Overhype_Paul

This is a tricky one. For me personally the thing is, that even though AAA games get more and more production value there are less and less games that really catch my interest. The movement of Indie Game Developers is a good alternative, because they tend to make the games they want to play themselves, not the games they "think" will sell good. So you get a lot more game variety nowadays. On a side note with Indie Games there's often the problem of an extreme lack of production resources, so it's dificult to make something deep and complex.

If I have to name only one: The original Xcom - UFO Defense. Best game ever :)

We started with an extremely long idea/concepting phase. The whole idea grew and grew until we got a concrete vision about what kind of game we exactly wanted to make.

The next step was to find a good team of motivated people who really commit and don't jump off after a month or two (extremely difficult).

We started the whole thing just for fun as a hobby project and to prove ourselves that we were able to create at least a very simple and fun (!) prototype, before anyone of us really financially commits.

After that we started looking for friends and family funding to get some of us working full time on the project.

And then we just took it from milestone to milestone. Prototype-combat demo-website&blog-steam greenlight and hopefully soon early access.

I think going to conventions is awesome and the networking and promotion there can help you a lot. Getting to meet other game devs and fans in person is great.

But there are some limitations. Your game has to be in an advanced phase of development, so you really have something to show to the people. The second thing is that you need to be able to spend the money and time on it :) Sometimes you are so thin on budget, that you just can't afford going. Or you don't have enough days of vacation or whatever.

It all started with making custom adventures for the boardgame Hero Quest. Later I always had issues with some aspects of the games I bought, so I began rewriting the rules and eventually creating my own boardgames and Pen&Paper systems. After waiting for years for someone to finally make a medieval/Fantasy Xcom it dawned on me that I would have to do it myself or I'd never see a game like that :)