Why My Indie Game Failed | Koredex Dev Diary | 25games

[@mauriciocortespersonal]

My Advice: You will learn more from publishing 3 small games (1-3 months in development each one) than from 1 medium game (3-9 months) ...and don't try to make big games (+12 months) specially when you can't really estimate the development time correctly.... But please continue making games! You'll increase your community during the process (share the process)

[@skymer7471]

You know, it's realy hard to trick your mind not to be too hyped.. even if you're developing, on paper, a 2D simple game... You will often overscope your ideas ... I started one month ago a little project story-oriented... But I can't focus on the things that matter : "What are good mechanics which make sense with my story", instead I'm just focus on overscooping art aspect, and story aspect.. Sadly ... I saw a game dev, at some point of his game developement journey, write on a post-it "No more ideas" near his computer. Ingenious ... You have to remind not to loose what really matter (I'm so sorry for my very bad english .. I'm still learning lol)

[@lukeothedukeo]

@@skymer7471 Ideas are the greatest resource and hurdle for so many projects. Having a clear idea at the start gives you something to focus on and return to when you stray too far. Adding too many ideas causes that straying. I think anybody who does creative work struggles with this balance. (PS Your English is quite good! Maybe cut back on the ellipses, but nothing else would have made me suspect you were still learning!)

[@skymer7471]

@@lukeothedukeo I'm currently trying to make a game without "anticipating" my project. When I implement a working idea into my game, I try to think about a new one and how to implement it. But I force myself to stop wondering about new ideas and concept. However, I don't think the result will be very consistent lol. But yes, when you're searching for ideas you can't find one, and conversely, when you don't want them, they pop in your head. Lol, if by ellipses you mean the "...", I've the same "problem" in my native language. But thank you :p

[@yk-lz3nr]

I made the same conclusion. If you have small team it would be better to make small games. So you can check what ideas people like and what they don't

[@ghostwarrior-ni1xb]

Thk you i will take ur advice 😀

[@casekocsk]

I don't use Unity so it might be different... But when you're on serious project, you don't update your game engine... The new version may have bug fix... or even better, new feature... looks very tempting... but do not update... Unless you're not in a rush or still early in development cycle, postpone the update until you finish that project.

[@anticstudios]

perfect response

[@FierceGreedy]

I never write comments, but after watching the whole video i really felt the need to write a comment. Such a good and honest video talking so openly about a big project with so much passion and dreams in it and how it did not work out. It was very courages to talk so openly about failure in this day and age where people judge you on your achievements and succeses and not all the time you invested and experience you have from all your work. Its such a breath of fresh air to see a person honestly talk about his failure ( sounds so negative to keep using that word) when we are all so scared and maybe even embarresed to fail in anything in life. The video is great and the story you tell is great. Its the sad and simple truth in this video. Money is time and time is money. But because you were out of school and had no working real working experience in your field yet it was hard to make money yet. For what it counts in think you can be proud of yourself that you put everything on the line for your dream and even though it did not workout you have so much more experience and knowledge from it than before this project and i am proud for you that you chased for your dream were a lot of us don't even dare to try cause we are scared to fail from the beginning. I wish you all the luck in the world with your further projects and work be it in game development or as a graphics artist. I hope Koredex maybe one day will still get to be relealed when you feel proud and happy with your work even if its in the far far future. Thank you for the great video definitely worth a like and a subscribe!

[@spf234]

Thank you for sharing you experience. Sometimes we can get too much of a one sided perception of indie game development by only listening to the successful developers. It's good to get a balanced view of the process.

[@CBSuper]

Best realistic story about indie game development on KZbin. So many great tips for small developers! Thanks for sharing your story.

[@angryITGuy]

A rare and honest video about project failure. I’m sure you’re getting a lot of useful feedback. You both have great technical ability. You would have been better off getting a sponsor from a larger game/media company. You will learn more about the business mechanics of making games from them. They will also bear more risk, for a bigger piece of the profits. They will also adjust your game concept to have better chance to sell. So, The missing component was a marketing and sales representative, but market it to industry not consumers. You spread yourself too thinly. You can’t work to earn money, and also work on project. Your careers have more value than a game. Very few games survive on any market for more than 12 months. Content updates usually have diminishing returns. Finally, with such an ambitious project and no clear indicator ppl will buy it, expect to create the game as a part of your portfolio. If it makes money, that is a bonus.

[@LaquanDunbar23]

This was so sad seem like you guys really were resourceful and tried everything to make the game. The concept and ideas sounded really cool hopefully one day you guys will be able to publish it 🤞🏿

[@torinux4980]

Like someone say: "I didn't failed, I've just found out another way that won't work". It's good to see indie devs embracing failure. Most indie devs fail and just give up. It seems you guys are improving and always looking for a way to get better. Props to that :)

[@Natehawke]

Just came across this video now, this was great and really rings true - it's so close to my own experience. Especially having team members leave for "real jobs", leaving you having to try to carry the project. I spent nearly 5 years burnt out and not doing any dev at all after finally pulling the plug on the project. I'm back to it now, working on smaller things, but I wish I'd been able to look at it at positively as you did and just use the experience to make smarter choices and get right back on the horse.

[@thelasttellurian]

Thank you for sharing, the catch-22 of who comes first - the community or the game seems really hard to break. You really need to be lucky (or just have lots of time and money to spare :)

[@CleisonRodriguesComposer]

I'm almost done with my first game learning by myself, I often think about being discouraged, but I think I've learned a lot by studying how to produce a game. I'm from Brazil, and I'm also improving my English while studying how to create the game. Your video was a great inspiration to me. I hope you finish your game and succeed, I want to play your game one day. Thank you!

[@25games]

Thank you very much for your kind words. Are you doing your project alone and beside work or studying? I guess it is much more better to run it parallel to something else. I wish you good luck with your game! I can't continue developing on it so far. I'm trying to earn money at this time as an independent graphic designer. In corona times not an easy issue.

[@CleisonRodriguesComposer]

@@25games I'm doing my project parallel to work, I'm a musician and I play in a band, usually on weekends. My game has been almost two years now, learning everything by myself is really very difficult. This first game I'm going to try to put on Steam, but it's actually serving me more to learn how to develop games. As my band is not able to play now, I am studying and trying to finish my game. I'm sorry for your project, I hope you can get back to it and finish it. These are very difficult times! I hope you and your family will be well after this pandemic. Stay safe!

[@peklimstavi]

Concise, smart, informative video. Thank You.

[@Amelia_PC]

When you're explaining what is Kordex about, I was "whaaaat?". Too complex to use in a dynamic ad campaign. You have to figure out how you can use the attention span (8 seconds) the audience will give to you before clicking on another link. However, it's a great concept!

[@tasclew]

Great video, thank you for sharing your experience so detailed!

[@Sovietube]

5:12 'kordex has multiple races' -humans Very nice

[@jeremyreyes5452]

Thanks for sharing your experience during this process. Sometimes it's better to hear about failed experiences rather than the successful ones. I'm actually really curious, why you and Severin decided to develop a game of such scope? It seems like both of your backgrounds consisted on developing 2D games, and even continued to develop 2D games on the side. While it is a great concept, why not start at a smaller scale? Find out your limitations, and figure out your roadblocks. Your idea consisted of building a series of chapters, it would've been really cool to see the progression of the game starting out as a 2D game, and eventually make its way into a 3D game (i.e Kordex 1, Kordex 2, Kordex 3D). Again, thanks for sharing your journey and really appreciate the insight you were able to provide to the community! Hope to play Kordex one day :)

[@SynthHunters]

Thank you for sharing this story!

[@bradencolaner4811]

Your honesty earned you a new subscriber. If you ever start working on this again, I'd play it.

[@mr_noodler]

Nice work guys, keep your spirit and belief in yourself high, you will be successful in time, your games are beautiful! I think you have worked so so so so so hard on this, and your English too, it is so good! I believe in your abilities!

[@PRodi_]

Thank you for sharing it!

[@fragarena9910]

Hopefully oneday with bigger funds and audience the dream will come true :')

[@Bulb69420]

sorry to hear about this

[@GK-cb3vc]

Thank you for your honesty bro, you have my sub and I will keep an eye out for your products. Looking back on your experience with this project, if you could change 1 thing, what would that thing be? Best of luck to you and your team!

[@aakashdeepgupta1507]

I can really understand this struggle , last year I was working on my dream project {not a game but something similar } I was working from last 2 years to to make it work , my friend was my partner in it. . but it failed as we have no big budget , experience and time later he left the project and was alone and hance I decided to pause the project for some time

[@25games]

Nearly same story. It is always hard to admit a defeat... But the good thing is that you tried anyway!

[@KalponicGames]

@@25games the earlier u realize and be practical about projects better for you. For next project do like if x goal reached we can make this.

[@yutupedia7351]

same here the dude didnt even try his best went nuts 😂, so same just to keep going and trying your best even if is a different project!

[@Lkvvgfgfggdgb]

Wow ,I really really love your colorful environment. Also put flowering trees.

[@sUnbeliver]

Really sad that there are devs like you were not able to achieve your goal (very ambitious) of creating what looks like fun game especially the story and art, due to lack of money. I hope you will one day succeed.

[@jefm32]

Im sorry to hear that. Ive been there.

[@Lkvvgfgfggdgb]

Also make colorful and cool and beautiful charismatic characters whether villains or heroes. Make the hero handsome and also make the fight animation more powerful.

[@CASMANWHAT]

sounds cool. if i knew it existed, i'd play it. :)

[@vast634]

There is no reason to update and migrate to the newest Unity version, just because it came out. Best is to stick to a single LTS version, if it has all the essential features you need.

[@BipinOli90]

Sad to hear this. But hey on the bright side, you learned a lot right. The life lessons are valuable. People travel for years in their soul searching journey. Some people go through years of compulsory military service before college. Some people get stuck for years due to their family obligations to try anything risky. Everyone has their own timeline. The time and effort makes you wiser. No harm done. Being passionate and hard-working person like yourself; with some luck You will definitely make it. Keep at it man. Don't let the lessons learned go to waste.

[@princealmighty5391]

Luck is hogwash

[@BipinOli90]

@@princealmighty5391 there is always an element of luck but I definitely think that going Lean with MVP and pivoting forward with actual data and being more scientific and data-driven is the key to success

[@princealmighty5391]

@@BipinOli90 nope luck is hogwash

[@princealmighty5391]

@@tormclean9657 did i ask for you bs opinon its up to us to make the hockey team not your fantasy Disneyland luck

[@DOSRetroGamer]

What I see as a slight disadvantage is the name. Look at a few successful indie titles: Crypt of the Necrodancer Enter the Gungeon Subnautica Satisfactory FTL (Faster than Light) Hyperlight Drifter Darkest Dungeon All those names are a play on words, have a punch to them (meaning you will remember them), and/or already tell you something about the game and make you curious for it. Names are really important. Even you seem to forget the name of your own game, spelling it Kordex one time and Koredex the other :)

[@DOSRetroGamer]

The other problem, of course, was being overambitious for a team mostly working on it in their spare time, for free.

[@DOSRetroGamer]

But it's great that you can take something positive out of the experience.

[@EmptyHouseGuy]

You need to communicate better what the hooks of your game are. I listened to this video for 9 minutes and never figured out what was special about your game. The average consumer will make that decision in about 9 seconds. Assume that nobody wants to listen to you speak, it's sad but it'll make you more successful. It's especially bad manners to launch into a speech about lore before showing some gameplay elements. Also, in 9 minutes of watching I never heard any information about "Why my Indie game failed". You need to respect people's time by getting to the point.

[@kokorospirit5006]

Too verbose & detailed all together indeed. I enjoyed the acting in video & the initial 3d game though.

[@xtiooplus]

Thank you for this Video. I learned from it

[@PeliPelaaja]

I keep listening for minutes, still not get what the hook of the game actually is.

[@BoxLaneProductions]

the answer is at 1:00

[@zankaster3935]

Thanks for sharing this

[@IDontDoDrumCovers]

You should keep adding to it yourself, slow and steady wins the race

[@25games]

Hey. Thank you for your advice. The Thing is: i cant code any single Line. I am Just a 2d and 3d Artist and cant add gameplay mechanics to it... 😵

[@IDontDoDrumCovers]

@@25games same. That s ok. Just build the world. Occasionally pay a programmer or learn what you can add without any programming.

[@IDontDoDrumCovers]

@@25games or buy lots of blueprints off the unreal store or something lol

[@KevinCastillo-hh1fn]

@@25games you could try bolt is free now in unity!! assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/visual-scripting/bolt-163802

The game seems amazing!

[@valletas]

I think you started too early butan the game looks really beautfull Even if you wont release this... Could you please open source it? I would love to take a look at those models and the world

[@mascarademermelada8746]

As a big fan of one piece and the legend of Zelda myself (and as a indie developer wanna be) I'm really sad to hear all of this :c Now I'm just wondering what your tale was going to be. The funny thing is that I'm right now finishing some world building and creating a prototype (I also took some inspiration in one piece, oof), then I was going to also try to do it in chapters via Patreon just like yourself hahaha Well, I better start making a community for myself before is too tale (inb4 already is).

[@vojka2973]

hey there, I wanted to ask if bevel tool hurts game performance inside unity and how can we optimize game assets for our game to run smoothly ?

[@25games]

If you use any modifier in Blender and want to export your mesh then you have to apply all modifiers first. Bevel modifier will rise your poly-count. This is all. If you want to polish your game assets then I would suggest to work with LoD-props (Level of Detail). I made a tutorial for this as well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYO1gaWbfpuGhK8

[@vojka2973]

@@25games let's say I have a cube and just do some work on it with bevel tool, in this case we will increase the poly count, but will this hurt game performance inside unity ? I will check the video! .. any other video for optimizing asset for unity I would watch ! Thanks man.

[@25games]

Every additonal vertice will influence game performance. But we are talking about many vertices here till performance will be lowered. It depends on your intendend paltform where your game should run in the end (maybe mobile dev).

[@vojka2973]

@@25games yeah! I am making a pc game, but still, I wanted to pay attention and not overdo it with too many polygons...

[@Lkvvgfgfggdgb]

Include characters which are pink, orange ,green,blue,violet,yellow,red.... themed . These makes game interesting and also skills.

[@mascarademermelada8746]

I feel like just throwing down the waste all of your world building is not good, I really see some potential in it. Since your programmer left why don't make a web series? You could at least tell your history in another format

[@artemisDev]

how to do you experience if you cannot experience without experience

[@25games]

XD

[@KevinCastillo-hh1fn]

i think your game have a realy interesting points, a interesting and coherent lore. but i also think, indie games are all about gameplay and interesting mechanics (not necessary innovating ideas). I hope you can finish it and publish it!. i have no experience in publishing games but, I have some ideas that I hope will help you. 1.- maybe you need to try sell the idea whit more interesting mechanics in the videos and advertising. 2.-try give some taste of your creation in the indie developer community like: publiching some "demo" or early mechanics in pages like Facebook groups, discord serves some youtubers and developers have it and let you do promotion of your games or abilities (sykoo have a realy nice one!), gamejolt, Itch.io, reddit, etc. try all and if it is allowed spam it xD!. 3.- maybe ask for help to local (your country) youtubers/ influencers and give him/her some demo to try in a video or "challenge". 4.- if you continue whit your effort and finish your game (even if it not reach the levels of quality you want) send some free keys to game magazines, youtubers, twichers for reviews (all to make your community to grow up. extra.- if your mechanics are not finish you can try ealy access and then make your mechanics grow up whit your community, and make it interesting for them. And always remember there is no bad publicity , you can reinvet your ideas whit the feedback. take the example of the creator of 5 night at freddys.he created chipper & sons lumber co. Players had a bad reaction about the game, because they thought the character was creepy. That was "bad" publicity but it caught the eye (especially from audiences who like scary things). so he created five nights at fredis! thanks for read my thoughts. i wish you good luck! stay motivate! (eddit: I corrected some grammar mistakes)

[@Konitama]

I saw a Kickstarter logo at the end but I can't seem to find the game on Kickstarter? What happened with that? I can honestly say I don't think Patreon is a good fit for most game developers. Patreon is good if you are producing frequent content for people to enjoy. Like tutorial videos, or drawings, or something. But if you're making a game, most months the updates will just be "making progress!" and maybe a few screenshots or concept art sketches. That's not really a rewarding thing for patrons. Plus it creates a problem where you need to be posting frequent updates to your Patreon page and eating up development time worrying about pleasing your supporters. The whole thing just isn't very great for indie game devs... unless you have some niche game that people really can't get enough of... even if it's just seeing small updates. Kickstarter would have probably been your best bet... and I think you guys got sidetracked a lot with working on other games alongside this game's development. It sounds like you just sort of got bored/tired of the main project and started doing smaller ones just to break up the monotony... and that's kind of a shame. It's hard to stay driven on one big project. I think it would have been better if you reduced the scope quite a bit and just focused on getting a playable simple thing out, which was super polished. Spending years doing concepts and planning for like 4-5 years of development wasn't the right plan. You should have spent 1-2 years just grinding out that first chapter or even a scoped down version of that.

[@25games]

Hey Konitama. Thank you for your detailed comment. We never made it to start a kickstarter campaign (to answer your first question). As you can see in the video the game trailer was very blocky and rough and this was a main element for the campaign. Too much work was missing and time ran out. Probably Patreon was not the best choice. I still can't say but you are right: you are forced to publish something to reward your Patrons and this was not an easy task. This was as well the reason why we started with the minigames and blogposts... We never got bored about our main project. This is not true that we started the other projects to escape the monotony of the main project. We loved it and working on it. In our opinion it is not a good plan to just focus on game development itself for 1-3 years. Marketing is a very huge aspect beside game dev and you shouldn't underestimate this. We think it will not work to dive into game dev vor some years and come up with a game title but nobody know anything about you. So we decided to start with the community work with day 1 and tried to rise our idea and progress with potential fans.

[@Lkvvgfgfggdgb]

Is exporting to playstore also not famous? Try posting in playstore. And I love watching the sample videos of the game in playstore.

[@RafaelSales55]

Hiii I found the channle today. Why I cant see the number of subscribes?

[@25games]

Hey Rafael. Thanks for passing by. I'm not sure about the number. It should be visible for everyone.

[@SwitchedOn]

I’m 4 mins into your video and guessing it failed because the idea is too complicated to follow!?

[@25games]

Thank you for your feedback. This may be a point, yeah.

[@dreambadger]

I was sad when you said Sev left.

[@Lkvvgfgfggdgb]

I use godot. But it is not so powerful for 3d. But I am making a 3d game in godot using the simple stuffs. It is laggy when using GI, shadows ,many AI enemy, and stairs. Sometimes the stair works.

[@joseluispcr]

You should launch it even so. As a alpha. Then ask for suport. Is hard to invest in someone who didnt done anything

[@aaronatkinson3050]

Well at least you know you tried making video games is pretty hard

[@inukrieger5206]

Nice video sadly this game never happend, i have bought it on release too

[@25games]

That's nice to hear :) thank you!

[@nichegames9590]

That's hard. I hope you at least had fun.

[@ANGELplaysLP]

Ich leibe das Konzept. Arbeitet ihr immernoch daran? Ö_Ö

[@25games]

Nein, leider nicht mehr. Ist still gelegt 😔

[@ANGELplaysLP]

@@25games Oh mann, das is echt schade dass die ganze Sache nun komplett weg ist. Das Storyprinzip is hammer

[@25games]

Es war auch für mich sehr schwer damit auf zu hören. Ich hatte so gerne an dem Projekt gearbeitet. Aber wir waren "Arbeiter"... und haben das Produkt wahrscheinlich nicht richtig anpreisen / vermarkten können...

[@archieames1968]

Not paying staff = I thought it was a good plan. No its a terrible plan. This isn't handing out food in a soup kitchen. Video game development is a highly skilled intensive job. unpaid programmers/developers are inherently unreliable to the point where they are often not worth even bothering with. Even if they are dedicated to the cause, reality will hit when they electric bill comes in. Even if you luck out and get someone who is willing to enter into a position thats ripe for exploitation theres the ethical implications and the devaluing of the hard work it takes to be a developer that can blowback to you. What is a publisher/future employer going to pay you if they see tons of game developers working for free and they think it must be so easy? In order to get people invested in your project you either have to A: pay them, B: Have it be their baby, they have to be a true partner not an employee. To the point where it is less your vision. C: work for some charitable worthy cause D: have them seek you out on their own accord. E: give them something truly more valuable for their time than getting some questionable experience they could get better in a more established company. You seem to be slightly bitter at the unpaid team members that left but they have the same issues with money that you have and dreams of their own and simply being promised that they MIGHT make some money in the end is not enough in some cases. Income sharing as payment is often not as good as real payment unless you are more established than you seem and the video doesn't seem like you paid enough attention to drawing up a formal contract even if you think its okay to pay people with something as risky this from a very small unstable studio.

[@xikes]

The first red-flag to me seems the time-frame. 1,5 years for a game of this scope? Yeaaah, no.

[@nanueinmanu1754]

wait you are from austria? Nice!

[@25games]

Jap. Bin ursprünglich aus Oberösterreich und wohne momentan in Niederösterreich :)

[@nanueinmanu1754]

@@25games Top! Bin auch in Oberösterreich geboren

[@karolledzinski710]

After 23 seconds I can already see WHY : 1.Generic looking assets, like directly from Unity Assets store 2. Lack of unify in level design. 3. Annoying colours - lack of colour structure design. 4. Incredibly strange game title Kordex, Koronex? seriously it is not only difficult to rememmber but also doesn't say anything about game. So much conclussion after 23 seconds so far...

[@IronFreee]

No one told you how creepy your character looks?

[@25games]

Not yet :)

[@IronFreee]

@@25games Looks like the world wasn't ready for creepy link adventures...

[@DOSRetroGamer]

I don't agree, I think he (she?) looks appealing.

[@IronFreee]

@@DOSRetroGamer Sure, you can't even tell what it is :D It's gender fluid and it identifies as a "Link".

[@sethxenofightersofficialx]

hi I'm Seth and I'm making a superhero smash bros like fighting game called xenomon if you want to join

[@hiiambarney4489]

Ah yes, the nice state of the creative industries. Basically you cannot fail at making a well selling game in this conundrum, you can only fail to sell it. 90 % of the success comes from marketing 10% from the actual game. Just look at the heartless uninspired infectious cashgrab slog of a game that is Paid Garbage Legends.

[@kinggore5229]

The problem is the quality of your product didn't fulfill your expectation. Then you lost the faith to it.

[@25games]

We had defenitelly some quality issue problems. We thought if we don't get enough attention before then we can't do it when it is finished.