This is Dungeons of Dredmor.
Notice how the first feature of the game is that it’s a Roguelike but with a modern interface. Sound familiar?
Notice how awesome those screenshots look.
And now notice this announcement that it’ll be released for $4.99.
This just reinforces the idea that Inaria was wrong game, wrong time (not to mention all its other flaws). I need to do something completely different, and frankly, I need to release it now.
Fortunately, I do have a couple of ideas.
To sum up, if it’s your first game, it’s going to be crap. So don’t expect a rapturous reception from anyone except your mum. And even then she’ll be lying. By the same token, second game: crap as well.”
– Graham Goring, The Arsecast
All right. Time to face the music.
I think I’m going to invert the usual Game Developer/Gamasutra format and do “What Went Wrong” first.
1. I should not have made this game.
Or at the very least, I shouldn’t have made it right now. This is the premier game for Viridian Games. The premier game should have been flashy, punchy, and most importantly, unique. From a business perspective, this is the worst game I could have made – a generic-looking game in a genre already well-covered by at least two other companies. But I really, really wanted to make it, and I felt I’d have a leg up because I was starting with the codebase from Inaria Original, but that ended up not helping me at all as I rewrote everything about the game. Which leads to…
2. Lack of middleware.
I’ve got this really, really, really bad habit of wanting to write every line of code that goes into my games. I don’t have to do that. Indeed, I shouldn’t do that. Using a middleware system like Gamemaker or Ogre3D would have shaved tons of dev time off, cost me absolutely nothing and almost certainly improved the game. I’ll be finding appropriate middleware for everything I make from now on.
To emphasize this, here’s Arkiruthis‘ prototype of Powermonger, “lots of dots” version, from March 19:
Then he installed Ogre3D. And here’s the April 17 version:
If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you’ll know that I worked on Planitia for years…and here’s the best it ever looked:
To sum up, I think the quality of my future games will be in direct inverse proportion to the percentage of my own code in them.
3. Lack. Of. Content.
This killed me. I am a programmer/designer, but on Inaria I spent way too much time programming and not nearly enough designing. I had legacy maps from Original Inaria and the (now defunct) iPhone version and I thought I could just punch them up and be done with them…but in the end, my entire game design caused the maps to play a lot faster than I expected. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I’d had twenty or so of them, but I only ended up with nine…making Inaria a really fast game to blow through. I also didn’t use the traps and secret doors I made nearly enough – because I coded them so late in the project!
Exacerbating this, players are hitting their stat caps and getting all skills in the game really fast; I should probably have made the abilities things you had to buy with points instead of things that automagically unlocked as your stats went up. That one change, plus at least five more maps that properly used the engine’s abilities, would have made Inaria so much better.
I couldn’t have released this game any worse. I thought once I uploaded the completed game to Files Forever that I could start talking about it; this proved disastrous when people tried to link to the Viridian Games website…only to discover it unfinished, without even a link to buy the game. After getting a very nice trailer for Inaria, I uploaded it to YouTube three times…and made the video public all three times, requiring me to delete the previous video and its associated comments when I uploaded a new, better version. Basically, I undermined any attempt anyone else made to help me get the word out about this game.
I also didn’t realize that you need to participate in the various indie communities in order to get a build-up going for your game before release so that people will be anticipating it. Being an indie developer requires a lot more than just making games.
Whew. Enough of that. Let’s talk about the good stuff.
What Went Right:
1. 8BitFunding
Inaria would never have been finished if I hadn’t put the game up on 8BitFunding.com. For two reason: First, people actually donated money, suggesting that they might be interested in this game. Second, I felt it was much more important to get the game out once money became involved. Lesson learned – money is an excellent motivator, even if you’ve already got it. I could have taken the contributor’s money and ran; the site makes clear that you’re donating money and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a return on your investment so I had no obligation whatsoever…except that I’m not a jackass. I felt that the people who had helped me out deserved something in return, prompting me to spend a lot of spare time completing this game.
(8BitFunding still needs to fix about a hundred different things on their site, but their hearts are in the right place. Hopefully they’ll get their stuff together soon.)
2. Best. Testers. EVAR.
Once the beta started, I discovered that I had some of the best testers I’d ever seen. They quickly found problems I never would have, tried crazy things that broke the game in interesting ways, and made suggestions that made the game so much better. Frankly, my game was not worthy of their attentions, but I hope they all come back for the next one!
3. H. Arnold Jones.
With the money I got from 8BitFunding I was able to look around for a musician. I found the perfect one in the person of H. Arnold Jones. I’ve lauded superlatives upon him before, but I’ll do it again – the music is actually the best part of the game, and frankly you may just want to cut out the middleman and buy the soundtrack from his store
4. A chance to start building a rep for good service.
So far I’ve had exactly two people have a problem with Inaria. But I took both problems very seriously and was able to resolve the problems quickly. This is important because all indie game developers need to build a reputation for having good service; it’s one of our few advantages over big studios.
5. I actually did it.
This is weak sauce, but the truth is…you wouldn’t think there’s a big difference between the moment before you publish your first game and the moment after. But there is. Publishing Inaria was a huge learning experience from me, and I hope I’ll be able to use that information in the future.
In summation, Inaria didn’t turn out the way I wanted it. It’s sad that I had to make so many learning mistakes on Inaria, since I love it so much…but again, I felt like I needed to make that game. It wasn’t a business-oriented decision, it was (forgive me) an artistic decision.
And speaking of artistry…it’s said that every creative person has ten thousand bad projects in them that they have to get through before they can actually start doing good work. I hope that number isn’t literal, because if it is…frankly, I don’t have the strength.
I would like to formally announce that Inaria is now done and up for sale. While the main site isn’t finished, you can still buy a copy by going here.
It’s the end of an era…and hopefully the beginning of another one.
Tonight I’ll be posting a new version of the Inaria.exe with some bug fixes but also some rather radical balance updates. All you should have to do is download the new exe and replace the current one with it.
New features: More map revamps. Cleave and Smite fixed (both were broken when I added code to allow NPCs to attack each other). The ability to start a new game if you stupidly die without saving. Armor actually works. Music crackle killed for GOOD. The return of the Mountain Trial (finally). Lots of easy loot exploits fixed or at least made harder. The cost of potions now level up as you do, so you’ll have something to spend all that money on.
And yes, Lorenzo, the messages now explicitly tell you if it’s health potions or mana potions that you can’t buy any more of. Pedant.
I’ve also made a decision on Hide Your Children – I’m going with type 2; they are there but un-attackable. I did this because I realized that if I made “friendlies” attackable in the overworld, the player could just kill those two Slorn guards and “free” Sapphire and I didn’t want that. So no attacking friendlies on the main map; that includes kids.
Release should be tonight, and this one should be very close. I’m hoping that with some good feedback, I can wrap this up this weekend.
Okay. I’ve got a puzzle in Inaria that requires the player to choose whether or not to attack a harmless but annoying NPC. The NPC is initially flagged as friendly.
For a long time, NPCs flagged as friendly would go hostile if you attacked them, attacking back (usually futilely). No big deal, right?
Except that Inaria has several children in it. Which means for a while you could attack and kill the children. This would get the game an AO rating from the ESRB.
The easiest thing to do, of course, is to take the children out.
This phenomenon is called Hide Your Children.
Lots of games get around this in different ways. Play any Grand Theft Auto game and you will notice that there are no children anywhere. This obviously is not realistic. Fallout 3 has children, but makes them un-attackable (the worst you can do is knock them out). This is also unrealistic.
So do I put killable children in my game?
This reminds me of a story. (Collective groan from the audience.)
Back when designing Ultima V, Richard was running through his tileset looking for monsters to populate a combat room and stopped on a curious choice – children. He proceeded to build a room full of little cells, each of which contained a child. Pulling a switch would free the children, who would then – since they had monster AI – promptly attack the party. He actually lost a tester over this, who claimed Richard was promoting child abuse. Even Richard’s parents got into the act, telling him, “It’s just this one little room, why are you fighting so hard to keep it?”
Richard replied that a) it wasn’t necessary to kill the children just because they attack you; Ultima had multiple humane ways (sleep and charm spells being the most common) that would allow the player to resolve the combat without harming the children and b) the very controversy that this room sparked proved that it had merit – it made people think in the midst of a dungeon slaughterfest. Ultimately the room was kept in and you can see it today.
So do I keep my kids? Do I keep them, but make them un-attackable? Or do I Hide My Children?
Fallout 1 and 2 would give you the anti-Perk “Childkiller” if you killed a child, which made it almost impossible to complete the game because any time you entered a civilized area, everybody (including quest-vital NPCs) would attack you. I kind of like that.
But, in the end, I DON’T need my first for-pay game to generate controversy. I want Rock Paper Shotgun talking about the game itself, not the fact that one of the sprites in the game looks like a child and you can pretend to kill that sprite.
What say you?
New Inaria Beta tonight! New features:
Fully functional options menu!
Nearly functional main menu!
Bows actually shoot arrows now!
About half the maps have been revamped! Needless to say, this is the thing I need the most feedback on.
New balancing of rate of hitpoint and manapoint growth for the main character! This is the second most important thing I need feedback on.
Get your criticisms ready, folks, this one’s gonna be a large one!
Um…there’s going to be a new beta of Inaria tonight. You can still get into the beta if you email me at anthony.salter@gmail.com. Make sure to put “Inaria beta test” in your subject line so I can filter all this stuff appropriately.
More and better posts coming soon.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to be sick forever. Thus, these few lucid moments must be used wisely, for in the end I will die and Inaria will be all I leave behind to support my destitute family.
Or I’m just going to give this ONE BIG SNEEZE and cover the wall in front of me in a big black splotch of disease and disgust and then instantly feel better!
I haven’t decided yet.
I’ve been twittering…er, tweeting…er, posting quick updates on what bugs I’ve been working on in Inaria on my Twitter feed, so if you want the latest and greatest info on Inaria’s progress, check http://twitter.com/#!/viridiangames .
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