The indie game developer pit of death

I just finished playing dead space 2. Space, horror, gore, good acting, great art, movie-like gameplay. It has everything a fan like me might want. After spending - I dunno... 45 Minutes going through credits, I realised that my true dreams are hopeless. No matter how low I set the bar.

When I bought game studio, I felt like this:



Now, having played a great game, I feel like this.



So if anybody feels like joining me (and trust me, acceptance is the first step to recovery), join me in metaphorically hurdling yourself into the pit of death... Instead of bitching that game studio isn't good enough.

*JUMPS*



It's not so bad down here. Plenty of rocks to talk to.

That is life for us. There are some extremely talented people here but to make games like anything we want to do (The new Batman Arkham games are my dreams), we would all have to team up and I think most of us have been on one of those teams that fell apart before the first level was complete. oh so sad.

Yip after watching the age of empires III credits i felt like that and just gone through the main missions of farcry 3 , holy hell epic we cant live up to such epic games but hey we should look to indie games for inpiration even though these games makes me feel like im just doing this for a hobby which is a better way of looking at it , stil there is hope , all you have to do is look at those small addictive games people play to pass time even at work , when i look at them i feel man i can do it too so i believe lets aim smaller but keep growing and one day perhaps be a proud owner of a great selling game.. On another point i have noticed that these big games arent just games they are carefully crafted to show the abbilities of game engine that was used as in farcry 3 it was so obvious to me how crytek shows off the engines abbility to do many types of games especialy rpg ,its more than gaming for these big companys its selling and advertising their tech and kicking the dust in the competeters eys

If your gonna do a game by yourself you definitely have to be conservative and realistic. And have a genuine idea. Doing this for 10 years with nothing to show can be a little depressing. But then again, what else is there to do? Go out with friends? Get a girlfriend? Have a life? And yes, the gaming industry is a giant pissing contest. Farcry 3 looks incredible but I bet they will make they're bread and butter licencing the engine.

Game developing is a tough world to step in to , especialy lonewolfing you
have to learn from coding to art production , a serious but addictive challenge !

I share your worries. When you see how the big players flex their muscles on trade shows like E3 or GamesCom, you feel very little and very lonely. It is disappointing to see all the glory in its shiny and polished form while you know that all you do at home is struggling.

The reason why you should keep on with your game is because quitters never win. Even if your game takes forever to be done - do it. Because if you don't, it will never exist.

This is so weird to me!
Are you all really that upset that you'll have to aim for smaller, more focused experiences?

I dunno, these limitations, I find, can be very helpful to fuel creativity. And I don't mind not even having the option to try and compete in the FPS-genre or whatever. I'd much rather try out new stuff.
I mean, did you really get into game design to make the same kind of experiences than those that are already there?

Yes there are soo much FPS games, i have friend buying little but awesome indie games, caus they cost lot less, and bring lot of entertainmenT.

For example "Giana Sisters" game is actually some eye candy great platform game. I like it a lot caus you go directly in the game like some last Mario Bross btu with lot better graphics and a totally new gameplay.

you could fo some Batman Arkham City, only if you target lower graphics, caus graphics AAA games are made by :
- veterans of 3D
- 3D artists specially for environments
- some for characters
- creative level designers
-sound artists
- music artists
- tools programmers ....

Even indie games can fail and remain unknownw if you can't promote enought or don't do ti in good ways ....

So yes the advice you can read on lot of AUM interviews :
BEGIN AND DO IT SMALL FIRST

You will never be able to do even some first level of God Of War 3, or GTA 5 etc ... Indies must concentrate on more little games they can do and be creative with new gameplay, ideas, new graphic design ...


You don't need best graphics to have a great game !


Some Zelda like :

I got into game dev because for the creativity part and I started with a text adventure, so, it wasn't for the looks in the first place. But I have to admit that games like No One Lives Forever or Shenmue already raised a certain bar graphically wise. To understand how to do such a 3D game you naturally have to ask how that was done. The sooner you get to answers you will also naturally see that it is a burden to re-create that. Hearing stories like warehouses full of artists doing assets for Splinter Cell can be frustrating, actually.

So, if you realize that you can virtually do technically wise a game comparable with todays games (you just have to learn coding and how to do things, actually games are pretty easy to make), it breaks down to "the content problem" as I say it. Stores like Arteria3D and Dexsoft are solutions to this problem but only in a limited fashion because they are producing for an anonynmous market.

You are right that these limitations can be helpful, though. Knowing your limitations gives you freedom to do something different. Your game Dungeon Deities is a great example: you are making a highly modern game with artwork that had its heights 20 years ago (no offense). Along with the retro-movement and acclaimed games like Minecraft, you have found both a niche and a solution to the content problem.

Every time I see a big game, they fuel me to finish my projects, they make me feel like I have something to offer, I never get depressed and jump off a cliff

I've learnt enough using gamestudio to know that it can do decent projects, I've undertaken some pretty big projects.

The problem is, are you a gamestudio developer or are you an independent developer? What's the difference? well, if you wish to develop with gs then you deal with its limitations and work around it, if you just want to make games, then there's no room for getting "faithful" to an engine. Be willing to move on and go anywhere your chance of success increases.

I dont get impressed by the credits of alot of AAA titles because sometimes I look around and see a single indie dev that does something way more impressive.

If you want to make your dream game, man up, nothings stopping you but yourself, if you want to use gs, sit down, plan out how you can make the project with gs in mind, what elements to change, tweak or drop. If gs doesnt seem like it can handle and youre willing to.. move on.

You may not be able to clone your favorite game but you can damn well remove all the eyecandy and make a straightforward fun experience that still grabs attention.

Has anybody had success using a physics entity as the player? This is in the rant forum and this is generally a rant, but i honestly miss the old physics. No matter how I go about it, which method or style, type of game, the physics just dont float my boat. Sure there nice, when you let them do there thing, but controlling them? Ack. I downloaded that space flight physics demo for the new contest and nothing happend. Im sure it ran fine on a bunch of other peoples systems... but why me? Why does the new physics engine hate me >:(

One thing i noticed about physics is if something was developed on free version and then used on full version there is a big difference why i dont know but it sucks like that and maby it just
happend to me i dont know but when i noticed this i thought fuck me they appear to have forgotten to update free version physx same as full version or something.

yeah your demo does not work properly, the thrust is not enough. I check what happens if I delete my licence key.

Yeah works correct on my pc or else i wouldnt have made the entry because i thought well it wont win but it would serve a contribution , i used free version not latest version but last a8 and not full version ..there is a total diffrent behaviour from free to full ...anyway i wonder if my gpu makes a diffrence because i have my nvidia physx running through my graphics card but yeah what ever ... I was actualy going to make a new thread and ask a quistion there but it kinda have bearrong on this threads subject so i shall ask now HOW MANY PEOPLE HERE HAS ACTUALY GONE COMMERSIAL WITH A GS PROJECT/GAME AND SOLD IT ?? THE REASON IM ASKING IS THE FOLLOWING THOUGHT RUNNING THROUGH MY MIND "FUCK GAMESTUDIO" ITS A COOL AND AWESOME API BUT NOT A ENGINE WORTH THE EFFORT AND I KNOW PEOPLE SAYING THINGS LIKE THIS MIGHT BREAK JCL CONITECS HEART BECAUSE THIS IS THEIR LIFES WORK BUT FUCK IT MAN I DO LIKE GS VERY MUCH BUT ITS INCOMPLETE AS AN ENGINE
WHAT WOULD THE REASON FOR BE FOR BUYING IT , HAS ANYONE HAD SUCCES WITH IT ON A COMMERCIAL AREA ?

hey, it's fine if I replace my commercial key with an extra licence key. I reported this issue at bugs section, and also put a post at the contest thread, to help you to win. I just installed the latest engine.

Its obvious that the stock market is more important then video games. Abandon all hope, ye who expect updates.

imo there are only a few serious developer using 3dgs. the only pro game I've seen is Süpercan and the currently issued Süpercan2, made by a Turkish developer studio consisting of 2 brothers as I know. 2 other titles worthy to check at showcase are Battle for Forgol, and Guise of the Wolf.
and there are some other games finished recently, but I don't know the titles: a cool looking fishing game, a nice camping manager, and a city builder (the latter looks really cool). and there are some casual games too like Carboom.

imo if someone or a group get enough experience with 3dgs in 3d art creation and programming, they usually switch to another engine like Unity or UDK, before making their first finished game. I'm also testing/learning other engines periodically, because sometimes I'm totally fed up with 3dgs, but other times I think at this development stage, and because it is only a hobby for me, A8 is okay now. later I can port my codes to e.g. to C++ to use my AI in Esenthel, where űi can get much better graphic appearance more easily.

I think gs is able to do great games provided you add those missing features you need ,look it has its strong points but its not suited for everything you need and i guess it depends on project you want to do but theres so many free engines with ALL you need ,i wont leave gs just like that but having to buy it just to get the features that are free on most engines ? And then having to buy plugin sdk license aswell and what about new gs version ,what happend there ? A NEW version ,when i looked at new feature list all i saw was bug fixes and physx features . thats not a new version thats suppose to be updates to your current version in my oppinion ... Yeah sivan im already into essenthel just needs an api guide ..

when I selected 3dgs, approx. I knew what I want, and what are my limitations - I have little programming knowledge in Delphi and Java, and in old C64 basic . I planned to use mainly the free version, but I bought the extra as I wanted to release my editor without source code. and later I got some money as Xmas and birthday present to upgrade to commercial because it contains some essential things I have to learn and include in my project. now there are a few missing things only I need, sprite/model instancing, gpu animation, and resource packaging. but pro is far too expensive...
in esenthel I get a much up-to-date graphics system and tools, I really have to deal with only programming game features (my programming knowledge starts to be okay for this simplified C++), and make models, and assemble outdoor levels. for free if I make a free game.
another thing I'm plannign to try out is UDK, but as I heard its workflow is much more complex, not really for indie developers, rather for developer groups.

Yes, yes. Game studio IS a capable engine. This thread is intended as a joke to vent frustration.

Udk is awesome but its a stripped down version and as far as i know there are scripts or something you arent allowed to deal with without a license and apparantly you have to like really know your shit to get anything decent looking from it ,i dont know but theres 2 big time engines i want to explore thats unreal dev kit and cryengine 3 or versions before 3 , the only thing about cryengine im worried about is content creation for 3dsmax i think you need version 2008 for cryengine 3 but there seems to be cryblender and also a fbx ecporter/importer in dev ..if i could use 3dmax7 or blender i would without hesitation jump into cryengine 3 or perhaps a prev version .cryengine has a nice license model complete engine is free for non commersial and it seems they take 20% roylty on commersial release (theres more to the license options) but it sound very atractive to me ,you get out of the box awesome rendering power and effects like it was a standard and not something you have to add

of course I like 3dgs, my first 3d engine, imo the best to start with, lite-c is an effective language. and really suitable for 1 person projects, and fast development, if you need no too complex things... the only sad thing is its development speed, that results in missing features, which are available for free in other engines. or 3dgs price should be lowered to balance it.

WHY THE HELL ISNT THE CODE FROM AUM 71 IN THE EXAMPLES FOLDER!?!? Ive been praying for a flashlight and shadow mapping code for soooo long. And its been around for HOW LONG!? GOD DAMNIT.

It might only be one light but... ahg! AHGGGG

there are a lot of hidden treasures in aums I know

Yesss. Theres so many things that should be placed right in your face when you walk in the door but NooOOooOoo. It does suck that it's only one light. I wish I knew shader programming. But with all the talented programmers on the site, and still very minimal things surfacing, I cant help but thinking it wouldnt matter.