taranasus

What went right:

• Development is not as hard as you'd expect, nor is it as much of a hassle as it used to be. Technically-wise there is an insane amount of information out there on how to create a quality title, with a lot of devs sharing their story from the technical side.
• Photo-realism as a requirement is a myth. You can impress in so many different ways using even old school graphics as every 8-bit platform developer can tell you. However we went down the route of vector graphics and people really seem to enjoy the art style
• Don't be affraid to ask for stuff. You want to make a PSVR title, tweet Sony and ask them, it's really that simple. However if you do choose to do so and they reply to you, be ready to show them something high quality to back up your claims. These companies won't through opportunity at you just for asking.
• Engage your audience. So many companies don't do this and it's costing them a lot. Be kind to your supporters, learn to say thank you in public. They'll appreciate you more if you treat them like humans and not money bags. Also be kind to your critiques! A lot of them are just wanting to help, and for the ones that are just trolling you? Remember this "DON'T FEED THE TROLL". Nobody will judge you for not replying to a comment along the lines of: "Your game sucks, go get a job". It's not constructive, it's not useful to you or anyone else, just ignore it.

What went wrong:

• Our launch, jesus christ were we misinformed. So in my team there are two people and none of us have the vaguest idea on how to market and promote. We went in thinking "it's fine, we have a quality product and people will like it and promote it for us"... ha ha ha... ha.... no. Prepare yourself as making a game is maybe 30% of the battle, after you've actually developed it the really hard part begins, showing it to people. Due to the high amount of games coming out and a lot of them with publisher backing, even indies, you will have to shout as loud as you can to get noticed. Which leads me into my next point
• Start promoting early. Literally when you have your first screenshot of it working and looking good-ish, make twitter/facebook pages and start showing off to people, the more they like you and your game early on, the more they'll be willing to help. We did not do this and we're struggling to get noticed.

Where we're improving:

• So while the launch was pretty much a disaster it's not the end of the world. Steam has some tools for re-marketing your game once its launched that are free, but you better darn well don't do the same mistake again. Now that we have a slight following we can hopefully gain enough attention to boost up the exposure on steam.

• Get a booth at gaming events. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Not only do people get to try out your game but you can talk to a lot of people in the industry and gain ideas and information on what to do next to better your game in all aspects. Literally just Mingle and be kind an polite.

Also, thanks for asking, we really appreciate it!

Ok, since I don't want to actually try anything stronger than MJ, I have to go find the love of my life and then try to accidentally kill myself.

PACE OF CAKE!

I have a few answers as well :P

What engine did you use for this?

Unity 3D, currently on version 5.3.4p2. Waiting for 5.4 to be released

What tools did you use for the art?

Blender for 3D modeling. It's awkward as hell to learn, but that's a small drawback compared to the things it can do... It's just amazing. AND FREE

Paint.net for image editing. I didn't need to do anything too crazy when it comes to texturing so something lightweight and simple was awesome for the task. Through a plug-in it also opens PSD files and again, free as free can be.

If you need something more complex for image editing, GIMP which is also free but quite a challenge to master and can be clunky at times.

AudaCity is awesome for sound editing and again free as free can be

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to quit their job and do their own projects?

Quite a bit of advice:

1. Make sure you have enough money to carry you through. Be it self-funding or a loan or a publisher or a kickstarter make sure you have enough. The more you need to worry about financing the less you can worry about making a quality game

2. Start promoting early. I've said this before in here somewhere but as soon as you have a screenshot that can be shown, create the necessary social media accounts and show to people your progress. "But I wanna make games"... yeah me too bud, but people need to know of them, like them and buy them in order for you to make more games. The actual making of the game is maybe 30% of what it is to be indie.

3. Be polite, kind and responsive to your fans and critiques. Most people are good, and very very few are assholes, but the ones in the second category are extremely loud. Say thank you to those that have shown kindness, say thank you to those that have provided constructive criticism and don't say anything to the trolls, all they want to do is make you angry.

4. Criticism hurts like hell... you won't even realize how hard it can hit you sometimes. When it makes you angry, don't say anything, just walk away for 30 minutes, calm down and with a clear mind come back and read it again. Sometimes it will be right and you'll agree with it even though your initial reaction was "this guy has no idea what he's saying".

Were you unhappy before this project? How do you feel now?

Unhappy... no Can't say I was. Maybe a little unfulfilled and really annoyed at times. I don't like taking orders that don't make sense and when you're working from someone else you have to do that a lot, especially when going up the corporate ladder.

How do you feel now?

Important... fulfilled... genuinely happy. I'm actually doing what I've always wanted and it's starting to work and catching some momentum. It's one of those cases where the journey is so much more interesting than the destination. I get to talk to other developers and learn from them, I get to talk to big corporations about all sorts of business plans, I set my own schedule. It doesn't feel like a job anymore, it doesn't feel like a hobby either, it sort of transcends both and it feels real. Everything I do has a consequence and it's amazing, I feel like what I do matters!

Not gonna lie, initially I got into it because I just wanted to make games, but what I found is soo much more rewarding as an individual. Yes it has it's moments of utter depression, when something fails, doesn't go according to plan or you get written off as a nobody, but it's just part of the package. High risk, high rewards, and feels really freaking real!

"Oh dad I'm so happy you decided to dissect the queen with me, this is such a nice experience"

Oh wow. So you were the guys behind of this video.

Yup! Hi! We like Reddit a lot and spend most of our time here. It's pretty much the best way to learn about anything random of any kind (news, how to, tutorial, etc), or procrastinate and look at cats... Knowledge is power!

That maybe because i'm alone and can't do anything about design one bit.

I'll tell you a secret, neither can I. My "design skills" came out of necessity. I just picked something simple and ran with it. Trial and error until I got something I liked, aka mimicking vector graphics. If you'd put me to model anything photo-realistic i'd be combing google on "photo-realistic modeling beginner guide". There's no such thing as talent, it's just experience and practice, ask any artist and they'll tell you the same.

Can i just ask is it worth the money and time?

It's about as worth it as any other business out there really. Similarly it's as difficult as any other business out there I suppose. Currently I'm nowhere near showering in expensive cars and eating gold-infused ice cream. Beat up second-hand car, rented apartment, you know average Joe stuff. It has the potential to grow really big, but don't kid yourself that it's going to happen on its own or over-night, it takes a lot of work.

I got in it more because I love gaming and VR specifically, and wanted to take part in the "VR Revolution". I want to succeed to make my ideas and creations come to life, money is just a by-product that comes out of that, a tool and nothing more. To be completely honest with you someone telling me that they like my game is much more rewarding than the income i get from them buying it, but I do need that income to make more games so it's an interesting cycle.

Basically if someone told me "we'll take care of your living expenses and you do what you want with your life" i'd still be doing this because it's what I want to do, so to me it's really worth it.

Also which part really pushed you hard? Design? Management? Business?

Marketing... Advertising... I despise the damn thing. I hate having to go and "Show off". You're basically trying to get people to look at your game and it's probably the most challenging thing of all. You can choose between going through a publisher that does this for you but you loose a huge chunk of your income, or you self-publish which means you have to do the dirty work of asking people to look at your game.

I try to find creative ways of doing it however, fun ways so it's not all like "LOOK AT MY GAME IT'S AWESOME BUY IT NOW!!!!" like the video you linked above. While it is more effort on our part, it's also more rewarding to you guys to actually see something interesting rather than an Add on google.

Also TIL there is a job called UX engineer.

Oh it's one hell of a ride. You know all the companies that make banking apps for your phone and such? That's not the bank hiring developers, the bank hires another company that specializes in making these sort of apps. Those companies have entire teams of people hired as UX Designers, UX Engineers that all day analyse and try and find ways for you, the user, to do what you need to get done faster and with fewer clicks. Or they find ideas to make you spend more money.

I've once sat in a 2 hour UX meeting discussing if the facebook button should have a blue background or not. Saying it like that sounds stupid but after doing what's called an A/B Test we saw that the facebook button with a blue background had a 22% higher click-rate than the one with a white background.

Welcome to 2016 where everything is analyzed to the extreme.

EDIT: I used to be a Web Solutions Architect before this.