Game Dev

A positive post-mortem

Game dev is really difficult, there are many scary stories of games that did not find success, but thankfully there are also positive ones!

You should definitely pay attention to both types to learn what to DO and what NOT to do.

Here's a great post from a successful game called Dystopika, it's a solo-developed Cyberpunk City Builder. Currently with over 1000 reviews at 97% positive, potentially around $300,000+ in revenue in one month, it's a huge hit!

It was inspired by Townscaper but with a Cyberpunk vibe. By itself this is a great tip, find a game that is successful and apply a different theme to it.

Another great success tip, and one of my personal favorites, is cost of living reduction. If you spend $10k per month then a 1 year game needs $120,000 to break even, whereas if you spend $1k per month you just need $12,000.

They worked with a marketing agency, which can be either a positive or negative, you should at least know the basics yourself, I made some great videos with Chris Zukowski if you want to learn game marketing.

User Generated Content was a bonus, modding is always great if you can add it. Release timing on top of a AAA game can be helpful, Next Fest is important and you should prioritize Design over programming. All great tips!

Game Dev

Game Jam do's and don'ts

The biggest game jam of the year has just happened, the GMTK Game Jam organized by Mark Brown of the excellent YouTube channel Game Maker's Toolkit.

Over 7500 games were submitted (new record) and voting is currently underway. The theme this year was "Built to Scale" which people have interpreted in many interesting ways.

He also always posts some fascinating stats on engine usage in the jam, this year Godot got a huge boost from 19% to 38%, likely due to the Unity mess last year.

Alongside that here's a great post with some tips on how to NOT participate in a game jam. Do NOT jump on the first idea that comes to mind, do NOT make tons of art and then code, do NOT overwork yourself and do NOT publish at the very last moment. All great tips.

Gaming

Gamescom brings the games!

Gamescom happened this week, were you there? I wish I was!

As usual lots of game announcements and showcases. For me the main highlight was Mafia: The Old Country, I love the Mafia series. There is also Borderlands 4 and Civilization VII coming in 2025. 

Monument Valley 3 if you want something chill, Dying Light: The Beast has some more first person parkour, and for some VR Batman Arkham Shadow is looking awesome.

Black Ops 6 and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle also got more showcases.

One announcement that is not a game is Secret Level, it's a 15 episode animated series with original stories set in the worlds of various games like God of War, Ghost of Tsushima and Sifu.