We keep cancelling games... (and that's a good thing)

[@RealCoachMustafa]

Sounds like a big victory, that you were able to drop the idea in 6 weeks rather than 6 month. You guys are gaining experience, so future canned projects might be dropped after 3 or 2 weeks. Knowing when to pivot is a skill that many people lack.

[@mercai]

A word of advise from a professional game 3D artist: don't even consider the more "photorealistic" sort of games. If you think you're in trouble when you need to alter/change lowpoly marketplace assets like Synty's, multiply that by x5-10 effort-wise for the photoreal styles. Unless you can fully cover it via marketplace assets/anims/vfx, but then you're in the ASSET SWAP territory (of people's perception), so it's not for everyone's taste. The "uncanny valley" / "this is jank" feel will be much stronger, too. Part of why retro-PS1 games are popular is that you can handwave so much of stuff, because simplicity (simple effects, crude or absent animations) is accepted in those styles - while in modern photoreal, it would look like jank. Better yet, get an artist, guys. And have you considered 2D games? Or even 2.5d ones (I was recently in love with Cat Quest 1, super scoped casual take on a very complex genre). It might be cheaper with commissioned art, than a 3D game with commissioned art - especially once you're mindful of scope. I would totally be doing that if I knew how to draw as well as I make 3D :) -- Semi-related: I've had over several dozen prototypes over last two decades, probably 1-1.5 years of total time investment. Yeah, I wish I actually learned from my mistakes faster and was not such a perfectionist :) But I did not feel need to "just release anything", instead I only want something I would LOVE making and that has strong commercial potential. And when I think of the AAA projects I worked on at studios, which would be cancelled or release and tank after years of work and millions spent on them? Or of those indies who put 5 years to release their first-ever game, and it's some platformer turd and they get depressed it's not paying off? Suddenly' being ruthless and failing fast / killing early is a very reasonable thing. Either way, you did good. Now finish and ship that horror game :)

[@mandisaw]

Good points! I would agree the ideal is for them to find an artist friend-partner. But why is it considered feasible for folks to learn "enough" code to get by, but the dev-space views art as an inscrutable barrier? There are definitely tutorials and materials out there with the basics of color theory, line & form, light & shadow, composition and gestalt. Not saying they should drop everything for a 3yr run at art school, but they already have a decent eye for assets, and some basic mesh & texture customization skills. Shoring up the missing fundamentals would only take a few months learning on the side, but pay massive dividends in how they're able to leverage their art assets (Store or commissioned).

[@roberdjp]

At 2 weeks, you didn't cancel it, you prototyped it to the point where you decided it wasn't worth pursuing. That's what should happen with most prototypes

[@bitemegames]

Who mentions 2 weeks? It was like 6 weeks before it got "canceled". -T

[@ramonpablito9154]

are you dumb? two weeks is overtime anomaly and it's not canceled. them 20 likes shows me the hypocrite hate train is still going on, can you guys unsubscribe and get the hell out of here?

[@mandisaw]

​@@bitemegames Same diff though - fail fast in the first few weeks of development. It's a good thing 👍

[@roberdjp]

@@bitemegames Ah, sorry, I misremembered by the time I made the comment. Yeah, with the speed you're trying to get things out, I can see why that's a setback

[@PinguinoSod]

Failing fast is cheaper

[@Lavxa]

Hi guys! Thankful for you. And Happy Holidays / Merry Christmas from Arkansas :-) You are releasing games! And when you’re not you are learning! You have fans who are proud to be apart of you guys’ journey! The humility you serve is a breathe of fresh air. And shows HUMANITY I am glad that be able to live through your process in a way. And to learn from those out there putting in the elbow grease!

[@GnastyMusicTV]

eyy im from Arkansas also!

[@JosepPi]

Sounds like you guys became better at figuring out if a game is going to be fun or not since you developed pizza time. I think that game taught you a lot and it really shows. Good luck on your next project!

[@georgebratu]

I believe that your problem is that there are multiple bosses, decision makers. If someone has an idea, other colleague will not be harsh 100% to say his idea is trash

[@ByronBennett]

If Canceling doesn't mean you don't learn and don't get better, then 3 cancels in a year is ok. If you're not learning and not getting better because you never get to the finish line, then maybe you have to go through the valley to get to the Summit. Merry Christmas! And here's to a successful 2025!

[@anispinner]

People are about to be fed up with "cozy games".

[@iojourny]

I think most already are. Not all cozy games, of course, but the genre has lost it's novelty by now. Now you actually need to make a good game with interesting gameplay instead of just slapping "cozy" on it and expecting wishlists.

[@mandisaw]

Unlikely - stress relief via calm will always be a major reason ppl play games, and cozy games play directly into that. The bar does seem to be raised though, as the genre sees more competition.

[@sfurious293]

If you have a game studio that you live from then it's true to do cancellations but if you make game for hobby after work that you lived from you can do whatever and take fun from the path of learning and creating your dream game

[@EnricoUniverse]

still looks better than the anime one

[@paluxyl.8682]

I think not, the anime girl game is the best idea that they came up. I'm sure with some improvements it could become one of their most successful games. ^^

[@gameboardgames]

Interesting approach! Very much the opposite of my own. I spend months formulating the design and mechanics and then very long prototype phases refining, changing and altering as needed. I can't imagine starting something and then 6 weeks in abandoning it. For my own present game, about 2 years into development, it massively changed and the final design didn't really click until 1.5 year's in. I've been working one one game since you guys started the videos while you've released 2 and cancelled 3, and just announced 2 more, which is really impressive. Certainly different scenarios though, I'm just a solo dev with 0 expectation of any profit from my game, just trying to make a really good game, with no timeline besides self imposed. Note I'm not at all saying one method or the other is better, just comparing. I also find it interesting how you guys seem to entirely base your choice of what to make on market conditions and genre trends, yet in particular you Marnix, never seem much of a gamer personally, aren't really passionate about design yet excel at the business side, which is sort of the opposite of my own skill set. For myself, I'd never be motivated to make a genre template type game like a Survivors game or casual city builder, I'm driven to create unique mechanics, though sales wise, that is not a promising direction to go. Thanks for all the great content over the year! I'm sure biteme will have an amazing 2025!

[@markhennessy3690]

I’m not convinced that make small games (i.e 3 months dev)is a sustainable strategy. I would guess that 99% of revenue in this is industry is made by games that took a year or more to make. Perhaps you should take your lessons learned and channel all of your team’s energy working on one game. Just a thought.

[@nyomanbandarayani6830]

They keep tell you to make small games to sell their courses. Make small game isn't the way, make simple game that is addictive is. I'm looking at you, Balatro

[@HarrisonVogl]

1 year is a reasonable time frame, realistically a 3 month Dev cycle is going to mean lots of compromises

[@GnastyMusicTV]

One of the best channels to learn from lately, you guys are going all in and being very active. Lot of data to analyze.

[@KummoDeveloper]

Cancelling and dropping games happens both in indie and AAA scenes a lot. But they aren't that much talked about (other than the AAA games that got announcement trailers, maybe release date and a lot of hype but then later publisher and/or devs bring disappointing news along the line). At most we just see them not being worked and devs just disappearing (especially those mmorpg kickstarter projects had habit of just slowly dropping update rates and eventually just not posting anything anymore)... but we rarely got meaningful insights. Especially the studios that cancelled one or few but kept making other games rarely gave update for unfinished projects - these studios are the most interesting yet there are really little blogs, newsletters, videos or other publication about them. Ty Mr. BiteMe (Marnix) for shining light to this.

[@vast634]

Tim Cain always talks about an important early element in preproduction: the pretty corner. A scene in the intended style of the game that is all about visuals that should look as polished as possible, but in a very small scope, an no gameplay. That informs everyone how the game can LOOK like, and the visuals are not only programmer art for the actual development. The characters or models used dont need to be for the final game, but in the style of game later. But the lighting, postprocessing and effects could be added that early as a reference.

[@TESkyrimizer]

The studio seems to be financially healthy for the year thanks to Patreon and UPT (congrats!), but how many man-hours do you think were spent on cancelled projects this year? SoE, MGG, Skudfall, Guild Architect... none of them were smaller than UPT I also had to cancel a citybuilder game for similar reasons: scope too large, somehow still felt unfun, still miles to go. In your case I assumed with Forge Ind under your belt it would have been more straightforward.

[@dancingdoormanable]

The team being all programmers, the gameplay is probably the unique trait for their games. Not all games get sold on gameplay, as it can make sales for the story, art or some niche topic like trains or horses. However the art must be up to a certain level otherwise there will be too little initial interest. Balatro has some stylish tricks to make it stand out that where added during and to the end of the development process to separate it from the average card game. While the choice of cancelling was probably correct because of the mechanics not working out, I did hear a lot about how it looked in the video. I think the team needs an artists. At the very least one part time that evaluates the look of the game and creates key assets. Some assets are more important then others like hero props in a movie. Décor, scenery and terrain are needed to convey a world, but most of them do not have to be unique.

[@richardbloemenkamp8532]

Some ideas: - Make a cozy low-demanding game that fills just a small vertical portion of the screen. You can put it on the side on your screen while you are watching social media or other. It's like a plant or Tamagotchi on the side of your screen. Ideally it should be internet multiplayer. - Do a collab with a studio with great artists that do not like programming.

[@michaelslattery2273]

what asset pack for 10:26 ? trees look so good! why not use this pack for skogvoll?

[@bitemegames]

Quibli shader pack. But those trees aren't nordic, the cold harsh climate requires pine trees. I would like to make the game to make sense after all. -M

[@sugarsenpai8432]

I had to drop my first game attempt a couple of months into it, it's something that happens often :D

[@paluxyl.8682]

What was the concept of your game that you droped ? Was it 2d or 3d, was it an action game .... I want to know more. :)

[@sugarsenpai8432]

@@paluxyl.8682 it was a 2D horror rpg that drew inspiration from fear and hunger. the problem was that the scope was too big and the more stuff I made, the heavier my workload became. On top of that, I don't like rpg games myself so I have no idea the fug I'm doing. I decided to drop it and make another horror puzzle game this time as that aligns with my interests even more.

[@paluxyl.8682]

@@sugarsenpai8432 I see your point, it's never good to make games that someone personaly don't like or play. I play most of the time third person action adventures, that's the main reason why all of my games will be this way, also I got a lot knowledge about this kind of games how they need to be designed. My biggest problem will be at the end to find good tutorial videos about how to make in Unreal advanced stamina systems, wounded arms and legs, flowing blood, fall damage, and most important how to make clumsy characters that fall when they run too fast or can wound your leg when you just jump on save ground (every time you press jump is a chance of 1% that the character falls, and even a chance to break a leg or arm). I'm sure people will hate my games, because they are for hardcore players ... with not hard battles, but without inventories, no maps, characters that stay weak, and most important with autosave that saves every little mistake in the game. When you are lost, you will be lost for days or even weeks. ^^

[@sugarsenpai8432]

@@paluxyl.8682 I think you can still do well with making hardcore games, soulslike genre built upon this principle of making you as miserable as possible. The issue is that the player needs to be frustrated by his lack of skill, not by the restrictive game design. That is my opinion at least, either way I wish you luck in your journey. May you drown in money when you publish your game :D

[@paluxyl.8682]

@@sugarsenpai8432 Thanks, I will try as a beginner my best. ^^ May your games also be very successful :D

[@honaleri]

Hope you are doing ok, Marnix. I know those trailer comments got you down, and I'm sorry we were hard on you. I know you guys can make good games. Keep at it, I believe in you. Also, I think this rapid prototyping and concepting is a great idea. A few weeks to see if an idea works, is a great turn around. Better than putting months in and then seeing it won't work. It may have been hard, but this process was helpful in the end.

[@Pariatech]

It takes strength to give up a project after a few months. At least your office game has visual potential, but it will have to be seen how good of a story writers you guys are. Keep it up and have a great Christmas!

[@NocturnalNick]

I love the idea of Guild Architect, but it does seem like a tough one to make compelling gameplay for. Personally, I think it and Skogvoll's art were fine, too, but it could be that I wouldn't like it if I didn't already like the premise

[@occupationalhazard]

I just cancelled another game. It is devastating, every time. Opening a new project with nothing in it is such a heavy lift. It feels like wasted time, but we need to push past that sunk cost and make something worthwhile.

[@graydwarf22]

I get it but it also feels like you should lighten the weight on your shoulders by evaluating how much you learned and how many reusable systems you're moving forward with. Restarting is one of the best ways to apply lessons learned and to improve velocity. You may restart a project 3-4 times but the last one will always progress faster to the point that it will likely overtake where you would have been had you stuck with the old code base. Just like POCs, restarts (new or old projects) can be viewed as very healthy especially as you increase the quality of your designs and plug and play systems.

[@priskon5950]

What are your guys design approach before you open Unity to create the game? Do you create a timetable and a game design document? I feel like these techniques can help you understand better the scope of the game and set down what your game will be like before actually working on it.

[@dreamingacacia]

it's been so long since I checking out youtube. dude I also keep cancelling my game projects. I spent my months in degenerate life to calm myself down and once again searching for myself. gotta say whatever happen I'll push for a complete game but without time deadline, only scope limit. I just can't work with high stress time limit unless I planned for tech demo project instead of the real game.

[@graydwarf22]

Setting a POC aside (for now) should fall into the realm of success provided you get there in a timely manner. Consider adding an official go/no-go check-in session every two weeks for new projects where everyone on the team chimes in on go/no-go. Feels like it's healthier to systematically check-in vs having it bounce around in our heads every day. As things get emotional and stress mounts, systems for decision making can really help keep your hair.

[@mandisaw]

I feel like there was a video sometime back where they said they do a weekly or maybe twice-weekly meeting. This sounds more like a matter of friends not wanting to hurt each others' feelings. But they've already achieved a great level of maturity to be able to separate the project from the person. Seriously, a lot of "professionals" in games & tech, and outside of it, completely fail at that sort of mature, open communication. It's frankly a huge win that they can take that lesson forward.

[@abysskun9518]

I've had a sad realization these past weeks, it seems to be much easier for someone who knows art to learn programming to a decent level and make a game than it is for someone who knows how to program to learn how do to art to a decent level. Or maybe I'm just too judgemental with my own programmer art, but still this is how it feels

[@maze._]

You just have to go with a game that has an aesthetic that you can make look good with your abilities, even if it’s super minimalistic like just shapes and a few colors. Or drab art but with a low res shader to give it a retro feel lol. Or just deliberately focus on great gameplay and 0% focus on art. What you shouldn’t do in my opinion is put in a medium amount of effort and end up with amateurish art that makes a game look unprofessional or like a student project.

[@tymondabrowski12]

​@@maze._ problem is how many people are so bad at art that they can't even get the colors right. Imho in both cases people who only learn that other thing for a few weeks are not really able to see the flaws in what they're making. But in ptogramming, a serious issue comes up as a serious bug (something clearly in need to be fixed), while in art a serious issue just comes up as a lack of wishlists with no explanation. At best a feeling "it doesn't look like it was made by an AAA studio" (which is hardly helpful). So, user-relevant programming issues are fixed before release even if the programmer is terrible, while the art stays at the terrible quality because its terrible quality is close to invisible to a terrible artist.

[@mandisaw]

Art can be learned! But it has its own path from beginner concepts to advanced, and you have to accept that just like anything else, the early stuff will not be good. You can start from tutorials on fundamentals - color, form, composition, etc - and train your eye as well as your ability to create. Don't be too harsh on yourself, the #1 requirement for any skill isn't talent, it's practice. I do think there's a weird philosophy these days that coding is accessible, while art isn't. Kids in school used to get art classes, and some kind of art appreciation or creation was required when I was in college, even for physical science majors. This helped reinforce the idea that art can be made by anyone, to the benefit of everyone. Gotta reclaim that feeling 🎨

[@maze._]

@@tymondabrowski12 true... okay, then my suggestion to OP is: find someone who knows what they're doing with art, or at least someone with an eye for aesthetics that can verbalize why something looks good or bad, and at the very least ask for their opinion at various points throughout development. I guess my advice was biased towards ppl kinda like me: graphic designers who know when things look good and when they look bad but don't have the technical skills/experience for illustration etc.

[@Sandnessen]

Good reflections! I still hope you will make a viking themed game at some point 😄

[@r.f886]

What an accident, we were making a viking city builder too and with the same assets that got canceled😂 such a small world 😂

[@michaelslattery2273]

bro.. bad north, northgard, manor lords etc all have combat. there is a game in skogvoll, I hope you get an artist budget in the future and reconsider, good luck in the meanwhile with overtime anomoly, you found a product market fit with steam audience right there

[@Seancstudiogames]

Well its good that you’re figuring it out very early in the dev cycle. 6 weeks is > 6 months.

[@humman007]

Making a few quick prototypes of different games to see which one is the most playable by playtesting and which one generates marketing hype is a good strategy, but once one of them hit, it's better to stick with it until release, even if this takes more time. However, counting on each of new games will be so fast to make and so profitable as Universal Pizza is very risky.

[@kodaxmax]

IDK it does seem a like a fun concept can really carry a game. Consider ark survival evolved. It's riddled with technical and design issues that make the game almost unplayable for msot player son official servers. But the concept of a survival game, where you ride and breed dinosaurs is just too good. Consider Minecraft. Terribly built, with very little to do beyond place and destroy blocks and it was such an overnight success, notches bank account got frozen for suspicion he was doing soemthing illegal to get so much money. Digital lego was just too fun a concept. Even your own game, Motorcylce Pizza Time. By your own descriptions was pretty buggy, shallow and low quality. But the concept of a rage game involving platforming with a unicycle was attractive to players. That said, your totally right about scope. Indies, especially beginners need to avoid ideas that require/create a big scope. An indie studio would be unlikely to make a profit with a dinosaur survival game. Aminecraft clone however? well alot of indies have.

[@alessandr_0]

Babe, wake up, BiteMe Games cancelled another game! (but really, inspiring to see you guys cutting knots)

[@Block_Brief]

This software is a game-changer for me. Thanks for the insightful walkthrough!

[@vakuzar]

Are yall still small to the point you couldn't hire an artist. I think that would transform your studio and possible games ideas Not to mention would help marketing

[@riuthamus]

Get somebody who actually knows graphics..... You need an art director type. Hit me up in PMs

[@LordsofMedia]

Maybe plan out the production before programming anything. You just started programming without knowing your destination.

[@TESkyrimizer]

see the game is in my head! I know it's great! 6 months into development: yeah no this is shit wtf was i thinking

[@bitemegames]

We plan the production ahead, always. The problem here was that we just did not find the "fun" while we thought the idea was. -T

[@flamart9703]

Gee... this is very "motivational". I can't remember or maybe I missed it, did you guys ask your viewers for their opinions on your game ideas? In most cases we, viewers, are very polite and spare criticism, and even write encouraging words simply out of courtesy if no one ask for criticism. It's normal for developers who don't publicize their projects until they're finished not to ask for other people's opinions on their projects, but you share your game ideas and it seems normal to me to ask for opinions on them before the start and during development.

[@marnixwyns]

Our viewers are the polar opposite of polite, see the drama about magical girl guardians. I like Thomas Stewart his approach as well, making 3 prototypes and getting his audience to vote on which one to continue. However we'd rather move fast, and (try to) make the games we want to make, even if our game's audience isn't the same as our KZbin audience -M

[@mandisaw]

​@marnixwyns You could still do the same strawpolling, just maybe ask ppl first what types of games they play to categorize their responses. Give horror fans more weight on Overtime, anime game fans more weight on MGG. Might at least help in narrowing down who the audience specifically is for each game (so far I think only FI and GA had similar audiences - each game is testing new ground).

[@flamart9703]

@@marnixwyns Wow, I missed that! Okay, I see, quantity over quality. I saw good tips there that can greatly improve your product and some of them won't need too much work. I won't give you advice for this girl game because I'm focused heavily on 3D graphics quality and don't like this genre, but here are my 2 cents about your trailer - remove "Game over" phrase at the end and don't show the girl's death. Why would anyone play the game if it's already over? It sounds like an invitation to leave the game - "Game over, mfs, go away!". :) Put something intriguing instead, show what fans of these anime girls want to see.

[@duncanharris-l1b]

The so called Cancel Culture exists for a reason, it kills of the weak ideas to focus on the better ideas. Just keep working and most of all keep thinking.