Designing In Secret: When To Reveail? Is it ready yet?
by
, 03-02-2013 at 10:40 AM (142746 Views)
Hello all!
It's been a while since I've written a blog on PGD. I thought I would at least give it a try tonight.
I just finished a session of hacking away at my latest project, Garland's Quest. This game has actually been in productions since 2006 and boy has it really come a long way. I just wonder how it would have turned out at this time if only I had been able to work on it full time. Nonetheless, it is starting to look really good and it's a pretty darn fun puzzle game by my standards. And I'm a picky gamer so I've got that going for it at this point.
The questions remains however; Will others think my game is fun, exciting or just plain attractive and polished enough to pick up and try over and over again? Would someone who has played it then go and tell all their friends via Facebook and Twitter? Will showing my game now get enough people talking about it and wanting to try it and support me when the time comes to ask for funding via IndieGoGo and/or Kickstarter?
To be honest, I'm a little nervous of how it will all turn out this summer. My plan is to have a big reveal this summer showing off all the cool things that have been done to the game so far. This includes new contracted art and music from Chris Rallis and Zack Parrish respectively. I'm also planning on cutting a promotional teaser video to show off the game sending it out to game review sites and on Steam's Greelight community. This will all be geared towards the big crowd funding campaign and getting the word out to see if the game will be worth it's salt and sell as a worthy title in the indie games market.
It's a lot of pressure and excitement just knowing that a successful fundraising campaign could change everything and make a longtime dream come true. No pressure.
Now Paul Nichols and I have of course teamed up to create and release Subject 33 for mobiles and all other Java run-time capable platforms, but somehow that project just doesn't seem to have the same emotional impact as this. It could be the amount of money it would take to make Garland's Quest compared to the nifty top-down retro shooter and most of all the other prototypes I've started and what it would take to complete them. Now it's nowhere near the usual AAA budgets you would see with six digits bouncing around, but when you are just starting out it's still a sizable chunk to swallow.
Still this game project will be a big one and could potentially launch my career into game development if it goes well enough so I have to make sure I do it right. This summer will make or break the project and how well the funding goes will mean a great game that we can fulfill and possibly expand our vision or a temporary halt in it's development. I'm hoping for success and will be working damn hard to make sure I get every opportunity I can.
It hurts to not be able to show you all that I've been working on. I think it's really great and will be something that the causal gamers and puzzle game lovers amoung you will enjoy young and old. Maybe if I am able to cut an early teaser, like I'm planning I can show that off before I start the funding campaign.
I guess you'll have to keep an eye out come this summer.