Childrens Games

I'm curious how the market is towards children games. E.G. - Games like Banjo kazooie (N64).
I loved the game as a kid, but are todays generation of children still into them kinds of games?

I'd love to enter into the market of childrens games, I think them types of games are actually quite fun.
3D Platformers were the best thing ever growing up lol.

 

Kids games, eh? And here I think games like Jak & Daxter, Maximo and similar are some of the best and last "real" games made. All I know is I enjoyed more games (and enjoyed games much more) on my PS2 than on my PS3 or 360.

Those games were packed full of game play. Just loads of pure awesomely game play goodness. Cool events and other stuff happening. I guess they just felt more alive & interesting to me than they do now.

Never played Banjo Kazooie but from the videos I watched it seems kind of like a "younger" version of the PS2 games I'm talking about.

When I get into 3D these are the kind of things I will spend my time working on:

This one of course was imagined as a 3D visualization of Ghosts & Goblins / Ghouls n Ghosts games that I really enjoyed back in the day. You'll notice you can hear a bit of the signature tune occasionally in the music.

 

IP goes a long way with young kids. Especially if it belongs to the rodent.

 

Interesting games @GarBenjamin. I've seen jax before, but not the other two.

@BoredMormon - I don't exactly get what you mean by if it belongs to the rodent? lol.

 

@N1warhead I am in that situation exactly, my game is non violent, for kids. Very hard to market that, since everybody want zombies/guns and sex.

 

Pretty sure the kids market is dominated by Disney Infinity and Skylanders. Why would they ever bother with indie unless it was fun and rude?

I'd go as far as to say it's commercial suicide as some 99% of kids are commercialised and will go for a known brand.

If you're doing a kids game, I don't expect it to do well.

 

/tactical_facepalm

We don't talk about sales, we talk about marketing. You probable have no idea how good are doing those games, since you replied that.

Besides constantly harassing me on this forum, you don't even read what we said.

 

It is unfortunate the games kids play these days. Pretty crazy really.

Between reading on the Internet, hearing kids talk about games at restaurants or the games aisle in Walmart & GameStop and firsthand stuff like the Christmas wish list my girlfriend got from her low-teen son it is just truly crazy.

It seems that most kids 12 and older are spending most of their time playing Mature rated games. Things like GTA 5, Saints Row and so forth. I have nothing against people making games with sexual themes and otherwise adult-oriented and adults playing those games (as they seem to be intended for). But kids playing that stuff? No. My girlfriend (being a good parent) looked up the Saints Row games on YouTube and said "Oh hell no he is not getting that garbage. I don't care if his friends' parents buy that kind of junk for them or just let them play games they bought for themselves. That is just crazy! Sex, drugs, just complete adult-oriented themes. No way! When he is 18 and wants to play the games that's different. One of the perks of growing up is being able to do things and have access to things grown-ups do!"

Anyway, @hippocoder is probably right. These kids these days are probably mainly playing the grungiest, most adult oriented AAA brands they can find. They probably have no interest in playing games that are "just great games". And thinking about it this might explain why they seem to be the loudest critics of graphics not looking as best as they can. Gotta make those video game babes look real. LOL!

 

Aren't those considered teens?

 

It is pretty unfortunate. I had the same exact feeling, I've always more than anything wanted to make a game like Banjo Kazooie, etc. I miss the games that were truly actually *HARD*, not point A - B hold your hand to beat it.

I'll never forget about banjo Kazooie, not only was it because I just enjoyed the game. But it has a deep personal impact on me.

My grandmother died the day after Christmas (and being I didn't live close to her) that was the first and last Christmas present she ever gave me.(That I can remember at least - I was like 8 or 9).(She died from like multiple types of Cancers). So it's just something I really want to make, but at the same time - is it worth it, even if it's something I just want to make regardless, but likewise - I don't want to make something that gets played by 2 people and never heard of again lol.

Guess I should make a gory version where the Snow Man will eat peoples heads off an shi* lol.

 

I don't harass individuals. I'm barely aware of your name. I "harass" discussion points. If you're making more points I have something to say on, then I discuss those points. Who you are is really quite meaningless since I don't know who you are.

Anyway back to discussion: I think it's worth clarifying what a child is and if a game is childish or not. I know plenty of adults enjoying disney infinity titles.

When someone says child, I typically imagine between the ages of 4 to 12, so I'm pretty sure they're bombarded by popular culture from all angles relentlessly. From movies to music, what their friends are talking about and so on, thus targeting that market is suicide.

It's better to target fun instead. If the game is a hit, it will get picked up by the so called kids market anyway.

 

Well fair enough and @N1warhead I guess is targeting 12 and under. To me and many folks anyone under 17 to 18 are children. Sure they are teens and PG-13 stuff would apply in that case. Mainly I was talking about the tendency for kids to be getting into mature stuff (intended for people older than they are) in general. But yeah the 12 and under are probably not doing that to such a degree so they may be a good market for him.

 

@hippocoder I think you abuse moderator status every time you can. And I should probable contact support for this. That's my opinion. And this is not harassment by the way. As moderator you should moderate and incite.

@GarBenjamin You can check http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.aspx for an example if you consider I am wrong.

 

Please be my guest. Also link this post and the thread. It would be better than derailing the topic.

 

@GarBenjamin - I guess 12 and under, I just know Banjo Kazooie - it was a childrens game, but took almost an adult to figure out how to beat it from all the puzzles lol.

@Teo - please don't get my thread locked dude.
@Teo I've noticed you do love to give your opinion, but sometimes it's best to just hold your tongue, well in this case fingers lol.

@hippocoder - all i can say is 'LOL' hahaah.

 

Why do you consider Banjo Kazooie a kids game? it was far from it at the best of times. If it's the visuals then you need to expand your horizons. There are a lot of adult titles in games, fiction etc which play on cute visuals but are strictly adult themed. Half of all anime would probably qualify. Banjo was littered with adult references.

 

Well.. apparently "moderator" destroyed all my will to have a discussion here. I will let him to talk.

 

I've never noticed any adult references in them before. I just remember jumping on enemies like Mario does, or using Kazooie to fart out eggs, etc.

I know some games have done that, but then again - Banjo Kazooie has adult references in it? REALLY? I seriously never noticed, if that's the case, then I guess it's not a childrens game haha. I just know the box said K/A on it or whatever for Kids or Adults.

 

Sure!

OT (Sorry guys):
@Teo - moderators (with a blue badge) are users like yourself. Are you under the impression we have to be quiet and monitor? That's not the case. Moderators are normal users, and not employed by Unity. We clear spam, prevent people abusing others and keep threads on topic. I'm proud of my fellow moderators. If you have a problem, email support.

 

@Teo I'm not sure what you're asking me? I already know that rated M Mature games would not be intended for kids under 17. Very much like movies.Not sure if you're talking sbout that or something else.

 

@GarBenjamin There is a category called EC (early children's) and E10+, when I am referring kids I am referring at EC. I didn't even said teens, just kids. I did not invent those ratings.

You can be a regular user, who keeps you? You are the one who warned us in other thread that every one who disagree with you will be reported for moderator harassment. Remember that? I do. And since this conflict of attribution, I think your status is incompatible as moderator. You either moderate (in friendly and true sense) or you either are a user with opinions just like everybody else.

 

I've said no such thing, please contact support@unity3d.com or @holliebuckets if you have complaints. Could be it is your inexperience in English that is causing misunderstandings.

 

@hippocoder - Hmm I watched most of the first one.
Hadn't realized 90% of that stuff. I remember the bear babes dvd thing and the nuts and tree thing.
Never really connected any of any of this to anything adult related until now lol.

However, i still think the majority of it is mere coincidence. Like the whole Seamen Stew or whatever. or the Level Click Clock Woods or whatever showing the path leaving mumbos hut, I think that's gotta be a coincidence lol.

 

The art of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_entendre

 

@Teo honestly I don't even know this discussion between us is about. lol I was posting re the OP and hippo and then you mentioned those are teens and I said badically yeah you're right they are. But a lot of people including me are going to say kids. Kid / teen under 17 / 18 not an adult. It's not something thst generally leads to some in depth discussion. lol

 

@hippocoder - oh nice, learn something new every day lol.

@GarBenjamin - Well regardless you still wanna be a tester of game for me hahaah?
I seriously want to make it, just because I really want to, not for financial gain, etc. I just really want to make this, like really make it.


But I do have a serious question for you Gar or @hippocoder.
If you look at the way old N64 games were made, they were you know - pretty simple.
This is the biggest thing stopping me for the longest - is getting the proper shader to work with Vertex Paint in 3ds max.

I'm looking to try an get 4 diffuse textures to show up on a map.
I mean if I can just get a shader that produces two (Grass and Dirt as the Image shows).
I'm sure I could figure out how to extend it to more textures.
Do you know of any that does this? I don't want to use Unity Terrain, I want to make maps that looks kinda
like this, (better textures) but the lower polygon style so any machine can practically run it.

 

It is a big deal. EC/E and T are two different ratings. While in T you can have moderate violence, in EC you can't. Of course because of our age, we can consider all under 18 kids This was the whole point of my reply. Is easy to market T+ games, and difficult to do it for EC/C. And this was the point of this thread. But derailed in other direction

 

@Teo alright please just talk about the topic at hand now lol. I don't want this to get locked. Because I think this could be a good thread - not just for me. But anyone wanting to make these kinda of games.

 

Don't forget amiibo and Minecraft, killer of all. My nephews (6, 8, 14), all play Minecraft, and thanks to their mom, aren't exposed to the more violent stuff, or dumb cartoons like Regular Show. And their dad exposes them to everything Justice League to fulfill his own life. lol. Leave it to the uncle to expose them to Half-Life, sim racing, and Regular Show, and even Battlefield 4 (just the 14 year old for this one, give me a *little* bit more credit than that...) .

Strider. I played that game to death in the arcade, and the new 2014 version lives up to everything it should be. Not often can a remake actually be good and nostalgic too.

I thought about that for my own game Horde Rush. Should I make this free game have a $99 in-app purchase for a gore pack? I wonder how many people would buy it....

 

@aer0ace - Yeah not many remakes are hardly ever good - like even the new Banjo Kazooie SUCKS AND EMBARRASSES THE ORIGINALS.

Hahahaha 99 Gore pack, - GREAT IDEA! Well maybe not 99 dollars ghaahaha, but in general I love the idea haha.

 

Wrong. Kid's games are a huge market. 'Nuff sed.

 

I haven't said it isn't a huge market.

 

Definitely be interested in testing such a game.

I know nothing about 3D stuff in Unity. When I was playing around with 3D 10 to 15 years honestly I don't recall anything about shaders at all. Well other than things like flat, phong, gouraud and lambertian (and I may have some of those wrong it has been quite a while). Nothing like I see people talking about on these forums. Shaders seem to have (like everything else) grown to encompass a large number of different things and be used for various purposes these days. So yeah I can't help with that at all. Would if I could.

These shaders I hear people talking about all the time remind me a lot of programming the Copper on the Amiga.

 

@N1warhead There's a diffuse shader included with the standard Unity shaders. Have you tried that? the N64 days, it probably doesn't get any more complicated than the stock Unity diffuse shader.

EDIT:
Hmm, after re-reading your requirements, it sounds like you want to have a shader that accepts N number of textures that overlay eachother. In that case, I don't think there's anything stock, but you can always look at the Standard shader to see how the albedo and detail maps interact with eachother.

 

Well what im trying to do is in 3ds max paint the textures i want for my terrain (just like unity terrain) paint it with vertex paint. So id need a shader to pick up where all i painted the textures on map.

@GarBenjamin yeah i you man. Definitely let you test. 3d really is so bad. I did it way easier than 2d. More fkuid design. Like one i rig a character the Animations are as simple as click move press keyframe. Not a bunch of image editing lolll

 

A hat in time did well. Raised over 250k on kickstarter, theres a huge market for N64 Nostalgia and these kids are loaded. I am sure it will do really well on steam when its released
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...time-3d-collect-a-thon-platformer/description

 

Do you have a separate thread about this?

 

Banjo was probably like kids movies now, stuff for the kids to enjoy & stuff for the parents that accompany them to have a chuckle at as well.

My 10yr old plays the violent games (hitman, skyrim at the moment as well) as he sees so much violence on tv kids shows that a) it means little & b) he can tell the difference between reality & a game (he won't be putting a cape on & jumping off the roof either). But he also plays the Lego games, puzzlers, platformers etc, basically anything that makes him think. He & his friend are having lots of fun discussing tactics & strategy in an old rainbow 6 at the moment which I think is good for them.

That said, I'm making a game with a group of people at school with no death or blood or anything (you throw snowballs & skate around) & he just wants to do that but & not finish the rest of the game as it is fast paced & unpredictable. If I had to make a game just for him though I'd have no idea where to start.

 

That is frickin' awesome. Thanks for sharing.

 

I suppose we should chuck a Unity game in

http://warden-game.com

 

@Aiursrage2k - That does look pretty sick!

@aer0ace - No I haven't generally posts I ask questions like that 9.999 times out of 10 never get a response.
So I don't bother and usually move on to the next project lol.

 

@tedthebug - love the toonish graphics and shaders

 

I know the guys making it. They cite a few older games as reference.

 

Hehe yeah I hear ya. It does look great though.

 

that game looks great

 

I'm re-starting this project.
This was my old game I was making last winter.
Of course gotta start it over as I got new PC and lost all the files lol.

 

I'm guessing there could be a good market for your game. There are certainly a lot of parents out there who do look for quality young-kid friendly games.

Seems like perhaps the original game may not have been quite as tame as you remember (but then again it might have definitely been for you because much of what a person takes away from such thing depends on what they bring in to the games in their own minds).

Still if you just wanted to make that kind of game I am sure there is a market for it. There are just way too many gamers and too many interests for there to be absolutely no market.

In fact, I just did a quick search to look for some evidence and found this. Their Kickstarter campaign did extremely well. In fact they asked for about $266,000 and ended up raising over $3 million.

 

@GarBenjamin - i actually just seen this game today ona video on Youtube
I know if it's the original creators of Banjo - it's gotta be a great game

3 million is a lot lol. But they only made it that far because they were already established from Banjo, I'm sure if it was an indie - they may have gotten what they asked for or barely and almost made it lol.

I've noticed that's how KS works - you've gotta really be known before you can really get something to work. I've tried it twice and both times = 0 dollars. And that's with telling people, people telling people, etc.
So I sorta give up on KS.

 

Oh yeah for sure. In all business no matter what you're doing or what you're using you've got to establish awareness and have some kind of brand. There is no doubt if it was an unknown indie they'd get some money just from the various sites covering Kickstarter game campaigns and mentioning it, people tweeting the same and so forth. And of course the few people who do just randomly find it on there. So it definitely helps with marketing but I don't see it as a marketing platform so much as it is something that is easy to market. Kickstarter is quite established and trusted at this point.

It'd be fun to help you market your game when you complete it. I was doing Internet Marketing for many years up til a few years or so ago. No worries I don't mean "hey man I'll help you market it for a share of profits". lol I just mean it'd be good to get the rust off my marketing skills and be a fun little project to work on. Definitely you need to kind of "put on your marketing hat" and put aside the programmer, artist, musician sides and switch over. But anyway yeah let me know and I'd spend some time on crafting a little strategy and a few different types of campaigns. I mainly just enjoy doing experiments and testing. Always testing something. lol

Anyway, the other difference (besides the established brand / dev) is would you really need $3 million? Or even nearly $300k? I highly doubt it. I have the impression if you got like $30k from a Kickstarter you'd be dropping sleep down from 4 hours per day to 2 and working even more on the game. lol

 

@GarBenjamin - Hehe I hear you buddy.
That's fine I don't mind the help on that end. I can do it - but not great at it lol.

Yeah I don't think I need 3 million, but on the upside - if I did get 3 million. I'd go outright purchase a piece of land and put a real business office there and hire a team to build the next game I want to make why I continue my solo work lol. I'd just be the main guy in charge, but I'll have a Manager run the business kinda thing.I'll only but my head in on important things.

Like - What game? - Instant idea - make it a game like the movie Interstellar. Except make the game really touch the emotions of the players with such a strong storyline to where you actually feel sorrow for the player, etc.

But anywho yeah .
(Dreams away) lol.