Tag: Industry

10/1/14

How to Make It In The Game Business – Navigating Steam’s Greenlight

This month we’re kicking off a new series of articles about “How to Make It In The Game Business”. And since we obviously don’t have a clue (because we haven’t been able to quit our day jobs yet and devote full time to GH) we’re bringing in some outside help!

Every Wednesday in October, look for a column from someone with practical experience in the game industry to drop in and offer some advice, encouragement, and wisdom about the road they’ve traveled in the game business.  After October, we’ll shift to a monthly column, but we wanted to open with a bang.

And for that awesome opening column, we’ve brought along not one, but two game developers to tell you all about their journey through Steam’s Greenlight program to shepherd their titles to publication.  So please welcome James from Evil Twin (in blue ink), whose Victory at Sea naval wargame is out there now, and also welcome back Steve from Yorkshire Rifles (in green ink), whose Airship Dragoon got a lot of coverage from GrogHeads earlier this summer.  Both describe their path to Greenlight success.

When we were given the task of taking Tabletop war game Victory At Sea into the digital realm, our first concern was how long if, ever it would take to get onto Steam.

Traditionally, developers hoping to get their game featured on this hugely popular platform are invited to sign up for Valve’s Greenlight system, where they can submit promotional videos, images and other game information for potential customers to see. The Steam community can then view and rate those that they’d like to see more of, with Steam eventually releasing the games that receive the most votes. Whilst democratic this is by no means a speedy process, with most games enduring a wait of anywhere between 2 days and 2 years for their game to reach players.

I am “Steve_Yorkshire”, also known as my developing/old modding/trade name “YorkshireRifles” (which is a play on words of “Eton Rifles”, a 1979 song by The Jam). I am a lone indie developer (sometimes known as a “One Man Army” in certain circles of indie development) and I created an old fashioned, uber-hardcore, turn-based squad tactics and global strategy game called “Airship Dragoon”, that has much more in common with titles from the 1980s and early 1990s than contemporary tactics games. It’s a niche strategy game, densely complicated, with enormous campaigns, lengthy battles, and is pretty much the antithesis of modern fast-paced gaming. And it’s available on Steam after getting through Greenlight.

Greenlight is reported to work with a simple algorithm; gain votes from the public members of Steam to get into the top 100 with a modifier depending on commercial popularity of the genre. Whilst this algorithm is not available for public scrutiny it would seem logical that “Action” is more popular than “Strategy”, and thus strategy games would gain a positive modifier due to there being less of them.

In fact from our chats with other developers we have been told that going through the Steam Greenlight process can require patience as well as the ability to hold your nerve when the popularity slows down.

We had received funding from Creative England’s Games Lab SW fund to help make the game we wanted, turning Victory At Sea into a large scale WW2 Naval strategy with RTS and sandbox elements. Our main concern with all the effort we had put in was, would anyone have access to play it through the stores we wanted? Continue reading →

08/27/14

An Interview with Hunted Cow Games

As you can imagine, the emergence of a wargames shop that’s built on the Apple Mac/iOS platform set hearts aflutter (OK, maybe just one heart, but it’s mine, so it counts!) here at GrogHeads.  So welcome Hunted Cow Games and let’s get to know these fine Scotsmen

Interview by Brant Guillory, 27 August 2014

huntedcow_previewFirst things first – what cow are we hunting?

That most glorious, most stately and above all hirsute example of the bovine race: the Highland cow.

What happens when the cow gets caught?

Sadly, the cow has thus far eluded our grasp. However, when we do finally get our hands on it, it will end up the way most food does in Scotland – coated in batter and deep-fried.

Why a cow and not, say a Vietnamese water buffalo?

The Highland cow is the most famous beast of the Highlands of Scotland, and given that we’ve always been based here, it seemed like a good fit for us. We did actually consider flying a water buffalo over to Scotland, but the cost was ridiculous. It also seemed a little cruel.

For our readers that might not know who you are (bastards!) what’s the ‘TV commercial’ pitch for Hunted Cow Studios.

We are a team of 30 zealot gamers. Based in Elgin in the Highlands of Scotland. Most of the games are a co-operative between the guys at HexWar (who are just a few miles away) and Hunted Cow. We focus on making great games that are aimed at the wider gaming community. Most of our games are pitched at entry-level prices where we think we have managed to get to a lot more players than any other wargames company. Continue reading →

08/6/14

Interview with Tim van der Moer of the Lordz Game Studio

Boggit interviews Tim van der Moer of the Lordz Game Studios at the Home of Wargamers 2014 Conference

click image to enlarge; go on – you know you want to!

Aside from being a popular Grogheads forum member, Tim van der Moer (aka Lord Zimoa on the forum) first gained his reputation as modder before moving into games design. Here he gets the opportunity to say how he got involved in games design and about his plans for the future.

Tim van der Moer (right) and Alex Shargin (Flashback Games) demonstrate Warhammer 40K Armageddon at HOW 2014
Tim van der Moer (right) and Alex Shargin (Flashback Games) demonstrate Warhammer 40K Armageddon at HOW 2014

Tim, tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you come from a modding background. Tell us how you moved from modding into game design.

I think back in 2000, or 2001 when I got a phone call from an old chap called Iain McNeil who was on the phone from the UK and asked if I was Lordz’ Tim Moer. For years we were running a modding community, and we got some attention in the international press with our mods, especially our Napoleonic mods, our Lotus fantasy mods, and basically he wanted to ask who I was and what I was doing. I gave some of my personal background, but basically I was totally not into the industry.

Continue reading →

07/30/14

GrogHeads Interviews Mark H. Walker

Jim Zabek & Mark Walker, 30 July 2014

GH: Hi Mark. It’s been a while since we last chatted. A lot of events have transpired since then, not the least of which is your latest book, Desert Moon. Can you tell us how you took your first novel, A Craving for Blood, and updated it to Desert Moon?

Mark: It’s been completely re-edited. Both a copy and structural edit. Additionally I rewrote passages that I didn’t like, and deleted others. The basic story remains the same–the enslaved people of a planet fight against overwhelming might with ancient military hardware. Ancient being Abrams tanks and their ilk. Additionally, I felt that the new cover and title better fit the novel. Finally, it’s great to expose the vast Kindle Direct Publishing audience to the book.

 

Of course, writing novels isn’t the only thing you’ve done. After successfully launching a game publishing company, Lock n Load, and running it for several years, you turned around and sold it. Can you tell us more about that decision?

It was part financial and part total-freaking-burnout. I’m proud of the fact that between June of 2006 and March of 2013, I was able to not only make and produce some pretty damn good products, but also support a family of five with those products. But I grew tired of living on the financial edge, and even more tired of working seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Make no mistake, I understand how lucky I was. It’s a dream job, but I was ready to move on.

Continue reading →

07/9/14

GrogHeads Interviews Uwe Eickert of Academy Games

Grogheads’ Corinne Mahaffey sat down to talk with Academy Games’ Uwe Eickert at Origins.  In person, Uwe radiates a cheerful enthusiastic intensity; game design is clearly one of his passions!

Grogheads:  What new games do you have coming up?

Academy Games:  The Conflict of Heroes Solo Expansion, and Conflict of Heroes – Guadalcanal are shipping soon.  We will have a Kickstarter for Conflict of Heroes: D-Day Airborne Battles this fall!

Academy Games
Academy Games

In addition, in 2015 we expect to publish the first game in our Civil War/Napoleonics series: Gettysburg – Day 1 Bloody Crossroads. This will be the first game in a 2 or 3 volume set based on this battle. The map boards and counters are big and incredibly beautiful! (Check our website for pictures [http://academygames.com/games/fight-for-the-colours/bloody-crossroads-gettysburg-day-1])  This is a new system that implements some of our newest and most advanced design mechanisms; there will be no dice, no numbers on the counters, and no charts to look up.  You will be able to see the detailed state of each Regiment by quickly looking at its Brigade Command board. This will tell you its fatigue, morale, and current capabilities.  The game can be played with 1 to 8 players and the decision cycle for each player is constant, with little to no down time.

We have been doing a great deal of research on the US Civil War, concentrating on the soldier’s fatigue and mental aspects of combat. We have factored these aspects into the game mechanism, so that brigades act more like they did in battle, often flowing forward and back towards the enemy.  We’ve been working on this for 4 years and hope to publish it in 2015.

 

Grogheads:  Could you compare how you build computer games versus board games?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each medium?

Academy Games:  We always start with the board game because we find we have more subtlety when we design the board game.  If we have no computing power, then we build a better, more intuitive, more streamlined game to begin with, which we can then move to the computer.

When we create board game mechanics, the results are transparent; we know why we came to the in-game result that we did, and we learn the strategy of the game.

Computer war game AIs are often designed with a biased advantage.  They are often given limited, hard coded orders.  However, human thought patterns are not limited in this way.  The Artificial Intelligence (AI) that we have developed for Conflict of Heroes utilizes a unique Emergent Behavior and Agent Based Logic that evaluates Battlefield Situational Conditions. The AI then implements the best Tactical Response based on its available unit assets and resources. If the forces and logistics are available, the order is executed by the best available AI unit.  If not, the secondary procedure order is implemented.

We think people will be surprised by the intuitiveness of our board game AI.  Our AI does not “smooth” results or have arbitrary advantages.  No matter which side you take, the AI will kick most players’ butts 60% of the time. This system has gone through several development cycles and we have had help from some of the most cutting edge computer programmers, active duty Army officers, and game designers.

Continue reading →