ひげ
The hardest part about making God's Disdain, I'd have to say, is finishing it. Putting it down to work on something else. Never thought I'd say that, with how much I hopped between projects the first decade of my game dev journey. Now that I'm more or less done with it, I'm finding difficulty starting something else instead of just continuing to make stuff with it. I've even considered shelving my horror game to make God's Disdain 2 first, but that wouldn't be too fair since I've already made basically the entire skeleton for the horror game with other people. I want their work to come to fruition too.
@beardalaxy It seems like every video game sequel ever is just a collection of ideas that couldn't be implemented in the previous game due to a limited budget, time constraints, or technical limitations. I'd say just work on the horror game next while having a complete design doc for God's Disdain 2.
@xianc78 yeah that's basically the idea. GD2 is going to be more or less a completely different game, partially because I do NOT want to make another open world. Right now, I'm thinking something along the lines of Fire Emblem.
@beardalaxy One idea that is worth considering is have it take place in a single town/city/village that changes over time, instead of the typical "road trip movie" structure. That idea was Itoi's inspiration for Mother 3.
@xianc78 that is a really cool idea, but it's not what I have in mind. I've already got a basic plot in my head. I run D&D campaigns in a world 25 years after GD, it'll follow along the same basic story structure but obviously not as free form as D&D would be.
@xianc78 funny enough I also have a basic story structure planned for GD3 too, but that's a long ways away. Might go back to open world for that one just due to the nature of the plot, we'll have to see if I'm still burned out on the concept by then. That's like 6-10 years away though probably lol.
@beardalaxy I'm trying to think if there is anything that would make open-world design much easier. The only think I could think of is using a procedural generation algorithm to assist in creating the world and characters, but that obviously has it's own problems (even with AI).
I don't think open world games should be done solo. I bet even most total-conversion mods for open-world games are done collaboratively by people over the Internet, not in an "open-source" type way, but more of anyone can join but must keep the development stuff classified type way.
Also, the whole 6-10 years thing made me realize that I might not be even able to make video games in 6-10 years. I always remind myself of Pixel not being able to make a full sequel to Cave Story and having to make Kero Blaster (a much smaller game) instead because he has a full-time job and family now. It's kind of the reason why I want to make some money off of my games so I can still have some time to work on them, even though there will ALWAYS be someone who will scold you if you do anything for profit.
@xianc78 yeah procedural is a no-go for me. I have very specific ways I want things done. Procedural generation could be good for things like the random wilderness, but in a traditional rpg that doesn't make sense because it's all on the overworld.
Even God's Disdain wasn't done purely solo, though. The only things I did myself were the music and the programming (minus plug-ins). Everything else I either had help with or didn't touch at all. It is far from a solo endeavor, but I did do most of the work, technically speaking.
A theoretical open world God's Disdain 3 would be much, much easier than GD1. Reason for that being the setting. I actually already have the entire world that game would take place in prepared in terms of the outline of what's in it, since I wrote it all for an extreme sandbox D&D campaign. There are only like 5 NPCs in total, actually. So that cuts out a huge amount of work I would have to do. A lot of it I've already done, a lot of what I had to do in GD I wouldn't have to do here (quests involving character story lines and NPCs with all their schedules). I wouldn't have to make shops either. It would be a little closer to those open world survival games, but adapted for an RPG where you need to take a path on the overworld tile-by-tile. In my head I don't think it would be as hard, but that might be different in practice.
I am and probably always will be a game dev hobbyist. It would be awesome to make money doing it, but I'll always work on them regardless. I think I'll always be able to make time for it, even if it's just 30 minutes a day and that's all my free time. An awesome circumstance would be if I got to teach my kids about it too and maybe make games with them one day haha!
@beardalaxy
>Even God's Disdain wasn't done purely solo, though.
I know that, but I remember you saying that After Midnight would be a one-man studio because you couldn't keep everyone to stick around.
>I am and probably always will be a game dev hobbyist. It would be awesome to make money doing it, but I'll always work on them regardless.
I wish I can say that, but given how many game dev hobbyists eventually have to give up on the hobby, I feel like it's necessary to make some money. I notice that most of them give up after their first child.
@beardalaxy I want employees who understand my company's values and won't backstab me.
@xianc78 yeah, one man studio, but paying for freelancers and partnering and stuff is definitely on the table and will likely be necessary.