Hi guys,
I’m still in the middle of collage and i’ve been making games since 3 years ago. I think myself as hobbyist game dev up until now but i’m also dreaming about make a living from my games. I made some games, some in the store, some in the asset store, some won competition in my country, some only god and i know about it. But i only make game which i love to made.
Now i want to make game that successfull in the marketplace, but the problem is i don’t know what kind of games should i make. I tried many popular and featured games from the store. They are really good. No doubt many people like to play them, except me. I think there is something wrong with me. I have a lots of game, but i feel kinda not want to play them. The only game i play everyday is DotA 2 but its also impossible for me to make game similar to that. I have many games idea in my game idea notebook, but they seems uninteresting and maybe not gonna made it in the marketplace. I’m thinking about features i would like to add in my games, Google play services, archievement, multiplayer, replay. But i can’t think the gameplay that suits with all of those features.
It’s not like im not motivated, i really want to get work and start making games right now. But i still can’t find what games should i make anymore.
Two ducks battle for supremacy. One duck is 100 feet tall but can not fly. The other duck is regular duck sized but CAN fly and also shoots lasers out of its eyes.
From my experience, you’ve got to play games in-order to be inspired to make games. It’s not that you don’t want to, but perhaps you’re missing this itch to make a certain kind. MOBAs are very hard. I would agree with you that you should let that one go for now. I couldn’t even imagine making one of those today.
But the good news is, you could try something new on Steam and be pleasantly surprised by it. ‘Kingdom’ comes to mind in my case. Find a game that makes you excited, try to make it, but put your own twists on it.
EDIT: If you have relatives that game, you should see what they’re into. My 9 yr old brother loves Duck Game and Amazing Frog. I could get a boat load of ideas just by asking him what kind of games would he make if he knew how.
Seriously, if we all knew what would be popular in the marketplace we’d be making the game ourselves.
Get out & experience life, read books, watch movies you wouldn’t normally watch, listen to music you wouldn’t normally listen to & eventually things will start to jump into your head. Then all you have to do is stop at the core game & resist the temptation to keep expanding it until it is an open world zombie rpg with crafting.
I did this. Play more games, watch more movies, listen more music, going to the bathroom.
The ideas pop into my head. The thing is i’m not sure this gonna works, i’m not sure this going to be good. I need more ideas. Idea that really really really interest me before i’m starting to make it true.
Any game can be good if it is executed well & marketed amazingly. The problem isn’t that you don’t have good ideas, it seems to be that you don’t want to make them & try to find a way to make them good. Look at the ages old story of the angry birds devs. They tried 20+ games that they thought would be more successful before they made Angry Birds, even they didn’t know what would ultimately work for consumers. So, just make & release every game idea you have to the highest quality you can.
As I said, if we have really really good ideas that we think will be successful we will be keeping them to ourselves & making them.
Provide links to the games that you say are popular and the one you won a local competition for, then we can suggest some things.
A great marketing point - if one game is popular - promote your next game with “From the makers of” whatever your company name is, or your personal name. Blizzard, Valve, etc etc, all became who they are today by building on top of the previous successes they had. Should be a no brainer - to promote your next offering as something coming from the maker of the previous popular game.
This is kind of fuzzy logic imo, I know a lot of people say make games you want to play, for numerous reasons, a couple off the top - because you know what is fun and what isn’t in specific genres. If your not interested in the game you are making chances are you might loose motivation while waste deep in the development process.
I think you might be contradicting yourself in the original post, you mention you make games you love to make, then say you don’t like to play them. In bold text above.
Which is it? You like making certain games but don’t like playing them?
Maybe that’s alright - if the games you make are popular to a large group of people, but not popular to you - shouldn’t that be enough motivation to build something others enjoy, enough to get you through the development?
But if your looking for a complete new idea - maybe brain storm about a small indie dev moba type game. What could be considered moba but be developed by a solo developer?
If that’s what you are into - go for it.
Make what you would have fun playing and forget what’s popular otherwise how are you going to motivate yourself to make the game and have fun playing it?