Original subtitles

If you're anything like me you like getting stuff done

Nothing frustrates me more than learning something and not doing it

I just want to make progress

Therefore I constantly have to remind myself that

Learning some

Getting inspired or even just

Playing games actually leads to more progress in the long run

Basically just making your game

So here's what we're going to do

To ensure that your inspired

First

We're going to study my list of top 10 2D Indies

Of the last decade

Consider this something like a stimpak to jumpstart our inspirational juices

But also will help clarify our game Cisco

What you're capable of as an indie

And what the Benchmark for indie games today really is

Don't worry you don't need to buy anything if you don't want to we can

Certainly just study them together right now and

Figure out what really makes them special

We're going to use list from Game Ranch

The indie game website

Kotaku

It take a look at ten games his qualities

I feel we can try and replicate

In this case

They are

Undertale

Limbo

Dead cells

Stardew Valley

Hollow Knight

The Binding of Isaac

Papers please

Enter the gungeon

Don't Starve

Cancel

Be sure to study the Games trailer and also the let's play in the next section to get an idea of what makes

Each game special

And ultimately become inspired

As for me I'm going to focus on two games on this list

And actually one of my own game

And we going to take inspiration

And talk about them

And how they relate to our very first

One of these games is made by a single individual

And then the next two are actually made by small team

Let's break down what makes

Each of these games special

More importantly

What made them sell so well

We're going to use steamspy

A website created for the sole purpose of estimating the number of steam sales for various titles

Among other data

We're also going to study these titles steam pages

And what makes them so good at selling the game

Talk about my game

Call neversong the art music story level design voice acting

Direction and some code was done by me

But the code base was built entirely from scratch

Inside Unity

By Eric Colburn who works

About 1,500 miles

We still had a strong sense of collaboration over the course of two and a half years

And we released the project was super proud of on just about every platform out there

After several months of production neversong actually secured funding from Kickstarter

And then eventually Apple

It's important that the Prototype was used to pitch the game the kickstarter

We'll discuss that in just a bit

Let's talk about some things that might be inspirational to you about Never song

First look at the description on the steam page

It says help little Escape his beautifully haunting coma

A hand-drawn action adventure

Your dreamy World filled with

With fleshy insectoids

Insane grown ups

And sad children looking for their mom

Description satisfies pretty much everything steam recommends

First it identifies the game genre

And uses verbs

In this case hackenslash

The detailed the primary mechanic and actions

It also communicates the ultimate appeal of Never song

Annette hand-drawn dreamy atmosphere

Never songs cover art is certainly more detailed

Denis actual game

It was catch by Pete Cooper who wants work for blizzard

He did this pro bono for me and I simply colored it in Photoshop

Discover are dramatically raps the color scheme mood

Game Mechanix and protagonist

In a single thumbnail

Now regarding the games gross revenue and made around $50,000 within the first month

Now let's move onto undertale

Undertale was created by a single developer

Toby Fox

Please important to note here that Toby Fox did eventually contract out some artwork

But overall this game exemplifies what kind of Master

Two-piece a solo Dev can create

It's also a great example of how a seemingly clunky cheap-looking silly game can become an instant class

Players across the world are obsessed with

Believe it or not it took Toby two-and-a-half years

Jacob Lee undertale using gamemaker Studio

It raised over $50,000 on Kickstarter

It is important here that Toby seems to have a knack

Understanding what players

Really want from a game

From the familiar but unique hook

Fighting enemies with kindness

TV Almost Boring aren't that allowed players to project themselves onto the characters

Kobe release something that connected intimately

With players

And that's what sold it now let's take a look at undertale steam page to get some inspiration

The description says

Undertale in all caps

With an!

RPG game where you don't have to destroy any

This description is everything players love about undertale

In a nutshell

It's hilarious for one but

Also described the game's hook and just 10 words

And that's easier said than done

Now let's take a look at the cover art

Unlike Hollow Knight which we'll discuss in a bit

Undertale thrives on striking simplicity

It's tempting to scream your cover art to a player

But if every game is screaming for attention on Steam

The ones that aren't

Are likely going to get attention

That's certainly true for undertale

Now it's you steamspy to take a look at the steam gross revenue

It looks like around 3.5 million units were sold and that's for about $5 on average

Jet 17.5 million dollars

That's obviously just a guesstimate

Last but not least

Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight was created by a small team

It's important to remember that a team is formed and managed in a variety

You can simply partner with friends or family just for fun

Or you can hire them full-time

Which I don't recommend starting out

Or in my case

You could partner with development Studios thousands of miles away from you

And just agree to split the revenue

A small team can cut the development time if your game in half

Can ultimately create something more profitable

In the long run

That was certainly true for Halloween

So how did team Cherry the Creator Paul and I do it

For them it all started in 2013

During a lutam.

Genesis the game Jam wear

Teams are made from scratch

The single weekend

Our Gibson Inn

William pelland quickly made a flash game called Hungry night

About a knight who eats bugs

Interception on Newgrounds was not so great

Slimming down to another game Jam

They combine the concepts of both games to create the Prototype Hollow Knight and eventually raise 57,000 Australian

That's about 40,000 US dollars

With the team size of four individuals

Christopher Larkin being contracted

Music

Team Cherry created Hollow Knight

And released it on Steam

Do it immediately labeled a new classic

Buy PC game

Alright so let's go ahead and get inspired by Hollow Knight Steam

The description reads

Forge your own path in Hollow Knight

An epic action-adventure through a vast ruined Kingdom of insects

And heroes

Explorer twisting Caverns

Battle painted creatures

A friend bizarre bugs

All in a classic

Andron 2D Style

This description immediately gets to the point

The concept of

Forging your own path

Instantly told you that the game is a metroidvania

That allows for customization

Additionally the next two sentences immediately create a niche in the potential customer

What exactly lies

In the depths of these beautiful 2D

Twisted Tavern

Alright let's take a look at the cover art

This cover art is almost the opposite of undertale

It's a lie Sturtevant's detailed

And it shows the protagonist

Nurse to cover are a strikingly large but also small

Additionally although it still looks like the games are

It's much more detail

Now what you steam Spa

Looks like about 3.5 million units were sold

That's about $10 on average

With steam sales

That's about 35 million bucks

Again this is obviously just a guesstimate

Using steamspy

But I think we can agree

This simple 2D metroidvania Adventure

Made it Steam

Very rich

In addition to checking out my top 2D indie games list

Trailers and let's plays

I also love for you to try and play

The five free Indie titles

Included in this car

I'd recommend playing 10-week

And really dig into that

Study mechanics the story The Art

In the marketing for

Then fill out the inspiration section in the game design Bible

In the following

Additionally

Don't forget about just playing other games you love

It's an odd thing to remind you this

But I have to remind myself a bid daily

My biggest regret in my Game Dev career

Is not playing more games

Because of jealousy or a feeling of not being productive

I can avoid just playing games altogether

This is a really bad idea

Your creative sponge will dry up

In just a couple weeks

Stephen King put it in on writing

If you want to be a writer

You must do two things above all others

Read a lot

And bright

This is 100% applicable to any creative

Especially gamedev