2D games comercially viable as standalone?

Three words.
World of Goo.

2D standalone game and IMO one of the best indie titles I've played in a while.
So yes a 2D standalone game is commercially viable, if you do it right. =]

No it is not really viable to release a commercial game as a standalone executable.

You should make a proper installer which installs any DirectX and Compiler dependencies.

And no you cannot embed a DirectX game into a browser. Flash itself is a completely different ball game so releasing your game as Flash would require you to rewrite it completely.

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Original post by ExcessNeo And no you cannot embed a DirectX game into a browser.

Not completely true. RuneScape is a Java, browser based MMORPG that has both an OpenGL renderer (JOGL) and as of really recently, a DirectX renderer. I really have no idea how this works though.


As for the original question. The fact that a game is 2D means nothing to me. Could I be bothered downloading and installing a casual arcade game? No. However, if the game was 2D and offered weeks of gameplay or networked gameplay than I wouldn't mind downloading and installing it.

Quote:

Original post by X Abstract X Quote: Original post by ExcessNeo And no you cannot embed a DirectX game into a browser. Not completely true. RuneScape is a Java, browser based MMORPG that has both an OpenGL renderer (JOGL) and as of really recently, a DirectX renderer. I really have no idea how this works though.

Fair enough, but in the context of the question I think it would require rewriting into Java which would end up more work than simply creating an installer for it.

Thanks for the replies so far guys! :)

Quote:

Original post by X Abstract XThe fact that a game is 2D means nothing to me. Could I be bothered downloading and installing a casual arcade game? No. However, if the game was 2D and offered weeks of gameplay or networked gameplay than I wouldn't mind downloading and installing it.

That's slightly disheartening to me. The game I have in mind is on the level of simplicity of Pacman, and in a similar style.

I don't really want to learn to program Flash games because ultimately I'm interested in making intensive 3-D graphics applications/games.

About your aversion to installing a simple 2D game, wouldn't the installer for such a game be very small in size, thus not requiring a lengthy download and install? (Probably not much longer than the flash game loading time). If the file size is very small, why would it put you off?

There definitely needs to be a minimum quality bar if you want people to download and pay for it; for the PC games, that's currently somewhere between 'casual download' (www.bigfishgames.com) and 'hardcore indie' (see IGF or Steam). If you're not competitive with that kind of games, people are unlikely to pay for your product.

You COULD look at iphone; it's got an easier purchasing mechanic, and people are more willing to try small games with a cool hook or spin.

Allan

If you want a market that gives viability to 2D games, definitely look at a mobile platform. I have been developing simple 2D games for the Android system with great success. It's also really enjoyable too. Check it out! http://developer.android.com/index.html