It's been a while since I've wrote a blog here, so I figure I'd go ahead and share my current plans as far as game development goes.
As the title suggests, I'm going to be developing commercial games under the name of Uyamau Games. Uyamau Games will consist of only me for now. I'll commission any of the artwork/music I don't have the talent to do myself. In the future, I'd like to have some talented artists become a part of Uyamau Games. But we'll see if it ever gets to that point.
Uyamau is Japanese, meaning to show respect or to honor. The reason for this name is because of the 3 principles I'll abide by in order to respect the gamers.No DRMDRM historically has only made it harder for the customers who legitimately purchased the game, and not the pirates. So no DRM is a no-brainer. Plus, I personally believe that people vastly overestimate the damage done by piracy.No Paid DLCAbsolutely no paid DLC. That's not to say that there won't be DLC for any Uyamau games, it's just that gamers won't have to pay for it. They already generously bought the game, trying to milk them for more is just plain insulting. This also applies to "in-app" style purchases, such as players being given the option to buy some in-game currency with real money. Absolutely horrendous.No SequelsMost games don't need full sequels, they just need updates and/or DLC. There are only two exceptions to this: Story-based games and games in which the sequel fundamentally changes the gameplay mechanics in a significant way. But even in these cases, Uyamau Games won't resort to sequels. Our story-driven games, if we genuinely feel the desire to continue their story even further, will receive a free update containing the continuation of the story. And games where we feel the desire to significantly alter the gameplay mechanics, will recieve the new mechanics in a free update but retain the old mechanics in some sort of "Classic" mode.Anyway, that's the philosophy behind Uyamau Games. Uyamau's first game will be called Crimson Core, and it'll be for the upcoming OUYA console (which I'm surprised nobody's talking about on here btw), and will be 100% free, no strings attached. I figure that the console's already got a pretty solid theoretical install base of over 40,000 people once it comes out. If I can get even 10% of those people to try Crimson Core, then I think Uyamau Games will make a strong impression on them, which I hope will prove beneficial later on when I start releasing commercial projects under the moniker.Crimson Core is going to be a story-driven 2D JRPG-style game, throwing the player into the lives of three separate characters with very separate paths: A farmer who is also a loving husband and father, a young soldier who believes in standing up for justness, and a convicted criminal with a deplorable past. But one thing ties them all together: Their desire to find the Crimson Core, a mythical object which is said to grant any one wish… in exchange for the wisher's life.Crimson Core could very well be my magnum opus. Which isn't saying much, because well… I don't have any significant completed games. But Crimson Core is different, parts of its story are very personal to me. I'm definitely seeing this thing through to the end in some form or another.I already have lots of ideas for projects after Crimson Core, but I won't go into detail as they're still just vague ideas floating around in my head. Once I'm close to finishing Crimson Core, I'll start fleshing out these ideas in detail. For now, Crimson Core's my primary focus.
Agree with no DRM, sort-of-agree with no paid DLC, disagree with no sequels.
I mean, what if you're trying to tell some gigantic epic, and different installations in the epic naturally fall into different gameplay styles such that it makes more sense to release a completely new game for each one? Tacking those new games onto the ends of old games as updates would seem kinda strange. It's a generous thought and honestly as a player I'd probably think your company was pretty awesome for taking that strategy, but I like seeing generous/awesome companies stay in business too. :/although you know having one central game-hub-thing that players could use to launch games they've bought based on those games' locations in the story's timeline would be awfully convenient and oh god you're giving me ideas now aaaaaaaauuuughWell yeah, I'm not saying that for story-based games, that additional sections of story would pick up right where the original story left off and play like a direct continuation of the same game. The new chapters would be selectable via the game's main menu whenever you're starting a new game.
Regarding the financial viability of such a strategy… I think it's feasible. I mean, true… it's a lot of work making a whole new chapter in a story-driven game to be just giving out freely. But while the people who already bought the original chapter get the new chapter for free, there's still going to be plenty of people out there who haven't yet bought the game. So the release of the new chapter will ignite sales of the original game to people who haven't yet bought it.Could work for short story updates - like releasing new chapters in a book one at a time, or like updating a monthly webcomic. Which could work for longer stories as well (cough homestuck cough), I'd say it depends on the story though. Not sure you should limit yourself/cross out the option of having sequels this early is all.
There's other things you can do to respect the consumer while still making decent money - say, charging less for individual games and such. Though I'm far from an expert here, just going on what seems to make sense. Which naturally is probably completely inaccurate.The reason for completely crossing out the idea of sequels is to completely avoid the perception that we're milking a series, continuing it just for the sake of making more money.
While you can avoid that perception to a degree by simply not releasing mediocre sequels that come off as simply trying to get into the wallets of the fans one more time, you can't avoid the perception completely that way. At least in my opinion.ILL KICK IF YOU START.
You only Kickstart if you have some sort of show of product.
Don't be that one guy who steps into the camera with a sword saying he will make a perfect sword game because he has a sword.i see a lot of typing and not a lot of actual progress James *whistles*
Yeah, and how's it going with your projects, Dylan?
Besides, Crimson Core is still in predevelopment stage. I want to be as prepared as possible before putting the pen to the paper, so to speak. I don't want to wing it.pics or it didn't happen :o
i should throw together at least a mock-up for myself. these people talking "random generation" are all up in my territory. :>I'm just sayin', dude, but your avatar kinda reminds me of goatse.