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Forums - Gaming - Checkout my first game as an indie developer and help me launch it well!

Hi guys. I started working on my first game in April 2012 (Steam concept page) while in my second year in the university. I live in Nigeria and there is barely a developer community here, talk less of a game developers community. It's been an uphill struggle for me in terms of finding a team. I can't pay anyone yet, I'm still at the level where I can only form a team with a group of friends, and even though I have a few pals who have the skills, they don't have the time because they're focusing on their careers as web developers, which is much more lucrative in Nigeria than game dev.

So I finished Uni in January this year, and have focused all my spare time since then on game dev. I'm your standard core gamer...I've got a 3DS, Vita, PS3, Wii, Wii U and XboxOne. I've also got Steam on my PC and some games on my iPhone, but I almost never play on those 2 platforms. I want to make games for people like us, but I can't afford to yet. I have to go at the pace my resources can manage, so for now, Im making a simple online multiplayer board game for mobile. It's called Ludo Online. I'm hoping it will launch in November and generate enough profits to keep my game studio afloat so that I can develop a core game (The one I've been working on needs to be rebuilt from the ground up because a lot of tech has changed since I first started, and I'm not even using the same game engine as before).

I launched an indiegogo campaign for Ludo Online, and I'm trying to raise $1,000. I won't copy and paste my campaign pitch here, you can go to the campaign page if you're interested. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ludo-online/x/8556249#/story

I'm asking you guys as fellow gamers to help me have a fighting chance. You don't have to support with too much, just contribute $2 on Indiegogo, leave a comment on the campaign page, and share the link with friends. This will help get activity going on the indiegogo page, which will in turn improve discoverability for my campaign on Indiegogo. Thanks in advance for whatever help you render.

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EDIT: I didn't want to type too much in the OP, but since the first response to this thread was somebody asking what Ludo plays like,

I found this video on YouTube where some kids explain how to play the game. Thing is the rules (and even name) of the game are slightly different in different countries. I've found some good Ludo games on the various app stores, but the only one I found that uses Nigerian rules has horrible camera angles and no online play. To summarize, there are 4 starting zones on a Ludo board and one home zone. Each player has 4 pieces and the goal is to get all 4 of your pieces to the home zone before all the other players do. Its usually played by 2 or 4 players because 3 player matches are just weird. Your pieces move along a fixed path on the board, and the number os spaces moved is determined by rolling dice. Land on the same space as another player's piece and you send his piece back to the starting zone. It's mostly luck, but once you have 3 or 4 pieces actively on the board, you can plan which piece to move once you've rolled the die, so there's some strategy to it too. A piece can only leave the starting zone when you roll a 6, even if it had been sent back to the starting zone by another player.

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3DS: tolu619

Wii U: FoyehBoys

Vita, PS3 and PS4: FoyehBoys

XBoxOne: Tolu619

Switch: Tolu619

Kugali - We publish comics from all across Africa and the diaspora, and we also push the boundaries of Augmented Reality storytelling. Check us out!

My thread for teaching VGC some Nigerian slangs

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I've never played Ludo before. How does it work?



Bet with Xander XT: 

I can beat more games on his 3DS than he can on my PSVita in a month. Loser has to buy the winner a game on his/her handheld Guess who won? http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=193531

Me!

 

I found this video on YouTube where some kids explain how to play the game. Thing is the rules (and even name) of the game are slightly different in different countries. I've found some good Ludo games on the various app stores, but the only one I found that uses Nigerian rules has horrible camera angles and no online play. To summarize, there are 4 starting zones on a Ludo board and one home zone. Each player has 4 pieces and the goal is to get all 4 of your pieces to the home zone before all the other players do. Its usually played by 2 or 4 players because 3 player matches are just weird. Your pieces move along a fixed path on the board, and the number os spaces moved is determined by rolling dice. Land on the same space as another player's piece and you send his piece back to the starting zone. It's mostly luck, but once you have 3 or 4 pieces actively on the board, you can plan which piece to move once you've rolled the die, so there's some strategy to it too. A piece can only leave the starting zone when you roll a 6, even if it had been sent back to the starting zone by another player.



http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7530/gohansupersaiyan239du.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://www.deviantart.com/download/109426596/Shippuden_Team_7_by_Tsubaki_chan.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://image.hotdog.hu/_data/members0/772/1047772/images/kepek_illusztraciok/Bleach%2520-%2520Ishida%2520Uryuu%25201.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

3DS: tolu619

Wii U: FoyehBoys

Vita, PS3 and PS4: FoyehBoys

XBoxOne: Tolu619

Switch: Tolu619

Kugali - We publish comics from all across Africa and the diaspora, and we also push the boundaries of Augmented Reality storytelling. Check us out!

My thread for teaching VGC some Nigerian slangs

tolu619 said:

 

I found this video on YouTube where some kids explain how to play the game. Thing is the rules (and even name) of the game are slightly different in different countries. I've found some good Ludo games on the various app stores, but the only one I found that uses Nigerian rules has horrible camera angles and no online play. To summarize, there are 4 starting zones on a Ludo board and one home zone. Each player has 4 pieces and the goal is to get all 4 of your pieces to the home zone before all the other players do. Its usually played by 2 or 4 players because 3 player matches are just weird. Your pieces move along a fixed path on the board, and the number os spaces moved is determined by rolling dice. Land on the same space as another player's piece and you send his piece back to the starting zone. It's mostly luck, but once you have 3 or 4 pieces actively on the board, you can plan which piece to move once you've rolled the die, so there's some strategy to it too. A piece can only leave the starting zone when you roll a 6, even if it had been sent back to the starting zone by another player.

Interesting. I'll have to ask my dad if I can donate.



Bet with Xander XT: 

I can beat more games on his 3DS than he can on my PSVita in a month. Loser has to buy the winner a game on his/her handheld Guess who won? http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=193531

Me!

This looks like something a college student toying around with programmeing would make.
I know 1000$ isnt a huge goal, but Im not sure you ll reach that.

Most wouldnt want to contribute to this, it doesnt look ambitious enough.

Im pretty sure there are people that could make a Ludo game in less than 1days work, and have it look better than the video of the game you want to make. Some might even start thinking stuff like cash grab.



You need to show a demo of the game or some game funktions running, and atleast have the board look better.

Also a physical Ludo card board game, with dice everything costs like 8$.
If you plan on selling it, you need to keep in mind theres just no way to justify selling it at even half that.

Sorry if I come off sounding really harsh.



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JRPGfan said:

This looks like something a college student toying around with programmeing would make.
I know 1000$ isnt a huge goal, but Im not sure you ll reach that.

Most wouldnt want to contribute to this, it doesnt look ambitious enough.

Im pretty sure there are people that could make a Ludo game in less than 1days work, and have it look better than the video of the game you want to make. Some might even start thinking stuff like cash grab.



You need to show a demo of the game or some game funktions running, and atleast have the board look better.

Also a physical Ludo card board game, with dice everything costs like 8$.
If you plan on selling it, you need to keep in mind theres just no way to justify selling it at even half that.

Sorry if I come off sounding really harsh.


Not at all. Did you read the campaign details though? I need money only for 2 things: to run the servers for the online mode and to run a marketting campaign for the game. It isn't ambitious. And if any developer stumbles on this thread, they can tell you that it's literally impossible for a single person to make a Ludo game in less than 1 days work. Unfortunately, I can't show a demo yet, but I should be able to within 10 days from now. Working on making a full 3D represantation of the board and pieces and while I have it working already, it's not polished enough to show off, even in development form. That's why I decided to show only the 2D U.I images for now. I'll update the campaign page as soon as I can with screenshots and maybe even a video.

And Unity just released Unity 5.2 which has made some of my work in 5.1 incompatible with the game engine, so I'm refactoring my code now. This will cost me a few days in dev time, because I'm doing all this during my spare time.



http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7530/gohansupersaiyan239du.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://www.deviantart.com/download/109426596/Shippuden_Team_7_by_Tsubaki_chan.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://image.hotdog.hu/_data/members0/772/1047772/images/kepek_illusztraciok/Bleach%2520-%2520Ishida%2520Uryuu%25201.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

3DS: tolu619

Wii U: FoyehBoys

Vita, PS3 and PS4: FoyehBoys

XBoxOne: Tolu619

Switch: Tolu619

Kugali - We publish comics from all across Africa and the diaspora, and we also push the boundaries of Augmented Reality storytelling. Check us out!

My thread for teaching VGC some Nigerian slangs

spurgeonryan said:
Did I already pay money?


No you didn't.



http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7530/gohansupersaiyan239du.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://www.deviantart.com/download/109426596/Shippuden_Team_7_by_Tsubaki_chan.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://image.hotdog.hu/_data/members0/772/1047772/images/kepek_illusztraciok/Bleach%2520-%2520Ishida%2520Uryuu%25201.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

3DS: tolu619

Wii U: FoyehBoys

Vita, PS3 and PS4: FoyehBoys

XBoxOne: Tolu619

Switch: Tolu619

Kugali - We publish comics from all across Africa and the diaspora, and we also push the boundaries of Augmented Reality storytelling. Check us out!

My thread for teaching VGC some Nigerian slangs

I thought you where just going to make a flat 2D version that would end up looking somewhat like those proto type pictures on your indiegogo page. Thats why I assumed it would be like 1days work.

I mean theres plenty of guides on how to make a basic ludo game, in html5/C#/JavaScript ect with just a basic google search.

ex:
http://www.codepool.biz/creating-a-modern-ludo-game-from-scratch

Something that looks like this could probably be made in a day if you have the know how:

 

Github link:

https://github.com/DynamsoftRD/Modern-Ludo



Sounds like a worthy cause. I'll look into it when I wake up fully.



JRPGfan said:

I thought you where just going to make a flat 2D version that would end up looking somewhat like those proto type pictures on your indiegogo page. Thats why I assumed it would be like 1days work.

I mean theres plenty of guides on how to make a basic ludo game, in html5/C#/JavaScript ect with just a basic google search.

ex:
http://www.codepool.biz/creating-a-modern-ludo-game-from-scratch

Something that looks like this could probably be made in a day if you have the know how:

 

Github link:

https://github.com/DynamsoftRD/Modern-Ludo

I've looked at the links. Let's say this was all I wanted to do. It would take more than a day to copy this tutorial and convert the code from a browser based game (which I made a year ago, by the way) to a mobile based game complete with touch controls, user accounts, menu screens, achievements and leaderboards. Then there's still the online segments of the game. It doesnt matter how skilled one is (I'm at intermediate skill level), some things just take time. The images and music in the game will also take time to create, I can't just download and use someone else's images.
The fact that mine is 3D doesn't add that much extra to the dev time actuallly, it's all these other things I have listed that add more time. The only extra thing I have to do in a 3D Ludo is make sure the camera angles and lighting are ok.



http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7530/gohansupersaiyan239du.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://www.deviantart.com/download/109426596/Shippuden_Team_7_by_Tsubaki_chan.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> http://image.hotdog.hu/_data/members0/772/1047772/images/kepek_illusztraciok/Bleach%2520-%2520Ishida%2520Uryuu%25201.jpg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

3DS: tolu619

Wii U: FoyehBoys

Vita, PS3 and PS4: FoyehBoys

XBoxOne: Tolu619

Switch: Tolu619

Kugali - We publish comics from all across Africa and the diaspora, and we also push the boundaries of Augmented Reality storytelling. Check us out!

My thread for teaching VGC some Nigerian slangs