So you finished Sindrel's song. Well done! That's a pretty rare achievement for you—finishing something. I'm glad that Sindrel's song isn't the first installment of an eight chapter long series, because it that case we'd have never seen the rest of it. I'm glad you've learned a lot by making Sindrel's song!
...
> A big story told in six chapters, divided into two trilogies.
WAIT. REALLY?
You started the MARDEK series and never finished them. You started the Raider series and never finished them. You then started the MARDEK reboot "Taming Dreams" and promised that you'd *definitely* finish it this time. To nobody's surprise you didn't. In between you've had many other games that never got released at all.
How many times does this tale have to repeat itself until you finally spot a pattern? You are unable to keep your attention span on a project for any extended period of time. There's nothing to suggest that something has changed that will allow you to keep working for X years on the same thing *this* time. If anything, your attention span has only gotten worse since you worked on the original MARDEK. And yet here you are again. You had an idea, thought about it for a week, and are already determined to pin your next three years to it.
You know what they say to new writers who think they will write the next epic trilogy with books of over 500 pages? "Start by writing a short story."
Why does everything have to be a multi-part series spanning multiple works? What is wrong with a single game that has a begin, middle, and *end*? It seems like you feel some kind of obsessive compulsion to smear a single story over multiple games, as if stories that fit in a single game aren't "worthy" enough for you. Rest assured that the sheer majority of the RPGs praised for their story were single-work games; even the Final Fantasy series have independent stories that share little more than their name.
Stop making three-year plans and then changing them after a year. We both know that the "changing after a year" part isn't going to be fixed, so instead start making one-year plans that don't tie your future down. Start playing to your strengthens, not your weaknesses; we both know you've got the ability to make great games, you just need to design one that can be made within the attention span you've got available.
0
Tobias 1104~4Y
I can understand where you're coming from, but all comments like this do is get me down and put me on the defensive.
I spent my twenties getting creatively distracted all the time because I suppose I delusionally thought everything was equally worthy, that anything could or would be a success. The years have beaten me down, however - especially considering the response to Sindrel Song, which was built as a standalone thing - and I'm returning to the one thing I made that people seemed to like the most in the hope that it could, well, earn some money. It feels like a period of experimentation to see what worked, and this is what emerged as the fittest thing.
If I make a MARDEK Remake, it might attract interest in a way a completely original RPG wouldn't. I also personally have a lot of history with it, and - importantly - a whole lot already planned that I can call upon to really speed up the process. It's less about coming up with a completely novel plot and hoping it'll work, and more like writing a second draft of something that was already proven to work in some form in the past.
There are also personal reasons why I didn't carry on with other things, like MARDEK, Taming Dreams, etc, such as obsessing constantly over failing to find a partner (an obsession I no longer have), and going to university. I'm in a different position now, mentally.
Oh, and MARDEK earning no money was a huuuuge thing, because Flash games generally didn't. The same was true of the other things I released. The difference would be like night and day if I could succeed on Kickstarter and get funding before I even begin. Can you imagine working on something for months, unpaid, in the hope it might eventually generate some money at the end?
Also, I've not been thinking about this for a week. I've been writing posts considering it for months now. The first was apparently from 3 months ago (12th of September): [LINK]
I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'd consider standalone stories 'not worthy' from. I see an episodic thing as having many kinds of appeal for both me as the developer and for players that a single game wouldn't. Consider two scenarios:
1. I make a 20-hour-long RPG with a novel cast of characters. It takes 12 months of focus for me to complete, and I earn money from it and get feedback once. The wait and work are long.
2. I make the same story, but split up as three 6-hour-long RPGs which share the same cast. Each part takes four months. I get feedback and money three times, and in between each chapter, people might develop curiosity about what's going to happen next, building hype for the next chapter. By the end, there'd likely be much more interest than the was at the beginning; this was the case for MARDEK, anyway.
I could cram the story I want to tell into a single game, or make a completely new story, but the work involved seems greater, and the benefits less, than making it in parts.
I suppose ultimately though whether I stick with it isn't due to any creative attention span, but whether I can secure funding for it before I begin.
I know it's silly to speak of these things as if anything I could make would remotely compare, but I wonder whether Star Wars and Harry Potter would have become the cultural juggernauts that they did if they were just standalone stories.
~
Also, since I'll probably be thinking about this all night now:
Apart from the money thing, the biggest issue with MARDEK was how it got really bloated; Chapter 3 is huge compared to Chapter 2. It's why I'm planning these ones really carefully, dividing each into a manageable number of 'acts' and making sure I know them all before I begin. That way, I'll just be following a plan instead of adding whatever my whims desire as I go along.
0
Lia2~4Y
As for the monetary aspect, I think you're approaching it the wrong way. Money won't just come to you, you need to pursue it.
It seems that you think there is some kind of "monetary justice" in this world: that if you produce a game worth $X, then you'll earn $X. From everything I've seen on this subject, this is not the case anymore.
That may have been how things worked a decade ago in the Flash age. Back then things were simple. Money came from sponsorships; sponsors would give your game a fair look and offer an amount of money depending on how successful they predicted the game to be. Any good game would automatically become successful: all games were free to play; if a game has a good rating and is of a genre a player likes, they'll probably click on it.
But that time is over now. Nowadays you sell your game not to sponsors but to players—players who have to pay in full before they even get to play the game. Take a look at the analysis here: [LINK] You should read it and do your own research as well, but the tl;dr conclusion is: "A game's rating has little correlation with it's amount of sales, the thing that really matters is the pre-launch awareness."
I'm sure you can see this in Sindrel's song. The very few reviews it has are positive, but you did almost nothing to market the game; the amount of readers on your blog seems to be too small to be able to rely on. Games don't market themselves anymore and Steam isn't going to help you; they only promote games that are already selling well. If it doesn't sell well upon launch, the game will just fade into obscurity.
You're treating developing a good game as your primary priority and marketing it as an afterthought. Maybe that's how it'd work in an ideal world, but it's not the world we live in now. Nowadays, if you want money, then marketing is everything; developing an actually good game serves no purpose other than making your game and future games easier to market. I'm sure you don't like that it works this way, but ignoring reality isn't going to make you money.
If you want money, you need to actually think about how to make money. That means researching how the market works, and it probably means figuring out how to get players hyped up for your game before you launch it. Just developing a good game will most likely not be sufficient. Simple tricks like selling part of the game to get part of the money will not magically solve your monetary woes or absolve you of the need for marketing.
1
Tobias 1104~4Y
I'm very aware of this and have been thinking about - and researching - it constantly for the past few months; I just didn't talk about it in this post because I was talking about the game ideas instead.
It's why I'll be going down the crowdfunding route. With that, you pretty much have to actively run a marketing campaign for a whole month, and I'm intending to wholly focus on that as best I can to drum up interest from the start. It also means I can gauge interest - and get money - before pouring months of effort in.
With Sindrel Song, I got the impression it'd be challenging to market because it's so niche, and I'd essentially given up on the idea when it came to release time. Something like MARDEK, based on existing nostalgia, seems like it'd have a hook that'd allow it to gain interest and traction much easier. This is also why I'm doing a MARDEK Remake rather than a standalone original RPG.
0
Astreon152~4Y
"There's nothing to suggest that something has changed that will allow you to keep working for X years on the same thing *this* time"
I get where this might come from: at first, Tobias was dead set on NOT remaking Mardek. Then he played retro games, and thought "hey, i could reimagine Mardek". But he reaaaaally explained it badly at the time, so many people were like "dude, better not do anything than this shitty Mardek-but-not-Mardek you're describing to us".
Then were a few bouts of depression, then some IRL stuff, then the idea of Belief, then back to "hey, how about i reimagine Mardek". Then some miracle made it so that old files were stumbled upon, and BAM, it switched to "alright, i can give you almost-original-Mardek, then i'd make Belief". Etc.
BUT, you're forgetting that, though this might look like going circles, behind it is a definite goal: getting a life, as an artist (sorry if that sounds harsh Tobias, i'm summing up with an axe there). And Tobias has become much more mature than he was before the surgery. He's won a lot of battles against himself, even if the war is not over.
So yes, there is always the risk that he"ll fall back to his youth's flaws, and give up stuff halfway through. But this time, there clearly is a major chance this project will make it through, wich would be great for both him an us.
So please, give the man some credit, and don't give up on him when, suprisingly, he himself hasn't, although there has been very few encouragements in recent weeks.
And, perhaps, refrain from sharing negative opinions such as this one on this site: considering how sensitive Tobias is, all your message can contribute to, is put him down (well, lower then he already puts himself), and decrease the chances of the games ever being made.
I'm not asking to cheer, or to..believe, and again, i understand why you could be skeptical when you see him being enthusiastic and all. But your message is not really written in a "friendly advice" tone, more like a "condescending admonition" tone, and nothing positive comes out of it.
5
Kiyasuriin4~4Y
Which I agree. Ideas start grand. and if you do not plan it correctly it can be bloated and messy. I would very much prefer to have my project DIVIDED onto a manage-able length. instead of having an un-even sized chapters.
Well said, Tobias. I fully support your reasoning.
...
> A big story told in six chapters, divided into two trilogies.
WAIT. REALLY?
You started the MARDEK series and never finished them. You started the Raider series and never finished them. You then started the MARDEK reboot "Taming Dreams" and promised that you'd *definitely* finish it this time. To nobody's surprise you didn't. In between you've had many other games that never got released at all.
How many times does this tale have to repeat itself until you finally spot a pattern? You are unable to keep your attention span on a project for any extended period of time. There's nothing to suggest that something has changed that will allow you to keep working for X years on the same thing *this* time. If anything, your attention span has only gotten worse since you worked on the original MARDEK. And yet here you are again. You had an idea, thought about it for a week, and are already determined to pin your next three years to it.
You know what they say to new writers who think they will write the next epic trilogy with books of over 500 pages? "Start by writing a short story."
Why does everything have to be a multi-part series spanning multiple works? What is wrong with a single game that has a begin, middle, and *end*? It seems like you feel some kind of obsessive compulsion to smear a single story over multiple games, as if stories that fit in a single game aren't "worthy" enough for you. Rest assured that the sheer majority of the RPGs praised for their story were single-work games; even the Final Fantasy series have independent stories that share little more than their name.
Stop making three-year plans and then changing them after a year. We both know that the "changing after a year" part isn't going to be fixed, so instead start making one-year plans that don't tie your future down. Start playing to your strengthens, not your weaknesses; we both know you've got the ability to make great games, you just need to design one that can be made within the attention span you've got available.
I spent my twenties getting creatively distracted all the time because I suppose I delusionally thought everything was equally worthy, that anything could or would be a success. The years have beaten me down, however - especially considering the response to Sindrel Song, which was built as a standalone thing - and I'm returning to the one thing I made that people seemed to like the most in the hope that it could, well, earn some money. It feels like a period of experimentation to see what worked, and this is what emerged as the fittest thing.
If I make a MARDEK Remake, it might attract interest in a way a completely original RPG wouldn't. I also personally have a lot of history with it, and - importantly - a whole lot already planned that I can call upon to really speed up the process. It's less about coming up with a completely novel plot and hoping it'll work, and more like writing a second draft of something that was already proven to work in some form in the past.
There are also personal reasons why I didn't carry on with other things, like MARDEK, Taming Dreams, etc, such as obsessing constantly over failing to find a partner (an obsession I no longer have), and going to university. I'm in a different position now, mentally.
Oh, and MARDEK earning no money was a huuuuge thing, because Flash games generally didn't. The same was true of the other things I released. The difference would be like night and day if I could succeed on Kickstarter and get funding before I even begin. Can you imagine working on something for months, unpaid, in the hope it might eventually generate some money at the end?
Also, I've not been thinking about this for a week. I've been writing posts considering it for months now. The first was apparently from 3 months ago (12th of September): [LINK]
I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'd consider standalone stories 'not worthy' from. I see an episodic thing as having many kinds of appeal for both me as the developer and for players that a single game wouldn't. Consider two scenarios:
1. I make a 20-hour-long RPG with a novel cast of characters. It takes 12 months of focus for me to complete, and I earn money from it and get feedback once. The wait and work are long.
2. I make the same story, but split up as three 6-hour-long RPGs which share the same cast. Each part takes four months. I get feedback and money three times, and in between each chapter, people might develop curiosity about what's going to happen next, building hype for the next chapter. By the end, there'd likely be much more interest than the was at the beginning; this was the case for MARDEK, anyway.
I could cram the story I want to tell into a single game, or make a completely new story, but the work involved seems greater, and the benefits less, than making it in parts.
I suppose ultimately though whether I stick with it isn't due to any creative attention span, but whether I can secure funding for it before I begin.
I know it's silly to speak of these things as if anything I could make would remotely compare, but I wonder whether Star Wars and Harry Potter would have become the cultural juggernauts that they did if they were just standalone stories.
~
Also, since I'll probably be thinking about this all night now:
Apart from the money thing, the biggest issue with MARDEK was how it got really bloated; Chapter 3 is huge compared to Chapter 2. It's why I'm planning these ones really carefully, dividing each into a manageable number of 'acts' and making sure I know them all before I begin. That way, I'll just be following a plan instead of adding whatever my whims desire as I go along.
It seems that you think there is some kind of "monetary justice" in this world: that if you produce a game worth $X, then you'll earn $X. From everything I've seen on this subject, this is not the case anymore.
That may have been how things worked a decade ago in the Flash age. Back then things were simple. Money came from sponsorships; sponsors would give your game a fair look and offer an amount of money depending on how successful they predicted the game to be. Any good game would automatically become successful: all games were free to play; if a game has a good rating and is of a genre a player likes, they'll probably click on it.
But that time is over now. Nowadays you sell your game not to sponsors but to players—players who have to pay in full before they even get to play the game. Take a look at the analysis here: [LINK] You should read it and do your own research as well, but the tl;dr conclusion is: "A game's rating has little correlation with it's amount of sales, the thing that really matters is the pre-launch awareness."
I'm sure you can see this in Sindrel's song. The very few reviews it has are positive, but you did almost nothing to market the game; the amount of readers on your blog seems to be too small to be able to rely on. Games don't market themselves anymore and Steam isn't going to help you; they only promote games that are already selling well. If it doesn't sell well upon launch, the game will just fade into obscurity.
You're treating developing a good game as your primary priority and marketing it as an afterthought. Maybe that's how it'd work in an ideal world, but it's not the world we live in now. Nowadays, if you want money, then marketing is everything; developing an actually good game serves no purpose other than making your game and future games easier to market. I'm sure you don't like that it works this way, but ignoring reality isn't going to make you money.
If you want money, you need to actually think about how to make money. That means researching how the market works, and it probably means figuring out how to get players hyped up for your game before you launch it. Just developing a good game will most likely not be sufficient. Simple tricks like selling part of the game to get part of the money will not magically solve your monetary woes or absolve you of the need for marketing.
It's why I'll be going down the crowdfunding route. With that, you pretty much have to actively run a marketing campaign for a whole month, and I'm intending to wholly focus on that as best I can to drum up interest from the start. It also means I can gauge interest - and get money - before pouring months of effort in.
With Sindrel Song, I got the impression it'd be challenging to market because it's so niche, and I'd essentially given up on the idea when it came to release time. Something like MARDEK, based on existing nostalgia, seems like it'd have a hook that'd allow it to gain interest and traction much easier. This is also why I'm doing a MARDEK Remake rather than a standalone original RPG.
I get where this might come from: at first, Tobias was dead set on NOT remaking Mardek. Then he played retro games, and thought "hey, i could reimagine Mardek". But he reaaaaally explained it badly at the time, so many people were like "dude, better not do anything than this shitty Mardek-but-not-Mardek you're describing to us".
Then were a few bouts of depression, then some IRL stuff, then the idea of Belief, then back to "hey, how about i reimagine Mardek". Then some miracle made it so that old files were stumbled upon, and BAM, it switched to "alright, i can give you almost-original-Mardek, then i'd make Belief". Etc.
BUT, you're forgetting that, though this might look like going circles, behind it is a definite goal: getting a life, as an artist (sorry if that sounds harsh Tobias, i'm summing up with an axe there). And Tobias has become much more mature than he was before the surgery. He's won a lot of battles against himself, even if the war is not over.
So yes, there is always the risk that he"ll fall back to his youth's flaws, and give up stuff halfway through. But this time, there clearly is a major chance this project will make it through, wich would be great for both him an us.
So please, give the man some credit, and don't give up on him when, suprisingly, he himself hasn't, although there has been very few encouragements in recent weeks.
And, perhaps, refrain from sharing negative opinions such as this one on this site: considering how sensitive Tobias is, all your message can contribute to, is put him down (well, lower then he already puts himself), and decrease the chances of the games ever being made.
I'm not asking to cheer, or to..believe, and again, i understand why you could be skeptical when you see him being enthusiastic and all. But your message is not really written in a "friendly advice" tone, more like a "condescending admonition" tone, and nothing positive comes out of it.
Well said, Tobias. I fully support your reasoning.