New here! Asking for tips as a future game developer

[yz.vn_]

You are just wasting your time, start smol.
You have no idea of how many things you can learn from making a simple short game, and they can be enjoyable too.

Also, before doing anything, learn how to create a Game Design Document if you haven't already, that should be the first step.

Well alright then, I don't doubt what you say. You've got more experience in this after all. Making short games should be manageable. I hope I can start as soon as next year. I really appreciate the lessons you guys are teaching me, thanks!

 

[Winterfire]

Well alright then, I don't doubt what you say. You've got more experience in this after all. Making short games should be manageable. I hope I can start as soon as next year. I really appreciate the lessons you guys are teaching me, thanks!

You can start now, learn what is a Game Design Document, read some examples, and make your own so you can turn your smol idea into an overview of your whole project.
Then, next year (or whenever you want to actually start), you have something ready and you can break your smol game in subjects to learn.
Once you complete your first project, you will have a much clearer understanding of what you can and cannot do, and in how much time you can complete more complex projects.

 

[yz.vn_]

You can start now, learn what is a Game Design Document, read some examples, and make your own so you can turn your smol idea into an overview of your whole project.
Then, next year (or whenever you want to actually start), you have something ready and you can break your smol game in subjects to learn.
Once you complete your first project, you will have a much clearer understanding of what you can and cannot do, and in how much time you can complete more complex projects.

Just what I was thinking. Thank you so much! I'm gonna start working on it.

 

[nulnil]

Gotta ask how galleries are a terrible design practice? Players always ask for it if it's not included, so I'd argue that within the context of vn's, NOT including a gallery is a terrible design practice.

Galleries are pretty much like a symptom of illness. If a game has a gallery, that probably means you aren't able to fully jack off during the actual gameplay. Now I probably should have said that it's only terrible once those practices leak out into actual games.

 

[Gwedelino]

Turns out, even with a programming background as mine, with an easy entry software like Twine, is quite an enormous task. It took me 1.5 years to do something that could finally be called game, and even after that, my game only have 4 locations (I'm adding a fifth on the next update). If you go the open-world/sandbox/free roam route, be prepared to program, HARD.

Take your time. If you want, make a new thread on the Programming, development & art section of the forum to see if you get players that test your betas, and improve it over time until you have something that can be published. You can gain a following even before you publish your game here.

Many devs go directly and publish their 0.01 versions right away, and improve the game with the feedback after that. but I don't recommend it, I started with a dev thread here (and also I had a discord server with other gay devs as myself, where I published the betas. that was lucky) and published many versions of the game following their feedback, until I was confident enough to have the official release rolling, along with the patreon. You only have ONE chance to get a good impression on the players, don't rush it. If you publish a barely playable game, with a patreon right off the bat, it won't net you too many subs. Happens a lot with Twine and VNs on Ren'py.

That's a discussion I actually had with a successful dev here about this very question : At which point should devs be considering to release to the public the very first build of their game ?

I'm actually convinced that it's extremely important to have a very polished first release since how saturated the market is. We got nearly 4/5 new games
popping up on F95zone every single day.
That's a big number, however most of them are clearly released a bit too early which means there is still a possibility to stand out.

Making a dev thread. Communicating about your project before the very first release, avoiding to release something which still have placeholder assets, there is a lot of thing that can be done if devs want their very first release to stand out.

The main problem being that it takes a lot of times to create a very polished first build, and during that time, even if you communicate through a dev thread, you're not really building up your audience.

And making this audience grow is also a question of momentum, as proving you're a reliable dev that pull out frequent updates is the thing you absolutely need to do as a dev if you want to have people trusting you.

Which mean we end up with a dilemma.

What's the best :

A) Waiting 1 year to have a very polished build and maximize your chances of making a good first impression.

B) Waiting 3 months to release a barebone first build, make a not so good first impression but then release three updates during the 9 following months, ending after 1 year at the very same state than (A) except that people actually saw you pulling out multiple updates.

I still don't know what's the best way to proceed. Do you favor your very first impression or momentum ?

 

[Rafster]

A) Waiting 1 year to have a very polished build and maximize your chances of making a good first impression.

B) Waiting 3 months to release a barebone first build, make a not so good first impression but then release three updates during the 9 following months, ending after 1 year at the very same state than (A) except that people actually saw you pulling out multiple updates.

I still don't know what's the best way to proceed. Do you favor your very first impression or momentum ?

I went the A route. You can find my dev thread here, I had it from August '21 (I had 6 months of development before that) and had it until the official release on August '22 . I started with a barebones version, without a good UI (my game didn't even had portraits on the first version I released here) and I improved it until I had a full route, start to end, that's when I considered it was a time to release. The players got a very good impression on launch, and no one cared that I started the patreon at the same time of my release, hell, I just got patreons the very first week!

For an extremely niche game like mine, I think I'm not doing that bad. I still remember when I made the dev thread, it was rough. I'm glad I didn't release the game in that point.

If you go the B route, at least try to have a playable version, because if you make a bad impression, people might not want to play your updates even if you improve radically your first build. I see it all the time with barely done twine games here, a 5 minute demo and a patreon link right out of the gate is not a good way to start.

 

[Gwedelino]

I went the A route. You can find my dev thread here, I had it from August '21 (I had 6 months of development before that) and had it until the official release on August '22 . I started with a barebones version, without a good UI (my game didn't even had portraits on the first version I released here) and I improved it until I had a full route, start to end, that's when I considered it was a time to release. The players got a very good impression on launch, and no one cared that I started the patreon at the same time of my release, hell, I just got patreons the very first week!

For an extremely niche game like mine, I think I'm not doing that bad. I still remember when I made the dev thread, it was rough. I'm glad I didn't release the game in that point.

If you go the B route, at least try to have a playable version, because if you make a bad impression, people might not want to play your updates even if you improve radically your first build. I see it all the time with barely done twine games here, a 5 minute demo and a patreon link right out of the gate is not a good way to start.

I also think the very first impression is more important than momentum.

I think it's really hard to get out of a first bad impression even if you're working hard on updates.

Your game have to catch people eyes at the very first sight or you're gonna enjoy a walk in the desert.