From the dev
My first game, Drinks With Abbey, was a small, free game intended to be a market test. Was this kind of game good enough to turn into a larger one, that I might devote years of my life to? For some, maybe. The feedback was mostly positive. But simply put, I wasn't convinced.
I learned so much from the experience and from user reviews, but I still have more questions. And the way that I chose to answer those questions and dig deeper into what aspects of the game were worth building on is to take a slightly different design approach and compare the feedback. For example, I couldn't tell whether some people didn't appreciate the style of humor used or if it's difficult to appreciate in text form specifically. So, Over The Phone has voice acting and tone clues for choices. Also, a lot of people felt discouraged by the game's unforgiving nature. In OTP, it's more flexible and about player expression than always trying to say the 'right' thing. These 2 games together will create a clearer picture for me and guide future work in the genre.
The second reason I made another small game is that I wanted to practice and develop skills I hadn't used in the first before tackling a larger project. Drinks With Abbey is as basic as it gets, and considering I hired artists and licensed music, it was really only a test of my writing and project management skills.
With Over The Phone, I wanted to do everything I possibly could by myself (not something I plan to always do). I spent some time learning Python and more advanced Renpy stuff, I created 12 original music tracks, and did the voice acting for the male character. Given that I'm not a strong illustrator, I chose a concept where I could handle the visuals with images and graphic design. Ultimately, Over The Phone is still pretty basic as games go. But I am only at the beginning of my game dev journey. I'm currently learning Unity, and fast, so I expect game 3 to be quite a step up. And I'm not really sure what kind of game it will be yet.
The third and most practical reason for making another small game is that I don't have the money or time to make a larger one. I'm a web dev by day, so I can't work on games full time. I know a lot of people do Kickstarter or similar, and while I find nothing wrong with that in general, it's not how I want to go about it. I would rather sell a game when it's finished. And so I am.
Over The Phone will be $2.99 on Steam. From the sales of this game, I hope to earn the ability to work on game dev full time and make bigger and better games in the years to come. Maybe it's just me, but I think the industry could use more people who create from a desire to make cool stuff, not just more money. I am and will always be one of them.
I learned so much from the experience and from user reviews, but I still have more questions. And the way that I chose to answer those questions and dig deeper into what aspects of the game were worth building on is to take a slightly different design approach and compare the feedback. For example, I couldn't tell whether some people didn't appreciate the style of humor used or if it's difficult to appreciate in text form specifically. So, Over The Phone has voice acting and tone clues for choices. Also, a lot of people felt discouraged by the game's unforgiving nature. In OTP, it's more flexible and about player expression than always trying to say the 'right' thing. These 2 games together will create a clearer picture for me and guide future work in the genre.
The second reason I made another small game is that I wanted to practice and develop skills I hadn't used in the first before tackling a larger project. Drinks With Abbey is as basic as it gets, and considering I hired artists and licensed music, it was really only a test of my writing and project management skills.
With Over The Phone, I wanted to do everything I possibly could by myself (not something I plan to always do). I spent some time learning Python and more advanced Renpy stuff, I created 12 original music tracks, and did the voice acting for the male character. Given that I'm not a strong illustrator, I chose a concept where I could handle the visuals with images and graphic design. Ultimately, Over The Phone is still pretty basic as games go. But I am only at the beginning of my game dev journey. I'm currently learning Unity, and fast, so I expect game 3 to be quite a step up. And I'm not really sure what kind of game it will be yet.
The third and most practical reason for making another small game is that I don't have the money or time to make a larger one. I'm a web dev by day, so I can't work on games full time. I know a lot of people do Kickstarter or similar, and while I find nothing wrong with that in general, it's not how I want to go about it. I would rather sell a game when it's finished. And so I am.
Over The Phone will be $2.99 on Steam. From the sales of this game, I hope to earn the ability to work on game dev full time and make bigger and better games in the years to come. Maybe it's just me, but I think the industry could use more people who create from a desire to make cool stuff, not just more money. I am and will always be one of them.