Psychology Ph.D. Student. Looking to Become An Indie Game Dev!

[DrJang]

Hello everyone!

My name is George. I'm a psychology Ph.D. student and a long-time lurker here at F95.

I'm currently learning Ren'Py and Daz3D and in the midst of making a game about being a therapist.
The possibilities starting with being in that role are endless, so if people have suggestions about what kind of content they'd be interested in, I'm more than open to taking them!

If people have tips and advice on Ren'Py and Daz3D, I'd love to hear it too. I just started a month ago so I'm really brand new to them.

Anyways, it's a pleasure to be part of this community!

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

There are lots of help guides around the forum for you to learn from.
As for content, take your pick; although if you plan on putting your game on Patreon, maybe steer clear of some of the more taboo (and therefore more interesting IMO) material.

 

[Nottravis]

Hello everyone!

My name is George. I'm a psychology Ph.D. student and a long-time lurker here at F95.

I'm currently learning Ren'Py and Daz3D and in the midst of making a game about being a therapist.
The possibilities starting with being in that role are endless, so if people have suggestions about what kind of content they'd be interested in, I'm more than open to taking them!

If people have tips and advice on Ren'Py and Daz3D, I'd love to hear it too. I just started a month ago so I'm really brand new to them.

Anyways, it's a pleasure to be part of this community!

My top tip is make the story -you- want to make, and that includes the content. Y'see there will be times during the making of your game that it will get hard. Renders not behaving, code going wrong, some bloody minded bug that you just -can't- find etc etc.

If you're not making what you want to make, all those difficulties get so much harder. Whereas if you are? Well, you're more motivated to plough on because you want to see your vision realised.

I wish you the best of luck

 

[baneini]

My top tip is make the story -you- want to make, and that includes the content.

To know what you want to make play as many porn games trough as you can to have an idea of what works and what to avoid. If you skip that part you don't know what voices from the community to discard and what is reasonable. Some anti-x groups are noisy.
People accept a lot of crap design choices if their particular fetish is catered to, and if not they're unreasonably critical. Knowing your audience and broadcasting what the game is about early on helps in the long run.

 

[Nottravis]

and broadcasting what the game is about early on helps in the long run.

That's a good point there. It will prevent a lot of misunderstanding either from peeps not knowing what your game contains or worse, peeps expecting your game to have such and such content then getting frustrated when it isn't in.

Nice catch baneini

 

[Akamari]

To know what you want to make play as many porn games trough as you can to have an idea of what works and what to avoid.

Yep. Play porn games...for research!

I think looking at other devs' design decisions with a critical eye can be very beneficial for a starting dev. Learn from the best and avoid the mistakes of the worst.

 

[RanliLabz]

My top tip is make the story -you- want to make, and that includes the content. Y'see there will be times during the making of your game that it will get hard. Renders not behaving, code going wrong, some bloody minded bug that you just -can't- find etc etc.

If you're not making what you want to make, all those difficulties get so much harder. Whereas if you are? Well, you're more motivated to plough on because you want to see your vision realised.

Notty's 100% on this! The most important thing is to enjoy making the game - it's an enormous amount of work and it will dominate your life If you don't really enjoy the content you're making, you'll struggle to motivate yourself and either quit or barely release. It will also come through in the quality of the game - players, like readers and audiences, can nearly always tell a cynical cash/ego job and will not be interested. Personally, if I lose interest in a planned scene, I usually just junk it and move on rather than plug away at it... after all, if I'm not interested, who on earth would be?

A therapy game suggests two obvious possibilities...
1. An episodic game where each update introduces a new client with a distinct kinky story (e.g. a court-mandated voyeur, a couple with a sex life that needs jazzing up, a guy in love with his stepsister, a repressed married lesbian, a coke-fuelled party girl, and... of course... dozens of nymphomaniacs )
2. A therapist who does not abide by the standard code of practice Cue fucking out the crazy, taking payment in kind, and some abusive hypnotherapy. This would probably be more popular, but a far more risky option if you plan on the Patreon route!

 

[Nottravis]

Notty's 100% on this!

*curtsies!*

..... It will also come through in the quality of the game - players, like readers and audiences, can nearly always tell a cynical cash/ego job and will not be interested.

Personally, if I lose interest in a planned scene, I usually just junk it and move on rather than plug away at it... after all, if I'm not interested, who on earth would be?

These are both excellent points. You've ever seen a film where you just -know- the actors were phoning it in and couldn't be bothered? Same for games.

Ranli and I are actually interesting examples, imho, on this. We both have a sci-fi setting, both are new(ish) and although we've taken rather different approaches to our games (and nothing wrong with that at all of course) the one thing that does shine through is our enthusiasm for our respective projects. Our players know we're "into" what we're making. Not saying other devs aren't of course. I merely use our recent entry to the scene as an example relative to your own plans.

And yep, totes with Ranli on the second point. There is nothing worse than spending an age making something you just don't want to be making.

*Ranli, I'd have liked your post but the bloody system seems buggered for some reason!

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

One thing I'll add here is before you release anything or even start with Renpy or Daz is that you need to thoroughly plan the game. Make sure you know what's going to happen in the first release, as well as in the 10th release (if you plan for it to go that far).

Map out where choices are going to lead and make every choice count for something (games where all the choices lead to the same ending or couple of endings, are unsatisfying).

And once you have your plan in place, don't let others sway you from what you want to create. It's fine to get opinions and have polls on stuff that you might want to add to the game, but only if it matches with your vision.

 

[DrJang]

Oh man. Thanks for all the advice everyone. I love writing as a hobby so I've been planning a lot lately about what choices do, how they affect the character(s), and so much more.

A therapy game suggests two obvious possibilities...
1. An episodic game where each update introduces a new client with a distinct kinky story (e.g. a court-mandated voyeur, a couple with a sex life that needs jazzing up, a guy in love with his stepsister, a repressed married lesbian, a coke-fuelled party girl, and... of course... dozens of nymphomaniacs )
2. A therapist who does not abide by the standard code of practice Cue fucking out the crazy, taking payment in kind, and some abusive hypnotherapy. This would probably be more popular, but a far more risky option if you plan on the Patreon route!

Yeah... those are just two of the obvious ones. I'm thinking about actually letting the player choose if they want to help the people get better (love route?) or decide to be unethical and let their little head think for them instead (slave/blackmail route?).

One thing I'll add here is before you release anything or even start with Renpy or Daz is that you need to thoroughly plan the game. Make sure you know what's going to happen in the first release, as well as in the 10th release (if you plan for it to go that far).

Map out where choices are going to lead and make every choice count for something (games where all the choices lead to the same ending or couple of endings, are unsatisfying).

Oh my goodness yes, that's happened so many times where my choices didn't make a difference. My only problem right now is having too many choices and writing taking a lot of time on each branch. I've visually planned out, with some kind of flow chart, how choices affect characters down the road and how certain decisions actually lock the main character into a route of some sort. But yes, I completely agree.

I guess my question is, how much content do most creators/players feel is appropriate for an initial/alpha release? Or is that just by personal preference?

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

I guess my question is, how much content do most creators/players feel is appropriate for an initial/alpha release? Or is that just by personal preference?

It's totally your choice! For my first game, I plan to release the first week of gameplay (the game is set across 13 weeks) so a fair bit of content if you include character introductions.
I've seen games with 2-3 minutes of gameplay and others where there was a couple of hours of gameplay in the first release.
You have to decide if you want players to just have an introduction to the characters or have a bit of gameplay too.

 

[Akamari]

I guess my question is, how much content do most creators/players feel is appropriate for an initial/alpha release? Or is that just by personal preference?

My project has strict episodic format, so I wouldn't release it until the first episode is finished.

Otherwise, I'd advise to keep working on it quietly until you feel really happy with it and enjoy it as a player. Having a quality first release can go long way as far as first impression goes and it can show people that you are not in it for a quick cash.

In the long run, it would be even better to get ahead on the work, so that you can have more cushion in terms of content needed to produce for future updates and therefore have more control on the release schedule. However, I imagine it is very difficult not to press the release button as soon as you're done.

 

[RanliLabz]

*curtsies!*

*Ranli, I'd have liked your post but the bloody system seems buggered for some reason!

*bows deeply in return*

Turns out they've changed the like system. Apparently likes are now rationed to: 25 for regular users and 35 for donors, the other reactions have 2-5 each

I guess my question is, how much content do most creators/players feel is appropriate for an initial/alpha release? Or is that just by personal preference?

Make it a decent amount. I spent almost six months making my first release (admittedly more part time and with worse equipment) and made it the equivalent of three monthly updates with around 800 images, three major scenes, and a bunch of important choices and alt-paths. I also made sure to include several sex scenes.

Most of the successful games do something similar (e.g. Notty's game was roughly the same size and content level). I've seen too many really promising projects founder on small early releases that get so much negative reaction that the devs lose heart. In addition to the game being good, you've got to prove a number of things with a first release: that you're in it for the long-haul, that you're capable of delivering large, regular amounts of content, and that you have a vision. Most of the tiny v0.1s we see here simply don't do this - players aren't convinced that the dev is serious or capable and won't squander their time on someone making an exploratory proof of concept... hell, if the dev doesn't fully believe in the project themselves, no one else has any reason to!

Basically, don't rush it. A substantial first release will be more successful in every possible way than an underwhelming one.

 

[fuckyouassholes]

make sure to use your own domain knowledge to craft a good story !