Is my budget feasible?

Greetings!

I want to ask the community here about the feasibility of my idea.

First off, I'm completely aware at first it will seem like the question is open ended and subjective since there are so many things to consider. I know there will be answers like "people have made cool games with literally zero money"; but what I'm really hoping for here is a good indicator of if this is even remotely feasible, what I could roughly expect from your own experience and what possible pitfalls you can foresee in my plan, ...

What I want to do
The best way to describe it would be that I'd like to make a game similar to the Final Fantasy series. Lets take "Final Fantasy X" (10) as an example, that's the closest thing compared to what I have in mind.

My budget is around $15k. I know that's not a lot and that's the reason I decided to do a smaller part of the game as a test. I think the second story arc of my game should be a perfect fit to show off everything to some extend: characters, combat, cutscenes, ...
By deciding to cut out literally 90% of the story and selecting a part that should be pretty representative, the scope gets a lot smaller. It's just one "level", which would consist of 2 or maybe 3 unity-scenes tops and have a total gameplay time of maybe 2 hours or so.

The intent is to get people interested in the game and show off that I'm able to deliver a fun game. I think I want to release it on Steam for a pretty small price to get some attention.
I hope that a playable game (even if it is short) will be enough to get the neccesary funding so I can actually implement the whole game in full.

Why a smaller part?
There are things where scaling down the scope helps, and parts where it doesn't.
I think it would be a good idea because I only have to get props made for the specific level I chose, not the others. For example I'd need some palms and rocks for my desert style level, but I wouldn't need to get artwork/models done for the forest/lava/ice/... level types.
There are of course things where scaling down the scope doesn't help at all:
Character models of the main characters obviously have to be 100% done, same for the code and so on.


What I have / Can do
I already have a pretty good outline of the story of the full game, as well as the fully detailed story of the part of the game I actually want to make.

Things I can do:
- Programming is a part where I can definitely save the most money. I absolutely confident doing all the coding myself.
- Particle Effects; I love to do those are my passion, from simply setting up effects in Unity, to writing custom shaders or extensions for the particle system, to creating all sorts of textures in Photoshop. I think I can do it.
- UI/UX Design and implementation.

Things that I know I cannot do:
- Anything artsy beyond simple things or particle effects: 3D models, textures, music, voice, sfx
- Marketing/publishing: Zero experience here
- possibly other things you think is essential and I forgot.


Recap
Ok so to recap:
- ~15k budget
- no need for programmers
- don't have much concept art except for tons of images from google that'd really fit the theme I have in mind
- need 3D models, the asset store can likely only cover a very small part of the things I need, be it characters, props, ...


What do you guys think?
Is that even remotely enough money?
Should I give up? Or do you think my chances are pretty good?
Any glaring holes in the plan?
I'd be grateful for any sort of input

 

I think you have a good strategy. Developing a smaller vertical slice of your game is a good idea. That way you minimize the work and costs involved in getting a shippable product and can test if your potential audience really shows up for it earlier. If the game does well, you could then develop and deliver the rest of the game either as paid DLC or as a series of sequels.

Custom models aren't cheap, and neither is paying for ads to promote your game. I'd start with developing your game with stock models with the intention of swapping them out, that way you can start getting the ball rolling and get some playable feedback. Start trying to find a modeler who could deliver what you need within your budget, and start building a marketing plan. I do think it is possible to do what you're trying.

 

I think that even with that budget or less, you might be able to pull it off.
You have more than enough money, to use for your game project, provided
that you spend it wisely.

But here's a suggestion from me: Learn some 3d modelling.
Because there will be occasions, when you're not always going to find
certain special specific 3d models, that you might want to use in your game.
And you might unfortunately, have to sometimes settle, for models that
you don't want, or don't like.

Also as Joe mentioned,....custom models are not always cheap.
And can cost alot of money. Especially when you want, some of those
main characters/models, created in a certain way etc.
Learning 3d modelling, is a good back up plan, so learn it just in case.

And as I mentioned before, you already have more than enough money.
So spend wisely, and be less dependent, on buying custom 3d models etc.

Heed my advice.

Best wishes to you and your game project.

 

I like it. Try to pick a section that acts as a "vertical slice" - that includes as many gameplay aspects of your game as possible. Combat, little bit of dialogue, if you're planning to have a Blitzball-like mini-game maybe think about that too (though extraneous stuff like that should be near the bottom of the list).

Basically even though you're only doing a little bit of each, it's very key to get the design of these systems worked out (maybe not the balance, but the design definitely) so the potential buyer can see how they work. And in that sense even though it's only 10% of the full thing, you'll be doing more than 10% of the work, so keep that in mind.

 

two hours of gameplay is A LOT
many AAA games have 6-8 hours

with custom art this won't work, at least not if you want good quality
for comparison, one AAA Main Character cost like 90k $ (cost for an overwatch character if i remember correctly)

even for lowpoly indie characters you will most likely pay minimum of 1000$ per character with animations, and that's already really really cheap

if you could buy everything from the asset store and spent a minimum on custom made art, it could work out
that's if you're not planing to live from the 15k$ while developing


i think 2h gameplay for a RPG is HUGE for a solo dev and people should not underestimate this

 

There are many solo developed role playing games on the market that surpass two hours of gameplay and most of them are very reasonably priced too. I don't believe two hours will cut it for anything other than an early access game or a title that is targeting mobile devices.

 

That makes sense. But I'm not quite sure how much money to allocate towards getting 3D models compared to lets say music, sound-effects and vocalization. Or how much money I should reserve for advertising.

I will take your advice and start by trying to find a modeler who can work in the art-style I like and contact them.

Thanks for that! I'm really not so sure though, getting started seems to be a lot harder because one needs literally all the character models pretty much done for even this vertical slice already. So well done even, that they can be 100% copy-pasted into the full game (should it come to that).

Thank you for the reply!
I really tried to learn 3D modelling and I can do things like blocking out levels, even make them almost final quality (in terms of geometry, leaving the decorating and hiding ugly corners with props for later).
Some shapes for use in effects like rings, or crazy spirals or whatnot are also not a problem.

But anything more complex is really out of scope for me, I just don't have the talent.
I'd have to grind out the skill the hard way.
I doubt I could create a humanoid character well enough so that I'd be willing to use in my game haha.

And I feel like really putting in a lot of time to learn it, would take away time from things I can do pretty well. That's mainly what I'm concerned about, spreading myself too thing.
I hope that makes sense.

Do you have some experience in this so you could perhaps give a rough estimate?
Lets just pick Tidus from FFX, do you think a model like that is already completely out of reach for the budget I'm working with? Even though the game was released quite some time ago, the model seems to be somewhat complex. The hair is animated so there must be some bones inside, and there are facial animations as well. Maybe I could at least save on the head/face/speaking animations for my game-slice because it feels like that would at least double the cost, no?

Thank you! The advice makes sense.
I will try hard to at least make some of the models of my own.

Can you elaborate on "design" a bit more? You mean the general "feel" and mechanics rather than visuals, no? I'm not sure I'm following 100% here.

 

yes, and its hard to make predictions on this, since everything is so vague in the original post
but as he mentioned final fantasy x as example, its really hard to see how this can be done with this budget.

 

here's a list from Kotaku, updated 2015
just for a rough overview

• A barrel, box or crate, $50+.
• An empty simple warehouse structure, $500+.
• Series of map objects, pillars, arches, doorways, $750+.
• Small empty 'industrial' level, no map objects, $2,500+.
• Larger empty 'industrial' level, no map objects, $5,000+.
• A 'city' scape level, no map objects, $5,000+.
• Large level including terrain and buildings, no map objects, $10,000+.
• Character less than 1000 triangles, rigged, no animation, $800+.
• Character less than 2500 triangles, rigged, no animation, $1,500+.
• Character less than 5000 triangles, rigged no animation, $2,500+.
• Character less than 5000 triangles, rigged with animations, $5,000+.
• Content for small virtual world, $2,500+.
• Content for a large virtual world, $5,000+
  

 

You can't make an RPG like Final Fantasy for 15k. It would be like making something like Lord of the Rings movie having one million. It's silly.

I checked Wikipedia for FFX. It had nearly 50 MILLION DOLLAR budget. Is that your league?

 

I see, yes that's what I feared. Do you think I should just throw the plan away and start with something even simpler/easier? Or is there a way to cull out some more things to get it into the realm of possibility?

1k for a full character should be ok... I think?
I mean the major points where I really need outside help (through money) are characters, animations, props.
Lets say 4 main characters (hero + 3 party members) + 2 side characters ("boss" of the zone + story relevant character).
And the rest can be probably filled with generic models from the store or reskinned.

As for the play time, personally I played FFX for ~300 hours or more (doing literally everything the game has to offer).
There don't need to be any "cinematic" cutscenes like in FF in the initial/partial game, probably not even in the final game. And to be honest that'd likely completely explode the budget 100 fold or more.

Hmm, well it is indeed supposed to be early access, and not a full game (if even early access). I don't plan to sell this "slice" for a lot of money! I mainly want to prove to anyone who is interested in the idea that the story and mechanics are solid, and that I can execute the full concept in order to get more funding for the full game.
I thought about this a lot, and I feel like there's really no better way to prove that you can do it, than actually doing it (even if that's only a "vertical slice").
If you think there are other options to tackle this, I'd love to hear them!!

 

I'm sorry there are so little details, the post was already quite long so I thought I'd first test the waters by checking out the reaction, and then maybe just discarding the whole idea completely. I'm not quite sure what would be the most helpful for you guys to get a better understanding of my plan.

I'm aware that FFX is a huge game, and I have no chance at all in making something similar in scope with a budget as small as mine. That's why I thought that picking out the most representative "slice", to showcase everything from cutscenes to combat. A game of 2 hours of gameplay (including side quests and everything) is surely more realistic than a 300h+ game, right?

Anyway, what information would you have liked to read about to form a more educated opinion? Should I elaborate on my previous experiences with software development? Would that even help?

Thank you so much! That gives me a much better idea.
Maybe it's not quite as impossible as I thought? It would be stretching the budget pretty tightly, but still, doable...

I can see what you're thinking, but using a 1M budget to produce a slightly worse 5-10 minutes version LotR should be doable, no?

Yes, I don't plan to use that money for anything else. I specifically saved it for this and can likely increase the sum a little over time as well (by simply setting more aside, just like before)

 

I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of the OP here. Even though Unity does so much to put the nuts and bolts of game development within reach of us non-professionals, the harsh reality is that something as ambitious as a high-quality 3D RPG still requires many disparate skillsets (or the money to pay those who have those skillsets).

It sounds like 3D art will likely be the biggest part of your expenses. How "fantastical" is this world you envision for your game? I find that non-human 3D models can really drive up your art costs. Those tend to be very specific to one's creative vision. There's a lot more you can use as a starting point for human-based assets, and I assume asking a 3D artist to make modifications to an existing asset (e.g., retexturing) so that it's less obvious you bought something off-the-shelf would stretch your budget a lot more.

Since this is an RPG, I would also highly recommend you vet both your gameplay design and your setting/plot/characters/writing with some objective audiences somewhere along the way in making this vertical slice. You'll want to blend well-polished versions of tried-and-true RPG elements with "something" (or multiple somethings) unique and compelling of your own. That might be a twist in traditional RPG gameplay, an endearing set of characters, well-written dialogue and narration, etc.

Just my thoughts from a fellow hobbyist. Keep at it!

 

Conserve your cash until after you have a playable game, and get some feedback on it. Once you get feedback you will undoubtedly make changes. Use stand ins for everything you plan to have custom made for now.

There's no set recommended amount for advertising.

 

Hi Rokeo!

First off, You have a candle (your project) and you will meet all sorts of people along the way. Some people will want to blow out your candle and give you 500 reasons why you cannot accomplish something. Ignore them. In fact, run away from these people as fast as possible.

Recommendation: Don't hire out any art.

Spend a couple days (weekend) with the Action-RPG kit.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/?stay#!/content/9076

My guess is that it has much of what you want.
My other guess is that you would change much of what is there.
But its a 'complete' thing.. don't underestimate the value of something that works and plays well.

Don't be too worried about the art... use placeholders if you can... you can always swap it out later.
Don't try to deliver perfection on the first try.
Don't start over 25 times. Stick with what you have, build on it.

Be awesome!
Deliver Greatness!

Brian

 

"How fantastical is this world you envision..."
Uff, this is a pretty hard question. I think I could write pages and pages about that, so I'll try to sum it up really well.
Since this is not an easy question that can be answered quickly, lets focus on the budget aspect first and take FFX as an major example again. Assuming I'd recreate FFX, I would strip out all the things aren't the most efficient at really conveying the "feeling" (*1) of the world and story and are merely nice to look at. One thing that immediately come to mind are most of the cinematic cutscenes (which must have cost an absolutely insane amount of money juding by the quality). With todays graphics the game itself can look really pretty anyway so that's not absolutely needed. I can also save a bit on character and especially monster diversity for the vertical-slice of game I'm aiming to make.

I'm drawing inspiration from many games, but that doesn't mean I don't have a pretty solid plan layed out already. The games I like, I like for different reasons, the FF series for captivating stories and character development, Kingdom Hearts for its fun exploration and combat system that's a bit more on the action side of things, the Warcraft universe for its lore and also interesting combat mechanics (in WoW at least) and there are more...

In any case, my game is primarily a RPG game - with story, character development, and exploration being the major points (that is why I'd definitely be willing to spend a little bit more on well done concept art and 3D models for the main characters at least). Combat, Minigames, Secrets, etc. all play a role as well but not to the extent of the previous points.

I feel like a full overview of the (full?) game would be in order. But I doubt many people would like to read dozens and dozens of pages about the story, specific cutscenes, dialog, character arcs, side-stories, ... but I will prepare the documents to show them to the public - should that be a thing that'd actually advance the discussion.
Maybe I should take some time to redo as similar set of documents for just this slice I have planned and singled out.

As for monsters, I don't think the specific designs I have in mind are all that important, some things form the asset store would likely fit well with some touch ups... the focus of my game lies somewhere else, so I don't think there will be much trouble here I agree that retexturing and maybe some minor modifications will definitely go a long way to filling the game-slice with the needed amount of enemies.

I think you are right, letting people see what I came up with is a necessary step although a bit scary (sometimes the internet can be really harsh haha). I will prepare a trimmed down version of the story (focusing on the important parts) as well as a document describing the general world the characters live in and eventually post it on these forums.

I really appreciate your thoughts, thanks for the post and the kind words.

 

Yes, the general feel and mechanics, though some aspect of the visuals wouldn't hurt either. But that's as an endgame, putting the game on Early Access thing. Not for just the prototype.

Example: I'm working (aka I haven't touched it in weeks but it's on the list of projects to work on) on a 3D platformer like the Sonic Adventure series. My goal for a vertical slice is to have one level fully complete for the player to go through, along with the Chao-raising mechanic (you can look that up if you're really interested, basically Tamagotchi pets). As a bonus I'd like to have a procedural level design for a player to just play random levels. But that means:

-Getting proper character movement. Iterating on animation curves for jumping and for moving, perfecting the angles at which the game detects a homing attack versus just dashing the player forward, along with other new movement types.

-Adding enemies. Not the whole gamut, but at least three maybe four types (maybe a boss battle) all with different attack patterns and such.

-Designing levels. More specifically, learning how to design levels, learning modular level design (to be very important for the procedural levels)

-Designing a score system based on factors like speed, number of items picked up during level, combat, etc.

-Designing a currency system to accrue during levels which can be used in the Chao-raising portion of the game

-Designing the actual raising portion of the Chao system

And many more. But hopefully you see what I mean.

Early Access sounds great for what you've described if A) it manages to be a vertical slice that does have access to all these different elements you plan to include in the game and B) you can reliably devote time to improve it on a consistent basis.

 

Good advice! The prototype right now only uses some random cheap things from the asset store, so yes, exclusively placeholders are already a thing

Thanks for the motivating words. I'll take a look, but I already build many parts of the combat system, "quests" systems (if you can call them) and so on, but I'll see what I can learn!

Its good to get confirmation to not hire any artists right now.
The general atmosphere is really important in these kinds of games and cutscenes are... - well you can imagine how they look with monsters / super-low-poly place holders sometimes even cubes - talking to each other.
So even though there are quite a few things still missing in the prototype, the temptation is definitely there to hire people now and get a better feel for everything.

It is good that so many people agree on avoiding hiring people until the last second. Getting others to look at the idea and the big concept from their point of view should definitely help. I will try to take that advice to heart and eventually publish something tangible (documents, images) that you guys can pick apart

 

its not really telling him he cannot do it
its more like telling him, hey, you want custom art, 15k $ won't be enough

what i would do:

make a rough blockout (with primitives) of the whole area you want to make
then make a list with all the art assets you will need and look in the asset store what you can use, what you could use if you made new textures, how you could reuse things
this will make things a lot clearer

 

Oh, sorry man, I didn't even read your post. I wasn't referring to anyone on here. I guess I was just talking about my own experience. Announce that you are going to do a MMORPG and then sit back and see how many people want to poop on your parade.

Thanks!

Brian

 

Yeah, from one one-person-show to another, I would highly discourage you from banking on recreating those types of cutscenes. That's all super custom, super high-poly 3D assets rendered offline in an engine totally disassociated from the actual game engine. We are just now starting to see game engines like Unity have the rendering capabilities for this, so maybe in a few years, the available tech will make this more feasible, although it still does not solve the problem/cost of making and animating those fancy assets.

There are other ways to capture that cinematic/storytelling feel in realtime. Tricks with camera effects, moving text, 2D images, etc. can all provide drama and kineticism. You just have to get creative and have a cohesive vision for how your story is told.

I'd actually recommend you start with something shorter, like a game design doc (which can mean all sorts of things to folks, depending on who you ask). Capture an overview of your vision for this game, including the core gameplay loop, a high level description of the setting and plot, and maybe some brief descriptions of the key characters and what makes them compelling and interesting. Share that doc with a few people you think are your target audience for this game and who you think would give you honest but constructive feedback. (You're right; the internet can be a mean place haha.)

It's encouraging to see someone else who is trying to break into game development in a rational, well-planned manner. And to see so many veterans in this field contributing advice to this thread. That gives me hope for the future.

 

That character with his game (non cinematic) animations is at the very best 10k dollars.

This will be your total 15k budget. And 1k poly models are DRASTICALLY lower poly than anything in FF 10.
Not doable with custom art with the budget you have. Sorry.

Great advice given above so I wont repeat it.
Another good suggestion is NOT to design a game around a story. Senior/experienced designers do this and mess up all the time. Very few moderate experienced developers pull this off. Rookie developers have even less chance.
Better to design around mechanics. Then fill in story elements as the game blossoms into its identity.

Strongly advise to work on the systems that the game will run on with free art. Then incorporate custom art when the systems are in place and solid.

I think FF9 was actually a more appealing looking game compared to 10. It was lower resolution content but had better lighting and less crazy looking art style.
Might check it as reference style for a cheaper design.

 

Low budget indie games cannot compete in the same category as multi-million dollar blockbusters. What will your game offer that isn't done bigger and better by a AAA game?

Indie games have to do the things that AAA games cannot do. That is, appeal to a niche that is too small to return profit on multi-million dollar investments.

 

@OP:

I made some mistakes in my comparisons. I checked Wikipedia. FFX budget: 50m dollars. LotR movie budget: 100 million dollars. Assuming that you have 15k budget it means that you want to make something like Lord of the Rings movie for 30k dollars. Think about it. It's ridiculous. One episode of a typical sitcom costs much more.

I have a question for you. What COMPLETE game have you made in the past? When you build a full game and release it on the market it will teach you a lot about what it takes.

 

It's possible to make a game with a $15k art budget if you're smart about spending. The prices listed in that article are absurd if you're working off a 15k budget. I would assume those are at roughly $25/hr assumed rates, and for someone on a tight budget, those rates are not acceptable (or the times required are not acceptable and you need to find freelancers able to cut corners).

It's possible to make a game with zero budget if you have no cost to living.

The question revolves around your competence level and your expectation for result.

If you don't know what you're doing then this is a fools errand, if you're an experienced game developer with multiple releases then I'm sure you could succeed and scope properly.

Where you are in between those two extremes is the question, and how long you can afford to spend learning (and shifting closer to 'experienced') is the answer.

 

It's possible to make a game with 15k budget, but not something like Final Fantasy X. That's completely impossible.

 

It depends on the scope and quality. When someone says "like [AAA Title]" - if they mean like the camera/mechanics, then yes - if they mean content wise then I agree thats not possible.

It also really depends on quality though - there is a MASSIVE gap between "make a game" and "make a good game".

 

One thing that makes me doubt that OP can be successful is his use of the word "story".

Story is very, very hard to do well. Solo projects that are artist run typically have more leeway with narrative than programmer run projects since story tends to rely heavily on visual communication.

If you look at very small teams that have projects that have been successful, almost none (maybe none) have strong narrative. Most of the time, inexperienced devs tend to focus on story.

It's just immensely difficult to do any kind of strong narrative without dedicated artists.

This makes me think that OP isn't very experienced, or he'd be wary of that point.

 

Typically when people say "like <name>" they mean general feel of the game. This implies similar scope and quality.

 

I wanted to reiterate what others have said here about not focusing an inordinate amount of effort on just your story. Story and narrative can be significant aspects of your game (and likely should be for the type of RPG it sounds like you are trying to build), but they cannot compensate for poor gameplay design and implementation. These are games after all, not books, comics, or movies.

Hence all of the previous advice given here to start with placeholder art. Nail down the gameplay systems first and make sure they are fun and interesting. Those systems can help inform what sort of art you need and will likely influence the story you tell through your game, too.

 

You're being kind of aggressive here, but setting that aside:

Was I the only one who noticed that the OP did not say they're trying to make a game like Final Fantasy X with 15k?

They said they're trying to make a playable prototype with 15k, and then hopefully get funding.

Now I'd say that counting on funding of some type seems like a bad idea, but in the interim we should be focusing on the feasibility of this playable prototype, not shooting down the entire idea.

I find the bolded very strange, because I see the opposite. Most of the garbage I see on Steam doesn't have a story, or none that's meaningful in any way.

That aside, I do agree with your overall point that story is hard to do, and I'd caution the OP that unless that's an area where they have expertise validated in other ways (have you won any contests for your writing, OP?), they may want to focus on other things first. And I'll be honest, this--

set off warning bells in my head (didn't want to say anything, but since it's being discussed...). It shouldn't take pages and pages of text to describe your story. The story of FF X could be described in a paragraph, the full details in only a few paragraphs. Don't mistake "convoluted" for "good."

 

Indeed, the plan is not to make a full game. But maybe I didn't get that point across clearly enough.
You got it exactly right, the budget I mentioned is intended to only cover that so called "vertical slice" of the game.

Maybe you're right... I have not won any writing prizes for my stories. So I think your point (and I think someone else mentioned the same as well previously?) is very much valid.

As for the concern about a convoluted story. I can see why you got that impression, let me try to fix this misunderstanding:

The main story along with the most important side-stories (that enable/justify some later plot points) can indeed be described in 1/3rd of a page.

The document I mentioned, the one with the many pages, contains a lot more than just this. It also contains character descriptions and profiles, their own little stories; also full on "screenplay scripts" describing some of the important cutscenes in detail. That is why there are so many pages.

I'm pretty sure that even for a game that places less emphasis on story (Like CoD or something) you'd still get at least 20 pages when you'd write down a screenplay script for every cutscene and interaction, right?
Anyway, sorry for the misunderstanding!

I will work on preparing a smaller document that only outlines the most important details

Thank you for confirming the general opinion here, it's always good to have more people weigh in!
You're right that gameplay is very important, actually it's the most important thing in a game (hence the word "gameplay" )

I'll hold of on getting anything "arted" until I'm 100% satisfied with the rest.
It is a bit hard at times to imagine the complete game when playing the prototype though, as graphics and audio are a pretty important part of a game that contribute a ton to the feeling. Having really bad art can even diminish the fun of a game to some extend.
But I agree that it would be wasteful to artists for a game that's still subject to change.

Well, I thought that if I can convince with a really well done demo of the full game, then surely there will be some fans who would like to play the full thing, no?
So what would you suggest then?
Try starting a different project entirely that's much smaller in scope (small enough so they budget I have gets me all the way through)?

But then again, won't that be the same problem at its core? The smaller project can fail as well.
And with a smaller project I'm also "counting on funding" in the form of direct revenue from sales...
Not so sure what the safe/r alternative is here.

 

Hi Rokeo!

So, something about this thread has been bothering me and I am not sure that I know exactly what that is..

However, I have some thoughts...

I can't find your hook.

While I agree that it makes sense to slice and dice your scope...

I am not understanding what it is you are going to slice and dice.

You have primarily focused on talking about graphics and story...

Surely, 2001 graphics cannot be your hook? whether you can afford them or not...
Surely, 10% of the functionality of a complete game cannot be your hook? people are not starving for half complete games...

I mean you cannot say.. Hey All Would Be Customers, I have graphics from 2001 and 10% of the features that you might want... come and get it...

I digress...

Lets slice and dice something.. like a fishing simulator for example...

Let say the fishing simulator you like is in the third person, with 5 lakes, with 110 species of fish, 5 boats, etc.

If you told me that your demo would be in the first person, with 1 lake, 3 species of fish and no boats...

I would say okay... but how is the fishing? is it fun?

If you then told me that you removed fishing because it wasn't in scope...

You see?

Cheers!

Brian

 

It is possible to find people willing to work on a project for profit share. You need to sell them on the idea that your game is worth working on.

For attracting people I would suggest:

1. building a small part of the game (one small scene) using place holder art from the asset store. Maybe spend 1k here and an extra 1-2k on getting an environment artist to make your very small scene look nice. Build as much of the systems as you can, given programming is 'free' in this scenario (obviously it costs time).

You have then proved you can do the work and that you are committed to your project. You have something visually appealing to show people.

2. Post WIP on forums, and job post for profit share on Unity Connect. Be straight-forward and clear in your communications, you aren't trying to trick someone in to helping you, you are trying to find someone who will benefit from helping you. Profit can't be the main motivator, but building a nice portfolio piece, gaining experience, finishing a game, etc can. You can also offer code for art exchange.

3. Be prepared for a lot of people who don't do anything, or draw a concept or two, or create a rough model and not much else. Expect a 20-1 failure rate... at least. Do have a contract in place which sets fair boundaries about your rights and your obligations.

4. Persevere

It is doable, but its more about learning how to bootstrap a company rather than building a game.

EDIT:

0. Build something small and release it if you haven't done so. Some simple game that doesn't require much art. This will allow you to say you have released a game (good for your pitch to artists) and will also be a good learning experience.

 

Good to hear that the essential details are pretty straightforward. I understand now.

The "winning awards" thing is a little bit of an extreme example. But have others read anything story-based that you've done? Basically, that's not something you can expect to do well with on your first approach. It takes years and years of practice to learn how to craft stories.

Let me preface everything by saying that none of what I say is conclusive. But...

The best alternative by far is to start by creating things you can afford to finish yourself. To learn how game dev works (I don't know if you have any experience with this, though your join date makes me think not), to learn how everything surrounding game dev (like actually releasing a game) works. The experience will make you better prepared to approach a bigger project, and anything released will help build an audience.

I guess for the term "funding" I was thinking of semi-official means like a publisher or Kickstarter. At this point you're an unknown quantity, and that doesn't work well for either of those funding options (Kickstarters in particular). I guess I don't think of Early Access as "funding" as such, but in your case it might work well.

One thing to keep in mind is that Early Access is typically done for systemic games. One is Ark Survival Evolved (or was, it was formally released sometime recently). Another is Oxygen Not Included. Space Engineers. Spy Party. A billion survival games. Point is, they all have systemic gameplay elements someone can enjoy for many hours even if only 10% of the game is there. You may want a feature like that (kind of like the procedural levels I mentioned for my idea) to have more for a player to engage with. Just a consideration.

 

There are multiple levels of dev. Most of the time, the very least experienced people start from "story" - because they're approaching from a game player background, and to them story is what's fun. These are projects that most often never really get started.

Very low budget devs who have actually succeeded at releasing games have generally learned that "story" is beyond reach unless you're artist driven (project lead by an artist dumping money in, not programmer).

Story driven games are almost always art driven games, and at low budget even art driven projects are most often weak story like Papers Please, compared to something like a FF game.

Anything is possible if someone has the time and skill, but if you don't have professional level artist(s) dedicated to a project you're going to run into major problems, especially if you aren't a seasoned developer with releases under belt.

 

By the "hook" I assume you mean why anyone would play my game when they could just play one of the FF / KH / TalesOf / ... games, yes?

The real reasons why anyone would play my game (and why I myself would play my game):
1) Combat that is a little quicker and more action oriented, yet still maintains tactical depth (not as much as FF, but a lot more than Kingdom Hearts for example). Think of combat against normal monsters like the combat in Blade and Soul (except the fight isn't over after what feels like 0.5 seconds), with some monsters even going slightly into the direction of solo-boss fights from the "Brawlers guild" in WoW.
2) Really creative skill system that's inspired by FFX or PoE (Path of Exile) and has more depth yet avoids the problems of getting overwhelmed by the grid by presenting it in a different way.
Google for "FFX sphere grid" to get a rough idea; you will feel pretty overwhelmed imagining this skill tree, but that's just the way its presented and there are actually not many ways to branch off of (until the endgame); I got this solved in my approach where the skill tree is more clear and has you can actually branch off and decide, which is not a thing in FFX until the late game even though it looks like it.
3) A new story, well, I think I went over that already.
4) Some cool puzzles for the parts where there's less action (puzzles that are actually designed to be fun, not like the absolutely terrible trials in ffx haha).
5) Lots of interesting secrets, optional backtracking for new zones and side quests. Enough stuff that gives the feeling that there might still be something new hiding somewhere.

I suppose that's it. Thinking about what I'd consider the "hook" for other games, I guess their hook(s) won't sound much more impressive than mine... Unless you want me to sprinkle in a ton of advertising-talk, but since we're all game developers here - being able to see right through the marketing bs - I think that would make people angry rather than interested

 

I'm completely aware that mastery in anything takes years (many years!) of practice and feedback.
Like every good designer you have to know when you're S*** at something and then somehow manage to fake it till you make it, instead of giving up.
I.. am S*** at coming up with an original story. Just like probably everyone except a few skilled people who invest all their time in perfecting this art.
That's why my story was mainly constructed from first principles and then I exchanged parts to make it uniquely my thing. Which is the exact same technique that was used to write the movie "Avatar" (with the blue aliens) which was a almost complete ripoff of Pocahontas. (and few people noticed, and nobody actually cared, because it was fun)
I don't think many people would recognize the principles (*) I used to construct my story unless explicitly told what was used and where and how I transformed the concepts. And even if they'd see it, they likely would just not care.

(*) To give just one example of what kind of principles I mean so it is easier to follow what I'm talking about:
- The "side antagonist": In ffx's case that'd be Seymour - a character opposed to the hero in some way, who ties together many important arcs of the main story and drives it forward, but is ultimately not important for the final conclusion.

So to directly answer your question:
I have asked a few of my friends to read the story, give me their opinion and point out any plot holes, or flaws in the characters. This is the first time I'm doing this (writing a story I mean) so your and everyone elses concerns are 100% justified. However I think that I went the "as safe as possible" route by constructing the story rather than dreaming it up completely (which, I imagine, is what many of the top-authors do?)

First of let me say that I definitely won't make a type of "systemic" game, those are just not my passion.

Now, creating a different, much smaller game... I heard these thoughts from multiple people now, so I'm sure there must be something to it.

So if you were to ask me what kind of game I could make on my own (guaranteed to finish it) and maybe spend at most 2 months time, and <1000$ on...
Then I'd probably think of a bullet-hell game. Something like "Frantic" (a flash game), "Bullet Heaven", "Bloons Super Monkey". I'm confident I can push that through from start to finish; completely alone if I have to (but in that case the graphics would be similar to Frantic haha).

Now would you say I should do that? Would that be an option that makes sense?
The idea, as you said, would be to learn and to push through one game completely from start to finish.
I think with a game like that those goals could definitely be met.
Tell me your thoughts everyone. If you guys are sure that's the way to go then I don't see why I shouldn't sacrifice 1-2 months or so to learn.

As for the technical part and other concerns:
Someone (or maybe multiple people?) mentioned my join date.
Yes, its true that I didn't have an account until now, but I feel really comfortable with all sorts of things and APIs in Unity. Writing whatever code is needed for a game (be it my main idea or the bullet-hell-trial-thing) is not something I'm concerned about even in the slightest. I have tons of fun experiments but it is true that I never released anything so far.

 

It won't let me edit my previous post so I'll add another one, sorry for that.

Continuing the last post about what I feel confident about:

What I am concerned about is the release process, finding people (artists) and convincing them that it would be worth it for both of us to join forces, marketing / advertisement / PR / community management.
I don't know if I can do any of those (well enough).

Now that I am actively writing it out I realize how much sense it makes I think.
So maybe a bullet-hell game would indeed be good starting point?

 

Getting a small scale project to release will teach you a tremendous amount.

My recommendation would be to get it to the "fun" stage, where people actually enjoy playing it, and actually release it.

Going from end to end with the goal of actually making something people will enjoy will give you a sense for the scope of the work and how much effort is actually involved. Right now, I'd highly recommend you hold onto the art budget for other uses - the game scope you listed above is nuts, especially if you're a noob.

 

Frosted already took care of pretty much everything I had to say, so I just wanted to point out here that I didn't necessarily mean you should make a systemic game (though a bullet hell is perfect for systemic level design). I meant that you should incorporate elements that a user can play with beyond just the two hours of story content.

Consider that many people (including myself) justify game purchases to some extent (everybody waiting to jump on me, yeah I know, it's not everything, we've discussed this before) on a price/playtime ratio. For me personally my favored ratio is $1 per hour, with more if the developer has really proven themselves to me. Now, I'm pretty sure you don't want to sell your game, even the prototype, for two bucks. But a higher price can be justified by more content. And "more content" doesn't always mean more hand-created content.

So something like a single high-level enemy the player has to play carefully to beat might provide that additional content to justify a higher price. I want to repeat here that this is not conclusive at all. But hopefully you see my point.

 

Post-game challenging content could be a decent way to bump up playtime

 

I'm in the process of making a game at around a similar budget and have a few words of advice:

1) I'd really benchmark how far your money goes. E.x. Pick a small deliverable and see how much it actually ends up costing. If you thought it would only cost you $100... but ends up costing you $300... you have a problem.

2) If you haven't scoped a project or managed a project like this before you run a very high chance of scoping wrong. I'd ask yourself what happens if you're 70% of the way done with the project and run out of money. If the answer is, I'm in real trouble, I'd consider thinking really long and hard about it.

 

As I see it there are a bunch of red flags here on why this really ain´t a good idea. Also while the question was about the budget it seems to me more as if the question is about the general project idea so I will be commenting on that.

1.) First off some vital information is missing here and is way more important than any talk about story, graphics or even mechanics - namely what kind of personal investment you are planning here. Ai namely are you throwing all your eggs in one basket with this idea or is this a hobby/side project. For a hobby project taking an over ambitious project like this can still make a good learning experience if you have that much passion for it but by betting your livelihood you will most likely run out of money before even accomplishing half of what is needed.

2.) Speaking of over ambitious have you made some rough estimates on how much time will be needed to implement all basic features for the game? When I read solo development, 3D, expansive Skill-System, Combat-System, Puzzles, some kind of narrativ delivery and exploration my head starts spinning.
Take for example Shadowrun Returns a isometric rpg with a skill&combat system, limited campaign, no puzzles and little to no exploration. It took at least a year to make and without counting the composers had around 7 people working on it while the kickstarter reached over 2 million dollar. So if we are being very generous and assuming that you limited your scope somewhat you at least would have to expect 5 years of full time work to reach your goal.
Your idea of limiting the workload is also heading in the wrong direction - while the length of a game makes a sizeable part of development the far bigger chunk typicly comes from systems and features.
If you already have a combat system adding a new enemy basicly means just tweaking some numbers and swapping some models (unless you are adding new unique mechanics) while to get a combat system you have to implement everyting from UI, to animation timing, to logic how basic interactions works, to AI, to Spawn logic etc. etc.
If you want to save time cut systems/features - as someone said focus on the "Hook" of your game, the core which makes your game special since realisticly you won´t have enough time to make a good implementation of so many systems.

3.) There seems to be no plan on how you want to attract funding via early access. Having a playable game is just the baseline but the vast majority will not even bother to give a game two hours to show its potential. If you want to attract attention you need some unique draw which can be summed up into a sentence or two.
In addition planning to finish the game with money you have no idea you will have is questionable on all kinds of levels. Not only may you have to abandon your game halfway through but the few people who did buy your game will feel robbed.
If you want to go that route I would rather recommend plan a base game which you can actually finish without extra funding, put it on early access once you have something to show that can draw people in and than based on how well it goes either expand the scope of the game or finish the already planned base version.

To close this wall of text at some point - the reason I bothered to type all this out is because I am in a somewhat similiar situation where I am running a sort of risk-analysis if I could manage the jump in a couple of years so the question kinda hit home. I basicly build a couple of prototypes over the past year and finally found something to stick with. In the end the only realistic path I see is to work on the game away in my free time and only if it launches succesfully actually consider taking the final step - due to the limited time this meant for me picking just one good system and sticking with it.

 

I actually agree 100%. I was going to estimate the project at around 3-7 years depending on skill level and quality targets. The discussion of scope though was a major red flag for me also, it immediately sounded like gamer talking not dev talking.

I'd also question the basic feasibility of a story/progression driven rpg being fun at all with a 2 hour content target. From a game design perspective, I don't think that's really possible.

That style of game really needs a lot of hours to 'work'. I don't think you can limit the content that much and still provide a 'fun' experience in this genre of game, unless we're talking about 2 hours of content with high end AAA production values

 

The OP could reduce development time drastically by using one of the several RPG-building assets currently in the asset store. I'm sure that idea will draw the ire of some folks who are more experienced in the game dev field, but I think for those of us who mostly work alone or have a super small team, building something as ambitious as an RPG without taking those "3-7 years" requires leveraging quite a bit of framework development from an external source.

I fully acknowledge you are tying your fate to the development schedule and support commitment of the asset creator, but I think it's more than an acceptable risk for the savings you get in both development time and cost. Traditional RPG mechanics (character development, combat, quests, dialogue, inventory, etc.) are at least not new problems to solve, as long as you aren't attempting something too out there. And given the OP is comfortable with coding, modifying an existing asset to better suit their needs may actually be an easy win.

Then maybe you could hypothetically focus that $15k on a combination of stock and custom art assets for a fully featured, 2-hour vertical slice of the game, if you carefully limit the scope of what the player explores in the course of that demo.

 

@rokeo sorry if this has already been mentioned, but one thing to consider regarding the look is that it's so much more than just models or textures. Usually some kind of concept art/mood board phase takes place. You often need to create unique shaders, which react to specific lighting setups. The characters need rigs and animations. Each of these disciplines often times requires different artists to work on each facet of the viz dev. And usually some iteration happens which is a constant tug-of-war on each discipline.

I think this is why you often see indie games with retro art styles. I agree with all of the posters that recommend holding off on art and using general placeholders for everything. Find the fun and then work within your budget.

Best of luck! Stay true to your vision and you'll find a way.

Credentials: 2K Sports for 7 years as a Senior Technical Artist (Shaders/Lighting) and Character Artist

 

I would program everything you need first. You say you're confident in that, so do it. Make sure all of the features are both working AND fun. Lots of times things that seem fun on paper are not as fun once implemented and you'll require editing and cutting. Your gameplay should not rely on your graphics or assets at all. If your game isn't fun playing as an untextured sphere on untextured walls, it's not going to be fun with a flashy character and high-res textures.

If you decide to make a vertical slice instead of a full game, you already have all of your mechanics, you just have to make sure that your slice shows all of that off. Too many games simply release their first few levels, which is a mistake since the first few levels don't contain enough. What's your favorite game? If you wanted to show it off to someone who's never played it before, what would you show them?