Shadow of a Soul: Chapter I

[ferzan]

Hello folks,

My name is Ferzan and I'm an independent video game developer. I'm working on a first-person horror adventure game called Shadow of a Soul: Chapter I.

I made a trailer to promote the game. It's on the website. It would be great if could check it out :)

Here's the website: http://vivec3d.com/shadowofasoul/

I have also created a blog about the production of the game, it's here: Http://vivec3d.com/blog/

I'm blogging about the development of the game everyday including weekends and will continue to do so until the release date. If you want to develop your own indie game it could be helpful I guess to read about the struggles of another indie developer :)

Please let me know what you think.

Looking forward to C&C

Cheers

Ferzan

[ferzan]

I'm really sorry but I couldn't post the links without posting a second time

[LeftEyeNine]

Seeing the nickname, I checked here to confirm my guess about you being a fellow countryman.

Hoşgeldin ve çalışmalarında başarılar.

[Kekvit Irae]

Woo boy. Where do I begin?

First, the good:

1. It's good to see an indie developer take an interest in survival horror. Penumbra and Amnesia are both shining examples of (relatively) recent games of the genre, even if they aren't indie.

And that's it. Now let's take a look at the bad:

1. Putting out a trailer (I'm guessing pre-rendered) before the alpha or beta release.
2. By the looks of the release date (308 days remaining), I'm guessing you don't even have an alpha build yet. Spamming (yes, that's apparently what you are doing) multiple forums for interest when you don't have anything to show but a trailer is a big no-no in game development.
3. Daily blog posts. Unless your name is Notch, you really cant get away with being lazy and taking time away from development to be social and update the public on the game.


So, in a nutshell, you should limit your blog updates to the weekends, buckle down and develop more, and wait until you have at least an alpha build before you try to raise awareness. Once you get a beta build, then you can send it to various medias (I recommend TotalBiscuit, as he has a youtube show dedicated to indie games). If you start getting people hyped on a game before anything can be shown, then you'll just repeat the whole Daikatana mess if the game isn't any good. At worst, it'll be vaporware like Dawn.
This post is taking me far longer than my normal posts since I don't want to sound like a total dick, and I do want the game to succeed, but you do need to look into how successful indie devs work before you start "advertising" on multiple forums.

[Fragony]

Trailer doesn't work for me on teh mac, god bless youtube. Looks creepy and I like creepy

[ferzan]

Woo boy. Where do I begin?

First, the good:

1. It's good to see an indie developer take an interest in survival horror. Penumbra and Amnesia are both shining examples of (relatively) recent games of the genre, even if they aren't indie.

And that's it. Now let's take a look at the bad:

1. Putting out a trailer (I'm guessing pre-rendered) before the alpha or beta release.
2. By the looks of the release date (308 days remaining), I'm guessing you don't even have an alpha build yet. Spamming (yes, that's apparently what you are doing) multiple forums for interest when you don't have anything to show but a trailer is a big no-no in game development.
3. Daily blog posts. Unless your name is Notch, you really cant get away with being lazy and taking time away from development to be social and update the public on the game.


So, in a nutshell, you should limit your blog updates to the weekends, buckle down and develop more, and wait until you have at least an alpha build before you try to raise awareness. Once you get a beta build, then you can send it to various medias (I recommend TotalBiscuit, as he has a youtube show dedicated to indie games). If you start getting people hyped on a game before anything can be shown, then you'll just repeat the whole Daikatana mess if the game isn't any good. At worst, it'll be vaporware like Dawn.
This post is taking me far longer than my normal posts since I don't want to sound like a total dick, and I do want the game to succeed, but you do need to look into how successful indie devs work before you start "advertising" on multiple forums.

Kekvit Irae, thank you for taking time to post

:)) I remember Daikatana, although I doubt many people will remember that

The game has been in development for 1 year. I have completed plenty of stuff already.

I will definitely check TotalBiscuits channel. In fact I should probably search for more people like him

And I'm spamming forums as you see :) so I can say that there is not much hype about the game

Trailer doesn't work for me on teh mac, god bless youtube. Looks creepy and I like creepy

I'll look into the mac problem you mentioned. Creepy is what I'm aiming for so thank you :)

[Kekvit Irae]

I will definitely check TotalBiscuits channel. In fact I should probably search for more people like him

His (mostly) indie games show is WTF Is..., so if you want your game featured to hundreds of thousands of gamers, he's the go-to guy. Once you have a stable build, send an email to his PR rep and they will hook you up. Just make sure that the game is GOOD. He's BRUTAL with his first impressions (see: WTF Is... Death and the Fly).

And I'm spamming forums as you see :) so I can say that there is not much hype about the game

Hype goes both ways too. If you spam something, then you may find yourself to be more hated than loved. Just do what most indie devs do and just use the media and word of mouth to get your game noticed.

[LeftEyeNine]

The guy's got progress. Hopefully this will be an indie that will be worth taking a look at.

The success of such one-man pushes is essential and influential if Turkish game production scene will ever have anything to offer internationally.