The Front Door

My screenwriting professor talked about the “front door” when writing. When you start a scene with a character entering through the front door, it’s a choice. Your brain defaults to that choice because it’s what it knows - and you’re probably concerning yourself with bigger elements in the scene. But what more would it say about the character and the scene if they’re going through the side window, or simply take a wide step over the entryway when they enter? Basically - recognize when you’ve chosen a predictable direction and try to evaluate if you’re missing an opportunity. 

In game design it’s the same. We have to make hundreds of decisions in a week, and inevitably - for many of them - we’ll choose to walk through the front door. This is sometimes necessary to simply get the bigger ideas in the game. Other times we want to give the player something familiar - especially if we’re innovating in other areas. But it’s good to go back and revisit our “front door” decisions and ensure they’re intentional.

Originally, in Duskers you used a mouse interface to pilot drones around derelict spaceships. This was an example of an almost unconscious “front door” decision - seeing as it’s a standard to use the mouse when playing a game. A friend played an early version of it and tossed out the idea of controlling the drones with a command line interface (typing commands with a keyboard). This suggestion seemed ridiculous at first, but the more I thought about it - the more I liked the idea, and just had to try it.

I was really frightened to go though that side window because who plays a game with a command line interface? But after I did, I was suddenly seeing lots of side windows we could go through. I revisited something as simple as having a soundtrack in the game, and chose to go through the side window of not having one - because a soundtrack felt non-diegetic and would hurt the immersion of listening to a lone drone steer down an abandoned corridor. These side windows all contributed to create a unique experience - and that’s what resonated with our players and garnered the game so many awards (ironically including Best Interface of the year from Rock Paper Shotgun).

Keep in mind this applies to every aspect of your game: audio, art, UI, etc. In each decision try to recognize if you’ve defaulted to the “front door” and if that’s what’s best. Even small details can make a game feel unique and more cohesive. Your uniqueness as a developer is what will make your game resonate with players, so just be aware of when you’re going through the front door, and occasionally slide down the chimney.

Duskers Halloween Costume Contest

It's that spooky time of year again! We're having fun adding a few frightening surprises to Duskers for Halloween (coming next week!) and thought that you may enjoy doing so as well. So we created this Costume Contest!

Create a creepy Duskers Steam avatar, either on your own or using THESE TEMPLATES (.png images with and without BG, and .psd with layers). Post your creation to the Steam Forum as artwork and we'll pick the most popular ones to add to our current Duskers Steam Avatars :)

For those who have been with us since the beginning, this is simillar to what we did with the A Virus Named TOM Holiday TOM Avatars, but spoooookier!!

MUAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

How Duskers Became a Thing

I stood out in the Double Fine parking lot, on the phone with my wife Holly, somewhat dazed and confused.

"I just got an email from Ron"

"Yeah?..."

"It looks like we have enough money. Holy #$%*"

There are 2 things to note here. #1 I'm at Double Fine, who for some reason, let me work out of their office space despite only having backed Broken Age at the $15 tier. #2 I just got my game funded by a bunch of amazing and successful indies. Maybe if you're not me, indies funding indies doesn't seem all that amazing. We've seen the awesome of Indie Fund time and again. For me, being an Indie Funded game would be amazing. What blows my mind is that this happened after Indie Fund said no...ish, and that they were only one of ten signatures that ended up making Duskers possible. So how does either #1 or 2 above make any sense? I purport that the simple answer to both of these is that indies are astoundingly great at helping one another, show me an indie dev and I'll show you a plethora of indies that helped them.

Struggle. In a word that's what indies do. Don't get me wrong, we all signed up for it. In the balance of life it seems warranted. You get to make the video games you want to make, interact with fans who love playing them, and get paid (eventually... maybe), and in exchange, you struggle.

Earlier this year I decided to give everyone on my team a Holiday Bonus. I did this because I knew Misfits Attic was close to going under. This may seem odd, but understanding that I pay my team horribly may help. I figured that if the day came when we ran out of money, I'd have rather taken those last month’s expenses and put them in the pockets of the people whose sweat had made everything possible. Just a few months later that day had come, and I told my small team I couldn't pay them going forward. That didn't seem to stop them.

It's not that contract work is the end of the world, or even working without pay. Holly and I funded A Virus Named TOM with our savings account. And the first half of it was in my night and weekends while I was working at DreamWorks. But that had taken its toll on my family. I don't like having to work when I could be chasing my 3 year old daughter around as zombie Spider-Man. No child should go without zombie Spider-Man.

As an indie you convince yourself that everything will be fine after you launch. After A Virus Named TOM launched... we still struggled. The game continued to make enough for us to keep the lights on, but only barely, and always only for the next few months. It felt like we were constantly sinking, and each time before we drowned a piece of driftwood would come along and save us for a time: a bundle, a sale, etc. Holly was rightfully reticent about starting another game without knowing how we’d fund it, but I realized that as an indie you just have to run towards a cliff, having faith that you'll be able to get the next section of bridge in place by the time you get there. So using TIG Jam as an excuse, I started our next game: Duskers.

Maybe it wasn’t chance that I made a game about survival and being alone in the dark. Duskers was about piloting drones into derelict spaceships in a universe that had become a giant graveyard. But it was also about gritty tech that broke down, isolation, and adapting to survive.

Perhaps it was knowing how uncertain things were, and that this could be my last game, a game that I possibly didn't finish. Whatever the reason, I stopped compromising my game design with worries about how I would sell the game, or how I would fund it. On the contrary, I actually somewhat delighted in making decisions that I felt would get me laughed out of a pitch to publisher: A command line interface, avoiding combat, manually controlling individual units in an RTS.

What's ironic, is then needing to get said game funded...

If you’ve watched my silly puppet videos you'll know I'm not a huge fan of pitching to publishers. I was emailing around to find out what publishers indies might recommend working with when Ron Carmel asked me why I was seeking publishers. He encouraged me to submit to Indie Fund, which I had planned on, but felt my odds were about as good as getting my game funded by Indie Fund. I recalled Andy Schatz hinting to me about a magical land where indies outside of Indie Fund were interested in funding games. I brought that up, and Ron said this land existed.

So I put together a build of Duskers, put my designer-esque pitch into video form, and shipped it off. After a bit of deliberation I was informed that Indie Fund wasn't willing to take on Duskers. This I expected. They felt it was in too early a state and the budget was a bit high... but they'd put up some money if it meant the difference between Duskers being made or not. This I did not expect. Wait what?  Add to this the fact that Ron, who had reached out to help me, and brought the game to the group in the first place, said he'd be willing to pony up a chunk of his personal money to see the game made. I was blown away, these guys really wanted to help. Now I just needed to figure out how to fill the rest of the budget.

At this point I assumed I had to somehow pound the pavement, like a traveling pitch man trying to get investment around town. Just, instead of publishers I'd be pitching to other indies? I'd never really done this before, so I went over to the one place in town that had helped me from the day I launched the beta of A Virus Named TOM on my website with a humble widget.

If you've never met Jeff Rosen or John Graham, find a way. For a pair of guys that took a humble bundle and turned it into a mutli-million dollar operation, they still seem... well humble (sorry). I genuinely feel they just want to help indies succeed, and play Starcraft.

Jeff dug Duskers and told me he'd be interested in chipping in. Holly and I spent the night drinking wine (we do live in the bay area) and grinning like idiots. It's kindof like that moment where the fear of the train crashing is gone because it's already coming off the rails and you've accepted it, but you can day dream about this possible world where superman is going to save you, because you now believe that he's out there somewhere.

We had found some money, but there was a ways to go, and I had no idea who to talk to now. I didn't have a Rolodex of successful indies so amazing they'd be interested in taking a risk on other indies. Apparently Indie Fund does.

Ron told me he'd email out some indies to see if they'd be interested in helping. I was happy for the help, and figured it'd give me time to think of who I could approach. A few hours later I was getting emails from Cliff Harris and Tommy Refenes, excited about Duskers. Our Duskers! I felt kindof like I decided to write a book and George R. R. Martin, and Orson Scott Card called me up to see if I needed help. Cliff was asking me about my marketing plan, suggesting some ideas I hadn't even considered. Tommy was describing scenarios he'd played out on the build I'd sent. Just having someone play the game and like it was thrill enough, but having someone who's game influenced the design of A Virus Named TOM was taking it to another level.

We've meandered back to the start of this post. 24 hours after Ron told me he’d emailed possible indie investors, I got an email from him telling me we had enough money. MIND BLOWN. What?! How does that work? I looked at the list of names. Sarah and Colin Northway (Northway Games): I felt so grateful, an awesome and incredibly talented indie couple that Holly and I knew and are constantly inspired by. Jeff Rosen: as he said he would, once again helping me out. John Graham: he hadn't been around when I showed Jeff the game and here he was contributing to make Duskers happen. The only way I can ever picture that man is smiling, and finding some way to help me out.

Almost more amazing was the list of people that I'd barely met, if at all: Cliff (as Positech Games) and Tommy were there, apparently my responses to their questions hadn't turned them away. Indie Fund, true to their word, had come through and contributed to push us over the top(Jonathan Blow, Ron Carmel, Kyle Gabler, Aaron Isaksen, Kellee Santiago, Nathan Vella, and Mathew Wegner). Some Indie Funders had even double dipped and ponied up their own money in addition to the Indie Fund money: Aaron Isaksen (with John Bizzarro as AppAbove Games), Kellee Santiago, and of course, Ron Carmel. All three of whom had responded to my unsolicited requests for advice when I was making A Virus Named TOM. The universe was telling me I was heavy in indie karma debt.

At the end that’s how Duskers got funded, not by my clever orchestration, but by indies that want other indies to succeed and have built a structure to do just that. So what was the deal like? Pretty much like the public Indie Fund agreement. Humble Bundle, Valve, and Indie Fund must share the only lawyer that doesn't get paid by the word because their agreements are somehow fractions of the lengths of other contracts. Even so, this one blew me away at a whopping 3 pages.

So if you're an indie developer that's reading this, I'm hoping that this story inspires you instead of making you want to punch me. I think the takeaway from this is one that I've heard from countless indie devs, at countless meetups and conferences. The people that can help us most is us. We're not competing, we're too small to worry about stealing sales from each other. So find other devs, help them, and trust that they'll help you. It's what separates us from those trying to make a quick buck by exploiting players or devs. I genuinely believe the hippie dippy concept that the indie ecosystem is a win-win, where helping other indie devs simply adds aweseomsauce to the whole indie sandwich.

And as I sit here typing this under the shelter of Double Fine's roof, getting brilliant ideas for Duskers from all manner of indies, funded by indies that have succeeded before me, know that I'm in serious indie love debt. So hit me up if you need some help and I'll do my best to pay it down ;) info@misfitsattic.com

[Edit] You can now pre-order Duskers at this snazzy website Holly just made

Need Help with Art Direction

Everyone seems to have a strong opinion of exactly what "The Last Shadow" should look like... except for me :)  But with all the interesting ideas I've heard, I thought I'd ask you guys to show me your thoughts...



So if you'd be willing to take a stab at creating a concept screen or two I'd be thrilled. I don't really have a strong notion other than:

• I'd like to keep it simple if possible. 
• Some people that play feel like ninjas
• The idea of skinning character "balls" with indie characters could be cool (UI considerations)
• something that could work with 2 or 4 players

Send them along to us at our Facebook page, our Twitter, or email them in to info [at] misfitsattic.com.

Some supporting materials if you're interested...

What is The Last Shadow?

• A slightly dated tutorial
• A more recent video
• I added 4 player but haven't uploaded a video yet :\

Screenshots of 2 player:

Thanks! Lemme know if you need anything else :)

Help Children, Watch Games!

Please help us raise money for children's hospitals across the country and around the world! Go HERE and donate what you can (you can donate any time)! Saturday Nov 2nd I'll be streaming from 12pm PT to 1pm PT hopefully on both the Indie Megabooth Twitch channel and our Misfits Attic Twitch channel (still figuring out if that's possible, if not use the Megabooth one). I'm attempting to hit a $475 goal so that the Megabooth can reach $10,000!

You can also tell me which game you want me to play (I listen best to donors!), either one of our three prototypes or something else... We're all playing games for 25 hours straight to raise money.

Thanks so much for caring and helping! Here's the schedule for the 25hr marathon!

Happy Birthday TOM + Contest!

[Update: 16 amazing entries to our Steam Card Contest! Go vote on our Steam Community Artwork Page. Voting will end in a week (midnight August  15th). With so many great cards we may have to pick more than one...]

One year ago today (August 1st 2012) A Virus Named TOM was let out into the world. It's been a crazy year, and to celebrate, A Virus Named TOM is 75% off for the next 48 hours on both our site and our Steam store page!

STEAM CARD CONTEST: (1 week: August 1-8)

So fans have been asking us when in the heck we're gonna get our AVNT Steam Cards out already. Well help us out then! We're reserving a Steam Card for you :) Simply create an image (1920x1080), post it on our Steam Group art page, tweet it to us, FB message us, let us have it! We'll then hold a vote and the favorite will become an official AVNT Steam Card. Not an artist, or simply need some art assets to work with? Here, have a bunch: ZIP FILE (only to be used for fan art, please do not steal my wife & friends hard work).

BTW: if you're a Misfit, check your inbox for a bunch of presents :) (if not check your spam folder)

Here's an example AVNT Steam Card, and below a peek at the art assets you can download.

You make the big 'zoom in' image

We'll create the smaller card image

Here's a bunch of assets to use!

Indie Cabin = The Last Shadow prototype

So everyone keeps telling me to do game jams, but I sometimes have trouble understanding how they can do this. I feel like I spend almost every waking moment working on the games that need to make me money, and have a wife & child that take up every other moment. Where can I find the time? How can I say to Holly: "Hey, take care of the kid for the weekend, Imma go work on a game, oh but not the one that I've been telling you will be done for the last 2 years..."

So there was an "indie cabin" that we put together to go to Tahoe and hang out & work on games together. I wanted to use this as an excuse to bang out a prototype I wanted to make, essentially do a game jam.  But as the date got closer I had so much to do I decided not to. Then when I got there I was so out of my day to day mindset that I decided to spend my 2 days jamming out my game, and did just that.

The Last Shadow prototype that I made at the cabin
 

I have to say, it was awesome. I got so much done, have the beginning of a possible new title, and feel refreshed. I spend so much time wearing my biz dev hat, my PR hat, etc, that I forget I can develop too sometimes. Not only that but it's what's most important. Holly saw the change in me instantly and is a strong proponent that I do this at least 3 times a year or so. She's awesome, and I've already married her so find your own! If you're a game maker: people care about us because of that, so let your PR be showing what you make, my weekly videos are trying to do just that.

As for the cabin, it reminds me yet again how incredibly fruitful it is to be around amazing and creative people. We played each others paper prototypes, games, and just enjoyed each others company. I'd like to do that 3 times a year as well ;) Thanks Brendan!

Indie Cabin-ers: Left to Right: Myself (Tim Keenan), Brad Johnson, Pete Angstadt, Brendan Mauro, Ryan Williams, Randy O'Connor, Rich Vreeland, Holly Keenan