The Challenges of Game Development - GameSalad Essentials - page 126

Examples of developers who made it big
Slumps... We all get in them. For good reasons too, especially in the game
development world. It's so easy to get discouraged.
The excitement you feel when your game hits the store is unlike anything else. A few
days go by and the sales are minimal, if nothing at all. Sure, we all get into a slump
after a discouraging hit like that. Who wouldn't? Let me tell you, I was in a slump
not too long ago. I had been working on my latest title SpaceRoads since my wife and
I got married, 2 years ago. I put a lot of effort into it. I released trailers, gameplay
videos, and screenshots to get hype for the game. I even paid to advertise my trailers.
However, I didn't get the kind of response I was looking for. I got discouraged and
halted development on the game.
I lost my job shortly after this happened, which left me even more discouraged.
One day, feeling all doom and gloom, I turned on my Apple TV , loaded up some
Netflix, , and I started looking for a good laugh. Under the new releases section, I saw
a documentary I had never seen before— Indie Game: The Movie .
By the time I finished watching that documentary, I was in tears. I felt everything the
developers went through.
The movie follows the development of two of the biggest indie titles ever released:
FEZ and Super Meat Boy .
Phil Fish and FEZ
Let's start with Phil Fish, the Canadian developer of FEZ. No doubt you have heard
his story.
Phil Fish had been developing FEZ for three years. Every one was hyping about it. The
mechanics of the game were unseen and totally amazing! A 2D game in a manipulative
3D world. Because there was so much hype over the game, people got impatient to the
point that people were getting very angry with Phil. They started to hate him. After
four years of incognito (from the time he showed the prototype), Phil planned to show
FEZ at PAX ( Penny Arcade Expo ) in Boston, a show that sees over 60,000 people in
the weekend of the event. This was the first time anyone would be able to play FEZ.
The pressure was on . Not only for Phil to finish a playable demo for the expo, but his
former partner left the project and became involved in a huge legal battle.
Phil and his former partner had a matter of days to settle up; if they didn't, Phil
wouldn't be able to show FEZ at PAX.