Hey, i have to agree to EnjiLove. Making a game as an app for the iphone or other portable device does not seem that bad, it really doesn't have to be a multiplayer game if you feel troubled about it. I think that people would actually buy the game even for just one player, after all, most games for the iphone are single player games. Just in case that you dislike this idea and would prefer to make another game kind of like "Outpost", I suggest making one where the player can use two weapons simultaneously or add some other thing to it like abilities or at the least different monsters (if possible different skins?) but well, it's up to you.
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Hey mate.
Yeah doing a mobile version isn't that scary, it's a different world entirely to making a multiplayer version.
I would like to do a mobile version if we could really nail the controls, that's the key. I wouldn't want to shoe horn basically a twin stick shooter like Outpost onto a touch device if we couldn't do something which really played to its strengths.
At present we'd need "dual sticks", reload, weapon select, action and pause buttons. That would need stripping right down somehow as its just unacceptable to have that many buttons on screen.
So yep, mobile is something we're interested in ( I've been panting to port Outpost to my iPad since I got it ), but only if we can do it right.
PS. Dual wielding is a cool idea. We're going to have perks in Outpost 2, and there are already more baddie types coded and working in the current build.
A lot of people have been asking for multiplayer versions of my games as well, and I have to say, you've illustrated the complexities of multiplayer perfectly. I'll be sure to link people here when needed, as your post beautifully demonstrates the risks involved when bringing Flash to online multiplayer. Great post, very well written. :)
Thanks mate.
It's such a minefield, unfortunately.
*Cough* god i love the camping in outpost:Swarm, wait wrong place.
oh well i am here anyway, Multiplayer would rock thing up . but then the risk are there , I mean up there . Don't force yourself to make it multiplayer even if you won a lottery or something. my opinion you should just make O2 , Outpost:Mobile , or anything you might have come up with. rather than making multiplayer. i am already see the danger by looking at those scary needle of multiplayer problem. and let me not forget to switch to pistol , because this Sub-Machinegun is epic.
*Cough* now if you excuse me , i have some Outpost2 Waiting to do
well, maybe not an online multiplayer, but maybe starting with a local (LAN) cooperation mode would be quite good. :D
looking forward your other and flash to come in the future.
This is a single player game. I don't think turning into Alien Swarm: The Flash Game would be very good. I just recently decided to revisit the original and was pleasantly surprised to see a second one was in the works, looking forward to it!
EnjoiLove
Very interesting read on your thoughts of multiplayer. To be honest, multiplayer on flash games even aren't worth the money to be spent on, it is after all just a flash game. Though this game would be great to buy on the go with phones and etc. One cool thing is if only people can maybe join your lan or just be near and you can really do that wingman idea. It'll only be available if anyone you know has it, but at least it'll offer some sort of multiplayer.
Squize
See that's the prevailing attitude, that Flash games just aren't worth spending money on. And it's kinda right to some degree, the vast majority of them aren't.
The whole F2P thing is a minefield. Lets say for example we make enough doing it not just to pay the monthly server cost, but for two people working on a game full time for 6 months, we then start making a profit. But say after 3 months the traffic dies right down, what do we do then ? There would come a point when you'd have to close the game down because it's no longer profitable, what about all the players who have bought stuff ? You're basically fucking them in the eye.
Now more realistically, about 3 months after launch you're going to know where you're at in terms of income, and it's possibly paying for the servers, maybe a little bit more on top, do you say "I'm going to throw more content at the game, as the die hard fans really love it and it should increase the number of players" as that's another risk. Good quality content costs, we couldn't just give players hats to buy forever more. The alternatives are to either just let the game rot, or close down, neither of which is fair on the people who have bought things ( I know I should take the attitude of "No one is forcing anyone to buy anything" and "No game lasts forever", but when you're asking people for money it's not easy to be that complacent about it ).
Anyway, going back to your actual point :) We're busy on O2 right now, and after that we're going to review exactly where we're at. It may be Outpost:Multi-player, Outpost:Mobile or Outpost:3D, but right now I think it's going to be anything but another Outpost game. I really don't want us to be the "Outpost guys", I dislike devs who just keep churning out sequels to their own franchises, and I don't want us to slip into that because it's easy.
The only thing I'm really certain of is that O2 will be the last game we do which follows the sponsorship model, we need to find a way to break out of that.