Space Summary
The Twitter Space Creating a Game From Scratch hosted by spellbornegame. Embark on the exciting journey of creating a monster-catching MMORPG from scratch with MonStudiosHQ. Dive into the complexities of game development, community engagement, and the multi-platform launch process. Discover insights on designing innovative gameplay, fostering a pre-launch community, and providing post-launch support. Explore the importance of transparency, player feedback, and teamwork in developing a successful game. Join the discussion on the collaborative nature of game development and the dedication required to bring a game to life.
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Space Statistics
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Questions
Q: Why is community engagement crucial for game developers?
A: Engaging with the community fosters player loyalty, feedback, and a sense of ownership in the game.
Q: How does launching a game on multiple platforms benefit developers?
A: Multi-platform releases increase visibility, user base, and revenue potential for game developers.
Q: What role does player feedback play in game development?
A: Player feedback guides developers in improving gameplay, fixing issues, and enhancing overall player experience.
Q: How can social media platforms aid in building a gaming community?
A: Social media platforms provide a space for interaction, announcements, and player collaboration, fostering a dedicated community.
Q: Why is post-launch support critical for game success?
A: Post-launch support ensures the game remains relevant, engaging, and retains player interest over time.
Q: How does transparency impact player trust in game development?
A: Transparency builds credibility, trust, and a positive relationship between developers and players, leading to a loyal fan base.
Highlights
Time: 00:15:20
Game Development Process Insights Discover the intricate stages involved in developing a monster-catching MMORPG game.
Time: 00:25:40
Community Engagement Strategies Explore how MonStudiosHQ utilizes platforms like Discord to interact with the gaming community.
Time: 00:35:15
Multi-Platform Launch Benefits Learn about the advantages of launching a game on iOS, Android, and PC simultaneously.
Time: 00:45:55
Innovative Gameplay Design Delve into the complexities of designing captivating gameplay in a monster-catching MMORPG.
Time: 00:55:30
Building a Pre-Launch Community Understand the importance of creating a strong player community before the game's official release.
Time: 01:05:10
Post-Launch Updates and Support Explore the significance of ongoing updates, bug fixes, and player interaction post-game release.
Time: 01:15:25
Transparency and Communication Discover how transparency and open communication enhance player trust and developer-player relationships.
Time: 01:25:50
Adapting to Player Preferences Learn how incorporating player suggestions and evolving with player needs lead to a thriving game environment.
Time: 01:35:40
Teamwork and Dedication in Game Development Gain insights into the collaborative efforts and dedication required to bring a game project to completion.
Key Takeaways
- Understanding the process of developing a game from inception to launch is intricate and requires collaboration.
- Community interaction through platforms like Discord plays a vital role in engaging players and receiving feedback.
- Launching a game on multiple platforms such as iOS, Android, and PC broadens the audience reach and accessibility.
- Creating a monster-catching MMORPG involves designing complex gameplay mechanics and captivating visuals to entice players.
- Game development involves various stages like concept creation, art design, coding, testing, and iterative improvements.
- Utilizing social media and online forums can help in building a strong community around the game pre-launch.
- Regular updates, bug fixes, and new features post-launch are essential for player retention and long-term success.
- MonStudiosHQ's focus on transparency and communication with players showcases a commitment to the gaming community.
- Incorporating player suggestions and adapting to the evolving gaming landscape are key for the longevity of the MMORPG.
- The teamwork and dedication required to bring a game to fruition highlight the collaborative nature of game development.
Behind the Mic
Opening Remarks and Warm Welcome
Yo, yo, ladies and gents. What is going on? Gm. Gm. How are y'all doing today? Guys, welcome back to another spellborn space. One of my favorite spaces. I love coming back to every single beloved Wednesday, guys. Hope we're all having an awesome day night so far, wherever it is that you're tuning in from before I proceed any further. Right. If you guys want to do me a favor, bottom right button, pin or pin at the very top of the jumping channel. We got that space link right there. If you guys want to show love around today's space. Right where that's a like comment. Bookmark anything you guys can do to show love that would be very much appreciated.
Today's Exciting Topic
And today's topic. Man, I love this one. This is going to be a very interesting deep dive which is essentially creating a game from scratch. Right? I know it sounds like a lot at first. The title may seem very massive, which it can be, right. But this is something that I've been wondering for such a long time, especially as someone that's just more on the consumer side of things. Right. I've always been wondering what is it actually like to behind the scenes creating some of the favorite games that we like playing today. Right. And we are joined by not only just builders, but also other games that are amazing and crushing in this space at this given moment. So really excited to tackle this today. And with that being said, let's just check in with our panelists that we have so far.
Panelist Introductions
I'm going to go to ghosty behind the spellborn account today. Go see what is going on. How are we doing? Good morning. Good morning. I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Just working on our next feature release as well as, you know, a few other bigger announcements that we have planned for this week and the next week. Overall, our team has been just pumping things out. You know, this. I think the past two weeks we've pushed out like four major features. So it's a lot of things that we have been pushing out. But yeah, super excited about this topic as well as, you know, as you already know, like for spellborn, we didn't go with a custom game. We didn't go with the existing game engine. We built out our own game engine.
Discussion on Game Development
And you know, we obviously take inspiration from a lot of things and kind of, you know, trying out to build something that is new but also is familiar. So yeah, this topic is very close to my heart and yeah, excited about this space. Oh, man. Don't worry. We're going to be coming to you with a ton of questions. Go see. So really excited. Tackle this today. Let's check in here with the other guests we have so far. We got Nino, man. Nino. What is going on? Really cool to see you on another space, my friend. How are you doing? What's going on today, boys? What's up? I'm feeling much better, boss. How about yourself? Actually, because we're both at the same.
Health Check and Light Banter
Time two days ago. A lot better. Yeah, same here, man. It's our first day without pain medication. The Singapore flu finally gone and. Yeah. Ready to rock and roll. Let's do it. Let's do it. And you know, I believe you were representing star heroes today, if I'm not mistaken, right? Yes, sir. Awesome. Awesome. Just want to make sure we're not overlapping with the speaker here. But, you know, appreciate your time and thanks for being here with us. We also got the Avax gaming account with us today. Who am I speaking behind this lovely account? What's going on, guys? Awesome, man. It is the same voice, different account. It's your voice.
Guest Teaser and Networking
Nikki J. Behind the avalanche gaming account. You know, remember me from my days over at shrapnel. Oh, yeah. Now with the mothership avalanche gaming love spellborn. Obviously have so much going on over there, you know, partnered with avalanche stellar pass, PvP born gaming foundations. Just like. Oh, my gosh. Banger. So love being up here with all the panelists. Thank you for accepting me up here, Basa. And hopefully we can get on some more spaces in the future together. Absolutely, man. It's Nikki. The moment you spoke, I already know. I already knew right away who I was speaking to, man. So really cool to once again hear your voice on another space.
Excitement for the Future
And I'm glad to know you're doing well, man. Avax hired a really qualified person to represent them on spaces. So really excited for you. Let's go to aether games on this one. Aether games? What is going on, guys? Welcome to the panel. How are we doing? Hey, guys. I mean, dreads on here as usual. And it's actually quite funny. Speaking of, like, you know, the Singapore flu. So I actually, I basically did a bit of. A bit of an Asia tour over the month of September. And I was in Korea for Korea blockchain week. And then I just flew straight to Singapore for 2004 nine and oh, my lord, I just landed in Singapore, got insanely sick, and by the time I actually slowly started to recover, the event was already over.
Adventures and Misadventures
And I was so bummed, like, I only just managed to essentially meet a few people, like, a few hours before I even had my flight to fly out of Singapore. And, oh, my God, it was an absolute disaster. Just thinking about it is so infuriating, actually. But, yeah, dude, first of all, that, I'm sorry you had to experience that. but yes, the Singapore flu was so real, guys, I, man, I don't want to bash an 8th of games here, but I was just lucky enough to catch that flu on the last day. but, man, the past week, I've just been literally just in bed hosting spaces, and I'm like, dude, I feel, like, terrible.
Discussing Personal Experiences
But either games sounds like you're alive and well now, but regardless, and I'm pretty sure everyone here, I don't know if everyone here actually was at token, but if you were, it was. It was a pretty blast. It was pretty fun. But I will say, man, the humidity. Oh, my gosh, that. I think that's what might have gotten me sick. I'm not gonna lie. It was like the instant weather change, because here I'm staying over here in California. The weather here sometimes can be very dry. the. I mean, it's not been crazy hot as. As of recent, right? But that immediate switch from a humid weather air to then going back here immediately, oh, my gosh, I think that's what got me.
Preparing for Today's Discussion
but aether games, glad to know you're doing well now. Thanks for swinging by today's panel. and look, I'm just about ready to tackle today's topic from creating a game from scratch. And the way I want to approach this, right, is I know we're going to be talking a lot about logistics and what goes the ins and outs. Right. But I also just feel that we can tackle this in a sense where we can kind of just highlight more of the general, you know, key takeaways on what and what it takes to build a game from scratch. Right? I know ghosty just moments ago was talking about how he was using his own engine.
Discussion Insights on Game Development
Right? Your own. You built your own game engine. Right? I know it's very traditional for game devs to kind of lean into what's already out there, right. But to build your own game engine, man, that's pretty impressive. Right? so go see. Let's kind of just not start here or talking about the game engine aspect, right? But where does it even. What. Where's the first step, right? Like, when it comes to actually ideating, what kind of game do I want to create, right? Do I start about thinking about the genre of this game. Do I start even thinking about the IP, the lore? Right. What, what is the first step?
Insights on Starting Game Development
And maybe you can share a bit of experience from when you were creating Spellborn ghostie, but we'd love to just hear. Right? How does it look like from a perspective of someone that is starting fresh? Right. We'd love to hear from your experience. Go see. Please go ahead. Yeah. First of all, I've seen this question come up a lot in conversations with other indie developers because as indie game developer you're basically building out game that is of your dreams and you, this is something that you want to, you know, you, this is an idea that you have had for a long period of time or this is some problem that you saw with another title that you want to solve and basically kind of build a very similar title like, you know, Stardew Valley dead with Harvest moon and kind of branched out on their own.
Consumer Feedback in Game Development
But the end gist of things is, you know, it's not about if you will play it or not. It's, it's about if others will play it or not. Because you can build a fun game that you know, you like to play. But at the end of the day if you're building it for the masses, then it needs to be something that everyone else would like to play. So it involves a lot of consumer feedback. And as a small developer, you know, for example for AAA titles, for, you know, bigger companies, they have their own desktops, they have their own feedback loops. But for indie developers or it's the direct audience and a lot of the times these teams, smaller teams do not have access to that.
Steps in Game Development
So first of all, it's about getting feedback regarding the idea in the ideation stage. Then you go towards looking at what your audience is. For example, for us, our audience was primarily using mobile phones that were low end know, low end devices. So we couldn't just ship out an existing game engine that was filled with bloatware because that would kind of ruin, you know, throw in the purpose because we didn't want the game to be very heavy. The game needed to be light. For example, with the current size that spellbound has the whole code base fits within 15 mb, excluding the assets.
Technical Decisions in Game Building
If we start loading the assets from the server, it's just a 15 mb game. And so that's the second thing. You look at your audience, what kind of an audience you have. Based on that you make technical changes. For example, we made a technical decision to build out our own game engine. So that we would be able to ship out in the browser while shipping on iOS, Android, and having a single code base on its own. So these are the first two things. There are a lot of decisions that you make at a later stage regarding marketing and so on. But since this conversation is regarding just, you know, building out a game from scratch, I think these two points are the most important.
Highlighting Key Decisions
There can be other smaller decisions that you make, but yeah, these are the ones that I would like to highlight. Yeah. And good. And honestly, I appreciate you kicking off today because I'm over here just taking notes, mental notes at least. Right on. Just like, what even is the best way to approach this? And this is where I'd actually love toss it around to our other panelists already is. I would love to hear from your guys's perspective. Right? How would you approach building a game from scratch? Right? Would you say something similar to Ghosty? Or would you say something completely, entirely different? Right. Let me go to Nino for this one and then I'll keep passing the microphone around. But Nino, on the behalf of Star Heroes, right, how would you want to approach building maybe your own personal game? You know, what would that look like?
Game Development Insights
So I'd say what story heroes did really well was building a game that actually feels great because I think big problem with a lot of web three games out there is that they just try to get, they just try to nail the visuals first in order to have it best looking and raise the most amount of funds. And then when it comes to actually the playtest and the early access, like people say, oh man, it feels like shit. Like the mechanics, it's a first person shooter. It's supposed to feel good, right? So I think nailing the mechanics, making it smooth and actually enjoyable to play and then going for the visuals and the rest, right? So yeah, I mean, of course it's important that the devs and the overall team, they're all gamers themselves. Otherwise they don't even know what to build, right? So I guess two things, the team and the devs, being gamers themselves and focusing on mechanics first. I love this, the mechanics. I feel like that is also where my head would want to stray into as well.
Personal Experience in Gaming
And look, I, I wasn't ever a professional player, right? But I always played a lot of ranked game modes in a lot of the games that I play, right, one of them always being Call of Duty. And I feel the mechanics of even the most traditional FPS games are so important, you know? So, you know, I love that emphasis on mechanics here. Sneaky, I'm gonna go to for you to this one, right? On the behalf of Avax, right? What do you guys look for when it comes to these games? Right? Is it mechanics? Is it what go see was describing? We'd love to kind of just go to you for this one, Sneaky. Go ahead.
Defining Game Development Goals
Heck yeah. It's about what GoSee is describing. It's about mechanics. It's about encompassing all of that and really creating the infrastructure for any game designer to build out their vision without compromise. Bosses. So when like Ghosty and Windstar heroes, when they're putting product first and gameplay first, thinking about the social dynamics, thinking about, you know, creating their own native game engine, that's what we want to see from game developers. We don't want to see them put into a position where it's like, oh shoot, I don't know if I can accomplish this because of limitations on chain. So how we try to partner with our game devs is we say, hey, shoot for the moon, whatever vision of end user experience that you want. Totally frictionless, gasless, whatever. And let's figure out how to configure that in a layer one on avalanche.
The Importance of User Experience in Game Design
And so we definitely promote builders and projects that try to just build for the end user and then try to make it so they have to make as little compromises with blockchain enabled features on avalanche. I love this, man. And I feel once again, laying down the foundation is important. But then integrating that blockchain feature that you're describing here, sticky, that in itself is a whole entire different art form. Right. But it is kind of what we're seeing today. Right. And I think that's the beauty of what I'm appreciating the most about games coming out of this space is sometimes we don't even realize that a game has quote unquote crypto behind it. Right, but that's the whole point.
Focusing on Production Over Hype
Shipping out products first, like what sneaker just was saying, shipping out experiences first. Right. That's the most important feedback to receive on your first initial rollout, you know? So Sneaky, appreciate your takes here. Let me once again toss it over to Aether games. And I'm kind of just doing a little speed round, right? How would you guys approach creating a game from scratch? I know Nino and Sneaky and GoSee already shared quite some amazing points here, but Aether games would love to hear from your perspective, man. Go ahead.
Emphasizing Gameplay Over Graphics
Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I'm kind of just going around ideas that already were already, like, you know, laid out. But yeah, at the end of the day, it really just matters to, like, you know, create an experience that just focuses on allowing people to enjoy themselves. Like, there's so much, you know, so many people nowadays just speak about worthless things, like, you know, the graphics and stuff like that. And then we just look back at essentially the core factor of what has made, you know, remakes and remasters a thing. Nowadays, people just want to experience games that they haven't experienced for a while. And the reason they haven't experienced them for a while is because, especially from AAA perspective, I know this is a bit outside of, like, you know, the topic, but especially from AAA game development perspective, there's more emphasis on revenue generation and more emphasis on, like, you know, profit making and everything like that.
The Shift in Game Development Focus
That games have sort of like, you know, started to lose their essence, that you don't feel like you're playing something that's necessarily super enjoyable anymore. Something I can just sink like, you know, massive amounts of hours into. That's because they're not exactly made with the player first mentality anymore. So, yeah, this would essentially be like, you know, my two cent on the whole subject. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, I appreciate the different angle here because, like I've been saying, man, for the past 20 minutes, it's just like, there's no, I want to say there's a right way to create a game from scratch.
Elements of Game Ideation
Right. But there are multiple factors that we can consider when it comes to the brainstorming, the ideation side of the process. Right. And let's not forget, this is also something that requires a lot of effort from all angles, you know? So having the right team to execute this is also just as important, you know? But I see we also have Sulfurians with us. I didn't believe we get to go to you guys to the intro. You guys might be facing some tech difficulties, but it's all good. But. So, Sulfurians, welcome to the panel. And second, we'd love to just hear your thoughts on this. Right. On the first step to when it comes to creating a game from scratch, what would that look like from your end? So, Sulfurians, please go ahead.
The Role of Gameplay and Storytelling
Sure. Thanks. Sorry for the rug, actually, it's extremely rainy at my place, and my wifi is kind of rugging, so. Hello and nice to talk to you again, Bowser. And this is Isura from Sulfurians. And just giving a quick intro about Sulfurians. It's an NFT project with 10,000 collections. We're on ETH and France gave me five content. So just a short intro. So coming to the next. I mean, the question. I'm not a game builder, but from a 3D artist perspective. And as a. I mean, gamer, I would say the most important for me is the gameplay.
Understanding Game Player Motivation
It's not the graphics. It's not. It's not, you know, you can say like the audience, it's mainly the gameplay. Which gives me the dopamine hit, right? So I put a lot of emphasis on the gameplay, the entire mechanics, you know, as Nino mentioned, obviously, if you want to build a game from scratch, what I believe is you should understand which niche you want to target. I think a lot of times people are confused in that not just gaming, it's either any product and you want to either build the indie game or you want to go for like a big game.
Niche Market Considerations for Game Developers
Like get some investors and build up a AAAA game, you know. And so stuff like this, it's. It matters a lot. And second is like, I would say the storytelling. If the storytelling isn't good enough, the gameplay, just even if you bring up the best gameplay, there's no, you know, it's like hitting an arrow in the dark. So I believe gameplay, the visuals, it doesn't have to be like 3D every time, but it's just like, you know, making visuals that hit the dopamine and plus experience, it's. So for me, I would really put emphasis on gameplay and experiences mostly.
The Impact of Visuals in Gaming
I love what you're saying right there at the very end. Right. Like the visual aspect. Honestly, that's. Honestly, I'm a huge person on the visual side of gaming, you know? And that to me, is sometimes what separates great games from good games and the quality games from the decent games, you know? So very true. And I appreciate you sharing yourself here. It's really cool to have you back on another space. Let's go to Aether for this.
Identity Crisis in Game Development
I see. See them with their hand up. Aether. Go ahead, my friend. Yeah, that was actually a bit of information that was very interesting to hear because it made me realize, especially in web three, we actually have a bit of an identity crisis when it comes down to game developers. I've seen plenty gaming products that literally do not know who they're actually targeting. Like they don't understand the age groups they're targeting. They don't really understand, you know, the gamer profile they're targeting either.
The Importance of Game Design Document
It's very awkward when it comes to that. It's almost like they're looking to essentially be building a bit of a mix of things while not even knowing what that mix of things is, one of the most shocking things that I've realized in web three as a whole is the fact that there's so many gaming studios that don't even know what a GDD is. Now, for people who are not very savvy when it comes down to game development, the GDD is basically the bread and butter of your gaming concept.
Navigating Game Development Challenges
It literally stands for game design document and it literally is document that showcases what you actually are building. And I remember like, even back in 2021, I was, you know, speaking with these different gaming studios and they were like, yeah, we don't have a GDD yet. And they were like already raising funds for their project. And I mean, okay, do you even understand what you're like, you know, making and, yeah, it's weird. It's definitely odd to think about this. And honestly, this is the type of stuff that I feel is important to highlight.
Foundational Elements in Game Development
Right. And maybe go see, I'll reset the order here real quick, but go see a top of what everyone has been sharing. Right. Is there anything else that we're kind of missing on just a ideation foundation standpoint? Right. Because now that we got the most of our takes out, I would love to kind of just go back to you, go see what are your thoughts and just everything that's just been shared. And I do you think these are all just great starting points on how to approach a game from scratch.
Building upon Game Design Principles
To add to Aether games point, a lot of games in web three, not only do they not have a GDD, they do not have even the basic design pillars that, you know, regarding what they want to build. Like that. That's the core, you know, first thing that you start with what am I trying to build? And, you know, basically for all the audience members, design pillars are like, you know, specific points or specific points that you want to make sure that you cover or, you know, basically your end goal for your game.
Clarifying Design Pillars for Game Development
These can be just a few lines. These can be multiple documents. For example, for a game like fallout, these were like, I'd say they had like 50 or 60 pages just for design pillars. While for a game like Stardew Valley, this would be just like six lines. So it depends upon, you know, what kind of a scope your game has and so on. So for example, for us, you know, our design pillars included, each adventure is different. That kind of also became a tagline.
Establishing Game Principles for Cohesion
Second, you know, pillar was be simple but not simplistic. So, you know, we wanted the game to be simple but not too simple that it became boring and, you know, still remain interesting. So you know, I would say if we talk about building out a game, the first thing is you think about your end goal. You know, what you're trying to build. You list out those points, those become your design pillars. You kind of formulate and you know, merge different points if they're the same thing in the end.
Maintaining Focus and Direction in Game Creation
And then you have a list of, you know, a few points that basically the rules for your game that you will stick to. And all your game design, you know, all your game design elements, all your decisions in the future will be based on those points. And this is very important because when you're building a game, things can go out of hand like, you know, as if a game is being built. And if a game is good, it's probably being built by someone who has a good imagination.
Controlling Scope in Game Development
And people with good imagination can run wild. They can increase the scope of the game so much that it never ends up getting finished. So it's important for you to get, you know, bring out a list of rules, stick to those rules and build out that project and finish it. Because even this is very, very common with, you know, software developers in general. Like when I started, you know, building out websites, when I was like 13 or 14, I used to start projects but I used to never finish them.
Lessons from Project Completion Challenges
Like I would start a, you know, project. It's very interesting. I would even buy the domain name for it. And at one point I had like 40 domain names under my account and none of those projects were finished. Why? Because I, you know, I didn't make these rules. I was, you know, imagining things. I was building those things as I was going forward. But at the end of the day there was no end goal. If there is no end goal then, you know, you won't have a product in the end.
The Importance of Defining Goals in Game Development
So this is very important for games, game designers, but also anyone who is building something that you list out, you know, point, list out some rules, you follow those rules, you know, expand upon those rules but you make sure that you do not go out of scope because this is very important for even indie developers.
The Importance of Timeliness in Game Development
But also AAA titles, a lot of AAA titles, you see they get delayed over time and time again. And with web three games especially time is of essence. Like you need to be very quick with the feature releases. You cannot delay a lot of things. For example, for us, the team has been working day and night in terms of pushing out new features, new content and what we have to do is take feedback, bring that feedback internally, discuss that feedback, then push out new things, but also make sure that we are developing those features in regards to our design pathos. We are not straying away too far, because if we do that, then the game loses its own identity.
Development Timelines and Constraints
Kosi, I just want to quickly follow up. And first of all, I love everything that you're sharing in your takes here, right? What is, like, how long do you think most games take to build, right? Because I know, man, like, I use this a lot as an example, right? The last of us, one of my favorite game series of all time, right? But the first one came out in like 2011, I believe, or 2021 of those years, right? And then the next one, last of us, part two, literally came out almost ten years later, right? 2021. Or I believe it was like 2021 of those years, right? And so I'm wondering, what is just the most traditional timeline when it comes to shipping out a game, right? And does it depend on the type of game that you're building?
Variations in Game Development Process
It does depend upon the type of game you're building, but it still can vary a lot. Like, because, for example, for indie studios, they have their own constraints, they have financial constraints, while for AAA studios, they have their own ideation constraints. And both sides suffer from something. At the end of the day, they have to ship out a quality product, and if they do not have something that is of quality, then they just cancel the project in the middle. There have been countless games that were in development for years, and then they got canceled. And I can give you some examples to show you how different this variation can be. So, for example, a game like Coromon, this is indie game. This took about eight years to develop. This is the same time span that RDR two took.
Comparing Team Sizes and Development Duration
RDR two is a AAA title that had a team of maybe 500, 600 members. Coromon was a team of 40 or 50. Yet the time span they took was the same. The genre is entirely different. So the time that it takes to build out a game, it's not something that can be directly related to a genre or to the team. It's directly related to the constraints that those teams have. If, for example, for RDR two, it was the content constraint, because at the end of the day, the team there, they love to add content. Like, if you are playing RDR two, you'll still find new things every single day. There's so much content in that game. So for them, that was the constraint.
The Impact of Financial Constraints on Game Development
There was no time constraint because Rockstar can milk any game for as many years as possible. You can already see that with GTA five and then talking about financial constraints, they also did not have those. But if you look at games like Goromon, they had financial constraints, they were a smaller team. They also, you know, with the financial constraints also comes the constraints regarding the ideation because you can't really, you know, go too far with your ideas. If you do, then all of a sudden the budget of the game increases. So you're already stuck with that as well. So it's not directly related, but you can still kind of guess it based upon the size of the team, based upon the finances they have, based upon the end goal that they have.
Design Pillars and Their Role in Game Development
That's why I mentioned the design pillars, because they are very core to the game design process. If your game doesn't have strict rules in place when the development started, then there is no end date for development. The game will never release. Man, this is so much to take away. And I hope we're all taking at least some mental notes here, right? We're really quickly, guys, I know this conversation can get very insightful, very deep divers. I'm going to do a quick little space reset, guys. Don't forget, interact with that space link, bottom right button or pin at the very top, right. Making sure you're interacting with that, showing some love. That would be very much appreciated.
Engagement and Audience Participation
And honestly, man, I'm learning a lot. I myself, I do not come from a game dev background. Literally just an average gamer, probably like many of us here, right? But hearing about the ins and outs, the details, right? What goes on behind the scenes, it actually reveals to me how much actually goes in to these games, right? But look, just for a little fun segment, right? I just want to do a quick little, you know, what has kind of been your guys's favorite games of 2024, right? And maybe if you can share along with that, right, what has been a key mechanic or something that you would like to take away from these favorite games and apply it to your own creation, right?
Personal Experiences in Gaming
Sneaky, I would go back to you for this one, man. I would love to just hear from your experience what has kind of been of a gaming title as of recent that has caught your attention and you would love to, you know, take something away from it and apply it to your own game. If you could write sneaky, please, we'd love to hear from you. Oh, let's see. This is a tough one, basa, because I don't know what I would like pick out to apply to a game for myself. But something that I see really good in terms of, like, participating in the scene as, like, a gamer and stuff is I'm really big TCG player, so I play basically every TCG that's come out in web three right now.
Community Engagement in Game Development
The king of it is parallel. Something that I see them do really well is building with community. And I think what they do exceptionally well, that ghosty was mentioning about is being able to filter that community through their existing guidelines in terms of everything from game design to aesthetic tone and vibe in general. And so I think Ghosty made a really good point about that, is that in web three and building with a community, building in public, you have to take feedback, or else they're just going to feel like they're ignored and they're not being listened to. But how you incorporate that feedback is so important.
Feedback Integration and Community Building
So I think ghosty really laid out, you know, what parallel does well in practice is that they are with their community, listening to them, but not letting them change the ultimate vision and the ultimate core of what's keeping them there together. I like that. And again, I know you're speaking from experience yourself, sneaky. And of course, what goes to sharing as well, but this is the type of stuff that we want to hear, right? And I appreciate the transparency, the open mind. You're keeping with your takes here. Nino, I see you with your hand up, my friend. Nino, please. We'll hear from you. Go ahead.
Diverse Game Experiences and Perspectives
Yes, bro. So I actually have two games. I couldn't decide between them. My number one game for 2024 is definitely the finals. But I couldn't actually decide between the finals and helldivers too, because that one's fucking as well. What I love about the finals is that you can pretty much do whatever you want. You can jump around wherever you want. You can destroy everything. And the gameplay gets just so competitive, and there's so many varieties of stuff that you can do when you're in the game and you're trying to figure out what happens. If I do this, can I actually do this? And in the finals, you can pretty much do everything.
Innovations in Gameplay Mechanics
Like, you have this fat guy, he can run through walls, and you just literally break down the whole building. You can jump around the whole map. So that's nuts. I love that games are enabling now the dreams that every gamer had ten years ago, and it's happening so fast. So that's number one. And helldivers, I mean, it's crazy. It's this co op feeling. And the fact that they enabled friendly fire is just insane. Like me and my boys who were just killing each other. Twenty four seven at the beginning. And it was funny. That was actually one of the most fun parts in the game because the developers, they actually had balls.
Challenges in Game Development
A lot of big problems with game corporations is that no one has balls. They are, they are like, they're all scared of legal scrutiny. I know what happens if we do this and this. So like, I feel like most games, they feel so woke, if you guys know what I mean. But with helldivers, they really didn't give a shit. Like, their voice narration is just super crazy. And the fact that they went all out by them not giving a shit about anything basically meant that the game went viral. And I think it actually got the awards for the best game of 2024, if I'm not mistaken.
Shifts in Gaming Trends
So, yeah, dude, I love, first of all, the two titles you mentioned, man, hell divers two. I actually mentioned that in a space yesterday of one of my favorite titles of this year as well. I don't know, again, I love, you know, how you're emphasizing the comedic side of that game, man. Because one, the amount of times they would mention democracy, where as you're like shooting these aliens, where you would call a new hilarious, it's a funny concept, right? And it's something that I actually want to highlight in a future space where it's like I realized these smaller indie teams, right, these indie studios are actually the ones that are capturing a lot of the attention as of recent, right?
The Rise of Indie Games
And it's making me think, is there a shift when it comes to the diagram or the whole entire ecosystem of gaming right now, right. We're seeing this rise of indie studios making a huge impact on the entire gaming scene. And it's something that is interesting, right, because you would think, right, Activision, the blizzards, the Treyarchs, whatever that may be, right. You would think these guys are the ones shipping out the triple a top quality games all the time, right? But you have games like helldivers to another one. Shoot, what was that? Pokemon one that was like super powered, right?
Transforming Game Experiences
Power is another great example. Like, we're seeing all these recent titles catch people's attention. Then it's not coming from these massive triple A studios, you know? So really great points there, Nino. Did you want to add something really quickly? Because I see you're muting. Oh, no, I think that's it. I mean, it's like two different very games, right? The one is a multiplayer game where it's like, really competitively focused. And the other one is just all about the experience. Like, with hell diverse two you spawn there, the graphics are so good, and then you see all these army coming at you and the boys are like.
Humor and Game Design
What the fuck is happening? It's so funny. And you're just killing your mates the whole time. That's also pretty hilarious. Just one comment to the finals, right? I love, like, how, like, you were saying that. That that game is so destructible, right? You can literally blow up anything. It reminds me a lot of Apex Legends. But if Apex Legends was just a little bit more like, I guess, Call of Duty, like, if that makes sense, you know? But, you know, I appreciate your takes here. I love what I'm hearing.
Conclusion and Future Aspirations
Aether games. Let me toss it over to you. Right? What's a recent title that has caught your attention? You would love to take away something from it and apply it to your own game. Aether, please go ahead. I can actually take this a bit broader because it's a very simple answer for me. I would make literally every game a roguelite. And I would add, or I. Or I would make every game have a bit of, like, you know, one of these ol chefs features in it. I just love these two genres. Like, I would play roguelites absolutely permanently.
Personal Preferences in Game Development
So that's a thing. And I also love games like darkest dungeons. So that's also something that I could, like, you know, go into. Speaking of, like, you know, recent games that come to mind in something like this and going a bit into my opening sequence of, like, you know, things I said, iratus is a game that I absolutely loved. And, you know, I mentioned, like, you know, stuff like people speaking a lot about graphics and stuff like that. And that game literally has, like, heart drawn in, like, paint. It's, like, really bad.
The Value of Indie Games
But it's such an amazing game. You just. You just can't hate that game if you're into stuff like, you know, similar to darkest dungeons or like, you know, stuff that really emphasizes just being very strategic with how you play the game. And, yeah, I mean, going a bit into what was mentioned earlier as well, like, you know, games that are more like indie ish, like helldivers as well, taking the spotlight from Triple A's. And there was a very important thing that got mentioned and that would be like, no wokeness. We have seen what has been happening with Ubisoft, and I am pretty sure that Ubisoft might actually be crashing extremely hard very soon.
Critique of Major Studios and Audience Focus
There's actual rumors starting to go around about the fact that they are actually looking at removing Yasuke from their new assassin's Creed title just because they're so absolutely terrified of bankruptcy at this point as a studio just because they're spending so much money developing games. And as I was saying during a previous point as well, these studios, they just don't think about, you know, their target audiences anymore. These different studios that are cool, that are essentially like, no going for this more woke approach with what they're doing in terms of development. They don't realize that's a very vocal minority that first of all, they're never going to be playing their games.
The Risks of Over-Political Gaming
And we've seen stuff like Dustbourne and Concord very clearly showing that there's no market for what they're trying to like, you know, essentially inject into these games. And yeah, if they keep going with stuff like that, it's just going to be an absolute disaster for whichever of these, like, studios are trying to do these things. And it is also the reason for which indies have been just going absolutely ballistic. People don't care about like, you know, watching a movie instead of playing a game because you made your game into a movie unless it's Death Stranding.
Nostalgia and Anticipation for Future Releases
I just love Death Stranding. So it's. And I'm very like, you know, I'm very excited about the launch of Death Stranding to you. So that's a thing. But yeah, I mean, there's so much more emphasis nowadays on just staying away from these over political studios, over political games and just playing a game because you want to play a game and not just Ubisoft, but we're seeing essentially Ghost of Tsushima to Ghost of Yotei or however you pronounce that where, okay, I love when games have female protagonists but they have the problem with the fact that they went with this like, no overly political actress essentially for the main character.
Reflections on Game Narratives and Development
And it just went so heavily downhill from there. Like, I was watching a state of play just expecting a ghost of Tsushima tea to get essentially, you know, co announced. And I was like, okay, female main character, cool.
The Reaction to Activism in Gaming
And I then I just paused for a second. Oh my God, what if it's going to be like, you know, a woke move or a political move or anything like that? And I waited for a day, one day and then it went absolutely ballistic. Like everyone was calling the actress out. They were calling Sucker Punch out for a fact that, you know, they have an activist as an actress and she's just blocking all of these like, you know, gaming journalists left, right and center just because they're like, you know, speaking up against, like, you know, these different studios just doing these massive mistakes when developing games. And it was such a circus. And this is essentially what we need to stray away from as an, as essentially an industry in Web three as well. And thankfully, we don't have anything woke just yet, but God knows how that's gonna go.
A Discussion on Game Trailers
First of all, I love how you're mentioning the ghost of Tashima, too. And look, I myself, I don't know how to pronounce it, so I'm not even gonna say myself, but that is another title, man. And what's so funny, man is like, the more of these trailers that come out with, like, I don't know, a part two or part three, it gets me more excited, more hyped for like, these newer titles that are also coming out, right, seeing what are they gonna do to compete with these guys. And this is actually, I know we have, like about, what, 15 minutes left. And I would love to pivot the conversation a little bit here. But first of all, a third love, everything you're saying and it's kind of made me spark this idea, right.
Marketing Games in Today's Scene
Is now that, let's say we got our game built up, right, we're about to launch it and everything. What is the right way to market a game in today's scene, right. Because I, again, I spent so much time in crypto, Twitter, not enough on other platforms, right. But the way I see a lot of these games launching, right. Is sometimes they go through creators, right. Sometimes they do campaigns and whatnot. But I think games like Spellborn and go see, correct me if I'm wrong here, right. But you guys haven't spent a dime yet on any marketing material. And it honestly has just been more so of a, an organic push on people, raising awareness around Spellborn and people being interested. And that takes a lot to achieve. I don't know. And I would love to kind of just hear more. So about that ghosty. Right? How can, how can a game, a newer title, achieve something similar? Right. Wherever they don't spend a quite amount of capital on marketing, but they achieve high-level results of getting the game out there, making sure people are aware of what's coming.
Key Marketing Strategies
Yeah, absolutely. I think that there are three points to this. So the first point is just plain old communication. Like if you're building out a game, you push out development updates, you push out dev notes regarding that game, you may be, you know, live stream the development of the game. A lot of creators have done that, a lot of developers have done that and to a very successful extent. Like, I've seen a lot of games get a lot of hype just because they saw the creator, you know, and saw the passion that the creator had behind the game. And they saw those, you know, YouTube live streams or Twitch live streams regarding the game's development. Or even they just read the whole development notes regarding, you know, what the game has been, you know, the team has been working on behind the scenes. So this, you know, if we talk about the notes side of things, that's primarily for Web three, because web three users do not have the capacity to watch a full, you know, live stream that is two or 3 hours of, 3 hours long.
The Importance of Updates and Communication
They need a very short summary. So push out monthly updates if you are a web three game, we have pushed out monthly updates for 29 months. This month will be our 30th month. And for 30 regular months, you can actually see what our team did, what our team worked on behind the scenes, and you can actually see the game grow from a small project into a bigger game. So that's the first thing. Second thing is having a point of communication. So, for example, for our project, we have two points of communication. It's Raiden or it's me. But you need to have a face for your project. And this is also very true in Webtoon. Like if you're building out a game, you need to have a single developer, you have need to have a single marketing person who represents the game for the community interactions.
Personal Touch in Marketing
And this can be for, you know, videos on TikTok. This can be for Twitter interactions. This can be interactions in your discord. Because primarily these days, if you want to sell to a consumer, you need to get personal. Otherwise, you know, the chances of selling is, are very low unless and until you're a, you know, triple A studio. So that's the second thing. The third thing is information. So the amount of information that someone can find about your game online, you know, more information equals very good, less information. If you're trying to be very sneaky or if you're trying, you know, if this is kind of your marketing style, then that's a different thing. But if you do not have enough information about your product, then your product can't market on its own, literally.
Creating Accessible Information for Marketing
Like if you know, you would be spending that time explaining your project instead, build out documentation, build out, you know, share screenshots. Have a creator kit live for your project. Share that with creators. Or this is if you do not have an open game. And even if you have an open game, have a creator kit so that creators can use that to create content for you. So you do not have to talk to someone. Instead they talk for you. Because at the end of the day you need to get personal. You need to talk to the consumer and get feedback from there so you can build a better product. Otherwise these days, you know, if you do not talk to them directly, it comes off, you know, very weird.
The Necessity of Communication
Like, you know, it's, it's not something that is considered good. And secondly, it works like it's, it simply works. This, this is something that is working for indie developers. This is something that is working for AAA developers. This is something that is working for any business in any kind of, you know, industry. Because consumers love personal things. Consumers love the personal interaction part. That's why banks have your personal bankers. If you're a, you know, special customer, that's why, you know, when you get a specific achievement in the game, you feel special that's the same, you know, organic feedback that the user gets. It's just that you need to communicate a lot.
Sustaining Community Engagement
So that's how we have been doing that marketing for the past 29 months. We did monthly updates for the past, I don't know how many months have they been like, we started monthly updates five months after our development started. So 34 months for the past 34 months, Raiden and we have been, you know, talking about the game publicly. I have been in the discord, available for 18 hours daily for the past two years, 2.5 years. And then talking about the third thing about the creator kit, we have had a creator kit some, this is the point that we personally need to work on. But essentially these are the three main topics.
Essential Components of Game Marketing
You need to have information about your product. You need to have a communication point about for your product. It can be you, it can be some marketing person who understands your product well. And then the third thing is, you know, you need to literally have a transparency regarding your product in terms of monthly updates, in terms of videos. Because if you're just pushing out 3D videos regarding your game, it won't work. These days anyone can build an Unreal engine video within minutes. Like it's very easy. So now if you want to differentiate from others, you either build some new mechanic, you either build some new type of gameplay.
Innovation Over Graphics
For example, if you look at, you know, all the indie titles that have succeeded this year, they did not improve upon graphics. They improved upon gameplay. You look at Bellatro, it mixed poker with solitaire. You look at pal World, it mixed, you know, monster catching with slavery. Literally. If you look at hill divers too, you know, it's all about freedom. It's something different. You look at Wukong, it's, you know, it's pretty, but it's still about the lore. It's grounded about the, you know, the whole storyline. So you need to have something apart from graphics because these days graphics are something that is considered, you know, a must even for indie titles.
The Importance of Aesthetic in Games
Like if you're building a pixel art game, it needs to be pretty. Otherwise it's just a game from 20 years old. You can't differentiate otherwise. So, yeah, that's my take on this. Yeah. Yeah. And I just want to emphasize something you were mentioning earlier in your take is like, I coined it as the founders funnel, right, where essentially you are spending so much time just making connections, you know, getting in conversations with people. You're mentioning all these hours you spent in the Discord.
The Role of Founders in Community Building
Right. Like an active founder sometimes is really, I want to say it's all you need, right. But it definitely gets you in the right position where you do get that, right organic support from the get-go. Right. Because I know a lot of teams and a lot of times we see this happen, right, where people will think that, oh, like, just because, you know, I have the greatest game or I'm building the greatest game, doesn't mean everyone's going to know about it right away. Right. So you do have to make that proactive effort to not only talk about it with people, but putting yourself out there.
Concluding Thoughts
Right? That's what I call the founders funnel. And Ghostly, I think you embody that extremely well. I see so farions here with their hand up and I know we're coming up short on time guys. But really quickly before so furious goes, just want to say quick thank you to all the amazing panelists from we have today, from Sneaky to Nino Aether Games and of course, Alfarians. Thank you guys for chiming in. In today's wonderful discussion, I learned quite a bit and I would love to run this back in the near future again, but So farions, please, would love to hear from you.
Building a Strong Community Culture
I totally agree with what Spellborn's panelists have to say. And this is a very, like, organic approach. It does take time, but it builds a community that’s very strong. But I think there's one thing that I want to mention here is every, every game comes with a community and with every community there comes a culture. So it's very important. Like initially when you're doing the branding, I think this is what every founder or every game builder or any marketing person should actually include is like they need to build a kind of culture within the community when they're building the game.
Cultural Connection in Marketing
If you see right now, for me, honestly, if I connect to any NFT project or any game, it's mostly about the aesthetics, it's mostly about the culture they're promoting, right. It's mostly about like the, you know, you can say like the style that they want to push into. So it's more important like a person getting into the culture and building the community and just being more transparent and true. And the second thing is like for marketing any game or any project similar to games, I would say it's very important that you know how to partner with people with projects who have similar people that you want to face up and boost your growth.
The Power of Partnerships
If you're not connecting, if you're not joining, it's slow, it's not bad thing. You could be a, you could be a lone wolf, but this could help you like, you know, pace up that speed, right? Hey, that's real, man. And I agree it can feel like a lone journey, but this is the type of stuff where over time, right, it accumulates and sooner or later everything is going to make sense, you know, so. So fairy ons. Appreciate your take here, guys.
Closing Remarks and Engagement
One more thank you to all the panelists and of course to the audience as well. Thank you guys, to all the homies. I see a lot of familiar faces down there. A lot of our weekly attendees to our streams with so. And of course our amazing spaces. So a massive thank you to everyone down there in the audience as well. Ghostly would love to conclude with you, man. Any closing thoughts, anything you want to share as far as announcements goes on the behalf of Spellborn, I would love to toss it back to you.
Upcoming Features and Announcements
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much to all the speakers. You know, I do learnt a lot of thanks I have been noting down. Thanks on my note part. And when we talk about announcements, first of all, PvP leagues are coming. It would be either this week or next week. So you will be able to battle against other players. You know, currently you can battle against them in friendly matches, but you can battle against them for kind of a ranking system, get a lot of rewards.
Exclusive Rewards and Updates
Those rewards may include very rare monsters that are only available via the PvP league system as well as Airdrop. So if you feel that you're late to Spellbound, you're still not. Because PvP leagues will also have their own airdrop mechanics. We will be sharing all that information either later this week or early next week. But yeah, that's the thing. That is the closest. After that we have guilds, all the other things that we have been mentioning. A lot of new content.
Exciting Changes Ahead
Autumn content update is coming. So the whole map will change. New quests will be added as well as some new monsters in the current map. Then the mapping expansion happens in season into. So yeah, a lot of things coming in terms of content, in terms of features as well as rewards. Oh man, so much in store. Gotta play that for that take right there, guys.
Wrapping Up
I will say before we conclude here, I asked the audience if you guys can also follow the Spellborn account to stay up to date with not only our spaces, our streams, but everything regarding Spellborn with season two right around the corner. So much look forward to. And then second right, shoot a follow to my amazing friends, the homies on the panel today. Avax Gaming Nino Aether Game Star Hero.
Final Thank You
So fairy ons one more time. Thank you guys for chiming in today's discussion. And with that being said, wherever it is you're tuning in from, I wish you a beautiful rest of your day. Night evening, afternoon. See you guys in the next space, next stream. Have a beautiful one and see you guys next time. Peace out.
