.
I remember someone saying that there is a general rule that when you are starting to develop, your first 3 games will be horrible. Some people are an exception, but lets be honest, what are the chances of that.
Also, 5 month man, thats nothing. Plus, a good game requires a healthy investment. You cant be good at programming, animation, art, modeling, lighting, game design, marketing… all at the same time. Even when we look at games like angry birds or ski safari, which appear to be not that complex, you’ll see an endless number of credits, many of whom have big numbers on their resume, coupled with a good publisher
Everyone thinks that his first game is special. But you gotta keep working, collaborating with other talent, exploring new ideas.
I do believe that anyone, given right circumstances, has a good chance to make it big, if he sticks with it and keeps perfecting the skills
Good news your reviewers liked the gameplay and humor. So you on the right track there. But your graphics look like random images slapped together, they need more polish.
Holy Mother of God. You quit your job before you even finished studying, let alone finishing a successful game? You seriously jumped the gun. No one should expect their first game to make much money. I wouldn’t have even expected to finish both the studying and the game itself within a year, let alone 5 months.
You also monetized it poorly; people are hardly willing to pay up front for a AAA game on mobile, let alone the first one ever made by an Indie. You should have just stuck to advertisements for your first game, and maybe a couple IAPs if you know how to do it.
.
Change the dog to a Shiba Inu
Promote it on /r/Dogecoin for 1000 DOGE or so (1000 DOGE is about 1.5 USD)
5 months? Buddy, its been one and half year I am on this madness. I can do programming(including shaders) along with modeling-drawing-texturing-animation stuffs. Though the art quality might not be super duper AAA, its workable. Haven’t finished any game yet. Know what I expect from the first super simple game? hardly 10 copy sale. Why?
- Very few people know me in game world.
- I can not afford huge advertisement cost for my game.
- First games are generally unsuccessful
- It is a simple game along with similar hundreds of thousands, can not afford huge development cycle for exceptionally good quality games at this time.
Exactly this is why I will not go paid version either. Ads and IAP is way to go. I see you have spent a lot of time for the game above, I am sorry to hear that it did not reach goal as you expected. I wish you success in future titles. Donot stop, just go on.
Barks, making art is not your thing man.
Its a terrible color palette, there seems to be no visual hierarchy or structure - very random, poor resolution, flat shaded, font is almost unreadable, Judging from the screenshots,i can think only of a very few people who would download the app, even when its free. Amount of work doesn’t necessary translate into quality. I can honestly say that Floppy Birds in beating you in visual presentation.
As a developer, you have to welcome feedback, good or bad
Don’t be disheartened. You can’t please everybody. Just look at how big companies who frequently make AAA titles still get bad reception from lots of people. Criticism, whether it has merit or not, is part of anything that you make available to the public. The important thing is to accept your weaknesses and work on them. If we keep on thinking that what we’re doing is “good enough”, we’ll never have the chance to improve. That’s one of the main traits of great game developers, they know how to listen to criticism and they know how to gauge their own work without bias so that they can improve in areas that they’re lacking in.
Anyway for your first game, it looks pretty ok, as long as the gameplay is there and there aren’t any bugs that prevent people from playing it. If it’s functional and playable in a non-irritating way, then you’re on the right way. Not everyone is a master artist and not everyone has access to tools that can help them produce better assets. For example, even though I can make some pretty decent 3D models and animate them, I lack the skills necessary to create 2D art. My 2D drawing style is the same as when I was in my elementary and highschool years lol! Still, just because we might be bad at something doesn’t mean we can’t be good in another way. I found out that even though I can’t draw to save my own life, I can model and sculpt with pretty good results.
Quitting a job to pursue your dreams of being a game developer is really something you can decide for yourself. I really hope that you’re rich or you have a stable source of financial aid because game development, just like other professions, cannot guarantee you immediate success. The video game industry is a very competitive field and even veterans with proven track records sometimes have to rely on Kickstarter because they’re having trouble getting help from the big companies. If it’s already hard for people with known names in the industry to get their products even funded or bought, just imagine how hard it is for newcomers to even have their games featured on a popular game site or at least reviewed by a random blogger. It’s better to be paid $8/hr doing some random job than not making any money at all from a game that you worked so much on.
Also, something to remember is that although we put a lot of effort, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of bug hunting and we go through all sorts of trouble to put our games together, the people who play our games won’t really care about all of that. What a lot of people care about is how fun the game is or how pretty it is. It’s about gameplay and presentation. They don’t care whether we didn’t sleep for a week just to fix a bug. They don’t care how hard it was to implement a gameplay mechanic. The important thing is the overall final package. It’s just like going to a fast food joint and ordering a burger. Do we care about how many times the burger dude flipped the patty? Do we care about what the waiter felt like in the back room as the manager scolds him because he gave us the wrong food? Do we care about how much pain the janitor’s back is in because he’s been mopping the floor all day? Most of the time, nope, we don’t, unless something specific brings it to our attention, at least from a practical living point of view.
Anyway, just a practical life advice: Don’t gamble everything into your dream of becoming a game developer unless you have a safety net. If this doesn’t work out, then what? Finding a job that actually pays is hard nowadays, and concentrating your life into creating games is very risky. Even a part time job would be a good thing, at least you’ll be able to save money for emergency situations. Of course, if your family is rich and you can continue surviving without having to work, then go ahead and concentrate on making games. A supportive family with financial stability is something invaluable to people who want to focus on game development.
Good luck and enjoy:)
All very true. Additionally, when viewing it at Play it is very hard to even tell what type of game it is at first glance. The icon and screen shots don’t make it clear, and the description doesn’t help. I am guessing that it is a side scrolling space shooter type of game, but you don’t actually say that clearly.
Your game might be fun, but presentation is critical. More than a hundred apps are added each day, unless your icon and title are pretty clear/interesting people aren’t going to click to read the description. And if they do get that far, the screen shots and description have to be enticing to convince them to download or pay.
Re-write your description. Explain exactly what the game is in first few words. Confusion != downloads/sales. Also, you should consider carefully your wording and structure. People scan when browsing. You don’t want to place words together that create negative imagery when scanned, like “killing, puppy”.
Keep at it. A few months is nothing, it takes time. Good luck!
Oh Mr Sensitive here. You are demanding a praise and shoulder claps for an underwhelming work. I’m sorry that i gave you real feedback. Its easy to say that “everyone” likes your artwork when you disregard all negative comments. No wonder that everyone you talk to “likes it”, as they clearly recognize that you cant handle any criticism.
The drawing of your cats face is beautiful (when its really small to hide all detail). Whats not remotely visually pleasing is: blurry poor colored planets, grey background with random dots and a cheap gradient, strange circles with unnecessary and distracting outer glow, copy pasted images of rocks, some weird cylinders with pink shapes, character drawings that dont do paint justice, untextured bars, unreadable font just to look futuristic…
Doesnt matter if i have something to do or not, your art is really bad, and that is the truth. Deal with it
No need for name calling though, CGPepper was just stating his/her opinion .
As far as art goes, you’re 100x better than me, but I have to agree with CGPepper. I cannot tell what is going on in those screenshots - you may have spent a while but there are far too many colors, not enough detail and too much blur. The art in Flappy bird is simple and clear.
You can certainly improve if you want to, but you MUST take the friendly criticism and advice that others give you.
I suggest hanging around Dribbble for a while, try to learn some of the techniques that others use eg: Cat Concepts by Dave Armstrong on Dribbble
Also - what image editing app did you use?
That is no way to respond to constructive criticism.
We’re an honest community here and we’ll tell you like we see it.
If you want only compliments on your artwork (which I personally thinks looks hideous) you’re in the wrong place.
If on the other hand if you’re looking for community support and help on how to get better and make great games, we’re always glad to help.
It looks like your going for a cartoon vector style but if you look at any cartoon characters they have black outlines to help distinguish their shapes.
You also have a lot going on in the background, but again if you look at cartoon and other games they often ‘gray out’ or fade the background images to allow the items in the foreground to be distinguishable.
PS: Look at anyone who is great at what they do and you are probably looking at someone who has spent ten years working on their craft.
“You will be missed”
Hey barks, I’ve been visiting these forums for about half a year now and you’re making a mistake I’ve already seen happen time and time again: someone new comes asking for advice and then starts taking something someone says as a personal attack and starts getting combative and then leaves.
People have taken time out of their day to give you honest responses (one of them is even essay length), and because one person said something you felt was offensive you’re ready to leave. One thing you’re going to have learn really quick if you want to develop indie games is that you need to grow a very thick skin.
This is an awesome community, one that should be a benefit to you. Don’t just write it off because some of the responses aren’t what you want to hear. It’s just someone’s opinion, and some peoples opinions can be harsh. but you’re among friends here, were all just people trying to get better at doing something were passionate about.
+1
Overall the art in the released game is not very good. Some of the individual sprites in the released game look good, others not so much. But more importantly (as already detailed) its not visually cohesive. That doesn’t mean art is not your thing, that cat when scaled down does look very nice, much better than anything I could do 
But my quesiton is why do you want to do everything? If you have benn progrmaming since you were ten you obviously have both skills and passion. Why not team up with an artist and produce games twice as quick. You also get to bounce ideas off of someone else which is usually a good thing.
To answer your original question, if you repsond to criticism by stomping your foot and leaving instead of trying to get better you are probably dreaming, if you can man up and respond to the criticism by producing something better than you probably have a good chance.
- John A
Look at the Flappy Bird developer most of the developers on here would love to have had his success and probably would not have been affected as much by the severely negative flack that followed. And good feedback is hard to find, you just have to learn to sieve the wheat from the chaff.
It is very constructive, in the context of wanting have a successful game. It might be rude if on deviantArt or some other place, but if your goal is to make a living making games, the art needs to improve, a lot. You can work on improving your own skills, or hire an artist, or purchasing art. But until the visual presentation improves, it will be a blocker.
Also, it is important to understand criticism, and not just get precious/defensive about your work. CGPepper said that Flappy Bird is beating you in ‘visual presentation’. That is 100% correct. Sure, Flappy Bird art is’t exactly DoTA2 art, or even that good at all, but it is absolutely perfect for it’s game. It is simple, clean and easily readable, it serves the game, not distracts it.
Maybe? If your game is a space shooter and you are even discussing the amount of “venus fly traps”, “asteroids”, “planets” and “women” (I didn’t see the women), it is a pretty safe bet that it is way too busy. Even with good art, a game with those many elements would be hard pressed to make them not look busy.
The thing is you are competing against FREE. There are tons of great games that don’t cost a penny to play. You are coming late to the game, the days of people spending 99¢ on lark is gone. You have to make either a good game or get really, really lucky with a quirky game.
You won’t get rich, so don’t worry about that. If it is about making a living at it, you have a long ways to go. Just like any skilled profession, you need to build up experience and improve. Effort and energy alone don’t mean anything, it’s not like getting job bagging groceries.
If that is your attitude/reaction to constructive criticism, you definitely need to give up the “dream” of making games now, it isn’t for you. You don’t have what it takes now, and you are unwilling to learn, grow or consider why you are failing. You assume it is the players or marketing the is the problem.
Alternately, if you really do want to make it in game dev, consider what others here have said. As much as possible try to subjectively compare your game to ones that do work, see what the differences are. Chalk this game up as your first terrible game and learn from it what you can. Move on to your next. (don’t keep trying to fix/market this one). Keep building, improving and learning.
While my art is not the most detailed, the people who have looked at it said it was rather visually cohesive. So just an idea going there. If that’s not your thing, I can recommend places like polycount, those people have some ridiculous talent, look around there and see if you can learn some tools of the trade.