Indie Game Development (BizDev)
Indie game development typically refers to a game made by either a small team or an individual, as opposed to big commercial studios such as Game Freak or Capcom. These games are smaller in terms of both staff and budget. Which is exactly why indie games are usually smaller more condensed experiences. Indie developers don't really have the money to spend several years making a game, so the idea is normally quite small ranging between 10 - 15 hours for most indie games. Indie developers also have generalised skill sets. Instead of having a dedicated texture artist you will probably have a 3D modeller that does the entire modelling pipeline. And in some cases solo developers need to be able to do everything, from programming to environment building. In a GameMaker article by Ross Bramble he states "An indie development studio might hire an entire team of designers, programmers, artists, and sound engineers to help spread the load, whereas a solo dev will have to become a jack of all trades." (Ross Bramble, 2023).
Comparing indie to AAA there are quite a few differences. To start AAA studios will have much bigger teams. The average indie studio is around 20 people, while AAA can have over 100 people. Not only does this mean more work can be done in a short amount of time, but it also means that staff can be more specialised towards a specific discipline. AAA studios can have a few people that works exclusively on something like character texturing, as opposed to an indie developer doing the entire 3D pipeline. In addition to that, AAA games will have a much bigger budget. According to an article by Polygon about the development of Final Fantasy VII (Square Enix, 1997), President and chief executive officer of Square Soft (now known as Square Enix) Tomoyuki Takechi comments saying "We used about $40 million for the game's development. We probably spent $10 million of that just on the computer graphics" (Matt Leone, 2017). And that was back in 1997, today budgets like that aren't out of the ordinary.
However despite the differences there are some similarities. From a financial stand point, games need to be financially viable in order for the studio to survive. This is exactly why franchises like Pokémon (Game Freak, 1996) get a new entry every year. Game Freak know that Pokémon (Game Freak, 1996) games will do well which is exactly why they make one every year. In this regard indie games are the same. Yes they do typically try to make something a little more unique from the competition but it still needs to be financially viable for it to be worth it. Especially for the small indie studio that doesn't have a whole lot of money to begin with.
There are both benefits and disadvantages to both of these studio types. For example a benefit of an indie studio is the small size. Communication is really easy since there aren't too many people, but with a AAA studio it's not so simple. Working with over 100 people is not going to be as easy to communicate to other members of the development team. Also a benefit of indie development is that they try to make games that stand out and make them unique. Which is a huge benefit for the developers as they'll have much more creative freedom is some areas. AAA doesn't really have this with there not being as much flexibility for the developers. As stated in an article by Rocket Brush Studio "Indie games operate with fewer constraints, allowing developers to experiment and explore unique themes without the pressure of conforming to mainstream trends" (Rocket Brush Studio, 2023). Not only does that make development more enjoyable for the development team but can also result in a more unique and interesting end product. However a disadvantage that indie has is with the smaller budget. A small indie studio can't really afford to spend several millions developing a game, they don't have that amount of money. This can mean that they need to hit certain deadlines as they don't have the money to delay games. AAA can also have a issue with needing to hit deadlines, but needing to delay a game isn't as financially impactful for a AAA studio compared to indie studios.
While indie developers can have an issue with needing to be more budget conscious, there some ways for a studio to get funding to help out with development. Some games such as Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) used Kickstarter to crowd fund the development of the game. While some game such as Cuphead (Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc , 2017) where funded by Microsoft to be added to their Xbox game pass subscription. And this was done through business developers. As mentioned in a Indeed article "A business developer, or a business development manager, helps a company grow by finding new business opportunities to increase revenue" (Indeed, 2024), for companies like Microsoft they're always looking for new games to add to their game pass service. Which is evident considering that Cuphead (Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc , 2017) isn't the only example of this.
To conclude indie game development is very different from other types of studios. Yes there are some problems that they run into such as budget constraints, but they can be so creative with some of the games that come from them. The games industry really wouldn't be the same without them.
Target audience is the main demographic for a game. These are the people the game is designed for, certain games appeal to certain people and understanding who would want the game is essential. Take Super Mario Bros Wonder (Nintendo, 2023) as an example, that game has very simplistic controls, a cartoon like art style and it has levels that aren't too long in length. This would be perfect for young children as it's easy for them to understand and it also accommodates for the shorter attention span that children typically have.
Nintendo of America (2023)
Target audience is primary used for marketing. Which makes sense when looking at game trailers. Again with Super Mario Bros Wonder (Nintendo, 2023) it's trailer is really bright and colourful, it does a really good job at catching the viewers attention. But not only that it's also really good and keeping the viewers attention. It's quick and too the point, which makes people want to keep watching. This is perfect for their target audience as they're showing how the game plays as opposed to a cinematic trailer.
Defining a target audience is excellent practice as developers can know what they can and can't add to the game. Having a good understanding of the target audience is really important, it gives a lot of insight to what that particular audience wants. If a target audience is primarily for young children then having excessive gore in the game isn't going to work. Unfortunately defining a target audience isn't easy and on top of this the chosen audience may not be the correct one. In a Game Developer article it's stated "there's no empirical way to prove your game's target audience before launch. All assumptions, by you or big AAA publishers, are still assumptions." (Justin Carroll, 2017), target audiences are just educated guesses and in some cases it might be an incorrect guess. Of course market research helps out massively in defining a target audience. Seeing what the competitors are doing is really important and in some cases games are made exclusively with a trend in mind. This is exactly why there were so many studios made a battle royal game because of the success of both PUBG (KRAFTON Inc, 2017) and Fortnite (Epic games, 2017).
A big part in a target audience is the target age rating. Studios will typically target a specific age rating when defining a target audience and this is for a few reasons. First off it gives the studio a good basis on what they can actually include in their game. The UK ratings board PEGI has a full page on their website dedicated to what each rating category can include, for example the the PEGI 3 rating consists of no sounds or pictures that can frighten young children, a very mild form of violence and no bad language (Information from PEGI.info, 2017). Secondly, certain age groups find different things appealing. Children typically like a more stylised cartoony art style while adults typically prefer a more realistic style.
Market research essentially is researching your target audience. Seeing what that target audience wants to see in a game and also what they don't want to see. This can range from something like a specific art style to a certain mode of feature. For example a Metrovania style of game such as Metroid Dread (Nintendo, 2021) typically includes a boss rush mode where the player has to see how many bosses they can beat. Fans of this genre expect this mode to be included, so this is good information to know before developing this type of game.
However market research isn't just for game design ideas, it's also good for seeing if a product is financially viable. This can be done in several ways. First off you could look into how much revenue games similar to the target audience have made. For the Metrovania genre a game like Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) is a really good game to look at. There are two resources that developers could use, them being SteamDB and Steam revenue calculator. So for Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) I can use these tool to calculate an estimate of the gross revenue. From SteamDB I can find the total amount of reviews that the game received, that being 370,415 (SteamDB, 2024) total, and I can also find the price history which tells me that the game is currently £12.79 (SteamDB, 2024). Entering these numbers into the Steam revenue calculator give's me an estimated gross revenue of £227,405,177 (Steam Revenue Calculator, 2024). Of course that is just an estimated amount but it is still a good basis to see how profitable a game in this genre can be. This is calculated using the box leitner method which takes the total number of reviews, multiplied by the box leitner number (usually 50) and then also multiplied by the price of the game (sale price should be used if the game is frequently on sale). This gives an estimated value on how much revenue a game has made.
This research can also be done to look into different monetisation models. The main monetisation models are pay to play (this is most games, you pay once to to play the game in full) and there are also free to play games. Free to play is a monetisation model used by games like YU-GI-OH Master Duel (Konami, 2022). For the most part the game can be played for free, but there's microtransactions in the game to obtain Gems which is the in game currency. Players can use these gems to obtain card packs, structure deck and many other types of items. This monetisation model works quite well but it can annoy the player base if these aren't done correctly. If the microtransactions are used to obtain special items that can give the player an advantage then that's an issue. In that situation the game become pay to win, which prevents free to play players from enjoying the game. And of course the monetisation model also depends on the target audience and the genre. Having a free to play single player game doesn't work and won't generate much profit.
There is another type of monetisation model that being free to start. These a typically for episode or level based games. One game that does this is Life is strange (Square Enix, 2015). The first episode is completely free but the episodes after that are paid. This is a really good monetisation model for the consumer, it gives the player a chance to try part of the game out before committing to buying the rest of the game. However this can also have a negative impact to sales. Quite a few players a most likely to play the first chapter and not pay for the rest of the game.
The main reason for doing this is to see if a game is financially viable or not, but there is another use case for this. It could also be to look at current trends is gaming. This could be something as simple as a certain art style, at one point pixel art games started to make a big come back, or it could be something a bit more like an entire genre. As mentioned in the target market section, battle royal games were big in 2017 to 2018. The main two games that popularised the genre in gaming were PUBG (KRAFTON Inc, 2017) and Fortnite (Epic Games, 2017). Them two games became so popular that many other battle royal games started to release. However after a while players started to become burnt out by the amount of battle royal games that were releasing, and since most of them couldn't compete with PUBG (KRAFTON Inc, 2017) and Fortnite (Epic Games, 2017). This is exactly why properly looking at marker trends is crucial. The last thing a studio wants to hear is that the genre they're developing for isn't popular anymore. Back in 2017 making a battle royal game would have made sense, but today it's still popular there just isn't a demand for a new battle royal game.
Market research can be critical to the success of the game. Developers need to know if the game is going to be financially viable or not. It doesn't make sense to make a game for a dying trend. It's also important to know if chasing a trend is going to be worth while or not.
For our game Snake Scientist we've performed market research to better understand what our target audience would want. Our game is very comparable to games like Hotline Miami (Devolver Digital, 2012) With it's top down perspective being our inspiration for our game. It's also level based which also matches our game. And it did really well with it receiving £12,333,966 (According to Steam Revenue Calculator). In addition to that our target rating will be PEGI 16 which is in line with Hotline Miami (Devolver Digital, 2012) with our game also having comparable blood and gore. This game will also appeal to an older audience with the short levels being ideal for those who want to play a game in short bursts. Such as working people who would like to play during a lunch break.
So to summarise our target audience should have a rating of PEGI 16, a non realistic stylised art style, quick 15 minute levels, Stylised blood and gore and also some quirky controls to make the game more challenging.
Product lifespan refers to how long a game can last. And this can mean two things. Firstly, it could refer to how long a product can survive in the market. A single player game for example won't last forever and will usually need a new game in the franchise for it to continue. However for big multiplier games they do receive frequent updates and additional content which means that the product can last much longer on the market. It also depends on how popular the game is, over time interest will typically diminish, which is why single player games need to release sequels to maintain interest in the franchise. But there is another meaning for product lifespan. It can also mean how long the game can be played by the consumer. Some games can last only 10 hours while some games like Terraria (Re-Logic, 2011) can last forever with it being infinitely re-playable. Play time also signifies to the consumer if a game is worth it or not. A game like Terraria (Re-Logic, 2011) has so much value for it's £8.50 price tag with it being a game you could play infinitely.
The lifespan of a product can be increased. It is possible to increase the total playtime of a product with out it costing too much. And it's also possible to maintain interest in a product by releasing additional content but these can be expensive. A cheap and in-expensive way to increase play time is through new game plus or increased difficulties.
God of War Ragnarök (Sony Interactive Entertainment, 2022) included a new game plus mode as a free update. At it's core it's fairly simple, it's basically just playing through the game again, except this time the player carries over items and stats from a previous save. The game also become much more challenging with all enemies being significantly more powerful giving a really good challenge for the player. And what's even better (from the developers point of view) is that this is really easy to implement. All they had to do was increase the level of the enemies and carry over some things from a previous save. God of War Ragnarök (Sony Interactive Entertainment, 2022) did a bit more with exclusive armours and items but that's just a nice addition it didn't need to be there. This significantly increased the playtime of the game since players could now play through the game again just with much greater difficulty.
A game could also include something as simple as collectables for the player to obtain. Quite a few people really want to 100% complete a game, so adding little collectables is not only fun for the player, but it also increases the total play time. It's a fairly inexpensive way to increase it's lifespan, but a similar way to do this is through high scores. A game like Moving out (Team17, 2020) has an end screen at the end of each level that will show the players score and give medals based on how good it is. This is a great way to increase the lifespan with some players wanting to try and get the gold medal on all levels. And the best part is that it really doesn't take much effort to implement this.
Another way to increase the lifespan of the game is through updates. These can be something as simple as a bug fix or it could be something a bit bigger with additional content. Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) took this to the extreme with free "DLC" that was added to the game. There was one major update with Lifeblood that was mainly focused on some changes to the existing game. These consisted of some visual changes to some balancing changes with the Traitor Lord boss gaining two more attacks, deals double damage and is also much faster. The free "DLC" added much more brand new content with brand new bosses, a boss rush mode and even a brand new ending to the game. And that is actually another thing that can increase the play time with different endings. Similar to collectables some players want to see all endings.
NieR: automata (Square Enix, 2017) has 26 different endings for the player to obtain, which can take over 100 hours according to some runs on How Long to beat (How long to beat, 2024). Different endings are really good for this, however they can be really expensive depending on how these endings are implemented.
Post launch DLCs or expansions are a good way to get back interest after launch. For example Persona 3 Reload (Sega, 2024) released in February of this year but just recently Atlus released the Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis -The Answer- (Sega, 2024) DLC which has regained interest in the game months after it released. However, this is incredibly expensive to make especially for full story expansions like this.
Finally there's one way that this can be done that doesn't involve adding to the game it's self. It could be something like a collaboration, Super Smash Bros Ultimate (Nintendo, 2018) has many cameo characters like Joker from Persona 5 (Atlus, 2016) and even characters like Steve from Minecraft (Mojang, 2011). This is a fantastic way to promote a game in another game. A more extreme way to promote a game is through a TV show or a film. These adaptations were never really good a few years back, however with recent releases they've done a really good job in promoting the game.
NieR Automata Ver1.1a (A-1 Pictures, 2023) is a fantastic anime adaptation of the game. It's regained popularity in the game seven years after the game released. Not only is it good for existing fans of the game (with it being a really good adaptation of the games story) but it's also great for people new to the franchise. It's actually impressive just how long Square Enix has been able to maintain the popularity of the game years after it's initial release.
Product lifespan is incredibly important for the success of a game. The longer the developers can maintain the product the more it will sell. They're in-expensive ways to do this and expensive ways also. And this is something that depends on the budget of the product. It doesn't make sense to start planning multiple endings or DLC if the budget can't account for it. But in situations where the studio doesn't have the budget there exists re-playability features like high scores and new game plus. Which are in-expensive methods to make the game re-playable easily.
Product Lifespan And Monetisation Research For Snake Scientist (25/09/24)
In researching product lifespan we've came to the conclusion that high scores and leader boards would be the best approach for our game. Moving out is what we looked at for this and it does a really good job at making each level re-playable. This is also supported by the stars the player earns by clearing a level in a set amount of time, as well as other achievements. This is a very cheap and in-expensive way to increase the products lifespan with not too much work. There's even the possibility to include online functionality through online leader boards.
In addition to that we could also release additional downloadable content after launch. This could be in the form of free smaller additions such as new unlockable skins, or it could be additional levels also for free. This would help to maintain players interest in the product after release. We could also release some paid DLC in the form of level packs containing multiple new levels. Again, this would help to maintain interest in the game but with bigger amounts of content and it also making additional revenue after release. Additional skins and cosmetics would be a really cheap way to maintain interest, while additional levels are more expensive while also having the potential to earn more revenue.
Also for our monetisation model we plan on making this into a standard release with premium sales. Looking at other games similar to ours with Hotline Miami (Devolver Digital, 2012) and Octodad: Dadliest catch (Young Horses, 2014), we think we could sell our game for £7.99 to maintain a competitive price point for a similar amount of content. This could potentially include additional paid DLC after release as mentioned previously.
Game development is an incredibly expensive business model. There are quite a few expenses that go into creating a game, for example the salary of the people working on the game. For games such as Vampire Survivors (poncle, 2022) the developers claim that the game cost $1500 to make, but that's not exactly realistic for most games. That figure isn't including the developers salary and general living expenses which should be included in most cases. The budget of a game is determined through very in depth planning and documentation. Estimating how long development will take, everyone's salary and office costs are just a few things that go into this estimation. After an estimated amount has been calculated the developers will need to actually obtain funding.
There are a few ways of doing this, if the studio has already released a profitable game then the profits from that game can go into the next one. Of course that isn't feasible for most developers which is why most will turn to crowd funding or pitching to a publisher. Pitching to a publisher isn't always an option however with some publishers not wanting to fund games under a certain amount. Crowd funding however is a great option in most cases. Two successful crowd funded games would be Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) and Shovel Knight (Yacht club games, 2014).
Shovel Knight (Yacht club games, 2014) made a total of $311,502 on Kickstarter which is quite a lot of money, but still wasn't easy for the game to actually release. Yacht club posted on their blog talking about the financial side of the project. And while that blog post has since been taken down GamesIndustry.Biz compiled all of the information on their site so there's an explanation of the development of this game. As Yacht club states that the budget ran out, which forced them to operate for five months without the team being paid (GamesIndustry.Biz, 2014). Their original release for the game was set for the 31st of March 2014 which didn't end up happening. The game wasn't in an expectable state for Yacht club to release to kickstarter backers, which at this point waited over a year for the game to release. So despite the budget being gone, they decided to delay the game. The game ended up releasing 3 mouths later at 26th of June 2014. Thankfully the game did really well for Yacht club, so it was definitly worth the financial hardship.
Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe, 2016) is an example of a game that was entirely self funded. While the total cost is unclear it would be safe to assume that it was quite expensive, since it took over 4 and a half years to develop. However this may have not been too expensive to develop. Firstly it's made using a Framework called Microsoft XNA, which is entirely freeware. And in addition to this, it was made in their free time along side a typical job, so living expenses aren't included in this games budget.
So to conclude, it's understandable why some indie games cost over half a million to develop. There's a lot of costs ranging from wages to software licences. It's expensive and it can be really daunting to someone new to the industry. But there are ways to fund indie games that aren't going to put the developer into dept. Budgeting is crucial to see if a game isn't going to cost more than it's worth. And to see if it's even going make sense to start developing.
Before the team can calculate our budget we need to calculate how long the game is going to take to make. Every block on this long term production schedule is equal to weeks, and that makes a total of 82 week or approximately 1 year and 6 months. Most of this schedule is for each level, 25 total and each level is scheduled for two weeks. During that time the music, 3D models, sprites, lighting and voice acting will be done along side the level creation by the other members of the team. At the end of the schedule there's two months for final polish, along with another two months for final testing and bug fixing after that. Finally there's three months at the end of production that's will be some contingency time. This is time that will be budgeted just in case we need it.
Now for the budget. For 18 months the teams salary for the project has been set at £30,000 each, our living expenses aren't very high which is why we've only budgeted for this amount. Software licences for Maya, Substance painter and Unity Pro has been set to around £12,955. Jac and Alex use Maya for their 3D modelling so this is a necessary cost. Unity pro is also a necessity since we hope to make more than the personal plan revenue limit. Substance painter is something that we'll pay for on Steam. This way it's a one time fee of £168 for the program and it works out cheaper paying for it this way as opposed to the subscription. Maya and Substance painter will need to be paid for twice since we'll need two licences for both Alex and Jac. Some additional salary would include a musician and a producer that we plan on hiring. Hiring these two would improve the quality of the end product so it's worth the money. There are also some additional cost for potential legal costs and even cloud storage with DropBox. Finally we've also budgeted for the £100 to publish on steam, any home utilities since we've working remotely, and finally we've estimated a localisation fee to translate the game into some European languages. That brings us to a total of £260,369, and including a 15% contingency of £39,055 that gives us a final budget of £299,424. That also means that our monthly burn rate is £16,634 per month for the entire project. That may sound like a huge budget but when you thing about most games they typically cost over a million, so it's actually quite good.
The ask is essentially what we'll be asking for from a publisher. In this case it's mainly for funding. We've re-calculated the budget for the project separating additional staff from the other total costs. These include a musician, localisation staff, a producer and also a quality assurance tester. Additional staff has been separated since a publisher may be able to provide these if they have the resources available, if not then we've budgeted to pay for these.
The total (without additional staff) is £151,519.04, and the total including additional staff is £309,869.04. The budget for this game is actually comparable to games such as Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) and Shovel Knight (Yacht club games, 2014) so we're hopeful that our product can meet the same level of quality. As a result of this our monthly burn rate for the project is £8,417.72 (without additional staff) or £17,214.95 with additional staff.
With the burn rate calculated we can estimate how much we could have spent so far on the project. All that we need to do to estimate is take the monthly burn rate and multiply that by how many months we're working on the prototype, the prototype phase spans from September to November which is 3 months which will total to £25,253.16. We've used the burn rate that doesn't include the additional staff since we won't be using any of them till production starts.
Game benchmarking is looking at other games similar to yours and seeing how many copies they have sold. With this it's possible to estimate how many copies the game could potentially sell. This is just an estimate but it can help to see if it's viable or not. This links into market research since it's seeing if the game can fit into that market. For Snake Scientist it's genre typically sells quite well with a similar game like Ape out (Devolver Digital, 2019) selling around 117,000 copies on steam.
For our benchmarking It's going to look something like this:
1. Hotline Miami (Devolver Digital, 2012) - 4.3 million copies sold
2. Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy (Bennett Foddy, 2017) - 2.7 million copies sold
3. I Am Bread (Tiny Build, 2015) - 684,000 copies sold
4. Ape out (Devolver Digital, 2019) - 117,000 copies sold
5. Endoparasitic (Deep Root Interactive, 2022) - 71,310 copies sold
We believe that Snake Scientist could fit in-between both I Am Bread (Tiny Build, 2015) and Ape out (Devolver Digital, 2019) and here's why. To break even the game needs to sell around 55,460 copies. That includes the 30% cut that steam takes per game which results in £5.59 per copy. Also game like Ape out (Devolver Digital, 2019) and Endoparasitic (Deep Root Interactive, 2022) only have around 3 hours worth of content, and ours will have more total playtime. However, we won't be able to compete with Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy (Bennett Foddy, 2017) and I Am Bread (Tiny Build, 2015). This is because these two games were big internet phenomena that sold really well because of that. With that in mind if Snake Scientist can sell 200,000 copies that would give us a total revenue of £1,118,600 including the Steam 30% cut. And subtracting the total cost spent on the game of around £310,000 that's a total profit of £808,600.
Post Practice Pitch Reflection (27/11/24)
To prepare for our final pitches next week we're going to be doing some practice pitches. We'll be pitching to other people in the class and receiving some feedback based on how we presented it. First off I pitch to Alex which is another member of this project. The two things that he mentioned was with my lack of eye contact and me also losing track of what I needed to say. These two things have been a problem with almost all of my pitches including that last one I did earlier in the year. I really need to focus on the people listening as opposed to the slides. To achieve this I'll stand up during my presentation next week. This might sound like a weird thing to do but I think by doing this I'll force my self to focus on the people around me. And to correct the issue of me losing track of what I need to say I'll write up some support cards that I can use as pointers. I'll still need to memorise what I need to say but with this I can give my self some reminders of what need to be said.
Secondly I pitched to Erica, She's not part of our team so this should be a bit better. This way I can pitch to someone who hasn't seen much about the project. Again lack of eye contact and me losing track was brought up, but it wasn't as bad as it was with Alex. Going into this second pitch I told my self I would try to maintain eye contact as much as I could which seems to have help. Also I memorised what I said to Alex and carried over what I said in that pitch to this one. This made pitching a second time much easier since I knew what to say and it also gave me a chance to mention the things I missed out last time. However these still weren't as great as they could have been. In addition to that it was also said that I shouldn't speak as critically as I was. This was an issue with the benchmarking, I was explaining how our game can't compete with games like Hotline Miami. Finally she also said that I need to fill in the gaps. I had quite a few place holders in my pitch and this was hard to follow at times. This will be correct before the final pitch.
Now onto what I did well. First off was with the style of my slides. It follows the style of our game really well while also showing the information in a presentable way. If the place holders weren't there they would have been really clear. In addition to this, I was explaining what I was showing really well. If I wasn't losing track of what needed to be said I would have conveyed the information in a clear way. Finally, showing the QR code at the end is a really good idea. Having a scannable link for our game is great for publishers since they can scan the code and download the demo. It gives them a chance to try the game and it's also a fun way to end a pitch. The one in this pitch is just a placeholder but hopefully by next week I should have uploaded the game to itch.io.
Itch.io Page For Snakientist (02/12/24)
SnakIentist now has a Itch.io page. It features some screenshots from the final build of the game as well as a trailer that was put together by Alex. It matches the theme of our game really well and it also description of what to expect from this game. It's looking much nicer than my Bloodreign page.
I've also generated a new QR code which will lead directly to the games itch.io page. This will get used for our pitches which should give us a good point to end off the pitch.
The pitch is now done. And I wanted to spend a little bit of time to talk about how I thought it went. I'll not be getting direct feedback from this for a little while so I'm mainly going off how I feel it went. And to start with I fixed the one issue I've been having for years. And that's with me talking far to fast, to the point were no one can understand anything I was saying. This time I spoke calmly and slowed my self down when I thought I was talking a bit too quick. This was a big hurdle for me to overcome and I really think I've finally figured it out. In addition to this I answered the questions as best as I could and overall I thought I covered everything that needed to be covered. Minus one thing which I'll get to later. Finally the QR code was a really good idea. It gave me something to properly end the pitch as I was able to talk about the demo. This was way better then simply saying "Yeah, that's it" at the end of the slides.
Now into the issues. And the major one was with me not writing down the prompt cards. These would have helped keep me on track and not stutter. However I did memories my slides and what I needed to say, but I completely forgot about motioning target audience directly. I did talk about parts of it but I never covered our target audience in full. But other than that I feel like it went quite well. I mentioned this in my practice pitch reflection but this time I stud up during the pitch, which actually helped more than I thought. I was able to maintain some eye contact without getting distracted from my slides. Which is significantly better than my last pitch.
For the full project post mortem it can be found on the main page:
https://20999935fdablog.blogspot.com/p/indie-game-development_5.html
Bandai Namco Studios, Sora Inc (2018) Super Smash Bros Ultimate [Video Game] Nintendo
Bennett Foddy (2017) Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy [Video Game] Bennett Foddy
Bossa Studios (2015) I Am Bread [Video Game] Tiny Build
ConcernedApe (2016) Stardew Valley [Video Game] ConcernedApe
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