Making games for a living was never harder than it is today. There are the big players who take in all the money from whales and sit in the app-store charts unable to move away. There is one app submitted to the AppStore every minute, same with the Google Play Store. Steam releases must be gated by greenlights. Dealing with publishers was never as hard as it is right now. And no one knows what will happen in 3 months. What will be the next big thing that makes money?
There was a lot of negativity and definitely some 'orchestrated' rant present at some talks at CEGConf. "Want to make a game for mobile and maybe try to make it cost 1$. Why don't you shoot yourself in the knee!" One could also notice some negative vibes if it comes to paid game engines. They sure are the reason for more competition but hey, they are really helpfull in any way. You can make the most awesome presentations with game maker for example. And games that release and get to players. And prototypes. I sensed some bitternes from industry veterans and I really can understand that. But if not NOW, when would be the best time to take risks and try something new, away from the known predefined ways?
Now, when nobody knows what the next big thing will be. Now, when you can connect, meet and share knowledge with more devs, gamedesigners, artists and players than ever before. Game Engines fast dev stations, meetup groups, conferences, indie-festivals can be the tools to be succesful, go out in the world and show new stuff. And Pixel Art is respected again, though a lot of people react strange when they see pixel art nowadays but I really think it is an art form and not just retro, right?
All negativity aside, the conference was mega-awesome, with very interesting talks and a lot of nice and encouraging people to meet and talk. The feedback for our 10 days young prototype was overwhelming which was mainly the reason for a completely stoked sprint planning and rebase of our backlog the next monday. Good stuff is coming. Good stuff is coming...
The last week and the time at the conference sharpened our mission to have a somehow polished beta version for everyone interested EVERY 6 Weeks. And the first release (V.01-Mitch ) will be good, nice and done at Monday, February 16.
We plan to have really, really great music in the game from a very, very talented musician. Which is only fair, since it will be the game that brings balance to the force and saves mobile gaming. Oh, and not to forget to mention that we're saving planet earth as well! More on that another time.
Now it's time to brag: take a look at our 3 week old build, 2 weeks before we start shipping the beta to your device: