Queen's Wish Is Out. Here's Why It's So Weird!

All new. All different.

Now that we've finally released our new game, Queen's Wish: The Conqueror, we're finally free to talk about it! Nerdy game-design talking!

We have been writing role-playing games for a very, very long time. It's what we do. One of the ways we stay sane while doing this is to change things. Every game or two, we like to change stuff: The graphics. The setting. The game system.

Doing new things inspires us and keeps our brains fresh. After 25 years, we want to innovate. Stretch the form. Take risks, win or lose.

The problem is that whenever you make a change some people will get mad. Whatever change you make, some people will dislike it. (Which is reasonable. People like what the like.) It is then the responsibility of the developer to earn new customers to make up for the ones driven away by the changes. (which is difficult and scary.)

Our newest game, Queen's Wish: The Conqueror, changes EVERYTHING. It's a completely new RPG, rewritten from the ground up.

Some of the changes, like the graphics and the storyline, will be pretty self-evident. Some people will like them, and some won't. I hope you're cool with it, but it's out of my hands now.

There Is One Way I Can Make Things Easier

There is one thing I can help with, though. I've changed a lot of rules and ways the game system works. For decades, we've set up stuff in a certain way, and now it's different, and it's caused some confusion among our testers.

So, for our long-time fans, this is a quick guide to the stuff we've changed. This will help you avoid confusion and kill monsters with maximal efficiency.

I don't want you to waste your time. Every dungeon you enter, you can WIN. You have to win. If not ...

1. Trash Monsters Don't Get Experience

This is the single change that makes people the most angry. You get experience with victories. Completing quests, defeating dungeons, these are what give experience.

Sneaking into a dungeon, killing two wolves, and running out doesn't reward you. You have to enter every dungeon determined to get victory. Coffee is for closers.

I understand the anger about this change. A lot of people play RPGs to get that constant dopamine drip of tiny rewards. I'm trying to do a different thing here, and it's going to cost us money. I don't want you to waste your time killing the same 3 brigands again and again and again. I want you to always be pushing forward, exploring new areas, defeating new foes, trying new things.

2. You Have To Do Dungeons In One Trip

Along the same lines as #1. Your enemies can get reinforcements. You can't dip into a dungeon, kill a few monsters, return to town to rest, and repeat until the adventure is whittled away. You have to use strategy and conserve your power to defeat dungeons in one trip.

Don't let this stress you out, though. We have worked really hard on balance. On Normal difficulty, the dungeons should be exciting and suspenseful without being punishing. If you want a true tactical challenge, on the other hand, Veteran and Torment difficulties are there for you.

3. You Don't Have Much Energy, But Effects Are Powerful

In our earlier games, you had tons of energy and cast lost of spells all the time, but they had less of an effect. In Queen's Wish, you have less energy (though killing foes refreshes it). The effects are quite powerful, but you will have to take care to use them when they can have maximal impact.

If character development seems to simple, remember that how you improve your forts is a major part of your character build. There's lot of complexity, but I don't hit you with it all at the beginning.

4. Healing is Weaker. Crowd Control is Stronger.

It is more important to control your foes than to just let them bonk you and heal the damage. You will have a full suite of stun and terror abilities to get your enemies under control.

A nice tip: Many of your ability make your next weapon blow have a special effect (like causing bleeding or stun). These abilities help attacks from bows and wands too. You can have your archer stun the evil wizards in the back row!

5. You Make the Best Gear In Your Forts

The dungeons still have good treasure, of course. However, your most important reward for completing missions is resources for your forts. Then you can build new smithies, alchemists, etc. The more smithies you build, the better the gear you can get.

Having trouble in a dungeon? Remember that the best gear is sold in your forts. Go back to one of them, build a new smithy, and do some shopping. It will help a lot!

There are over 40 base abilities. Some are core. Some are situational. Some dungeons on higher difficulties may require special character builds.

6. You Can Change Around Your Skills At Will

When you train your character in a set of abilities, you can unlearn those abilities in your forts at will. Some abilities are more useful in certain regions.

On Normal difficulty, this probably won't be necessary. In higher difficulty levels, you might need to change your skill loadout or switch to alternate characters to overcome certain challenges.

You may find the Queen's Wish system is way deeper than it appears at first. You'll have to make a lot of decisions about how to build up your forts and how to shift your skills around to deal with new foes.

7. No More Junk Items

For the last couple decades, there were lots of small incidental items (like spoons or bricks) scattered around to add flavor to areas. These aren't in Queen's Wish. Boxes only contain treasure. You don't get to collect a millions small items, but, on the other hand, there's no need to collect a million small items.

Your backpack is only for useful items. It has limited space, so you have to decide what to take with you into a dungeon. Fortunately, it's not hard to make your pack bigger.

And If You Hate These Changes?

Don't worry! We will still be remastering our old games, and we will leave the things you like in them alone as much as possible. Our next game will be a remaster of our beloved old Geneforge, and we promise to respect what you loved about it.

Anyway, Queen's Wish: The Conqueror for Windows and Mac is out. The iPad and iPhone version will be out late in the year. Thank you for your patience with this new world, and we hope you love these games half as much as we do!

I Am the Cheapest Bastard In Indie Games

A Queen's Wish screenshot. Note that I use game art that I like to look at. This is necessary because I'll be staring at it for years, and I don't want to go mad.

A week ago, I put up a blog post called "Why All My Games Look Like Crap." It really blew up. A lot of people read it. Some were highly supportive. Others took precious time out of their days to let me know I am a gigantic, gigantic bozo.

Thanks to all! When you're trying to get attention for a small indie game, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Basically, my blog post said, "Some people like my art, but I am still super-bad at art. Always have been. Fixing the problem costs time and cash, and I don't have any of either to spare. So that's why our games look bad."

I got a lot of questions about this. Good questions. Why can't I afford art direction? How much does art cost? Why don't I do this or that smart thing? So that's why I'm writing this. I want to answer the good questions.

So I am going to say some stuff about making and budgeting video games and why I am a bozo and why I am cursed to be a bozo forever. Along the way, I'm going to explain to you the whole indie games biz, from soup to nuts. If you like indie games, I think you might find how I survive interesting.

You see, I am the cheapest bastard in indie games.

I don't have this much money. And, please, I beg you, support bigcatclipart.com and the good work they do.

I've Been Doing This For 25 Years

Some people really get annoyed when I bring this up. It's as if having long experience and a huge body of work gives my words some sort of weight and my advice some value.

Well, it does. Do you realize how few people have turned a good profit for that long in this blood sport business? I am rarer than a unicorn made of bigfoots!

The indie games business is hard, one of the toughest there is.

Why Is It So Hard To Make Money In Indie Games?

What do you think the going rate for the best indie games ever made is?

Did you guess 'Free'? You're right! Go to the Epic Game Store every week and they'll hand you the best indie games, games way better than mine, for free!

That not enough? Join the Humble Monthly Bundle. For just $12/month, they'll send you 6-7 games every month, plus you can also download over 60(!) games in their "Humble Trove." They're good games.

So the competition is intense, and you can never ever match your superiors on price, ie free. That makes for tough business, friend.

Award-winning. Critical darling. Huge hit. Free. How do you plan to compete?

So How Can You Survive?

Simple. You provide something nobody else can ever provide. Something cool and distinctive that people will rather pay money for your game than get someone else's for free.

Consider me. I'm an OK programmer. I'm not good at art and visual stuff, and I haven't been since I was a kid.

But I can write well. I make good settings and stories, my spelling and grammar are ok, I make addicting game systems, and my systems and stories blend really well. THAT is the product I sell.

I'm in the business of selling Jeff Vogel games. And just like Van Gogh couldn't paint a Renoir, or vice versa, nobody else can make a Jeff Vogel game. Larian Studios is a great company with great resources that makes great products. However, no matter how hard they try, they can never make a game one of my fans will mistake for one of mine.

Fortunately for me, there are people who really like Jeff Vogel games, and only we sell them. So we have a business.

However, that's not all it takes to stay in business. I can get people to buy my games, sure. But I need to turn a profit.

That is why I need to be the cheapest bastard in indie games.

You can find a dedicated fan base for any imaginable art style. That's indie games, baby!

Let's See Some Numbers

I got into this kerfuffle talking about how my games look ugly, and I'll get back to that. First, though, let's look at budgets.

Our next game is Queen's Wish: The Conqueror. We spent about 20 months on it. For it to have a chance to pay for the time we spent creating it, it needs to make, after Steam and GOG.com and Apple and itch.io and Kickstarter take their cuts, about $200000 US.

(It will take years for the game to earn this money, but we'll be earning money from back catalog at the same time, so it evens out.)

Why that amount? Because that is what long experience has told us we are most likely to get. Low-budget high-text, thinky RPGs don't become giant hits, but we have a loyal audience, so we'll get decent sales.

Then we take out, say, $60000 for business expenses and insurance. Then we spend X dollars on art (the key factor we are discussing here). We use what is left to pay our salaries (to get baubles like food, clothing, and shelter).

So our earnings for 20 months of hard work is, let's say, $140000 minus art expenses. Keep your eye on the ball.

Twenty Months? That's Not Very Long To Write a Game

No! It's not! Whenever I ship I game, I immediately begin the race against time to write another game before our bank account runs out. Twenty months is actually an unusually long time for us, but Queen's Wish is an all-new games system and engine, so it needs it. I normally need 12-14 months.

By the way, for people who asked me why I don't just learn to do better art myself, this is why. To learn to do better art, I'd need to spend at least 6-12 months. (To think it takes less is insulting to artists.) I just don't have the time to not be writing games.

I made the frames and button background for this interface. It was years before someone say, "Um, Jeff, are you sure this isn't a little too green?"

So Back To Art

After I wrote the last blog post, a lot of people wanted to make sure that, "Oh yeah, pal. No matter how bad your art is? It's WAY worse than that." The most common complaint I got is that there is no unified style and color palette. My art looks like it was cobbled together from like 20 different artists, blended together imperfectly by my nonexistent Photoshop stills.

Well, I've got news for you. Our art WAS literally cobbled together from like 20 different artists, blended together imperfectly by my nonexistent Photoshop stills.

Here's the thing. Many people don't notice this. Some notice, but it doesn't bother them. But for skilled artists and people with an eye for this sort of thing, looking at the icons I use makes their faces do this ...

Hello darkness, my old friend.

Sorry about that.

How I "Art Direct"

When I do what might laughably be called "art design", my first step is to cobble together any floor/terrain objects that will function. I pull art from old games, from https://opengameart.org/, from sites that license icons for cheap, from anywhere I can get icons that will function. I use Photoshop trickery to make it blend as much as possible.

Eventually, I will reach a point where I need stuff that I can't use online resources for, stuff that needs to be custom-made for how I want the game to look. Then I go to freelancers.

I pay for bespoke art for terrain types with different looks that need to fit the engine, like tables and statues. Also, for terrain that I have my own unique formats for, like walls and doors and gates.

My artists work very hard to make sure the icons they do blend well with each other and look great. They do awesome work. Then I defile it by mixing it in with all the other weird stuff I find. If anything looks bad in my games, blame me! Seriously!

Doing the art this way costs around $40000. That leaves $100000 of earnings. For 20 months of work, that's pretty thin, but I'll live with it. I'll make up for it with the next two games in the series, which will take a lot less time to write. (Plus, eventually, remasters. I will be squeezing pennies out of Queen's Wish for literally decades.) So it's fine.

So that is where the weird mix of styles in my games comes from. Suppose I wanted to have unified art, all one style guide, all one look, everything done from scratch to give the game one pure look. I'm not a total idiot. I know it's possible. This is why I don't do it ...

This is a literal screenshot of the first computer game I ever owned.

Here! Have Some Hard Numbers!

Queen's Wish is a big game! Five nations and biomes! A surface and underworld! Multiple sets of furniture, all kinds of environments. The game currently has, to make the different regions look distinct and give enough visual variety, well over 1000 terrain icons. (An icon here is defined to be a 48x48 tile. Some terrains require multiple icons. Each wall type, for example, is assembled from 60 icons.)

Now suppose I do all this from scratch for the game. I need to hire freelancers. So I have to assemble a team of them that work in the desired style, that all make art that blend well, that are available and reliable, that are willing to commit to a job this big, and aren't too expensive. (If you think this is easy, you have a lot to learn. Assembling this team takes a lot of my non-existent time.)

So I hire Fredrika Freelancer (F.F.) for short. F.F. charges $25/hour.

(That’s a really fair price. If you’re paying less, someone else is going to hire her away from you. On the other hand, many freelancers charge $50/hour or more, but F.F. likes me and gives me a break. She probably lives in a country where the U.S. dollar goes farther. If you live in Brooklyn, I can't afford you.)

I ask F.F. to do, say, a stone pillar, about 20 pixels wide and 70 pixels high.

She builds it in her 3-D program. Textures it. Shadows it. Sizes it properly. Renders it. Sends it to me. I request some changes. She makes them. (I'm really easy to work with. I almost never ask for more than one round of changes. Believe it or not, freelancers tend to really like working with me.) I get the art. This probably will take about two hours.

So, if I'm lucky, I get this pillar done for $50. Yay! One terrain type down.

999 more to go.

But for Queen's Wish, I want 4 different pillars, to give distinct looks to four different cultures. Suppose on opengameart, I find a set of public domain pillar icons that basically work. They aren't great, but they function. If I download them, I save $200.

$200!!! That's folding money! You know how much money that is? That's enough money to buy 200 donuts! WITH SPRINKLES!


But That's Not All!

So do a little math and tell me how much money I'll need to shell out to get all 1000 terrain icons done, how much money will be chipped out of my $140000. And then remember that's just terrain! Then I need creature art, and an interface, and portraits, and color paintings, and sfx, and item icons, and ability icons, and ...

RPGs are art-intensive!

Are you seeing why I go cheap whenever I can? Freelancers charge money because they DESERVE it. They are talented people in a hard job. But they are selling the art ala carte, and I'm too much of a doofus to be able to afford too much of it.

To art everything being done from scratch with a unified style and a consistent, pleasing color palette and all the other good things artists like, if I'm lucky and get a lot of charity and really scale back what I want, I can easily end up spending $150000. Again, I can't do it myself. I'm a writer, not an artist, and RPGs absolutely need certain sorts of assets.

So here is the math: Doing art the cheap bastard way, I spend $40000. Doing it the good way, I spend around $150000. 150000 – 40000 = 110000

So to justify the extra art cost, I need to sell $110000 more worth of games just to break even. Remember that number.

We should be grateful that indie games have expanded what a game can look like and still break through. It wasn't like this a decade ago. 

Or I Could Hire An Employee

I don't have to use freelancers, of course. I could hire an artist full-time for 20 months. Suppose I do a big search and find someone whose style I like and who wants to work for me. How much will that count, taking benefits and taxes into account?

Many who are unfamiliar with this industry are surprised to find that artists are some of the highest paid people. Good, reliable artists are rare! Check out this site https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/games-artist/salary/, for salary estimates.

If I'm lucky enough to find a good artist who wants the job, with bonuses and benefits and so on, I might be able to get him or her for $150000.

If I'm lucky enough to find a good person, with bonuses and benefits and so on, I might be able to get this person for $150000-180000.

(LOL! This is probably way too low, especially if I want the person to live in Seattle so I can work with them face to face, which I do. I will be paying under the median at this rate.)

I don't want to do this. I'm an introvert, and one of the reasons I got into this business was so that I could work alone. But I'll do it. For the Sake Of Art. You, the customer, deserve it. I will never let you down!

Again, my cheap bastard art is $40000. If I hire a full-time art director/artist, I need to increase sales by $110000-140000.

Where Does the Extra Art-Buying Money Come From, By The Way?

So can I even spend the extra $110000+ to begin with?

I don't have that much cash on hand. Nowhere near. To launch this project, I need to take a bank loan or raid my retirement fund. Then, if I don't break even, I'm in big trouble.

OK. I Need To Increase Sales By $110000

I know. This blog post is a long slog. Here's the punchline! Remember, most indie games are sold at deep discount now. After the store's cut, I'll probably average about $8 a sale.

To make that $200000 I think I can earn, I'll need to make about 25000 sales. For an indie game, this is a LOT. But give me a few years and let me luck into a Steam daily deal or a Humble Bundle and I can manage it.

But to break even on my all-new art project, to earn that extra $110000, my still very low-budget indie turn-based-retro-word-heavy RPG needs to sell about 40000 copies.

That increase may not sound like so much more, but it is a LOT. Ask any indie developer. 40000 copies is a HUGELY aggressive number. (So is 25000, but, again, I have an established fan base. Every sale I get requires more work than the sale before it.)

That is just to break even. If we don't hit that number? We can easily lose the entire business, poof, all sacrificed for the sake of a nice, unified art style.

And that is why I need to be the cheapest bastard in indie games.

All my best art direction is done when my eyes are covered with slices of cucumber.

But ... But ... I Thought Indie Games Made You Rich!

Yeah. Sometimes you get a hit. Then you get a pile of money. Then you hire a bunch of employees and make a real company. Then one of two things happen. You write a new, expensive game and it's a mistake and fails and everything explodes. Or you keep writing good games and grow until GiantMegaCorp gives you hundreds of millions of dollars for your company and you fly free and take a big vacation and buy a Tesla and realize you have no idea what to do with your life.

However, most indie developers are like most small business owners. We're humble folks scraping by and doing what we can.

That is why I am writing these too-many words. If you want to have a small business or make a living as a humble artist, I have kind words for you, because I really want you to succeed.

The Inspirational Ending!

I got yelled at a lot for the previous article. It was basically a massive expression of contempt at me for being such a hack that I was content writing such ugly games.

(And if you want to get Extremely Mad Online and dunk on me more, it's cool. Whatever is fun. Shine on, you crazy diamond.)

But here’s the thing! If you want to be a game writer, or creator, or small businessperson, you should find my story to be inspiring!

I write games so ugly that I am showered with contempt, and yet I make money! I’ll have a full, lifelong career! If I can have so many flaws and still succeed, you can too!

Figure out what you are really good at doing. Sell that. Make your dream real. Get it out the door, whatever it takes, whatever corners you have to cut. If you’re better than me (and who isn’t, really), you have a chance.

Good luck!

###

I am writing these blog posts to get attention to our newest game, Queen's Wish: The Conqueror. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Why All Of Our Games Look Like Crap

We spent years working on this game. We're betting our family's future on it. So. Why does it look so bad?

We've been writing indie games for a living for 25 years. My wife and I run a humble little mom-and-pop business. We make retro low-budget role-playing games that have great stories and design and are a lot of fun.

Also, they look like crap.

The first game I released, in January of 1995, looked like crap. It achieved financial success (among the blind, apparently), which funded many more games that looked like crap, enabling me to build a solid reputation.

Based on this reputation, we had a successful Kickstarter for Queen's Wish: The Conqueror, an exciting upcoming RPG that will look like crap. We hope it will be a gateway to us making games that look like crap for many years to come.

We have no complaints. We are in the middle of a long, successful career, and everything is rosy. However, sometimes I like to write about the indie game business and help people understand how it works and give advice to younger developers. This article is about why our games look the way they do, whether you like them or not (probably not).

Most importantly, I want to advocate for the right of indie developers to be weird. If an indie dev has a wild, creative idea and is scared of trying it and thinks, "I might as well do it, at least I'm not being as crazy as Jeff Vogel," I've done my job.

So if you are interested in why we write games that look like crap and will ALWAYS look like crap, read on.

This is what I grew up playing. A true classic. This is what looks normal to me.

First, Let's Just Get One Thing Clear ...

I think my games look good, and they contain a lot of really good art.

All of the art in Queen's Wish was made by extremely talented freelancers doing really solid work to my specifications. I feel very lucky to be working with them. If you think my games look bad, any blame for that rests with me entirely.

Second, again, I think Queen’s Wish looks really nice and comfy. Maybe it's a generational thing. People who grew up with Nintendo and Sega really like pixel art. I grew up with Atari and Intellivision, and I am very used to having art that leaves a lot to the imagination.

My art is the sort of game art I grew up with, just with more modern color and detail, designed to give the feel of a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game. That is my goal.

So when I say my games look like crap, I am maybe being a little clickbaity. Video games are art, art is hugely subjective, and there are lots of people who genuinely like how my games look. I certainly do.

This article is an explanation for those who disagree.

Exile: Escape From the Pit, the first game we ever released. Queen's Wish is meant to evoke this old style, which, yes, I like.

What Brought This Post On

People have criticized the art in our games for decades. I have had indie developers, normally a mild and supportive lot, make fun of my games TO MY FACE.

We have a pretty thick skin about it. Still, when we announced Queen's Wish: The Conqueror, I got this message on Reddit:

Jeff, I really like what you do and Geneforge 2 is one of my favorite games ever, but why not get a better artist? It's not even about technically impressive art, just about something that is pleasant to look at and doesn't alienate people. So many of my friends have told me they'd love to try your games but just can't get over the sloppy and cheap art style.

Ouch.

What fascinates me here is that the guy seems to think he is telling me news. Like, I'm smart enough to keep a software company running for 25 years, but I am unable to notice qualities in my games that are instantly obvious to Joe Q. Rando. Apparently, my games are so ugly that looking directly at them without protective gear will turn you into this guy ...

So yeah, this message bummed me out a bit, but it shouldn't have. I have seen COUNTLESS variants of this criticism over the last 25 years. At least he didn't threaten my life or call me slurs or wish horrible fates on my children (which happens).

What Is Wrong With Our Art?

If you think my art is fine and don't understand what the problem is, bless you. I'll tell you what some think is wrong, as best I understand it.

1. Queen's Wish has a very retro square-tile top-down view, reminiscent of old Ultima games, old Pokemon games, Spiderweb's first games, tabletop D&D, that sort of thing. For some, that old style is really unfamiliar and/or alienating.

2. Queen's Wish uses art made by a lot of different artists. That means that the style is not quite consistent. We've done our best to make it blend well, but it's a little off.

3. All the characters only look in diagonal directions. I made this choice because I once thought all the art would be hand-drawn, and I desperately needed to reduce the number of icons I needed. This was a mistake, and I'll probably try to fix it in Queen's Wish 2.

4. It's not in 3-D. Some people will only ever be happy with 3-D.

I'm sure there are lots of other problems. These are just the most common complaints. All these problems can be fixed. All they need is money. Lots of money.

Our previous game, Avernum 3: Ruined World. Why didn't I just write another game that looks like this? Because I didn't want to. Nyeah!

So. Why Do My Games Look Like Crap?

Or, more accurately, why do my games look the way they do, when other more fancy, more expensive art styles are available? Style that would, I freely admit, increase my sales.

These are the reasons I don't change. If you want to make a living in the games business, or run ANY business, these ideas might be useful to you. This isn't just me whining. There are a lot of key basic principles here, and ignoring them is very dangerous for a small entrepreneur.

1. I Can Never Be Good Enough

Remember we're a tiny company, like most indie developers.

Suppose I want to change how I write games and run my business. Fine. Maybe I should. the first thing I have to ask is: What is my goal? It's to convert non-customers into customers.

There are players out there who look at my games and say, "I don't want to play a game that looks like that." That is totally their right. But suppose I want to win those people over. What is required?

The key problem here is that, when most people say, "Your art looks bad," what they mean is, "I want art that is good." They mean, "I want AAA-quality art." And I can't make that. Not even close.

I have had games where I worked very hard to improve the graphics, spending a lot of time and money, and they really did look better! But when I released those games, the vast majority of people who had said, "Your games look bad." STILL said, "Your games look bad."

Games like Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin look infinitely better than my work. Those games also have huge teams, paid for by big budgets.

And let's be clear. If this is what you want, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! Hey, I like good graphics too. If you want really good graphics, my games will never be for you. I can't afford you.

Writing story-heavy RPGs like mine is still a total niche business. AAA gaming has moved away from what I write very fast. Yes, Divinity: Original Sin 2 was a big hit, but Pillars of Eternity 2 very much was not.

I will never run a big game company. I have to stay small, both because of business realities and because of what my wife and I want from our lives. So our games will never be fancy. They will always be humble.

LESSON: Before trying for a goal, make sure that goal is possible to reach. It might not be. Know your limits!

Nethergate, released in 1997. A huge improvement over Exile. Before I released it, everyone said my games look bad. After I released it, everyone said my games look bad.

"BUT ... Just because we can't shoot for the moon doesn't mean that we can't make some improvements! Hire a full-time artist. Hire another programmer who knows Unity. Why not do that?"

2. We Want To Run a Profitable Business

When you want to run a small business, managing your budget is vitally important. Right now, our games only need to earn enough to support one family. When you have a solid product and a decent reputation, that is a very realistic goal. We've been doing it for 25 years.

Suppose I want to hire a second employee. That will double the budget for our game. That means we have to double our sales to make up for it. When you are in business, especially one as competitive as video games, doubling sales is HARD.

Would a second or third employee increase sales? Absolutely. Would it do so enough to justify the expense? Far more dubious. And bear in mind I need to come up with the money to hire those employees in the first place. That probably means a bank loan. Even if I get that loan, if the extra sales from the new employees isn't enough to pay the loan, that means the whole business can die.

Can increasing headcount and making better games be a good idea? Of course! Businesses do it all the time! It's how great games are made. It is also a good way to lose everything.

I already have a long-term profitable business, and that is not unrelated to my risk-averse personality. I don't want to blow it.

LESSON: When you spend more money, you need to increase sales to match those expenses. Make sure you have a good chance of doing this, and make sure you can stomach the risk.

Darkest Dungeon has really good art that a small team can afford to do. However, the style is really distinctive. Finding artists to reproduce this exact look is hard.

"BUT ... Small companies make great-looking games all the time. The key is to get an artist to make a cool, distinctive art style (like hand-drawn or pixel art). My games have fairly standard, neutral icon art. Why not have more style?"

3. We Need To Maintain a Consistent Look

This is a very subtle but important point, and it's one that people don't think about enough when analyzing or planning indie games.

Suppose I want to make a game like Darkest Dungeon, that doesn't actually have a huge amount of art, but it has a really cool, distinctive style. A small developer could afford to write a game like Darkest Dungeon. I have to get a freelancer who will develop an individual art style for a reasonable price. (Because I can’t afford a full-time employee, see above.)

But.

There is a key problem with freelancers: They have free will. They will very rarely be able to work for you for a long time. They get better jobs, or they quit making art, or they make art but for someone else, or they just flake out.

Suppose I get half a game-worth of really neat, funky art, and then my freelancer gets a real job for big bucks. I then have to find a new artist who can match the style of that art and make a lot of it, which is very difficult.

And then suppose I write a sequel, and I want to reuse that art and need more art made in that style. Then it is even more likely that my freelancer (and any replacements) will have moved on, and then I either have to throw everything away and get it redone (expensive in time and money) or find a new artist who will try to match that art's style and probably not do a great job at it.

I can't stress this enough: Finding talented, reliable, reasonably priced freelancers is HARD. Cherish them when you find them.

That is why all of my games have a more generic fantasy style. I have to work with a lot of different artists. It's the nature of the business. Thus I have to write games in a way that the artists can be replaced. The generic style this requires is not ideal, but it is necessary.

LESSON: Always be aware of when you are relying on other people. Always be prepared to replace anyone. People move on. Life happens.

This is a really good, critically acclaimed, successful indie game. If a game that looks like this can be a hit, maybe there can be room for me?

"But you did games with a more 3-D look and I like those better. Your games looked kind of fine. Why didn't you stay with that?""

4. You Gotta' Follow Your Muse

Game makers are artists. Artists are dependent on their inspirations. Sometimes your brain just wants to make a certain thing. If you aren't going to do what you want and believe in, why are you writing indie games?

I've been writing games with that angled isometric look for twenty years. Twenty! I just wanted to write something that looks different. I have to change things sometimes to stay interested and keep from burning out. Period.

LESSON: Not every artist can make every sort of art. Van Gogh couldn't paint a Renoir painting. If something inspires you, consider following that. If you're writing things you don't want to write, why not just get a real job? You'll get a regular paycheck and benefits.

Atari Adventure, one of my all-time favorite games. A true classic. I STILL love this game. If you don't like it, maybe the problem is you.

"BUT ... Surely you can do SOMETHING? Surely there is some hope! Can nothing be improved?"

5. Again, Some People Like Our Games

Remember, we've sold MANY copies of our games. We have fans. Our games have a scruffy, eccentric handmade look. Our indie games look, well, indie.

I like how our games look, more or less, and I get a vote too. Maybe I'm a big weirdo, but weirdos spend money too.

And, honestly, isn't one of the foundational ideas of indie games that there is room for all sorts of creative expression? That having more dollars doesn't give you a better claim on The Truth? That you don't have to be a billion dollar company to be good, to be right?

Seriously, if you think my games look bad, don't play them. Believe me, I understand. But I got into this business to make my weird toys in my weird way. If I ever can't convince people to buy them, I'll quit and sell shoes.

LESSON: If you are doing something that is working, keep doing it. If you are comfortable with your success, don't let anyone psych you out of it.

People have been hating on my art for 25 years. I am very lucky, and I hope they'll be doing it for 25 more.

We Run Our Own Businesses To Have Freedom

To me, one of the most saddening things about our current economy is that the number of small businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs has been dropping for quite some time.

We at Spiderweb love the freedom of being our own bosses, and we hope others get to enjoy it too. It's a scary way to live, but it has its rewards. We get to be weird. We get to make our own thing, and we OWN it. That is wonderful.

So, anonymous Reddit person, that is why we don't have art that is "pleasant to look at and doesn't alienate people". This was a lot of words, but it's actually a pretty big question.

If you've stuck with me this far, thank you, and I hope, in your life, you get to create things that make you content.

###

I am writing these blog posts to get attention to our newest game, Queen's Wish: The Conqueror. You can also follow me on Twitter.

To Be a Pro is to Be Abused.

Trigger warning: Bears.

I want to say a few words to young developers on the value of resilience and the growing of a thick skin.

Slow down there. Hands off the keyboard. I an NOT talking about abuse, harassment, and threats. I've already written on this topic. Certain behaviors online are clearly unacceptable, and you should not be subjected to them.

What I AM talking about is learning to endure criticism and occasional hostility that is an inevitable part of being a creator in a public way.

Because you will be criticized. You will be insulted. People will be mean to you. Also, because you are only human and will occasionally make mistakes, sometimes that criticism will be justified. So you should be ready.

I'm going to tell two instructive stories. One about me, one about an ambitious young developer. (Well, as of this writing, ex-developer.) Know enough to be afraid. 

You WILL receive feedback like this at some point. Prepare in advance an appropriate reaction.

A Time That PC Gamer Was Mean To Me

In November, 2000, PC Gamer. reviewed my game Avernum. This was a huge deal for me, as PC Gamer was the biggest press outlet around. The game was already selling very well, but we were eager for a hit. Also, press attention for a small developer has always been really hard to get.

Imagine my surprise when the review, written by a Gentleman I Will Not Name (GIWNN for short), came out and my score was 17/100. Yes, 17%. I'm sure a lot of thought went into it. I imagine GIWNN up late at night, agonizing. "I mean, this game isn't quite good enough for a lofty 18%, but it's also not the sort of hackery that merits a mere 16%."

But it gets better. The review also says my game is worse that choking to death on your vomit. (I swear I am not making this up.) The review included a helpful sidebar that listed rock stars who choked to death on their own vomit. (Again, I SWEAR I am not making this up.)

If you are upset by the current level of journalistic standards in the games industry, I assure you there have been issues for some time.

Some developers would be given pause by a review like this. Some might even be slightly upset. I was not. I was still being given a full, free page of coverage in PC GODDAMN GAMER. I know that review brought me a bunch of new customers. I heard from them. I'm sure I got more extra cash from the review than the GIWNN got for writing it. (And, when you get a few drinks in me, I still get the review out sometimes to show to friends.)

Are you an aspiring game developer? Picture the largest games press outlet publicly treating you in such a manner. If you have any response besides, "Hey, any PR is good PR," you might want to reconsider your career path.

I got that review, and I went on to have a highly lucrative and satisfying career. PC Gamer went on to give very kind coverage to quite a few of my other games. And the GIWNN went on to achieve his True Destiny: being a negligible non-entity.

Since I was taking pictures in my office, I thought my more devoted fans would like some sweet backstage info. For example, I work surrounded by my classic vidya gaem collection. Here is a tiny portion of my Atari 2600 games.

The Tale of Bear Simulator

What brought this article on was the sad story of recent indie title Bear Simulator, written by an ambitious fellow named John Farjay. Full disclosure: I have not played it, as bears are Godless Killing Machines. 

Bear Simulator was funded on Kickstarter with an impressive haul of over $100K. Farjay then broke from Kickstarter tradition by actually finishing the game in a reasonable period of time. He delivered it to backers and released it on Steam. (As of this writing, user reviews for the game: Very Positive.)

At this point, and I'll admit I'm a little fuzzy on the exact particulars, the game received some negative press. There was a particularly brutal takedown by renowned INTERNET TOUGH GUY Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (sometimes referred to as PewDiePie). This review ended with him getting a refund on Steam, which is now the traditional way for a vicious hack job to spike the ball in the endzone.

John Farjay quit, announcing this in a poignant little post on Kickstarter. Since it might not still be up when you read this, I'll include an excerpt:

Well the game didn't have a great reception, has a stigma against it's name and there's plenty of other problems so making any updates or going further is basically a lost cause now. Plus not skilled enough to make the game better than it currently is or write better updates than previously.
 Was really hoping the Steam release would go well but why would it, should have just gave the game to backers and not bother with Steam.
 Also don't want to deal with the drama anymore. Can't ignore it because that causes more drama and can't do anything about it because that causes more drama.
 It was really fun making the game, trailers, updates, websites, tutorials, blog posts and stuff, hopefully you all liked those things.
 Am glad most of you guys are happy with the game though, unless you were just being nice

I mean, seriously, if you don't find this at least a tiny bit sad, you have an even harder heart than I do.

The Thing That Makes Other Indie Devs Raise Their Eyebrows

There are so many of us who would give a lesser body part to be savaged in a video by PewDiePie. Man, I would love for him to tear apart my work in one of his videos. I'd salve my hurt feelings by using the extra sales to buy a Tesla.

But that's the difference between a hardened veteran and a new recruit, isn't it?

Some of the piles of junk that form my nest. Yes, those are two functional Vectrexes. I am amazing. 

THIS IS NOT A HIT PIECE AGAINST JOHN FARJAY

If you know anything about me, you know that I would never savage a young, earnest developer. Others enjoy lashing out when there's blood in the water (especially when there's tasty, tasty clicks to bait), but I don't.

I have no problem with John Farjay. He offered a game on Kickstarter, delivered a game, became unhappy, and tried to extricate himself from the situation in as ethical a way as possible. The only real criticism I've heard leveled against him is that he didn't provide Kickstarter updates that often, but that isn't a crime as long as the game eventually arrives.

Here's what this situation sounds like to me: This guy wanted the job, applied for the job, got the job, decided he didn't like the job, and quit. This happens 10000000 times a day. It's not a big deal. It's only the public element that made it newsworthy.

And here's the cool thing: There's still hope. Suppose John Farjay changed his mind. Suppose he caught up on sleep, went for a few restorative walks, and went, "Wait! I do want to write games!"

He could write a Kickstarter update, say, "Sorry. I went nuts for a few days. I'm better now, and I'm back to work!" If he did this, I promise that he'd be welcomed back with open arms. It's a great story, and people love indie devs because we're quirky and human.

This shouldn’t have ever happened, though. Aspiring developers need to hear tales like these, so that they know what they are in for.

A shareware award I got in 1997, next to notes from my new game. My work notes very strongly resemble the opening credits to Se7en. 

But What Does That Mean Exactly?

It’s easy to say “Toughen up.” But what does that mean? How do you modify your behavior and reactions in a way that enables you to withstand being in this business longer. Because that’s the goal: Creating a stable, sustainable business you like to run.

This will, in the end, vary from person to person. I don’t know what your mental fault lines are. I don’t know what freaks you out. I only know that, when you find the thing that freaks you out, you should probably modify your behavior or inputs in a way that leaves you calmer and more able to do your job.

For example, a lot of devs I know worry about weird metrics. They obsess over their Steam wishlist numbers, or their user reviews, or if they can compete with some new game that’s coming out, or whether keys they chose to sell through Humble Bundle are being resold. The world presents us with infinite trivia to worry about.

If a piece of input worries you, and you can’t control it, and you have no crystal clear idea what its impact on your life will be, feel free to ignore it. In fact, you probably should ignore it. If something upsets you, do everything you can to ignore that something.

Being harassed is VERY difficult to ignore, so do what you need to to keep from being harassed. Forums are nice, but you don’t HAVE to have them. Twitter has its points, but you don’t HAVE to be on it. (This is true. I ran a successful business for many a year before Twitter went live.) If a forum or public-facing account is a hive of harassment and nastiness, shut it down for a month. Most of the trolls will move on.

If you say, “I have to be on [web site] no matter what!” you are giving the crazies a weapon they can use to hit you. Don’t do that. “But they can drive me off of a site? That is wrong and not fair!” Yes. It is wrong and not fair. I’m angry about it too. But this isn’t an undergraduate ethics class. It’s business. Who ever told you business was fair?

(Fun aside: What percentage of online abuse against developers is secretly being launched by their competitors to push them out of the business? It might be 0% now, but, as the industry gets even more competitive, it won’t stay 0% forever. Sleep tight.)

This is a TOUGH, competitive business. It’s a blood sport. To have even a small chance of success, you will need to bring your A game, day after day, for years at a time. If something distracts you from that, you must cut it out without mercy.

My latest game's Metacritic. It's entirely fair. When I disagree with something someone wrote, I send them a respectful rebuttal. 

Quick Aside About User Reviews

Most indie developers write games aimed at niche audiences. Therefore, the games they write won’t be liked by most gamers. This is pretty much the definition of ‘niche.’

Alas, indie developers also tend to really freak out about negative user reviews on places like Steam. They worry about this too much. It’s easy to forget that, if you write a game aimed at only 10% of the gaming audience, 90% of players will hate your game. A lot of them will leave bad reviews. This sort of review is not harassment. It’s the system working as intended.

Sometimes, when a dev expresses an unpopular political opinion, those who disagree will organize a brigade and spam your Steam page with negative reviews. This sucks, and they shouldn’t do that. (Although I would gently observe that, when your goal is to run a profitable business, political activism will only very rarely help in this.)

Not all clumps of negative reviews are signs of evil intent, though. Maybe you just wrote a game a lot of people don’t like, and they told you, and that’s the end of the story. Be ready for it.

I suggest making sure that the sliver of users who like your games are paying you enough money to stay in business. Then do what I do and don’t read user reviews. EVER.

But Getting Back To the Main Point

John Farjay was living the dream, and he fell apart. It's far from the first time, and it won't be the last. Life in the public eye, even in so lowly a role as indie game dev, can be tough. It's not for everyone.

It's the job of me and others like me to prepare the neophytes. They need to be ready for these jolts. They can't let one nasty review or article collapse them.

Assholes and hacks exist. So do reasonable people who will call you out when you inevitably make mistakes. You must be ready for all of them.

How do you get to this lofty point? I don't know. I just wish you luck, and I won't hold it against you if you find you aren't cut out for it.

Brace yourself. Good luck.

###

(You can read my moment to moment thoughts on Twitter, which I am on for the moment. Finally, I can't resist ending with a link to this.)

How I Deal With Harassment, Abuse, and Crazies In General.

Whenever I write about a topic that upsets me, I calm myself by illustrating it with royalty-free, reassuring stock photos.

"People are a problem." - Douglas Adams

I get a lot of requests for advice from young developers. Some of these questions regard advice on how to deal with being harassed online. Sometimes, these requests come from people actually experiencing harassment. This is a topic I've been afraid of writing about for some time. It tends to draw firestorms.

Also, it is an issue that affects other individuals WAYYYYY more than it affects me, and I don't want to be a callous buttinski around other peoples' troubles.

But I do get asked. And I do want to respond. I don't think young developers should value my feedback, yet they do. They certainly deserve to get fair warning about what awaits them. So.

This is how I, me personally, handle the threat of online harassment. Your mileage may vary. No, it WILL vary.

I Am a Public Figure

When I release a game or write something visible to the whole world, even a tiny something (Warning: Twitter counts!), I am acting as a public figure. A teeny tiny one, but a public figure nonetheless. Public figures have always received hate mail, abuse, threats, and messages from the unhinged, and they always will. Alas, the internet makes them much easier to deliver.

If you are a public figure, you will be abused eventually. Maybe mild insults. Maybe much worse. This abuse can spread to those around you. (Employers. Loved ones.) You should start thinking about this (and your tolerance for it) now.

This means that, unless something changes very drastically, from Day 1 of your life as a public figure, you should be thinking about your public image and how you will manage it. What is your mental resilience? How much abuse can you take?

Yeah, these chocolates are really reassuring, until some rando finds your street address and gets 100 boxes of them shipped to your house.

1. Harassment is real, and it has a real effect.

Being harassed is harmful. It's easy to say, "Just toughen up. Walk away from the screen." until you've actually experienced it.

Humans are tribal creatures, and tons of insults are upsetting to us on a deep lizard-brain level. Anonymous threats are terrifying, even if they aren't credible. Organized swarms of bad Steam/iTunes reviews can sink a vulnerable business. Organized swarms of angry people can cost you your job. And getting swatted (someone giving an anonymous call to your local emergency services to get a SWAT team sent to your house) might kill you.

By the way, these days, they don’t just come after you. Your family and loved ones will be considered targets as well. You may be capable of ignoring being called every dirty word in the book. But is your mom?

So complaining about harassment isn't just whining by sheltered nerds. The more visible and outspoken you are online, the higher the chance that a whirlwind will land on the heads of you and those you love. There is no chance of this changing in the foreseeable future. This is serious business. I am scared. Everything I do online is weighed against the risk of harassment.

Actually, that's another good reason why I haven't written about it. I don't want to be yet another sheep, bleating loudly in the middle of wolf-infested woods.

Actually, these macaroons look sort of gross. Also, who ever thought it'd be ok to charge two bucks for one small cookie?

2. I filter my input. Mercilessly.

I know a lot of creators of nerd culture. Game designers, writers, comic artists. Old, gnarled, crabby, battle-hardened pros with decades of experience. You'd have heard of a bunch of them.

They all have something in common. It never fails to amaze me, but a single mean email or bad review can send them into a spiral. Like, they'll still be obsessing over it days later. I think, "Wow. After all these years, they still won't let this stuff roll off of them?" And then it happens to me.

So we filter our inputs.

Consider this. Suppose you are, like all right-thinking people, a big fan of Taylor Swift.  So you want to write her a piece of kind fan mail, telling her how awesome she is.

She might read it. It's entirely possible. However, before it hits her iPhone, I bet it will have been filtered by at least one handler. (All of this is just my guess, of course. I would NEVER presume to speak for T-Swizzle.)

There is a super-good reason for these handlers. I've never met Taylor Swift, and I likely never will, but I do know one thing about her: She is a human being, so she is heir to all human vulnerabilities. If hit with the wrong email at the wrong time, she will be thrown off her game for a day, or three. If Taylor Swift is thrown off her game, major corporations lose millions of dollars. So they filter.

I do the same thing. Your messages to me are checked before I get them. I almost never read forums. I'll bet most public figures with any kind of profile do the same thing.

Some people are mean. Some people are crazy. Some people are both. I do not let people in these categories pour poison directly into my ear.

That's odd. I don't find this picture reassuring at all.

3. I remember that life is not fair.

Suppose someone gets angry at me for what I write. He gets a bunch of friends together and they give my games bad reviews on Steam and iTunes.

This is really mean and genuinely harmful, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. They will cost me earnings, and I have no recourse. They walked up, punched me in the nose, and strolled away, and I could do nothing.

Meanwhile, anonymous hordes gather and attempt to cause real suffering to their targets (and their targets’ loved ones). Targets often chosen for silly, trivial, or even factually incorrect reasons and given punishment utterly out of proportion with what they might possibly have done (or not). There is no logic to it, no justice. Just mad lashing out. I have tried to understand it, and I have failed. It is simply maddening.

Life is not fair.

If there was a solution, I would be suggesting it. If I had ever heard or read an answer which would really work and not be a bandaid and would actually make things better, I’d be shouting it at the top of my lungs. But I got nothing. What can’t be changed must be endured.

So, when I get scared or angry (which is often), all I am able to do is attempt a measure of Zen acceptance. I mean, sure, I could rail about how mean the Internet is. But the Internet is what makes my business and awesome life possible in the first place, so it seems a little churlish to hate the Internet.

I will never be totally safe. There will always be fights. Afterward, I get up, dust myself off, get back to work, and try to make enough money to endure the occasional asshole assault.

Well, this is kind of reassuring, I guess. Bones are good. We need them to live.

4. I am very careful about poking the beast.

Over the last year, my writing output has dropped to almost zero. I'm still writing. I have a folder full of completed articles. I just don't post them, because of fear.

The main way to draw abuse is by saying things that anger people. Saying true things still makes people angry. In fact, true things often make people more angry.

When I chose to make a living as a creator, I picked a very difficult job. Very hard, long hours, with a minimal chance of success.

Suppose I also decide to try to change the world in some way. In this case, I picked another very difficult job. Very hard, long hours, with a minimal chance of success.

But there's a key difference between these two jobs. When I try to make stuff to make people happy, most people like me. Only mean, nasty people are out to genuinely hurt someone who only wants to share neat things with the world.

When I am trying to change the world, it's different. Human beings naturally hate and fear change. If you try to change the world, no matter how noble your cause, you will make some people angry.

Remember what I have egotistically termed Vogel's Iron Law of Anger: If you try to make people angry, intentionally or not, you will succeed.

Now what I am not (NOT NOT NOT) saying is that you should be quiet and never state your opinions. I am NOT saying that. In fact, as a citizen of a republic, I believe it is my sacred responsibility to occasionally speak up and try to nudge opinions.

However, a republic is not a suicide pact. What I AM saying is that I weigh my opinions very carefully. When I decide to speak up and try to change minds, I must ask: Am I currently ready to be shouted at? How much? Is the piece I am about to write a ticking time-bomb that will explode and destroy my career in five years? Then I pick fights that will not overly distract me from my first work: creating.

OK, my reassurance-evaluation algorithm is definitely on the fritz. Give me a second.

5. Beware Twitter. 

Twitter was designed, from Day 1, to enable any random person to send messages directly to any public figure. In other words, from Day 1, it was designed to be an abuse and harassment engine. It's not a bug. It's a feature. All that abuse and controversy is how it gets clicks and money.

They are a publicly traded, for-profit corporation, so they will never change in a way that brings them less money. In fact, being a publicly traded corporation, they receive overwhelming pressure to not do so. Do not trust corporations to make the world a better place. They are not your pal. They do not love you. Beware.

6. I have obtained a weapon for self-defense, and I have become proficient in its use.

Ha. Ha. I'm just kidding.

Or am I?

I'm certainly not going to tell you here.

Online harassment has been around for a long time. Every year, it increases in prevalence, ingenuity, and raw damage. I see no reason why this trend will change. I suspect, five years from now, things will be even worse. I don't know what will happen or how I will deal with it when it does.

I've been lucky. I've never gotten to the point where I seriously considered calling the cops. Not yet. Not because I didn't want to, but because I knew it wouldn't help.

Because who are we kidding? They won't do anything. The Law's ability to deal with crimes that haven't happened yet is pretty much zero. (As so many who have gotten restraining orders against an abuser can sadly testify.)

However, the police might make a note in some database saying that SWAT teams heading to my house should be a little extra-careful. That's more than zero.

Look, I've gotten legit scary messages. I've had nights where I sat up on the couch, scared to death, listening for someone trying to break in. I have explored my gunpowder-based self-defense options.

(If you think I am being over the top here, please bear in mind that I am very intentionally leaving out the details of problems I have personally encountered, as I will NOT say anything publicly that might reawaken those problems.)

Writing about this topic, all I can do is shake my head slowly and take deep breaths and try to calm the anxiety. I tell myself that the person who actually comes to kill me probably won't bother to send a polite warning first. Weirdly, this doesn't make me feel better.

I don't know. I just do what I do and hope for the best. Does this count as advice?

GAH. OK. Time to wrap this up.

Scared Yet?

If you're thinking of being a public figure, you need to be ready for it. I guess I do have advice. If you are nervous now, you have taken it: Be nervous. It's OK. It's the rational path.

And that's all I have to say about it. This is a very unsatisfying way to end the article, but the online environment now is very rough, angry, and in a state of flux. I think things will get worse before they get better. (Spoiler warning: They will never get better.)

I respect the damage harassment can do. I don't blame the victim. I don't back down from every fight, but I am prepared for others to fight back. I am nice and respectful whenever possible. I remember some humans are mean, some are crazy, some are both, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I also remember that the vast majority of people are quietly decent. Finally, I remember that being a public creator is a tough, noble path, and I am proud of it.

I hope you can pick something worthwhile from this heap of scraps. Good luck.

###

I also say things on Twitter.

Edit (4/17/16) - Replaced the sentence "In fact, being a publicly traded corporation, they are legally prohibited from doing so." with something more accurate.