Help me out with some indecision

[Canjucks]

Need a bit of a feedback. I've been developing a game that was of Ninja related. The ideas man has got himself caught up in breaking his promise to help me with it (r/l i know!). Anyway, the game was being developed once done would have some pretty complex things in it that would make it unique to other games going around using Gangster Legend engine - mafia style. Now I am at the cross roads of do I keep going (i can finish it without him and really he only offered limited help as it was) to make this thing or should I go with another idea? I'm not 100% on the game theme for accuracy but maybe that can work when it could potentially snag me with copyright if it went too close to what its being made around. I know I am being a bit vague on the ninja theme but is needed. So, I was developing this game pretty much daily and since this guy fell away its slowed me down and my motivation. I really want to get this done for hitting an achievement but I'm also not hell bent on releasing another game, particularly if I change theme now and go simple with Mafia as the market will be flooded and I feel nothing will be really unique. Perhaps I keep developing the game and move more to Ninja but keep elements of the original idea. Hmmm it does help write these things out if anyone can make sense of it I will offer a free cyber beer lol I'd love to finish a game that I can say is mine and I programmed it (maybe with a bit of help but still mine given the level I'm at currently). 

[orsino]

I always think like this. 

 

If you have a theme for a game you need to know stuff about that theme. 

Example if you make a mafia game you need to know some things about them, how they work. Otherwise it's doomed. 

 

As for a ninja game. Well there are not many games with that theme. 

[CrazyElk]

My two cents worth.

Firstly, promises DO get broken and partnerships for the most part (for various reasons) frequently do not work out longer term so try and avoid them.

Don't put yourself in the position of being dependent on others to achieve success, ask for advice,  hire people, seek opinion but at the end of the day you alone are responsible for your achieving a result, no one else.

Your unsure if you should keep following the path you have been on but only YOU can answer that question. Are you still interested in the idea, do you have motivation, do you see something worthwhile coming out of your efforts? If the answer is a resounding yes to those questions then you have your answer, however if the whole thing seems a little wishy washy then perhaps its best to walk away now before investing any more time and effort.

You appear concerned about "flooding the market" relative to a mafia style theme but in the scheme of things, how many actually exist relative to the WWW in its entirety? Sure there might be dozens, hundreds, thousands of games sharing a similar genre but I do not see that as a limiting factor at all. Did Colonel Sanders say "I have a chicken shop already, I don't want to flood the market" or did the used car yard that just opened down the street say that "there are lots of cars yards already, maybe I should not open mine". Should we be suggesting that we already have Google, why waste time developing another search engine (to break a monopoly is why) or FB or Twitter? Should we be suggesting that we limit the WWW to one of each kind of unique content (unique content being a rubbish Google decree) and anyone attempting to add more than that is to be scorned? I say poppycock to that idea and suggest that if its simpler for you to go mafia, THEN GO MAFIA!

Here is the thing, you can have the absolute best website/game on the WWW, it can have the most unique theme, stunning graphics, dancing girls and offers a free beer and a packet of your favourite crisps upon registering BUT if no one knows its there then its NOT going to work and I venture to say that with many of the mafia games out there bugger all players know about or subsequently play them. Sooo, develop something decent and interesting making sure both onpage and offpage SEO is the best you can offer, build some quality links to  the site and then advertise the daylights out of it, or at least to the best of your budgets ability because without making people aware of its presence things will be slow at best. Organic traffic will pick up as the site gains traction but you will have to kickstart the thing to begin with.

And don't forget, all the big shot websites around the place that have been going for years, started out at the bottom with few visitors, funky software and no idea they were going to become as successful as they are today, they developed over time .. but with a bit of motivation and just a bit of luck, YOU could be the next one to go there.

With all due respect, I'm not presently seeing the kind of commitment required to come out on top, however thats not to say you cannot turn that around and slay it.

Owning/operating a game can be very rewarding (particularly a successful one) not to mention make you a few bob on the side and to that end I wish you every success going forward. 🙂

 

[Canjucks]

Thanks thats some sound advice. I'm bummed out a little because we did this game together a decade ago and hoped we could make it bigger this time. Its now very much a learning development environment for me. If I can get it to release then awesome! (I'm not worried about climbing the mountain again) . If not, I've been able to get my r/l work boss interested in my new updated skills. Hopefully that can be a good thing.