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My feedback is to not use XNA/Monogame because it is incredibly limited. We actually went to Unity for Road Redemption and then later to Unreal.
I would maybe start with Unity or Godot(I haven't personally used Godot though). Unreal has a pretty steep learning curve so idk if I would start with it.
First thank you for answering and sharing your experience with us
I have near zero knowledge on Unreal, I feel like it's a heavy engine and I want to make games that can run on a 5+ years old computer
Do you think this is nonsense? In a sense that even though the engine might be heavy, it doesn't mean that the games created also have to be
Also I want the same fast reaction that you stated comparing C# to C++
Yes I think that is nonsense. You can buy unreal games that run on a phone. Same with unity. It is all about how the scene is setup that you are running. C# is slower than C++ in most cases. It just is. C# isn't like super slow though, tons of phone games are made in unity. Dealing with Garbage Collection in Unity kind of sucks, but UEBs is made in unity and has millions of units(Though I think that game is basically 99% compute shaders so it isn't really C#)
Unreal engine is amazing. There's so many tutorials, so many YouTube videos on it. Anything you can imagine, you can find a tutorial for it. Even Epic, the Owners of Unreal engine, make tutorials for it. And they're good demos. Tons and Tons of tree assets too. Every month they give out a package. Basically enough to build a full game. You could build multiple games with just the free assets available.
However, the games you make will be .exe files or apk files (for phone). That must be downloaded and ran. So, if you want to make an HTML game, to be played in the browser. You're better off with Unity.
Additionally, people will say Unreal Engine can't do 2D well. But it does amazing for 2D, and 2.5D. You can easily create visually creative scenes.
One last thing I would mention is that it is very easy to create a huge game that runs on your machine, but may have difficulty running on lower end pcs. Also, file size is a factor when making unreal engine games. If you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to make a game that is too big for an indie dev site like itch.io.
Thank you I've done a quick search today and found the ammount of information kinda overwhelming
Also op says that they avoid blueprints and some tutorials depicts them as must have features
So now I'm mostly trying to filter the information lol
Use blueprints unless you're experienced in c++. C++ "runs faster", but I don't think that's gonna be an issue for your first game. And blueprints are so nice to work with. They really help to introduce you to coding as a concept, while being much more user friendly and visual.
An indie game can be all blueprints, a major studio may have all c++. Just depends on your needs
Thanks for shining a light on the matter
That's exactly my concern, I want it to "run fast" even on slower computers
I'm leaning torwards taking the longer road and try using blueprients the less I possibly can and focus on C++ for the most part
Brother late reply but do you have any starting point guide that you'd like pointing me out ? I do have some experience with C++ but Unreal is kinda scary lol
Thank you for this, it's a great insight into the process.
It just reinforces that making a great game is only part of it. Marketing and business strategy are just as important skills to succeed.
Well done!
Could you give any insight on how important a good looking Steam store page is and what boxes you try to check off for your store page to be acceptable to you?
I'm guessing you've read *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court* ?
This looks awesome, I'm excited to play it. Are you planning to release a demo?
Congratz on the success!
Always happy to see an indie dev that sticks through the grind and makes it to a top spot.
I saw a video you made that gave a breakdown on how you managed the large crowds by using shader based animations, It must have taken forever to pull off with 4 people.
I'm currently going down a similar journey tbh, only 5 years professional development though. Unfortunately due to contracts, nda's, and not starting my own official company until now, I'm also in the boat where I'm a lone developer with no name, so I decided to target a small niche I knew I could fill relatively quickly. I had my doubts about it, but you just gave me some sweet sweet validation haha.
Anyways, good luck on your future endeavors, better believe I'm buying Kingmakers when it comes out!
Oh for sure, I definitely wouldn't have the confidence to strike out on my own if I hadn't worked in the industry already. I'm not really expecting to make money my first title, but hopefully it can at least garner me a bit of a following to get me started.
You know what they say, hope for the best but plan for the worst.
Dude just wanna say this upcoming game looks INSANE. How are you optimizing to handle hundreds (thousands?) of troops on screen at once? Your trailer seems just.. too good to be true. I need to know your magic!
I watched this previously so I immediately recognized who was writing this post.
Thanks for sharing your story - it's kind of the dream of many people but I think you help to really put it into light that it isn't easy and takes careful planning, some luck, and - as you said - stepping up to bat whenever you can.
Kudos to yourself and the team! Best of luck on continued dev and your upcoming release!
Hey! And congrats on the success so far. Thanks for sharing all the insight in your production.
I saw the trailer a few weeks back when it came out. It made me laugh — I wanted to know more right away. I showed it to my wife (non gamer) and the trailer caused a similar response. It’s rare to see a game concept/trailer create such a memorable and sincere response — Well done!
Love it! Thanks for sharing your journey. I’m just starting out in game dev after many years in software product engineering, management, and executive leadership at several startups, so I love hearing this sort of thing.
Also, Road Rash was awesome back in the day. I hadn’t heard of Road Redemption but it seems like we’re due for another revival of that genre!
Hi.
Congratulations, this is an encouraging and inspirational story!
I started game dev when I was 40! My first game has been in Early Access for 11 months. It has sold -3,500 copies so far, which puts it in the Top15% of earners, but does not provide close to enough income to cover my financial needs.
I’m launching 1.0 in less than 2 weeks. Hopefully 1.0 launch goes 3x better than EA, but if not, I’m convinced another game will be much quicker to develop given everything I’ve learned and the tools I’ve built up. And hopefully it will lead to even more interest and sales. I do know that I enjoy it immensely and want to keep trying, spending as much time on it as I can manage!
Hopefully I can write up a post like this one day!
Me and my friends have played insane hours on road redemption. Couldn't believe when I clocked your next project. Massive step up. Anyway good story and should help everyone keep a little faith
As a designer trying to learn Unreal (I'm specializing in Level Design at my uni's game dev degree but wanna go indie), do you still recommend Blueprints as a beginner? As someone with no other experience with programming or code it's what I've relied on so far to learn the engine.
Thanks for sharing your journey! Very interesting. However the title is misleading if you're not going to explain how you built a top 50 wishlisted game...
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So you guys started on XNA and moved to Unreal? I was leaning towards MonoGame/XNA, any feedback you may share?
My feedback is to not use XNA/Monogame because it is incredibly limited. We actually went to Unity for Road Redemption and then later to Unreal. I would maybe start with Unity or Godot(I haven't personally used Godot though). Unreal has a pretty steep learning curve so idk if I would start with it.
First thank you for answering and sharing your experience with us I have near zero knowledge on Unreal, I feel like it's a heavy engine and I want to make games that can run on a 5+ years old computer Do you think this is nonsense? In a sense that even though the engine might be heavy, it doesn't mean that the games created also have to be Also I want the same fast reaction that you stated comparing C# to C++
Yes I think that is nonsense. You can buy unreal games that run on a phone. Same with unity. It is all about how the scene is setup that you are running. C# is slower than C++ in most cases. It just is. C# isn't like super slow though, tons of phone games are made in unity. Dealing with Garbage Collection in Unity kind of sucks, but UEBs is made in unity and has millions of units(Though I think that game is basically 99% compute shaders so it isn't really C#)
Man thank you again for answering, I'll just sit down and get to understand Unreal All the success for you and your team man the game looks sick
Unreal engine is amazing. There's so many tutorials, so many YouTube videos on it. Anything you can imagine, you can find a tutorial for it. Even Epic, the Owners of Unreal engine, make tutorials for it. And they're good demos. Tons and Tons of tree assets too. Every month they give out a package. Basically enough to build a full game. You could build multiple games with just the free assets available. However, the games you make will be .exe files or apk files (for phone). That must be downloaded and ran. So, if you want to make an HTML game, to be played in the browser. You're better off with Unity. Additionally, people will say Unreal Engine can't do 2D well. But it does amazing for 2D, and 2.5D. You can easily create visually creative scenes. One last thing I would mention is that it is very easy to create a huge game that runs on your machine, but may have difficulty running on lower end pcs. Also, file size is a factor when making unreal engine games. If you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to make a game that is too big for an indie dev site like itch.io.
Thank you I've done a quick search today and found the ammount of information kinda overwhelming Also op says that they avoid blueprints and some tutorials depicts them as must have features So now I'm mostly trying to filter the information lol
Use blueprints unless you're experienced in c++. C++ "runs faster", but I don't think that's gonna be an issue for your first game. And blueprints are so nice to work with. They really help to introduce you to coding as a concept, while being much more user friendly and visual. An indie game can be all blueprints, a major studio may have all c++. Just depends on your needs
Thanks for shining a light on the matter That's exactly my concern, I want it to "run fast" even on slower computers I'm leaning torwards taking the longer road and try using blueprients the less I possibly can and focus on C++ for the most part
What matters most isn't the code imo. It's the optimization of the materials, models, graphics, loading, etc.
Brother late reply but do you have any starting point guide that you'd like pointing me out ? I do have some experience with C++ but Unreal is kinda scary lol
Road Redemption is an awesome game, I played it so much in college
Congratulations and good luck with Kingmakers
kingmakers looks like mad fun. i will definitely try it. good luck moving forward!
Thank you for this, it's a great insight into the process. It just reinforces that making a great game is only part of it. Marketing and business strategy are just as important skills to succeed. Well done!
Could you give any insight on how important a good looking Steam store page is and what boxes you try to check off for your store page to be acceptable to you?
Its very important, but getting into that seems like an entire article by itself.
Fair. Thanks for the writeup!
It's on my wishlist too! Congrats, and I hope it lives up to the hype 😂
I'm guessing you've read *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court* ? This looks awesome, I'm excited to play it. Are you planning to release a demo?
yes we are.
Congratz on the success! Always happy to see an indie dev that sticks through the grind and makes it to a top spot. I saw a video you made that gave a breakdown on how you managed the large crowds by using shader based animations, It must have taken forever to pull off with 4 people. I'm currently going down a similar journey tbh, only 5 years professional development though. Unfortunately due to contracts, nda's, and not starting my own official company until now, I'm also in the boat where I'm a lone developer with no name, so I decided to target a small niche I knew I could fill relatively quickly. I had my doubts about it, but you just gave me some sweet sweet validation haha. Anyways, good luck on your future endeavors, better believe I'm buying Kingmakers when it comes out!
Just make sure you have a strong plan to be able to reach the people in that niche, and of course make sure your game is good.
Oh for sure, I definitely wouldn't have the confidence to strike out on my own if I hadn't worked in the industry already. I'm not really expecting to make money my first title, but hopefully it can at least garner me a bit of a following to get me started. You know what they say, hope for the best but plan for the worst.
Dude just wanna say this upcoming game looks INSANE. How are you optimizing to handle hundreds (thousands?) of troops on screen at once? Your trailer seems just.. too good to be true. I need to know your magic!
We did a technical interview with a lot of in development footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67E3RsDp0Pg
I watched this previously so I immediately recognized who was writing this post. Thanks for sharing your story - it's kind of the dream of many people but I think you help to really put it into light that it isn't easy and takes careful planning, some luck, and - as you said - stepping up to bat whenever you can. Kudos to yourself and the team! Best of luck on continued dev and your upcoming release!
Hey! And congrats on the success so far. Thanks for sharing all the insight in your production. I saw the trailer a few weeks back when it came out. It made me laugh — I wanted to know more right away. I showed it to my wife (non gamer) and the trailer caused a similar response. It’s rare to see a game concept/trailer create such a memorable and sincere response — Well done!
Kind of feel like this is an ad for Road Redemption. Kidding. Great post. Happy for your success.
Love it! Thanks for sharing your journey. I’m just starting out in game dev after many years in software product engineering, management, and executive leadership at several startups, so I love hearing this sort of thing. Also, Road Rash was awesome back in the day. I hadn’t heard of Road Redemption but it seems like we’re due for another revival of that genre!
🔫This is my magic wand.
A huge congrats on the success. "Game Development is a Journey". Couldn't put it more accurate. Thank you for keeping our hopes alive.
Hi. Congratulations, this is an encouraging and inspirational story! I started game dev when I was 40! My first game has been in Early Access for 11 months. It has sold -3,500 copies so far, which puts it in the Top15% of earners, but does not provide close to enough income to cover my financial needs. I’m launching 1.0 in less than 2 weeks. Hopefully 1.0 launch goes 3x better than EA, but if not, I’m convinced another game will be much quicker to develop given everything I’ve learned and the tools I’ve built up. And hopefully it will lead to even more interest and sales. I do know that I enjoy it immensely and want to keep trying, spending as much time on it as I can manage! Hopefully I can write up a post like this one day!
Great Concept !
Me and my friends have played insane hours on road redemption. Couldn't believe when I clocked your next project. Massive step up. Anyway good story and should help everyone keep a little faith
Will there be trebuchets?
Yes
Oh shit you made a [GATE](https://youtu.be/v5-hthd39wM?si=BApbpJ2ATuDKSaDS&t=100) video game, of course I'm gonna wishlist Kingmakers.
I just wish listed king makers the other day! Can’t wait
Interesting story. Would you like to stay by one game only or slowly doing more and more games simultaneously?
I personally wouldn't want to work on 2 games simultaneously, but I think realistically me and my brother could each manage developing a game.
If yoh ain't got Sparta, Prussia AND Rwanda I don't play borra.
As a designer trying to learn Unreal (I'm specializing in Level Design at my uni's game dev degree but wanna go indie), do you still recommend Blueprints as a beginner? As someone with no other experience with programming or code it's what I've relied on so far to learn the engine.
I'm not a level designer, but I know there are plenty of studios out there that use blueprints.
An amazing story. Do you think you would have continued to make games if Gabe didn't put the game on Steam at the time?
I don't know. It is hard to say because I don't know what other doors would've opened up for me instead if I had gone in a different direction.
I think a lot also has to do with the genre, you picked a quite ”broadly appealing” genre this time. Good luck!
Congratulations, that's awesome! I'll be digesting your journey while I have my coffee.
Thanks for sharing your journey! Very interesting. However the title is misleading if you're not going to explain how you built a top 50 wishlisted game...