So, I’ve got a year’s worth of game designing and prototyping under my belt at this point, and I’m getting the feeling that it’s time for me to move on to projects that are a bit more ambitious in scope. There’s a few directions I’m looking at going with this, and I’d like to hear what you all think:
- Rework one or more of my existing games for a mobile platform and publish it through an app store
- Create a proper PC game of a moderate scope, similar to The Polynomial, and put it up for sale
- Create a PC game of an ambitious scope, with a Wolfire-style public development process, either solo or with a small team
- Finish and publish a non-computer game, such as the card-based tactical game I’ve been working on
- Something else I haven’t thought of yet – suggestions?
My overall mission is to create a game that is financially successful within a year; my personal deadline for picking a project and starting work on it is the end of this month.
Also, Dessert Stressed will be going up tomorrow night – need to keep my game-making skills honed. 
Well, if you want to make good money fast, taking an existing game concept and creating a mobile game off of it seems like the best route to me. You’ll already have a good starting point (a concept that is already fun) and mobile apps are a hot thing right now.
The PC game of moderate scope seems like it could work too, so long as you get it on Steam for exposure (might be hard to get noticed otherwise). For small games with no/low marketing budgets, you really need to put it on some kind of app store, like Apple, XBLA, Steam, etc.
The Wolfire-style project will be very hard. The two projects that I know of that are successful with that are Overgrowth (obviously) and Natural Selection 2. The key thing appears to be that they both have mass appeal (current-gen graphics, familiar genres) and both are sequels to games that people have already played and liked.
Glad to hear you’re still honing your game making skills. Will you continue these side projects while working on your year-long game?
What’s the market like for non-computer games such as Mechalyte? I feel like the the production costs for manufacturing all the materials would be too high to make a profit in one year. Can’t say for sure though without knowing the market.
Are your ideas liable to get stolen if you do a public development process? It would suck if the same thing that happened to Wavespark happened to your big game.
A proper PC game sounds like it could be cool. Getting it on Steam, as Glen said, would be wise. I have never heard of Polynomial but am very excited to try the demo! Looks like 3D Geometry Wars.
A mobile game through the app store seems like a smart choice but you’d have to deal with the insane competition. Team Meat hates the app store cuz your year-long game could be overshadowed on its release by a fart app that gets the public’s attention instead. That might not be a problem if you do a “A Long-term Slow-burn Grass-roots Awareness-building Campaign” as Chris Hecker mentioned (I think at GDC) http://chrishecker.com/5_Minutes_Worth_of_Observations_about_AAA_Indie_Games
Are you thinking of making a team for this? Do you need more programmers or artists or sound designers? Could I write some music for it?
Very interested to see where this goes,
-John
Doing mobile games almost certainly seems to be the way to go if money is a driving force, although as an indie developer I’m sure you would be much more comfortable making an obscure PC project, as would we all.
I’ve been working with XNA making a WP7 game and it’s been pretty enjoyable. C# has been great and is really not much of a departure from processing. Also, I found that when you have access to a touch screen, it really broadens your design scope – my notebook has dozens of game ideas that I most certainly wouldn’t have thought of if I didn’t start brainstorming about touch controls. So that’s neat.
Just wanted to add, wherever your endeavors lead, I’ll be sure to keep checking this site. As a fellow aspiring game developer who also ironically started on processing just over a year ago, your games have been an inspiration time and again. Thanks for everything!