NOBODY bought my game - storytime. Things to learn for future.

Would you mind posting a link to this game on steam? Maybe we can provide additional feedback.

If you're getting refunds then there is a more underlying problem at play here. Getting anyone to buy the game is a great thing, but the second they refund it shows something wasn't up to par. It's more concerning when the refunds become a trend among buyers.

Sure, here it is.

What resonated with me: If you ask people to help they will say "yeah sure" and then fall through. It is better to let them ask you, and better still if they offer to do something and really do it before your bring them in. Game development is so difficult and risky that you have to assume most people will not really be helpful.

Your game looks really cool. Don't let the low sale numbers discourage you, what matters is that you learned something from the experience. I think you should be proud of having successfully finished and shipped a game, besides you could always showcase this game in your portfolio.

Is that the game?

How long do you usually play your own game? What part of the core gameplay do you consider is most fun about it? What is the reward loop while racing? If you had the choice to play a game when you're done with work, would this be the racing game of your choice for $10? And why?

1 hour ago, POKLU said:

Sure, here it is.

I've purchased your game and gave it a try. I did the tutorial level and a few races so my feedback will be a bit limited to that experience. I will have more time this weekend to play and will revise as needed.

I'll start with the cons first:

1. I found a bug which I can replicate 100% of the time. The first time I found it was during the tutorial level for Sprint. If you're at a dead stop and you hit the half circle, then jump up you will fall through the map. I've also noticed this during races if you time the jump after the hit. (I noticed other people have indicated the same bug in a Steam Review)

2. The jumping mechanic is really annoying. It almost frustrates me to the point that I will avoid using it unless I absolutely need, as I would rather just cycle around. When you hit jump, it doesn't feel like it moves you forward at an angel but straight up. then forward which I don't like.

3. Level intros take way too long. Racing games are meant to be fast paced and keep the momentum going level after level. I don't want to be forced to watch 15 seconds of a rotating level before playing. It would be nice to see a SKIP option to start right away after level load.

4. I noticed your music doesn't loop. One of the big components in racing games is having a killer soundtrack, but once the music stops it doesn't seem to repeat or change for me, just dead silence.

5. I played the game on the max settings and highest view distance possible, but I noticed a lot of blurring everywhere in the level. The post-processing effects are on overkill and really discount the nice graphics you've made.

Examples:

6. I know it's a game feature, but when you take enough damage the visibility goes down too much. I would prefer that once enough damage has been taken you just blow up and lose (x) amount of potential time.

7. The AI appears to have zero collision. You cannot knock them around, and they go right through obstacles that would cause the player to stop.

8. During Track selection, it would be nice to have a filter to only show Easy, ect... tracks as opposed to clicking through all of them to find which ones are there.

9 How does the name "Cologne" tie into the game? I wasn't able to make the connection. I guess I haven't played it long enough yet, but is there a story during game play at anytime? Or is this just a arcade style racer without a background story?

The pros I found with the game:

1. The controls (Other than Jumping) are very responsive.

2. The graphics (other than the post-processing effect issue I stated in the cons) are very well done.

3. Your level concepts are well on point!

4. The tutorial levels explain the mechanics very well.

5. I like the music soundtrack.

6. Menus are easy to navigate.

Overall you have a very good foundation for a racing game, but it needs some more adjustments. I was very frustrated at times though... which isn't good when I'm this early in a play through.

24 minutes ago, ProfL said:

Is that the game?

How long do you usually play your own game? What part of the core gameplay do you consider is most fun about it? What is the reward loop while racing? If you had the choice to play a game when you're done with work, would this be the racing game of your choice for $10? And why?

Yes, that's my game. During the testing I played it countless times, usually for about an 30-60 minutes. I think the most fun part of the gameplay is when you fluently avoid the obstacles. After completing a race you get points to upgrade your bike. If it wasn't my game, I think I would play it after work, especially with friends, in multiplayer mode. I really enjoyed blasting trough those pipe tracks.

This is not a Careers topic. "Lack of sales" is a business issue, so I'm moving this to the Business forum.

Thanks for sharing. It can sting to write about the bad times, but if we don't, then it's too easy to only see the successful people out there and think that indie dev is an easy business

I'm also making a futuristic racing indie game with tube tracks, so wish me luck

8 hours ago, POKLU said:

It was just for fun and learning purpouses but I knew I want to try to put it on sale on Steam

This would be my one bit of advice for people to avoid. When doing something as a hobby or for education, you have completely different goals to someone who is running a business. Mixing the two is dangerous and unhealthy.

FWIW your game looks amazing for a learning-hobby-turned-business, and commercial failure doesn't change the fact that you managed to complete and ship a game. I've worked on games in big 50-100 person teams before that didn't even make it to completion. Shipping is an important skill/achievement

For a first game its a good effort, and you'll find that players are willing to stick with a developer that doesn't abandon them where updates are concerned. I would fix any game breaking bugs first, then worry about additional features etc.

Oh, I notice your facebook links from Steam are down. Get them up and running! Let others know how you are getting on with the game and keep the ball rolling.

Keep up the good work!

Just by looking at the trailer, things that annoys me :

- Bad music. Hey it's a videogame, use more adapter tracks, lots of people (including me) hate those over-compressed dubstep-ish songs. The BPM is also quite low, i'd expect something faster for this type of game

- You don't show any gameplay. It seems to be a futuristic race taking place in sort of pipes... and ? Ok ? Is it even a game ? It looks more like a visual experience than a real game with actual gameplay. A simple raw in-game recording would be more appealing for a user that wants to buy a game.

- Overuse of blur effects. Just remove them all.

Otherwise it's quite impressive for an indie product, so, good job !

Hi,

stories like this happen more frequently than I'd wish.
but you're not abandoning your game, right?

A lot more people than "nobody" bought your game, and $600 is a lot more than nothing, even if you did spend more than that on advertising.

Here is why this matters. Suppose you could, through X amount of effort, multiply the number of people who buy your game by a factor of ten. Should you go for it? Well, that depends on how highly you value your time and effort. If X amount of effort is worth $5400 to you, then doing it would be a good idea. If that amount of effort is worth more than $5400 to you, then doing it would obviously not be a good idea.

Now consider somebody who put just as much effort into the game, but only made $60. If this person puts in X amount of effort to multiply the number of people who bought his game by ten, then he would only gain $540. Meanwhile, the guy who only made $6 would only gain $54, and the poor schmuck who didn't sell a single copy of his game wouldn't gain anything at all. And yes, there are games that have actually not sold a single copy.

$600 is not bad for an amateur effort made "just for fun". Most people don't make any money at all from their hobbies.

You game is not better then Extreme G Racing on Playstation2.

You only have tunnels in your map, and the colors are to dark.

Besides motor games are not so popular, hoover cars would be more popular ( cars with wheels are more difficult to program then no wheels or motors ).

If you have a hoover car, you should have a strafe boost, to go left or right to avoid things.

Also have items for pickup, or like FZero those turbo things, and some weapons, look to this FZero map its not so claustrofobic :

Why did you not make it for free ?, to see what feedback you get and as promotion.

Buy the XGIII on PS2 or look the movie as inspiration for your next title.

Not a real suprise that nobody bought it if i look to your movies.

2 hours ago, Linor said:

Hi,

stories like this happen more frequently than I'd wish.
but you're not abandoning your game, right?

I abandoned this game. I moved forward to my next projects and learning new things.

On 6/24/2018 at 8:34 AM, POKLU said:

I abandoned this game.

You should do some reading about that. The article uses some older terms for a few things, but everything still applies.

Does the game have the potential to fill a market need, and the potential to make money if done right? If so, you might be better off leveraging your investment. When those are present it is sometimes easier to convert a bad game into a great game than it is to start over from scratch and build a totally different game, especially when that totally different game also has a high probability of failing.

Honestly I love this idea for a game and I honestly think if you had worked out some of the bugs/flaws before launch it could've achieved more commercial success. I've never been too picky about bugs in games but it sounds like a lot of the negative reviews could've been avoided merely by having some testers try and break things. Granted you are a one person team, it's difficult to balance all these aspects at once and honestly I think you did an amazing job for the most part. The game looks fun and it is rewarding to successfully dodge everything. Heres what I noticed:

1. Game breaking bugs (falling through the map)
2. Jumping mechanic
3. Music
4. Game not 100% at launch

Here's what I would personally do to solve each if you were to go back in time and relaunch this game:

1. Give a few free copies to people who you know would try and find bugs. Even just to get a small community of people going who are interested in the game and giving you constant feedback. It seems like you had a nice community for the most part, just didn't have many people trying to break the game.
2. Jumping is huge in racing games but jumping in this game reminds me of KOTOR (the singleplayer one) pod racing. That's not a good thing, jumping has to feel more aloof. I'm not the most well-versed in videogame creation so I understand there could be something that I'm missing here but I'm guessing that the jumping system you implemented was easier than creating a physics engine based jump. All in all jumping isn't satisfying and like another poster said, it's really a mechanic that people try to avoid.
3. Again echoing Rutin, music is key and especially the retrowave games like this. People LOVE the retrowave especially with racing, and the soundtrack really helps people live that 70's vice city feel. Having a cool soundtrack would've been a major delight.
4. I firmly believe if you had done testing prior and had done that huge reworking of the game before the official launch, you would've been much better off. People only refund the game if they feel that it's bad/not complete. An early access title could've helped reduce the amount of refunds. If you had planned the launch out more and timed it well, potentially getting marketing help before it was launched would've likely helped create a much more successful launch and therefore more incentive to keep working on the game.

These are just my opinions and what I noticed. Please take them as constructive criticism because I know all in all that creating, launching, developing and doing it all on your own is incredibly difficult and although you didn't get your smash hit success, I would not chalk this up as a loss. Honestly it's a cool game, just has a few kinks.

Also another thing I forgot to add is that those estimates are almost always wildly inaccurate. I personally wouldn't rely on these numbers most the time but you can get close to them if you create advertisements that deliver well. Although one thing to keep in mind is what media your consumers are using, and generally gamers aren't on Facebook or don't disclose it often there. I probably would've tried to do some more involved forms of reaching, like sponsoring some streams or trying to get an Indie booth at a convention. Twitter isn't a bad idea to reach gamers on either if you're thinking social media.

It seems a big shame to abandon it. You've got so much done compared to how much appears needed to improve it. At the very least you could put it out for free to get some fans, if it took off you could release a sequel. Or release a cut version for free and sell tracks for a few bucks like old shareware.

Or a mobile version could be neat.

It sounds like you went through a real learning experience. No one goes into business without running into some road blocks. What's important is that you take them as the learning opportunities that they are and apply those lessons to future projects. Which sounds like what you're already doing! It can definitely be disheartening, but don't beat yourself up too much. Keep exploring your passion!

Do you mind if I ask about the free-to-play game you're developing?