game development
Sitting on tenterhooks, waiting for "sponsors" to bid on "Cupid's Revenge" (which was somewhere near--or over?--a year in the making). It only ranked a 6 or 6.5 (of 10) on FlashGameLicense which gives it a 40% chance of getting a bid that I'd consider accepting (whatever that means--it's a tough statistic to read).
[ETA: game links fixed, I think; sorry :) ]
Looking back over the (flash) games I've made, to put this in perspective...Cupid's Revenge took probably 200 hours to make. I spent roughly $30 on sound assets (after trying to do them all myself). Some games I've done have taken as few as 20 hours (including ones that were done in less time and then tweaked iteratively after release)....
Just looking at my (lifetime) Mochi (+ Kongregate) stats ~
gameviewsearningsHeaven138,228 + 722$97.35 + $2.72Coprolalia Jr. Edition1,496 + 253$0.68 + $0.64Coprolalia11,485 + 1,437$7.66 + $4.95Hell79,545 + 68,267$42.59 + $257.37Memory Shell Game84,782 + 1,378$28.39 + $8.46Hard Choices by Tina Conn…17,055 + 3,913$7.57 + $21.09 Dodge Cupid40,024 + 744$7.67 + $2.46Hate! Hate! Hate!16,383 + 0$5.45 + 0Surreality9,392 + 1,614$4.30 + $6.17Saber Duel118,592 + 3,134$50.40 + $7.68Ice-9893,897 + 18,953$346.37 + $78.23
These are all from ad revenues. That's...pretty...sad. Heaven is cool, done mostly in a day, picked up because of/inspired by xkcd's comic. Was only able to finish it as quickly as I did because I had assets hanging around from Falling Up. Ditto Hell, only it's not so fun to play. (Whoah. I'd forgotten how well it did on Kongregate!) I finally learned Box2D for that one. The one that really started it all was Ice-9, done in an all-nighter when I couldn't sleep. Posted it immediately, and learned the hard way that there are many things you have to do to make a game seem polished. Somehow it's the most fun game out of any of them (or it hit that magic "exposure" sweet spot--Mindjolt helped a lot with that, but I think Memory Shell Game and Saber Duel both had the Mindjolt treatment as well). Part of it could be the market was a lot less saturated way, way, way back then (1,066 days ago), but it wasn't, really. There were huge, well-established portals, gluts of games, etc. So...beginner's luck. And it's been haunting me ever since. ;) All told, I think I'm looking at under fifty cents an hour. Definitely a hobby. I like to think of them (and many other similar sorts of things) as lottery tickets.
And hey, apparently I never posted "Hate! Hate! Hate!" on Kongregate. Maybe I should...I think I stalled out on wanting to fix a few things and then was unable to recompile (because I was using some time-limited software for a contest). But hey, better than nothing, right? Right...? Hmm. Maybe.
It's a good thing other people are able to monetize my programming skills better than I directly am, and compensate me for those. *cough* Though it's a much cheaper hobby than GUD Magazine....
[ETA: game links fixed, I think; sorry :) ]
Looking back over the (flash) games I've made, to put this in perspective...Cupid's Revenge took probably 200 hours to make. I spent roughly $30 on sound assets (after trying to do them all myself). Some games I've done have taken as few as 20 hours (including ones that were done in less time and then tweaked iteratively after release)....
Just looking at my (lifetime) Mochi (+ Kongregate) stats ~
gameviewsearningsHeaven138,228 + 722$97.35 + $2.72Coprolalia Jr. Edition1,496 + 253$0.68 + $0.64Coprolalia11,485 + 1,437$7.66 + $4.95Hell79,545 + 68,267$42.59 + $257.37Memory Shell Game84,782 + 1,378$28.39 + $8.46Hard Choices by Tina Conn…17,055 + 3,913$7.57 + $21.09 Dodge Cupid40,024 + 744$7.67 + $2.46Hate! Hate! Hate!16,383 + 0$5.45 + 0Surreality9,392 + 1,614$4.30 + $6.17Saber Duel118,592 + 3,134$50.40 + $7.68Ice-9893,897 + 18,953$346.37 + $78.23
These are all from ad revenues. That's...pretty...sad. Heaven is cool, done mostly in a day, picked up because of/inspired by xkcd's comic. Was only able to finish it as quickly as I did because I had assets hanging around from Falling Up. Ditto Hell, only it's not so fun to play. (Whoah. I'd forgotten how well it did on Kongregate!) I finally learned Box2D for that one. The one that really started it all was Ice-9, done in an all-nighter when I couldn't sleep. Posted it immediately, and learned the hard way that there are many things you have to do to make a game seem polished. Somehow it's the most fun game out of any of them (or it hit that magic "exposure" sweet spot--Mindjolt helped a lot with that, but I think Memory Shell Game and Saber Duel both had the Mindjolt treatment as well). Part of it could be the market was a lot less saturated way, way, way back then (1,066 days ago), but it wasn't, really. There were huge, well-established portals, gluts of games, etc. So...beginner's luck. And it's been haunting me ever since. ;) All told, I think I'm looking at under fifty cents an hour. Definitely a hobby. I like to think of them (and many other similar sorts of things) as lottery tickets.
And hey, apparently I never posted "Hate! Hate! Hate!" on Kongregate. Maybe I should...I think I stalled out on wanting to fix a few things and then was unable to recompile (because I was using some time-limited software for a contest). But hey, better than nothing, right? Right...? Hmm. Maybe.
It's a good thing other people are able to monetize my programming skills better than I directly am, and compensate me for those. *cough* Though it's a much cheaper hobby than GUD Magazine....