The Allure of the III
Space Cats is available for download on Steam! (MacOS, Windows, and Linux supported.) I had a little hiccup because I didn’t correctly link my game depots with the appropriate packages so Steam initially rejected it. And this only happened because I’m such a noob and didn’t know how to correctly set everything up in Steam. (Plus, IMO, the upload process is very confusing and the docs are not all that helpful for people with no prior publishing experience.) Luckily I was able to sort it all out, resubmit, and now it’s LIVE!
I’ve finished making a few different characters that I’ll incorporate into the mobile version and I plan on starting that development ASAP. It shouldn't take too long so keep your eyes peeled for updates on that.
Today I wanted to talk a little about the rise of III game studios and how that has warped all of our expectations, gamers and devs alike—not to mention the rise of AAA studios as well. (As a side note, I believe that the whole gaming industry as a whole is going to change dramatically with AI, the recent layoffs in the bigger studios, and the changes brought on by Covid.) I came across an excellent article the other day and I would definitely recommend reading it if you’re interested at all in game dev. It also echoes a lot of what I've seen stated in various subreddits that I’ve joined. Basically, the tldr is that there’s been a recent shift in the gaming community where small, simple games no longer exist. Why? Because devs aren’t making them.
From my observation, there seems to be a binary amongst game developers who post their musings online: either they are embarking on a 4-year+ game development journey to create the masterpiece of all masterpieces, or they are not developing at all. Very, very few are making small games often.
I’ve heard this advice a lot: trim your scope, scale down your expectations, do it well, publish frequently. And yet, it appears as though none of us are doing this. We all want to be Concerned Ape (Stardew Valley), Team Cherry (Hollow Knight), or even Notch (Minecraft). Don’t get me wrong: I aspire to create games half as good as these masterpieces. But the truth of the matter is, I’m not going to get there (most likely), unless I learn how to make a middle game. That is, a game that takes 1-9 months to produce, is smaller in scope, modest budget, and modest expectations of success.
I think also there’s a big problem with gamers too. We’ve forgotten how to consume middle games. We either want to play short bursts of arcade style games on our phones for free or be sucked into a cinematic RPG masterpiece with 200+ gameplay hours available on the main campaign. I’m being hyperbolic but only just a little bit.
Recently, I asked a group of gamers what they want to see in new games. I told them to keep the scope small and to consider the fact that only one person (me) would be creating them. Here’s some summaries of what they said:
big, immersive worlds
complex storytelling, deep narratives, and complex NPC characters
more dynamic plots where choices matter (similar to RDR2 but more)
fully customizable UI
fully customizable characters with all body types and people represented
And while I agree we all need more of this (especially female protagonists of these types of games), these are not middle games. Maybe if you focused only on one of bullet points, but not the whole list. At least I cannot do that. At least not yet.
We've also lost our appreciation for middle games. See a game on Steam priced at $4.99, offering only three hours of gameplay? People are likely to deem it too expensive for such brief entertainment, disregarding that it costs about the same as a latte while offering permanent ownership. This reluctance to take risks puts developers in a difficult position: they can either invest minimal effort and release their game for free or dedicate years to crafting a masterpiece, then face a tough choice—sell a few copies at a high price or reduce the price and hope for high sales volumes to justify their investment. Neither scenario is enviable.
So to wrap this up, I think both gamers and devs alike need to change some of our expectations. Devs, I think we need to make more middle games. Gamers, I think we need to give more middle games a chance. And this doesn’t mean that we can’t aspire to make the next greatest indie game or that we can’t enjoy playing the AAA or the III. But I do believe that the middle game is massively underrated.
For those of us that make games, I think the trick is to keep ourselves in the game. As we learn and grow, so does our scope. The more often we release, the more likely we are to still remain funded as we work on that masterpiece.
And as things keep changing—AI, industry shifts, whatever else is coming next—we stay relevant. We can adapt and grow. And maybe even reuse some code that wasn’t totally duct tapped to hell 😂.
So today, I’m gonna go shopping on Steam to find the next middle game for me to enjoy. I’m also gonna trim the scope on my next game to keep development to the 1-3 month window.
If you’re a dev and you have a middle game, please let me know! I want to play your game! And if you’re just a gamer, what middle game are you gonna go play?
