How to make a game yourself: 5 years later.
My last blog was 5 years ago. In it I talked about Sergei Meshchersky – a simple system administrator from Murmansk and the creator of the games “Syria”, “Diamond”. The blog was presented in interview format.
A lot has changed since then. Probably the wildest changes have occurred in this crazy year. I was wondering what had changed with Sergei. Despite the fact that since the last interview Sergey and I communicate regularly, this was more about things removed from games. I knew only remotely how his games lived. This text is essentially a continuation of the previous blog. If you are particularly interested in this topic, then it is better to start reading from the very beginning. Like last time – exclusively for StopGame.
Hello! How are you doing? How is your company? Still, a lot of time has passed..
– Hello StopGame! I continue to work on games. Launched a new AOD game. The composition of the company has not changed. Essentially, the core remained the same: the artist, the server programmer and me. But at the same time, at one time or another, we hired more people to help. But not for long. Indie development is a very tough job, not everyone can resist.
The artist is still Alexander Tarakanov, about whom we wrote in a previous interview?
– Certainly. Alexander is irreplaceable. Everything you see and feel on the screen is his work. Without him there would be nothing. I really want to note his attention to all even the most insignificant details when drawing this or that object. Even I sometimes discover new things in his drawings. For example, I myself only recently saw that in a new game on snowy levels, dinosaurs were frozen under thick ice. And he was silent, did not speak. And every such find is a delight!
What is the main difficulty of indie game development??
– The hardest thing about indie development is that you never know what will happen tomorrow. At first it seems: “Oh, how cool, you work for yourself!"And then comes the realization. When you’re on your own, you always set the bar too high for yourself. At a certain moment you try to embrace the immensity and you may break (and many break, I know examples). Naturally, this is true not only for developers, but for any entrepreneur. And for hired workers, when the team is small, the demands are also high, they also sometimes have a hard time, so they can’t stand it. I’m not even talking about the issue of money, the amount may vary from season to season. Today you are on horseback and 3,000 people a day come to the game, and tomorrow you fall off your horse and, well, if five people come.
Where is the best place to start for a person dreaming of his own game development?? Immediately look for a company of like-minded people or sail alone, in the hope that they will find you themselves?
– Cases are different. If you really found like-minded people right away, then why not?. If you are united by a common goal, you have a “safety cushion” to go on a long development journey, if you are confident in each team member and know that no one will fall off along the way, then feel free to go for it. Doing something together in a group is much better than doing it alone. However, most developers still start out on their own. Like I once did.
Is there government support for IT companies??
– As far as I know, a law on IT support is currently being prepared. But so far we have only experienced general tax breaks. Several times they called me from the support center for entrepreneurs of the Murmansk region and offered help. For free! And they even almost persuaded. But unfortunately I didn’t have a job for them.
There are many stories of freelancers about the “quirks” of employers, and how the employer sees the freelancers themselves? Probably, overdue deadlines are commonplace?
– I never set any deadlines https://mfortunecasino.uk/withdrawal/ for freelancers, I simply assessed the speed and quality of their work, tried it on from my own bell tower. And this was the main mistake in the approach to working with them. It was necessary to do this: take my speed, efficiency and motivation and divide by 2 (at least). Then we present these requirements to those hired.
I know that your new game “AOD: Art of Defense” was released on Steam. Maybe my ideas are outdated, but I consider this a significant achievement. In a previous interview, you already admitted that you were thinking about publishing games on this site. Why did this happen only now, after 5 years??
– Yes, we went to Steam, but I don’t consider it some very big achievement. Why so long? The fact is that we ourselves rejected our early games for release on Steam. Both in graphics and content. Plus, they were written in Flash, we decided that we wouldn’t go there with such games. Then, when we developed the AOD game (2 years ago), we first decided to go to already proven social networks: VK, OK, FB. Then they released the game for all popular mobile platforms. We were in no hurry to release it on Steam. The game is constantly evolving, growing, new chapters, new "tricks". We sharpened it and went there. Now we are still planning to enter the WinStore.
Is it difficult now, in 2020, for an indie developer to “get into” Steam?? How did this happen in your case??
– It was easy to get on Steam. There were no problems with registration. The price of the issue is about 6,000 rubles for one application. All documentation is in Russian, everything is transparent and understandable even to an inexperienced user. The main problem: API (achievements, payments, Steam-cloud), but this can be solved.
Uploaded the build, designed the page: description, screenshots. The check takes place in 2 stages: first they check the appearance of the page, and after passing this check, they check the game itself. They checked the page for us right away and gave us the go-ahead, but the game itself was initially rejected due to various minor flaws. But there were precisely our “shoals” due to inexperience. For example: since the game is on mobile, we suggested leaving a review/rating. This is strictly prohibited on Steam. I really liked the fact that the inspectors actually played the game and did not pretend.
Since we are making the game in Unity, there were no technical problems with the transition to other platforms. Easy to assemble for Windows, Linux and Mac.
How did the players perceive your game?? It’s no secret that the social audience.networks is different from the Steam audience. Didn’t peck the “browser”?
– Indeed, Steam has its own specific audience and we were well aware that going there with the Free-to-Play model was dangerous. We tried to prepare for this. Reviews vary, but mostly positive (75%). We can say that the players greeted the game warmly and their worst fears were not confirmed.
This is good. Has the pandemic affected you and the entire team??
– When the pandemic started, it didn’t affect our work in any way. We all work from home. All from different cities and even different countries. We were all homebodies anyway, but here’s another reason to sit some more and code/draw to our heart’s content.
But some strange things happened with the income and activity of players. At the very beginning, in February-March, player activity increased sharply. But! Income began to fall sharply. It’s like the players were afraid to spend money. Apparently they really didn’t know what awaited them ahead. But then in June-July-August, everyone seemed to have broken free and started spending and spending. Sometimes even inexplicable. Thawed.
It’s clear that you won’t agree to publish financial statistics, but at least general ones – what your games have achieved over these 5 years?
– I can indicate the number of registered users: AOD – 900,000, Diamant – 2,000,000, Syria – 1,300,000. Is this a big statistic for an indie?? Considering that Syria’s budget (including advertising) was 0 rubles, and the rest – no more than 100,000, then this is not bad at all, in my opinion.
What are the specifics of creating games in the Tower Defense genre??
– The most difficult thing in TD is to do and calculate the game balance. The fact is that AOD is not simple Tower Defense. We have a huge tree of upgrades for each weapon, we have Heroes, who also have their own branch, we have modification cards, etc., etc. It is very important to find a fine line so as not to lead the player into a complete dead end and at the same time so that he does not feel that everything is too easy and boring. By giving the player enormous freedom of choice, we signed up for difficulty. But all difficulties are completely solvable. But yes, this is really the most difficult thing and we are still working on balance. Every day.
Unity game? This is a “weak” engine, according to some players.
– Any engine is just a set of tools. It’s not about the engine, it’s about how you know how to use it. For example, our new game is so optimized that it runs even on the weakest machines and ancient phone models with Andorid 4.4. This is taking into account the fact that AOD is a rather dynamic game.
Unity is a convenient tool for game production, designed specifically for this purpose. Plus universal and multi-platform. Again, free. I don’t see an alternative to it in our niche.
I can’t believe that you catch all the bugs yourself. Surely you turn to the players for help.
– I have a small group of enthusiasts here on VK who help me test the game. Every new release is always first released on the VK platform, we polish the bugs (those that I didn’t find myself), and only after that we launch them into the world. The guys are very cool, always happy to help the project.
Now there is such a trend that developers talk about small tricks in their games. For example, enemies will not attack the player if they are out of sight. Are there such tricks in ANM??
– Actually, no, there are no such tricks in the game. We have many gameplay secrets with which the player can win this or that battle. But they are all learned on the battlefield, the player discovers them himself (and we tell him something during the game), which leads him to victory.
Tell us about your strategic plans. How do you see your games in another 5 years??
-We’ve been thinking about a big multiplayer project for a long time. There were a lot of ideas: multiplayer based on Tower Defense, a huge RTS strategy, and massive battles in the medieval style. There were different thoughts, but so far almost all ideas have been rejected. But still, at the moment something is emerging and, perhaps, in the future we will present to the world a good game that will appeal to many people. Let’s hope.
Fine. I see that you have a foundation for the future, which means there is still room to move. Thanks for the answers Sergey. My blog will be published before the New Year, what do you wish for the readers??
-New Year is a great time to make a wish. One of the best is to wish to change your life. Become a game developer, learn something new, open your own business, or reach a height that you have never conquered before. I wish you exactly these wishes and I guarantee they will definitely come true!
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