We are Super Bounce Games, a two man indie game studio formed at the start of lockdown. AMA about game design, company formation, live ops, or anything else on your mind!

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The lockdown was definitely the impetus behind really buckling down and taking the chance. We've been lifelong friends and gamers (our studio name is based off of super bouncing in Halo 2) and had always talked about making a studio and games together, and having so much more time stuck at home was the opportunity!

They are very different! As a programmer, definitely the biggest difference is iteration. PC games you can iterate right in the engine editor (we used unity). Mobile games you can do that, but still need to build to device to test everything. But for VR (we're targeting Quest specifically) you have to make the build, push it to the headset, put the headset on, move to an open area. It's a lot!

I’ve developed games (though not specifically for vr). Do you do this every iteration? I usually start by making some form of pc controls, building at least an MVP, and then start making target system controls and testing that way. Do you start by immediately testing on target system and not testing any other way? I feel like that process could be improved

Definitely not every iteration! You predicted it perfectly, we built out the original MVP as PC only and only iterate with the headset when absolutely necessary. Unity handles the same and we created a tool to simulate VR interaction for our menus so we can mostly avoid it. However we've recently been working on getting the IK of the character models to work right in VR which requires us to test in the headset so it's been on my mind!

Oh okay! You scared me with the thought of having to build each time.

I use unity as well! Cheers, and good luck to yall

Thanks so much!

Hey, i just wanted to say, as someone who is trying to get a foothold on the skills needed to make a 1 man game in unity, and make it be good... I think you guys are awesome. I know how much work goes into it.

That being said, do you guys take game ideas? :D

There's a game the world needs, and I don't have the ability to ever make it and I just want it to get made, I don't care who makes the money off of it. It was my favorite game and it needs a VR sequel.

DeaThrow for the original xbox was the future of gaming, it just didn't know it yet, and now they're defunct and it's dead.

It didn't have online play, the camera got bad sometimes, but the controls were beautiful and it was unbelievably fun.

It's like... if ultimate frisbee was prison football.. quidditch, with the ability to level up your team and pick their attributes, and the option to just beat the shit out of the other team and murder them instead of scoring points to win.

It's basically what Grifball wishes it was, but as a standalone game in a weird Cyberpunk universe with robots and cyborgs.

It had terrible marketing, everyone thought it was a fighting game and nobody ever really played it. I even reached out to Kevin Pereira once to see if he could prod some people into making a sequel and he said it was one of his favorite games but he didn't see any way it could ever get a true sequel.

That's super cool! Hadn't heard of it, used to love grifball though

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A super fun bug though!

Thanks for the thorough answer!! As a huge halo fan myself, which super bounce was your favorite? What about which game/maps?

Wow I hadn't even thought about having to put the headset on over and over every time you try something, sounds brutal 😬

Probably the only one I was able to consistently hit which is the one on lockout outside the BR tower!

As for game, definitely Halo 2. That was the dawn of the golden age of xbox live. And, of course, lockout as the favorite map!

It's definitely not the best! Hopefully it'll be worth it in the end though :)

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Thanks so much for trying it out!

I wish! We licensed the music from a third party, but I agree they did an amazing job with it.

We've just always loved retro arcade aesthetics and thought it would be a great fit for a super simple arcade feeling game. Super happy to hear you liked the theme as well! :)

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Sorry to hear about your friend's ACL but very happy to hear our game is at least helping distract him!

So far all the top players we've discussed strategies with all hold the phone in one hand and tap the boosts with their dominant hand's index finger. We personally always played using both thumbs but it's clearly working for them!

Outside of that, maintaining a high combo and a low reaction time are super key, but better to react slowly than break your combo!

It's definitely on our radar! So glad to hear you liked the second track too!

That's really cool that you talk to the high score people to see how they're breaking your game ;)

Yeah Fluplup is pretty active on our discord, we never foresaw scores anywhere near what people are getting in the first week it's been pretty surreal!

We licensed the music from a third party

Who?

We used Hyperbit Arsenal and Ultimate Retro Audio Asset Pack on the unity asset store! Highly recommend both

What are some web sites, resources, or youtube channels you recommend that helped you guys in making your games?

Great question!

For unity tutorials Brackeys is a great source as well as unity's Learn Hub.

Those are probably the biggest ones, I'd recommend following through their starter tutorials and then improving upon them to learn how to build more stuff!

Feel free to message us after the AMA as well if you have any questions about game dev or programming, we'd be happy to help. The world can always use more games! :)

I had no idea tutorials like this existed. Thank you so much for sharing, I just learned a lot in 20 minutes.

Yeah they're amazing! Sad that Brackeys has retired from the youtube game, but there's still so much there on his account

Hold up. How does a dev with 2 followers on twitter and only 500 downloads on their game get this many upvotes in just two hours? Comments in this thread barely go over a few upvotes themselves. Seems like you paid for bots or something

We started it in the middle of the day on a thursday with no other active AMAs, looks like there's only one other live AMA right now. I think we just got lucky in the timing of having minimal other AMA competition as well as (hopefully) having an interesting topic as reddit loves video games. I've made sure to respond to every single question so people are probably also noticing it's a very active AMA or maybe they just want to support the little guy.

/shrug

EDIT: oh also the display for downloads on the play store/app store lag behind at least a day on the actual numbers, we're currently in the low thousands in total across both stores!

What do you think is the most underappreciated game out there?

Great (and difficult) question!

I really like the Mount and Blade series, it's somewhat popular but pretty under the radar and is quite something when it works together despite its flaws.

I also think that Halo: ODST was a really cool experiment in the Halo series that was definitely under appreciated .

What about you?

Haha yeah sorry, didnt want to put you on the spot! But i always look for new games. You obviously would have a lot of experience so thats nice.

I liked Destroy All Humans very much on the orginal Xbox. I think Slay the Spire and Divinity Original sin II do get some attention but should get waaaay more. Spirit Farer is very wholesome and sweet.

Lastly i think Undertale should be more then a cult game. I don't think i got very exciting picks but i hope someone reads this and gets to enjoy some gems :).

Good luck with your games in the future and thanks for the AMA.

No need to apologize it was a great question!

I love your answers as well, especially the Divinity Original Sin games!

We definitely need more wholesome and sweet games, I'd mention Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley but those are obviously famous hits

Howdy. I think Reflexr is pretty legit! Well made, and awesome quirky vibes from it. I subbed to your channel and hope to see Super Bounce Games blow up in popularity, sincerely.

Do you have an idea of what you want to create next?

That's so kind of you, thank you so much! Made our day <3

Our next project is a PC/VR dueling game called Wild West Showdown!

Awesome, I'm definitely gonna keep an eye out. Thanks for the response, and hope you(or y'all) have a great day/night!

Thank you so much!

Halo player here. Did you get the name for the company from the old "Super Bounce" glitches in Halo 2? If not, where did the name come from?

That's absolutely where it came from! We both grew up on the halo series and spend many many hours playing halo 2 and practicing super bounces. Good catch!

How easy is it REALLY to just up and create games?

I have a friend who tells me I should be a standup comedian, and then he says I should do Twitch streaming of me playing games, then he says I should make app games.

1) I'm not really that funny.

2) I am terrible at playing pretty much ALL the games.

3) I don't know shit about coding for computers.

So is it really just easy enough to throw together a successful game having literally zero talent?

You seem pretty funny to me!

I'd say that without experience programming or designing games it will definitely NOT be easy, but everyone has to start somewhere!

There's also the possibility that your friend is just in love with you, have you considered that? ;)

Do you happen to have any mobile games. Particularly, iOS games?

Your iOS game, as requested Master Wizard

How much debt are you in?

Not too much, the biggest costs are our servers and licensing and a computer but we're definitely still in the red currently :O

Do you plan on releasing all your games on Steam?

Reflexr is a mobile game but Wild West Showdown and all future PC games are planned for steam!

Is there anything specific about Reflexr that would prevent it from being ported?

Not in a literal sense, it does have a very mobile centric aspect ratio that would feel odd on PC but I guess it could be done, hadn't considered that!

Hi Super,

I’m a big fan.

When can we expect the next Mario Brothers game and will it include Bowser? He’s my favorite of your characters. I also like the giant ball and chain that barks.

The name is actually Mr. Games, and we're still in negotiations with nintendo over signing over the rights to the mario cinematic universe. Stay tuned!

Mario Cinematic Universe... MCU 2: Electric Boogaloo?

Marvel won't stand a chance!

I've attempted to make games on my own before off and on, and I have to say it's difficult and time consuming. How did the pandemic finally push you and your friend into making the leap to making it a full time job?

Not being able to really do much but be inside on our computers definitely had a huge impact haha, figured we might as well give it a shot!

Hey guys. I've recently started working on an infinite runner/vaccine game that i am planning to release to the play store and app store. I was just wondering what is your monetization strategy with this app? Are you using ads or in app purchases or a mix of both?

We have a combination of both. We wanted to make sure that nothing in game was gated by purchases though, so there's only one in game currency that you get from playing. The only thing that requires a purchase is removing of ads which is 99c to 1.99

Do you have no shame in basically trying to hide your advertising campaign as an AMA?

Edit: Well, now I feel like a dick.

I make no claims that this isn't also for publicity, but if almost every single AMA is to promote or raise awareness for something, that's what motivates people to come in. I've made sure to answer every question thoroughly and honestly and a lot of good discussion has come of this. But I understand it's not for everyone!

Wow...uh...I feel bad for dunking on you now.

Um...sorry.

No worries! It takes a lot to be able to apologize on the internet, you're a better man than most!

Hi there. My name's Noah and i'm a games design student in the UK. When looking at this past production, what is the biggest mistake or error in judgement you guys made that makes you wish you could go back in time and tell yourself to not make it again?

Biggest mistake was probably a lack of organization and planning, we really could've benefited with a more clearly defined design document and a breakdown of all features and tasks from the beginning. We ended up wasting time on poorly planned features or duplicating work or misunderstandings between client/server expectations.

Thank you for the response! I can definitely understand from experience how important planning can be, and even if you didn't give this as advice, I will definitely take it as that haha!

Best of luck in future productions!

Thank you so much!

If I know absolutely nothing about coding, how long until I'm able to publish something like this on my own?

You could make the essentials of Reflexr pretty quickly without a lot of experience in a game engine like unity or unreal. Some of our extra stuff like integrating client server and save states and a store would definitely complicate things but the core gameplay is very simple!

As one of our players described it, it's whack a mole but some of the moles are bad and some slow time.

Do you have a plan of expanding your studio or do you want to remain indie developers in the future?

Great question! That really depends on how our first few forays into the markets go. A huge part of this was wanting to have our own control over our own games so I don't foresee ever giving that up for a publisher.

What was it like getting started as a two-man company? Did you get/work with a lawyer, or figure out the company formation stuff yourself? I'd love to start an indie studio and make some games, but honestly the scariest thing about it to me would be figuring out the legal and financial side of things!

First off love your username and also great question!

We used an online service (ala legalzoom, zenbusiness). We formed an LLC partnership which is much simpler from a legal standpoint than forming a corporation with stock and a board and executives.

Once we had the LLC made (was just a bit of paperwork and like $100), we opened a company bank account and filed all the tax stuff with our state. Connected our Apple/Google developer accounts to that information and that was pretty much it!

It was a bit tedious and you have to wait for all the bureaucracy to verify things but not too bad all things considered.

I'd definitely say go for it! Probably even simpler as a one person operation, and it can save you with taxes or legal liabilities.

I just finished a webdev bootcamp. What language should I learn next as I look for jobs?

If you're looking for jobs as a game programmer, the vast majority are c++ or c# with some being js! So I'd recommend one of those, the c# ones will almost all be using Unity Engine so that's also a good place to start learning! Check out Unity Learn

What sort of skill level/experience do you need to get started in the video game design industry? I have experience programming and I've made a couple of games before which, while playable, are not publishable. Overall this taught me that game programming is something I'd certanily enjoy, but I'm concerned that everyone I'd be competing with is already amazing at it and has published titles etc... or are the requirements just competency and enthusiasm?

Going through the full process of polishing and publishing a game is very key, I'd say try to fix up some of those games and get them into a publishable state. Don't have to make a lot of money or get a lot of downloads, it'll still look great on your resume!

I started learning Unity/C# about a month ago a couple days a week. Any advice for a beginner as far as the order I should try to tackle learning? I’ve been running through the tutorial projects that you can download for the complete basics so far.

Check out https://learn.unity.com and Brackeys on youtube

It’s interesting that games like “among us” have skyrocketed to success despite them not following the formula of “addictiveness” that other games like ark survival follow. These formulas require you to grind for hours on end in order to make progress, however, this game is more of a “5 minutes of fun” style game that has had regular stoppage points and is better for people like me who only want to spend an hour a day gaming.

Which route of gaming does super bounce games plan to take?

Definitely the latter. A single round of Reflexr takes 30 seconds to 3 minutes on average and there's no overarching story or character to grind, just the leaderboard!

I saw one of your game trailers but can't find it on Youtube now. Can you link it?

Ah yeah our youtube is super small so it doesn't really show up on any searches unless you enter the exact right words :(.

A few of them have been posted in our post history, you but here's a direct link as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8V-Pc9onMw

What were you doing as your day job before this?

How many man hours went into making your mobile game?

I'm a software developer as well and have been toying with the idea of trying to generate a bit of side income.

Between the two of us we've covered all sorts of day jobs from game designer to game programmer to cloud engineer, so we had a lot of the necessary skillsets going into it.

As for man hours that's a very hard question, I really wish we had been tracking that from the beginning. One of the jobs we did NOT have before this was any sort of producer or manager role so we were a little disorganized. But we've been working fairly steadily on it for many months.

I'd say go for it! I'd recommend finding a super simple mechanic that feels fun and building just enough infrastructure around it to be engaging and feel rewarding.

Thanks for the response, sounds like good advice for the mechanics of the game.

No problem! I'd also recommend avoiding anything using complex multiplayer or a lot of server data as that can increase complications and operating costs a lot.

Haha yeah, in addition to being a software dev I also wear the devops hat, I've seen the bills for just dev hosting....

Although to be fair designing a multiplayer game sounds more interesting....

Hahaha right? That's always the struggle, it's a lot easier to create a simple game if it's built around multiplayer but when it's just single player it usually has to be arcade/puzzle or a really high budget story based game

Is it difficult to develop games if you're not a designer, or is this easier to do now? I love the code, but don't enjoy the design side of things.

Are there any resources or websites you'd recommend to find designers or others who could help with this?

Do you know of any communities for indie gamers that make it easy to find others to make games with?

I actually got my degree in computer science with an emphasis in game design so I love the design part too!

I think Game Maker's Toolkit on youtube is a great resource for learning design principles

/r/unity3d and /r/gamedev are great!

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Great question!

The client is built in the unity engine entirely in C# and our server is node.js

Best part is definitely interacting with players and helping people with their love of making games. We've gotten a lot of messages and PMs from young people asking for advice on getting into the industry, as well as a few dedicated players on our discord posting high scores and making suggestions for the game.

We recently added a feature suggested by one of our top players and he was super excited when he discovered it in game which was an amazing feeling!

Out of curiosity, why use node in the backend as opposed to asp if the client is C#? Do you use js or ts?

Mostly because that was what we had the most experience with, but it's also very fast and efficient for our game where we wanted to make sure that long response times weren't going to hurt our users.

We're also using express/node.js because there's a lot of great libraries out there to setup the api infrastructure that we need. Also, node.js is asynchronous which enables it to address multiple requests simultaneously without blocking them. And finally node.js plays well into our website for future development too.

Here's a diagram in this article that shows the main differences: https://www.esparkinfo.com/node-js-vs-asp-net.html

Not to answer for the developer, he might have different reasons. But Node is one of the fastest and most efficient concurrent connection frameworks which makes it great for games.

Node is faster than a lot of competing frameworks, but it's quite a bit slower than asp in my experience. Not enough to have a major impact for a web app most of the time, but slower nonetheless.

The one benefit of node imo is that it is faster for rapid prototyping, but the cost of that is maintainability (assuming you're using js - ts is much better if you strictly use static typing).

That being said, both are fine frameworks and ultimately the best choice for you is what you're comfortable with. Was mostly asking because if your client code is in C#, there's a lot of benefit to being able to share common code and data models directly between the backend and frontend code. You can always use something like protobuf ofc, but it's simpler to not have to do that.

It's faster for smaller requests that come in from lots of concurrent connections, Node is not as good at heavy lifting as ASP. But when it comes to smaller size packets of information and concurrency it is faster. As far as I know at least, I could always be wrong.

Edit: Also your argument for it being better compatible with C# is interesting. I too would like to know why the developer went for Node now.

Answered in this comment but we hadn't really considered compatibility with c#. We don't have super complex data going back and forth, it's all pretty easy to serialize between the two so it hasn't come up as an issue yet, but that's a very good callout that we'll do more research into

I've got some experience in programming but no idea with fake design and game programming. Where should I start?

I've got an idea for a game, should I jump straight in or should I start small, make something simple. Then increase complexity?

Depends a lot on what the idea is!

If you're really excited about the idea, I'd say try to distill it down as much as possible to the core of what makes it fun and then start there. Simple art styles that don't require lots of assets and animations. Unity has a lot of starter game examples but those can be a bit overwhelming if you're just starting out.

Depending on your programming level start trying to make it work with placeholder art and effects, there are a lot of unity tutorials on youtube and unity's learn site that can help.

If you have any questions even after the AMA feel free to message us! Would be more than happy to help

Thank you for the offer, greatly appreciated :)

The game is a side scrolling zombie survival game. It's set in a apartment block, gameplay mostly revolving around sneaking, setting traps and going from apartment to apartment getting food.

I think it should be relatively easy to get the major mechanics working (sneaking, hitting zombies) but getting the zombies to be smart but dumb enough to be fun is tricky.

Thanks for the help!

That sounds like a good idea! We believe in you!

Hey guys, what are some key steps and investments along with beginning moves to start your own company?

First step was forming an LLC and then getting all our company email/accounts and whatnot set up. No investments though :O

Hey SuperBounceGames, I am hoping I am catching you in time. Your AMA is coming at exactly the right moment for me. I am going to school for game development and whatnot, learning the basics so far (mainly just coding stuff, getting familiar with illustrator/photoshop, etc). I think a big thing for me is I want to start off simple, and create a point and click adventure/stealth game. I am planning on using simple art and the like, and I am basically going to be solo for a while.

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I have a few questions, but please feel free to answer whatever you choose (you don't have to do all of them.)

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1) in terms of learning a beginner friendly engine, would you recommend gamemaker or unity? Specifically, for genres such as metroidvanias, adventure, etc.

2) starting off, would it make more sense to learn vector art, or 3d? It would seem like pixel art has a high barrier of entry but I really don't know.

3) Since I am learning art for the first time, what are some tips you have for AI or Photoshop if you use those, or have familiarity with them.

4) honestly, how are you both doing with the covid stuff? Are ya'll staying safe and healthy?

So glad to hear that!

Point and click is a great place to start!

1) I think both are good choices, but I'd go with Unity. Although game maker can start off easier, you quickly hit a wall whereas with unity you can make basically whatever you want with however complicated you want

2) I think 2D is FAR FAR easier than 3D so I'd definitely start with that. There are many free art packs on the unity asset store to get you started

3) I used a lot of photoshop for the icons and other UI assets. I purposefully also chose an art style that was simple and blocky so I didn't need to do anything fancy.

4) We're pretty good, a good part of staying inside focusing on the game is we've had very little risky contact. Thank you so much for asking, very kind of you!!

Thanks for the response!

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Yeah from my own research it would seem that Unity edges out the competition quite a bit. I think I considered game maker primarily because simple stuff I am familiar with was made on that platform, and I heard it held in high regard. But Unity "does" make sense. Did hardware ever become an issue for you development wise?

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I will look more into the 2d graphic tutorials, thank you so much!

Hardware was a bit of an issue because as a tiny studio we don't have access to a million different phones to test on, so there have been some issues isolated to specific phones that we missed because of that.

No problem, thanks for the great questions!

Not sure if you'll see this, but if you do, hello!

For the question, what was the eureka moment with your friend to make games? I'm a CS major myself, always having been interested in making games from a young age, but at the moment I lack the motivation and skills as of now.

Lastly, what was your Gandalf? The factor that kept you going to complete your game.

Thank you! Hope all stays well!

We've always been hugely into gaming so it was kind of a no brainer for us.

The factor that kept us going was it was a huge distraction and focus during lockdown

Thank you so much!

Ah, I see. I was asking more about how it came up in conversation, and how you finalized the decision; any legal documents/process to establish the partnership or just word of mouth. But I guess it might have always been on both of your minds.

Thank you for the response!

We'd always sort of floated the idea since we were young, so when lockdown happened we were just like "I guess we're really doing this!". We did legally create our company, Super Bounce Games, LLC is official. Wasn't that hard but was a bit of paperwork and waiting.

Thanks for the question!

How was your experience working in the gaming industry? Did you have to do a lot of overtime? Were you treated well?

What was the best company you worked for, and why?

I worked primarily in live ops on mobile games so there wasn't much crunch, but there were times where something breaks on prod and it's all hands on deck to fix

I can't say specifics about companies, but if you're worried about crunch I'd suggest mobile game companies!

What programming languages did you use? What all do you know?

C# for the client in unity and javascript for the server! I'm also familiar with c++ and PHP but those were not used here

Lol do you hate PHP as much as everyone else seems to?

Been looking into learning C#

I know javascript, HTML and CSS and wanted to get more into game design... would you recommend learning C# or something else?

It was one of the first languages I ever learned so didn't have much to compare against!

I'd definitely recommend c# if you're getting into game programming as it's what Unity uses. The other main game programming language is c++

Thanks for doing this AMA! My friend and I are in a similar position --- we started making games at the beginning of the lockdown and are nearing publishing our first! Also a mobile title.. We also plan to move to the PC market afterwards.

I'd love to know what led you guys to self publish on the mobile market? Especially with a casual game. It seems that it's excruciatingly hard to get noticed without a moderate marketing budget.

How has the game been received so far? (It looks great!)

That looks really cool, I really like your studio name as w ell!

It's definitely been hard getting noticed, without a marketing budget at all we've relied entirely on reddit so far. The hope is we get enough initial users that like it and tell their friends and we can start generating some revenue to begin buying ads.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive so far, but I wish more people would actually translate that into reviews on the app stores. We're still doing well (4.4 and 4.8) but we have almost two thousand users and only like 20 reviews so most people just don't review it. We have prompts in game but they don't seem to be super effective.

What helped you guys start it up? What were some of the challenges you guys faced getting started?

We had a lot of experience with games and programming and had always been into games so the lockdown gave us the time and opportunity to really focus on it

How'd you plan out and design your game? Like, how did you start with something fun and build on it? How did you do prototyping and like...manage everything? I have a few fun ideas for an accounting game but I just don't know where to start on it.

It started planned around the original Reflexr I made years ago that people seemed to like, so we wanted to build it out and really polish it into something real

So how do you even start a company?

We used zen business to form an LLC

I have asd which means I hate meeting new people. To that end I don't want to disappoint new people. I want to work on games but not shitty dime-a-dozen indie games that are just copies. I want to work on indie games that push against AAA titles but nobody (in Australia) seems to be wanting to do that.

But I have run out of contacts which would mean it's time to make some more but I'm worried that I'll let them down. I'm a designer, writer and playtester and I feel I do those extremely well, but they're also jobs that 'anyone' can do.

I am in the middle of making a game with my brother and that was working out until he ran out of time to work on it. How am I suppose to convince people to run with me on a project that isn't short, has ambition, isn't funded and by all accounts it might look like I'm not pulling my weight??

That's definitely a tall order!! Sounds like you'll have to take it on mostly yourself, but if it's complete enough that you could make a trailer for it you might be able to get others excited

What is the hardest part of making a game?

Organizing and planning and bug finding were the hardest for us. We're programmers and designers but without a project manager or a QA team we really struggled in those areas

Are you a masochist or why did you decide to create a game for mobile?

HA fair point, especially releasing for iOS has been very painful. But we thought it was a good starting point

Just installed your game. Outstanding design. Extremely clunky registration and login approach. Why did you guys opt to not use Google or social media APKs for logins? I would have uninstalled this game immediately upon being told I had to go to my email to verify my account.

I decided to keep it because you guys are independent and I like the look. ✌️

Yes that has been far and away the most common complaint. We feared that a social media login, especially facebook, would be even worse and expose player data to megacorps that we didn't want to compromise on.

As for the verification, it is unfortunately required because without it someone could sign up with someone else's email.

We also made sure that there is an option to play entirely without an account for those totally uninterested in the features that come with the account.

I appreciate you giving it a second chance!

I graduate from school next December, but I am at a loss for what to do next. How does one either get into the industry by either: A: getting hired by a lreexisting studio Or B: funding their own indie studio?

Building your own personal projects goes a long way, can really give you a leg up vs other new grads

Why did you decide to start a company during the crisis when many are literally dying? Looks like the worst time to have a business

I mean that’s great for you and I wish you the best, but why during the crisis?

It's definitely risky, our main thought was we're stuck inside on our computers, might as well build something and try to follow our dreams!

Would you be interested in a social media manager?

Not currently as we don't have the following or the budget for that, but if you email [email protected] we'll keep you in mind!

What served as your biggest inspiration in the industry?

Probably Bungie back in the day with Halo, our studio is named after super bouncing!

If my rich uncle wanted to produce a successful game, how much money would he need and how long would it take? What would be the safest bet in terms of niche?

Thanks.

That's a very hard question! Some games like among us make millions with barely any budget, some games with millions behind them crash and burn so it really depends. Also depends a lot on the type of game you want to make! AAA story based open world games with complex environments and characters and voice acting are definitely the most expensive

Hi there! I have „developed“ an incremental mobile game. It is completely fleshed out, but only on paper (or in this case excel) cause I can’t code. And while this is not the typical 10-year-old-designs-the-perfect-snow-fort-he’ll-never-build issue (I have successfully co-founded a large Webdesign company) I still don’t know the best way to move forward. Sure, I could set up a company and just hire people to make the game, but as someone who wouldn’t be able to actually know whether people are doing a good job, that’s extremely high-risk. Do you have any tips?

Incremental games are usually simple enough in mechanics that you could probably do it yourself with a bit of training in coding in a game engine like unity!

GCC or Clang?

Not familiar with those, we used unity engine!

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Definitely not in our budget currently but hopefully that changes in the future!!

What language or game engine do you reccomend learning as an intermediate coder but beginner game dev?

Definitely unity engine and c#. There's a million resources for learning with them, check out Brackeys on YouTube or https://learn.unity.com

My daughter (14yrs old) wants to be in game design. What advice do you have for a teen who wants to head in that direction for a career?

That's awesome to hear! I'd recommend she tries out game maker or unity and starts designing and building super simple games to get a feel for it. Also check out Game Makers Toolkit on YouTube, it's an amazing resource for behind the scenes game design

Are you guys hiring? I'm a visual development artist. I can pm you my portfolio if you're interested.

Unfortunately we don't have the budget for hiring currently, but if you email [email protected] we'll keep you in mind!

I got started with unity, but I ran into a lot of problems. I only knew basics from tutorials, and fixes in the internet were too complicated or didn't work. I also couldn't make my own characters and animate them.

Any tips about this?

Definitely start super small, 3D is a lot harder so start with simple 2D games to learn the engine. There are a lot of build a game from start to finish tutorials so I'd recommend trying one of those!

Hi, thanks for the AMA

I'm on a two person team that published a game on switch this september through a small publishing and we are also planning to release on other console

Problem is that even thought the game player reception and reviews are good it isnt getting coverage and is falling under the radar

How would you suggest to promote a game? Wich channel do you use? Any site or reviewers who would be a good place to send keys?

Thank you for your time and I wish you luck on your projects!

We've also really struggled with the marketing aspect of it with very little budget. We've relied on posts like this, as long as you're earnest and kind to people reddit is a great resource

Hi, I'm probably too late, but I'm studying for my bachelor's in game design and have a question!

So I'm at the phase in my education where I can build solid games on a few different platforms, but I don't have any skills in online development. As in, I can't make store pages or leaderboards or multiplayer.

1. Is it worth putting an app up with no online connectivity? I feel like EVERY app out there has some

1. How can I go about learning online development by myself aside from my education?

Edit: idk why both say 1., it says 2. in the textbox.

1) I think so! If you can make it fun enough people will play it without online, but for example with Reflexr we felt a key reason to keep playing was climbing the leaderboard so we needed it

2) Check out https://learn.unity.com or Brackeys on youtube!

Is the unity multiplayer tutorial still practical to use? I was clicking around unity online and it said that they're phasing out their online features?

Yeah they've been pretty unclear on that. We personally used photon multiplayer on our Wild West Showdown game.

Is your name derived from super jumping/bouncing in Halo 2?

It is! Well spotted, glad to find a fellow halo fan

Hey superbounce,

Your new game is dope! Enjoying it so far. Really starts getting hard after 1k points.

How did you decide on moving forward with this specific idea for a mobile game? And how many other ideas were tossed around before you committed fully? Just curious about the development process in general I guess.

I had made the original Reflexr around 6 years ago and it was surprisingly well received so we figured it would be a good first game since we knew people had enjoyed the mechanic!

Cool! Do you have a screenshot of the OG reflexr? And how is reflexr reloaded different from the original?

This is the OG Reflexr! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.splosiongames.reflexr

Do you have any tips for anyone who’s thinking about making a startup?

Form an LLC, was much simpler than a corporation!

Can you develop games without studying game development or programing?

Absolutely! Check out game maker or unity engine, and resources like Brackeys on YouTube or https://learn.unity.com

How does one break out into game development and is there any advice you could give to someone who wants to get into the industry?

Having a portfolio of projects is huge, generally equally or more important than a relevant degree! Start small and build a few solo games to get that experience!

Thank you so much for your response! Definitely trying to build a portfolio but it can be difficult working on things, working 40 hrs a week, and teaching yourself. Any ways of coping?

Very true, I think the key is finding a project you actually enjoy so instead of feeling like a chore you have to do after work, it feels like a fun hobby

In the world of web development, most communication is done over HTTP. how do you prefer to connect games to the server? via an HTTP connection or via tcp/ip?

Our game doesn't have any live connections, just intermittent REST API calls to manage online save data and leaderboards and whatnot so that's all just https POST/GET etc requests to our API. I'm not super familiar with web dev so I hope that answers your question?

Yup, pretty much most web backends are just a series of api endpoints that let you perform POST, GET, PATCH and DELETE requests on some resource, so that's pretty much it, if you guys need any help with that end of things hit me up ;)

And good luck btw, I'm definitely downloading Reflexr, I love rhythm games.

Thank you so much!

Do you have ads every 30 seconds like every mobile game now? Edit: yup it does... What is it with mobile game devs putting in so many damn ads. No thanks, any game that has that much ads is an instant uninstall.

We only have one ad after a round, there are no surprise popup ads and no repeat ads. Just the one after a round.

Mobile devs put ads in because we spent a lot of time building this game and need to make money to be able to operate it.

We have far less ads than the average hypercasual and ads can be removed for 99c.

I'm sorry it's too much for you, I hope you find the game you're looking for!

Email needed for a phone game? Nope

It's not needed, there's a large text area saying "tap here to play without an account".

It's just for those who want to save their data on the leaderboard or compare stats with their friends.

All gameplay is available without an account!