I wonder if he tried to get in touch with smaller indie publishers (something like yacht club games) or he focused on more established companies.
He’s been talking about it on Mastodon for quite a while now. It’s a shame.
It’s a confusing article, the game he talks about on Mastodon (Death By Scrolling) has just been released. There was another game he stopped dev on: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@grumpygamer/115657740122347206
It’s a shame, but also, there’s billions of games and RPGs out already. The game industry is so oversaturated, it’s not even funny.
And the discoverability pipe is breaking.
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No one reads oldschool curators like RockPaperShotgun anymore. They’re barely afloat.
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Generic algorithmic social media like YouTube tends to snowball a few games.
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Forums are dead. Reddit is dystopian.
That leaves Steam’s algorithm, and a sea of sparsely seen solo reviewers. But there are billions of people oblivious to passion projects they’d love, and playing AAAs or gacha phone apps instead.
For finding new games Steam peek is pretty good. And playtester io isn’t bad either.
Streamers are sometimes a good way to find indie games. My wife and I watch DieDevDie and he mostly plays stuff from itch.io.
Not a streamer, but I’ve bought multiple games because YouTubers like Real Civil Engineer or Dangerously Funny has played and it looked fun. All of these have been indie titles. Off the top of my head here’s a few:
- Planet Crafter
- Incredicer
- Coal LLC
- Drive beyond horizons
- Schedule 1
A bunch more but I’m not gonna dig through my library. But yeah, I’ve spent a small chunk because of YouTubers like that. And they’ve all been a good time.
There are dozens of us reading rock paper shotgun!
But yeah, the modern web sucks. It’s all soulless algorithms and profit/rent seeking.
Even if someone tried to make forums again, they’d probably fill up with AI slop.
I mean, many forums are still live.
The problem is engagement. Discord, YouTube, even Lemmy all ping you in your pocket and offer more “instant” dopamine hits than a forum or news site, hence they’ve sucked all the attention.
It works. I’m guilty of falling into it for sure, even when I keep telling myself I will change my information diet.
And even if you don’t a lot of your friends and community do. Forums aren’t fun when it’s just you there.
I still enjoy Yahtzee on Second Wind since the whole Escapist debacle. They seem to be trying to stoplight more indie games which I really appreciate.
I know you meant “spotlight” but that typo made me chuckle
John Walker (founder of RPS, back when it wasn’t a window to Eurogamer style content) is currently doing Buried Treasure, a small review blog for things that aren’t being appreciated by the masses. Well worth checking out!
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I will take this opportunity to recommend Crosscode, one of the best action RPGs of all time according to 90% of people who play it.
But yeah even amazing games like that fly under people’s radar in the huge deluge of games. I wish it were easier for good games to find their audience
I like CrossCode, but I am going to bat for Phoenotopia Awakening, one of the best game almost nobody has heard about. Slightly different perspective but similarly massive game full of secrets, puzzles, fun characters and a consistent world where even the tiniest bit of banter can lead you to discover something on the other side of the map.
Not having a quest log made that game hell for me. Massive world with tons of little quests that take you all over the map and no way to track progress or see what the last part of the quest is asking for.
I can kind of see that.
It was not a huge problem for me, but I play lots of metroidvania, and I am used to memorizing stuff for later. And for stuff that I know will be hard to remember, occasionally, I might take notes or screenshots of hints.
Though most of the time, there are more than one hint for a single quest. The game does a very good job at updating every related NPC dialogue when something has changed.
But if you want to find everything, yeah you have to talk to absolutely everyone. TWICE. Almost everyone has two lines of dialogue at any moment.
Weird that it’s unsupported on steam deck. Doesn’t look that demanding technically.
It runs fine on the Deck.
Source: i have only played it on the Deck.
Mind you, it has been docked and played on a TV, so the text is fine and the controls are from an Xbox controller, so YMMV.
A bit weird indeed. I’ve played it on switch and it runs perfectly fine on it.
Thank you both for the recommendations
Wow this looks incredible actually! Definitely giving it a go, thank you
Hey a fellow Phoenotopia Awakening fan!
I love that game but I made the mistake of putting it down for a year. When I came back I was completely lost and had no idea what I had already done or what to do next. The game does not have quest logs and does not hold your hand this way. It’s a game where people might benefit from documenting their progress as they go, especially in case they ever take a break from it.
I really liked CrossCode’s art and vibe and everything. The puzzles are good, too. But the puzzles are kind of hard in a way that tires me out.
I guess that’s how some people feel about dark souls. “Oh, I’m glad that’s over”. That’s not quite the vibe I’m aiming for.
Maybe I’ll play it with a friend who’s good at puzzles so I can just do the fighty parts.
That’s funny, I loved the puzzles, but dropped it because the combat didn’t click for me.
And there are so many games that never got finished or polished properly.
the interview that was mentioned:
I like Ron Gilbert.
Using a screenshot of Stardew while quoting a developer saying it takes money and staff to finish a project is diabolical
That’s not Stardew Valley
That’s further proving @p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com’s point.
The 8/16but style is overused I feel. Don’t get me wrong I liked the look of it, but every indie game out there uses it.
The SVG style is still relatively new and it’s much easier to animate.
If you’re going to stick with pixel art aesthetic then you want to do something to differentiate your game from all of the others, such as having more animation frames and going for the Prince of Persia look.
Because its easy…
and it does a lot of damage…
Stardew Valley totally would have taken staff and money if you can’t live in your parent’s house forever. edit: I didn’t want it to sound mean towards Barone, it’s great what his family did for him, but this game was made possible with a very strong support net – a luxury not many have.
No idea why you’re being downvoted, the guy who created Stardew literally had his wife take care of his whole life for him while he was working on it.
“It’s either a passion project you spent ten years on, or you need a bunch of money to be able to hire people and resources”
From the article.
I also thought it was Stardiew but after 3 seconds looking it’s evident it’s not.
