Honestly I love the big red flower background from the game jam version. I would love a short part where may walks through a flowery field or cave just as a way to break up the standard background. Maybe when she meets a special character or so in a cut scene
There’s so much helpful and inspiring stuff here: the importance of continuing and being disciplined, good art and good gameplay are equally important, and just as this video does a great job of telling your story (which I think is really important for devlogs) you highlight the importance of story. Fantastic work. Looking forward to the step by step evolution of your project.
If I can offer any advice on the youtube side, as someone who's been doing this a *long* time: Take the episode numbers out of your titles, and just focus on making them as clickable as possible. Any number past 1 (not just in devlogs, but in let's plays, or any other niche) just does not get views because people feel like they can't start in the middle.
You know, we had this exact question and sent out a survey about it. Only 12% of the 500+ respondents said the devlog number would dissuade them from watching. Some people even said the numbers made them want to watch the series more. But based on your channel's success, I'm more inclined to believe you than our numbers 😅. Here's the survey if you're curious: ru-vid.comUgkxtWtjsiP6eddbvQLZ4iNS6wW8BwoCzUjX
Catching this devlog after a while, the movement look so fluid and the art pops. keep up the good work guys, can't wait to play the finished game but take your time.
One of my favorite things from this last semester of school was checking RU-vid and seeing an update from you guys. Crazy that I've been here since log 0, and I'm super excited with how it's shaping up. Keep up the great work and I'm so excited to play it on release, no matter the release date!!
I love the devlogs for this game, it looks great, looks like it will be really fun and seeing people playtest the game and how you make changes based on that is so interesting to me!
I had to reset my youtube recommendations recently because my bubble shrinked way too small and now I finally got a lot more indie games in there. With that you popped up in my feed. And boy I'm glad you did : ) I'm a burned out game AD (with his self designed indie titles too) who moved away from the industry to illustration - but the way you make this game is exactly the way I always believed it should be done and it's heartwarming to see it. If you allow me one tiny critique: I don't particularly like the title - although I do understand it I find it too complex and cold for what you develop. It sounds like a horror-puzzle :D Other than that just by seeing it played I was surprised where you can land with your foot in the town. It might be part of the puzzles to figure out your way there - if yes just ignore my comment - but if not then some thin highlight might work on those ground elements?! I don't know. Just thinking while typing. Keep up the great work, I'm subscribing RN. :)
This is a really great video, such a refreshing perspective on game development and creative endeavors in general. Your points about following through really speak to me as a musician, especially when it comes to promoting my music.
I think the experience regarding devlogs and whether or not people find success in it, depends on how far into the development journey you are. As you've mentioned, you were already a few years into the development of the game before making devlogs. At this point, most of the game systems have been made, I would assume. Starting devlogs from this point onwards, people tend to respond more favorably to it, because it covers the visuals of the game, as well as some minor gameplay changes, etc. This makes the biggest impact on whether people want to play the game. On the other side of this; If you want to start devlogs from the very beginning of the game dev process, your initial audience would be other programmers interested in programming certain game systems. It would then fizzle out as the development goes on and eventually turn into your "gameplay" audience.
Hey, this is yhe girst of your devlogs ive found and watched but i loved it. Im thinking of getting into some game dev myself woth zero experience so this was very encouraging just to get started and hopefully look back one day at how far ive come. Keep it up 😊
The game looks fantastic so far! I love watching game development vlogs. They are very inspiring. I can't wait to play this. Great job! The art is wonderful! You have a great point about the gameplay and artstyle of the game. I'm always drawn first to the art of the game and then I discover it's gameplay and mechanics. Quick advice: maybe the color of the little guy, the sidekick, can be a little lighter? I noticed on many backgrounds it shares the same value as the color from the background and it can be a little harder to notice him and look at him.
Devlogs are WORTH it. I would have never heard about this game otherwise. Also When I like a dev I cheer their game on and look forward to its release. outside of anything related to your audience. I'm sure a devlog is a great reflection point. FYI - Your game is beautiful lol
This has definitely been my favorite video yet! Super interesting to see the different aspects of the development of this amazing game. I have one question though... Since you post a devlog every 2 weeks, I'm assuming that your able to make these videos quite quickly, and I was wondering how you do it. Do you write a script? Cause I find that making videos takes so long that thinking about making one every 2 weeks feels like I'd be taking away the time I'm developing the game.
Yeah, it's definitely a fair concern. My process: 1) Write the script 2) Record the voice-over directly in Premiere 3) Edit the audio (cut errors, silence, and breathing sounds etc. Doing it this way gives me an easy structure for adding footage) 4) Add footage (sometimes I'll actually go record more footage while editing if I want something specific) Most devlogs take me about 3-5 hours to make. This one was a bit longer than usual, so it took closer to 6-7 hours. The short form devlogs (like 3 minutes or less in length) can sometimes be ready in as little as 2 hours. I've been editing videos in Premiere for about a decade now so I guess I've gotten pretty quick with editing too. Maybe in the future I'll make a video on tips and tricks for making devlogs... kinda meta lol.
I'm watching on mobile, I didn't realize that pillar would block the player. I'm sure a death to it let's you know that. But maybe that was part of the issue. It looked like it was part of the background. The color for it was far too close to the background. But I like the change more, adding the crystal makes it look more interesting.
You doing a great job and your game looking amazing. I just want to say to be carful the struggle and difficulty is the reason why people feel good finishing a challenging level sometimes you need the player to struggle and figure it out on his own because that what will make them feel satisfying and accomplishment Hollow knight the biggest example
Subscribed, excellent video. Please please please do a video about the way your artists tie in the art with the story and feel of the game. Their workflow sounds so thorough and perfect I need to learn it. I'm very much lacking in those areas as I'm more analytical and could use any wisdom they have.
Just discovered this beauty while browsing for ways to learn on how to make a 2D plateformer pixel game ! Would love to know on what game engine you made yours to get an idea on where to start !
Personally I enjoy seeing games devs make their products. To me it helps know if they truly care about Marin a good game or just wanna slap something together and make a profit. Profit is important but people wanna see game devs put out a game that’s had love out into it. The ones who truly care about their games they make will make sure it looks good, it’s fun and has as few of bugs as possible. I know some people won’t like the art style but I’d rather see a nice consistent art style than art that’s all over the place.
Changing the game according to how much people struggle is always a difficult one: how to guage if the game need changing at all, in terms of not telegraphing enough what needs doing...versus the player not being good enough or the right niche (player) for the game? Eg. if a super casual player played a souls like he will die a lot and by following this principle the game might change in order to cope with that, while...the problem stemming here is that the player has chosen the wrong game. Said so, this doesn't justify mistakes in game design where not clear enoug or moderately difficult discoverable visual elements are laid out for the player to find...
Guys, I have a question related to financing - did you manage to get self sustainable for/from this project? Or do you work on it as on side project? If you did, how did you do it? P.S game looks smoooth, kinda reminds me of Celeste (which was great)
While i was watching the video an idea appered to my mind. What if the games have many chapters and in every chapter you have a new ability or the location where the chapter is located has a new mechanic (like celeste). It would be awesome to have rhing ñike doble jumpe dash or even switch gravity. If the character has new movement mechanic you can create longer rooms and when i was watching the video the gameplay is always that ghost ability and is not very satisfaing, is like when you listen a song and it stops and them continues. I want to clarify that im loving this devlog and the game and that this comment is just to say ideas and is constuctive critic. Also, im learning english so is difficult to express correctly.
Thank you for the ideas! Great minds think alike! Devlog #6 hints at some of the different abilities that will be in each chapter. We're excited to share more on that in the future!
is the insight that "both better art and gameplay = better game than only good art or good gameplay"? I mean.. I bet a game with good gameplay and great sound is better than a game with only one of those. or... "the more good the better" which isn't really an insight, is it? perhaps if you could rank levels of importance... i.e. gameplay, sound, story, art, devlog... which is #1? if we look at flappy birds.. what made it successful? how about angry birds? how about legend of zelda? ultima 6? quest for glory? I imagine it differs by genre. but there's always a hierarchy. if there isn't, then "make all the parts better!" is just not a good way to manage your time. :-/ well, I hope this gives you something to think about for your next devlog. :-)
hehe fair. I think it actually looks pretty great too. I just can't help but wonder if it would have reached a broader audience with more detailed artwork.
I see a potential problem: having the game in pixel art but character portraits as comic style creates a dissonance in players. I've seen many games fail and people wonder why, and I've noticed many, many of those have this as one of their problems.
i want to learn pixel art and also game development i have been following you from the time you guys got recommended and doing my research for the game development and learned a lot from you guys so can you guide me a little more for it and how to learn pixel art like i love your art style so yeah
I am saying this in your interest, the platformer genre is extremely oversaturated. You have to do more than excellent to get enough sales to at least fund your next game. Currently the game looks good but has average gameplay, you really have to add a spin to it. Maybe some infection or corruption or decay something to the story, like the fauna grows sporadically, roots and vines start blinking green and spreading, could be some malicious virus that your character is on the path to purify, or the spirit world is decaying for one reason or another, the trees and grass turn into a strong pink/purple, then slowly into a dark purple as it decays as you progress the story, and your character wants to cleanse the spirit world or so on. But you have to make this affect the story. Mby add some twist to it, it's some humans that you know that were the cause for this or something, or it's your character from another world that's causing this balance disruption, and you have to make choices. And you can add some collectibles or extra hard levels to unlock a "True ending" and so on. Also look at all the current platformers, list all the things they have in common, what sets them apart, and try to add 2-3 things to your game that no other platformer has. Then do it well. You really won't get enough sales with a platformer that's good or average.
This comment is almost prophetic lol. I’m already 80% done editing a video about the state of platformers and that includes how saturated the market is 😂
Haha you’re certainly not the first to make that comparison. We’ve actually got a video on that exact topic coming up. You’re right, there certainly is a lot in common, but we feel the 2 games are actually extremely different in many regards. There was also this other game that pretty shamelessly copied Celeste. 2D, pixel graphics, precision platformer, different abilities in each world. The only difference is the main character had a red hat instead of red hair.
How big is your Team? How many ppl do which parts or all do a little bit of everything needed? Like 2 artists that do animations too and 1 can do marketing too ..2 programmers and one of them designes the game in story and plots and the other works with maps and lvl-design ? ...how are you doing your stuff :)
2 artists/designers/writers (Noah and Rae) and 1 programmer/leveldesigner/musician (me!). So just the three of us. So far it’s just been me doing to videos for this channel. Devlog #1 talks in more detail about our team composition.
6:10 this is so relatable. Things like this is just hard. it took 1 day for making a reasonable plot, but it will took more than a year to fill in the context and the detail itself.
Well It's the first video I watched from this channel, game looks interest and fun to play and it's background or art is also looks great. But I don't have any idea how game dev works and I'm learning c++ as of now , i would like to learn and gain some experience in this project/game your working on, so if it's possible for you to allow people/newbies to contribute in your game, please tell me❤😁😁.
We're not currently looking to expand our team, but thank you! Honestly the best way to get into game dev is to pick a game engine, follow tutorials on it, and start making mini games!
Hi nice project! I have a question: is your team working full time and with a salary? Or are you all working in your spare time "for free" and will then share the profits after the game launches? I ask this since you mentioned that in the beginning you almost lost interest in developing the game and progress was very slow.
So good, and it's great to hear about your journey and process! Game development is big ever learning process that I have loved professionally and as an indie developer since 1999. Subbed!
I think people expect devlogs to hurt a game because showing an upcoming game before it's finnished tends to hurt biger games. Think what happened to No Man's Sky and is probably doomed to happen to Paralives. The difference is advertisng a game is designed to generate hype and hype is temporary. It also causes the future players to expect more than is actually on offer. If there's a development delay, your hype train will run out of steam before the game releases leading to no one wanting to play it. If the train wizzes by relese day with too much steam then the game won't be able to live up to expectations. Hype trains are bad for indi games. Dev logs are different, they don't claim the game will ever be playable and instead just show the current state it's in. No one will get excited for the game unless it looks actually fun to play. If a dev log has fans the game will have fans and that knowlege can motivate or intimidate the creators.
Im so glad i found this channel through you celeste video, you guys are making something great and im really looking forward to how this comes out. Keep up the great work
Awesome game, You should maybe add a timer for replay ability (then connect achievements to that and all sorts of stuff maybe even cosmetics (replay value is important))
@@epicgeometro Oh I see. Yeah, I guess my face is in that facebook profile picture. That's footage from devlog #2 so I guess my face has been public for a while lol.
Im so glad i found this channel through you celeste video, you guys are making something great and im really looking forward to how this comes out. Keep up the great work
I haven't seen the other devlog videos, but this one was enough to make me want to go and wishlist the game! This seems like just the kind of game I like, keep up the good work!
