Re-evaluating/designing my Source Engine mod (criticism please) Thread

Hello everyone,

I've been the lone developer/maintainer of a Source Engine mod for a little while and it's not going so well:
- I haven't attracted players
- I haven't attracted artists/coders/modellers/developers
- Now that the mod's working, I'm not very happy with the Source Engine (it's my first game too)
- I've been alone on the project for too long

What I'd like to ask is:
- What have I done wrong?
- How do I shake the lonely developer blues?
- Should I redesign the mod, maybe port it to Doom 3/BFG and sell it? (a nice dark engine for a dark game)
- How do you find like-minded people to help with a project like this?

For people who can't/don't want to run the mod (nobody's playing anyway), here's what it is:
- Multiplayer 2 team game, spiders vs humans (asymmetric); 7 unique classes per team
- spiders are stealthy, and mostly use melee attacks, spiders have something like night vision
- humans use conventional weapons, one of them has a jetpack, one is a mech, one is stealthy
- each team has a builder class who makes eggs/teleporters, turrets/spike shooters, healers/ammo depots, etc
- the goal is to destroy the other team's spawns and players to win
- when you die/spawn you pick your class, spending earned frags
- frags are earned by killing enemies and destroying spawns
- minimal waiting between spawns, fast gameplay, highly asymmetric

I made this mod in my spare time, and so I know the graphics/models/maps suck, but your criticism is welcome, especially if it will point me in the right direction and help me keep going or move on...

Thanks!

I checked out your mod page and from what I see you really lack in advertising knowledge. You seem like a great Programmer and Developer but there are some serious things that may make your game unnoticable for minor reasons.

-The Title: Darkness is one of the most overused and cliche titles ever. Think something that has to do more with the concept of the game or the way it plays.
- Description: A 2 line description is not attractive and personally I would skip a game which I couldn't understand what it had to offer. You need a small to medium general description and explain all game features one by one in a well organized list.
-Trailer: I don't see any trailer or any video that will attract someone to check out the mod. Showing gameplay videos is not something enjoyable someone new in the game to watch.
-Attract The Media and Social Networks: Drag Youtubers or Gaming Websites attention. A free and very effective way of advertising.

I have never been into Half Life 2 mods so my experience won't allow me to say if this is a unique mod or not. I don't know if you have custom models or you use the default ones. I don't know what you exactly mean by "like-mined people" but anyway. I wish you the best and good luck with your project.

(Personally I wouldn't suggest making more mods in the future. I always prefer games from scratch. Even if it is harder is much more worth to do, but of course this requires a team with a decent number of people and good quality skills)

Mistergeorge wrote: I checked out your mod page and from what I see you really lack in advertising knowledge. You seem like a great Programmer and Developer but there are some serious things that may make your game unnoticable for minor reasons.

-The Title: Darkness is one of the most overused and cliche titles ever. Think something that has to do more with the concept of the game or the way it plays.
- Description: A 2 line description is not attractive and personally I would skip a game which I couldn't understand what it had to offer. You need a small to medium general description and explain all game features one by one in a well organized list.
-Trailer: I don't see any trailer or any video that will attract someone to check out the mod. Showing gameplay videos is not something enjoyable someone new in the game to watch.
-Attract The Media and Social Networks: Drag Youtubers or Gaming Websites attention. A free and very effective way of advertising.

^This

Mistergeorge wrote: I have never been into Half Life 2 mods so my experience won't allow me to say if this is a unique mod or not. I don't know if you have custom models or you use the default ones. I don't know what you exactly mean by "like-mined people" but anyway. I wish you the best and good luck with your project.

(Personally I wouldn't suggest making more mods in the future. I always prefer games from scratch. Even if it is harder is much more worth to do, but of course this requires a team with a decent number of people and good quality skills)

Apples and oranges.
I, like many others, am into mods. It's his decision to. Indie development is a big step up from modding because you have to do so much more.

Thanks for the help: I think I was afraid of advertising the mod due to heavy re-use of Half-life 2 assets, but maybe it just made things worse. I'll invest some time in advertising to see if it helps.

I've actually been thinking of making this mod into a full game recently. The Doom 3 BFG engine seems well suited to this mod, and on top of that, BFG is completely open source. Could be quite a learning experience--maybe I should work on finding a team of people to help.

I'll check it out sometime in the morning and see if I can't find something that might help you "sell" it. It at least looks interesting, so you've got that going for you.