Cheers, I appreciate it. If you do find time I will say that the next version is a few weeks from releasing and includes a lot of new content (and likely a price drop) so you may want to sit tight =).
Ah whoops, I gave it a go on Sunday No bother, it was worth the pennies, I was dead impressed. The tutorial's very good, I went from thinking 'this is a bit complicated' to 'ah, I get it now' very quickly, nice work. It definitely doesn't hurt that it feels like Threes how you move everything around as well.
Thank you so much for taking a chance on it. I really appreciate hearing your feedback. Don't worry, you'll get the update free and there's no IAP's so you won't have to shell out anymore for the extras. Thanks for your feedback, that is very helpful to hear. I actually revamped the tutorial quite a bit because a lot of the feedback I've received so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the change once it's available. And thanks for posting on the games TA thread!
Still going strong (we're a team of 4 bros)! We've had some major ups and downs throughout the years (I believe our first game was launched in 2010/2011), so it feels good to still be in the game today. There was a point back in 2013 where I thought we were done for... but you never know when a game will hit and turn things around for you!
That's ace, congratulations! Yeah, sounds like it's par for the course, which is slightly nerve-wracking. Part of my process of making my first game is focusing on being ready to roll with the punches :-/ Mixing my sports metaphors, there. They seem sort of apt, though
Rubicon are still around. We almost killed ourselves with Combat Monsters, but will be back next year with the final go round of our great little war game brand. Financial success has been hit and miss for us. We've never become one of the big earners you hear about, but we've kept a group of 4-6 developers in reasonable wages for a decade by hook or by crook. Sadly, most of that has been achieved via an adware android title that for some reason we've still not identified has been seeing over 1000 downloads a day for years. ie nothing we did deliberately. Not complaining though, I'll take it however it arrives. It was this "free money" that allowed us to waste several years trying to make combat monsters a hit and not go bust while doing so, but that period was definitely wasted and we're struggling to get back ahead of the game. I've been quiet on TA recently as I've run out of things to talk about, and there was way too much shooting of the messenger. It's all fun though. As long as I can pay my debts, I wouldn't want to do anything else with my time.
Ah wow, that brings back memories. Great Little War Game was one of the first games my brother recommended to me on the first smart phone he got That seems pretty phenomenal to me to be honest, although I appreciate it's all relative. I hope it continues for you guys, anyway.
Secret Exit is ten years old this December. We almost crashed and burned in 2013, but Turbo Dismount turned things around for us. Our biggest lesson has been not to compete in F2P space, so these days there's a lot more complexity in designing for the right platforms with the right kind of flexibility. Still, for most of those years our head count has been 4-6 people, and we've been able to pay wages and (almost) never have crunch periods or overtime. Currently we're prototyping random new stuff, it's probably the most enjoyable part of game development.
Wasn't the designer of Dream Quest given a job at Blizzard, or some other top flight game design studio? I would classify that as a success story.
10tons here. We've been around for several years too. Started full-time back in 2006 as two man company and have grown to 10 people throughout the years. Overall we've been financially somewhat successful but we've also seen some bad years. We've been able to survive the bad years with a wide platform selection and a growing backlog of titles. We've been quite good at finishing and delivering products but none of our games are really "hit games". We started on PC and Mac and found good success during the first years of iPhone and iPad. As the iOS platform matured we weren't able to find large enough audiences for our games. 2013 was rough for us as casual PC game market dwindled and we may have been too hesitant with freemium on mobile. We branched out to consoles in 2014. After that in 2014 and 2015 we've been able to grow again. Not quite sure how 2016 turns out yet but the selling games on consoles is much tougher than in 2015, that we know for sure. We've seen ups and downs and making games is something we enjoy. Not sure how successful in the grand scale of things we are but we can sustain a ten man company at least for now and this means 10 relatively fun and financially stable jobs. For us it is kind of success at least
It all started out here and I saw the potential after my second game and it was probably on my fourth game (Glow Puzzle) when it hit really big. That was back in 2010. But it was a time before the whole gold rush started and any good app can easily earn a featuring as a kickstart
Hey guys, Been reading this thread with great interest. I've only been making games for about a year and half. Initially I rushed in and just started churning out iOS games - I made Trainrush!, Snappy Elf and Glow Four in quick succession. All 3 had varying degrees of success, but nothing really to write home about! My last and 4th game took about 6 months to develop (George: Scared Of The Dark), it was featured and got a bit of press around it. I even invested some cash for some indie PR services. It kinda just did this flash bang thing where it had some decent sales for about 2 weeks and then dropped out of the charts and completely flattened off! So yea no financial success here, mobile market is super competitive and hard but that buzz when my game was featured was incredible! I'm taking a bit of time out to learn Unity and think of some new ideas. I think the key is to be innovative and risky to give a chance to stand out amongst the other titles. I'm also doing some consulting work to pay the bills and that! I also experimented with different pricing models and looked closely at stats/analytics (using Fabric). Ultimately I have to admit that my first 4 games were not that great or different and hence they flopped. They say your first 4-5 games are usually flops, so I'm taking it slow now with more design and research upfront, instead of "hey this sounds cool" and then spend months of development for a few downloads! So in summary highs and lows on the indie game scene!
I'm really loving coming back to this thread and finding more replies each time. *makes note of Fabric* I must give that a look... Again, that seems ultra positive from the POV of someone working on their first game and wondering where I'll end up. Glad to hear of people sustaining themselves. I've got Spellspire, that game's good stuff I'm making a word-puzzle game myself so I've got a soft spot for that genre.
What a great thread. I've had the same questions myself. I just published my first game, Broken Lines, to Android and iOS using Unity Personal edition. The Android release was in October and the iOS release was the past Sunday. I'm hopeful it will be a success, but it's good to know it usually takes quite a few tries.
Yes a real gem of a thread to find, hopefully we can keep it going and hear about some more success stories! Good luck with your first release, that is always a challenge to actually finish and publish something! So congrats! I'm now focussing on my 5th game, well it's more an entertainment app, so will see how it goes. I must say that looking back through my journey so far, my knowledge and skills have improved hugely so I would consider that a "clutching at straws" success! haha!
