Lessons from Galaxy Defense

I'll write here what I learned from developing Galaxy Defense. I'll talk specifically about the project management and technical stuff. The things I learned about the flash game market are posted in the FGL posts (1, 2 and 3 ).

The main thing I learned was to develop something in my spare time without abandoning it. I concluded my second personal project in 6 months and I'm proud of it. Also, I got feedback from users and tried to use their advices in the game and did some negotiation in FGL (I declined my first deal).

In the technical side, things like OOP in AS2 and code organization needed improvement, but I started doing things right in the later parts of the project so I consider flash programming and code organization in AS2 were something I learned right. I'm still not very good using GIMP and other image softwares, but I'm getting better :)

There is something that I did not learn entirely in this project: how to size projects to fit my time and ability. I just put a project aside because it was too big for me to finish it with the time I have and started a new one that's smaller and easier to do.

That's my experience with Galaxy Defense. You can see the result of my work at Kongregate or see it at my sponsor's site: playtowerdefensegames.com

My first published game

Hi!

The first game I got sponsored on FGL is now online at the sponsor's site and Kongregate! I got approximately 20 thousand views. A lot for a game that I did just to learn Flash :) Now I'll continue to develop my next game.

See ya

Pyweek9 - the end

I joined the Pyweek 9 with Alexandre Martins, a friend from my university, and we produced a platform game called Lost Feathers. It's a game where you control a boy and his bird and your objective is to collect all the feathers that the bird lost. It was programmed using cocos2d. Unfortunately, I had some last-time appointments and Alexandre did a greater part of the job. I wrote the code for the levels (level drawer and collisions) and gravity. It was my first time writing a platform game, so I was a little slow, while he had more experience and did a great job.

The url of the game is:
http://code.google.com/p/lostfeathers/

Pyweek 9

Hi!
Do you want to make a game and have one week available? If your answer is YES why don't you enter in the next Pyweek?

The Pyweek is a contest that challenges you to write a game (in Python) from scratch in one week. It is intended to be fun and to drive innovation from game developers. It will be my first time in the contest and I'm really hoping to finish it with something that's fun to play. I'll be using the cocos2d library and I'll post more about it when the competition is nearer. If you have the time and will to make a game happen in one week then join me at 00:00 UTC 2009-08-30 :)

See you there!

My first completed deal in FGL

Today I completed my first deal in FGL: a primary sponsorship with playtowerdefensegames. Everything went smoothly and I'm really looking forward to make more flash games. Also, I began to work in my new game, but I'm not telling what it's about... yet. I'll post my experiences and achievements in this blog for everyone to know what I'm working into. Also, I'll post some videos of the gameplay once it's close to the real thing :) I hope I'll get more attention to my games this way.

News and more FGL

Hi!
I'm happy to say that I got a second offer on my game on FlashGameLicense! Now I have a bigger offer and I will explain the Buy It Now and Last Call options of FGL (the things that got me the new bid)

Buy It Now:

This options appears only to more experienced developers OR to games that are waiting for a sponsorhip for some time. It allows you to set a fixed price to your game in a Primary Sponsor that allows Ads and don't have gameplay changes. This way the sponsor can simply buy your game with your price on it, but you have to accept any deals from Buy it Now. This is why this option is dangerous: you can underprice your game and there's no auction system to let anyone give you a higher bid! Use with caution

Last Call:

When you're about to close a deal you should activate the Last Call option. This makes sponsors aware that you are going to sell the game and attracts last minute sponsorships. Your game will have a mark saying that is on Last Call. That means: "If you want to bid, do it NOW!". I think it's always a good idea to activate this option, since my bigger offer came after I did it.

That's it. Later in this week I'll post my delicious bookmarks about flash games development and resources for games. See ya.

What is Flash Game License?

Have ever wondered how those big games like Sony and Desktop Tower Defense actually earn something? They probably sold a license or got sponsored by a big game portal and this is where Flash Game License comes in.

Flash Game License (FGL) is a website that sells licenses and sponsorships to various game portals all over the web. The idea behind it is that the developer puts his game on their site to get a license on the game. The selling process is like an auction: every interested sponsor leaves a bid in the game with a value and the type of the license/sponsorship. The developer chooses what bid to accept and when. Great games get bids for thousands, while smaller games get the attention of the smaller portals. The fee to the site is that if you got a deal from them you should pay a commission of 10%. IMHO it's fair, since you probably wouldn't get much from Ads and self-sponsoring.

There are three types of licenses avaiable:
Exclusive sponsorship
The sponsor gets the right to distribute a branded version of your game everywhere and this version must be the only one on the net. Tend to pay a more, but you won't earn anything from this game anymore, since most sponsors don't allow ads on this.

Primary sponsorship
The sponsor will distribute a branded version of your game all around the web, but it will not be site locked. You will be able to sell site locked versions of your game, although the game must remain exclusive on the Primary sponsor' site for some time.

Non-Exclusive sponsorship
The sponsor will get a site locked version of your game with their branding and APIs. You can sell many licenses of this type as long as you don't sell an Exclusive.

Besides being a good way to monetize Flash Games, FGL also has a great community. You can post about everything on its forums and get game feedback from developers. There are some experienced guys that can give very good tips. There are forums to find people to work with too! Overall, it's a pretty good environment and I recommend to anyone who's willing to develop some good flash games.

That's it. Thanks for the audience :p

Introduction and News

Hi!
I'm igordsm, a newbie hobby game developer. In this blog I'll post updates about the games that I'm starting to develop and some other related projects that come into my mind. The name MontaGames is a joke with my last name and is intended to be used as a brand for my games and other related projects, no matter if they're open source or have the code locked down with seven keys :p

Right now I'm happy because my first game got a bid on FlashGameLicense (I'll post about it later). Although the bid is low, it's my first! When I get the link to the released version I'll post it here.

I'll go to sleep now. See ya!