So you're doing an independent game! Congratulations! You have entered the world of grief and worry, but also a lot of pain! No matter what you are doing, and no matter what the genre it is, you have already been asked at least once, “Is it another balatro?” It just makes you look in the mirror every night while you see less in your reflection. It is incredibly difficult to make an independent game. You may have creative freedom, but you are less and you are trying to please the audience that is often narrower than the demography Triple-A Games.
And unfortunately for you, some people who will play your games are like me: complete idiots. Not to boast, but I'm the stupidest person I know. This means I don't have many friends, so I suppose there must be much more to set the rod even lower. And I'm the one who will play your game. Sure, some intelligent people will be. Some people who understand how the world works. They're great, I'm sure. They may probably operate motor vehicles and do not cry during emotionally manipulative parts of the episodes of law and order. Although not me!
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If you want your independent game to succeed, there is a chance that you have to appeal to Moron. You could probably also succeed by doing something great and/or nice to watch someone else playing on the stream. Quality work, obviously. However, quality requires time, happiness and money. So why not to increase your sales to appeal to people like me, who would slip into a banana bark if they didn't eat it with the rest of the banana first?
Make it short but long but small but small but endless
Every independent game should be easy for me to finish in two hours, so I can have a bad opinion online. However, it should also take two thousand hours. After I beat the game, a new game should start, but it should not be harder than the original game. And the original end of the game I got after two hours should be the ending canon. Wait! No! Based on my possibilities, there should be more end and the game should tell me when I decide, and also tell me what end I get on the basis of these options, but I still surprise me.
I should be able to achieve the best possible end by clicking on the right choice within 15 minutes of playing or after 300 hours in the new PLUS game. There is no middle soil. I should be able to play this game for the rest of my life while complaining that there is nothing to do after the first few hours. And anything I say is that the canon must be a canon and must change other games to fit it for me, so I don't feel frightened in the immenseness of human experience.
Let me build a package even if it does not do it
As a child, when I was hungry, I swallowed the air as if it did anything. Believe me, when I tell me someone as stupid as I wouldn't have noticed if your game on board had no deck mechanics. After defeating a story or level or complete, such as a musical task or anything, your game should allow blockheads like me to add a card. Just put three random cards.
O! I know! Make them Tarot Cards! Tarot cards are great for games because they are a bit abstract, they look great, and most people have no idea what they even mean, so you can think of something while basically don't do anything. It has been working for decades, indeed one of the longest game heritage. Just let me add a tarot card from the selection of three and don't tell me what it does, because, let's be honest, it couldn't do anything and I would feel the same dopamin rush.
Puzzles that look deceptively hard but are just wooden blocks for adults
The problem with games like the Blue Prince is that the puzzles look easy, but they are deceptively hard. Blue Prince is amazing if you are intelligent and inquisitive. Terrible if your brain is made of cotton balls and nasty disappointment. The puzzles in independent games for people like me should be basically wooden blocks for adults.
Oh, you can set it in a laboratory with lots of beaker and test pipes and computer screens. But let me click on the shape of the triangle and then click on the triangle hole and then tap your back when it makes a happy sound. Maybe even the narrator embodies, as I'm fine to achieve it. “You really did this puzzle. I'm proud of you. I love you.” It would fix me.
No microtlers, only small auxiliary fees to do absolutely anything
Until now, you can think that I am imbecile makes your work more difficult. And yes! Because if you did a chart of every person's intelligence, well, I don't know – I think I would probably not do a good job when this chart read. How are you baba, I'm stupid. So there are some good news: you can completely seal me with microtransactions by just telling them something cute, such as “content of support”.
I did not return anything but I can pay for it and I will not know the difference! Or create a DLC that basically unlocks the game itself. “You paid for the game but you paid for playing real game?' I'd fall so fast. I would fall so hard that the police would have to prevent viewers from photographing the results. Oh, just ten dollars for other music? Why, yes, Mrs. Wallet Inspector, you can have my wallet. Right, the inspectors of the wallet can now be women. You may get off the bubble.
A story where it is good and bad is clearly defined and nothing that bothers me
Enough with stories about love and loss. Show me a story about guys who are angry with another guy and kill him. But he kills him because the bad man first killed a good guy. And the police officer gives his thumbs up and screams “no guilty!” Done. That's all I need for my game.
I don't want to know about the human condition. I do not want to find something deeper within myself by exploring the experiences of the characters that have been abstained through my own control of their fate. I don't want a tragic love or conflict between two friends who have been far away. And I don't want anything that bothered me. I will never tell you what bothers me, but when I see it, I will do very long videos on YouTube. So leave it! Like the worst guest in the world that stays in your home, I say, “I'm fine” until I lose my mind and destroy the place.
No one else can play the game differently than me
Despite the fact that my intelligence is at the same level as the empty box of VHS for Bedknobs & Broomsticks, I tend to be the best video game player on the ground. There is no evidence of the other other than the beat of games that other people beat, but here we are, with me a champion. And while many successful independent games give players several ways to solve their problems, I don't like it. Because it means other people have a better problem solution than I do. Or just think about problems in other ways, which is gross. It breaks the reality of the world.
Every solution of each puzzle should be the same, but still easy. And if there is a gap or speed or better way, it should be paid. I don't want the game to be good for anyone besides me, but I also want everyone to love it and tell me how great it is and how good I'm morally for being good. If I find that this is a solution that I missed, I will make a back -back reverse reckome reempt on my credit card.
The subtitles that remind me of who the character is and why I care
I don't mean a diary or lore protocol as in Final Fantasy 16. I want every conversation to include pop -up discoveries that explain who is the character where I am, who I am, and why my character is up right now. And also if it is worth the character to pay off the character. It's not as much as “yeah, it's worth it” or “let it go, man, his family is dead.”
Maybe give me a summary of the first preview/Wikipedia of the complete story of Sidequest. Whenever a dialogue appears, I should have a scroll of information about a user interface that reminds me that this person runs a bar and hides magic users or something or something like that. I want the screen to look like a full -color version when the terminator analyzes the victim.
Every success should have a bell sound and a gentle father who says “good work!”
Whether it is the completion of the tutorial or beating the game in the most difficult environment, there should be a nice bell that suddenly causes me hungry and the sound of a loving parental figure that tells me I have done so good work. Then it should say that he is proud of me and that no one else has solved this first puzzle in the game, even if it is a complete lie. I want the game to lie to me, what I say. I want it to pretend to be a smart and qualified and talented, and not just a peel that is denying me to forget. That's what the best games are about.
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