Are space shooter games still 'a rite of passage'?

I will attempt to provide the games developer community with my thoughts regarding how I ventured into 'solo indie' games development.

Andrew Sataiyah

July 12, 2024

9 Min Read

There’s an age old saying in the video games industry which goes along the lines of “space shooters are a rite of passage”. This phrase probably coined popularity amongst games developers as the basic idea is that they are “easy to make” although many indie developers would probably say something along the lines of “go make pong”. As someone who has done both of these things (although I have only released one commercial game which funny enough is a space shooter & quite a lot of personal projects) - I will attempt to provide the games developer community with my thoughts regarding how I ventured into ‘solo indie’ games development. I won’t go into the personal projects so much as I’ve wanted to be a games developer since I was about 5 years old back in the *cough* 90’s *cough* *cough*.

Going indie.

Talking about coughing: The year was 2020, Covid just hit and the UK finally started taking it ‘seriously’ just after I sent my youngest off to school and said to myself “I’m going to make a video game” – as in first commercial video game after the supermarkets had been ransacked and I ended up home schooling all of the kids at that time.

So, where did I start? It feels like a really long time ago now but I started off by downloading some game engines: Godot, Unity & Game maker. I would advise to take this approach to see which one “suits your needs” or is “easiest for you to get along with” as well as reading the T&C’s for each one – PS: I settled on Game maker. Not that the other engines are bad or anything but I knew I was going to start off with a 2d game & game makers workflow just ‘worked’ for me (there are other engines of course for that as well such as RPG maker etc which I used back in the 90s-ish).

The first game I tried to make (since going indie) was pong and I actually failed to do that even following a tutorial in not just one but all of the pre-mentioned engines. Eventually I discovered a tutorial by “friendly cosmonaut” on making an asteroids clone called ‘space rocks’ which was using the game maker engine. After realising the engine had been updated since that tutorial and bashing my head off a keyboard for what felt like weeks: I finally made an asteroids clone. Was it a perfect clone? Well, no but it was functional with some programmer duct tape here and there. After the asteroids clone; I made a few game jam games such as: pong & other space shooter clones without using tutorials such as space invaders.

What did I learn from all that? Well, here’s the thing: doing anything new for the first time is going to be pretty awkward and bumpy. Before I embarked into ‘indie’ games development (as opposed to level design) I used to do pixel art commissions and each time I did a new commission it felt like doing something I’ve never attempted before. Many years ago I tried learning C# and C++ but gave up within a day or two (don’t be a quitter). This time around nothing was going to stop me and now (some years later) I do: art, animation, sound FX, voice acting, programming etc – be prepared to wear many hats as a solo indie or even in a small team! I even had to manage a few people that I hired for my first commercial game “Crystal comet” – thankfully I’ve worked as a supervisor in other industries before!

My first commercial space shooter game.

Here’s where things get a bit dicey! “Crystal comet” was a game that I wanted to make (being a fan of Starfox64 & Left4Dead with the use of AI teammates) and was not considered “a rite of passage” for me - Although at the time that seemed like an unusual ‘bonus’ of sorts. However, let’s look at some other games in the genre shall we? We have games like: Jamestown+, Zero ranger & old favourites such as Death smiles & the Psikyo games etc. Some of these games are the most beautiful looking games in not just their own genre but others too! There is fierce competition in the “shmup” genre and the fan base is very specific about the things they like and dislike oftentimes falling into a “niche within a niche”. There is a mountain of choice of the type of shoot em’ up you could potentially make. I fell into the “vertizontal twin stick shooter category” – Just a little market research could have helped avoided a certain calamity there!

There’s horizontal shmups, vertical shmup’s, retro shmups, Bullet hells, ‘Euro’ shmups (derogatory term amongst genre fans) etc. Some fans even hate the term “shmup” but the tag “shooter” became overcrowded by first-person and third-person shooters a long time ago. Then there are your rogue-like varieties as well and so on. For example: did anyone see Vampire survivors coming? A “bullet heaven”? Well, I did but the funny thing is that isn’t even considered a “shmup” amongst the purist of fans but more of a “shmup adjacent” game – some fans of the genre might even be mad at me for even saying just that!

Is it all bad news? Honestly, making any game as your first commercial experience is going to teach you more compared to a non-commercial game. The benefit from making a “shmup” is that there is a small but very dedicated audience that you could learn a lot about games design from. In terms of commercial viability however, it really depends: the more of a certain genre you make the more your audience can grow in that genre. For example a game called “Angel at dusk” which recently did pretty well! - Although it would seem that developer has been developing games in the “shmup” genre for quite a while now. I should say however that some genres are more in demand than others if you get my drift. The “shmup” or “shoot em’ up” genre is somewhat “over-saturated” in terms of commercial viability alongside the many games being released.

Will I be making another “shmup”? – Unlikely (unless as a passion project as originally I wanted Crystal comet to be a trilogy). Although I did get contacted by two publishers (which isn’t bad honestly) you still have to remember that publishers will throw out a bunch of fishing lines to see ‘who bites’ - It could still lead to nothing. The initial sales of Crystal comet probably wouldn’t be good enough to rise above the other biters. Even if there are some ‘super fans’ who are ‘diying’ for me to make another game – I’m sorry but the sales wouldn’t enable me to live from making Crystal comet games.

What did I learn from developing my first space shooter game as a commercial project? As much as that could be an entire article in itself I’m going to give you the abridged ‘cliff notes’. Making any game is going to be difficult, especially in today’s modern age. Player’s expect more, the technology has improved vastly and the quality bar for any game has risen significantly as a result. Had I released Crystal comet back in ~2010 it might have done ok. However, as I kind of stated before any commercial game will teach you something that a non-commercial game won’t (I’ve made plenty of non-commercial projects but had no idea what was coming).

For arguments sake though, let’s ‘bullet point’ some things that will save you some time:

Making a full-game ‘mostly’ by yourself is going to be a lot harder than you think – originally I thought Crystal comet would take about 9 months. The game was started in 2020 and finished in 2024.
Research the target audience before you do anything – they like specific things. Give them what they want!
“Art from the start” – Your game’s art may actually be more important than the gameplay itself which hurts me so very much to say.
Get early reaction ASAP. My game was perceived as “party Galaga” which I didn’t know until very late in development – I could have used that! Being associated with one of the most well-known shooters of all time with some twists isn’t a bad thing!
Get your store page up ASAP – gage how well things are going early. Cut features if you need to based on how reactions etc are going. Push the release early, lower the price and move on if you need to. If you don’t, you don’t and that’s a much better situation to be in.
Bonus tip: Listen to the people who have more experience with this than you do. I ignored a ton of advice along the way thinking I knew better being a gamer myself since I was a child – it’s not enough! Yet also know when something doesn’t apply directly to you aka advice for much larger companies. If you’re solo, you’re really solo. Some solo dev’s or duo’s worked on their game for many years gaining wishlists over a long time period before release.

There’s of course a lot more I learned but let’s KISS: “keep it simple stupid” for now.

Conclusion

Are space shooters a rite of passage? Yes and no. Theoretically speaking space shooter games are ‘air quote’: “easy to make” but not on a ‘commercial’ scale. It’s like when you assess the difference between a game jam game and a commercial game in that regard. A commercial game (regardless of genre) is going to require a lot more than a hobby project or a learning project. When I added controller remapping to “Crystal comet” I had no idea this would actually take weeks if not months to code from scratch (factoring in polish, debugging & play testing etc). When I spoke to another developer at a game dev meet up and said “I thought it would take a week” – they laughed and shook their head. So, in conclusion: the simpler a game you can make when starting out - the better! Check out the competition when considering any ‘viable commercial project’ to know exactly what you’re getting into because the “shmup” indie developers are making some ‘banging’ games that have kept me more than busy over the last few years whilst making Crystal comet.

What’s next for RewdanSprites?

I’m currently working on my next project. After ~20 years of trying to break into the games industry (and failing) and now falling into ‘indie games development’ – I haven’t given up just yet! (and probably never will). So, if you’re a games company looking for a guy that simply just does not know when to quit – I’d make a fantastic level designer (I’ve made hundreds if not thousands in the platformer & arena shooter genre - also did well in competitions). Other than that though - I guess I’ll just keep making indie games.