finished my search for main tileset artist, and managed to get the services of a nice guy who himself manages a small indie pixel art studio.
Things are looking good so far, but I've no doubt many big challenges and problems wait in the future.
Anyway, besides venting a bit, I wanted to ask people who perhaps have been in a similar position how to cope with all this.
I've interviewed around 200 people in the past 4 weeks, reviewed around that amount of portfolios just digging itchio and what not. I've created the website, the social accounts (I don't even know how to use them), the Discord server, prepared for both fans and workers. I've managed to be kind of on track for a real prototype, and maybe a vertical slice by the end of the year, but I haven't even put in place any licensing document for the assets yet, still waiting approval on the Steam page, trying to find an affordable music composer (current rate is around 400 per minute, and prolly more with dynamic music( just to name a few.
Anyway, if anyone cares to pitch in, I'd really appreciate it. Also open to answer questions about the project or anything really, I've so much stuff in my head I can't even imagine sleeping or watching a movie.

I'm so over my head, but I don't lack the passion, and I don't mind not sleeping. I'm just worried of long term sustainability, and the myriad of complexities to get this done and have people playing it, since I think they would love it.
This is our current early style for the time being. We already have all the ground and water tiles, with borders and corners for autotiling, since most of the game is procedurally generated. Pixel art is freaking expensive, which is a huge concern.
Can't wait to plug them in.

The game is made in Godot btw.
Is not super fancy, but I think it should work for what we are trying to do. It's surprisingly powerful.

One point that particularly worries me is the balancing. I've been told it will come mostly from beta testing, but, in my head, I need some sort of mathematician. We have a large number or variables and possibilities, I can't even imagine how it gets done correctly. Maybeitdoesn't...

>>3826755 (OP)
Uh so you have anything playable?

Otherwise you hiring people sounds kinda sus

>>3826793
Well, we do, but is still fairly early, we are implementing new systems every day at this point.
Recently, autopathing, inventory, gear slots, and the derived stats, which the game relies upon a lot.

>>3826755 (OP)
>top-down dungeon crawler roguelike
Thx, bye

>>3826789
>mathematician
They are scarce and expensive. What you need is a game designer (can be a mathematician, too) or try to get an econometrist. They shouldn't be as hard to find.
>>3826798
You posted 2 years too early here.

>>3826806
Appreciate the tip, will certainly start there, thanks!

>>3826755 (OP)
>real care for the aesthetical aspects
my brother in christ
you are using ai generated art coupled with the most fucking basic top down sprites in the game world

don't take it too harsh but...
judging by your post and your questions you are better of donating the money to some charity, or maybe even just burn it in your backyard

>>3826815
OK
that sounded a bit too harsh, so I'm going to say what I honestly think
- you are going to loose the money and no one is going to play your game in the unlikely case of it actually being finished at all
- if you are fine with the former and just want to create something for shits and giggles, go for it
[I just deleted text here because fuck it]

also maybe creating [and maybe even publishing] a D&D campaign will cover your creative needs in terms of aesthetics and story

>>3826815
>>3826821
That's ok bro, I get what you are trying to say, and really appreciate the tips.
I just used AI when I had nothing so I could pitch the project and get talent, but I understand the hate towards it.
Your post really gave me a lot to think about, so thanks for that anon

>>3826755 (OP)
Released my first game earlier this year. You remind me of me when I was first starting out on it, so I'm gonna give a couple pointers. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, I'm just one guy.
First of all, it's good that you seem to be making a conscious effort not to bite off more than you can chew and getting the help you feel you need, but make sure you can bring something to the table yourself, preferably something that fills a niche of which you'd otherwise have to spend a non-negligible amount of time looking for someone who can do it decently. This excludes character/story writing unless you're incredibly confident you can do it better than 99 percent of the modern industry, which admittedly is not hard.
Second of all, make doubly sure you can pay your helpers consistently, otherwise you're unlikely to retain support unless you're reasonably talented at the aforementioned thing.
Thirdly, you are putting the cart before the horse trying to cultivate a community before you have so much as a tangible playable prototype. Every aspiring young creator believes, whether consciously or not, that his or her idea is inherently interesting enough to warrant discussion. Unless you already have an established fanbase, that is not going to happen. You need to have, at bare minimum, something tangible to show people. Ideally you want to have a trailer which looks good enough that it could fool a naive onlooker into thinking the game might be nearly done. This isn't as hard as it sounds, but that doesn't mean it's easy.
Fourth, deadlines are a balancing act. Calculate how long you think your game is going to take to finish. Now multiply that amount of time by two. Chances are it's gonna take even longer. With this in mind, setting an internal deadline is a good motivator to get shit done. Whatever you do, do NOT set a public deadline until you know for damn certain that you can meet it with time to spare. I learned this the hard way.
continuing in next post

>>3827962
Fifth point: look after yourself. You mentioned mental health in your subject field, and I cannot overstate how paramount it is to seeing your project through, especially if you're like the me of half a decade ago which, judging by your post, it seems like you very much are. I might just be projecting, but you don't strike me as someone who has your shit figured out all that well.
Finally, like >>3826821 said, ask yourself: "does this really need to be a video game?" If you just want to write a story, a graphic novel or TTRPG might be a better idea.

>>3826815
>>3826803
>brother in christ
>top-down dungeon crawler roguelike
>Thx, bye
I for one welcome OP. Roguelike is the best genre and despite what others think, the market is not saturated at all. This is probably best for another thread, but consider that Caves of Qud, arguably the best roguelike to this day, is very high on the podium compared to whatever is beneath it. Despite this, I maintain that CoQ could have been way better if the developers hadn't smoked grass and ate magic mushrooms when they conceived the world. Sorry, but the quirkiness of CoQ is what prevents it from achieving GOAT status. If someone came around and brough us a different CoQ, that person isn't wasting his time.

Going to second everything everyone else said in this thread, especially the get a proper game designer - most of the shitters on agdg have never made things beyond tech demos

>>3827962
This terrific advice, ty so much for taking the time to put it down in text. Most of these things thes ethings we deal with have clearly logical solutions, I guess is the stacking of all the tiny things that makes us doing dumb stuff. I've seen marketing is something people criticize a lot postmortem about their games, so will surely keep my mind sharp there.
The last advice in particular, regarding deadlines, is something I'm gonna start applying right away.

>>3827998
That really cheered me up, is nice knowing it's a beloved subgenre!
I've been researching Qud for some time now, as a story of massive success among other things. The fanbase of the subgenre sure might be small, or more niche, but is incredibly dedicated. I like to consider myself part of that fanbase.
The main inspiration is ToME, but I'm gonna play QoQ to realize all its (apparently big) strong points and weaknesses, I just have like 30+ books and 5-6 games to play as part of the research, feels a bit overwhelming. I'm also not too young, I guess early millennial, so is not like I've to start from scratch, i've read and played a lot, but I wanna be very prepared, and the story and lore is very deep, rooted in classical literature and what not.
I'd love to hear any more insights you might have, since you seem ton know QoQ in detail. Appreciate it in advance.

>>3828050
thanks for the input, i'll do for sure

As a game designer myself, I probably wouldn't be investing my money into a project unless I already have 90% of the coding and design done. That's why most indie game designers at least know how to code. Make something presentable and try to get funding. If that doesn't work, then you can start investing your money.

>>3826798
FYI spreadsheets are your friend for planning derived stats and economy stuff.

Also I agree with >>3828151 be a cheapskate and follow some tutorials on youtube for making spritework and music. Cheap out as much as possible even if only to develop prototype work for actual artists. Use your strengths to route around your weaknesses.

i kinda hate indie game development and the scene around it but i am not creative enough to come up with an idea for a real business like a b2b saas or some real tangible product.

as for op, why is it that the loading screen and character sheet look so good but the gameplay looks incredibly shitty? nothing against games that look shitty, but i don't think it's gonna go over well to go from some crazy pixel art that looks like a painting during the onboarding and then you get to the gameplay and it looks like an ultima game from 1983 except without an authentic color palette. idk man.

also, idk about relying on open source shit for something you really want to make money with. suppose this game is actually a hit, are you going to be able to port it to nintendo switch easily with godot? what happens if there's a problem in godot that you need support for? just going to beg on the forums and hope someone cares?

>>3826789
look at machinations.io they have tools for modeling game economies

>>3826798
>mouse controls
No vi keys, no buy.

>>3826798
God damn that looks horrible. Jeff Vogel even does better stuff than this.

Well, I couldn't find a thread where to post my stuff, so here I am. I'm working on an ARPG video game. It's isometric 3D pixel art—not real pixel art, just scaling the image to hide my low-poly models (made in Blender using easy extrusion and stuff; I have experience with this program). I also have a simple controller, a few locations, and people working on sounds and music.

I'm focusing a lot on developing easy/fast workflows so I can iterate quickly and see a lot of improvement in a short amount of time. That idea is key. I'm also focusing on the feeling; it's dark fantasy, and the mood is important. So what you can see is the base model for how it's going to look and feel. It involves scaling, a few shaders, and my knowledge of cinema.

Does anyone here know where I can find people to work on my project, and maybe work on theirs, or just chat about these topics and exchange ideas?

>>3826755 (OP)
I won't play AI slop "games".

>>3826755 (OP)
>400 per minute
They are ripping you off. It's a real shame
- t. composer

>>3831003
Unless he is fine with a bland, generic (or in the worst scenario, shit) music, and has the time and knack for it, he might end up fucking his project up by doing the soundtrack himself. Even with the knack and time, composing isn't just something you learn from a few tutorials and slapping a midikeyboard around for two weeks.
His time is better spent elsewhere.
But he can most certainly find competent composers at much, much lower rates.
If you find a good composer who can't mix/master for shit, find a professional for that; you end up hiring two people but they both work for less at the end of the day - and the mastering guy should be a brief acquaintance anyway

>>3828151
Where would you go to seek funding? A convention? A bank?

>>3836281
for small team indie developers, you can try online contacting indie publishers (almost all of them have a "pitch us" section on their website) or going to conventions and directly pitching to publishers (which apparently has the highest success rate because if they are willing to give you their time, they are probably already interested in what you have).
the further in development the project looks, the better are your chances. you should at least have a demo to present. no one will give a shit about your project if all you have to show is 100 pages of world-building and plot, you'll get laughed out of the room.

>>3826755 (OP)
I was looking for a roguelike yes, with rpg mechanics, dungeon labyrinth like, procedurally generated enviroments, wild amounts of stats and classes aswell skills. Appealing characters with deep customization, i am tired of horrible things, ugly demoralizing looking humanoids. I love good aestetics in armour, dont allways need to be sexualized, i learnt to appreciate fullbody armours.
Not knowing what awaits you, finding rewarding awesome treasure that compels your class or abilities, something that will make your character unique. Finding new secret paths or zones. Well i thinik its too much to ask for today gaming.
I am not fan of turned based, but some games just get them right.

Optimization is a must... new games think everyone runs a millonaire pc. Some games looks like movies and run on a shitty pc, optimization is key.

You can use suno for your music, AI generated music. Some themes really sound amazing.

>>3836298
What sort of arrangements do indie publishers prefer these days? I can’t help but imagine that they likely have some predatory money lending going on.

>>3836549
a publisher can get up to 50% of the profits and there may the a clause in the contract that if you ever choose to make a sequel, you have to publish it through them. but most don't get the rights to your product (like merch, film rights, etc.). them getting such a big hit sounds bad, but you get free money and free marketing, while the alternative is dropping the game on your own and playing the casino of it being noticed among the endless slop released these days.

>>3826755 (OP)
> intricate story, mature, complex, with deep character development and many mechanics mostly known to the lovers of the subgenre.
Sounds like you got all your ewducation from some uni course which is a scam designed to pump out useless degrees.

And your title screen and menu is overwhelmingly better then everything else you have. That is a very bad thing.