Tag Archives: art

The Types of Indie Games That Get Attention and Sell Well…

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This just pisses me off. Sure, my indie game “James – Journey of Existence” is doing poorly on Kickstarter (http://kck.st/19wTNSh), and that’s largely because of how poor it looks this early in development. But it’s trying something new, and is trying to be meaningful. Then I look randomly online and find this game:

“Catlateral Damage”

(note: The following rage is based on believing this game will cost money as opposed to being entirely free-to-play upon completion. If this isn’t the case, please ignore this post.)

What is it? It’s a game (very obviously made in Unity3D) that lets you play as a cat in your owner’s bedroom. The gameplay consists of you trying to knock over as many things as possible in the room in two minutes. Get a high score.

What do I think about it? It’s a cute idea. But the gameplay is simplistic, the models are simple and crude, the cat’s animations are laughable. Basically, I (and I’m sure most other people) could make this game from scratch within a week. It’s a online free minigame at best.

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The Importance Of Communication…

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of communicating with different people, both supporters and nay-sayers about my hand-drawn indie game “James – Journey of Existence.” Both with Kickstarter and this blog, among other social media sites, I’ve tried to post updates and respond to everyone. However, it has happened often with both sides that they would completely miss important information I’ve posted when writing a comment.

This has quickly become my biggest pet-peeve: making a comment before actually reading an article. This is very common, especially on video game news sites where the fanbase is as “passionate” as they are. I don’t mind too much if the comment is nice, where I would then kindly repeat what I’ve said elsewhere. But more than once, people have poo-pooed “James – Journey of Existence” and used examples to help back their claim.

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The Importance of Controversy…

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So, yeah. My Kickstarter page for “James – Journey of Existence” isn’t doing so well, despite the press I was able to snag for it. Unless it somehow gets a wave of backers in the last week, there isn’t much hope for it succeeding…

But I did get a lot of feedback, especially from sites like Reddit and Steam’s Greenlight Concept page, where gamers hang and aren’t afraid to downvote a post. Of the people who have seen the game, I’d estimate that roughly 91% don’t give a damn, 4% like the art style a lot, 3% hate the art style a lot, and 2% like the game’s concept but not the art in its current state. The interesting thing is, those last three groups are (almost) identical in size. Of course, that’s a huge estimate that could be way off, but that’s my interpretation based on comments.

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New “SD” Demo For “James – Journey of Existence”

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Have you tried the free demo yet of hand-drawn, hand-animated 3D adventure “James – Journey of Existence?” Were you able to run the game without it crashing?

As I’ve mentioned, the hardware requirements for having HD frames for animating the characters is demanding. A couple gamers have already complained that it would crash instantly. This is almost entirely due to the RAM, which requires almost 3.5 GB of FREE, UNUSED RAM: that means not in use by the operating system or other software. That comes out to requiring 5-6 GB of RAM on most standard computers. The processor, video card and hard drive requirements are manageable by comparison, but the game will crash if not enough RAM is available.

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So You Want To Join A Low-Budget Indie Project?

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Surprisingly, I’ve gotten several interested people contacting me to help develop my Kickstarter indie game “James – Journey of Existence.” I already took on two talented composers, but may still consider other parties if appropriate.

Here’s some tips if you are interested in joining my (or some other) indie project:

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