Oh My God, It’s the Indiepocalypse!

Posted on October 5, 2015 by magicrat_larry

OK, let’s panic a bit first then think logically. What if indie development is ending? How will my dream ever come true? I think we are all doomed.

It seems like creating a unique, interesting game experience is not what customers want anymore!

Is that enough panic or do we need more?

Why am I working so hard on a game when it is just a forgone conclusion that it will never sell? I cannot believe that luck plays such a high role in game sales! Am I wearing pants? Will my mom buy my game? Are my shoes on the right foot? Are they still selling George Foreman Grills?

Enough panic, logic ahead…

Let’s say that there are 10 people who buy games per year for simplicity sake. Those 10 people buy 10 games a year, so we are talking 100 games a year sold to the market. The chances of those 10 people stopping that trend are nearly zero percent. Once people begin a pattern it is hard to break it. The truth is the gaming industry in forms of sales has been rising continually for years and AAA studios cannot keep up with the amount of money that the consumer has.

So those 10 people are buying both AAA and indie game titles. Their money is flowing into the industry, and will statistically keep flowing, and probably only increase. So for an indie game development bubble bursting nightmare to happen, that consumer would have to pull their money out of the industry and buy less games and only buy AAA studio games.

First of all games are entertainment, people like to be entertained, and entertained cheaply. Games make a compelling case for this market. You can purchase a game anywhere from $1 -$70 and get far more out of each than what you spend. The truth is the consumer wants to spend less and get more. AAA titles are the expensive games. Indie titles are the cheaper games.

Consumers also want unique entertaining experiences, indie titles scratch this itch greatly. So with both of those needs for cheap and unique entertainment being met by indie games, why would the consumer stop spending money in that market? The answer is they will not.

Now what are people observing that is making them freak out like Disco is back in town? It is simple, the market has accepted indie games as a true and viable product, no longer experimental and new. Now the market is solidifying and becoming a standard. You can no longer easily buck the trends and stand out like a sore thumb in the gaming world.

What does that mean to indie game developers? Marketing is critical. You must connect to the consumers in a unique way, a social way. If you fail at this then you are just simply on the shelf with all the other indie developed games. You also have to get your pricing right, and your expectations. It is no longer a marketing plus to simply be a guy in his basement coding games. You have to price the thing right for the market and tell people about your title.

Lastly, it has to be a good title. You will no longer sell your game simply because it is not AAA. Make a quality experience and talk about it with people. Make it come alive and you will be fine. This is not the Indiepocalypse, it is us winning over the consumer and becoming a valued part of the economy of game development and it frightens AAA studios like crazy. Keep up the good work and just be smart out there.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

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Are you Not Entertained?

Posted on October 2, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I have a theory. If you are going to make a game, you should entertain from day 1. Not just when the game is released.

What does this theory do for me? I strive to release content daily that entertains, helps, and energizes people. If you realize that game development is entertainment then things like marketing and game design become one and the same. If you are dull and drab in your development of the game chances are that will show in the game itself. If you move in a direction of entertaining game development you will inject a life into your game that will be felt while playing it.

This also helps you create a community. It drives me to write blogs, to tweet about our progress. If you give yourself the need to have the development cycle be just as fun as playing the game itself it is highly motivating to you and your fans.

I always tell myself – Always be entertaining

You’ve played games that feel dead inside, and you’ve played games that feel like they were made with love. My theory is that the energy that the developers had trickles in to the product and without a feeling of entertainment during the development cycles there is just no life to the product. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Worst case here is that it makes the hard work more enjoyable and keeps me motivated.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

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From Happiest Place On Earth to Work

Posted on September 28, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I am back from a vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida. Now for the painful yet fun transition back to work. I hate this part. The transition to vacation is always easy, just happens naturally, but the transition back to productive always takes work. Seems a bit odd that getting back to work takes work though.

I guess there is a certain inertia to work that people have, a person that is working tends to stay working. Seems logical. So a person on vacation tends to stay on vacation, or at least wished they could.

If this is correct it makes sense to get working, and keep a good pace that you could sustain and basically never stop. 🙂 I know sounds nuts. It does seem though that we were built to sustain a load for a long time and keep it up if our brains have an inertia to them. I’ve been working hard for well over a year and it seems like it is correct to me.

Lazy people tend to be lazy, hard workers tend to work hard. Is there a moment in your life where you changed to one of those categories? I know I changed from lazy to productive just recently, like 2+ years ago now and my life is much better because I made that change.

Hey, if you don’t already come follow me on twitter and see how this transition goes – @magicrat_larry

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

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Even I Need a Break

Posted on September 11, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I’ve been working hard, very hard. I am leaving on a vacation for 2 weeks and had to make sure that all the stuff that I do daily didn’t just stop when I left. So I have not had the chance to write here as much as I would have liked over the past couple weeks.

Vacations are both great and difficult when you work as an indie game developer. You have to take breaks, I get that, but those breaks are harder than the work. You get used to working so hard on something that you love so much that stepping back becomes a harder job than continuing the pattern of hard work. I am going on vacation though. I will not work on the game itself when I am gone. I will maintain any interactions that people may have with me via Twitter or this blog when I am at a downtime in the vacation.

It will be nice to come back from vacation and hit the ground running again. I cannot wait to continue to pound the drum of Violent Sol Worlds and get this Kickstarter out the door. When I get back from my trip I will be re-energized and even more active than I was before. I look forward to it and cannot wait to both go on vacation and to return with a new vigor.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

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Send a Polite Message With No Url, and Bam!

Posted on September 6, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Ok so I had this message come in from @ambemusic on twitter.

“If you could give a word about my game on your page that would be so amazing and appreciated! Please let me know!”

I ignored it at first. I know, what a selfish prick. Then I remembered it today and it stood out because she did not even give me a url. Interesting, usually people say, hey check out my awesome Youtube Channel and spam a url in there and I ignore it and move on. I looked through the many messages I get and found her. Looked up what she was making and said, oh why not. I already worked enought to find her and her product so, like Leroy Jenkins said, LET’S DO THIS! 🙂

I watched the short trailer both on Youtube and iphone, the game is called Droppy Up. I thought it was a unique looking game and was not like anything I have seen on a mobile device. I did not buy it, it’s 99 cents and I am a cheep dude. So I cannot give it a proper review, but I will give it this much, it looks hypnotic, which is better than most things on a phone. The music seemed to lull me into the short trailer and the game-play seems simple and possibly challenging.

It seems like something you might want to play if you feel like you are about to strangle somebody. It’ll help calm you down and maybe slightly creep you out with the eyes. Go check it out on your mobile device, and visit it’s creator on Twitter here. Also you can go to the DroppyUp Twitter page too.

Again, I have no clue if this is a good game or not, just figured it looked different enough to write about. I mean really, if you are about to rage, just look at the Twitter page for droppy sake, it’ll calm you down alone. 🙂

Animal Design, Yes I Said It.

Posted on September 4, 2015 by magicrat_larry

What do you write about when you do the same thing for days in a row? It is hard to figure out what to say. I’ve been just writing up descriptions of creatures that have the potential to make it in to Violent Sol Worlds. It is a fun task, but I find myself not wanting to just write about specific animals in this blog because the games website will do that.

It is fun though, I tend to just type in something like “Swamp Creatures” in google and flip to images and see what shows up. Usually something in there is inspiring for a creature to describe. Plus it is not just a description, it has to do with do they travel in groups, what do they eat, and how is their temperament.

For instance we have a rat-like creature that travels in groups, but only attacks wounded animals or characters. In the end I am hoping we have a good spread of unique animals that populate the world you are settling and makes it feel alive. We want you to enjoy the world and make it feel full and living.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

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I Fail on a Different Scale

Posted on August 29, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I’ve always been amazed how people tend to just shoot for the minimal they need to have to be successful. I watched many people shoot for a very low bar and fail at it. It is sad, because they just don’t understand that everything fails. We are people, we are big screw-ups. We fail at everything to some degree. So if you shoot for the minimum you need to succeed then you will not make it there.

The unobtainable is always the plan. How does this set me above the others we just discussed? I fail on a different scale.

What do I do? I shoot for Perfection. If I need to make $1 a day, I shoot for $1,000,000 a day. I shoot for goals that cannot be hit. The unobtainable is always the plan. How does this set me above the others we just discussed? I fail on a different scale. Let’s keep running with the money example, if I need $1 a day, but shot for $1,000,000 and failed like all people do, but get $1,000, it is a miserable failure when you look at what was being shot at. If you look at what I needed though which was $1 shooting for $1,000,000 made me get 1,000 times my need.

See If you shoot for $1, it’ll be just as hard as shooting for $1,000,000 in our example. You have to think about the same amount. You have to come up with the same amount of ideas. You have to implement the same amount of money generating things. You simply make different decisions that allow for failure to still reach what you absolutely need.

Stop looking small, shoot of the largest thing you can think of. Don’t just make a game, make a hit. Realize that you are going to mess up everything, that is a fact. If you give yourself room for that failure, you will be surprised what success comes from it. It’s a mindset change. Don’t change the amount of effort you put in, change the scale by which you try.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

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Am I a Failure, or No?

Posted on August 28, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Fear of all this work not paying off is looming. As we push to Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight it does cross my mind that people may not support us or even know about us. I’ve been working hard for a long time now to try and make that not happen. I suppose the fact that you are reading this is a sign that my fears are at least not 100% solid.

It will be a slightly crushing blow if our efforts do go unseen or even worse un-liked. Well our best is all we can give. I do appreciate everyone for supporting, following, and just being there through our hard work. Game development is not hard, the workload is the hard part.

Holding down the full-time job and performing on game development at the same time will kill a lesser person. I have the largest amount of respect to those who have made it before me and hope like heck that hard work pays off and I follow them in stride. All of your support is appreciated and there is a much longer road ahead. I’ll keep digging in as long as I keep getting up in the morning. I love this stuff.

As always here are some links to learn about our game Violent Sol Worlds

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

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5 Things I Learned About Twitter in a Year

Posted on August 26, 2015 by magicrat_larry

If you have not used Twitter, where have you been? It is a high paced social media site that allows for you to essentially voice out your ideas, observations, and general propaganda in 140 characters or less. It can be used for socialization, marketing, or general enjoyment. It is a powerful tool to get short bits of information out to people on a larger scale in short quick bursts. I have been on Twitter for close to a year now an have been using it to market and tell people about my general game development cycles. Here are 5 of the main things that I have learned about Twitter and how to get things done on it.

1. Tweet Every Day

The average life-span of a tweet is near 0 minutes, especially early on. You cannot expect to gain any real following of people about your product or movement if you simply tweet once every few days. Take the time to make sure that you have a consistent and scheduled tweet pattern and get into a groove of it. I use Buffer myself to make up 6 scheduled tweets a day.

Using a scheduling tool you can take 15-30 minutes in the morning and get them all out of the way and throughout your normal work day it will seem like you are tweeting to the world at a consistent pace. You will also be able to them reach more of the worlds population more regularly because you can schedule tweets at times that you are sleeping or generally not able to stop your life and use Twitter.

2. Be Yourself

People like other people. Keep that in mind. Twitter at it’s core is a game and a marketing engine. If you have a purpose do not hide it, and do not try and be something you are not. I am a game developer and I want to market myself as that, so I do. I tweet out mostly about that stuff and I attract mostly people who enjoy that content.

Don’t just create a Twitter account for marketing your product, truth is, on Twitter, people could care less about your product at first. You have to grab people with personality, which believe it or not all humans have. It is often the tweets that come from the heart, that are odd and unpredictable, that gain the most momentum on Twitter. So do not be afraid to stop and say something that you would normally just drop on your friends. It will gain peoples trust and those kinds of tweets are very entertaining.

3. Don’t Be A Serial Follower

What is a serial follower? If you follow everyone you see that says anything remotely interesting you could be a serial follower. If you follow everyone back that follows you, you are a serial follower. Make sure you hand out your follows to people that you really are interested in. If you notice somebody more than once or see that their feed is full of great content follow them. Make sure you are using Twitter for good reason, not just to gain followers by following others. If you see that your number of followers is almost the same as the amount of people you follow you are probably following too many people and fall into the serial follower category. You are OK when you are new to Twitter to follow more people than follow you, but as you get a presence start to deviate from following more than follow you.

4. Images, Images Are Your Friend

It is all over the internet that images help your tweets get noticed. It is true they do help, but not everything needs an image. You can feel free to throw together images for everything using things like Pablo and they do work well. I noticed that images in large quantities do not necessarily get you what you are looking for. they seem to attract people outside your followers, but your own followers don’t really care too much if you always use them. I try and use them 2 or 3 times out of 6.

5. Give Back

Be more than a person that talks about themselves. Help others get their stuff noticed. Retweet good content, ask interesting questions that are not about your project. Learn to be outgoing and converse with the community. Be a part of the larger Twitter universe not just a sole voice yapping about your project 100% of the time. You can have a strong number of your own content tweets, just make sure that you include the rest of the world in your conversation or it just ends up like a bad date.

I have lot more when it comes to Twitter, just thought that 5 would be enough. Keep at it and Twitter is very rewarding for you and you project. Enjoy it and try new things and in the end tell us all your tips and tricks so we can all keep making Twitter a better place to market and socialize.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

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Tell Me What You Want!

Posted on August 23, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Business or not business, that is a good question. This seems to be something people struggle with in game development on the indie scale. Why are you doing it? I’m doing it because I love it, but that does not mean you should not do it as a business right? I tend to think that people make themselves have a harder time with things they love because they put strange walls up that would not normally be there if you were just trying to sell something.

If you just were selling spatulas, you would post adds everywhere. They would be the cheapest adds you can make, and you would repeat them as many times as you could to an audience so that your spatula brand would come to mind first when you think of spatulas. That seems reasonable to us all I think. It is done by nearly every company in existence today of any size.

So why is it when it comes to indie games that the development teams think that advertisement has to be different? Are people different when it comes to games? I tend to believe they are not. I don’t think people really mind hearing about an awesome game many times. Plus if you are talking twitter and social media, the amount of times a post is missed by nearly everyone in the world is astounding. I don’t think putting a strange limit on your marketing is the most wonderful of ideas. If marketing works for Disney, it will work for your indie title.

There are proven things that work with human beings. Use them to your advantage. To try and think of ways to covertly get people to see your call to action is not the most effective way. If you want them to buy spatulas, tell them, and tell them often. Don’t just think because you are making a cool spatula that the people will know what they need to do to make you a success.