The Games I'd make if I had Time, Skill and Money
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- Unfortunately, money and time are often limiting factors for the scope of our games. So, assuming those weren't an object, what games would we make, and what's our reasoning behind making them.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Ideas are worthless
01:23 Skogvoll
05:24 Osmium
08:24 Ashes of Lyra
11:48 Songs of Everjade
15:51 BlueShift
20:45 Closing
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Something I've noticed is the vast majority of CZcamsrs have so few life experiences outside of video games this becomes a major struggle when coming up with interesting game ideas with good hooks. There are like 10,000 devlogs inspired by the most popular AAA games that came out between 2015-2024. It's cool you're thinking about game ideas that came from actually going to a museum. I think all of us should play more older games, read more books (not just self help), watch movies that aren't just popular sci-fi, and have frequent interactions with other people that aren't just our nuclear families and girlfriends/wives.
Yes, inspiration can be from everything in the life, not only from other games or game design books.
Sooo... They should touch grass?
I think ppl are just less well-rounded now. Even though we have access to basically all of recorded human knowledge, folks restrict themselves to quite narrow reference-pools.
Not to dump on Marnix, but saying he'd only read 100+ SF books [at mid/late 20s-ish], and that he'd never wrote anything [fiction/lit] before, just broke my heart.
My HS & college each had dedicated full-room libraries just for sci-fi/fantasy! And at various schools, we did creative writing every year from at least 3rd grade, through college graduation, mandatory. They taught us to write poetry in diff forms, do autobiography, short fiction, and study world/ethnic history via contemporary writing, all baked-in to the State [K-12] curriculum.
Fave HS term papers were on mythology in the Wheel of Time, and analysis of humor in Pinky & the Brain vs the Canterbury Tales. 😂
And that was in super STEM-focused schools/programs [public thru HS, then private uni]. They used to require you to get a full breadth of subject exposure - even for folks not going to college at all. We lost that somewhere, and ppl have not made it up that much in their personal lives.
life is boring
but i agree with taking inspiration from older games, years between 1998-2003 had some wild games that deserve a second look now that we are not limited by technology of that time
@@Drakuba The most boring part of life is the lens you view it through. Remember seeing the world through the lens of childish curiosity? Haven't you had something you've become hyper-fixated on that has occupied you for hours? That's part of life.
The behavior of animals is interesting. The life cycle of plants is interesting. Architecture is interesting. Science is interesting. History is crazy interesting. Talking to people is interesting. Even just watching people is interesting. But you won't see any of that if you think you've seen it all.
I am making the game I want to make which is a big project...but...I have a full time job paying the bills so I can do this...
Same here. I understand the struggle.
Yup, same. Current WIP is a Tactical RPG set in a fantasy version of the Silk Road, my most-ambitious commercial project to-date. Day job keeps the lights on, but also lets me carefully curate/alter assets to fit my aesthetic, do industry networking, and skill-up into stuff like shaders & 3d modeling/animation.
If I had money for it, I'd do full voice-acting in English (maybe also Japanese), and localize it in about 7-10 key regions. The rest I can self-fund 👍
@@mandisaw The time cost of our projects is tremendous because we are detail oriented. It's essentially art.
@@DJBWayne Hmm, different motivation for me. I make games as a side business, and the shorter, easy-to-make games just don't pay for themselves. Too hard to stand out if it's something anyone could whip up in 3-6mos. Especially in mobile, where it's guaranteed that any idea you have exists, or will be cloned.
My Magnus Opus: Wartribes - A PvP focused top down Tribal Management ARPG/RTS game where you play 30 minutes matches where you first have to survive alone as a single tribesman and then build up a tribe to conquer a procedurally generated island
It is the game I have always said I would make when i had the time, but in part thanks to your videos I have begun documenting myself actually doing it, succeed or not - I am giving it my fire.
When you mentioned "To Be Taught, if Fortunate" I was sold! I loved that book and I would definitely play a game based on it.
What, no train simulator?! Is this even the real Marnix?
He's obvs saving that one to actually work on next 😂
I was really waiting for him to say something with a train involved
@@mandisaw Ahh of course! XD
Very brave or nice of you revealing your ideas or projects. Some people feel scared to share anything with anyone
if u rewatch this video in the light of "story telling/entertainment" instead with the usual "game dev" goggles (and at the same time consider that u gravitated to "become the guy who makes the videos for the video game studio") as well as the often mentioned lack of actual (desired) gameplay elements in ur ideas (except maybe for the board game one) then its relatively easy to come to the conclusion that u may not actually wanna make games but rather want to become a storyteller or even movie director or something of that sort
to me it doesnt seem like u have the "itch" to improve a certain genre because u can see its (current) flaws (u r just savvy at knowing "what the market demands", but any potato can figure that out with enough research), but rather that ud want to "make money in the entertainment sector (via story telling/immersive elements) (and not so much because of particular gameplay)"
just consider it..:if the passion u r following might not actually be making games and maybe the stuff i wrote above (which isnt totally dissimilar to game making, but not exactly a perfect fit)
Bit hard to read, but this. M's already a storyteller, dude just needs to learn some writer's discipline/approaches, maybe take a class and join a writing circle. It's not insurmountable, but it does take work, time, and practice, like any other skill. But it would likely expand their team's capabilities considerably.
My dream game will take a long time to make. Besides that, theres like 3-4 games I really want to make. Everything else is either part of the dream game, or learning the skills to get there.
I'll make a lot of tiny games, many of which will either be free or unpublished. But eventually, I hope to work my way up to them.
It's no surprise your strength is in deep/interesting mechanics, you alwasy deliver great insight and your honesty/clarity is much appreciated!
I've learned the hard way that if you dont have someone focused on art and modeling you're doomed from the start.
Yea, assets have always been my roadblock.
After making more than 20 games and Winning a couple Game Jams I think that now I'm ready to publish my frist game to steam.
Go for it, champ!
On the viking game, I think you could add a lot of identity on focusing on the seasons and weather. You could have Viking raids/expeditions but more of a you send some of the men of the village away on behalf of a high jarl or something.
Listening to this, I feel like y’all’s core issue is “We don’t have the skills!” You go through game projects and mention they’re failing or getting abandoned due to your shortcomings, and at some point it just begs the question… _why aren’t you busy acquiring those skills?_
As it stands, you either have to pay someone or promise revshare to fill in the gaps. What would it take to have one of you become that 2D artist or mechanics designer instead? Are you really going to be able to acquire those skills while working a day job and already trying to crunch out a game at night, with only 2-3 months of time?
Maybe you could give your projects a longer timeline so you can factor in “skill acquisition” along the way, like “juice” (which should be attainable for most game programmers to learn, imo.) If you all have day jobs already, it should be fine, right?
Not trying to say I know the answer, just hoping y’all get the logistics sorted of where you ultimately want to be in life. As an adult, it feels risky putting time into a new skill, but the reward is ultimately worth it. The difference is, you don’t have the education system and societal expectations making it easy for you, instead guilting you for not hitting the ground running for whatever role you find yourself in.
my thoughts exactly, i started learning "game deving" from the scratch, including modeling, programming, rigging, animations, materials
by sitting and lamenting lack of skill, its better to get your hands dirty and try and fail
@@Drakuba They already have. They made an automation game that failed to sell. Part of its problem was that it didn't look professional. Another was that it was buggy and the mechanics didn't fully work (in the game design sense). It's reasonable that they exclude things that they are patently bad at. The problem is that I don't really see what it is that they're good enough at that they can produce a commercially viable game.
@@paulie-g i know, Forge something. And as you said, neither of their games, from what i seen, really makes me want to try them
i think they kinda fallen into a spiral of "what people want to play" instead of what they, as gamers, want to play and create that. Tim Cain talks alot of how Fallout1 and Arcanum were games created by the team, for the team, consisting of what team thought would be fun and they themselves wanted to play
i guess it boils down to passion, if you try to create some gneric game for others you wont be as passionate as if you were creating something you want
The first game you mentioned reminded me of the Settlers 4. While it does have combat, there is a "settlement" mode where you can just sit and expand your settlement. It's got vikings, mayans, romans and trojans as factions (as well as the unplayable dark tribe). At the time it was unique for it's mechanics around individual resources. A huge appeal of the game when I was a kid was watching all of the settlers go about their daily business, you could see the process of a beekeeper making honey, someone carrying it to the building to make mead and then someone taking it to be sacrificed.
Fellow Scifi-lover here who wants to make a narrative-driven walking-simulator post-post apocalyptic space-age puzzle Scifi game! XD I’d buy your game in a heartbeat. 😂 And I feel your pain.
As for narrative design, it really is just one of those things you have to do and do again, just like anything else. And stories don’t have to be original, just captivating. Blueshift sounds captivating! I hope it’s made one day
Really enjoy your videos!
Songs of everjade with the city building sounds pretty cool. It's what I always thought it needed. I think because the combat reminded me of Necesse. The one area where your rogue like, or any other game could stand out is if you added coop. It's hard to find good low spec coop games.
What are your thoughts on digital board games? Have you thought about making osmium to release as a game on steam?
Your dropship concept sounds similar to an airship combat concept I had awhile back where each ship has 6 hardpoints similar to to the item slots in a Moba and hits are resolved by dice rolls as the various stations are damaged/destroyed. Lots of room for customization and replayability through different builds
Great video! There is some very interesting insight here. Ashes of Lyra sounds interesting. I'd love to see your future iteration on that!
Blue Shift also sounds interesting but it obviously doesn't fit your current team composition. What do you think about a more Crusader Kings style approach? Which in my opinion is still very narrative but is driven by player actions and a lot of interconnected mechanics.
I make a small game every year for friends and family for Christmas beside my full time job. For me it is quite liberating to make what like to make and not what is likely to sell best. I made a baroque building puzzle game with baroque paintings and baroque music. I definitely wouldn't do baroque music aiming for commercial success with a young adults adience...
skogvoll prototype art looks 100 times better than your new guild screenshots. I think that art style is sellable.
Thanks for another great video
Really liked the idea of the cosy viking city builder, but I understand the argument of there being not enough market potential. Cool video!
It sounds perfectly viable for mobile, actually. They'd probably need to fantasy-ize the Vikings though - doesn't resonate so well with a global audience.
@@mandisaw That makes a lot of sense, I hadn't thought about mobile! :)
You can learn narrative the same way you did with board games! Try being a GM for a homebrew Table Top RPG adventure like Dungeons & Dragons! You'll be able to try out stories you've had in your head on real people and and you can get immediate feedback. I like making 'One-shots" that take a single 3-4 hour long session where you have a beginning, middle and end and see how it goes! Often people will have a lot of good ideas on how to improve the narrative structure afterwards.
I'm a huge sci-fi fan and I'd like to hear some top 10 sci-fi lists from you XD Honestly more interested in TV/Film/Games which I have totally exhausted now.
Books my man!
Old Man's War (anything John Scalzi basically)
The Expanse books
Expeditionary Force
Wayfarers (the ones I talk about in the last game)
Murderbot Diaries
...
This should keep you entertained for a while.
If you want an underrated scifi show you probably haven't heard of, Dark Matter.
What *kind* of sci-fi are you looking for? There are so many flavors 🍰 🍦For full-length novels, I usually lean more into fantasy, but sci-fi anthologies are a great way to get exposed to a lot of interesting ideas/stories, and find new authors to dive into. The old "Year's Best Sci-fi" ones that used to be edited by Gardner Dozois have some classic gems, and the themed-ones can be trippy and cool. Or you can just make your way through the Hugo & Nebula finalist lists, scanning the descriptions until stuff strikes your fancy.
The last project you mentioned is the most interesting in my opinion. But man, it's a HUGE project...
Id make mmorpg-space-survival-roguelike-dating-sim-horror game. With cute bouncy slimes. If I had infinite time and money. Feel free to 'steal' the idea ;)
Aah, lock camera focus tho xd
I’d make a recommendation for you, but based on your avatar you already know about pulsating fidos
why did my reply get blocked, I didn't say anything wrong. What I said was entirely a reference to an in-game creature that I am sure his avatar came from....Eve-Online, and a Fido is a creature from that game.
@@scotmcphersonautomod rearing its arbitrary head, i guess
My magnum opus isn't a game but a mechanic for fighting and action games. Games like that keep track of the times you've hit your opponents without being interrupted and call this your combo.
The games with my mechanic don't just keep track of how much hits you've got in your combo, but also which element each hit consists of.
By building up enough elemental hits in your combo with the elemental attacks C-Strikes (creation strikes) you get acces to B-Strikes (build strikes). With B-Strikes you convert your hits into stronger attacks. For example the Great Tornado B-Strike requires 85 wind hits, and there are also B-Strikes that require multiple elements like the Volcano B-Strike that requires a combo with 45 fire hits and 60 earth hits before you can use it.
The main inspiration for it is that I'm getting bored with the ways combo's are rewarded in the games that keep track of them and want something that makes combo's a vital part of the game. To prevent gatekeeping players that aren't combo fiends the easier difficulty option will also be more forgiving when determening if a combo is dropped or not.
For the almighty algorithm
Hurray
Probably the hardest thing when it comes to being an indie with big ideas is that if you don't have passion project money, you really don't want to subject a team, that is likely also struggling, to your lofty idea, cause even if they buy into it, you'll sort of feel responsible if it doesn't sell.
Really good point on Songs of Everjade, why creating a rouge lite when there are many good ones the market and good studios are working on new ones. I'm seeing many CZcams Devlogs saying "I'm working on a game like "this and that", but not adding anything special, new, interesting to it, basically making a washed out, tuned down version of the existing game. Why should anyone be any interested in this game or ever play it when there are already better games out there.
Would you like to play my Openworld RPG called Lughnasadh? With crafting, story, discovery, fighting, magic and more.
How about this: combat focused city builder?
My dream game would be a space strategy game with city-building, mining, factory and production management, interstellar logistics, meaningful star system exploration and perhaps light combat. The grand objective would be to pick and build one of the galactic-scale mega structures to win the game. Unfortunately, I simply lack the incentive, motivation and most of the skills needed do it :(
I try to make my own game (a tabletop game with miniatures) so no videogame.
But its so hard to have enough time and "putting money to the site" to do it. :/
Hehe. We've been working on a Metroidvania top-down 3D. I think it will be awesome, but its going to take a long time.
Well, all the 5 games i've made are what i wanted to do....except i had to remove features or like you said not enough skill(or to lazy) to make it work at a good level
there are genres that are pretty much impossible to do for a solo dev and perhaps smaller teams too.
for instance i would love to do a fallout style game, since the newer games are rather dull.
however, the amount of work required is just impossible to realize.
everything about such a game has to be massive.
theres a reason why huge studios need years to create big open world games.
just the world alone will require several 3d/world artists.
then you need voice actors and either another animator or do it via mocap.
even more assets. from unique weapons, armor, sounds to pick up items and what have you.
strong writing to not just have a good main story, but also good side quests and indirect story telling. the wold itself has to be able to tell a story too in order to not make it feel soulless.
programming the game logic. fallout games are (in)famous for their bugs. debugging intertwined game mechanics can pretty much double the work just by having to debug it.
and a plethora of other nuances that will chew up even more time and resources.
Blue shift is amazing
The a... The what?
The aaa-aah.. The what?
For the aaahh-aahh-...
Chuuu.
Bless you.
...
FOR THE ALGORITHM!
I like the idea of the returning astronaut ...could be awesome. But to me you're in the wrong engine for it.
Cozy Viking? Who doesn't like a cuddly viking? But you'd have to climb inside that world...cozy stories for each character, tied together for an overall narrative... could be cool too. I love sci fi as well... B.R. best movie ever.
🔥
Honestly wish I had Time, Skill and Money, then I could actually _make_ a game, more or less one I want to make :\
If I could, it would be a shmup with capture mechanics... that's about it.
Why not making Osmium a turn based digital game?
Viking animal crossing!
competitor to total war.
Well, can't claim you're unambitious. But within 'Total War', there were two game styles. There was the 'board game' style, more common with the TW1 engine. And there was the 'campaign march' style, which became more common with TW2 engine. So, which one?
I'm going for the magnus opus (for me at least - as in it probably doesn't look like much but it gets better slowly with each iteration) as I've been building my own engine for a while now and feel technically it's achievable (but I could be deluding myself, time will tell). Like other commenters I also have an unrelated full time job that pays the bills so that takes the pressure off and makes it an enjoyable (mostly) side-project. Great channel btw, love the video topics.
Time and money are both a bad excuse to not make something. If there is a will, there is a way.
Skill is the serious blocker. I guess in that sense money would be a problem since there's no ability to hire anyone capable that has those needed skills.
I think I have at least one game concept that would be pretty well recieved, one that avoids the porblems I see in video games include in recent years (or well the last few years).
edit: You are right for the first game, Skogvoll. There is nothing there to keep the attention of players. You really need something to make it stand out from every other game (which there are many of already). What you have conceptually is a foundation to build off from.
Osmium... Wow your game ideas are very bland and seen before types. At least this is the impression I get from the blanket overview of your descriptions. Deck building probably is my favorite genre. My faves being tied between Aeon's End, and Apex Theropod. Guild of Dungeoneering had me push for completing it (with the dlcs) although in that case the sense of humor used did significantly help.
Ashes of Lyra, giving it a different coat of paint doesn't change what the game is. 😞 You keep mentioning the mashed together names of 2 games, which don't evidently have much to do with what you were aiming to do (2d platforming action-adventure games).
I've seen Songs of Everjade before, many times over going by different names. As I said, giving it a different coat of paint doesn't make it a different game.
I can't watch any more of this video. Nothing you have said is inspiring in any way. You are trapped in the past regurgitating entire game concepts that were already made.
It's no wonder the gaming market space is so full of garbage. People have the wierdest idea that making something that has been done before, and giving it a reskin makes an entirely new, never before seen game.
I came here as this topic was of interest. Let down by confirming what the billion trash products in the market space already have told me.
Maybe one day you will come up with something that hasn't been done already.
The problem is most of the people I watch for tip videos are putting making $ first and game design second. I’m not even planning on distributing my game, it’s a hobby and passion project for me. But the issue is evident in a lot of these videos. I see polished uninteresting cookie cutter games with the words “wishlist”, “marketing”, and “profit”. If you don’t deeply care about the game itself, why will anyone else?
Slower paced narrative driven games *do* sell. But the audience for those kinds of games will be different from the games you've worked on so far. There's a lot of people who are big fans of the Becky Chambers books. Don't write off BlueShift so quickly!
How likely are you to make the most anticipated Japanese fountain girl dating sim tho?? 🇯🇵⛲️👩❤️👩
69% -M
@@bitemegames HOLY YES danke menir 🥵✨
Dude the "Song of Everjade" game concept sure have similar vibe to my xianxia project. Though I'd say I have somehow deep plans for the game, it's required so much work that I'd rather work on other projects to help me gain enough skills first. The game that I'd love to make would be immersive ARPG, which is to have action combat and RPG elements with the immersive sim world style. It's something that required so much art skills to finish, but the systems could be done by myself in perceivable future. Maybe I'd just buy some beautiful assets and work in unreal 5 at some point but that's something in the future. I just realized that my end goal isn't about making games, but how would my career path affecting others. I wish I'd be successful enough to make my own videogame company and become a director, so I could feed the gaming circle with a bunch of quality games. But where money lies, politic exists. So my goals now become how I make enough money and build a stable life so that I could continued to make my dream games. Maybe I'd have to really take the one man army approach my entire life and could never make a big company. Maybe someone would want to hire me as a game director to help them make good games, which will alleviated me from all the burdens that required to make a successful company. I'm just a person living in my own dream. I'm always half-asleep and have a sense of "everything is just a dream".
I got lotsa game ideas, but no experience. So I plan to make short/addictive games with a stand-out mechanic that carries the game for the lack of graphics, music, and length. I like the idea of randomized/pre-generated levels too 'cause designing levels is tedious and I'm a solo-dev.
P r o m o S M
You guys should seriously consider changing your brand name. “Bite Me” is a dated, petulant, childish phrase that does not inspire wonder or curiosity in your customers. There has to be a better brand name out there.
Respectfully, I’d like to disagree. The audience for gamers and game developers is not just comprised of wide-eyed new-age youths. Games have that fun, “screw it” factor too, and the developers of such games share that attitude. I think “BiteMe games” represents fun, light hearted, and care-free boldness of kids at heart. Who cares if there’s a little petulance.
Lack of ambition and imagination is depressing. I understand the rationale but seems that this studio is just following a narrow track. Videogames are art, figure it out.