Making a Video Game...
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- mantrakid0
Just wanted to give you guys an update on this thread since it was sort of the 'origin story' of this silly little game i made. Im so close to finishing the game and just finished working on the Credits screen and am totally humbled by the number of dope QBN peeps who are listed as influential in the credits.
Thanks for the support from almost literally day one, homies. As an update on where I'm at with it all, ive been selling on average $2000 / month while in early access since sept. Total income ignoring the kickstarter has been about $20k since sept. Im hoping once it launches on steam 'for real' (ie out of early access) it will be a thing.
Just got back from PAX in Boston a few weeks ago and peeps went nuts for it. So much shit added since these early days logged in the thread. Almost 100% positive reviews on steam so far.
Im also in very very early talks with publishers about doing console ports and giving them a stake of the sales as compensation. Wish me luck.
Also offered a great job for "As soon as I ship the game" at a new indie studio being started by the man who created Bejewelled.
A humbling, life changing journey this has been. Tx for having my backs dudes.
- couldn't be happier for you dude! it's been a cool ride! happy to of seen it from the start to nearly at the end! (of being made) awesome achievement.cruddlebub
- Well done sir. Happy for you.jtb26
- Congrats!BH26
- Excellent on all accounts mantrakid; QBN is an (often) great community with real talent in various facets. Godspeed.ideaist
- The BEST place on the Internet...ideaist
- ...and the WORST place on the Internet.
; )ideaist - The most lovable bunch of total cunts. :)mantrakid
- mantrakid0
Soooooooooo.... this just happened....
Im shitting my pantses.
- "Made by a single man!"ideaist
- A singlemen.jtb26
- dude these guys have 6,854,181 subscribers WTF! this is good for you no doubt, niceprophetone
- the comments and likes say a lot, it'll get great exposure from thislodef
- big time... these guys are the ESPN of video games....mantrakid
- jtb260
Holy SHIT!!!!! That's amazing.
- I watch what is probably an embarrassing amount of Yogscast videos.jtb26
- me too dude..im in a daze right now that this is happening.. the pledges ... theyre rolling inmantrakid
- nice mansine
- Seems like your alpha is getting heavy traffic too. I was just trying to show it to someone in the office and it was loading a little slow ;Pjtb26
- little slow ;Pjtb26
- Shit i wonder if i should move it to the cloudflare server.. i probably should...mantrakid
- working on that now...
mantrakid - Oh shit, multiple episodes too. So excited for you.jtb26
- my heart is pounding out my ass...mantrakid
- hahaprophetone
- mantrakid0
- wolodef
- Well done!R_Kercz
- awesome man!BabySnakes
- nice oneprophetone
- palimpsest3
They grow up so fast!
You've done well, mantrakid.
- mantrakid1
@proph
Actually I developed cosmochoria fully on a mac - just using parallels to run windows 7 in and then ran Construct 2 there. I would say that absolutely yes Construct 2 (and im assuming 3) was fun to use and had a very low barrier of entry. I messed with it a couple years before finally sitting down to do a 'serious' game with it (cosmochoria) but i could have reduced those couple years to a solid couple months if i just sat down and spent a few hours a day learning / building / experimenting with it.
The biggest down side i think is that once you have a game, your options are much more limited with Construct (HTML) than they would be if you used something like Unity or Unreal engines. basically, performance is shit on anything other than an decent powered computer, unless you're making tiny simple games. As soon as you start scaling into something with more graphics, or requiring more stuff going on, i feel like that's where construct 2 starts to break down when porting to, say, mobile or consoles. If you ever just want to experiment / learn / do stuff for PC/Mac/Linux then i think you're good.
THAT BEING SAID. Personally, I wish i spent those few years experimenting with Unity instead of Construct 2. If i had that legup with unity and had started / built cosmochoria in unity instead of C2, the business opportunities would have been much much much better overall. I had to turn down some dope stuff simply because going from Construct 2 to, say, console or mobile was just too much of a pain in the ass and would cost simply too much to make it worth it.
Unity, Construct 2, GameMaker... whatever you decide on, you CAN do something dope, just gotta get the daily practice in like anything and it will come together, especially if you already have an eye for the visual stuff, and even better if you're a gamer yourself with an appreciation for the subtleties / mechanics / etc.
- Thanks for the heads up on this. I have been messing around with several tools like Tiled and Spritebuilder but have been admiring the speed of C2 and Buildboxprophetone
- I am primarily looking at building out 2D retro arcade style games at first, using the classic gameplay style and mechanics, good starting point to learn imoprophetone
- I think I am going to spend the next few months building out artwork components to have a few small titles ready to go, perhaps C3 will be ready by thenprophetone
- Unity looks awesome but it's one of those things where I have to decide if it's the way to go first and invest the time and $150 per mo (!)prophetone
- I think I need to start small, feel things out. I also don't want to get cornered if I do end up building something super dope and performance issues are a probprophetone
- Something to chew on...prophetone
- Hit me up on email if you wanna chat bout this shit there too, nate@3030.camantrakid
- I would say yeah start small. Even just messing with C2 for now until C3 comes out is a great idea to keep your feet wet / learning going.mantrakid
- I would say if you feel like you're at a point where you want to go commercial with it, take a serious moment to analyze whether its worth it to continue in ..mantrakid
- Your current environment, or to port over to something more versatile before it gets too heavy. I wish i spent a few months porting Cosmo to Unity before...mantrakid
- I spent another year and a half finishing it in Construct 2. Just would have made life so much easier for that small sacrifice at the start.mantrakid
- Thanks man! As a start I think if C2 pops up on sale again (just missed a 30% off thing!) I might get a license, upgrade to C3 when outprophetone
- I will also probs hit you up via email when my ass gets more in gear with things and I start getting chatty! I appreciate it.prophetone
- coldarchon0
at www.futurelearn.com they have a free online course to make computer games that starts in 10 days, anyone in?
- GeorgesIV0
anyone interested there's a 33% sale on construct
- what are you using for this game mantrakid?lodef
- Construct 2! :) Its a good prog but to be honest, im hitting some walls. I wish i was this deep in Unity already..mantrakid
- I'm neck-deep in unity. Balls-deep actually.cannonball1978
- sick, whats the learning curve (ermagherd) like?mantrakid
- You want to have a working knowledge of c# otherwise it frustrates you to not know how to do things and you give up on ideascannonball1978
- some good ideas. If you keep within the bounds of the program though you can put out some interesting things.cannonball1978
- You'll also want an external 3d editor to produce assets (I'm using Blender)cannonball1978
- monNom0
Honestly, it feels broken. Why does W do nothing? I am stuck in the center of the screen with the ability to spin and squat and shoot at nothing? Add some rocket boosters so I can actually travel and maybe you have a game.
Win7/Chrome 31.0.1650.63 m by the way
- right click is boosters, w jumps when on a planet.BabySnakes
- u didnt right click like the big instruction screen tells u. :Dmantrakid
- oh, ha ha! I totally did not see that first time around. Agree there are too many aliens.monNom
- Maybe a mode switch where you fight off a larger invasion less regularly so you can focus on exploring?monNom
- yeah im thinking of spacing out the main alien attacks so they come in waves actually.mantrakid
- mantrakid1
Yo Dudes, been lurking for too long, but wanted to show off the new game ive been working on with an amazing posse. I figured this thread was a good place to post it! I'm doing the Art direction and music/sound design.
Check out www.slayawaycamp.com
Or just watch this! :)
Hugs!
- cruddlebub0
another few things...
a couple of times now the game has graphic drop offs, some of the things disappear: trees, bullets, whole planets...
you can still use them as normal they just vanish.
seems to get quite laggy as you progress on to the second dragon, when lots of robots, aliens, fire is being thrown around.
and finally, its been crashing.
just quits. oh and a red bar keeps appearing on the menu screen as you move the mouse!
other than that i love this game!
have upgraded my gun, health, jetpack twice, have faster growing trees and have a high score of 75k! the most planets saved in one game was 7 i think, but that second dragon just chomps me!
- amazing - thank you for this feedback. All stuff im working on. Huge respect.mantrakid
- cruddlebub - should have resolved a bunch of your items -- there are lots more upgrades now too.mantrakid
- is there an update?cruddlebub
- lodef0
whatever just post these where people are paying attention. QBN are supportive of creative endeavours but everyone here aren't exactly active gamers looking for Steam codes.
- how active are you on twitch? People are giving codes away all the time there. reddit, blog comments, youtube, probably more effective.lodef
- ...more effectivelodef
- yeah word, im not active on other users twitch channels but I do run a stream a few times a week.mantrakid
- got a posse growing there, and they appreciate the codes for sure.mantrakid
- Those codes were just for youse guys, im giving a handful out here and there, but will focus once it hits early access.mantrakid
- lodef0
So I see you're doing a live stream fridays on Twitch, I don't see a specific time anywhere and was wondering when. Just followed you.
- you know just in case you didn't see the first messagelodef
- lolcruddlebub
- lodef0
You should watch this again for some motivational inspiration.
- luv this flickprophetone
- It's SOOO depressing.jtb26
- that is true, but insightfulprophetone
- mantrakid0
I think they've changed things a lot in the past couple years to keep up with how gung ho Microsoft and Sony have been towards making things painless for Indie devs.
- mantrakid0
This was the inspiration for the planet rotation:
- Ah yoshis island! Good gameCygnusZero4
- I beat this game to 100% and I don't remember this boss fight at all.jtb26