How to develop your first big Indie game and not to die in the process of talking to game publishers.
POSTWORLD started as an idea to design a post apocalyptic Action RPG to the taste of every Fallout, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Metro admirer in February 2016. Naturally this idea attracted many postapocalypse fans, and as Unreal Engine 4 had switched to a free distribution plan, it became technically feasible to create the game without overwhelming expenses to buy or design an appropriate game engine.
The project was facing numerous complications from the very beginning. The team was scattered throughout all the former USSR territory and could only work on the game in spare time. Some team members had actual design experience, understood how pipelines worked, or realized the complexity of implementing certain technical details. Different people had different vision of the project and sometimes it turned out to be impossible to come to a consensus. Long story short, the team faced each and every trouble that can be.
However, by the end of the first year reasonable goals were achieved. Firstly, established team of people was formed who were constantly and systematically working at the project. Secondly, the game acquired its own visual style and lore.
In spring 2017 or so focus shift has happened. From then on taking part in various conferences focusing on game development (DevGAMM, White Nights) and some post apocalypse related events became additional goal, all while paying much more attention to social media advertising and community management.
Concurrently core gameplay systems were designed and tested. Also new content were adding constantly. Endless new builds allowed to get invaluable feedback.
Towards the end of the year somewhat playable Alpha was made. Then came the huge mistake: contacting game publishers. Meetings, discussions, scheduling, endless planning, budget development, implementation of necessary additional feature prototypes and legal matters ate two months – and all without any result. That time the joke was born that maybe that is all because POSTWORLD lacks loot boxes and/or Battle Royale mode.
As the result, the initial schedule was broken. New goal is to release the game on Steam Early Access in Autumn 2018. Question is where to get more money to continue development. Go for crowdfunding because it will not worse than now.
The possibilities are always limited. Indeed, a lot of planned content will not be covered by Early Access and will only appear in further constant updates.
The story moral is very simple: do not change your plans until you are sure game publisher is going to work with you or it is going to cost you much more than you think!
POSTWORLD indiegogo campaign: www.indiegogo.com
Website: postworldgame.com
