Game development career thread:

Flobee said:

Still slowly grinding away. Feeling more confident with the Troll game pivot and making assets to align. Think I'm cutting classes down to Warrior, SK, Shaman, and Bonedancer.

Working on specific mechanics for each but think I'm going to do a rage system similar to WoW but instead of a build-spend loop like WoW I want to try to have offensive abilities build rage, and defensive ones spend it. Having rage will have a passive benefit (thinking +atk speed right now). Since warrior has no healing they'd need to balance doing dps vs keeping HP high. Might include berserk/crippling blow type mechanics as well so you can redline it for max dps. Need to test it out and see if it's fun.

SK would be a bit closer to EQ just being a overall OP class with all the bells and whistles you expect. Think they may get temporary pets summoned via a proc chance on a melee ability maybe.

Shaman I was originally planning to play like a melee healer, I may or may not still do that, but since it's only 4 classes I may feel like I need to lean more into the caster feeling. Root/rot etc. I still want to go heavy regen, slows, dots and just overall outlast the opponent play style.

Bonedancer I want to merge the Necro with daoc Bonedancer mechanics. My original necro plan was to use fire and forget pets like the Daoc theurgist, but with the Troll vibe I'm thinking Bonedancer fits better. Expecting to do a primary pet (commander) with a handful of secondary pets you can select. So maybe a melee commander with 2 healers and 2 archer pets or something. Will play with it and see if it's fun.

Just some initial thoughts as I'm grinding on visual stuff. Got the very basic robe in, forget poor weight painting still not worrying about it yet.


Just memmed burst of flame and about to slay a Large Rat vibes

Spoiler: Images

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Also had AI makeup a capsule image for Steam and I'm kind of sad because I'm not sure that I could pay someone to do a better job haha. Surprisingly happy with it. Once I do pull the trigger on a Steam page I'll stop spamming here and make a thread for it as it would feel a lot more real at that point. Hoping by end of year to have a demo ready for play tests at least

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Control said:

If you're not using ai for your in-game graphics, I'd recommend against using ai for your promo art. There are quite a few gamers who are rabidly anti-ai, and you risk drawing a bunch of undeserved negativity. Even paying artists can be tricky unless you go with someone with a well-known portfolio of capsule art since they can also try to pass off ai as hand-drawn. I know people will recommend against it, but I'd try to see if you could set up a capsule-worthy scene in-game. Building some vignettes in that naturally make for great screenshots is a worthy exercise even if you don't use them for your marketing art. You still have screenshot slots to fill (and players to awe).

Your game has a niche aesthetic that will only appeal to a very specific group of gamers, so imo, don't hide it behind meaningless art. People who won't like it weren't your target audience anyway.

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Flobee said:

Totally agree. I hadn't considered using an in game shot for the capsule but it's certainly worth a second thought. I have heard that it's not ideal but your point regarding art style is valid. As you said I'll be doing that for the screenshots and trailer anyhow. I won't use AI for art period but I wanted to share because to be honest if AI stigma wasn't a thing, that'd be pretty close to good enough for me.

As far as audience I've just accepted it's not going to have a wide appeal. As I understand it any game with non-pretty characters has a real uphill battle to get people to play it. It has flavor though, and my threshold for "success" is a lot lower than a larger team/game would need.

Another factor is I've got a few other ideas that I think would "do better" marketing wise, but I really want to have a release under my belt before undertaking them. A game like this takes ages to be ready for playtesting, but I'm hoping about 1-1.5 years from now I can have something approaching a releasable game. I've learned so much doing this and think I'd move so much faster and easier on the next.

Thanks for the feedback and advice!

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Control said:

Not that it's "likely" or anything, but a very niche game can still sell enough copies to make a life-changing amount of money. Imo, focus on getting those marketing screenshots together and a workable trailer and get your Steam page up asap for wishlist farming. And start posting your progress pics on twitter/reddit. It may feel like screaming into a black hole for a while, but if you want to release your game eventually, it's still worthwhile. Every piece of content that you post is basically a virality lottery ticket. You need to put enough stuff out there to give you a shot at hitting the jackpot. "you can't win if you don't play!" I imagine you'll say "it's too early!" but wishlists don't expire and you'll get at least a handful each week. And unlike more mainstream things, your target audience would probably love the "behind the scenes" peeks at things. Just look at the Monsters and Memories thread.

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