Best way to develop and commercialize Doom/Duke3D style FPS?

[qweqioweuo123]

I would like to create a game and eventually be able to make some money out of it so it's not a complete waste of time from the monetary perspective (im not a kid anymore, I must be making money if I put so much time into something)

 

I am good at mapping, it's my favorite part. Im also good at sound design, no problems with that.

 

Im not good at: coding, at all. I can do some ZDoom scripting with the help of the wiki and forums, that is all.

 

I could get good at: Art. As in learning a 3d modeling program and taking some sprites out of it. Textures? I dont know. I guess I can buy some somewhere?

 

The idea then would be to use an existing engine so I don't need to code one.

 

Options i've considered:

 

Unity: Problem would be to make the maps in here since the map editors suck if you only have experience with doom and duke's editors which are very different to full-3d mapping. Also I have no idea how I would do the coding to add enemies, the angles of the sprites as you rotate around them, the AI, the movement of the player, the code of the menus and the maps loading in correct order... all of that.

 

GZdoom: This would be way easier. As far as I know you can use the GZdoom engine as it's GPL so you wouldn't have copyright problems as long as all of your assets are yours.

The problem is GZdoom has no multiplayer or it sucks and i would like a decent coop and DM mode.

 

Build engine: Same as GZdoom. I think it's GPL as long as you make your own assets, but the online sucks.

 

Any ideas or something?

 

[Catpho]

Seriously,i dont think it is viable anymore.You are better off making super creative mods for more advance engines,or make creative indie releases.At your best,you are more likely to get mentioned at the cacowards then actually making money :P

[Xaser]

DUSK says hi. :P

[Catpho]

3 minutes ago, Xaser said:

DUSK says hi. :P

Hello there!

Whats DUSK :P(ps:luv your maps xaser)

[40oz]

If I wanted to turn modding into a career, this is how I'd do it.

 

1. Mentally prepare yourself - It's not very likely that you are going to be able to make something good in any amount of time unless you get help. So if you have any ambitious and fully realized ideas for a game, you should probably abandon them before getting too deep into this, because it's not very likely that you will find mindless slaves to do everything you want exactly as you want it. People will do what they're best at and what they're comfortable doing and that's about as much as you can get out of them unless you're already prepared to start paying them.

 

2. Make friends - Play people's stuff, read the credits, and find out how to contact people who accomplish the things you know you couldn't do on your own. Talk to these people directly and tell them how much you admire their work. If you're not used to making friends, then you might want to start practicing building friendly relationships with people who won't be able to do anything for you.

 

3. Get to work - Develop your team and talk about your skills and ideas and come up with a game idea that best utilizes each other's best strengths. Become obsessed with your game and talk about it constantly to motivate your buddies. Work on the game with the expectation that you are going to be doing all the work. The enthusiasm and work ethic will rub off on your buddies and they will want to keep up.

 

4. Get on social media - Once your game starts becoming close to done, get a twitter handle ready, post about it on reddit, become friendly with popular people in other gaming/modding communities. Talk about it constantly with content to share like screenshots and promotional videos. Talk about it like you've never been more excited in your life to create this awesome game. It will get other people talking about it and they will be excited to check it out when it's done. 

 

In short, make friends, be nice and likable, do what you're best at, and promote the shit out your game. You're going to be spending a lot of time talking to people and being an internet celebrity. Its most important that you remain present in people's lives, especially the people you are working with and the people you're selling your game to. It will be a lot of work and use a lot of your time, but I think that's what you're going to need to do to make it successful.

[NinjaLiquidator]

@qweqioweuo123If mapping and 3D modelling is your fav part, hit me up on PMs. I have same goal and I WOULD PAY for some .objs of maps. Programmer here btw :)

[Urban Space Cowboy]

3 hours ago, Catpho said:

Whats DUSK

It's a commercial FPS under development, heavily influenced by Quake 1.

[therektafire]

3 hours ago, Catpho said:

Seriously,i dont think it is viable anymore.You are better off making super creative mods for more advance engines,or make creative indie releases.At your best,you are more likely to get mentioned at the cacowards then actually making money :P

Idk, if you based it off something like say Brutal Doom it might sell a little. Plus a BD centric wad would be pretty interesting to see, I don't think there are very many of those

[geo]

Bring up Doom, Quake and 90s shooters as much as you can! Make sure to have low resolution. Use the DOOM or Quake engine itself.

[qweqioweuo123]

 

38 minutes ago, geo said:

Bring up Doom, Quake and 90s shooters as much as you can! Make sure to have low resolution. Use the DOOM or Quake engine itself.

I want it to be a sprite based game, so I couldn't use the Quake engine.

 

Now on using the Doom engine, it would need to be a port obviously, and a GPL one. This was my main question, the legal issue, and no one addresed it.

 

As far as I know one can use GZDoom because it's GPL as long as you use no assets, but im not sure about this AND the online sucks.

 

Same goes for the Build engine, not sure of the legal status and sure about the online ports sucking.

 

Then, unity is left, which is the most difficult, since I don't have a base ready for me to work. I would need to do the entire thing. If I could just buy assets, then replace thes with my art it would be doable. I would also need to solve the map editor issue... i've heard one can convert .wad maps done in GZDoom Builder for instance and convert it into .obj maps so I could maybe just map using a Doom editor.

 

Im not delusional, this would take me years to get a decent game, but I can do it all myself, and I dont care if I dont even make money, I just want to be able to call it my own and be able to put it on sale at some point.

[geo]

Just now, qweqioweuo123 said:

 

I want it to be a sprite based game, so I couldn't use the Quake engine.

 

Now on using the Doom engine, it would need to be a port obviously, and a GPL one. This was my main question, the legal issue, and no one addresed it.

 

As far as I know one can use GZDoom because it's GPL as long as you use no assets, but im not sure about this AND the online sucks.

 

Same goes for the build engine, not sure of the legal status and sure about the online ports sucking.

 

Then, unity is left, which is the most difficult, since I don't have a base ready for me to work. I would need to do the entire thing. If I could just buy assets, then replace thes with my art it would be doable. I would also need to solve the map editor issue... i've heard one can convert .wad maps done in GZDoom Builder for instance and convert it into .obj maps so I could maybe just map using a Doom editor.

 

Im not delusional, this would take me years to get a decent game, but I can do it all myself, and I dont care if I dont even make money, I just want to be able to call it my own and be able to put it on sale at some point.

Modify the quake engine to use sprites.

[qweqioweuo123]

3 minutes ago, geo said:

Modify the quake engine to use sprites.

Im not sure how i would even go about that. I would also force me to learn how to map in Quake which I always hated due it's 3d nature (im much better at thinking in 2.5D terms so thats Doom and Duke editors basically)

 

In any case, what is the legal status of the Quake engine? can you sell a game using the engine as a base?

[wheresthebeef]

Build engine has to be licensed still; the alternative would be EDuke, but you would need to get in contact with those guys to get a license (they are currently making an FPS with it as well called Ion Maiden)

 

GZDoom is what I've been using and it's great. Much faster and easier to make content and for testing than with Unity. I've got a Steam published Unity title that is much smaller scope than the one I'm making for GZDoom yet took much more time and effort just to get working somewhat reasonably.

[Doomkid]

GZdoom: This would be way easier. As far as I know you can use the GZdoom engine as it's GPL so you wouldn't have copyright problems as long as all of your assets are yours.

Isn't Zandronum (a client/server GZDoom fork) also GPL? This might be worth investigating as it has very good support for both singleplayer and multiplayer Doom.

 

Regardless, all you'd really need for people to actually want to play this:

 

• Interesting level designs containing concepts not already done 999,999 times. Use of GZDoom features such as 3D floors, deep water and other special effects will help to distinguish your creation from the countless other Doom maps out there.
• Cohesive art design in the sprites and textures. Makes sure everything jives - consistent shading and art style really are a must. When things start to clash too much, it can create a very disjointed experience. No prob in a free mod, but something to avoid if you want a gold-coin donation for your effort.
• Interesting / fitting music or ambient sound. With GZDoom's advanced feature set, you can even have music only play in certain areas of a map. Regardless though, make sure the music fits the atmosphere of the map it accompanies. Also make sure each track is adequately leveled - It's way too common for wads to contain some MIDIs quiet as a whisper and other so loud that they drown everything else out. Avoid this!
• Following the last point, decent sound design. Just make sure nothing clips or conversely is so quiet as to go unnoticed. Pissweak SFX for weapons is an especially common complaint with old 90s era Doom clones or even many Doom wads and by contrast, things like earlier versions of Brutal Doom were heavily criticized for the sounds being so loud that they can literally destroy equipment. Make sure you find that sweet spot in between.

Follow this advice and you'll be sure to have a great Doomy product at the end of the day. Above all else, make sure you like what you're making and have fun with it!

[Mr. Freeze]

As someone currently in pre-production on a game using GZDoom, ask yourself the same question I asked myself: What makes this game worth the purchase?

 

What makes your game idea worth playing over the thousands of other WADs? Is it the level design? The music? The story? The gameplay? You've got to bank on a reason for people not only to buy the game, but your team to believe in. 

[qweqioweuo123]

6 hours ago, Doomkid said:

 

 

Isn't Zandronum (a client/server GZDoom fork) also GPL? This might be worth investigating as it has very good support for both singleplayer and multiplayer Doom.

 

Regardless, all you'd really need for people to actually want to play this:

 

• Interesting level designs containing concepts not already done 999,999 times. Use of GZDoom features such as 3D floors, deep water and other special effects will help to distinguish your creation from the countless other Doom maps out there.
• Cohesive art design in the sprites and textures. Makes sure everything jives - consistent shading and art style really are a must. When things start to clash too much, it can create a very disjointed experience. No prob in a free mod, but something to avoid if you want a gold-coin donation for your effort.
• Interesting / fitting music or ambient sound. With GZDoom's advanced feature set, you can even have music only play in certain areas of a map. Regardless though, make sure the music fits the atmosphere of the map it accompanies. Also make sure each track is adequately leveled - It's way too common for wads to contain some MIDIs quiet as a whisper and other so loud that they drown everything else out. Avoid this!
• Following the last point, decent sound design. Just make sure nothing clips or conversely is so quiet as to go unnoticed. Pissweak SFX for weapons is an especially common complaint with old 90s era Doom clones or even many Doom wads and by contrast, things like earlier versions of Brutal Doom were heavily criticized for the sounds being so loud that they can literally destroy equipment. Make sure you find that sweet spot in between.

Follow this advice and you'll be sure to have a great Doomy product at the end of the day. Above all else, make sure you like what you're making and have fun with it!

 

 

Good tips, I already had that in mind, im experienced with audio editing so things will not clip and so on. I have also made smaller ventures in ZDoom scripting so I can do things like changing music etc. The main problem is GZDoom's multiplayer suck so I would need to know Zandronum's GPL status.

 

Of course, unfortunately I would lose features that are exclusive to GZDoom... but I guess it's worth having a game that can actually be played online.

 

I wonder what's so difficult about having good multiplayer in GZDoom when Zandromum has perfect multiplayer.

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

On 2/15/2018 at 3:34 PM, Catpho said:

Seriously,i dont think it is viable anymore.You are better off making super creative mods for more advance engines,or make creative indie releases.At your best,you are more likely to get mentioned at the cacowards then actually making money :P

Dusk, Project Warlock, and Intrude disagrees with you. There is notable market for 90's-styled FPS games forming right now.  So, if are you going to venture into it, why not sticking with a solid engine that you have played with for your entire life such as GZDoom or Zandronum instead of relying on something such as Unity?

As someone who's currently pre-producing a game on the Doom engine, I already came into the conclusion that using Zandronum is the best solution. GZDoom's latest builds have been tanking on performance pretty badly, and it can alienate a rather considerable part of your target audience (people using toasters as computers). Remember that a lot of people who enjoys oldschool games are into local multiplayer, and since split-screen is not possible, making your game being able to run on shitty laptops is a good idea to suppress this issue. And anyway, anyone can "mod" your game into using GZDoom to make use of it's graphical improvements (SSAO, Bloom, etc), since basically anything that runs on Zandronum can run on GZdoom.
However, by the last time I checked, Zandronum still isn't entirely GPL. Seems like there are still code borrowed from the Build engine on the Software render. I personally have chosen to develop the game entirely targeted at the OpenGL mode, and getting rid of the software mode code entirely.

I highly suggest making level design and gameplay your top priorities. The game MUST be fun to play. People usually don't look at retro games looking for award-winning plot or stunning pixel art visuals.

I can give you some advice about making textures; it's easier than you believe. There are several royalty-free texture sites out there. You find a base material (rock, concrete, metal, stainless steel, etc.). You just learn to draw shadow molds, and place these materials beneath these molds. Download some image editing program such as Photoshop, Gimp, or Fireworks, draw the basic form of your wall or textures, imagine the lightning is coming from above, and just start drawing shadows. There are examples of molds of a door and metal panels hand-drawn by me using Fireworks, using different textures beneath them to make texture variations.

I wonder what's so difficult about having good multiplayer in GZDoom when Zandromum has perfect multiplayer.

Because you can't just swing a magic wand and expect everything to work online. When Zandronum devs includes stuff from GZdoom, they need to code everything from the ground, in a way that the information caused by an action can be processed for multiple clients at the same time. This requires weeks, or even months of testing, this is why Zandronum is like 5 years behind GZDoom.

[hardcore_gamer]

On 15/02/2018 at 3:38 PM, qweqioweuo123 said:

Textures? I dont know. I guess I can buy some somewhere?

If you don't care about being taken seriously and just want to become a yet another asset flipper, then sure.

 

When Dusk became successful I just knew it would only be a matter of time until threads like this started showing up and that we would have lots of people trying to copy it's sucess.

 

I will be honest here mate. You will never finish this game assuming you take a shoot at this. Creating an entire game, even if it's just 2.5D like Doom, is a huuuuuuuuge amount of work. It's basically a full time job. This is not something you can just do in your free time unless you want to spend 6-10 years on it depending on the scale of the project. And even that assumes you are still spending many many hours a week on it.

 

On 15/02/2018 at 3:38 PM, qweqioweuo123 said:

There is notable market for 90's-styled FPS games forming right now.

 

You mean a bubble forming, right?

 

EDIT: The above quote is suppose to belong to mark but for some reason it's assigned to the OP :/

Edited February 16, 2018 by hardcore_gamer

[Catpho]

5 hours ago, Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

reply

Well,if you say so,ill keep my hopes up!

[qweqioweuo123]

5 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

If you don't care about being taken seriously and just want to become a yet another asset flipper, then sure.

 

When Dusk became successful I just knew it would only be a matter of time until threads like this started showing up and that we would have lots of people trying to copy it's sucess.

 

I will be honest here mate. You will never finish this game assuming you take a shoot at this. Creating an entire game, even if it's just 2.5D like Doom, is a huuuuuuuuge amount of work. It's basically a full time job. This is not something you can just do in your free time unless you want to spend 6-10 years on it depending on the scale of the project. And even that assumes you are still spending many many hours a week on it.

 

 

You mean a bubble forming, right?

 

EDIT: The above quote is suppose to belong to mark but for some reason it's assigned to the OP :/

Duke 3D ripped a lot of textures from existing sources, they also bought most sounds from some library etc. It's all about the end result. I would obviously not just buy all the assets, I would find a balance and make it work. I know how things work here. I've done other projects, huge projects (for only 1 person) in the past with commercial success. I dont care about time, im unemployed right now and with enough money to not need to work for a long time. I dont care if I dont finish it, I just would like to at least try.

 

Just tell me what engine to use. For now it seems like Zandronum stripping the non GPL bits seems ideal but it's not clear to me if it will still be prime for a brand new game to be developed and sold on top.

 

At the same time I would like to the total freedom of Unity and I would definitely learn more but im not sure if I would like to go down that path.

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

6 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

You mean a bubble forming, right?

And what makes you think so? Even with millions of lazy le 8 bit side-scrolling platformers on Steam right now, there still is a market for good side-scrollers, because even if you inflate the market with millions of shitty ones, there are always people looking for good ones. There are literally just 3 well-known retro-FPS games being developed right now, and I can't remember of any absolutely awful retro-FPS released recently besides Strafe. (which honestly can't even be called retro)

[wheresthebeef]

There's absolutely a market forming for retro FPS games and the big ones all offer different stuff; Dusk and Amid Evil are going for the Quake and Heretic/Hexen route respectively, Strafe did the Quake 2 meets procedural level generation route, Ion Maiden is going the Blood/Duke3D/Shadow Warrior build engine interactive environment route, theres a near limitless number of Wolf3D style games on Steam, Spacetrucker is somehow still trucking, Gibhard looked great but it seems to have ceased development, and theres a number of other games being worked on too.

 

Its not going to go the arena/hero shooter route where all of a sudden there's a ton of them but only a couple have a player base, there's enough variety between these retro shooters to make them all stand apart for their own audiences.

[hardcore_gamer]

11 hours ago, Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

And what makes you think so? Even with millions of lazy le 8 bit side-scrolling platformers on Steam right now, there still is a market for good side-scrollers, because even if you inflate the market with millions of shitty ones, there are always people looking for good ones.

 

10 hours ago, wheresthebeef said:

there's enough variety between these retro shooters to make them all stand apart for their own audiences.

 

Still doesn't change the fact that:

 

1. When there are a million other people competing against you for the same market it's extremely hard to stand out, and 90+% of the games will fail.

 

2. Because of the massive saturation of crap for that genre people will start having negative opinions about it, which means that no exitement is generated among gamers by default when they hear you are making a retro shooter/pixel platformer, because their instict is to assume it's crap like most of the rest.

 

This is why I am calling retro shooters a bubble. Because the supply of them is going to massively outgrow the demand, until at some point the bubble bursts and most people will stop buying retro shooters except maybe a handful of the most good ones.

 

 

12 hours ago, qweqioweuo123 said:

I dont care about time, im unemployed right now and with enough money to not need to work for a long time. I dont care if I dont finish it

 

lmao so you don't have a job and you say it doesn't matter because you are safe for years to come. So I take you can instantly get a job a month before the benefit runs out? This isn't a shortsighted plan at all!

 

And you not giving a damn about if you will finish it or not really says it all doesn't it? If you don't care, then why should WE care? Making a game is a BIG undertaking that requires a lot of passion and dedication if it's suppose to have even a small chance of ever going anywhere. Which you clearly don't have, seeing as in your OP you said that you would never spend a lot of time on something without making money of it and then say later you don't even care if this get's finished.

 

 

[qweqioweuo123]

9 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

 

 

Still doesn't change the fact that:

 

1. When there are a million other people competing against you for the same market it's extremely hard to stand out, and 90+% of the games will fail.

 

2. Because of the massive saturation of crap for that genre people will start having negative opinions about it, which means that no exitement is generated among gamers by default when they hear you are making a retro shooter/pixel platformer, because their instict is to assume it's crap like most of the rest.

 

This is why I am calling retro shooters a bubble. Because the supply of them is going to massively outgrow the demand, until at some point the bubble bursts and most people will stop buying retro shooters except maybe a handful of the most good ones.

 

 

 

lmao so you don't have a job and you say it doesn't matter because you are safe for years to come. So I take you can instantly get a job a month before the benefit runs out? This isn't a shortsighted plan at all!

 

And you not giving a damn about if you will finish it or not really says it all doesn't it? If you don't care, then why should WE care? Making a game is a BIG undertaking that requires a lot of passion and dedication if it's suppose to have even a small chance of ever going anywhere. Which you clearly don't have, seeing as in your OP you said that you would never spend a lot of time on something without making money of it and then say later you don't even care if this get's finished.

 

 

My real estate portfolio would allow me to not ever work again if i wanted to, i just like to have a job to have extra income.

I said that in the case I do finish it, I would like to sell it. If I don't finish it, it's not the end of the world. What would piss me off is, I actually finish a good package, and I can't sell it because of some copyright bullshit, which is why im asking if GZDoom/Zandronum/anything else would be good bases for a retro FPS that could be sold eventually.

[hardcore_gamer]

58 minutes ago, qweqioweuo123 said:

My real estate portfolio would allow me to not ever work again if i wanted to, i just like to have a job to have extra income.

I said that in the case I do finish it, I would like to sell it. If I don't finish it, it's not the end of the world. What would piss me off is, I actually finish a good package, and I can't sell it because of some copyright bullshit, which is why im asking if GZDoom/Zandronum/anything else would be good bases for a retro FPS that could be sold eventually.

 

Gzdoom at least can be used to sell games legally yes. Don't know about Zandronum and would like to know about that as well honestly.

 

As for my original point, I was merely pointing out that making a game is no joke. Please understand that there are hundreds, possibly thousands of projects that some wannabe game dev starts that they say is going to be "totally the best game eva!" only to lose interest once they realize how big of a undertaking it is. Or they simply lose interest. And this isn't even limited to just games. Just about everybody here myself included has started some kind of megawad project only to dump it once they lose interest in finishing it and would rather start creating something else instead. It's a huge part of the reason for why I don't even bother with multi-level wads anymore. I would rather just make one reasonably sized level and make it very good and then actually finish it. Granted that I am actually working on a game as well, but it's something that I regard as a long term project and I don't suffer from any delusions in regards to how long it could take to finish it or the challenges involved.

[fraggle]

On 2/15/2018 at 10:38 AM, qweqioweuo123 said:

I would like to create a game and eventually be able to make some money out of it so it's not a complete waste of time from the monetary perspective (im not a kid anymore, I must be making money if I put so much time into something)

Doom isn't going to be your get rich quick scheme, and you're never going to break even making Doom levels in 2018. That includes making your own complete Doom engine-based game.

 

People play this game and make mods for it out of love, not to make money. Honestly I find it a little bit sad that that isn't enough for you as well.

 

Maybe someone will someday make a Doom engine game that becomes some kind of runaway indie gaming hit that people become crazy about and are willing to pay money for. But it's been years and still hasn't happened, even though projects like Urban Brawl have tried (and that was some of the most talented names in the community).

 

If you want to go down this route, be prepared to spend probably 10 years at a minimum working hard making Doom levels and mods, mastering the engine and all its details. Be prepared to learn every aspect of making a game, including level design, story writing, game mechanics, game engine design / programming, sound design, music, artwork, animation and everything else you have to know. If you aren't willing to learn all these skills then you're going to have to partner with other artists who do have them. Comments like "textures? I guess I can buy them" imply that you really don't have any kind of realistic view of what's required.

 

If this all sounds too daunting then I suggest you either make peace with the fact you are not going to make money making mods for a 25 year old game, and just have fun like the rest of us, or if you really can't bear to spend your time doing something that isn't profitable, I suggest instead that you find something else to do.

[VGA]

Steam is getting filled with bad doom/wolf3d clones. I haven't seen one I liked, they all seem worse than the original games. I have seen gameplay of Intrude, it's like a "brutal" version of Wolf3D, I hate how the enemies look, little pixely shits, and why wouldn't I play a game with height varation? Wolf3D hasn't aged well.

 

Dusk looks like a bland Quake clone with basic 3d assets, basic maps and lack of variety, could be interesting if it had some gimmick on top of that but as of now I think I would get bored quickly. Strafe is just a shit game where you backpedal constantly in every battle, it truly isn't fun for me.

 

What I am saying is that there is a market for old-school 2.5d games but nothing really good has come out to become a runaway success. They simply can't get the gameplay right.

 

What was the name of that Doom/Quake style game with sprite enemies and kinda good gfx? It had a manga style maybe? Does it ring a bell for anyone? I had played some kind of demo for it years ago.

[Teivman]

2 hours ago, VGA said:

Steam is getting filled with bad doom/wolf3d clones. I haven't seen one I liked, they all seem worse than the original games. I have seen gameplay of Intrude, it's like a "brutal" version of Wolf3D, I hate how the enemies look, little pixely shits, and why wouldn't I play a game with height varation? Wolf3D hasn't aged well.

 

Dusk looks like a bland Quake clone with basic 3d assets, basic maps and lack of variety, could be interesting if it had some gimmick on top of that but as of now I think I would get bored quickly. Strafe is just a shit game where you backpedal constantly in every battle, it truly isn't fun for me.

 

What I am saying is that there is a market for old-school 2.5d games but nothing really good has come out to become a runaway success. They simply can't get the gameplay right.

 

What was the name of that Doom/Quake style game with sprite enemies and kinda good gfx? It had a manga style maybe? Does it ring a bell for anyone? I had played some kind of demo for it years ago.

Have you even played episode 2 of dusk? If so, Things will get better in episode 3! Also i think that demo you were talking about was for a game called RetroBlazer.

[VGA]

I will keep an eye on Dusk as it develops.

 

You are right, it was RetroBlazer, it sadly seems like it died. I liked it although I had a slight aversion to that style of art, that japanese-inspired furry-like style, with pink all around :D 

http://www.indiedb.com/games/retroblazer

[jazzmaster9]

In a thread filled with blight and pessimism i'm going to give at least some advice with what little knowledge i have.

 

Very broad things you would want to consider:

- Scope. if you are planning to do this alone, Always remember than you can only do so much by yourself, so either get a team together or maximize your own skills and resources. Don't make something that is beyond your capabilities to do.

- Ask yourself, is this Game i'm making something I would pay money for? something I would enjoy enough to support with money? You can also get feedback from people on what needs to be better for your game to be worth someones time and effort.

- Marketing. Make a facebook page, Youtube channel. Heck You can even ask to guest in small gaming podcasts to promote your stuff. You gotta get your stuff out there and get under even someones radar. In the Internet News spreads quick.

- Remember what you are doing is work, once money is involved you gotta take it more seriously. You don't halve to Quit everything and be a Full time Dev. just make sure that everything you make is worth being payed for, so never half ass or take shortcuts if you can.

- Be friendly, reputation counts.

- Be open to criticism.

 

that's all I can think about right now. Be optimistic. Im looking forward to what you produce.