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I do, I run a small video games company, making games that one person can make, like this one: http://store.steampowered.com/app/386900 http://store.steampowere

I do, I run a small video games company, making games that one person can make, like this one: http://store.steampowered.com/app/386900 http://store.steampowered.com/app/386900. I've posted about it here once before, but my 'thing' (if I have a thing) is that I do both the programming, but also the art side. Computer Science is my training, so I can do the software development, what is less common is that I also have some skill in painting, design, animation, so unlike many games developers it is actually quite sensible to be a one-man unit. The actual number of copies that I need to sell is very low even compared to the numbers of friends of mine who have a team or two or three. Even <10,000 copies can be successful for me. I do contract with a couple of audio people, who are just better at that side than I am.

toqueteos 10y ago
That's a cute little game, very nice work on the design! It feels super polished (both gameplay and aesthetically). If only I could be half that skilled with the art side... Have you considered translating it to other languages?
- DizzyDoo 10y ago
  Thanks! I certainly have considered translating it, but at this stage I believe it's too late to be worth it. Not only is there the cost of translators, but in this instance there is an engineering cost as I made the classic mistake of baking the text all over the place, in binary level files, in json files, and hardcoded. Slicing it up and moving all the text into one place would take a while, especially as I'd want to guarantee not reducing stability. If I could make a bet that adding, let's say, French, German and Chinese would cause... 700 more sales, I would probably bother, but I don't think this sort of feature 10 months after release would generate that. I'm treating this more as a 'lesson learned', and approaching my next project with localisation in mind. Translating to a bunch of languages is one of my main goals. A final thought; I love that in 2016 a lone developer can make a silly puzzle game about cats and sell it in 80+ countries. The internet!
  - toqueteos 10y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to answer me and giving back way more than I asked for. I have another question: how much of a hassle was setting up a company in order to submit something to Steam? Good luck with your next project!
desireco42 10y ago
How do you make a game that can work on Mac and Win and Linux at the same time? What is the easiest way?
- DizzyDoo 10y ago
  The easy way is to write it at a higher level, and let the abstraction handle the meat of it for you. The easiest way is just to use an engine, an existing array of tools and frameworks that manages the abstraction in such a manner that (for the most part) you just have to select the build target. In this specific case, I used the Unity engine. I write in C#, and with Mono/OpenGL, Unity can build executables to various platforms, on (mostly) the same code.
  - desireco42 10y ago
    Thank you.
- drharby 10y ago
  I hear xamarin's toolset compiles to multiple platforms, if you know csharp. kinda the route im going for my game.
- zyxley 10y ago
  If you want to work in HTML5, Electron or Cordova can both take you pretty far. http://electron.atom.io http://electron.atom.io https://cordova.apache.org https://cordova.apache.org This won't work for all apps, but (for example) a lot of simple mobile apps use Cordova with faux-native UI frameworks, and there are a lot of graphics-lite games out there using NW.js or Electron on desktop.
drharby 10y ago
TODO: follow-up for brainpicking session EDIT: in the spirit of proper forum etiquette, I will add to the conversation. Currently spent 4 months 'funemployed' and aggressively pursued my side project full time, a side-scrolling action platformer. I became rather quick to pick up the necessary art skillset and have demo-ed my alpha at local venues. It's received solid praise regarding fundamentals and playability - peoiple just want 'more polish' to give them a reason to buy it and play. Subsequently networked and found an audio engineer who I've found to fit my needs. I cannot stress how hard it was to find one i liked, which kinda justified my decision to pay him a dec. amount. Total nominal expenses thus far: 12k considering I own vice renting, a good portion of that is tax deductible so really it's a net expense of 10K, plus the added benefit of flexibility and pursuing passion. If I were to sell > 2k units, I would seriously consider a campaign of 1 game a year on the side, as I feel I have a grasp on the process. I still aim to be a moonlight dev vice full-time, for risk-mitigation and life reasons.
- swivelmaster 10y ago
  I like side-scrolling action platformers. Programmer, game designer, producer, recently left EA. Email me if you still want feedback or just want to chat - aaron (at) nemo10.net

toqueteos 10y ago

That's a cute little game, very nice work on the design! It feels super polished (both gameplay and aesthetically). If only I could be half that skilled with the art side... Have you considered translating it to other languages?

DizzyDoo 10y ago
Thanks! I certainly have considered translating it, but at this stage I believe it's too late to be worth it. Not only is there the cost of translators, but in this instance there is an engineering cost as I made the classic mistake of baking the text all over the place, in binary level files, in json files, and hardcoded. Slicing it up and moving all the text into one place would take a while, especially as I'd want to guarantee not reducing stability. If I could make a bet that adding, let's say, French, German and Chinese would cause... 700 more sales, I would probably bother, but I don't think this sort of feature 10 months after release would generate that. I'm treating this more as a 'lesson learned', and approaching my next project with localisation in mind. Translating to a bunch of languages is one of my main goals. A final thought; I love that in 2016 a lone developer can make a silly puzzle game about cats and sell it in 80+ countries. The internet!
- toqueteos 10y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to answer me and giving back way more than I asked for. I have another question: how much of a hassle was setting up a company in order to submit something to Steam? Good luck with your next project!

desireco42 10y ago

How do you make a game that can work on Mac and Win and Linux at the same time? What is the easiest way?

DizzyDoo 10y ago
The easy way is to write it at a higher level, and let the abstraction handle the meat of it for you. The easiest way is just to use an engine, an existing array of tools and frameworks that manages the abstraction in such a manner that (for the most part) you just have to select the build target. In this specific case, I used the Unity engine. I write in C#, and with Mono/OpenGL, Unity can build executables to various platforms, on (mostly) the same code.
- desireco42 10y ago
  Thank you.
drharby 10y ago
I hear xamarin's toolset compiles to multiple platforms, if you know csharp. kinda the route im going for my game.
zyxley 10y ago
If you want to work in HTML5, Electron or Cordova can both take you pretty far. http://electron.atom.io http://electron.atom.io https://cordova.apache.org https://cordova.apache.org This won't work for all apps, but (for example) a lot of simple mobile apps use Cordova with faux-native UI frameworks, and there are a lot of graphics-lite games out there using NW.js or Electron on desktop.

drharby 10y ago

TODO: follow-up for brainpicking session EDIT: in the spirit of proper forum etiquette, I will add to the conversation. Currently spent 4 months 'funemployed' and aggressively pursued my side project full time, a side-scrolling action platformer. I became rather quick to pick up the necessary art skillset and have demo-ed my alpha at local venues. It's received solid praise regarding fundamentals and playability - peoiple just want 'more polish' to give them a reason to buy it and play. Subsequently networked and found an audio engineer who I've found to fit my needs. I cannot stress how hard it was to find one i liked, which kinda justified my decision to pay him a dec. amount. Total nominal expenses thus far: 12k considering I own vice renting, a good portion of that is tax deductible so really it's a net expense of 10K, plus the added benefit of flexibility and pursuing passion. If I were to sell > 2k units, I would seriously consider a campaign of 1 game a year on the side, as I feel I have a grasp on the process. I still aim to be a moonlight dev vice full-time, for risk-mitigation and life reasons.

swivelmaster 10y ago
I like side-scrolling action platformers. Programmer, game designer, producer, recently left EA. Email me if you still want feedback or just want to chat - aaron (at) nemo10.net