It’s that time again when I like to review how I got on with my goals for the year and set new goals for next year. Last year I had about a 70% success rate, but this year the success rate wasn’t so good for a variety of reasons that I’ll discuss at the end of this post.

2011 Goals Review

Here’s what happened to my 2011 goals:

1) Have great fun making Indie games for the entire year. (FAILED. Haven’t made a single commercial “indie” game. Made a casual game and 3 free games, did a bunch of ports of my older IP and started work on a big project. I’m OK with how it turned out though.)

2) Do some design consultancy for backend royalties. (PART SUCCESS. Most of this is still in the pipeline and due in 2012.)

3) Make at least $100K (I’ll aim relatively low for my first year back in the driving seat). (FAILED. Earned about $79K. That’s gross revenue so it’s before the cost of making games/running a business and, of course, tax. A small amount of that money is from my last month at Big Fish Games. Plus I lost money on the stock market .)

4) Build up the Vancouver Indie Meetup into something even more awesome. (SUCCESS! At last a success. The group has been awesome this year for sure and continues to amaze me.)

5) Finish my Toastmasters CC manual (4 speeches to go) – I took a break when things got crazy earlier in the year. (FAILED. Didn’t even go back for a variety of reasons. I’d still like to go again but I find myself speaking at game-related events quite often anyway.)

6) Keep fit and beat my Grouse Grind time of 56 mins. (PART SUCCESS. Didn’t do the Grouse Grind at all, but did do lots of walking and stayed fit and ate healthy in the Spring/Summer/Fall. Have rather let myself go this Christmas though, ahem.)

7) Go to Hawaii (FAILED. Just didn’t have the cash plus my wife got really ill for months, which is one reason why many things this year failed. Did go to England for my sister’s wedding though.)

8 ) Have an awesome Spring/Summer with my family in Vancouver and go on some roadtrips. (PART SUCCESS. Hmm. I did enjoy parts the summer because I was indie and on my own schedule so could go outside when it was sunny, but we didn’t go and do many things because my wife was super ill as I mentioned above. I also got depressed/burned out and didn’t do any work for months. This was very weird for me. We did go on an epic 2200km roadtrip in BC at the end of the summer though!)

9) Move back to the UK and have some money in the bank when I arrive. (FAILED. A friend offered to help me get residency here, which I thought I had no chance of getting as an indie. So currently my work permit is extended and the residency thing seems to be progressing well. There is some money in my company bank account, which is nice, but not much. So although I failed to go back to England, I don’t mind at all because there’s lots going on for me right now here in Vancouver.)

So in summary, uh lots of failures. Only a 28% success rate. Really not my best year for a bunch of reasons, although it did start well and has ended well. However things are lining up for a great 2012!

Bonus Points

Some other things I did that I’m proud of include (in no particular order):

– Made 3 mini-games via 48-hour jams (GGJ, Full Indie Jam, Ludum Dare #22) and started another one I aim to finish off at some point.
– Shipped 10 different versions of Holiday Bonus to mobile and web during 1 week!
– Spoke on a panel at PAX Dev and Casual Connect about being indie + at other local events.
– Began work on a great project with Klei Entertainment.
– Reached over 150,000 units sold for all my games.
– Continued to build the Grey Alien Games name via Twitter, Facebook, Blog, speaking and networking.
– Spring Bonus (my 7th casual game) turned out well and has made as much revenue as Holiday Bonus in under a year.
– Got Holiday Bonus and Oz on several new portals, shipped Holiday Bonus in 8 new languages, and did the groundwork for shipping localised versions of Oz in early 2012.
– Got a Provincial Nomination which means that the Canadian Government thinks I’m “worthy” and should help my family get residency here.
– Improved my acoustic guitar playing some more and brought my electric up from the basement so I play it more often.
– Looked after my family and the house whilst my wife was ill during the Spring/Summer.
– Was around much more for my kids this year.
– Deepened my friendships with some great indies.
– I got my photo taken with Shatner, and 3 other Star Trek actors!

2012 Goals

Work goals:

1) Ship Eets Munchies in the Spring(ish). Working on this as Producer/Designer/Script monkey with Klei Entertainment and Alex Vostrov.
2) Make $250K+ and pay off a large chunk of UK mortgage.
3) Make an “indie” game. (might only be a small Flash game, might be something larger)
4) Make a new casual game (working as Producer/Designer whilst someone else does the rest using my existing engine).
5) Ship Spring Bonus and Oz on iOS/Android and maybe more platforms. Ideally BFG will publish both because my own mobile marketing success is poor.
6) Make at least 3 jam games.
7) Do some Game Design consultancy work on great projects (have a couple lined up already)
8 ) Complete secret project in January or February.

Personal goals:

1) Do lots of walking and do the Grouse Grind in under an hour.
2) Continue to improve on guitar and post something on Youtube.
3) Do one or more road trips in Canada/US.
4) Have a great relaxing summer with my family.
5) Play a bunch of the games I have stockpiled on Steam 🙂

2011 Mistakes

I like to be honest with myself about how I’ve screwed up each year so that I can learn some lessons and keep on improving. Here’s a few “lowlights”:

– I didn’t buy my Big Fish Games options when I left, then later in the year they paid out a dividend to everyone who had them. I didn’t buy them because I really needed to money to survive and to invest in Spring Bonus (which has yielded a 10x return so far).

– When I was working extremely long hours to finish Spring Bonus on time my wife became really ill. In fact on the day I was supposed to ship it I had stayed up until 9am working on it, slept for only 1 hour, and was just finishing it off when my wife said I had to take her to the hospital urgently. I was sleep-deprived and stressed about the game and then my wife’s health was like the world’s biggest straw on my camel’s back. It was one of the toughest days of my life. We found out my wife was pretty darn ill and she had surgery which failed, and then she had chemotherapy all summer. This meant she couldn’t work, and we ate up our savings at an alarming rate, although a friend was kind enough to help us out a bit financially. Also I couldn’t work much because I had to look after the kids and the house and my wife. The good news is that she has now finished her treatment and has recovered and has been working again; so life has returned to “normal”. This whole thing wasn’t really a “mistake” but it had a major impact on the year and my goals.

– After I finished Spring Bonus I felt totally burned out. I wasn’t just burned out from Spring Bonus, but also from working at Big Fish Games for the previous 2 years. Plus my wife’s ill health, our money worries, and uncertainty about where we were going to be living (UK or Canada) all added up to a huge mindfrak. I got depressed, although I didn’t admit it to myself until later on, and did virtually no work all summer. I moped around, played the guitar a lot, and considered giving up working in games altogether. At first I was worried about not doing any work, then I took some St John’s wort pills (a natural anti-depressant), and then I stopped caring about not doing any work and quite enjoyed parts of the summer. But I knew that I couldn’t carry on like that, so I stopped the pills and starting drinking coke, which somehow motivated me to get going on a bunch of projects, and now I’m pretty much fine (and have given up the coke). Strangely it helps that it’s crappy weather outside because I don’t mind working inside all day. It was a very strange time for me, one that I’m not keen to repeat.

– I haven’t made any games all year “for me” apart from a couple of minigames. When I went indie again I wanted to change tactic and make “indie” games and do stuff I was really into. I haven’t yet done that, although I’m proud of Spring Bonus and think the project I’m working on with Klei is going to turn out great. But I still have that major urge to make something for me that I’m going to have to deal with soon…

– I still haven’t sorted through the photos of my dad, who passed away in 2010, and processed his recordings (he was a musician). I still can’t handle listening to his voice or looking at photos of him. I was planning to do that this year and spend a week or so dealing with it all because I figured it would make me pretty emotional, but I’ve had quite a lot of my own stuff to deal with instead. I can feel that I’ve got some stuff locked up in me that I need to let out at some point, and the sooner the better.

So there you have it. Life certainly is filled with ups and downs! Here’s to hoping that 2012 has a few more ups.

I wish you all the best in 2012. Happy New Year!

photo by indigo_jones

I’ve been doing a lot of research for months into various different platforms so that I can decide which ones to choose to develop for as an Indie. The decision has not been easy and has involved lots of talking to people and reading of post-mortems and sales stats. Finally I think I’ve reached a decision!

Here’s a summary of the platforms I’ve considered and what I think about them:

Facebook

I have been working on a Facebook game for a year at BFG so it’s an area I know pretty well. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that the golden days are over and now you need a lot of money to market your game.

Also you need a team of at least 5 people: Producer/Designer, client programmer, server programmer, artist, metrics/marketing person. Obviously some of those roles could really do with MORE than 1 person. This pretty much rules it out for me unless I get funding and start a Facebook game studio.

Alternatively I could make an MMO, except that it would probably take years and require a similar size team, so that’s not appealing to me.

XBLIG

I was attracted to this platform because XNA is fun and many of the games on XBLIG are, let’s just say, slightly under par (some are really excellent though!). This gave me the confidence that I could make a mark there as a one person team.

However, the sales figures really are dismal and some of the experienced devs are quitting the platform. This is a huge shame because that makes it pretty much non-viable to make XBLIG games full-time. I might still however make a game or two just for fun and so I can say “my game is on XBox” 🙂

Having said all that, I am working with someone who has done a great job converting my Holiday Bonus game to XBLIG in a very short time, and who will be converting Easter Bonus soon and maybe more games. So we’ll see how it goes and if it is worth continuing. I realise that casual games don’t do that well on the platform, but still I’m interested to see what happens.

XBLA

To get on XBLA you need to work for a good year or more in C++ with a decent team. This would require funding for me to do. Also there are annoying contracts with Microsoft to wade through and lots of specialist know-how required. Luckily I know several people who are very knowledgeable in these areas who could help me out. However, I don’t think I want to leap into this arena just yet.

PSN/Wiiware

I don’t even have a PS3 and I don’t use my Wii much, so having to write a game in C++ for these platforms, which sell less copies than on XBLA anyway, isn’t appealing.

Handheld e.g. DS, PSP etc.

I have no experience of programming for these devices. I’m sure I could figure it out and get help from some people I know, but I would see these as a secondary platform to launch on after you had hit the main consoles first. I don’t have any decent sales stat info for these platforms. Anyone got some?

Spectrum 48K / Commodore 64

Only kidding.

Kindle

Haven’t investigated this much. Apparently there are tons of units sold, but there aren’t very many games and I don’t know how many of the users are gamers anyway. Plus there’s the fact that the games would have to be in black and white which I find a bit boring. I will keep an eye on this platform in case it takes off and I need to most fast.

Android phone and Windows Phone 7

Android could be interesting but I don’t want to put anything on it until I’ve at least tried iPhone first. Also Windows Phone 7 doesn’t yet have a decent number of units sold, but that may change. Having said that I may have something in the pipeline for WP7…

Other mobile/cellphone

I’m just not interested in supporting the myriad of different form factors and OSes.

Android and Windows 7 tablets

Again, these platforms may take off, but until they do, and until I’ve tried iPad, I’m not interested.

Flash

I’ve been using Action Script 3 for a year at Big Fish and recently I’ve got to know the core components better. I believe I could bang out some Flash games pretty quickly and try out stuff like Flash Game License and ad support etc. However, it doesn’t seem like there’s that much money in them (and I need money to feed my family of four). Again I’m tempted to make one or two just for fun, maybe at a game jam with Flash Punk just so I have an online game that people can play anywhere without a download.

Also Flash could be good to advertise a download game by putting a mini-version out there (including on Facebook). This has been done plenty of times before.

PC/Mac/Linux

PC and Mac are my areas of expertise, at least for Casual Games. I’m that sure getting my games running on Linux wouldn’t be too tough based on what I’ve heard. The real question is should I make Casual Games or switch to something more “Indie” like an Action game, or RPG or strategy? I’m tempted to keep some casual games ticking over in the background, by working with some other partners, whilst I focus my main attention on some non-casual games.

Also I’d have to sell non-casual games differently because the casual portals wouldn’t be interested in them so building up an audience on my own site, using affiliates, and getting on Steam and Direct2Play etc. would be the way to go. Plus I want to see how the new Mac App store performs with my Holiday Bonus and Oz games.

This will probably happen in 2011, but after I do something else first … read on.

iPhone and iPad

The iPhone is super saturated, but also has a ton of units out there. Some games can still do very well on it, but personally I don’t like the form-factor. It’s too small and fiddly and limits the type of games you can make. Mind you if I made a great game on a different platform, it could be a no-brainer to get a mini-conversion done for iPhone.

iPad is a different matter. I love the form factor and I think the device is great. It’s also encouraging that people aren’t all selling games for $0.99. Sure there are less iPads out there than iPhones but good and even mediocre games seem to be doing pretty well.

Therefore I’m going to start with iPad in 2011. I can’t release any new IP until my non-compete with Big Fish expires in mid-April, but I can at least figure out the platform and get something ready to launch. Also I’m working with someone else to convert some of my existing IP to iPad in the near future. That will be a good test of the platform and will help to inform my future decisions.

If the iPad stuff goes well, I can consider going cross platform to PC/Mac/Linux and cellphones. We’ll see what happens…

What Language?

If I do any PC/Mac/Linux stuff I’ll stick with BlitzMax because it’s awesome, easy and fast, and works on all of them seamlessly.

For iPad I have a choice of learning Objective C, or using something like Unity which means that I can port it to other platforms fairly easily. However, there may be a new language called “monkey” about to enter the arena. It’s by the creator of BlitzMax and it will be cross-platform. This interests me very much because I already know Blitz, so if it’s similar I have a head start, and also being cross-platform future-proofs me should I make an awesome game that I need to spread far and wide (which I plan to of course!)

So there you have it, I should end up with several games on XBLIG, several on iPad, a couple in the Mac Store, some casual downloads via partners, possibly an Indie download title, perhaps something on iPhone/Android/WP7, and maybe even something in Flash. Sounds ambitious I know, but I like aiming high! It’s certainly going to be a productive year in terms of products shipped, whatever happens. Of course plans, like wars, are subject to change, but that’s what I’m planning to do for now. Wish me luck!

Have I missed out a platform you think deserves a mention? Or have I missed some important piece of research that will change my mind? Please let me know your thoughts!

About this time of year I like to review the goals I set for myself in the current year and think about my goals for the next year. So here’s a rundown:

2010 Review

Here’s what happened to my 2010 goals:

1) Finish recently started secret BFG project and watch it make tons of money. (This project turned out to be My Tribe on Facebook and I can’t comment on it’s financial performance.)

2) Release a top 10 download title. (Unfortunately this title was cancelled so BFG could use my team and I on My Tribe, it’s unlikely to ever be finished, which is a shame because it was turning out very nicely.)

3) Get married (Yep, did this on July 5th on a beach in Vancouver 🙂)

4) Complete 9 more toastmasters speeches so I get the competent communicator award. (I did speech number 6 and then took a break from Toastmasters due to be overwhelmed with stuff. I’m aiming to go back through, see 2011 goals below.)

5) Get a Canadian driving license (Passed with flying colours.)

6) Build up my Aikido club, get some decent mats, and become profitable as a club. (Built up the club to 5 regular members and the venue got some decent mats, still not profitable though.)

7) Build up my health and fitness more. (Did tons of walking and also the Grouse Grind several times plus a week-long Aikdio seminar. Definitely felt fit this summer.)

8 ) Improve life work balance. (I took 2 weeks unpaid vacation so I could spend it with my family and I didn’t stay late at work much, although I did quite a few after work social/networking events. When I’m Indie again in 2011, my life work balance will improve a ton.)

9) Sort out my looming tax situation. (Did both Canadian and UK tax returns and managed to pay a huge unexpected Canadian tax bill – it wasn’t pleasant, but it’s done now.)

Based on my own calculations I’d say I had about a 70% success rate in meeting my goals, which isn’t bad.

I also did a whole bunch of other stuff I’m proud of including:

– Saved up enough money to go Indie again in 2011, yeah! This is as a result of careful budgeting, getting a $500 discount on my rent, and Helen (my wife) getting a job later in the year.
– Co-created the Vancouver Indie Meetup group and made a ton of amazing friends.
– Learnt a ton about Facebook game instrumentation and metrics. Also learned some interesting new ways of thinking about business.
– Converted some of my existing IP to XBLIG in only two weeks! (it’s due out soon)
– Competed in several game jams to make mini-games.
– Learned XNA and got a test game running on my Xbox
– Gained over 30% net profit in my first 6 months trading on the Stock Market.
– Hosted a week-long Aikido seminar in Vancouver.
– Did the Grouse Grind in under an hour.
– Drove the family to Osoyoos (the only Desert in Canada) for a vacation.
– Had a weekend honeymoon sans children on Bowen Island.
– Improved my acoustic guitar playing a lot and learned the basics of slide guitar.
– Cobbled together the money to pay an unexpected $16,000 tax bill!
– Finished my orthodontic treatment! My braces are off but I have to wear a retainer for a while.
– Had some mercury amalgam fillings removed (3 down, 3 to go)

2011 Goals

So then, here are my 2011 goals:

1) Have great fun making Indie games for the entire year.
2) Do some design consultancy for backend royalties. (contact me if you are interested)
3) Make at least $100K (I’ll aim relatively low for my first year back in the driving seat).
4) Build up the Vancouver Indie Meetup into something even more awesome.
5) Finish my Toastmasters CC manual (4 speeches to go) – I took a break when things got crazy earlier in the year.
6) Keep fit and beat my Grouse Grind time of 56 mins.
7) Go to Hawaii
8 ) Have an awesome Spring/Summer with my family in Vancouver and go on some roadtrips.
9) Move back to the UK and have some money in the bank when I arrive.

2010 Mistakes

It’s also good to review what mistakes I made in 2010 to make sure that I have learned from them. I made some pretty big ones:

– My dad was very ill over Christmas 2009 (he had been in ill health for years). Luckily he recovered and I thought about flying back to the UK to see him to spend some quality time with him in case he got very ill again and didn’t make it. But I didn’t go because we were crunching at Big Fish on a Facebook game and I didn’t have any spare money for flights. In late March he suddenly became seriously ill again and I flew over to see him and managed to speak to him for a minute or so before he passed away on March 27th. Apart from the whole experience being extremely traumatic, I deeply regret not following my instincts and going over to spend time with him earlier in the year. Jobs come and go, and you can pay back credit cards, but you can’t bring back a loved one for one last conversation. That’s the lesson I learned, real hard. Don’t make the same mistake that I did or you’ll regret it forever.

– On a similar note I realised after my dad passed away that I should be spending more time with my boys and guiding them along as they were having troubles with various things. I tried to negotiate working part time at Big Fish during the summer, but they wouldn’t allow it, so in the end I took two weeks of unpaid vacation (the max allowed by my contract) in a single block at the end of the summer. Perhaps I should have fought harder, or even just quit, but it would have really screwed up our finances that had just taken a beating from a massive unexpected tax bill. I just really needed the time off to spend with my family and to process my emotions. As a result I’ve mostly locked my thoughts and emotions in (not healthy) so I can deal with them in January when I’m not at work all day. There may have been a better way I could have dealt with all this, although at least I did lots of acoustic guitar playing which has helped. Also I believe I can spend even more time with my boys being a good influence and teaching them stuff, so I’ll need to really get on the case with that in 2011.

Well, there you go, two very personal mistakes that stand out the most to me. There have been tons of others too I’m sure, but I prefer to focus on all the stuff I did achieve in 2010, especially with my father passing away early on, as that rather “knocked me for six”.

So what about your goals for 2011, and your successes and mistakes in 2010? Please let me know!