Instead, you can follow my Youtube channel here.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBwzXIbuoaJA9f2MyZfkqfg
I will not be posting here from now on. Going to try and focus more on Vlogs.
Officially Retiring This Blog
This blog has now been sunset as of Today on this very date. No more posts here.
Random Post
How long does it actually take to get your act together?
We all have goals in life. Whether it be out of necessity, passion, inspiration, etc. But what makes the us complete these goals besides the first motivator? We usually just do most things out of necessity, otherwise we risk the loss of something. We don't really care much about the results. When you're passionate about something, it's not the same. You care WAY too much about the results. Which is very annoying. I should learn to get out my own damn way and let myself work. Real talk, that whole "perfectionist" mindset can be very troubling. It's a very yin-yang balance that doesn't get talked about often.
I have no idea why I'm writing this, but yet again I do? Catcher In The Rye type of situation my headspace is in (and I hate that book). I'm gonna DO some more game dev work and see what sticks and what doesn't.
Anyways, that's all I got. See y'all around.
Understanding Game Design Theory For My Beat Em Up: No More Heroes.
So I recently have gotten a Nintendo Switch along with several games for it, including No More Heroes III. I decided to do a bit of research and analyze the game's combat strengths and weaknesses.
NMH III is a very fun and exhilarating beat 'em up and is very different and engaging from its contemporaries. It still has really satisfying finishing moves like you would expect from a 3D beat em up that are sure to satisfy anyone playing, either casual or hardcore. Although the combat is very different from it's other 3D hack n' Slashing brethren. While titles like Bayonetta and DMC are about keeping a free form combo with hard execution, NMH III takes more from its 2D counterparts (Streets of Rage/Final Fight) and is all about crowd control and landing the best stunlock/back turn route in order to drain an opponent's health down to zero. The game throws strange enemy patterns at you to throw your rhythm off during a fight.
The game rewards you for keeping up offense with a "Tension" meter, as Travis Touchdown, the protagonist, is able to easily dizzy his opponents quicker, leading to some brutal punishment. Get hit though, and that tension gets knocked down. Weaker enemies don't get completely obliterated when you're fully maxed out on attack levels, making even the beginning enemy encounters a nuisance when paired up with certain heavier enemies that can shred a third of your life like it was nothing. There are also several key mechanics such as the Battery on your weapon running out to prevent infinites and reckless mismanagement of attacking.
Is it always perfect? Eh... no. For starters, leveling up your battery to be seemed pretty meaningless since you still blast through half of it trying to take one enemy out which can be super annoying. For some reason, the game also just... doesn't follow its own rules when it comes to stun/combo theory, especially in some boss fights where bosses can literally just tell you to piss off and break your combo with an invincible/guard crush attack.
Which is a real shame, since the game definitely has a pretty interesting system that rewards good play, but has some counterintuitive mechanics that hamper the experience of the combat system. You could remedy this by buying certain items to replenish your battery/tension to keep momentum up, but it feels more like a crutch than makes you pay to play for playing well.
I have heard the conversation around beat 'em up circles that No More Heroes in general feels like a game that limits your play for a balanced fight between the player and the enemies, even though enemies aren't really doing their part.
I still enjoyed my time though, and I definitely like how certain enemy patterns pushed you around for playing haphazardly. Something I want to add in my own project as well. And hopefully a better system besides gravity scaling in SOR4 and battery consumption that would help remedy infinites in my title as well.
Where I've been at and goals for the future.
So it's been a while since I made a blog. A LONG WHILE. I don't even know if I have the writing ability to write a blog since it's been so long but here I go
tl;dr : Ya boys employed.
Yes that's right, I am in the wage cage. And honestly THANK GOD. I was really unstable for awhile as far as a stream of income and revenue for pursuing my other goals and honestly, I couldn't be happier to get a job with some nice benefits.
What this means is that now I don't have to worry about money in the upcoming future. And since my job is pretty chill, I can focus back on game development and put out stuff that I want to work on. I initially thought I was going to do basically everything myself but honestly... doing all the marketing, researching, publicity and all that was going to bury me alive and really stopped me from focusing on the project. I really can't communicate very effectively on an open-platform that constantly moves so fast and I honestly cannot say that... if I were to market my game by myself, it would not get into many hands. Yeah sure, publishers want some of that stake too, but honestly, I can trust them managing my online presence for my project than I can myself.
Which is why I have been looking at the market for my game, the platforms people are playing it on, and who has been publishing said games. A crazy fact, Steam is not the only place you can go to get your game published, and it certainly isn't the best either. I have been looking at other avenues to get my games to other places and the type of game I'm making is looking better suited for a console than on a PC. Keyboard input feels way worse for the type of game I'm making and it really does suit better for a couch and controller type of experience.
Also, shout outs to Chris Z over on HowMarketAGame.Com. I would have been WAY more ignorant on a lot of things if I never stumbled across his website. He has a lot of great information on there and I highly advise you check it out when looking at your own project. It helped me formulate a plan on my own project and how to pitch it to publishers, and which publishers to pitch to.
That's all I have for now. Happy Game Devin y'all!
Game Job Offers You Should Avoid
So... I've been meaning to get this blog post up for a LONG time now. I think it goes without saying that trying to find a good position as a game dev is... well it's about as consistent as Bethesda trying to take bugs out *cough* I mean implementing features in their games.
But seriously, there are some REALLY terrible offerings out there. In fact, I have been subjected to most of these terrible gigs/offers in my time as a junior game dev. There are some very predatory offers that seem good first glance, but after reading between the lines, it is a road to hell paved with good intentions.
Now I want to preface by saying some of these offers are straight up just trying to use you as a free resource and the people who do this are scum bags. But most of these offers that I have gotten are usually due to ignorance/oversights on the employer/recruiter end of things. There is no particular order of extremity when it comes to this list, but do take my advice on the exceptions to certain gigs marked with an *.
1. Rev Share Gigs*
So say you come across a job offering on LinkedIn/Indeed or even forum post or Discord message on a game dev related server or blog. A company needs an artist/programmer/coordinating manager/coffee runner because the coffee machine broke thanks to Dave for breaking the glass pot. Instead of offering a paid yearly amount, the company decides to share revenue, aka rev share.
I would say rev share is a mixed bag as a job offer. This type of income is based on how well the game will sell and how many hours they require you to put into the job. I had a very bad experience with a douchebag of a company in 2019 who tried to do rev share. Thankfully that company has been disbanded since 2020.
To put it short, it was terrible.
For a longer story, I was offered this job to build a "vast open world First-Person Island Utopia simulator." And yes, it does sound more like a life choice than a virtual interactive experience. It was going to implement stuff like gold mining, house building, real estate management, turf wars and weed farming. Yes you read that right, God damn weed farming. This game's scope was so ludicrous and out of focus you could've mistaken it for a Phase 4 MCU movie. This project was so out of scope for that entire dev team that there was like... 5 people trying tackling on 4-5 huge game mechanics. It was a team spread so thin that you could have mistaken it for an Apple QA team.
The worst was that the main director for the project, who was a giant shithead that didn't even know how to open a damn file in google drive, wanted to add MORE MECHANICS into the game every day before it even hit the email of one publisher! Add the fact this guy would show up half-drunk on Discord calls and shout out Russian slurs to his spouse while he was playing CS:GO and you'd best believe ain't no damn way the "rev share" incentive would keep me around.
Now... these aren't ALL the teams that do this who decide to do rev share. But it does appear more often than not. Usually smaller teams will do it as a collectivist method to evenly distribute the wealth across the team. So if a team consists of a five people, it'll be 20% for each person after the game turns profit.
Rev share income alone is SUPER volatile/risky because it depends on how well a game sells. So if indie game #9999 on its first week sells well over 50,000 companies at $19.99, you'd best believe you'll be up fat bread stack avenue besides the old decaying boomers on Wall Street. But if the game is barely able to scrape by 1,000 copies in its first year, it's time to take up a couple extra hours on DoorDash or ask for extra work time at your local Target.
I will say however that IF you find a good team that knows what they're doing and has seen some traction around certain gaming sites/social media with a sizeable following, I would definitely say take the rev share.
2. Long-term projects with low flat rate pay
Like it says in the sentence. This usually happens due to fault of the company/employer who extends a 1 week project into 3 months for no good reason. Usually something like "Oh it's going to take me this amount of time until I pay you... we need you to finish things on a milestone basis..." or some other nonsense excuse. They offer a base pay of something adequate for the month of January and don't pay you until the month of September for the same work you finished in the March. In the business, we call this "holding the bag". Don't accept long-term projects with low pay like I did. Trust me, when I needed the $500 from work I did back in March and didn't get paid 'til August... It was rough. You need to put your foot down and say "enough is enough, I need my money."
3. Positions offered by LinkedIn recruiters
Now you might be asking "But Rami, surely people on LinkedIn know what they're doing! It's not like they're chickens without heads running around and messaging every single person including you to do their project!" Ah, I see you're an optimist. Unfortunately that statement is more the exception than the rule. You don't know how many times I get vague and broad terms for a Unity position.
They'll say nonsense like "Shader Coding Languages such as DirectX and OpenGL."
First off... do you even know what DirectX and OpenGL are!? And why are you contacting me about this? OpenGL and DirectX don't even appear in neither my Portfolio nor my skills category, so why approach me for the job? It's like if you asked your Starbucks barista to make you a dry-aged filet mignon with a caviar garnish on top.
These recruiters also often try to underpay you for your work or delay your benefits. Something like "we'll pay you $50,000/yr to be the lead to do our whole entire engine reintegration in Unity" or "|we'll give you a healthcare plan after 4 months of working with us." It's absolute garbage work and you shouldn't be wasting your time with these people. It REALLY sucks to say but you have to be the starter of the hiring conversation. In fact, if you even ask a team near your area, you might actually find a position to get something done. It all depends on who you talk, but definitely not LinkedIn recruiters.
4. Unpaid Long-Term positions
If a recruiter is asking you to spend months of your life with no pay whatsoever on a project for "experience," you better hit that ignore/block button quick. There is literally no excuse for you not to get paid. You don't know how many times I'll see a contract position go by on Discord or hell even LinkedIn asking somebody to work half a year with no compensation.
This has become a big problem in the last few years, especially now with the pandemic. Just because it's remote work does NOT mean you shouldn't be compensated for doing said work at home.
This video showcasing some of these ethically bankrupt methods of getting people to work for free can be detailed by my man Joshua Fluke in the URL provided below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic70AtRf1aU
5. Positions from companies with a bad track record
This should be pretty obvious but a lot of the time I see new developers try to get jobs fast out of desperation for work. They'll look at a company's steam page or how many reviews they have instantly think "ah, this team must do super well! Their games are highly rate on Steam! I'm going to apply!" Don't do that. Ask around. See who the person or people are running the group. They might be a bunch of scumbags who try to artificially inflate reviews with their power of community.
Now you might be asking "what about a team with no name or record to them, Rami?" That is a good question. I'd say look into the team of the project, such as credentials, previous work of individual members and so on. If they're competent and know what they're doing, go ahead and roll with them. If not, avoid them.
6. Offers from people who are not in the gaming industry whatsoever
This is actually super common on Indeed and other job posting sites. Specifically if you are a Unity developer since Unity is widely used for more than games now. Hell, the SF MUNI bus screens use Unity. You will get bombardments of emails asking for frankly... weird positions from some private company that just mass messages people who wrote a StartCoroutine() function. It's best to just ignore these since they actually do underpay you most of the time for what they're asking.
Conclusion
If you take my advice or have benefitted from this blog post at all, Let me know in the comments section below of this post. I really would love to hear you stories or other scenarios you have experienced as well. I just want to help people stay away from these terrible practices as much as I can.
If you'd like to support me in anyway, I have a ko-fi where you can donate as little as $3 to help me out. I really appreciate the gesture. Until next time, have a nice day!
https://ko-fi.com/wildworldgames
Going about MonoGame in a different way.
I decided to write a blog post on MonoGame and what my current experience is on how to use it.
So far I 've written a few games within a singular game loop, no editor/debugger or anything. I know how to add logic to objects and program inheritance, a bit of enemy AI, and some scripting logic like making a particle engine. The thing is however, that's all fine and dandy for small simple games like 1 level platformers and shmups, But when it comes to what I'm doing, I don't think it's gonna help me by restarting the main window every 30 seconds if a glitch goes haywire. What I need is a true debugger/level editor within the MonoGame window itself in order to make the development process more smooth. So the goals of getting my engine to actually BE an engine are the following:
- Debugger that actually pauses the game loop and shows actual analytics like memory usage and FPS, as well something that can handle entities and components
- Console-like terminal that makes debugging easier during test sessions
- A reusable engine that can be used for primarily 2D Games with other third-party software and codebases like Humper and Tiled
Now this is a lot of work and is easier said than done, But I have to do it because hard-coding every little thing is like buying a new pair of shoes every week because you just wear the old pair of shoes once. So yeah, I have a big stack ahead of me. Thank God I am not starting off from complete scratch with the 3rd party libraries I have with me. So that's a plus.
Anyways, I have to go for now. Hopefully I'll have something by next Saturday I reckon.
Trying a new style of learning: Programming in General Theory and Practice
Blogging is pretty cool; I'm trying to get into it more, not just because I think I can help a few people out, but for my own personal enjoyment and use as well.
I want to try a different style of programming and that is applying general physics/data logic into game scripting; what I mean by this is by instead of following some REALLY specific instance of a mechanic such as a grappling hook or wall-running ability is instead to figure out the actual physics of what an entity needs to be able to swing across a rope or how much force/friction is necessary to run-up a wall. This also applies to things like Shaders and Post-Process effects.
What I have found are some very helpful online resources that can help me out as I start this new journey.
https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/
https://medium.com/@brazmogu/physics-for-game-dev-a-platformer-physics-cheatsheet-f34b09064558
http://allenchou.net/2019/08/trigonometry-basics-sine-cosine/
I'll try to update this list more and more if people have suggestions. I have also noticed general terms like "physics of a plane" and "force needed to push an object" helps as well. I'll be trying these findings out by the end of the month and post my test results. I hope you also have found this blog useful!
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Hey before you go, check out these links to where you can donate to charity. A lot of people around the world could use your help with a small donation of $5 to help them out. Anyways, that's all for now. Happy Game Devin!
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Blog Update
Been a while since I blogged for a bit.
In the good news, I found some good technical review work and that has been helping me out.
Also I honestly cannot stand Unity anymore and I am going back to learning MonoGame and maybe onwards to Godot for 3D.
Also I have to learn how to use MonoGame's 3d party libraries. If I can, it'll save me a lot of time instead of building stuff from scratch all the damn time.
Anyways, just wanted to keep this brief. I'll see you guys around.
Oh yeah I also gave the blog a new and more streamlined look. Hope you like it!
Game Dev: Building A Social Foundation
Wow... when was the last time I made a blog?
Anyways, what I want to talk about Today is not finance or "getting priorities straight" before you go on your game dev journey. This is about starting the journey itself. And more importantly your goals.
If you're just a humble game dev that just wants to participate in game jams and make small little games as a hobby to share with your friends and family, go ahead and make all the games you want. Trying to get a job at your favorite company? Go ahead and build up that Unreal/Unity portfolio so you can work the latest Bethesda or Way Forward title.
But if you really wanna make this work as a full-time indie thing, you have to network with not only people in the gaming industry, but the gaming community; the people that spend hundreds, maybe even thousands, a month on video games and anything closely related to it. Which is why you need to communicate with as many people as possible. Before you type in that first line of code, draw that first pixel-art frame or even open up FL Studio 8 to make the epic first fight theme, you HAVE to build a network foundation.
Who's gonna play your game if you don't know anybody or anybody doesn't know you (poor grammar totally intended), especially the audience you're making the game for? Nowadays, the market is oversaturated with everything from 2D roguelike platformers to the latest open-world sandbox game . Now there is nothing wrong with those types of games, games like Hades and GTA V prove so and developers, as well as gamers alike, adore them. It's how you spread the word out on your game.
You need to learn how to build a social network to put your game in the limelight.
I suggest visiting Chris Z's website, How To Market A Game for tips on getting your game out there. He has some great tips on how to network on Twitter, email marketing and in general how to show off your game.
I also recommend visiting other Indie Devs through Discord, Youtube and Gaming Conventions (Online and Offline) to get the word going.
But what also helps is being a part of an online social entity of some sort related to games. This can be Discord, community forums like the GameSpot or IGN message boards, heck even showing it off to someone from a game company can get you somewhere.
Forums alone are a real attention grabber. These numbers are the average of the amount of people concurrently online a week at the forums I visit on a night and day cycle.
Night:
Goat House: 11
IGN: 577
Gaming Latest: 12
Gaming Rev: 38
JoyFreak: 82
Day:
IGN: 702
Gaming Rev: 62
Gaming Latest: 31
Goat House: 6
JoyFreak: 133
Night time is less visited, but that is still a lot of people all together. That is over 1,000 users that are paying attention to you and what you post.
And the best part is... most of these options are FREE. You don't need to pay for a forum post about your game or cough up your earnings to some stupid marketing company for the game. You can do that organically.
So in conclusion:
- Make a mailing list
- Look at Chris Z's site for better game marketing tips
- Visit your favorite forums and show off your game there
The best part is, once you're finished doing all this, you can literally rinse and repeat for every other game you then put forth but that's only IF you built a strong social foundation. No duct-tape and zip tie shotty work is gonna help you grow an audience if you don't put in actual good work.
That's it for my advice; I'll see you guys around in the next blog! Happy Game Deving!
GameDev: A Small Guide About Being Honest On Critiques
I do however understand that mentality of "addressing faults" as a way to get your point across that their game needs work. I recently got done playing someone's alpha build of their game and it needed a lot of work. It just felt like a generic 2D hack-n-slash platformer that was glitchy and I had to be honest about it and say "I probably wouldn't play this game right now even if you fixed the bugs I mentioned. It's way too basic and got boring after half an hour."
People have criticized my crappy game design decisions a lot, and that has made me a better programmer/designer long-term. How?
1. If something was unoptimized/poorly coded, it forced me find a brand new solution with a better practice that made the coding practice easier for myself.
2. After the 1st hurdle it actually helped me realize the design of my game was lackluster. "Anybody can make a game, but can you make it a fun one?" Is the age old question many, including myself, have a hard time answering. And although fun is subjective, in the context of gaming, there are mechanics that objectively make it more fun within the context of your game.
Take for instance a game like Arkanoid/Breakout. What is the "fun" in that game? It's finishing the level by hitting a fast-moving ball with a paddle. The high-octane action is what keeps you going as the ball picks up speed and you rack huge point multipliers for doing sick combos. Now whether or not that was the game was intended to be played is another issue, but people, for the most part, like this fast-paced gameplay loop which rewards execution and reaction time.
Now take out what most people think is objectively "fun" and throw it out the window. Imagine an Arkanoid where the ball moves slow all the time, there was no strategy, and you basically just looped the level ad nauseum with no variation in style. That and maybe the paddle move in the opposite direction instead of the direction you wanted it to.
So I'm making a small guide on this to show what you can do to give good advice to game developers that you playtest their game for.
1. BE HONEST
It could be your friend's/family member's/co-worker's first time making a game, and like all first steps, there's bound to be problems. That said, you should address those problems instead of it ignoring them. It doesn't even have to be anything technical.
Stuff like collision detection, wonky physics and save data not being stored correctly when you save the game is pretty easy to show and explain. But stuff that isn't designed well, probably level design being too large or to small, combat with enemies being boring or tedious, or RPG mechanics - if the game has it - being broken when you level up a certain weapon to maximum in a short amount of power and it just dominates the game. Stuff like that is way more important long-term. Even though that isn't what they envisioned for their game to be played like, the interpretation between dev to player is similar to author and reader; you can't stop someone from seeing things the way they like it.
Of course games and books are different. You can't stop the author from doing what he/she wants with his/her characters, nor what he/she wants to do with the story. That book is still bound to find an audience somewhere. Games are the same way too mechanically wise, but when something is objectively not good for the more interesting parts of the game, a lot of people aren't going to like it.
Which is why I move on to my second point
2. Highlight what's cool about the game and push that design
Say you're playtesting a game. It probably has a few cool mechanics that you like. The problem is that all the mechanics might not fit together.
Remember 3v3 Pokemon battles in some of the later generations? Dual battles were already a huge load in terms of strategy enough, but 3v3 just made it overkill. Which is why Gamefreak brought it down to 2v2 in later iterations. Instead of trying to polish 2v2, they just added a meaningless extra layer people didn't have a problem with.
A game with very few yet polished mechanics is more remembered than a game that is bloated with features that are way too complex which only the most dedicated of fanbases will stick with.
So if you play a game with a good design, elaborate on how it could be better.
Say you like the gun switch combos in an FPS. Don't say nothing, say that you want faster gun switching between the sniper rifle and rocket launcher.
If there are too many redundant weapon variations like a chaingun and a mini-chaingun which does less damage, then that should be taken out.
And that's all I have to say on the matter for now. I hope this helps fellow playtesters and indie devs out.
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Hey if you like this blog and want to support my game dev projects or are feeling generous, you can do so here through my Paypal Donation Link, Anything helps, even a $1.
If you'd also like to support but want to get something out of it, I recommend you getting this amazing book by A.T. Chamillard through my Amazon Affiliates link!
You can learn how to make games in MonoGame, the best 2D/3D open source framework that has made many popular games like Celeste and Streets of Rage 4. You can get it by clicking here.
In the meantime, stay safe as always and have a good one everybody!
Why The Game Awards Show Needs To Change Its Voting Process
I usually don't talk much about the general gaming industry as a whole. Not because I don't want to or try to avoid, but because... I don't even know where to begin with it. From corporate buyouts of media reviews to oversaturation and miscategorization of online platforms according (I literally found RPG Action Adventure games under the Fighting Games category on Steam for some idiotic reason). I just don't know where to put my foot down. But after the complete crapfest that was "The Game Awards Show (TGA)" happened this Thursday, I literally could not just sit back and not write something about this god awful misrepresentation of what I feel isn't gaming's best, nor is the paramount of what the general consumer audience thinks.
As an Indie Dev and as someone who is trying to make their own way in the industry, it is sad how aristocratic TGA is. For those that don't know the voting process for TGA, it is basically 90% critic's choice, with the only player's choice that the general gaming audience's vote actually matters is "The Player's Choice" category.
And past that.... nothing else. All the supposed "professional gaming critics" picked The Last Of US 2, which has been not received well by half of user submitted reviews. I cannot believe how shallow these critics are for giving praise to such an unapologetically "average at best, mediocre at worst" game instead of games like Doom Eternal, Yakuza 7, and Hades that actually put forth something long lost in mainstream games; simple. Unadulterated. FUN. And not only that but also treat their employees better too.
The Last of Us 2 (TLOU2), regardless of controversy of the story, has had SO MANY development issues that I was baffled it won "Best Game Direction." With overworked and underpaid staff that have had to come in for crunch and not even see their families for weeks and multiple delays, how are you going to tell me this game was made out of respect and care for the people that put all their man hours into it?
Now you can say "screw these awards, they mean nothing for REAL gamers but new announcements and game reveals!" As a consumer... fine. You can say and believe that. In fact, I will say that you're right about that from a "consumer" standpoint and whatever is a failure in the market is not going to be loved by the market.
But for the gaming industry - the people who put their blood, sweat and tears into these games - and the media at large that are the dominating factor of influence to the general public, this is a problem I can't just leave undiscussed. I believe that the power of critics, a very minor group, have too much receptional power in their grasp. And if this continues to happen, I believe that the reputation of gaming will continue to be what it is to the public; shallow experiences with seven new shades of brown and lackluster game feel with no innovation.
And that is why I care about this topic so much. Now... we can't give 100% of the awards to the players. There are things like different criteria for games that some people will be biased towards and need to be looked at through a critical lens. It should however be the damn near majority of 80%. That way there is an ACTUAL representation of what people actually like and not just cherrypicked, bought-out reviews that defend mediocre products.
And yeah I'm going to bite the conspiracy stick on this one. Sony bought out TGA so that TLOU2 can do well and can push more units of the game, subsequently leading to more copies of their consoles being sold. There, I said it. The Shadow Lizard People are in the waters feeding us chemical water that turn the freakin' frogs gay.
In all seriousness (as serious as you can get with some serious shit like the Demon Warlords) I don't believe this sets a good precedent for the industry, for the media and for gaming at large and things need to change.
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Hey if you like this blog and want to support my game dev projects or are feeling generous, you can do so here through my Paypal Donation Link, Anything helps, even a $1.
If you'd also like to support but want to get something out of it, I recommend you getting this amazing book by A.T. Chamillard through my Amazon Affiliates link!
You can learn how to make games in MonoGame, the best 2D/3D open source framework that has made many popular games like Celeste and Streets of Rage 4. You can get it by clicking here.
In the meantime, stay safe as always and have a good one everybody!
OffSide: What The King of Fighters XV Needs To Do To Be Successful.
This blog has been getting some good use as of recently and I definitely see why people can become addicted to blogging.
Anyways.... this is another off-topic post outside of the ordinary. Before I decided to be a game dev, I was a full-on competitive fighting game player. I was SUPER into tournaments and went to all my locals as much as I could. But as I got older... I realized that I wanted to do something else with my time and the fighting game genre isn't doing too well because of the pandemic and poor business practices, which I discuss over at my friend's blog. But in Today's topic I want to talk about SNK's latest title in their flagship title. "KOF XV." But why am I making this blog post about a genre I don't really associate much with anymore?
Well I still love fighting games. I think no other genre really gives you the same sense of satisfaction of making you feel powerful once you learn the mechanics through trial and error whilst building a sort of "second nature" when you get proficient at them. I also really want to see this particular game, KOF XV, do well because I love this franchise. It's my favorite fighting game series of all time and will stay that way. I also think it's one of the last bastions of hope for the genre in the future. The genre right now, in terms of product quality and dev support, is no less than awful. So I just want to bring this discussion in the forefront because I believe that KOF XV isn't going to survive on legacy and an established fanbase alone. So let's discuss about what KOF XV needs to be a successful game.
1. Superb Online and Content
For anyone who has played fighting games, they know the drill on this one. For those who don't, here's a brief primer. Most fighting games out in the market today have abysmal online and lackluster content and that is a big issue. Now whether that's due to developer incompetency or tight budget constraints, it's not an excuse to release products that are below industry standard when it comes to online play and modes that will keep players engaged for a long time. Imagine if the latest Call of Duty had the crappiest online where players were desynced all the time and the only mode besides campaign was Team Deathmatch. People would say it would be the worst CoD ever. In Fighting games, that's sadly the norm.
Which is why KOF XV can't just succeed on legacy alone. You don't know how many tweets I've seen of people calling Terry Bogard "Hat Ken" when he was revealed in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. No one besides old heads know who Terry or Kyo are. They just want to play a fully fleshed out game that, for over 20 years, have spanned over multiple installments. That honestly should show that the developer by now is competent and knows what their franchise is all about, what people love about their franchise, and why it's been relevant for so long. To not ask for good rollback or content that will engage the players for hours on end is unacceptable, especially since SNK's net worth from making a whole bunch of spin-offs has netted them 3.1 Billion Yen.
KOF XV on launch should have a variety of content and amazing rollback netcode that will entice new players to play their game, as well as keep their loyal fanbase happy. Stuff like balance changes and day 1 fixes are important, but that is common with any game with multiplayer functionality. You can't prioritize just one small tidbit a handful of people are complaining about when the larger fan base is addressing bigger concerns about your game. If the game is overly glitchy, if the online keeps desyncing after every match, or if something trivial ike final scores in arcade mode aren't updating correctly, that's a big problem with the product.
2. Long-Term Dev Support & Marketing
So let's say KOF XV has all I mentioned above; great online, ubiquitous amounts of content and priorities on fixing the overall product if anything is buggy. So what else does the game need to do to hold relevancy? In terms of going mainstream, I don't think it'll be streamed in the hands of anyone like Markiplier or Pewdiepie anytime soon, at least not in my lifetime. I do however believe that SNK needs to engage with the larger fighting game community. Now... I think they do an... ok job as far as promoting things like online tournaments and events with their e-sports program, but it could be a lot better.
There is no engagement with big time fighting game personalities/streamers that keep most games relevant in Today's cycle of competition for seeking attention. KOF XV has to have a consistent level of engagement for it to be on top of that cycle. Hell, it's literally as simple as tweeting out "Hey guys and gals, we have @FamousStreamer2002 streaming some online play and showcasing our latest balance patch that addresses problems in ranked and casual match! Tune in at their Twitch link below!" It gets people in the community engaged on your game, lets people see the game being played at a high level depending on the streamer, and is great for showing that the devs actually care about their game. SNK could even have small exhibitions of players around the world ran on their own twitch stream.
It is crucial that SNK takes this step in order to engage with their audience and keep them engaged. Those "Smash Directs" Sakurai does aren't all for nothing.
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And that is... literally it. I just wanted to make this a short read since I feel that I have my main points across and hopefully this gets spread around enough where people can see it. Until next time, I'll see you guys later and have a good one!
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Hey if you like this blog and want to support my game dev projects or are feeling generous, you can do so here through my Paypal Donation Link, Anything helps, even a $1.
If you'd also like to support but want to get something out of it, I recommend you getting this amazing book by A.T. Chamillard through my Amazon Affiliates link!
You can learn how to make games in MonoGame, the best 2D/3D open source framework that has made many popular games like Celeste and Streets of Rage 4. You can get it at the link below.
In the mean time, stay safe and have a good one everybody!
Rant: Offer-Up
Ok.... I don't usually blog much about my other personal endeavors and would like to keep this closely related to game dev as much as possible. But for Today's blog I break my own rule on this one and I just have to rant on how shitty Offerup is.
For those that don't know, Offerup is a merchant app where people can buy and sell stuff and then meet to pick up said items or ship them if they're too far away. According to Google Play, the app has over 50+ Million downloads, half of what Ebay has, and is one of the most popular apps to buy and sell stuff all around.
Sounds fine, right? Seems like a good app with a 4.1 star rating and a good place to put your stuff there.
Hahahahahahaha... HELL NO.
Offerup is COMPLETE TRASH. I'm not even spicing it up for the blog post, this app is actually complete garbage. Everybody... LITERALLY every person I have dealt with on this app... is an asshole. Even the people I tried to buy from gave me shit. Now I'm a little bit of a bargainer. If I can get something for $5 off I will. If not, that's fine. But Christ almighty... people give you so much shit if you do. I literally asked someone if I could get $5 off on this phone because... I needed a new phone. The person replied back, saying "stop being a cheap fuck and pay full price."
I was literally BAFFLED. What the hell did I do to piss someone off to not get just $5 off a phone? Why was this person so damn rude!? Not only that, but the people who try to buy from you are the biggest... god damn pricks in the history of the world. I have a whole bunch of electronics on there and had some pretty expensive amps and speakers. I had this $150 subwoofer listed on there and you could not believe the amount of people that wanted it for less than $100. Some asshat wanted it for $70. This shit doesn't even sell for $90 wholesale (price before retail mark-up)! And if they don't get what they want, they try to gaslight you. They always say shit like "Oh I can get this for $40 on Amazon, you're charging too much."
I deadass go to Amazon, SAME EXACT ITEM... $90. And I'm selling that same thing for $50. Whose charging too much here again?
I really don't know what it is with this damn app and its toxicity. People ghost you, tell you you're ripping them off, give you bad reviews because you didn't describe the item exactly how it was... even though the item is in perfect condition. No other Online trading market is like this. I've dealt with people on Facebook and got good results, and Ebay is probably the best when it comes to building relationships and sincerity!
But this app.... this piece of shit app has the worst of customers AND sellers. And you might be saying "it's probably because it's all cash most of the time so it's going to be toxic as hell." That's not true. Facebook is local meet up and cash as well but it's nowhere near this bad. Everybody here is just a cheap fuck!
Honestly I literally don't want anyone to even THINK about going on this god forsaken nightmare and Offerup hasn't been doing anything to stop this shitty behavior. It's like I'm on Gamefaqs back in 2005.
So in conclusion... fuck Offerup and uhhh... yeah fuck Offerup.
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Hey if you like this blog and want to support, you can do so here through my Paypal Donation Link, Anything helps, even a $1 can help.
If you'd also like to support but want to get something out of it, I recommend you getting this amazing book by A.T. Chamillard through my Amazon Affiliates link! You can learn how to make games in MonoGame, the best 2D/3D open source framework that has made many popular games like Celeste and Streets of Rage 4. You can get it at the link below. In the mean time, stay safe and have a good one everybody!
Assessing Your Financial Priorities And Sustainability in GameDev
So... I've been thinking about the long term sustainability of being an indie game dev. I don't know how long it'll take for my next game to be made, but like all great things, it'll take time. I say this because I look at other game devs outside my group, on Social Media, on Dev Forums, and go "man... they really poured all their eggs into one basket for their game."
Now sometimes... it works. A game is successful, critically acclaimed... and finance wise... it's paying off the mortgage and kids' college tuition. But then there's... the "not working" side. Now I can't say without any statistics most indie game devs are doing bad. I really hope not. But for whatever reason some games just aren't successful and... it really sucks. "Among Us" is a prime example of such game. That game released back in 2018 and it only recently got a big surge in popularity. But the rest of those Among Us games, the Ori & The Blind Forests's,The Enter The Gungeons... they're all out on the way side.
I obviously don't want to deter anyone away from game development. When I first started picking up code, I honestly really didn't enjoy making anything else besides a few desktop applications and little games myself. Plus games are fun to make. Who wouldn't want to make the next Mario or Sonic or Doom?
But here's the differences between Nintendo and indies; income... and experience. Heck Nintendo wasn't even a game company at first. They were originally a Hanafuda trading card company that opened back up in 1889. Then in 1966, they went onto make toys. And during the late 70's to early 80's they are now the company we know Today who has made cultural and world renowned franchises such as Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. But even before that, it was literally just some people selling some cards on the streets of Kyoto, Japan. But what did they gather from over 100 years of being in business?
They know who their audience was and what products they wanted, what sold and what didn't, and made mistakes so that they could produce accomplishments. You can say their practices in recent times as far as products have been... less than ideal. But as far as a business... their net worth as of 2020 is $95 billion. And they make more than just games.
They've had toys, comics, posters, magazines, plushies, and for some weird reason, shoelace holders.
The point I'm trying to make is... Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Nintendo dipped their toes into a lot of different fields, genres, and means of entertainment. Every failure they had never put them at a sunk cost fallacy. If a Mario or Zelda game did bad, they had another Pokemon game that would do well and sell millions of copies.
I cannot stress this enough, whether you're a part-time game dev or working full-time on your game from 9 a.m. to near midnight, you need to diversify your source of income if you're going to start working on your next project. That current prototype you're working on is guaranteed generating zero pennies. And I have yet to hear somebody charge for a demo of their game. And don't be afraid to delve into businesses like blogging or stocks. It's not going to hurt your reputation as a game dev.
Sure most of my game dev followers see me for just game development... but I also have a small online business on Ebay where I sell surplus Converse for $30 and write blogs for money. I'm also thinking about making an app and monetizing it, as well as invest in crypto. I'm diversifying my income, half of which I'm doing passively and one just being a one-time project. I don't have to be in an "Ebay store" all day hoping stuff will sell. I don't have to go and make bids for Bitcoin.
So I'm telling you again, please... don't pour all your eggs into one basket. Get yourself a shock absorbent place mat so that when you fall, you won't break your legs and never compete for the poll jump again. You just gotta get back up.
That's it for this blog. I'll see you guys around. Happy Game Devin'!
My First Game Project Failure and What I Learned From It.
Yesterday I failed to deliver on a game project that I have been working on since... February of this year. I had this idea for a really cool game project that was going to be super fun and unique. I had the premise set up and everything. It was going to be a Megaman Style platform shooter game that used various elements like fire, wind, and air with 9 levels, all with unique bosses.
So what happened that caused me to cancel the project? Well... Let me get into the technical aspects of why first.
Pixel art... is not cheap. I spent over $400 on only the first quarter of the game alone, and that is not the kind of money I have right now, especially with this pandemic. It was probably going to cost me over $1500 by itself just for game assets. That doesn't include the marketing that I was going to do, and it was definitely not going to be easy to get a green light on Steam. The next one was marketing. I didn't even bother showing it off at a Game Jam, big Youtube channel or hell, even my peers sometimes. It was a technical and commercial failure the longer I worked on it.
The other reason, which is personal, is that... I really didn't enjoy making it. I hated using Unity for 2D back then for my other game project and I still hated it during the development of my game which lead to me being frustrated really quickly and not working to work on it after 2 hours. I also really found development slow from switching to the IDE and Unity Editor. The 2D physics are not all that well polished either since it's inheriting from the 3D ragdoll physics engine and trying to tweak that to get a good feel is something I would spend a good couple of nights on trying to do. But honestly... I really didn't find it enjoyable for the most part. It also wasn't received well by gamedev and other gaming groups outside my personal circle of friends and co-workers. Now I could blame Unity for this after all the frustration but honestly... it would just be more fair to say that the engine just isn't for me. And that... I didn't like the tools given to me to do the job.
So... I had 2 options;
Either push myself to continue to make the game and not be satisfied with the end result... or relieve myself of frustration and work on something I know I can deliver on and actually care about.
So... I chose the latter. Now everybody feels disappointment. It's natural for everyone. I'm REALLY feeling this first failure. Especially after all the time I spent on it and... it not going into fruition... it really cuts deep. But... with failure comes after redemption. I learned a lot coming out of this, and that's:
- Budget accordingly and efficiently
- Market Games Better
- Be prone to frustration when developing
- Don't drag on some thing you feel deep in your gut is going to fail.
- Don't continue when you're not having fun
So... was it a complete waste? Financially yes, but lesson wise no. I grew a lot from this failed experience and I'll make sure to better about the mistakes and assure they won't happen again.
But in the mean time, I'm going to proofread another game concept. This time for sure I know I'll have something good to show for it.
Thanks for tuning into my blog and have a great day!
Returning to Monogame with a different project
Wow... 2 of these in a month! Crazy!
Anyways... I want to write about my latest endeavor into Monogame/XNA again. I feel that I have found some good resources that showed how the framework actually works and what you can do with it in terms of Physics and Sprite Effects. It's really cool and honestly, I'm having a blast using it right now. I have a tech demo in the works for a cool shmup concept and I honestly can't wait to share it. But for now it's going back Unity and finishing this game I have.
But if you do want to know what XNA is like, I recommend some small tutorials that will help you understand how XNA works better. XNA is not a proprietary Physics Engine. It doesn't have things like gravity scaling or rigid physics to it, making prototype development a bit harder to manage. Collision is also not handled like in other engines where you have 2 colliders in an engine and have AABB and OBB collision to choose from and it'll work. You have to explicitly state what interacts with what for every single object or write a function/collision system that handles all your collision for you (In this case however, that also requires different behaviors for different object classes as well).
However unlike most engines, Monogame's memory usage is very small and doesn't have much bloat to components like Unreal or Unity to your program.
If you want to learn how to get started, I recommend RBWhitaker's XNA tutorials on how XNA works and later some beginner friendly exercises like this Shmup game right here.
Another resource I recommend are the official Monogame and Monogame.Extended Discords. People will help you out if you're new and will give you tutorials on how to learn.
Anyways, I'll post updates soon on the project when it comes out. I'll see you guys around.
Update
Hello everybody. It's me.
I know I don't update on here and it's pretty blank, but there has been on some issues, both technical and personal as of recent.
I honestly don't know where to begin on the technical project. The progress for my new game project has been slowed down a lot. I was originally using XNA/Monogame since December and was using someone else's foundation/engine to help me. The problem with their engine though is that.... it's not all that well implemented when it comes to certain things like SpriteEffects and Game States, which... honestly frustrated me to all hell when I was working on the platformer project for over a year now and that basically wasted my time, so I'm taking all the sound effects and assets and am porting them to Unity.
Now I want to stress this... this is NOT THAT PERSON'S FAULT. XNA/Monogame coding/documentation is so rare to find and cumbersome that I don't blame them for wanting to create their own engine from scratch off the framework. That and even Monogame libraries with some documentation are still hard to learn. It's either something like an overload of a function goes unused and I don't know what it's asking because I don't know what that specific overload does or it asking for stuff that I don't want to use because it just bloats memory. Also my lack of knowledge on the framework itself has also really hurt the progress of my project and most of that is definitely my fault. I am however sure to whip up a base prototype of the game by Tonight in Unity and am hopefully able to hire some freelance artists to actually get the game on Steam/Itch.Io at the beginning of 2021.
I did however learn personally though that... you shouldn't rely on others to build your boat. Sometimes... you just gotta find the wood yourself.
Speaking of personal, my overall growth as a programmer has been plateaud for a long time. I don't feel that I've grown at all this Year compared to last year. Some of it is due to lack of motivation, but most of it is due to financial hardships thanks to this stupid ass lockdown that hasn't really done much to prevent the spread of Covid imo. I've been going out and trying to sell stuff on Ebay, but the pay is just not there.
It's not an excuse for the lack of my own performance, but there are other reaeons besides those want to keep personal that have also affected my learning experience in coding, mostly time spent with other obligations that I cannot seem to get away from.
Anyways I know this was a hefty blogpost but do know that I will be posting something in the near future about the project. In the mean time, stay tuned for more updates. I know I am active on Twitter and stuff, but that is literally the only rarest of times I am on my phone or social media.
Anyways... In the meantime, have a wonderful day, stay safe out there and hopefully I will have something special real soon.
Ronin Quest is now FREE!
That's Right! Ronin Quest is now free over on Itch.io. If you have a Windows 10 Computer, you can now play the game the same you pay to breath; NOTHING!
So go check it out.
https://ramimorrar.itch.io/ronin-quest
https://ramimorrar.itch.io/ronin-quest
Game fixed
Hey all. Sorry I haven't updated in a minute. I just had to fix my game.
https://ramimorrar.itch.io/ronin-quest
It should be playable now.
New game out!
It's been a minute, but my new game is now out!
You can check it here!
https://ramimorrar.itch.io/ronin-quest
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