Need Opinions on game in development

This sounds likes the dreaming that everyone does on their first game. When not really understanding how hard it is to make a good game, and just how much competition there is out there today. Lets be honest it sounds like you are trying to make Dragon Age: Inquisition by yourself for an iphone. These kind of games take hundreds of people, and hundreds of millions of dollars to make.

The real problem is that in reality there is just so much competition. So your game has to really separate itself out from the others. What you have said above just sounds like yet another same old same old game, which big studios already have covered. Just changing the plot in a game, doesn't make a new game.

I always find it strange that when someone tells me about an idea for a game they have, they always start with some story about the characters in the game, and the world it is set in. But this is just crap, story and characters can easily be created, and its very low on the importance in game design, especially iPhone games.
What I really want to know is what is the game mechanics? iPhone games that succeed seem to contain only one main game mechanic in them, and then they build a game around that. For example, look at that recent game from Rovio called "RETRY" about flying that airplane. They have built a whole game around just one touch to boost your airplane. And it works really well. Almost all the top games take this approach, just one simple mechanic. And it doesn't even have to be complex, look at "Cookie Clickers" that game you just tap a cookie.

So basically I would suggest that you either rethink the above game totally. Or make it for PC and try and get some investor who is willing to risk millions of dollars on you so you can build a team of dedicated developers to make it, or try Kick starting it. But when you present this to people, talk about the story last, and present the core game mechanics first.

 

I agree with the above comments.

Unless you have a history of game development with some solid releases behind you this shouldn't be attempted. Make something smaller first. Not only will this give you a better idea of game development, it will make any attempt to make this sort of game better.

This sort of game often has server costs which mean you need a good budget to release.

Your back story feels very cliche but that is okay. In general you aren't going to sell a game on your story.

 

Sorry, but I agree. When I read that, I just thought it was totally overambitious, and will never get finished, and probably isn't a good fit for the mobile market (I know you want to target PC too, but you are posting here). It sounds to me like 1000s of man months of work. Remember even a game as simple as the first infinity blade cost $2 million to develop. Your game sounds vastly more complicated.

Is the idea to get it to a demoable state and then try to find funding from publishers? I suspect that even with a great demo, you'll struggle to find a publisher willing to take a risk on a developer without a pedigree.

I would change direction. Use the concept art and the assets you've made so far to go for something much simpler and more achievable.

 

@luconis, there are some very small companies that have succeeded at making ambitious games in the past. Take Grinding Gear Games (http://www.grindinggear.com/) with Path Of Exile. So it can be done, but it requires very clear goals, and very well defined boundaries.

You will at some point need to present the game to others, to get them to work for it, or to invest in it etc. And basically you need to address the two main problems that an investor or publisher is thinking about. They are 1. The game will never get finished. And 2. The game will never sell.

So you have to prove to people that you can complete the game. Which means you have to show that there is very clearly set out goals, and boundaries to the game. And that you are beyond the stage of thinking of features. This is not normally natural for creative people, as they like to keep thinking of new ideas all the time. So the game will keep growing with new features added everyday, and everything constantly being changed. And so the game will never get finished. If you present something vague in terms of what the game is, and keep saying we might try and add this etc, then a publisher will immediately think you are not going to get this finished.
Then you also need to show that you have the resources to match the size and scope of the game, and that you can keep them for the duration needed to make it. I.e. do you have the people, management and money to get it finished. Or at least know how the money will be spent, if you are asking for money. The reality of game making is like starting any other business, 10% fun, 90% hard work.

Then, will the game sell and be popular, that is covered in my last post. Its about showing how your game offers something fun that people have not experienced before (game mechanics). But it also covers, how well does it fit with the market you are aiming at. Like making a 3D RPG game for an iPhone, I personally would expect something like that to do better on the PC. Plus, loyalty towards games on iPhone is pretty much non-existent, whereas it is possible to build a community around PC games, allowing for early alpha releases, crowd funding, player feedback etc. I think PC games are viewed as much more of a commitment for the player, iOS games are just throw away games. Like a candy bar vs a restaurant.

 

plus you can charge way more on PC!

for this sort of idea to really work on mobile, needs to be free to play and strong desires for IAP.

 

So you mean pay for time, which in some ways is worse than pay to win. You intentionally design your game to be less fun to play.

Well my only advice is this forum is totally the wrong place for advice for that sort of game. People here aren't your target audience. You need to go to your target audience to see if they can bare your mechanics or not.

 

Well boosts are pay to win

But I am actually serious this isn't your audience for freemium games. This forum isn't a typical cross section of casual gamers. This is the audience that would normally prefer to pay a single cost and not have to worry.

Your game will never be that appealing to people here because of the freemium nature of your game to people here. That doesn't mean it won't work or be profitable (in fact you have a greater chance of being profitable!).

 

I say go for it. If it fails it fails. Then at least you learned something.

I personally have started a bunch of very ambitious projects that totally failed because they were way too big. I learned. Tried something smaller. Still too big. Tried something even smaller, and now I am on to something.

I think thats en extremely common thing for tons of developers. But some also succeed on their big projects. Either way, when you strongly believe in a project, it wont matter that 100 people say its too big, you'll still gonna try until you either succeed or realize they were right.

I think your artwork looks better than the majority of similar projects. So you got that going for you. I think your story is interesting as well. Obviously the tech will transform cause the races to become power hungry and greedy, and try to use it to destroy each other etc. Not exactly "new", but still a nice little twist I think with the space ship. It's no worse than for example the Skyrim main story... actually I think this sounds more interesting. Skyrim worked "quite well" though despite the pretty lame story and boring characters. Their thing was the huge living world though. What's your "thing"?

If I would suggest something it would be to find that thing. What makes your game stand out? Artwork looks good, the story sounds perfectly fine, but is the one thing that makes your game stand out?

Thats what I would try to figure out!

And I do not think its wrong to target mobile platforms either. I never play games on PC anymore, I only use my iPad for games now, and more and more "big" games are getting released on mobile platforms, and the tablet hardware is not getting any slower either.

Good luck though. Dont listen too al the negativity here! You'll know when and/if too quit and make something smaller. Or you'll succeed.

 

Boosts are the key pay to win mechanic and I imagine would make the majority of sales in pay to win.

When you go with pay to win or pay for time models you are always going to have to sacrifice gameplay to make it profitable. If the game is enjoyable without a need to pay then the IAP mechanics don't work.

This https://twitter.com/JamesDestined/status/530570978342891520 accurately sums up the issues you face as a developer with freemium models. In addition you generally need a pretty big advertising budget to start with.

 

@Destined, That south park episode was so accurate. Free to play games come from the devil.

Where do you think the "pay for experience", model fits. Its probably more of a pay for time, in that it speeds up how fast your character levels, but its doesn't mean you can't get their for free as well. There has to be some better models out there, I hate this concept of deliberately crippling a game so you can sell a fix.

 

I dont think story in games should be underrated. I personally love a good story in a game. And I like your story setup. The hi-tech / fantasy mix sounds interesting. And if you like a good story, and I too do it, there's probably plenty more who do as well.

And I didnt mean to compare you to Skyrim, obviously that's not really fair. But I just meant their main story isn't that good, nor is the game mechanics, but they hit a home run with the huge world and the very nice "mood" in the game, which makes it interesting.

And just so you know, I am not the kind of person who throw praise at everything, I am generally very skeptical, but I truly liked your story idea and artwork. Really!

 

"Pay for experience" fits more into the pay for time model. However the pay for time model often warps into pay to win because the time is so excessive you have to pay to keep up with the jones.

Basically with IAP with consumables they pretty much make the game worse or fail to make any money (because it doesn't benefit you enough to buy). The way OP has suggested is a clear pay to win mechanic by paying for more pVp. It is ironic he is developing the exact game he hates I guess that is one of the dark choices you have to make as a developer.

The only times I have really seen it not have a negative effect on game experience is league of legends which is an enjoyable game. I am surprised it has done so well.

I quite liked world of warcraft with the steeds. I one off IAP which provides a significant benefit to me seems the best way. The fact is one off and not consumable makes me feel so much more comfortable with it.

Can't really think of successful ones which don't really use that model in some way. It was one of the rare times they didn't need to exaggerate in South Park!