Many shareware developers develop games for themselves while dreaming of making money. Some developers in this kind are called shareware amateurs, a term that I had read from Steve Pavlina. In spite of the amateurness, these people can be the ones to break the shareware understanding of the public (Read Downloadable Games vs. Shareware Games thread started by Dan MacDonald).

Is the reason for the "puzzle tendency" (this term shall not be understood as a strict definition, but I guess everyone understands) a development problem or a marketing problem? I mean can't shareware developers develop games in genres like racing, FPS, RTS? In my point of view, it is certain that these genres have much more power in the market. So we come to the development point. Better artwork and better programming is the essential here. I think some of us have this opportunity with our technical and artistic skills.

In "Lamborgini RACING game demo" thread a racing game by wrfstudios is presented. Probably RepoMan (the name of the game) is one of the types of games most developers would like to develop a sample at least once in their lives. Though, the game's competing power would be negligable among giants like NFS. But I still think that gradually we can develop games that are as good as 90% of the retail market. This should be the way to change public opinion about shareware games.

Additional to RepoMan, I notice lots of technically and artistically good games. Which shows there is a lot of talent here and I think the ones who challenge projects in harder genres shall continue with that.

ergas

Some aspects of puzzle games tend to make them sell to a broader audience, usually, the tendency not rely too heavily on hand-eye coordination which gets worse and worse and worse as you get older...

Also it tends to be the case that puzzle games are a bit easier to code than FPSs!

Cas :)

Personally I think it's partially the comparative ease of development of a puzzle game (far less resources needed) and also a self-perpetuating view that puzzle games are easy to sell because so many shareware games are puzzle games.

Personally if I wanted to make a game with a quick turnaround I would probably opt for the puzzle genre simply because I'd have a lot more time to polish it and make it look really special compared to if I'd made a game which required more resources just to get it "okay" looking (ie, something with many animated characters).

I think another reason that you don't see many FPS or racing games is because making 3D graphics is quite a step up from pixelling 2D stuff, not only due to the learning curve of the software needed but also the possible cost if you decide to go for a really nice package like Max or Maya (although I appreciate many people will go for something a darn sight cheaper than those two). It's easy to kid yourself that your 2D graphics look okay, but a bad 3D model just looks like a bad 3D model.

I have just started making shareware games, and for my first project I chose to make a puzzle game. The reason for this was that I wanted a relatively simple project to start with, and puzzle games must be considered among the easiest to make, especially for a one-man-band. I also had a puzzle concept that I hadn't seen before, although it is pretty similar to other puzzle games (move bricks to form patterns). This combined made my choice a pretty easy one..

For my forthcoming games I will probably move out of the puzzle category. It's just way too crowded in that category. Given my love for platform games, I might give that genre a chance.

Many years ago, shareware was more focussed on platformer games rather than puzzle games.

It just takes the will to break out and do something unique. Actually since i started my space game, Ive come to appreciate that there ARE a lot of other types of games being developed, but most of them take a lot longer to finish, so youre less likely to see them as often.

So it SEEMS like there are more puzzle games, but thats because there ARE more, but other games are still being created. They just get lost in the signal/noise ratio.

Phil.

I can understand people developing games for launching a company in the economical aspect. I can understand people who are passionate in making games in puzzle and similar genre. But I wouldn't understand people sacrificing their independence with making games that they do not really want to make. Therefore I appreciate all people here, who have developed games passionately. If haven't succeeded yet, the only thing these kind of developers is patience and rationalism.

I haven't released a game yet, but I rather take those people as a sample than an opportunist approach. This will be the way I shape my bussiness. I would like to call attention to developers to develop what they really really want.

ergas

From experience, I believe the reason is simple. It is just too hard for a one-man-army to make a big 3d game that can compete with the big boys. If some of you remember I was working on a 3D Racing game(I still am) but I have decided to start out small because if I keep working on the racing game, I will not see a dime for a very long time. If I start out small, make some money to give me hope, then I can continue onto a bigger project with confidence and the much needed $$$.

just my $0.02

First of all, puzzle games are fairly neglected by the big game publishers, so it's a pretty open niche.

Secondly, it has that nearly mythological "mass appeal" - puzzle games don't appeal to hardcore gamers for the same reason they appeal to the average Joe (or Jane) - they are easy to pick up and figure out, entertaining in short bursts of play (<20 minutes, usually <10), and they don't require the user to embrace any sort of fantasy world to enjoy. They can simply enjoy the puzzle for the puzzle's sake.

Thirdly, as has been said here many times - puzzle games are many times easier to make than most other types of games, especially 3D games. Not only are they easier to program, but they require SIGNIFICANTLY fewer art & modeling resources (and probably less sound as well). As a result, being much smaller, they are easier to test & polish as well.

My first project, like Zoom's, is a space game. I'm thinking project #2 might be a quick-and-dirty 2-month puzzle game, before I move on to another Big Project. Originally, I thought my first project would be the "easy and quick" one, but building a full library, engine, and code base from scratch has taken a bit of time. Hopefully I'll be able to leverage that for future games so I won't have nearly as much foundation work.

There are multiple reasons people want to make puzzegames, and all are valid. It just depends on who the developer is.

For the budding game developer honing their skills, a puzzle game typically has very simple play mechanics and really has very minimal art requirements. Naturally you can put as much graphics in the game as you like, but in terms of what is required to support the gameplay, it's very minimal.

For the Indie trying to make a living, they are looking for areas of the market that the retail industry is ignoring. It just so happens that there is a huge puzzlegame market and retail development companies don't seem to understand it or want any part of it. Perhaps because puzzle games don't do well in the retail space, but do excellently in the downloadable space.

This is also the bane of the budding developer, not only is his puzzlegame easy to make, he often has the expectation that it will make a lot of money as well. :(

Then there are the growing group of developers who considered themselves retail game developers until the herd about this downloadable games thing, and that tons of little guys were making a living making puzzle games. So they hopped onboard with the whole "Downloadable games" movement, "Hey, yeah! small file size, simple games, fun in the first few minutes, addictive gameplay, I can do this"

And off they went, and with them they brought retail style business practices. Where's my publisher? Who's gonna pay me to make these things? and so on.

However this last group knows how to make games and can produce them quickly and with very high production values. They can even make them fun. Go check out the game "Avalanche" on RealArcade. A developer playing it can see that the physics are a hack and the whoel game could have been put together in about 2-3 weeks. However it's been on the top 10 list for two weeks. Ironically, the game is kind of fun. It's not blow your mind fun, but there arn’t really any aspects of it that are frustrating, it's easy to pick up and play and it looks nice. It's the perfect execution of the downloadable puzzlegame, 3 weeks development, lots of cash.

Anyway, in terms of how this affects indies doing it on their own? I would say that this is analogous to the retail industry moving into puzzlegames. You may not see big retail companies like Valve, or Blizzard, or Sierra making puzzlegames, but there are people who used to work for those companies who are.

You think EA hasn't moved into this market? check out pogo.com. They own it, however it just so happens that they haven’t totally figured out how to monopolize the downloadable puzzlegame market. But their working on it, enough time and enough money and they will eat up a huge portion of it. Big companies like Msft. and E.A. have already gone on the record as predicting the downloadable games market increasing by huge numbers. We're not under the radar anymore folks, this market is rapidly becoming big business.

If you want to make a puzzle game, you are going to have to compete with developers with a lot of skill and ability to produce professional quality games in short order. You are also going to have to compete with the big distribution channels for eyes. So the question is, do you join em? :)

Or do you get out there and make something different? Because the time where you have a chance of succeeding on your own with and abstract puzzle game is rapidly drawing to a close.

Something interesting to note, Dweep, Fitzink, and Roknors, are all puzzlegames, but they arn't abstract. They have real settings with real characters :)

A rule of capitalism, stated in Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" is that "capital follows profits". (It's been a while since I read that book, so forgive me if I don't say it as well as Mr. Smith.)

Which is to say, that anyone who manages to achieve a high profit margin with a product or service, will begin to see competition as others seek to take advantage of the same high profit margin. This increased competition forces the profit margins to shrink until those margins are in line with most other products or services.

So, what this means is: When small teams of developers, working on their own time and with their own resources (i.e., low-cost), develop a game that sees a significantly high profit margin, other teams of developers, small or otherwise, will notice.

In other words, the current emphasis on puzzle games was entirely predictable once there were a few high-profile success stories.

The downside of "capital follows profits" is that any small team that stumbles into a highly profitable niche will find that they are no longer competing with other small teams but may be facing the large development and marketing budgets of big companies who also appreciate low-investment-huge-return efforts.

So...if you get lucky and do stumble into one of those type of situations...keep it quiet... ;-)

-David

Man, that pogo.com is just like everything that is cheap and quick and dirty about shareware, with none of the good bits. A soulless, money-driven imitation of an industry that takes its strength from its opposition to the soulless, money-driven mainstream. Surely THAT isn't the shape of online distribution to come? It seemed more like one of those irritating casino pop-ups than a purveyor of interesting software.

The "2-week cheapie" shareware game can die a death for all I care. With any luck, that particular niche will eventually be replaced by freeware games like Icy Tower.

I agree with most of what Dan is saying except that even the deceptively simple looking puzzle games take a lot longer than "2 or 3 weeks" to develop. Even if they have second rate physics and hacky code, the "downloadable" games that sell tend to have pretty good production values, even if they are often simplistic and unimaginative. The art, animation, sound, music, and play tuning tend to take a month or two even if you can throw the game together in a few weeks.

As most everyone knows, the puzzle market is the largest and most crowded segment of the downloadable games market. This makes it both attractive for its proven size and successes, and scary due to the crowding.

As sort of a case study, let me introduce our soon to be released puzzle/arcade game "Fusion" that targets right at this tempting and dangerous market segment. I think our game will be strong enough to stand out, and sell well, but it is basically impossible to know.

Here are a few screen shots of Fusion for the interested:
http://www.insaneplay.com/fusion/FusionMenu.jpg
http://www.insaneplay.com/fusion/Fusion1.jpg
http://www.insaneplay.com/fusion/Fusion2.jpg
http://www.insaneplay.com/fusion/Fusion2.jpg

Fusion is played on an isometric board. You shoot colored tiles from the bottom two edges to blast matching colored tiles pushing down from the top. There are a bunch of bonuses that can pop up on the board and other surprises and twists. The concept is simple enough for anyone to grasp, and we spiced up the formula by adding a second dimension on top of what most others are doing, by allowing two directions of movement and shooting. It is quite addictive and compelling according to the testers. Hopefully the puzzle market has room for another successful title.

Of course as soon as Fusion is ready, I'll post an announcement on the normal announcement board, so you can try it if you like.

Cheers,
-Denis

There are enough fun and high quality puzzle games which aren't profitable at all. Also Dexterity got some of these puzzle games in there productline. So it's important to stay with the facts. I agree that the competition will grow and already is growing amazing. So you don't need to develop games for the profit, but more as a sort of serious hobby, where you also listen to the suggestions of your players. There are different kind of ways to develop games as a hobby. Not seriously, like developing only a prototype of a game or seriously develop a complete game, where you target at the player niche and listen to them. There was a time that the serious hobby developers made after a while and some also very quick a living of the game profits. I am afraid that this will be more and more difficult to realize. Also one thing I didn't hear about, is that developing of games also give sometimes frustrations and bad feelings when there are unsolved problems. There are some holes where you could fall in and never be able to risk your self, when you don't have the spirit to go for it. So you need always guard your self to risk you when troubles occur. There are enough game developers who cancelled a project, because of main development troubles. Also the developers at developmentstudio's of retail publishers. Or a game design is completely changed, because the amazing idea is very difficult to develop. And they found out when the project was in development stage.

I have yet to release my game so this is just my unexperienced opinion:

As I understand it, we are here NOT to compete with retail games, but on the contrary, to find niche markets that the retail market has chosen to ignore. Sure I could make a Quakesque FPS, but am I seriously going to out-do a game like Unreal Tournament or even Quake 2 for that matter?... I created Trials of Werlin because I LOVE puzzles and I thought it was a good way to break into the market (as puzzle games were starting to get hot when I began development) If Trials of Werlin NEVER realizes a decent profit even after many revisions, guess what? I created a 'real' game from scratch and brought my vision to reality and am pretty damn proud of it despite it not being the next Warcraft 3. Now isn't THAT what being an indie is all about?

-Bruno

Ergas, you know that I am one who has chosen to make a game because I like that genre (soccer/football management simulations).
I think I could make one of those puzzle games in less than 1 month (since I can do both graphics and programming), and well, maybe I'll do one :p
But you got a really good point here: why make a game that you don't like?? everybody know that people do its best when they like what they're doing.
I experienced myself this a lot in the past, when I was making adventure games or other kind that I really don't like.
So I guess that the only reason to make a puzzle/platform/action games if you like other kind of games is only money.
Either get some money to fund future development or simply to survive :)

About the big companies coming to downloadable market... well I don't know if they'll be a real "menace" to us, for a simple reason: development costs.
A shareware game may be profitable for a one man company, but if you start using 2-3 programmers, 3-4 artist, 1 musician, 2 beta-tester, ecc. for 7/8 months you may end with a budget of over 100,000$ for a single game... and that wouldn't be much profitable for them ;)

I think anyone who's thinking of making a puzzle game now for quick n easy profits is kidding themselves. The market is VERY competitive right now and production values are top notch. Basically anything which isn't the top of it's genre will quickly get buried and lost in the competition.

I see a lot of people turning up their noses at puzzle games. Like this is the lowest form of games or something, only to be made after you've become a sellout. Sheesh!

Keep in mind that some of us like puzzle games better than any other type of game. Inside the classification "puzzle game" are subgenres that haven't really been represented to the extent they could be. Sure we've seen ten thousand Tetris and Soko-Ban variants, and I'm personally pretty sick of those. But you can look at other puzzle games that people liked a lot--say Chips Challenge, Robot Oddysey, 3 in Three, as examples. These are solid games with ideas that have hardly been touched since they were long ago released. As the first guy said, we want to avoid defining the term "puzzle game" here. But maybe someone might respond to the above, "We're talking about PUZZLE GAMES here. Like Tetris and Collapse and you know... PUZZLE GAMES. You're talking about something else." <-- This is the problem. Devs that set out to make a game with a low budget and mass appeal are falling back on an increasingly trite definition of what will work. If the term "puzzle games" automatically means the same sort of games we're glutted to our necks in, then let's not make "puzzle games", but uh... maybe games with puzzles in them? Gee, what would we call these things?

We could develop some of the classic games that haven't been paid attention to and that would be an improvement. But there's no reason why we have to be derivative, other than a lack of imagination. There's many ways to make unique puzzle games that we haven't explored yet. I have a ton of ideas myself and, of course, not enough time to get them all out. I won't try to prove my point by explaining how my ideas are so damned good, but I just don't think it's very hard to come up with a new type of puzzle game or enhance an existing type so that it is effectively a new game. The proof that good, unique ideas are easy to come by is elusive. Someone can release a unique game, but they don't seem to be enjoying any success, so we conclude that the idea isn't very good or that those dumb casual players aren't interested in trying something new. Then after the game is emulated and cloned, we say sure the idea is good, but it isn't unique, because everybody else is doing it too. I can say that if I create a really good, unique game, I'm not going to spend a lot of time bragging about how well it is selling.

I get irritated when devs go off and remake a known puzzle game without adding anything new to it. It just seems like a horrible waste of time. Recently, I felt a little sad playing "Puzzle Monkey" because it was such a polished game, but still only a Soko-Ban clone. The small team had a good combination of talent, skill, and dedication to put the game together, so it seems slightly tragic to me.

If you are a large company, go ahead and make already-proven, well-polished games with brutal efficiency. If you are an underdog, do something different because that's probably your only hope. "puzzle games" is a huge genre with a lot of room for innovation. If you want to define "puzzle games" to mean abstract games requiring twitchy pattern-matching skills, then maybe there is not so much territory there, but with a broader definition, there are plenty of new games to be made.

-Erik

Originally posted by svero
I think anyone who's thinking of making a puzzle game now for quick n easy profits is kidding themselves. The market is VERY competitive right now and production values are top notch. Basically anything which isn't the top of it's genre will quickly get buried and lost in the competition.

Svero, with your experience, do you think lowering price in puzzle genre could have advantage over opponents? Low price generally means low quality for customers. Do you think that this could be different for the puzzle genre? If so, maybe the very low priced games could survive.

ergas

Originally posted by ergas
Svero, with your experience, do you think lowering price in puzzle genre could have advantage over opponents? Low price generally means low quality for customers. Do you think that this could be different for the puzzle genre? If so, maybe the very low priced games could survive.

ergas

I don't think that a low pricing strategy in the puzzle genre would be successful. I think a puzzle game can still be successful if its unique enough and polished enough but I think that bar is set pretty high these days with many people chasing after the supposed puzzle riches. That's especially true in the more casual puzzlers.

My view of player behaviour for games and pricing is that people generally buy a game because it's fun and not because it's cheap. I think of fun as either an ON or OFF kind of quality. It's not like some complex piece of electrical equipment where the consumer might use price to guage if the product is of good quality. In try before you buy they've generally experienced the quality (how fun it is) already. So I think players see cheaper games as a savings, but ultimately the decision comes back to the game itself. While games are not like complex consumer electronics they're also not like commodity goods such as toilet paper. You don't go out to buy a few games and get one because it's 5$ cheaper than the other on special today. You get the game you like to play. Perhaps certain titles almost start to fall into the commodity market. Maybe one mahjongg or tetris is similar enough to the other that price makes the deciding difference if you just happen to want a game of that type, but I think it's rare that that's the case.

edited in : I'll just add that my experience with lowering prices has so far almost never led to increased sales. I've tried specials at 9.99 and so on. Seems to have little effect for me games.

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
Ergas, you know that I am one who has chosen to make a game because I like that genre (soccer/football management simulations).
I think I could make one of those puzzle games in less than 1 month (since I can do both graphics and programming), and well, maybe I'll do one :p
But you got a really good point here: why make a game that you don't like?? everybody know that people do its best when they like what they're doing.
I experienced myself this a lot in the past, when I was making adventure games or other kind that I really don't like.
So I guess that the only reason to make a puzzle/platform/action games if you like other kind of games is only money.
Either get some money to fund future development or simply to survive :)

I think if you really trust yourself you should at least develop one puzzle game. Then you can compare with USM and learn a lot about the market. Now, this might sound contradictory to what I said before, but your case is different, you have confidence ;) and I would believe in that 1 month estimation after I saw USM.

ergas

Originally posted by svero
I don't think that a low pricing strategy in the puzzle genre would be successful. I think a puzzle game can still be successful if its unique enough and polished enough but I think that bar is set pretty high these days with many people chasing after the supposed puzzle riches. That's especially true in the more casual puzzlers.

My view of player behaviour for games and pricing is that people generally buy a game because it's fun and not because it's cheap. I think of fun as either an ON or OFF kind of quality. It's not like some complex piece of electrical equipment where the consumer might use price to guage if the product is of good quality. In try before you buy they've generally experienced the quality (how fun it is) already. So I think players see cheaper games as a savings, but ultimately the decision comes back to the game itself. While games are not like complex consumer electronics they're also not like commodity goods such as toilet paper. You don't go out to buy a few games and get one because it's 5$ cheaper than the other on special today. You get the game you like to play. Perhaps certain titles almost start to fall into the commodity market. Maybe one mahjongg or tetris is similar enough to the other that price makes the deciding difference if you just happen to want a game of that type, but I think it's rare that that's the case.

edited in : I'll just add that my experience with lowering prices has so far almost never led to increased sales. I've tried specials at 9.99 and so on. Seems to have little effect for me games.

Even if lowering price would work, that would probably kill developers in the long term. I wouldn't do it anyway. Your information is very valuable, thanks.

ergas

Yeah, I made one of those quick n' easy puzzle games. Took me about 12 hours total, including graphics. Of course, it didn't have top of the line production quality, was based on an already existing (albeit relatively unknown -- Squarez) game, and was made in Flash (which I know inside and out), but I just wanted to prove I could figure out how to code an older commercial-level game. And I did. And I was happy. :) Hell, I've played it longer than I spent making it, so good time investment there.

Here's a link, if anyone's wants to kill 10 (or so) minutes:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view.php?id=91933

Edit: Bad Link. It went to my other game, which took a hell of a lot longer than 12 hours :).

but your case is different, you have confidence and I would believe in that 1 month estimation after I saw USM.
well honestly to make A puzzle game would take less than 1 month (I see here one that has made one in 12 hours!!).
of course making a GREAT puzzle game can take 2-3 months, spending most of the time in game design and testing.

I'll try for sure to make one, but don't know when :p

p.s. lowering prices has absolutely no effect on me and on many other ppl I asked. In fact I just sold 2 copies of USM the exact day after I raised the price back to 24.95$... ;)

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
p.s. lowering prices has absolutely no effect on me and on many other ppl I asked. In fact I just sold 2 copies of USM the exact day after I raised the price back to 24.95$... ;)

I know that. That's funny. Although two samples don't give a decent idea, it proves that the game can sell with that price. What mixes my mind is that lately some successful games (like Dope Farmer) has lower prices. Additional to that, I remember Steve Pavlina talking about Dweep, how its price increased after extensions. So is the high-low price thing a myth? I think this is a dual situation. Some people only buy if the price is low and some people think that low price is low quality. Very complicated!

ergas