A Game Design Smorgasbord Edition #2
If you miss games like Max Payne, you might have heard of a game called El Paso, Elsewhere.
I recommend an interview with its creator. Xalavier Nelson Jr. stays grounded, and many independent creators can learn something from him: working with publishers, the most important metrics for an indie studio (simple yet true), and much more. I especially recommend this insight on Vampire Survivor:
I’m friends with a lot of people in publishing and pretty much everyone told me that they wouldn’t have signed that game. It didn’t even have animation for the main character! You’re just moving a sprite around on a screen. So, as much as the game played great very early and in spite of its clear vision, they wouldn’t have picked it up.
The idea was that a game that looked this crude could not achieve exceptional results. I think this keeps us from getting new takes on genres and makes it challenging to explore ideas that would thrive at lower levels of fidelity. You might have a game that’s stuck in the impossible position of being perceived as not being expensive enough to succeed, and this is unfortunately keeping players from experiencing their next favorite game on a regular basis.
If you’re still not subscribed to Conradical’s awesome channel, perhaps this clip will convince you to:
Conrad serves us a recipe for success:
Analyze your dream game’s genre. Strip them into parts, like till every mechanic.
Make a game entirely based on 1 of these parts.
Sell your parts (according to Conrad, if you sell your game on Steam it will make some money anyway, which is a weird thing to learn 😅).
Make sure the scope of the parts is small (give yourself a deadline, of less than 3 months)
Make another game based on the different parts. After you make a game out of each part you will, in fact, make all the components of your dream game…
And it’s shockingly simple, wouldn’t you agree?
Now, maybe I should consider this an exercise. Conrad broke down a Zelder, maybe I should break down an RPG? Or a Metroidvania? Maybe next week :-)
And of course, a new clip from Mark Brown: