Adventure Game Studio

Okay so for the past few months I've been sitting on my first P&C Adventure game but beyond writing the script and fleshing out the story/characters I haven't been able to complete the rest mainly due to budget constraints. I desperately want to start completing the graphical assets for the game but without any funds to do so I pretty much have to abandon the project entirely. I can spare the limited free time I do have to muster up a glossy mockup/prototype for a Kickstarter campaign but without raising some money I'm pretty much screwed. I've seen several successful campaigns in this particular game genre do amazingly well and achieving goals of 60k, 200k, to 400k+ which is crazy ridiculous to even fathom XD I wouldn't need nearly that much yet I feel awful even asking for a few hundred bucks.

So my question is should I suck it up and put one together anyway even if I'm afraid people will bash me for it and hope for the best because what do I have to lose? Should I wait until a mysterious dead uncle leaves me his wealthy estate? Or are there any other possible alternatives to crowdfunding that I can pursue to obtain the needed funds? eg. an indie game publisher that will grant me a modest advance if I present my "currently in progress" game?

I'm all really new to this and I'm excited to pursue it on a serious level but no clue as to how to go about affording to do so =X How do you guys do it? I'd love to hear some personal experiences from others in the community. :)

I don't really understand what you need the money for. Do you want to pay someone to do the graphics for you? Do you need the money to buy graphics software?

I'm an illustrator and plan to do all the graphics myself but all my free time I would have to spend on doing that is normally taken up by the few freelance gigs I manage to get just to pay the bills and feed myself. I'd love to be able to afford to take some time off from freelance gigs to devote my time and energy to my own project but I can't. I'm already couch surfing as it is just to get by with what i'm making now. I would only need enough to well, continue surviving while I pour myself into this project and see it to completion. I would also like to afford to pay for voice actors and a music composer if the crowdfunding was successful enough to afford that but if my budget is constricted I could do without it but it would be lovely to afford to pull that off. Can't hurt to dream!

This would be my first completed game if I managed to afford to finish it so I'm not expecting to raise or require a large budget. But if I'm to start expanding my "game designer portfolio" I've gotta start somewhere :p

I'm curious how others have pulled off completing their games on either a micro budget or no budget at all. I'm eager to get some ideas or advice from other developers! If I were to do it in my free time with no budget it would probably take me 3-5yrs to complete on my own. But if I was able to raise say...2-5k which may not seem like much of anything to most game publishers out there I could finally finish this project in less than 3-4months.

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Wed 19/02/2014 16:39:57
I'm curious how others have pulled off completing their games on either a micro budget or no budget at all.

I guess how most people do it - in their free time.

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Wed 19/02/2014 16:39:57
This would be my first completed game if I managed to afford to finish it...

Not a completed game yet and not even bothered to spend some free time on basic graphics yet - I doubt that someone is willing to spend money on such a kickstarter...


It may sound harsh, but unless this is the most innovative game concept with amazing story and stuff, I don't think this will be funded successfully...

Ultimately it's your decision to make and I don't have any first-hand experience on crowdfunding but here are some thoughts.

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Wed 19/02/2014 16:05:56
even if I'm afraid people will bash me for it

It'd really suck and it'd feel very personal if people dislike your campaign and/or decision to run it, but realistically thinking, there are so many crowdfunding campagins now, everybody would forget about yours within the next 3 minutes if they don't like it. So that probably wouldn't last and it probably isn't worth being afraid of and cancelling the whole plan.

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Wed 19/02/2014 16:05:56
eg. an indie game publisher that will grant me a modest advance if I present my "currently in progress" game?

Publisher or not, but making an actual "currently in progress" demo/prototype is the single most important thing you could do to improve the chances of your game, if you ask me.

Finally, from what I've seen and heard, when starting a crowdfunding campaign, the most important thing you have to ask yourself is whether you're up for putting effort into attracting attention to it. A campaign without sufficient exposure is a doomed one. Thus you have to be prepared to advertise, promote, plug your campaign in every way you can think of, contact press, reach out to communities, etc etc. Frequent updates of the campaign page itself are also said to help. You have to be ready to work on all that virtually non-stop for the entire duration of the campaign if you really want to take your chance at success.

You're an artist though, so at least you can make some pretty promotional material at no cost. That's a good advantage, pretty graphics sell, even if it's just promo concept art.

Being an indie and/or trying to become a full-time indie is truly hard as hell. I wish you the best of luck with this.

then you better make a really good pitch video and convice people to pour money in your direction. And then ask for 7-9k for kicksarter fees and the goodies you give our to backers...

Quote from: cat on Wed 19/02/2014 16:56:10
Not a completed game yet and not even bothered to spend some free time on basic graphics yet - I doubt that someone is willing to spend money on such a kickstarter...
It may sound harsh, but unless this is the most innovative game concept with amazing story and stuff, I don't think this will be funded successfully...

Yeah like I mentioned I've pretty much finished the story/script for the game. Right now I'm just working on some prototype artwork in an attempt to put together a polished mockup of the game so that I can at the very least announce the game's pre-production. I would eventually intend to utilize that material to create a proposal video for a crowdfunding website like Kickstarter or Indiegogo if I surrendered to the idea and tried to go that route with seeking the necessary funding.

But you've pretty much verified my concerns and now I'm not so sure I should attempt to seek funds in that way after all. It was just eating me up and I had to ask! :p

This is an example of some of my freelance work, to give some idea of my competence as an illustrator.

Sadly I can't really get more than 5-10$ for a piece similar to this so trying to save up money for my own projects proves extra difficult when bills and food are more of a priority. I just got really excited with the prospect of turning my story into a Point & Click Adventure game and kind of approached it entirely with that in mind. But I could always re-write it as a novel I suppose. It's so much easier to get a book deal than it is to pursue the game industry XD

I just love telling stories and am determined to get this one out there, no matter the format. Though an AGS game would have been most ideal.

Thanks so much for hearing me out guys! I really admire this community and other AGS developers. I guess I'll just continue to lurk the forums from now on lol. :-[

That is a very nice picture. I really wish you find a way to make the game after all. But eh, you do what you think is best.

Also perhaps you also should lurk on IRC (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=49257.0) as well. :)

I've been tempted to try and collaborate with a team maybe. Put my game on hold temporarily while I build up my reputation in the AGS community as a hard worker and innovative storyteller XD but I haven't really seen anyone seeking new collaborators especially without previous experience. Maybe if I was able to build up a reputation and network that way I could eventually earn the respect from people in the community to warrant the right to launch a crowdfunding campaign for my own game without looking like an amateur dickwad.

Whenever I tried to join a gamedev community/forum in the past without any prior programming knowledge I've been laughed out. Especially when they find out i'm a girl, most of the time the response I get is, "oh you want to make a game? That's cute." So everything I have learned or attempted in the past has been self taught and I've never really had the opportunity to benefit from a supportive like-minded community before. Luckily I think that is slowly changing and people are becoming more understanding and accepting. But I still find it rather difficult to get my foot in the door.

Anyone know of any good forums/communities to look for collab/commission work?

You may want to look realistically at others who have done crowdfunding campaigns in our own community before looking at the 400K+ success stories.

• Andail got 675 out of a requested 3500 for Samaritan Paradox (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-samaritan-paradox) (which is an amazing game I had the privilege of beta-testing).
• Mods got 2500 out of a requested 2000 for Kinky Island. (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kinky-island)
• These guys got 300 out of a requested 30000 for Caribbean Island. (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/caribbean-island-a-pirate-adventure/)
• Creed got 2000 out of a requested 3500 for The Big Sheep. (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-big-sheep)
• Grundislav got 400 out of a requested 500 for Ben Jordan 2. (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ben-jordan-2)

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Wed 19/02/2014 17:33:05
Anyone know of any good forums/communities to look for collab/commission work?

You need to poke a while (with a long stick) to find the quality stuff, but DeviantArt is still popular and at has a PM/Message/Group system that's flexible enough to find people and collaborate. I did some collab stuff for an adventure game there way back in 2004 and it was good fun. Nothing came out of it, but seven people scribbling and tossing ideas at each other was defenitely worth it.

Also! That is an adorable picture, and the first thing I though was: Ren'py! Make a Visual Novel! The toolkit is free and apparently quite easy to use, and you cut out a lot of AGS overhead when you go for still images!

Quote from: Ghost on Wed 19/02/2014 18:38:22
You need to poke a while (with a long stick) to find the quality stuff, but DeviantArt is still popular and at has a PM/Message/Group system that's flexible enough to find people and collaborate. I did some collab stuff for an adventure game there way back in 2004 and it was good fun. Nothing came out of it, but seven people scribbling and tossing ideas at each other was defenitely worth it.

Also! That is an adorable picture, and the first thing I though was: Ren'py! Make a Visual Novel! The toolkit is free and apparently quite easy to use, and you cut out a lot of AGS overhead when you go for still images!

I was actually torn between making my game either a Visual Novel with Ren'py or a Point & Click Adventure with AGS in the beginning. Eventually I ended up leaning more towards AGS because even though both are pretty niche genres I felt the aspect of actually being able to interact with the environment and collect clues/investigate the storyline to be more intriguing. But maybe trying to use AGS for my first "commercial grade" game was a bit too ambitious. The major downside of Ren'py is that it doesn't have the element of interacting with the environment and gathering clues like AGS has. You could theoretically program it to have those similar features but I can't code from scratch to save my life XD

I've used DA in the past to search for gigs and clients but haven't lately because I started to get ripped off or scammed. 5-8yrs ago I use to get paid 40-80$ for a full body colored illustration (mind you my ability back then was FAR WORSE than my current level) yet now I can't find gigs that pay more than 5-10$ for the same thing with far superior quality without people crying about it being too expensive.

My other artsy friends think it's downright criminal that I put all my time and energy in jobs that ultimately only pay out 5-10$ but it's all I can get these days. Generally the commission rate equation goes more like 8-15$/hr of work. The drawing I posted earlier for example took 8-10hrs to complete so in theory I should be getting paid more like 80-100$ for stuff I end up doing for 5-10$ x__x;

I should have become an accountant.

Not to be entirely insensitive, but is it a big surprise that, as a more or less unknown artist, drawing commissioned cartoon illustrations of other people's IP is a barely/not at all viable way to make a living? I mean, you have basically every artistic teenager in the world with a tumblr account driving down the value of your product.

I don't have much wisdom to add to this thread that you haven't seen already, but I'll note a few things.

Before you get excited about pursuing it on a serious level, have you yet pursued it at an amateur level?  Don't underestimate the value of walking before running.

At the risk of sounding blunt, Kickstarter is not a place where people fund ideas, it's a place where people fund prototypes.  Unless you are a recognized and universally adored name, by the time your game hits Kickstarter, a lot of the heavy-lifting is already done and can be readily demonstrated.  If you need Kickstarter to pay for art, you will have an exceedingly hard time getting funded.  But I think you've already heard this already.

My advice for your specific case, somebody who just loves to tell stories, is to find a small group of people who possess skills that you do not and share the both the work, and the equity in your project.  If you have all the skills you need, but no time, then fiddle away at it over the course of several years.

Conspirocracy cost less than a grand to make.  We asked for $5000, we raised $2100 and half our proceeds from the crowdfunding campaign went to charity.  We didn't use Kickstarter, though, given the charitable aspect of our game.

I've had some mixed experiences with DA for both video and boardgame work.  Artists can be temperamental, and finding long-term partners there is especially difficult if they don't have a vested stake in your project, but it's a good way to network.  I met some great people I enjoy working with there, but I've also been ripped off just as frequently.  Also, if you're just on there doing commissions, you're going to get bled out of the market by equally talented artists from developing countries.

I agree with Snarky, having a full-time job will be the only 'actual' solution to your problem .

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Wed 19/02/2014 17:33:05
Whenever I tried to join a gamedev community/forum in the past without any prior programming knowledge I've been laughed out. Especially when they find out i'm a girl, most of the time the response I get is, "oh you want to make a game? That's cute." So everything I have learned or attempted in the past has been self taught and I've never really had the opportunity to benefit from a supportive like-minded community before. Luckily I think that is slowly changing and people are becoming more understanding and accepting. But I still find it rather difficult to get my foot in the door.

I don't know which community you joined other than this one but I know very well that they're being an ass. So, don't get discouraged by their comments.

-----
Another solution (this is not a permanent solution though, I'm afraid) would be to form a team and allocate different aspects of your game to different individuals. I'm sure you'll find many people willing to work on your game. You may join hands with a programmer and musician. That way, you can solely focus on your story writing and drawing.

I've worked with musicians here before. They were very friendly and cooperative and did it for free (because the game itself was freeware). So, unless you're going to commercialize your game, I'm sure they'll gladly work with you.

But if you plan to commercialize your game then you can make it such a payment system like for each sale of game's copy, the team members would receive this much share of the total earning. Add this disclaimer to the recruitment thread. So, only those willing to take risks or just wanting to do it fun or get experienced may join it. The downside would be that you may receive much fewer replies than you normally would've had you were paying regardless of the sales.

With enough time and patience, you'll make a game lengthy enough to fully enjoy :) . In my opinion, it will be loads of better if you first start small and free, till you've enough experience to work on full length adventure game.

Since I were proofreading this post when I saw KodiakBehr's reply. He has said almost what I meant to say. Nevertheless, I'm deciding to post it. I'll add few more lines, agreeing to what he has said:

The thing is that the currency value of developing countries (especially Pakistan, India, Bangladesh etc) is very low as compared to dollars. Hence, the people from these countries are more than willing to do work of equal quality at more than half price than what a normal individual of a developed country would charge for.

For example, consider the above artwork you did: As low as 5-10 $ is equal to 500 - 1000 Rs. (Pakistani Rupees)  which is a fairly good amount of money to work for - especially on one's spare time.

Spoiler

And my god: I shouldn't spend this much time on proofreading... (wtf)

[close]

Quote from: Adeel S. Ahmed on Wed 19/02/2014 22:12:02
And my god: I shouldn't spend this much time on proof reading... (wtf)

I believe you misspelled "proofreading", sir.

Quote from: qptain Nemo on Wed 19/02/2014 22:19:29

Quote from: Adeel S. Ahmed on Wed 19/02/2014 22:12:02
And my god: I shouldn't spend this much time on proof reading... (wtf)

I believe you misspelled "proofreading", sir.

Hahaha! Good one, qptain! :-D

Trying to make money from doing something that you really love can be frustrating and seem quite impossible at times.

Best of luck. :smiley:

We raised $63,000 on Kickstarter, but we spent 6 months working on a fully playable demo for our game, and we took great care to make sure our campaign was well presented and taken care of on KS.  It's not just a "whip something up" and hope they come.  You have to put a COPIOUS amount of time and effort into it, before, during and after.

Do not half-ass it if you want to do a Kickstarter.  Do you due diligence and cross your t's and dot your i's.  If you can't do this, right now may not be the right time for you to produce a game and/or run a Kickstarter.

Best of luck to you - my advice is really to keep working at it, until you have something solid to show.


Bt

Thanks everyone for your replies :) I'm sorry if I wasn't completely clear in my original post or gave people the wrong impression. Over the past 10 years I have fiddled in game making as nothing more than a secret little hobby of mine. I've made (albeit unfinished) puzzle games in Flash, platformers in Game Maker, VNs in Ren'py, etc. (though this was several years ago) and I feel I am ready to pursue it on a more serious and professional level. I've always had an interest in making games but was never taken seriously and always discouraged to pursue it.

I hope my OP didn't give people the impression that I was intending to doodle up some stick figures over the weekend and slap that up on Kickstarter in a premature attempt to beg for money. If I were to follow through with it I would spend a good 4-6months working on a playable demo and a nice proposal video so that I can do my very best to portray my intentions and goals with the game before I'd even find myself personally ready to take that next step.

I also understand the concept and importance of marketing and networking. I wouldn't launch a Kickstarter and just sit on my bum expecting money to roll in with no effort on my part. Which is why I thought it important and potentially useful to ask the actual community their opinions. Be it their own personal experience, advice, etc.

This is something I would probably launch much later in the year and I wanted people's advice beforehand so that when I do make my "debut" within the community I'm able to make an impressive first splash instead of a mucky puddle. =/

Also figured I'd mention I am a full-time animation student so the artwork commissions are mostly done in the little free-time I get. I don't do commissions full-time and don't really consider it my full-time job. I also do web design gigs so it's not my only form of extra income. My art commissions as of late have been lacking because again it's not a very lucrative thing to do anymore...for really any artist unless you're part of a team or studio. Most people expect it for free and truly never grasp just how much work and effort is put into any given piece. So I've kinda opted to just draw for "me" instead of others at this point. Focusing on making my game is something I was really excited to do but now I'm worried it'd just be a wasted effort if I've already destroyed everyone's expectations with this noob post. I really should have thought that through I'm really sorry guys! XD I hope my uneducated rambling in the world of AGS hasn't annoyed too many people :-[

Cheers!

Quote from: Eric on Wed 19/02/2014 18:28:01
You may want to look realistically at others who have done crowdfunding campaigns in our own community before looking at the 400K+ success stories.

These links might also be a warning not to use indiegogo to fund your game. I've seen campaigns with beautiful graphics and coverage from major gaming websites fail on indiegogo, and I can only conclude that it lacks the (largely) supportive community of Kickstarter.

I ran this Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/315061806/nelly-cootalot-the-fowl-fleet-retro-pirate-adventu) several months ago expecting to only receive pledges from friends, family and a few AGSers. As it was, the majority of support came from adventure game fans I've never met.

I was lucky to get an article on one or two gaming sites, most notably RPS. That made a big, direct impact on the campaign. I couldn't get many other big sites to cover the campaign (possibly because Tim Schafer and Dough TenNapal launched campaigns within days of me). I realise now I should have spent months running up to the launch making contact with game journalists, sending them previews and demos and building up support before launching the campaign.

Do that, and make a video which has lots of good stuff in the first 30-60 seconds, because that's all people will watch.

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Thu 20/02/2014 06:34:36I hope my uneducated rambling in the world of AGS hasn't annoyed too many people :-[

I don't know what communities you've visited before, but you'll have to work harder if you want to annoy people here :-D

The most important things have already been said, the only thing I can add is this: If you really want to make a game, just make it - no one here wants to discourage you. The best thing you can do is to work on your game until you have something to show. Then you can decide if you want to recruit other people to help, and if your concept is good enough for a crowd funding campaign. Maybe it's a good idea to make a small one-room game first to get some practise. With your first complete game, you're bound to make a few mistakes. And why not have a look at the "Competitions & Activities" section? We're all crazy here anyway, so you've got nothing to fear. 8-)

Quote from: Ali on Thu 20/02/2014 09:12:29
I ran this Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/315061806/nelly-cootalot-the-fowl-fleet-retro-pirate-adventu) several months ago expecting to only receive pledges from friends, family and a few AGSers. As it was, the majority of support came from adventure game fans I've never met.

I remember your game being one of the first AGS games I came across and it was one of a handful of modern P&C Adventure games that really inspired me to take a stab at the genre XD and thanks for sharing your advice! It really helped put things in better perspective for me. I'm still trying to figure everything out and settle on the best way to approach everything. I mainly posted this thread because I wanted to hear from other AGSers before attacking any given project blindly :p

Quote from: Problem on Thu 20/02/2014 09:24:07
I don't know what communities you've visited before, but you'll have to work harder if you want to annoy people here :-D

The most important things have already been said, the only thing I can add is this: If you really want to make a game, just make it - no one here wants to discourage you. The best thing you can do is to work on your game until you have something to show. Then you can decide if you want to recruit other people to help, and if your concept is good enough for a crowd funding campaign. Maybe it's a good idea to make a small one-room game first to get some practise. With your first complete game, you're bound to make a few mistakes. And why not have a look at the "Competitions & Activities" section? We're all crazy here anyway, so you've got nothing to fear. 8-)

Yeah I've mostly just been lurking on these forums until now but I really admire its community over other indiedev/gamedev forums that have a very pretentious air about them. You know, the ones who get all miffed if they get even the slightest whiff of a idealistic noob. It's especially more difficult when they find out you're a girl, they get even more insulted for some reason. HOWEVER AGS seems to be a really fun and nurturing community which is nifty. Also I've noticed a lot of female gamedevs on here so I feel much more comfortable.

For my first game I made it rather simple because I didn't want to be too ambitious with my first attempt although I think I did a pretty good job and creating a unique and intriguing story to make it stand out more. But maybe even that is a bit too ambitious. I'm pondering more and more over the course of this thread that I should probably collab with a small team on a fun hobby project or join in a game jam or something to get some more experience under my belt before going solo.

I just didn't think I'd get much interest in collaborators with my game until I produced a lot or most of it solely on my own beforehand. But shelving my game and contributing to someone else's who has previously proven themselves is probably the better alternative. :p

Let me tell you about myself: I never worked too much on my game before finding myself a fellow musician. But still, I were able to attract interest of musicians. Maybe I were just lucky, I guess. :P

It's always nice to find willing artists to work with you. :) Too bad, I'm unable to find myself some free time these days.

Ah, if only you'd expressed your willingness few months before... :X

E: It's quite amazing how the whole meaning of intended emoticon changed with a single addition of hypen. (wtf)

Newbies are the future of gamemaking, and there's a lack of female game creators, so it sucks that those things would put people off. Hope you have a better time on AGS.

The truth is that only a few of the hopeful first-time game makers who think they have a great idea for an adventure game will ever finish and release it, and after a while you tend to take the "Games in Production" announcements with a grain of salt. Plus, there are a lot of aspects that go into a good adventure that you only learn by experience, so a first game is usually not that great. The best way to build credibility and a fan- ( = potential customer-) base is therefore to put out a few games, even if they're just very short ones. Contributing to a team project is a nice idea in principle, but the risk of people dropping out and the project stalling is probably even higher.

Given your situation as a full-time student who needs to take freelance gigs in your spare time to pay the bills, I don't really see how you can fit in adventure-game making right now. It is a time-consuming hobby, and even the few people who are making money off AGS-related work had to put in years of unpaid effort to get to that point. If you can find a way to make it work, that's great, but I think it's unrealistic to expect to live off AGS game-making (whether funded through KS or sales) right off the bat.

Saltwater Taffy - always remember - time is really irrelevant if you want something.  When I was 12, all I wanted to do was "make Sierra games".  Over 20 years later, I'm doing that.  We first had the idea to do a game like "Quest For Infamy" over 10 years ago!  Sometimes things need to wait, but you always stick with it! Keep it in your heart and in your mind.  You're going to be just fine, I think! You've got a good head on your shoulders, and I do really hope you always keep your idea and dream of a game alive.


Bt

Hello and welcome to the community!

I think it sounds strange that you have been laughed at and felt unwelcome because you're female - if anything there's a shortage of female game developers and most people I know think it's great if that could change.

Having said this, I think your idea of game making as an occupation seems slightly optimistic. I'm developing a game right now and have done so for some 1 1/2 years, but before that I saved up lots of money to be able to go down to working 80% at my daily job. Having a steady income and substantial savings were crucial for me to put so much time and effort into a game, and I don't even expect to make very much money on it (more than perhaps cover my VO costs).

AGS and other developing communities are usually rather skeptical about people with grand plans but nothing to show. People around here will wait for you to release your own game before mustering up that much enthusiasm, simply because many people are gifted talkers but not great doers. Kickstarter and crowdfunding sites in general seem to work a bit more chaotically; suddenly something just goes viral because their pitch video is hilarious and they gain LOTS of attention, so if you have at least some material and then shoot a video of yourself talking passionately about your project and then update your campaign and tweet constantly and so on I'd say it's worth a shot.

The points that stand out so far :

1) You can draw. But do you have a viable production pipeline? (producing graphical assets for a game can be somewhat of a repetitive task, and a large volume). Can you draw hundreds of sprites and backgrounds, with technical requirements?

2) Do you want to go freeware or commercial? That's the one decision you need to make first (cat's intervention sounded like nobody even wants or needs to go commercial) : if you want to go freeware, you might get some money afterwards (if you're extremely lucky and manage to publish your game on semi-paying distribution networks  like steam, appstores, etc.). But you said yourself that you can't reach cruising speed by using only your free time. Then you need to go commercial.

3) If you go commercial (1 of 2) : Either you use crowdfunding, or you contact a publisher. Or a mix of both. But for your first game ever you'll have to be very convincing to get any money!

4) If you go commercial (2 of 2) : you have more financial resources but you also need to have a very steep production phase, you can't just afford to say "thanks, see you in four years for the release". Do you have any experience at showing your progress/results?

4) Can you make a game? It's one thing to draw. It's another thing to make a game: puzzle design, narration, scripting. The best way to prove your skills is to 1) either create a short game, or 2) Create a demo for your own game. Even something short, but intriguing. The shorter the game, the more you can focus on reaching the level of quality you're aiming at in your real project. But sometimes, even making a shit-looking but well-polished game (good narration, well debugged, etc.) is a good thing.

5) Never underestimate that a game development project is cyclic : the more you produce, the more you attract people. And the more you attract people, the more you produce. Stay under the radar as long as you only have something half-baked. But then as soon as you have reached a certain critical mass, then start advertising like crazy. And then you might eventually feel ready to kick off a kickstarter campaign or attract a small publisher.

Hi,

I agree with Andail.

It's about your credibility and respect.

If you have both then you are in with a chance of people putting their hands in their pockets.

No one in their right minds would stick loads of money on a rank outsider.

Love your graphics by the way ;)

Yeah that's why my first game isn't too overly ambitious. It's nowhere near the caliber of say Blackthorne's "Quest for Infamy" I'd have to be downright mental to aim that high for my first try :p

The story I'm working on isn't a complex saga and the game itself is rather short but intended to be a full game. But I still feel it has a nice refreshing and unique concept that anyone could get addicted to. The only reason I'm at all concerned with budget and by that i'd probably only need like 500-600$ minimum that...I can probably save up all by myself if I live off ramen noodles for awhile lol. The reason for this is though the game will be simple as anyone's first game should be I really want to make it as polished as possible in other areas. I want it to have a strong story line, attractive graphics, and optionally (if a nice little microbudget would allow) a decent soundtrack and voice acting. The latter two aren't exactly necessary for a first game, I get that, but hey if I managed to raise/save up enough to afford to do that, it'd be groovy.

This game would be more of an introduction to what I could offer as a game designer. I don't intend to profit from the game and ideally I'd like to release it for free but at the same time I want it to be able to compete (in terms of quality) with similar titles that are of a commercial "indie" grade. Meaning, I don't want it to be sloppy if I can help it XD

I'm a female dev, and no one on AGS have ever been anything but helpful to me so you really shouldn't have any issues here. I've never been on other dev forums, but the facebook group I'm in is usually pretty good too. Admittedly my biggest problem has been a handful of creeps trying to use it as a dating network, but thats easily fixed with a block button. Anyway, I hope you are no longer discouraged after some time here.

Myself and soxbrooker are in a similar position to you regarding commercial releases. We want to make games full time and we want to go commercial, but we know we have to prove our competence first. We entered a mags competition as our first game release, and are very close to alpha testing our current project. We are considering charging for our third release, but we decided we wont think about it until we release our second game and see how it is received.

My advice is finish a game. Just finish it to prove you can finish something. You mention you have lots of unfinished games and that will not bode well for people looking to fund you. Get a fully functioning short game up and see what the community says. Take part in the next mags on the competition forum if you can, it was honestly the best thing Sox and I have ever done. It gave us a steep learning curve and showed us we could finish something decent.

Best of luck :)

I remember checking out your game when I was browsing the MAGs competitions and pondering if I was ready to tackle one or not. I've been a bit hesitant but your game was really impressive and definitely motivating. I actually wanted to make some fanart for it after playing it, I have no idea why I never got around to doing it yet =X

I'd love to see/play your next game! And I hope to have a similarly successful debut game! <3

Thank you. That's very kind of you to say.

Honestly though, we debated if we were ready for MAGS and then just went "Screw it!" We didnt expect to make anything amazing, but our only unspoken rule was to try our best. If it came out rubbish, then we would laugh it off. It's a short freeware game, and our first one too, so it didnt really matter if it was bad or good. It was just important we learn the code and make something complete. Those were the goals. By some goof we made something people liked and here we are.

I think we can all be too cautious, and sometimes the best thing to do is just go for it. The only way to find out if you can make a go of it, is to make a game and finish it :) Your art style will work well and you understand animation so you only need to carve some time out each day/week/month to work on it. If you need help with code there are so many tutorials and helpful forum threads, and if you need any help with your story or art there is a critics lounge too. If you wanted an opinion on story ideas I'd be happy to take a look for you.

Also if you do make any Witchy Woo fan art please let us know. Sox would get super excited and I would love to post it on our blog :)

OMG OMG OMG! I want Woo Fan art!
I second Myinah 100% go at it in your free time if you can, even if it means it will take you longer :)
I lOVE your art style and I want to be playing one of your games one day

Quote from: Ali on Thu 20/02/2014 09:12:29I can only conclude that it lacks the (largely) supportive community of Kickstarter.

I was trying to think of AGS games that had used Kickstarter, and somehow, unforgivably, forgot Nelly, even though I was a backer! Sorry!   

I don't intend to derail this thread, because I am finding the question, concerns, and thoughtful responses very interesting. Still, I couldn't resist...

Quote from: Soxbrooker on Thu 20/02/2014 23:09:29
OMG OMG OMG! I want Woo Fan art!

I prefer your Woo, but here's something I made with Anim8or:

(http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/woo1_zps4d2b8e9a.png)

Frankly, all the AGS campaigns I've backed have all surpassed the goal, I have kindly helped people who backed them by posting them into various forums as well. I think Nelly Cootalot, made a great buildup to its kickstarter. If there's product, people will pay for it eventually. I've been around, I've seen things, I've basically kickstarted a certain agser without him being aware of it. It's all about the product.

Quote from: Dualnames on Fri 21/02/2014 02:06:44
I think Nelly Cootalot, made a great buildup to its kickstarter.

I think a great boon was that a) the Nelly2 pitch was really fun to watch, and b) the original game is freeware. That seems to be a really good situation: Having something to show that clearly demonstrates the potential of the product. Likewise remakes. If you have a game that is already known and maybe even liked a bit, I am absolutely convinced a fundraiser for an improved sequel (voice acting, better graphics, extra content, what have you) will be received better.

It's great fun to see Woo in 3D. Thank you! We will have to stick it on our blog. We need a stickied fan art thread somewhere so we can all post different fan arts and not derail threads lol.

To be more on topic, Ghost makes good points re: Nelly Cootalot. There was a solid freeware game for people to play that showed Ali had talent and the ability to finish a game. But it also had a really engaging pitch video. So many of those can end up a snooze fest, but Ali's was great fun. I had a lot of confidence in him to make a great game and so I backed it.

Quote from: Myinah on Thu 20/02/2014 20:05:26
Thank you. That's very kind of you to say.

Honestly though, we debated if we were ready for MAGS and then just went "Screw it!" We didnt expect to make anything amazing, but our only unspoken rule was to try our best. If it came out rubbish, then we would laugh it off. It's a short freeware game, and our first one too, so it didnt really matter if it was bad or good. It was just important we learn the code and make something complete. Those were the goals. By some goof we made something people liked and here we are.

I think we can all be too cautious, and sometimes the best thing to do is just go for it. The only way to find out if you can make a go of it, is to make a game and finish it :) Your art style will work well and you understand animation so you only need to carve some time out each day/week/month to work on it. If you need help with code there are so many tutorials and helpful forum threads, and if you need any help with your story or art there is a critics lounge too. If you wanted an opinion on story ideas I'd be happy to take a look for you.

Also if you do make any Witchy Woo fan art please let us know. Sox would get super excited and I would love to post it on our blog :)

Yeah I'm kind of tempted, if I can manage to allot myself some more free time in the following months to participate in either the April/May MAGS. I'd really like to do that I'm just afraid since I lack proper programming knowledge that the art might look lovely, and the writing potentially compelling, but ultimately the coding would probably be hella glitchy ;A; but if it's just for a MAGS I think I won't feel as pressured to make it uber polished and just do my best to start and complete something.

I actually started on the fanart piece a few months ago, hopefully I can try to finish it up this weekend :p Woo is such a cute character and a lot of fun to draw!

Quote from: Dualnames on Fri 21/02/2014 02:06:44
Frankly, all the AGS campaigns I've backed have all surpassed the goal, I have kindly helped people who backed them by posting them into various forums as well. I think Nelly Cootalot, made a great buildup to its kickstarter. If there's product, people will pay for it eventually. I've been around, I've seen things, I've basically kickstarted a certain agser without him being aware of it. It's all about the product.

I really admire the AGS community and how supportive everyone is towards each other. Admittedly since I've never used this engine before and really have no experience with programming anything from scratch I'm afraid my game might seem visually appealing but fall horribly short (and glitchy) in execution. Hopefully I can attract some coders/programmers that find my story compelling enough to contribute. Originally I was under the assumption that I'd most likely have to do everything entirely on my own and if I required additional help I'd have to pay for it. Which is why I was so worried about requiring any kind of substantial budget in the first place. But I think seeing what others in the community have been able to achieve with little to no experience with the engine and little to no budget to work with I'm feeling a lot relieved and even more motivated that I might be able to pull this off after all. *fingers crossed* :-[

Quote from: Saltwater Taffy on Fri 21/02/2014 11:26:50
[...] Originally I was under the assumption that I'd most likely have to do everything entirely on my own and if I required additional help I'd have to pay for it. Which is why I was so worried about requiring any kind of substantial budget in the first place. But I think seeing what others in the community have been able to achieve with little to no experience with the engine and little to no budget to work with I'm feeling a lot relieved and even more motivated that I might be able to pull this off after all. *fingers crossed* :-[

Yes. That precisely was the point I were trying to convey. AGS Community is one of the best community one can ever find. :)