I started a small "no-name" studio to build games handful of years ago. Built and released two games thus far -- SimAirport & SimCasino.
I'd potentially be interested, my email is in profile if you'd like to reach out. :)
I'd potentially be interested, my email is in profile if you'd like to reach out. :)
And 2) Rollercoaster Tycoon IS an aberration, since it was written in Assembly by one person!
Lots of work is the answer, though.
We actually got to Early Access release in ~11 months (~20 man-months). We had to learn a new programming language & learn a game engine during that time, too (and learn what a game engine really was/what it meant). Really though, I think the most difficult (and important) part was more about learning the nuances of game development, even just understanding the (understandably high) UX expectations that a player has from a game -- it took a while to really "get there" and I'm still learning, every day.
It's also worth mentioning that SimAirport was really not very good when we initially released it -- definitely rushed to release, far too early, and it was a mess at that point. After the EA release another ~3yr of full-time development went into it (and more dev resources), and it became a much better game/product in that time.
I wish I could work on SimAirport forever.
That's the downside with the games industry; it's ultra competitive and the amount of competition is increasing every day. Much of "the money" is heavily concentrated at the "top" of the pyramid, amongst a relatively small selection of titles. It's not the easy way, I can say that with confidence.
Will Wright always wanted to make a game called "SimTapeworm", however he could never get the green light on that from Maxis or EA.
I hold out hope that some clever indie developer will figure out how to monetize the serious educational parasitic infection simulation genre.
Maybe you could make a plug-in to SimAirport, so parasites and contagious diseases could spread internationally via Vomit Waves like in Theme Hospital and Two Point Hospital and Oxygen Not Included.
https://two-point-hospital.fandom.com/wiki/Big_Kahuna:_How_t...
https://youtu.be/Z7XCXq8j4iA?t=1402
Or how about Toxocariasis Tycoon, where you try to take over the world by controlling your hosts' behavior to widely reproduce and spread out through enough people to swing the election and control the government?
Really appreciate the kind words, means a lot coming from you -- thank you!
I don't remember if we actually shipped it or not, maybe it was only on a beta branch (or maybe it's sitting on a git branch still), but I actually implemented an "infectious disease" concept at one point. I think the idea at the time was for it to be a holiday "easter egg" maybe, but I don't recall for sure. I do vividly recall testing it one morning, though, and I had the "contagion" values (way) too high. I'm pretty sure the concept was wholly taken from Theme Park, where I recall one post-coaster puking agent could yield a rapid mess. The day I was testing my copy, I ended up making a video of the hilarity that ensued when a single infected passenger deplaned and suddenly there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of agents (passengers) all "stumbling around" spreading the ultra-contagious disease like wildfire, making a disgusting sound & leaving the floors covered with ick. I'll have to search the repo history -- maybe it's worth revisiting!
A disease tycoon, eh? Like SimAnt, but on a wholly different scale? =D
Would love to connect if you're ever in Vegas! Thanks again for the kind words, makes my day & sincerely means a lot to me. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belousov%E2%80%93Zhabotinsky_r...
https://www.fourmilab.ch/cellab/manual/rules.html#Zhabo
>Margolus and Toffoli make a interesting simile between the Zhabotinsky reaction and a reef of tubeworms. When a tubeworm feels safe, it sticks a plume out of its shell to seine the water for food. If a feeding tubeworm senses any disturbance nearby (e.g. the presence of several other feeding tubeworms), it retracts its plume and waits for a few cycles before feeding again.
I always thought SimAnt should be an MMPORG!
Then the ants could catch Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis Sensu Lato fungal infections, and turn into infectious zombies!
Three-dimensional visualization and a deep-learning model reveal complex fungal parasite networks in behaviorally manipulated ants:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1711673114
One of the first downloadable objects for The Sims was a guinea pig (which was later included with Livin' Large), which included a communicable disease that could spread between characters, and even kill them:
https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Illness#Guinea_Pig_Disease
>Guinea Pig Disease
>Guinea Pig Disease is introduced in Livin' Large. Sims can catch it if they are bitten by a guinea pig that has a dirty cage, or from other Sims who have been infected with the disease. Objects cloned from the guinea pig can also cause this disease. Sims infected with Guinea Pig Disease will sneeze and cough frequently, and their Comfort and Energy motives will rapidly decline. An infected Sim will die if not treated within time.
>Due to a glitch, a Sim who dies from Guinea Pig Disease cannot be successfully resurrected by the Grim Reaper. Once they are restored to life they will immediately die again.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMjT1D5Nyw
>Each instance of Guinea Pig Disease is restricted to the lot the Sim was infected on, so an infected Sim will not display symptoms, be infectious, or die outside of the lot on which they caught the disease. Therefore, a Sim with the disease can safely go to a community lot or be invited to another Sim's house as a visitor. It is possible for a Sim to be infected on multiple lots, however.
>Treatment
>Keep the infected Sim home from work or school and try to keep their Comfort and Energy motives up. Purchasing The Forgotten Guinea Pig painting will clear the disease from the household after 16 Sim hours. A Sim who drinks a white potion created with The "Concoctanation Station" chemistry set will be immediately cured of the disease. Additionally drinking a blue potion will restore three random motives which, while not directly curing the disease, can help them to recover from it.
As someone that would like to create my own (basic) games, what would be the right tools and frameworks In your opinion to create art and game logic ?
The easier to learn the better haha
Congratulations and thank you for the good times!
I still firmly believe that making games -- especially under an "old-school" business model (ie no loot-boxes, no microTX, etc) -- has to rank extremely high on the "work gratification" scale.
I'm obviously super small -- but it's AWESOME to know >80k people have played SimAirport for >20 hours and ~20k have played >100hrs (!!) -- so damn rewarding!
About 5 years ago, the belief was that the ratio was in the realm of 1 : 50-100 -- based on my own data & data shared with me by other indies. Even then, there was substantial variance; genre, theme, price point, developer involvement, discounts, review score (proxy for player experience/overall game quality), etc -- were some of the key variables that I believed were having a significant impact on review-to-sales ratio variance between games.
Over time, changes to the UX have been made (by Valve/Steam) which appear to have increased the rate at which players leave reviews -- quite substantially, it seems.
On the whole, I think that a far higher percentage of players are leaving reviews now (ie a lower review-to-sale ratio), but I also believe that the variance is even higher now than it was before. It's still helpful for making estimates, but I don't think it's as highly-correlated as it once was (~5yr ago it was much more consistent & highly correlative).