We're making videogames! I need serious advice

Hey guys, I don't know why I'm making a thread about this, but I have a feeling it is a good idea, this is gonna be about kinda fun decisions that are actually serious because I want to dedicate my life to this, this thread has been sitting as a draft for a long time now so I guess I'll just post it as it is:

I want to make games, and I have a couple of friends who want to do the same for a living and are sick of their jobs as well. The only part that sucks is that we don't have enough time due to our work schedules and other things, even then, we've been making a great amount of progress in a local co-op game. This is making me feel very excited, frustrated, and anxious at the same time.

FUCK THAT NOISE WE ALL QUIT OUR JOBS, WE'RE DOING THIS SHIT FOR REAL.

Now, /this/ is where the fun part starts, I need help with decisions regarding the first game we're making!

Our team consists of three people: one programer and two artists, but other friends are contributing as well with 3-D stuff and music.
The biggest thing we need help with at the moment is deciding the title of the name, since right now our little organization thing is called "Dinosaurio Fofo" (this can be translated to something like Flabby Dinosaur and it's a Latin American Simpsons reference, the english counterpart is the Lumbering Dinosaur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFM5o-5G-Yw) and the code name of the game so far has been "Duendes Decadentes" (literally Decadent Gnomes) which are both stupid Spanish jokes/funny words. So I'm afraid people won't pay attention to the game because it's in a foreign language, I guess what I'm trying to say is: Do you think it's a bad idea to name our stuff with stupid Spanish jokes?


I guess I should also specify what the game is about and what is our goal with it:

The game's a local co-op inspired by Bomberman 64's Multiplayer ( https://youtu.be/fZnqnvWy_T4?t=153 (sorry I couldn't find a video without commentary)) but with a little more focus on mobility and other crazy stuff, I will elaborate on the game's mechanics in a different post later, but so far the game it's shaping up a bit different than B64. Visually, we're going to make it very goofy and comedic.

Here's some concept art and animations for now:

SpoilerShow

These two are huge so i'll just link to them:

https://i.imgur.com/s0Ob4Vv.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/eh6CDFa.jpg

SOME RANDOM ROUGH ANIMATIONS (big images):

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As for our goal, we just want to have the game out there so people can play it, but we also want to make a serious effort to make a living out of making games eventually. Online play and Steam support is something we really want to do but that's a bit far away for now. Tell me what you think! I will be sharing more stuff later.

i think you should go with the spanish jokes

I agree, the spanish jokes are great!

I think you should definitely use the home field advantage if it will make the game enjoyable. The reasons “international” releases often don’t include Spanish don’t entirely apply to original releases. I suppose getting enough sales to turn a profit is an issue, but it’s an issue anywhere anyway.

I also think, don’t worry about silliness, either (consider me biased). It’s okay to move off an aesthetic if your goal is to make money and you’re not making money. But an aesthetic of silliness has worked out pretty well for a number of game and technology businesses. Besides, “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you launched too late.” It’s one thing to already not have money, but it’s another thing to run out of time.

This is exciting and I wish you all the best of luck! You should check out Bombernauts, which is another Bomberman 64-esque indie game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNafa98gXO4

Responses under the spoilers:

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This is exciting and I wish you all the best of luck! You should check out Bombernauts, which is another Bomberman 64-esque indie game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNafa98gXO4

Thanks for the good wishes, and thank you for the recommendation! that game looks like tons of fun, we're going to buy it and play it for research purposes :)

I think you should definitely use the home field advantage if it will make the game enjoyable. The reasons “international” releases often don’t include Spanish don’t entirely apply to original releases. I suppose getting enough sales to turn a profit is an issue, but it’s an issue anywhere anyway.

I also think, don’t worry about silliness, either (consider me biased). It’s okay to move off an aesthetic if your goal is to make money and you’re not making money. But an aesthetic of silliness has worked out pretty well for a number of game and technology businesses. Besides, “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you launched too late.” It’s one thing to already not have money, but it’s another thing to run out of time.

I totally agree! Just to clarify, making money out of this particular game isn't exactly what we're aiming for, our primary goal is to seriously get better at working as a team, have an actual game out there and of course to get as many people as possible to play it. However, we do want to take this seriously and make a living out of making games eventually. Honestly, if making games the way we want doesn't work out then I'd quit.

i think you should go with the spanish jokes

I agree, the spanish jokes are great!

Alrighty! I definitely made up my mind about this. Thanks! I think it's pretty fun to embrace the foreigness of it. We want to make a really stupid game that's actually pretty competent gameplay-wise.

So all this talk and not much show, right? Lemme go in-depth with the mechanics of the game:

I should start by explaining how Bomberman 64's multiplayer worked... it's basically an upgraded version of the ol' Bomberman formula, with 3d movement and extra mechanics. You can throw and kick bombs like in previous games, but if they collide with enemies, you stun them, allowing you to pick them up and throw them off the stage if possible - additionally, you can also "pump" bombs while you have them on your hands by pressing a button repeteadly, making both the bomb and the resulting explosion bigger. That's pretty much the core we're taking with us, ditching the power ups and everything else.



I will go more in detail about each action:

MOVEMENT

Walking works as you expect, 8 directions, a bit more speed than in B64. You can also perform a short dash to evade, which only works if you're not holding a bomb, and has a bit of cooldown at the end.

BOMBS

After summoning a bomb, you can press the same button repeteadly to make it grow to get a bigger explosion. We're narrowing the pumped bombs to three set levels with no in-betweens. They're also unable to go back to a previous level, oh and they have cute faces.



The bombs are also able to fuse together to form a stronger bomb when they touch each other while on the ground, but only if they're the same level, puyo puyo style. For example: Two Lvl1 bombs together will make a Lvl2 bomb, and by fusing two Lvl3s, you will get a massive LvlMax bomb which can't be picked up or moved at all, and of course makes a huge explosion.



The fearsome LvlMax bomb

Like I mentioned the bombs can be thrown, dropped directly underneath your character, and be kicked/pushed. If you hit an enemy with the blunt force of the bomb, they will be stunned.

"SPECIAL"

We're not entirely sure on this one just yet. This is what you use to kick/push bombs to other players, however, you can also use it to directly shove them around and get them off of you, potentially into an exploding bomb.



STAGES

The stages in B64 are pretty godawful, except for one: Pyramid, which is what we're using as a base.







We want to make more stages in the future, but for now, we're only focusing on this one.

That's it! Tell me what you think. Any feedback, question, or comment is appreciated :)

In the next post I will detail some stuff on the artstyle and how the idea of the game came to be.

love lvlmax bomb animation

Hello friends, we've been making solid progress mostly on the coding side of things. I don't think we'll be sharing a build of the game until we have all the placeholder sprites implemented in the game. But, I have a different treat for you tonight, a build of the first game my coding friend and I worked on!

It was supposed to be a kind of "sequel" to the stupid forum adventure I used to post here Let's go vampire hunting (I need to go through my photobucket and reupload the images some day). We used it primarily as a learning experience, so don't expect something extraordinary, it's a basic build of a sidescroller game. (I could go into more detail on the mechanics we wanted for this game if you guys want though).

Here's the link. Chrome will probably detect it as malicious software since it's an .exe but it's totally safe I promise. The build supports joystick configuration, just go into Options, then hit Enter while "Keyboard" is selected, and use the arrow keys to change it. Let me know if there's any problems!