I will preface this by saying: what the heck do we know? We haven’t shipped our game yet. But we do have a few fans, and we’ve gotten a bit of press, and Dan from Gibbage asked us to participate in this group article shindig. And I once dumped a guy named Dan in an unwarrantably mean fashion (sorry Dan), so, karmically, I owe guys named Dan. And what better way to start making bloggish News posts than with a know-it-all smartass vomiting forth of opinion from on high?

GAME DESIGN

“Some game writers are wannabe game developers, but so are most game developers.”
– apologies to T. S. Eliot

Is the game you’ve always dreamed of making something that other people might want to buy? Hopefully, even a little different? Something that you’re really going to add your personality, your own special spin to? I don’t mean:

“A medieval fantasy RPG with these really cool blue elves. Sort of bluish green elves. Not turquoise, exactly, but more…cerulean. Cerulean elves. But with a hint of green.”
Or “a match-four-and-a-half game.”
Or “Diner Dash, but in a restaurant that only serves cheese.”
Or “a game just like Guitar Hero, but with an accordion.”

See, I can just sit here all day and spit these game ideas out like a tennis ball shooter that shoots game ideas instead of tennis balls. This is why game ideas are pretty much worthless, or around $2.25 a can, like tennis balls. But there’s no point going to all this financial and emotional and careerial (yeah that’s not a word) risk making a game that doesn’t have a real market, or that isn’t different enough to distinguish it from the thousands of other games out there.

YOUR CUSTOMERS

“For what do we live, but to make sport for people on gaming forums, and laugh at them in our turn?''
-- apologies to Jane Austen

Do you like people? If you don’t, then maybe this job isn’t for you. In fact, if you don’t like people, you are going to be miserable, because the people who will buy your game or visit your website are, well, people. They will ask you questions and expect answers, and they will email you and tell you how much they hate you, and your game, and your mother (admittedly, my mother can be a pain. But she just wants me to cut my hair and get a nice job at the Social Security Administration, like any mother does).

People will tirelessly hunt down bugs and suspiciously lose their reg keys. They will tell you how thrilled they are that there is a giant woman in your game and how horribly disappointed that there is no giant crab in your game. People will be rage-spewing bastards and the sweetest, most loyal fans you could ever imagine (often these will be the same person, before and after their morning coffee). You just have to believe in what you’re doing, and know that you’re doing the best you can. And for the love of Jeff Minter, don’t argue with people on gaming forums and cry about criticism and bad reviews on the Internet. Only cry in the privacy of your own home (I set aside a few hours a week for it, and have invested those nice Kleenex with aloe in them).

TALENT

“The remarkable thing about Will Wright is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.” — apologies to Robert Graves

You don’t have to be Will Wright to make games. We sure as heck aren’t. But if you’re going to ask people to actually pay for something you create, you’d better know what you’re doing. Be honest about your skills. If you can’t even code a bubble sort, you might need help with the programming side. If you spent an entire afternoon trying to draw the dragon-duck from Adventure in MS paint, well, you’re probably doing to need some help with the art.

Finding talented, reliable help is incredibly difficult, even if you can afford to pay them. And everything, everything takes more time than you think it will.

TEAMWORK

"All happy game developers resemble one another, but each unhappy game developer is unhappy in their own way."
– apologies to Tolstoy

Thankfully, Lars and I have the art and programming stuff covered. But we have big huge fights about the game all the time. I’m mostly Italian, and he’s German. So, stereotypically, I scream and curse and he sits there stubbornly wearing a funny hat with a spike on top. Later, I promptly forget all about it and he holds a grudge until I pick another fight by shooting the Archduke Ferdinand. I’d imagine ordinary married couples have fights about who left the toilet seat up or who bought too many pairs of shoes, but we have them about whether the interface should be orange or who saved over a map file.

FEAR

“I have loved Starcraft too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
-– apologies to Sarah Williams

Starting a small business, being self-employed -- it’s a scary thing. Not just the financial risk, which is considerable, but putting yourself out there, waving your macaroni-and-finger-paint mosaic in front of the world and saying LOOK I MADE THIS! But if we didn’t try to make TCFH, it’d be one of those things you look back on and wonder about with regret: “We should have made that giant movie monster RTS. We shouldn’t have bought that used parachute. We shouldn’t have gotten involved in a land war in Asia.”

If you want to be an indie game developer to make a lot of money making games, well…you’re probably better off going indie because you want to make games anyway, and would like to keep the most of whatever money you do make. Not that we’ve made any money yet. At this point, I don’t think we’re ever going to make our money back. I have, however, cashed in all my spare change at Coinstar and found a savings bond I got for high school graduation (current value, $65). If worse comes to worse, I can go work in a coal mine or Lars can go work for Electronic Arts.

In the end, there’s only one piece of advice for nascient indie developers that I truly feel comfortable giving. In fact, I feel much like the great wizard Gandalf as I lean forward upon my staff with a grace that belies my age and intone:

DO NOT EVER, EVER USE THE FONT COMIC SANS.

This post was part of the ‘So you want to be an Indie Developer?’ blog project. You can find the other entries via these links:

Gibbage
Introversion
Cliffski's Mumblings
Gameproducer.net
Lemmy and Binky
Reality Fakers
Zoombapup
Bonebroke

This entry was posted on Monday, November 20th, 2006 at 3:47 pm and is filed under angst, advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.