Fcdesert Devlog 27

Dev Log Apr 18 - Pro Tip: This ain't Hollywood. Stick at it.

This is a bit of a rant separate from my normal topics about development here that you'll likely never see again, but I really feel like I can save some people a little bit of heartache with this. My forte is (obviously) the technical side, but this is currently a one-man show, so I also have to draw and animate all of the graphics, compose all of the music, record all of the sound effects, design the stages, and do all of the marketing and business stuff. I can afford to do it because of some extreme planning spanning over a decade and a couple of lucky breaks. But, if you want to go fully indie, you will be doing most of this too at some point. So at this time, since it's still relatively quiet around here and nobody can claim survivorship bias, I really, really want to impress on anybody also considering taking the plunge: Your game is not going to blow up overnight. Ever. Period. The concept of the game dev has been extremely romanticized as this David vs Goliath struggle against the AAA industry, and being tied so closely with the flash-in-a-pan culture that is the internet, it's kind of bled over into mainstream culture as well. The cold reality is that if your game makes it to release, you're in the minority. And then if you can crack 5 sales on your first title within the first year, I'd consider that an overwhelming success. When Crescent Roll released on Steam, I counted 75 other titles released the same day. The fact that we sold any copies at all was a miracle in my eyes, but I'm not getting the same response from anybody else. It's always "what a shame, it looks so nice". And this isn't the schoolyard bully pointing and laughing - it's your friends and family trying to be consoling, but in doing so are inadvertently labeling your efforts a failure. They don't know that it hurts. A lot of people in art communities get it, but a lot of the people in more tech-oriented stuff (like game development) don't seem to experience it quite as much: gaining traction takes time. Pizza Tower? 5 years of development. Marketing for it started before development actually began, as McPig was using Peppino in comics and other games. Terraria? Redigit found his team and an audience working on the fan game Super Mario Bros X. Balatro? LocalThunk had 48 wishlists at the end of the beta. Go read his website. Among Us sat for almost 2 years before blowing up, and Henry Stickman was already popular. Nobody ever bursts onto the scene and just immediately grabbed the world's attention from nowhere. If it looks like they did, you're missing at least half the picture. it will be soul-crushing when nobody wants to play that thing that you spent a year of your life on. But making any kind of art is always a slow burn. The key is going to be persistence. And I don't mean just throwing as much stuff at the wall as you can - pick a direction, put out your best work, and just keep pushing it forward. It doesn't have to be free updates: make more good games, post art, whatever. Keep your presence known. Obviously, this is all talking to the dreamers who have been sketching level concepts in their notebooks since grade school. If you need money, you're really looking in the wrong place. And you should really, really make sure you can take care of yourself financially before venturing out into no-man's land here, 'cause you'll be in the hole for a while. So this isn't so much an inspirational thing, as more of a warning for others considering going full indie - it's tough. You'll need discipline to get there, and then more discipline to keep it up. I thought I was over-prepared for our jumping-off, and we still ended up having to defer features for after release, and still don't have a real trailer yet. So, if your plans require overnight success, you might want to stick with your day job for a bit longer until it doesn't have to. Which it won't. Trust me.

fcdesert devlog 12

i added items because combat was boring.

string:

bow:

and some arrows

i'm planning on adding a magical band that heals you.

i decided to start making a bestiary.

I created random stuff that will generate on the floor:

Using recursion to call the meme function. #Recursion #Programming #Coding #Memes

Introducing the merchant:

he was ripped from the previous game i made, had his sprite mutilated to add more detail, and was forced to be used for testing. (idk why the colors look like that)

its easy to see what was translated accurately and what i decided to have some fun with even if you can't read the language:

https://freeve4h.tk

I MADE A WEBSITE

i redid the Ghost cutscene:

i made some gamejolt thing https://gamejolt.com/c/SoH-62jiqy

i might not do a lot of stuff on there, but it exists