Introducing Xoi San (being renamed)
Hi.
It has been a while since i started this project. 3 Months. But its nearing completion now. I wanted the game to be done in 2 months but alas.
I underestimated how much time it would take creating a scoring and menu system, play testing, eliminating bugs etc.
I am planning on releasing a playable Beta today or tomorrow.
GamePlay Video
Thanks for looking.
It has been a while since i started this project. 3 Months. But its nearing completion now. I wanted the game to be done in 2 months but alas.
I underestimated how much time it would take creating a scoring and menu system, play testing, eliminating bugs etc.
I am planning on releasing a playable Beta today or tomorrow.
GamePlay Video
Thanks for looking.
Comments
Plus, killing soldiers with a stampeding rhino is just amazing...
Also, what was with the dudes not holding guns, but in the gun firing position? And finally, that secret area (I think that's what it was) where you had to jump underground to make it appear, was there any indication that that was there if you didn't happen to randomly jump at the right time?
1. Climbing into trees
2. Hunters being less static (patrolling maybe with flashlights?)
3. What @dislekcia said: The random secret place is way too unobvious. Maybe have a glowing shimmer at that place?
>>Maybe have more of these secret places but have something that the player remembers and make use of a light or a certain sound that you hear when you are close by.
I dont really know what style you are going for? In the first 10 seconds it seemed like a horror survival game and then it turned into an action adventure game.
Thank you for the feedback.
Just to answer a few things mentioned.
Not sure what you saw the player pick up. There are no pickups... apart from fireflies and fruit hanging from trees.
Dogs warn the sniper in the background which will kill you on site if the dog barks. But if you press up while at a tree you "hide" and the sniper cannot shoot you. I need to adjust dog getting target behavior.
Secret areas are given away by sound. But i will add a slight shimmering at the entrances.
Climbing into trees were scratched in favor of a simple hiding animation against the tree (time constraints)
Hunters are static and i would love to make them less static. (time constraints)
Currently there are only 3 enemies.
Static hunters. Dogs + Snipers. And the machine gun tower which can only be destroyed by calling an elephant. The alternative is to time the gunfire and run past.
The style of the game is mostly action adventure. At the moment its way to hard... so in a way its antisurvival?
+ I like the fact that the dog alerts the sniper
+ Sound and light for secret place sounds *pun not intended* good > find a good balance between making it apparent and blending in with the atmosphere
@rustybroomhandle does have a point > be careful what the punchline of your game is (Kill the boer? Hunters are evil? The Koi San are vicious/relentless killing machines?) and maybe even think of changing the name of the game because it might seem offensive how you are portraying the Koi san people.
Are you going to have a scoring system ie. killing hunters and collecting the fireflies gives you points or do you just need to complete the level?
Im very interested to try it out though...:)
Yes the scoring system has been planned and the variables are in place. But there is still some math left to be done.
Basically the scoring system will be
Fireflies collected + enemies killed = score X Secrets found.
I have a 3 star system and amount of stars you get per level will be factored in by the benchmark scores of individual levels.
However i doubt the scoring system will be done on release of the demo as i will need to create a level selection menu.
As for the possible race / ethnicity concerns.
Will add a disclaimer that the character does not represent any specific ethnic group. The word Bushman is used in terms of a guy living in the bush. Not to be confused with the Settlers calling The KhoiKhoi or San folk "boesman".
Also the word Xoi San is a Chinese dish. I would love the change the name. Originally it was to be called "Save the baby Rhino"
As i have been in contact with Anti Poaching campaigns. The plan was/is to contribute to a few select campaigns from the sales.
However legal issues are still placing a big wall there. Also the campaign people weren't to fond of you riding a rhino that dies.
Also, this isn't really an action-adventure game, it's more of the runner end of platformers. What makes it an adventure?
Just went to read what the genre is... and its definitely not an adventure game. I actually did not have clue what qualifies as an adventure game until now.
I was thinking of making the fireflies a little bigger. The are a bit obscure unless in big swarms.
Fruit... that one is tricky. Need to make it obvious without interfering with the style of the silhouettes. They blend in very well.
Im almost done... with the demo. It should be done later today. (but at this rate im breaking more stuff that fixing.
Beta Versions
I havent tested the linux versions yet but im hoping they work. I was just informed that its not only my mac that suffers poor performance but every mac.
So it seems i will be redoing a lot of work to optimize the game better for Mac.
I was only planning on doing all that work once the Pc build was ready. But hey... what can you do except sleep less and work more.
Also had to remove the linux versions for now due to some packaging issues and dependencies not shipping properly.
XoiSan development is being stopped for now.
After launching the demo it became apparent that some systems cannot run the game properly.
And i am not releasing a small 2d game that can be run on systems with Nvidia or ATI cards.
This is because of the engine it was using.
Its not a nice thing considering i have not had any monies for 3 months now. So the stress accompanied by this news is significant.
My plan was to use UE4 for my next title.
I have never worked with it or never coded in my life.
But. Today i start learning.
And XoiSan will then be ported once i can properly use UE4.
Cheers
Good luck with UE4
I think what i did learn though is my art workflow. Modeling, sculpting, rigging, skinning and displacement maps, animation improved.
But the UE4 thing better work. Because once my money is depleted i wont have time to build a portfolio to look for a job at a gaming studio. Either way. No way in hell im going back to the IT sector. Might as well summon Lucifer then and give him my soul. (i watch too much supernaturals)
If it will make you feel any better, I have almost exactly the same experience as you right now... I have been indie developing the last 3 months with zero income - self funded. I don't regret a second of it - the learning has been massive and concentrated.
I unfortunately have had to make the decision yesterday to abandon the lovely full-time game dev and will be going back to evil corp very soon due to lack of funds. My heart is broken. So I feel for you man and can associate. Good luck with getting Xoi San ported! :)
Edit: I managed to learn Unity and get 3 basic games on Google Play, a slight portfolio, built a few prototypes, collaborated with an artist/designer and entered an international compo. So am happy it wasn't a total waste of time for me, LOL
PS: This is not the end, it just means that my "wife" has once again become my "girlfriend"... not a bad thing ;)
And no it doesnt make me feel better. In fact it makes me a little more sad.
I can survive another 7 - 9 months depending.
All in all today was a little glimmer of hope. I studied the documents a bit.
Ended up creating a few custom meshes, materials and textures that was imported into the game.
And i created a small level that looks like XoiSan and playing it with the platformer blueprint.
Its going to look a crap load better than the 2d version.
Tomorrow i start studying blueprints. If i snap it quick... i might actually pull this port off in good time.
I have a publisher that gets featured on Apple store frequently. Their sale figures are pretty good so I am assuming that is some indication. Marketing seems a bit of an overhead atm so i went with the publisher.
I guess the real test would be to see if i get successful funding on Indiegogo.
Either way. I dont need to make lots of money. Just enough to keep going for another year.
Doing this... making games. Its fun. Thats all that matters. Having fun while floating on this spec of dust that is suspended in a sunbeam.
Making games certainly is fun, but not starving is pretty fun too.
Good luck with Unreal 4.
Will leave the philosophical issue about starving for another thread ;)
But I strongly feel as if that's something you can't answer with stuff like sculpting and displacement maps. And the reason for that is that many studios with far more artists, far more money, are pumping out amazing art production quality. I believe that if you're trying to compete at that level, you're setting yourself up for failure.
Instead, if art is something you want to stand out, perhaps the best way to do it is to stand out in terms of art direction. When I think of 45-degree angles, I think Ridiculous Fishing. When I think colourful cubes, I think Minecraft. There are ways of making appealing, beautiful art, without having to throw technology that is inherently expensive at it.
And if art just gets you excited, and you simply enjoy making art, then perhaps you should just go ahead and do that, and spend your months working on an art portfolio instead. We are constantly looking for game artists who are capable of making AAA-quality art, and it's tough to find people who're solid artists, are familiar with the technical bits, and work well in a team.
I hope that makes sense!
Yeah thats one of my biggest internal wars atm. My poor GF hears of it every single day.
Im constantly fighting this battle between building an awesome portfolio with high quality art.
But on the other side i have this burning desire to make my game a reality.
But i do need money to fund my game, which is why i chose to make a few small titles to generate some revenue in order to materialize my main goal.
Considering the time frame i have i have to either make titles that are producing money or build an awesome portfolio.
I cant do both.
My biggest fear is getting at the end and not having raised enough money to continue. And then i didnt create an awesome portfolio either. If that happens. I am screwed. But i was well aware of the risks involved in doing this.
But lets be real. There isn't much to lose apart from a car, a house and some other stuff :p
But my main game is a concept that will take years to complete. With one guy... too many years.
Raising funds will assist in hiring people to assist in the main title.
Small games though are good for learning and quick iteration. Getting to experimenting on one aspect at a time. One should never start building a game thinking it's big - start small, build one block at a time, make sure that block is great and people will love that block. Perfect that block. If that block sucks, find another block. But do it one block at a time, never ever say "MY GAME WILL BE THE GREATEST MMO EVER" or "MY GAME WILL RIVAL POKEMON BUT ON IPAD!" (that second one is actually what got me started in gamedev, and I quickly discovered nope, ain't gonna happen with my skillset. Or my two arms and oen brain :P)
I'm not trying to attack you here, I'm just trying to point out that it's not a simple task to make money through building games. Many, many people never make anything by building games they absolutely love and sweat blood for, so unless you're skilled as all hell, the odds of you making money by building games that aren't the thing that drives you is vanishingly small...
I haven't spoken to other people they published but i do see that publisher featured very often. This usually equates to 8 - 14 thousand downloads a day. If its a week longs exposure that can potential generate 70 000 downloads.
Trick is then to retain the player base. Because no one is going to spend money on first play. Stats indicate you need about 10 app launches before purchases start happening. And that's only 3% of the people who open your app more than 10 times. Which will be roughly 2100 sales.
So yes... making money is hard. Very hard. Unless you get some nice coverage.
Well my strategy is / was this from the start.
Make a game. Before completion send out press kits to a journalists at gaming sites. Pray a big website publishes an article about it to get exposure and awareness of the game.
I am not sure what more there is to making games than this?
Make it. Let people know about it. Sell it.
And truthfully. I feel my risk... or "gamble" infuriates people. They see it as careless. I have been told this many times.
Is it careless? Definitely.
It’s better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way. - Alan Watts
As a game dev, a technical person who engineers stuff, I am coming to the conclusion more and more that we need to focus more on how to make stuff VISIBLE - it doesn't necessarily have to be better that everything else?
I know there's a massive demand, an appetite out there for games and mobile apps and I'm pretty confident myself and others here on this forum could comply and meet the demands in this respect - although most of us are still learning the ropes from a quality aspect.
The VISIBILITY aspect in a saturated market "seems" to be the real problem here to overcome and be financially successful - if that is the end goal. It may not be for most of us yet.
So MGSA? How does ones game become more VISIBLE than others? - and apart from having that game people want to play, how else does one achieve success in getting a product to be viewed by many and criticized so it can be improved upon? Even in these forums sometimes it feels like "preaching to the choir", haha.
Heck, we recently submitted a game to an international contest, NOT with the goal of winning, pppfff, but with the goal of VISIBILITY - brand and game wise. Not sure it is successful yet, doubt it, but one can only try? Is this a wrong approach - could it cause more damage than good in the long run?
I have also been approached by companies that wants to assist with better visibility/awareness - Don't go Google Ad Mob, use OUR service etc - although I am a bit pessimistic around using their services. Maybe a focus on addressing the virility of ones game is the answer? - better social networking integration is a possibility? I don't know?
What are your experiences? Is it mostly based on luck? What is the formula? :) The fisherman with 5 lines cast is due to succeed? A few posts on twitter does not seem to do the trick? Maybe a partnership with a big international Vlogging service after they spot you and your product on IndieDB ? Or money needs to be spent on actual advertising?
I am not convinced that having a superior product is the only way to succeed here - there are lots of great games that never become popular and some sub-par generic games do?
Right now i am simply in a place where I need to hear 1000 people telling my game is crap and even that seems hard to achieve :) But hearing it is invaluable to be a better game developer.
So VISIBILITY and how to achieve seems to be the question, what is the answer?
PS: Not frustrated, just curious in a good way... ;)
With Xoi San, I had this big ! mark when i read he wants to use another technology, I feel he should try and test the water first with what he has right now, which is excellent IMHO - test the VISIBILITY and appetite for the game, before assuming a new tech is the answer to success?
FAIL, EARLY, OFTEN - and what else ;)
So when you say "I am not sure what more there is to making games than this? Make it. Let people know about it. Sell it." I hear something more like: "I'm going to spend 90% of my operating budget on an unproven idea, then feel like I have to market it in order to earn anything back at all and hope that it gets written about somewhere."
There is a LOT more to making games. Specifically the "making" part. There are numerous strategies to try to limit the amount of risk that you're shouldering with any one project, we tend to talk about those here a lot. Most notably: Fail fast, build lots of prototypes and prune them ruthlessly. When you hit on something that's fun for players, you'll be able to prove that from the regard it's getting even as an early playable concept. Then it's up to you to figure out how to turn that player value into money, it doesn't just happen!
Running some best-case theoretical numbers to calculate that 2100 people are maybe going to pay you $1 for IAPs at some point isn't really useful. That's what, like $1400 after publisher and app store cuts, if you're lucky? Rather figure out how to make something that will keep people honestly coming back for more. Rather prototype 5 different ways to sell the same concept, then see which works the best. Rather build something that suddenly gets 70 000 downloads without a publisher pushing it to people that don't really give a shit what they're playing.
Coverage and regard isn't something you gamble to get. It's something your game earns if other people like it. The stuff that scares me is when you say that you're going to totally redo Xoi San in a different engine. It sounds a lot like throwing good money after bad. Rather use that capital to built 5 different prototypes, test those with players and see what you learn from that? I can guarantee you that any time you feel you're not building a portfolio, you're not actually working on something worth investing your passion in.
You shouldn't feel bad when you stop working on a game, make a new one that's better (or smaller in scope and more polishable) - we're all rooting for you to KEEP making stuff, stopping one particular project isn't a big deal, we've all done it and we all know how that feels. It gets easier to kill your darlings eventually :)
Working to make even a mediocre game visible is a waste of time. If your efforts aren't self-sustaining, you're always going to be putting in more effort than you're going to get returns out.
Work to develop a style, become someone that can make coherent games - you're right that not every game has to be stand-out amazing all the time, but a good game is coherent in a way that doesn't kick people out of it AND underlines the awesome facet of it that makes the game unique somehow.
You need both uniqueness AND visibility to succeed. Focusing on one to the detriment of the other isn't a quick fix for anything... The good game comes first, then you work on the visibility. If people aren't shouting at you to let them buy your game when it's still just a prototype, you're probably not sitting on a good enough game yet.
It's basically a matter of making enough games to eventually get good enough at producing coherent experiences that don't get in their own way first.
P.S. Ignore those companies - they're trying to use your insecurity to make money. Yes, marketing works, but only once you know that you have a thing that sells itself when you put it in front of new people.
P.P.S. Contests are a great way to reality-check your game. The IGF was a great thing for Desktop Dungeons, as was IndieCade. Ludum Dare has done wonders for Free Lives and their game Broforce.
Ok fair enough @dislekcia
But where do you draw the line of giving up and moving on to another concept?
My opinion is XoiSan has passed into the red now. The game would have sold enough and been worth the risk was it completed in its 2 month deadline.
It didn't make the deadline and the reason for porting it... i need to learn a better game engine. UE4 was my choice. Thus XoiSan now serves as a focus point for achieving two goals.
Learn how to "finish" a game and learn to use the game engine for the next game.
Lets look realistically without emotion at the stats thus far regarding Xoi San.
Steam rank has dropped to #30 from #17
There are only 371 followers. 10039 yes votes. 8000 no votes.
GOG rejected the game stating "the game is too simple and repetitive"
Indie DB stats indicate only 12 followers and not nearly as much views.
Now if you just take those stats into consideration the plug must be pulled on this game.
What is the general feedback received regarding this game?
It looks like Limbo.
But does the game play like Limbo? No. Not even a little bit.
The point is... there aren't many options.
a: make more prototype games ? (i need working UE4 knowledge for this)
b: change the entire game to an adventure game (which i can prototype early)
c: Add puzzle elements to XoiSan... this will bring it closer to adventure category but keep the action.
Personally i believe if puzzle elements are added the game would do better. Puzzle games in general sell better than action games.
I guess the best deciding factor would be to see if an Indiegogo campaign would raise enough funds to recuperate losses.
If it doesn't, then obviously the game will not make enough and i can officially agree with you. That its throwing good money after a bad investment.
I think you're too attached to your creation (I don't even know if I can put a plural on that) - how many prototypes have you made? Just as an example, off the top of my head, I've made 10, at least, in the last year or twoish. Of those, two have made it to shows. Of those, 1 would be eventually finished (that I know of). I try to show a new prototype at our monthly meetup every time (try, lol)
XoiSan is beautiful - but you've put the horse before the cart and made graphics without a solid gameplay base, and right now I'm sure you've felt the pain of that. Every change/addition you want to make gameplay wise is SUPER EXPENSIVE in time and effort because you have to generate/change all that beautiful art. That's not good for finding good gameplay. Take that as a lesson.
The point has been made before - don't get attached to your prototypes. Cull them. Make new ones. Fail quickly.
Your goal should never be to sell "enough". Rather aim for long-term consistent earnings, you want a long tail game that's going to keep trickling cash into your business, even while you're asleep. Vlambeer does this in great ways, and they have a rule that when they're at 6 months to bingo funds, they work on getting cash into their business right the hell now. They do things via sponsorship deals (used to use FlashGameLicense a lot) or other single-transaction payments that aren't about convincing loads of people to buy a small thing, more about 1 large client picking something up. That's kinda how I was hoping you'd be talking about getting funding, TBH. Why UE4? What does it give you access to that's powerful for your business in both the short and long-term? Does UE4 have a dedicated marketplace that allows you to sell complete/semi-complete game projects for money? Flash and HTML5 do. I'm not saying "learn Flash instead 11!!!1one1!", I'm merely pointing out that you might not be evaluating your options as rationally as you hope you are and that there are other options that you might not be considering because your business plan doesn't take those avenues into account. UE4 has served Runestorm super well, so you might want to chat to @Darkcarnivour about that :) This assumes that finishing one game is like finishing another game. This is not the case at all. Yes, super similar games do share certain elements of their "finishing" process and getting good at dealing with UI is probably never a bad idea, but every game I've ever finished has been a very different process. Yes, you'd expect a game for PSP and PS2 to be different to an XBOX 360 game, a PC game, or a mobile game, but even multiple mobile games haven't been similar to finish off. You're always going to be doing very different things at the end of any one game project.
The "skill" that needs to be "practiced" when you're finishing a game is the sheer bloody-minded determination to keep going on a thing that maybe you're really tired of by now. You know what helps with that a ton? Knowing that you're doing this to hit a specific opportunity, not worrying that maybe this might work out after all. I've been working on Desktop Dungeons for over 4 years now and, frankly, while I still love the game and enjoy playing it (that's super rare), I *am* tired of working on it by now. But the thing that keeps me (and the rest of the team) going is knowing that when we release for mobile, we'll be giving the game to a sea of fans that really, really want it on their tablets - that's an opportunity we can't ignore. Running a crowdfunding campaign is a full-time, expensive initiative. You should only do that when you know exactly what your market is and how you're going to convince them to give you money for a proof of concept. Crowdfunding doesn't "save" a single-person project, it consumes it. If you run a half-hearted IG campaign, it's extremely unlikely that it'll hit your goal. We've seen multiple local crowdfunding campaigns and the learning from that is that they're a more-than-full-time job that you have to prepare for like crazy.
The pressure to try and earn is what's causing you all your hassles - it's preventing you thinking about opportunities with an open mind. Why does Xoi San have to return right now? What's wrong with working on something else for a couple of weeks and then, if people are hassling you to finish Xoi San because they want to give you money for it, going back to it later?
Also this thread made me realize a few things. So my goal is no longer money driven. My goal is what it was which i lost somewhere along the line. The goal was to make the game. Irrelevant of sales.
Why UE4?
Well i don't code. I cannot code. It has blueprints. Which admittedly is hard to grasp considering i have never touched code and resembles this coding thing people talk about. Also the toolsets provided by the engine is pretty cool. Not as cool as Cryengines terrain tools but close enough.
As for IndieGogo. Yip. Definitely a full time thing. Will see how it goes.
I was so stressed about getting things done. Getting money. That i forgot why i made the huge life altering decision to quit a job with a salary for this. It was never about the money. :) Or what people want me to make.
Considering the fact that i do not find 99% of the popular games enjoyable (COD *cough*)... its only logical to assume that the games i make... even though fun for me... will only be fun for 1% of the populace. Which is ok.
Call it what you will. But i set out to make this game. And i will finish it before anything else. Stubborn? Yeah pretty much.
Making money is the facilitation of continuing to make games. It's a direct influence on how much time you get to spend on making games vs other stuff we don't like doing as much.
If your goal is just to make a game, irrespective of how long it takes, irrespective of how much time you get to spend doing it (percentage of it in a day/week/month, for example), then having a day job while making it hobbiest is the best way.
If your goal is to make games with more of your time, then you need to plan for income generation. Unfortunately life comes with its simple problems like needing money to live. Unless you happen to have alternative methods than plebs of living (rich family, inheritance, having sustenance farming with free internet and no need for worldly possessions like chairs), you have to think about things that work rather than just ideals of your own.
Sorry if I sound a bit harsh here :/ But we'd ALL love to see you succeed! :)
I know.
And don't get me wrong. I do need stuff to live. But that's a concern for after XoiSan.
I'm not saying i don't want monies. I'm just saying right now. Its not a concern. My only concern is just releasing a game. This game. Then after that i will start being business wise.
Do prototypes, aim for revenue etc.
And the advise given here is pretty solid.
I really do appreciate all the advise. And it will be used. Just after xoi san :p
I like both. Will have to see once i created new Trees that will sit near foreground to add more black in foreground.
Was making good progress. Apart from spending 24hours straight cursing the universe because the stupid engine keeps corrupting my stuff. Rebuilt the game from scratch 3 times. Only to realize i put bad code inside that was causing all the issues.
lol
And today... today im adding the enemies. Or it was the plan. But apparently UE 3.1 is refusing the launch today. So its techie day.
If all else fails they can publish it.
On the other note. Solved my engine issue. The game log file had so many errors the Editor couldn't launch :)
Enemy implementation time. WOoooo!
Working on a new concept before continuing dev on Xoi San.
Have a few small concepts that are in the pipeline. Circumstances have changed a bit and i need to minimize risk as much as possible.
Its been a while but i am switching back to this game.
It is being renamed and i am paying more attention to quality as opposed to rushing to get this done.
Latest screenshot.
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