The Stones of Yalmrith is finally released so now I can share with my fellow indie developer and also interested gamers the mistakes and good things I've did in the last 9 months while building the world of Yalmrith.
1- Before you Open the Engine :
Yes I did it too, too eager to prototype and see results but it costed me all of January 2018 and nearly February too, please don't do it if you are an indie developer like me, it could be worse if you are working alone, how I know ? because I worked alone too. Start with a paper and pencil put rules and bases of how your game mechanics will be,and before you know it, that paper could transform and become what we call a Game Design Bible, you will have a path a straight line to open workshop and build. (The line though is not that straight believe me.)
2- I'm Making Something Big .....:
Please don't, unless you have a whole legion working with you or an Investor with a money making factory, just don't , in winter 2015 I started prototyping an Action RPG , alone and I opened the engine (Mistake Number One) , started doing crazy stuff and the disaster continued until March 2016 then I woke up and realized the path of stupidity I've been walking. It was until 2018 that I realized that I should start smaller, I'm alone, I love crafting puzzles since I was a child, why not make a game based on ones that I will enjoy and others worldwide might enjoy too. You too! you could be good at story telling, perhaps card games, finance, horror, adventure or perhaps a crime investigation game style it is there just choose it,go small and build.
3- Chain Process Organization :
This one I did it, and believe me, it helped me a lot, the chain process organization is a fancy word for it, yet its that simple when you finish a daily objective while developing your game, don't close everything and go away, organize you folders first (inside the engine and on your computer too), write a technical document (Not something crazy, just a list of general tasks and problems you faced that day), believe me when you are halfway in your game development,you will face a mountain of data, and if you didn't organize that data it will be a nightmare that haunts you or crush on you.Please organize.
4- If Only I knew :
This is an important step, I didn't do it and I'm paying the price, even now. You should know that your indie game project is not only the core of the game itself (Development,Design,SFX,....) but also the most important part which is :
1-Marketing : Start early, but the best time is when you have playable footage or a trailer, believe me you will know and even feel it, the day you will see that your game is ready to show to the world just show it, and continue working on your game, and building audience around it.Marketing is important, Now I know how important it is, don't make my mistake.
2-PR: Here is the trickier one, I'm not qualified to tell you what to choose, because I choose the free road, I did the PR myself and it didn't work out, but it could, you could be better than me in these two fields, or you could outsource it to a specialized agency, in my experience the cheapest one asked me $ 1.5k for an extensive 2 months of PR, nevertheless these two elements are important and if you ignored them you will bury your game and it doesn't matter anymore how good it is.
5- Conclusion :
There are a lot of detail elements,technical procedure, or even the 3d modeling->Texturing->Engine chain and how to build a standard one to go easy and fast with, but unfortunately there are specialists and experts in each field that could help you in the engine you are using, modeling software and the list goes on.
I hope this article might help someone at least to avoid my mistakes and follow a proper indie game production supply chain and even succeed .
Regards,
Zine E FALOUTI
Independent Game Developer
