I’m not sure what game idea is next

Hallå pals!

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Jonas here with another issue of Indie Notebook to get some ideas out of my noggin, and to inspire you to do the same.

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Before I dive into today’s topic, I wanna share these lil’ homemade crafty projects.

I never brought my Playdate anywhere, I was afraid of scratching up the screen if I tossed it in my bag. I’ve searching online for months to find an affordable case or bag. But none of them spoke to me. I’m staying at my parents’ place now and my mom has turned my old room into a partial sewing studio. So I asked her if we could make something together. We whipped up this pouch in 2 hours.

Then I realized that I could use something to ‘dock’ my little yellow console into as well. I asked my dad if we could make something out of wood and we made this.

It’s nice to solve problems by making something physical and tangible for once, instead of resorting to solving everything by buying an un-personal product.

Now onto the main topic.

It’s been a while since I talked about game making. I believe a few things need to change about how I approach and think about it.

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I’m not sure what game idea is next

Most of the launch dust has settled on my previous game, both sales and player feedback has slowed down. So now my mind is beginning to take the question of “what’s next” more seriously.

I have a couple of ideas I would like to go for. A small open world game, two different metroidvanias and a surreal diorama toy, to name a few. I believe they would all be interesting ideas to pursue. But so was my last project. And it didn’t do nearly as well as I would have hoped or needed. After more than three years of working on and betting on a huge, experimental project that didn’t pay off financially (yet), I hesitate to jump into any new idea.

My old mindset was to just go for anything I felt passionate enough about. And in the beginning I felt intensely passionate about my last project. My reasoning was that if I’m gonna go indie, then I might as well do exactly what I want, otherwise I might as well just go work for someone else.

In a naive way I thought stuff would just work out. I thought I had a lot of advantages that a lot of other people didn’t have. I’m a decent artist and I can code. I thought I even had a small audience to share it with so I wouldn’t be shouting into the void once the time came to market it.

Those advantages helped to a degree. Not nearly enough as I believe they could have though. I believe the issue was the game idea itself, or the execution of it. I still think my last project was a great, fun and unique idea. The world didn’t care about it nearly as much as me, that’s the problem.

I want my next project to be impossible to not talk about. Or at least very very easy to talk and care about. I have a few ideas about stuff that will probably help. Like having a clearer hook, a likable main character and leaning more into a preexisting genre. I don’t think that’s a checklist I can just tick off to make a successful game. I want the idea to prove itself to me in front of faceless people on the internet and in the hands of real people playing it.

So now I will run an experiment:

• First I’ll come up with a bunch of ideas.

• Let them simmer in my notebook for a while.

• See if anyone of them still sounds exciting to me.

• Make something to represent the idea, a rough prototype or concept art.

• Share it and see what the reactions are.

• Pay attention and either iterate on it or scrap it.

I’m already sort of running each step of this experiment at once with different ideas. The only steps I haven’t quite gotten to yet are the last two. But I’m starting those today. Here’s one of my test subjects.

Long Doggy - Katamari but you are a dachshund that likes to eat

This idea is specifically made for the Playdate console.

You play as a dachshund (aka sausage dog) who loves to eat. You explore the level to find food, as you eat you grow longer, as you get longer you will be able to reach more places. By the end of the level you get to poop, the size of your poop represents your score.

This is how the doggy looks (wait for the butt sniff).

And here's a video where I mess around in an early test level. Watch with sound, cause the audio is quite satisfying!

I've been tinkering with this idea sporadically since august last year to learn how to use Lua and how to do stuff for the Playdate. I'm used to Unity and C# so it's quite fun (and sometimes frustrating) to find how different it is. Despite the learning curve I'm getting close to having a playable loop now! Just a few more bits and some level design until I've got the core.

This idea ticks the first step of me being excited enough to work on it. As a PC or console game I don’t think I would bet on this. But the Playdate is such a weird little thing, I don’t know what works on it or if there is any money to be made on it. That’s part of what experiments are for though. I’m gonna try to get it in front of people and see how they react.

Let me know if you have a Playdate and would like to try it out!

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The difficulty with knowing whether an idea is something I’ve mentioned before, but I can’t stop thinking about. I think it’s one of the main problems any creative person has to face. And it doesn’t just apply to game ideas. I continue to be surprised about which Space Deer strips people care about. It’s a recurring reminder that the only way to know what people really think about an idea is to get it in front of them.

It is probably a skill like any other though, cause I’m starting to see some patterns with what works for comic strips. It’s a bit faster to learn what works for strips cause it’s so much easier to put them out and get immediate feedback.

I’ll keep you updated on how this experiment goes!

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Mini Notes

🐦 Tweet - First 14 weeks of Panel Of The Week

3 months of my favorite Space Deer panels collected in one place!

🔴 Youtube video - Japanese web design: weird but it works

After hearing this I understood better why there is so much explanation in Japanese game design. That makes Phil Fish’s criticism of Japanese games seem even more harsh/racist. It basically boils down to a cultural difference between the west and Japan. It’s in everything they do.

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Panel of the week

(from Space Deer)

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Oh, btw! Next week we’re reaching the hundredth issue of Indie Notebook! Stay tuned for that!

Take care and have a creative week.