These Are the Days of Our Gamedev Lives

Posted on October 25, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So Last Friday, it was fun. Fun like taking a kick to the zinger fun. Here is how it all went down…

I started my day as normal, no problems. Got to work and Aaron, our architect, let me know his car broke down. So that is terrible for him. We worked our normal, day job, day. Then go to the weekly game development meeting for Violent Sol Worlds. In this meeting we see the final art for some cars etc. Then we begin to discuss the Kickstarter video.

See, we have somebody else helping us edit the video down and make it great. That person is busy. So we debate how to move forward to meet our deadline we set for the Kick to launch. We figured we would end up editing the video ourselves. Then we kept talking.

At this point I threw out the questions of, why not delay the launch, to start the conversation. Then my head started to freak out. Yes, one more delay. I knew it was the right thing to do, but delaying one more week seemed like I was being asked to kill a puppy. It was hard.

I tried to rationalize it away as I could take a week off and get ready for the deep dive in to design that we will have to take. That did not work. I then realized that I had to convince myself that the video will be much better because we wait the week and that we will be better off for it. That seemed to calm my brain down a lot. I also had to get myself in to a head space of there will be no more delays beyond that.

So the basics is that we are slipping one more week on the Kickstarter we had planned to launch really soon. So we basically were done with our meeting at that time. We did what we always do, and walked out to the parking lot. At which time Ben, sees his car tire is flat.

What a lovely day for game development. It was a great test for the team to have nearly all of us have some sort of mental test that pushed us to a breaking point. We held together, and made what I think were great choices. Like I always say, when the world gives you lemons, it’s a trick, get an axe.

If you have not checked out my current project…

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7 Ways to Effectively Promote Your Indie Game

Posted on October 18, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Promoting an indie game is an interesting thing to accomplish. I am in the midst of learning it myself. Here is the rundown of what I have so far that is of major help to begin to build a community and get interaction with potential fans.

1 – Website

Most people do not try to get through life without a home, and neither should your game. You need a location to drive people to and a website is where you want them to land. This is a place where you are in control, it is your world, your happy place. It is filled with why they should love your product. It should be the goal to get everyone in the world to here.

What should you setup? It should look like your product. Right now we actually setup a WordPress site with a theme that we could customize and make look like Violent Sol Worlds. It does not take much and you have a good location for your potential fans to begin to hover around learning about your game.

To make it look like your product you will need a logo, screenshots, and important content that makes people feel a part of the game. This is where the real work lies. It takes time and effort to generate good stuff for the website. It pays off to do it though, and the earlier you put this together, the longer is sits on the web gaining momentum for your eventual launch. Create your webpage early and update it often with new and exciting things about your game.

2 – Personal Blog

This one is not as intuitive and making a website for your game, but is incredibly effective in driving people to it. Start blogging as yourself, not as your game. This is completely separate from your game, this is you talking about your life, your loves, your hobbies, your work. What this does is it allows you to put out things that people can relate to. It widens your net beyond your game.

Why do you need a wider net? Well it is simple, if you want to be successful, YOU have to be successful, NOT your game. If you are truly serious about your game, you will have many opportunities to plug your content in your personal blog and suddenly you are linking people to your website to see your game by talking about coding a physics engine, or AI.

This also allows for you to change pace, and blow off steam. Often times in-game development you will get frustrated. It is amazing how just writing about something will make you feel better. Plus, many others that are trying to do the same thing will relate and turn to potential consumers of your content, which, in part, is your game.

3 – Twitter

This is like the Doom shotgun, it is the finest utility you have for marketing to actual people on a steady basis. Sure the content lasts like 8 minutes, but it is quick, clean, and targeted. You should create Twitter accounts for yourself, and your game. Each one should be tweeting things that attract people. You need a personal one that is different from your games because you should be promoting your blog as well as your game content with that one. Your games account should be tweeting only about the game.

The key to twitter is consistency. Don’t just tweet like once a week. Spend the 15-30 minutes every day to queue up like 6 tweets that will go out throughout your normal work day. You can use Buffer for that, it is nice, simple, and easy to use. Get in to a good habit with Twitter and you will be amazed what you accomplish.

If you are interested in more things I learned about Twitter during my first year of game marketing go check out – 5 Things I learned About Twitter in a Year

4 – Facebook

Facebook might seem dumb at first for a game, it did to me. But it is like a happy medium between a website and Twitter. It does get a slightly different crowd and it is easy for people to share your content just by clicking a button. Our Facebook page for Violent Sol Worlds was created late in the marketing game so we missed this boat a little, but it is a location people will engage in and promote your game socially. Do not ignore the power of Facebook to drive shorter, quicker content for longer periods of time than Twitter.

5 – Reddit

Here is a simple, quick, and easy driver of people to anywhere and everywhere. Take a second to go to Reddit and see what it is, a simple link to a site and an up/down vote. Yes, you choose a sub-Reddit and simply post links with a nice title and it does the work. People will come to your link and it has the shot of going viral on Reddit.

This is a somewhat of a hidden gem for me. I ignored it for many years then just recently tried it for game traffic and was amazed how it worked for us. It is again, not the golden arrow of marketing but it does allow for you to at will get some form of traffic to new content about your product when you want and need it.

6 – IndieDB

IndieDB is a large community of indie game developers with their studios and games posting there to promote their products. The interactions there seem light, but the traffic that shows up to news, or new images cannot be ignored. You should create a landing page there and join that community. It is just another way to cast a larger net and does not take an amazing amount of effort to maintain.

I found that images are powerful, videos are not so powerful. So simple screenshots and a news article can drive you up in the rankings and get more people to care your game exists. We started our IndieDB site early thinking it could be the home for Violent Sol Worlds, but it is not a good spot for that. It is a great addition to your marketing campaign though and should not be left out.

7 – Kickstarter/Steam Greenlight

These two are the elephants in the room. They are awesome marketing machines. They both have a community that is massive. They also are customer oriented events. The thing about these two is that they are events. What do I mean by events? They will take up a massive amount of time to get up and launch. Ours is in the planning stage now and nearly ready to launch for both Kickstarter and Greenlight and we have worked on them for about 2 months now.

They are worth it. Once you get something you want to market on a scale larger than your own website and blog you should put these together, but remember schedule out about 2 months of work here.

Conclusion

There are many more things you can do to market your game, no doubt. The one thing to remember is that you should cast a large net. Don’t just market your game, market yourself. This allows for you to say much more than my game is awesome. Your game is simply your product, and often times people need more than that. If you can show that you are an awesome person, that is enjoyable to listen to and read about, people will be more likely to buy your game. People like to connect and support others who seem like real, quirky, people. Be yourself and good things will happen.

Proud Parent of a Kickstarter Page

Posted on October 15, 2015 by magicrat_larry

It is no secret for the past two months the Violent Sol Worlds team has been working on putting together a Kickstarter. The thing is we did not think it would take this long. We figured a month and it would be out the door. A month is a very long time to work on essentially an elaborate blog post that asks for funding.

Well we are on the second month now. It just keeps going. We had something that could have launched a month in. There just was not the pride I feel today for it, it needed more cowbell.

The second month really took our content and polished it up and made us move from a Kickstarter that we kinda just needed to launch to one I want to launch.

See, At first you develop all the things that Kickstarter wants you to fill in etc. You play by the rules and do exactly what they say. I encourage anyone doing a Kickstarter to do it that way, just get it filled in and able to go to review. Then stop and take the time again to make it something you would even put on a resume.

I never want to do anything anymore that is just enough to get to launch. That is not a great way to live. I want to make sure that I do enough to make the world notice that there was work there. Simply filling out the forms and getting it ready to launch was work, but launching it then would have looked like we just threw it together. I want to make sure people see it and think that is a great Kickstarter page.

I also learned that you should not do the hard work to make anything above and beyond without doing it just for the work. Don’t expect anything beyond the privilege of working on a quality product. Hope for the best but be rewarded by launching a Kickstarter that you would write home about. I’m going to choose to be proud of what I have helped put together. I look forward to the world seeing it.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

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I’m Too Excited to Sleep – Meet Avrio

Posted on October 10, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I am so excited. Yes me, calm me. For those of you that know me I am always excited, but today more than others. We have started something awesome for our game Violent Sol Worlds. We have started releasing weekly content posts on our site ViolentSol.com

You are a galactic settler dropped off on a distant planet to help humanity with its overpopulation and lack of resources on the core worlds. In the game you will be playing in a top-down perspective and enjoy an awesome scifi theme. The neat thing about it is that you will be able to craft tons of things like other survival games, but we also include vehicles in the crafting. So you can not only drive a car but you can build them as well.

While you are surviving in the game you will also be enjoying the AI Overlord. It will make sure you are having an engaging time on your new planet. Gone are the days when you figure out survival and it is no longer part of the game-play. The Overlord will inject new events, missions, and general awesomeness into you game and keep it fresh and new for you.

OK, back to the content releases. Violent Sol Worlds is not only a scifi survival game, it has a huge, and rich, background story to it that you will experience in game. We are releasing this content via posts on ViolentSol.com every Friday starting now with the Avrio Corporation. We hope you enjoy the rich world we are building that you will be surviving in. Come read about the Avrio Corporation and keep up to date by following us on facebook.

Make Daily Mistakes

Posted on October 6, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Although I do not like hanging out outside my house, I do not terribly hate the existence of people. They make the world fun. The truth is people are dumb, make mistakes and inject a certain amount of randomness into the world that not everyone can enjoy.

When you work as a team and you see yourself as a team player you need to be one of those people that can roll with the mistakes and see the genius in them. When people create problems they do so simply by trying new things, they are learning. Encourage that. Don’t be the moron who wants everyone to just be mistake free, that means nobody is stepping out of their happy place and learning anything.

When it comes to yourself, make sure you are making mistakes daily. If you are not making mistakes, you are not living life like you should. Mistakes are the key indicator to learning and experimentation. If you feel like you are mistake free, take some time to figure out a good area to explore in a new direction. It’ll change your life, literally.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

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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

IndieDB

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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

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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

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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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