itch.io

Thank you for trusting me with a few minutes of your time. Hope to be able to play your game soon (:

it's very nice of you to help indies, more people like you is needed in the world ❤️🫂

I wish your channel blows up very soon.

reach me out with your discord and we can have a call there

Hii. That's awesome! Congratulations on the working demo, that is already a big step ahead of many aspiring game devs.

I'll be happy to help you organize. If you are ok with it, send me your discord and we can have a call there.

Cheers.

Thank you for leaving a review of our conversation. It was very nice talking to you and I hope your game reaches many more people!

If you allow me, I'll share it here: 

Guys, check out DoodleDino's game, it's a metrodvania (correct me if I'm wrong) set in Egypt. Find the demo here: https://share.google/gQxBarwkvHfpcFiqy

Back in 2013, I was lucky I got my hands with a game development book, using Java at that time (which I was a noob at coding too), that took me to a very nice step by step guide on how to make it, it took a week or two to make. This taught me many valuable lessons about game dev but I think some of the few more important ones are this:

• It is mandatory to aim small. Small enough that you have something playable (far from perfect) asap
  • Nowadays, with the help of AI, you can and should be able to have something playable in a day or two, however bad it is. Back then (in 2013), without AI, it was about 2 weeks
• For the first game, it does not have to be an innovation, but along the way of making it you will get shots of creativity to include in it.
• Procrastination happens because you are over-complicating things and that makes you tired and frustrated that you want to take breaks often
  • This is one of the reasons why many people are here on itch instead of actually developing their games
• ALWAYS focus on mechanics first and iterate until you have something usable
  • You'll have time to add art, sounds, music and story later, but if your mechanics are not there then nothing else can fit it. Mechanics are the backbone of the game.
• Practice detachment from ideas (yours or other people's)
  • Some ideas just get stuck or just sounds great in theory but don't work in reality
  • A rule of thumb for this is if you don't have something playable in two weeks you are either wasting time because your idea doesn't work or you are over-complicating things. Leave it and go for something simpler, you can come back later with a fresh mind

• About Marketing: Share your game's playable file or link asap so you hear feedback from players. Post regular updates on features, struggles, ideas, future, etc.

• And finally: Give back to the community. If you share tutorials or some stories on how to do something in particular or assets, etc. the community appreciates this and tries your game. This is how I got a book contract.

Best of luck, and feel free to reach out if you need a hand planning your game. I offer free consultation (been doing it since 2024).

very nice! let me know if you could use some guidance around organizing the project, I've been giving a hand in that for a while now.

I remember the second game I attempted to create many years ago, it was SO BAD but I worked SO HARD for what I had. It wasn't until I recorded a video of it and shared it that many things clicked and many kind people reached out with feedback.

In summary, just put it out there the way it is, be proud of it, it's the best you could do now. You'll learn SO MUCH just from showing it to the public.

Prototypes are just ideas brought to life and everyone understand that, you'll improve from there if it makes sense.

have you made a game before?

how to make them go viral?

for a first game, that is AMAZING. Most devs' first game don't even get a play. Congratulations!!!

I'll reach out

Have you tried following a tutorial on those genres? Generally what happens is that mid-tutorials you end up inspired on different features.
A game doesn't need to re-invent the wheel to be good, sometimes it's just a small change.

That said, an Idea I had a while ago was "Ants RTS". A game where you have to choose your ant colony and conquer the backyard vs other colonies. Warrior Ants, Archer Ants, Monk Ants, etc.
It is a complex idea though...

hii, nice! The first game is the hardest one, but there's just no way around it.

Send me your discord and I'll reach out, we can talk there over a call. 

Have you guys made a game before? as a team or individually.

Since when has the project been in development? Including the initial stages.

I'm happy to talk over a call if you need, but I'll try to summarize here:

Because Game Development is integral, it's a system. Every part of the game collides with the other (this is game design). All work, from all parts of the team, influences on the outcome.

In order to be a functional team member you need to have a basic understanding of how every part of the game connects with each other (mechanics, code, sound, music, graphics [if any], story [if any], etc.).
For example: A Sprite Artist has to understand in what file type to send their art and what documents to attach with what information. They also need to know how many pixels are needed, how many are too much and how to optimize, etc. Makes sense?

A developer ("development" means any part of a game development, whether it's coding, mechanics, marketing, whatever) who knows what does it take to actually develop a fully functional game, let alone a prototype or an MVP (minimum viable product), will know what amount of responsibility and discipline it takes from them and the team. This cures common risks of game development, like feature creep (means when they keep adding features non-stop).
An example of this is when a person wants to be the "Idea Guy" while not knowing anything basic around coding or game design, they end up making huge GDD (game design documents) that don't make any sense and assume they will get funding from an investor without even having a single part of a paper prototype. Is it clear?

Developers need to communicate on the same technical basic language. This accelerates a project that is already a big challenge on itself because of the amount of parts it involves (architecture, psychology, anthropology, math, design, etc. etc. etc.).

In your case, you'd need to have a basic understanding of what is actually usable and translatable from a written story to an actual game that is possible to make within a month (with testing, with feedback, with UI, with marketing, etc).

I'd suggest you to go to youtube and find a basic game development tutorial; could be on Unity or Godot, which are easy to start. ACTUALLY MAKE THE GAME, finish the tutorial, see how you feel and what you learned, and from there you'll likely know how you can add to a game development team and when a game development team is doomed to failure (tip: most teams are doomed to failure. It's just the data).

Best of luck.

I see, ok.

If games are your passion, with all due respect: It's a very common mistake to team up with others if you haven't made a game before. You can waste months and years without learning or achieving anything. There are success stories, of course, but they are 1 out of millions.

Best of luck!

Hi. Have you made a game before?

I see, ok.

Just to let you know, usually, game devs (with one or more games made) have a requirement that others have made a games too. There's reasons for this.

Thank you for leaving your review Merc. Hope to know about your progress soon.

In case other people want to find it, here's merc's game: https://mercstudios.com/play/startalon331

It's a sci-fi shoot-em game. Try it out

there's many ways, one is posting where the moderator suggested, another is posting on the subreddit called INAT. Also, it helps if you share links to games you developed. Have you developed any?

awesome, I have reached out

ok good. We can talk for a bit on discord if you are open for it. Send me your username and I'll reach out

ok, let me know if could use some guidance.

With all due respect, approaching your first few games by creating a team is a well known common bad practice whatever the background of the person is

Do you have other projects published?

Do you need help with organization with the project?

hey merc, I'll try it

Hi. I totally missed this!

Let me know if you could still use a hand, please. I'd be happy to help.

bumping. I'd love to help

Hi. Do you need an experienced producer? 

wow. Can you summarize? you may get a bit more attention if you summarize all this text. Just saying. Good luck!

Hey, I could give a hand.

Just a quick question first: Do you or the team, as a team or individually, have experience making a game before?

Thank you, really appreciate it. Your game is amazing!

fun little game, nice job

so funny and engaging, love it

very fun 😆

very challenging game, nice job

fun little game, nice job