Monsters of War - Mobility

About ME!
Hello, I'm Curtis Turner, but everybody online knows me as the legendary IceIYIaN!
I'm the creator of:
Monsters of War (XNA / MonoGame)
http://www.moddb.com/Games/MonstersofWar
Elements of War (Source / Gold Source aka Half-Life 1/2, Unreal Tournament 2003/4)
1337 Board (All Valve games/mods, All Id games/mods)
http://www.moddb.com/mods/elements-of-war/downloads/elements-of-war-1337-board-v8
I'm also the guy who defeats you in medieval first person/third person action games (World of WarCraft, Kingdoms Collide, Age of Chivalry, etc)

Game's profit or lack of...
I recently released my first video game ever, Monsters of War to the Windows Phone... I haven't looked, but I've probably made $0 dollars so far.
About as much money I made for the entire decade I modded Valve's games...

Why my game is crappy...
Currently there's three major issues with Monsters of War that are keeping me from buying a candy bar or an actual $99 Windows Phone:
1. There are no maps/levels/worlds. This will change in the upcoming patch.
2. There's a lack of weapons/spells. Only a ball spell. This will change in the second or third patch after the one I release now.
3. Lack of platforms, only Windows Phone. Not Android, not iPhone, not Windows/Linux/Mac, not X-BoX, not PlayStation, not Wii...
Until a few patches, the game isn't even worth porting. Plus without a few patches the game will not be accepted on Desura/Steam/Whatever else.

Why I went indie!
So, I've been a Moneyless Modder™ for over a decade. That was fine when I was at high school, worked minimum wage jobs... But then suddenly I had no job.
Having the achievement of the gaming world's most advanced hotkeys menu and the gaming world's most advanced third person camera system only left me hungry.
I sat around, hoping things would change. But I looked around at others and came to the conclusion that things won't change anytime soon.

While modding I didn't push myself to gain the skills needed to work minimum wage for game companies, so, at that point I decided I would make my own game.
All I knew was how to make folders, do some basic modding of stuff in folders. Make horrible 3D levels. Make horrible 3D textures. Do pathetic programming.

Luckily I knew slight programming and I did slightly enjoy it. And games are pretty much all programming. The difficult part was picking a language,
framework, or game engine. Having no money, no job, anything I chose had to be 100% free to use and only $50-500 dollars to use commercially. And I did not
want to deal with paying a percentage of my profits to any company, that's a waste of my time and was forced every year...

I also wanted an engine that could be used on Windows. Anything else didn't matter(I wasn't aware of how big iPhone/Android were at the time). Since I only
had a computer with Windows and I only played video games on Windows since 1999. Plus I knew of the power of modding(Counter-Strike, Age of Chivalry, DotA).
Not to mention Windows is the easiest platform to get on for a one person or few people company.

After some digging I found XNA. The main reason I picked it was not because of what I just said, but because for $99 I could suddenly release the game on
X-BoX 360 and Windows Phone. No questions asked. Make a game, even a simple basic turd, and you can release it...! This framework turned out to be a wise
choice. It allowed me to do 2D sprite rotation(Rather than Zelda, my camera view twists). So, I didn't have to make a Zelda clone, I could do my camera
system. It had mouse, keyboard, gamepad support. And finally MonoGame! Allowing me to port to iPhone, Android, Windows 8, Linux, Mac, PlayStation Mobile,
perhaps X-BoX OnE, PlayStation 4, Wii(?), Wii U(?), 2/3DS(?), and who knows? At a price, of course...

First Game, First Problems!
1. Don't know Jack about programming. I knew how to make variables and do some basic if statements. Classes? Vague and I barely remember.
I didn't have Internet for a few months. Unable to work with classes, which I knew was the most important thing... So, I did no work for months.
Til finally I got the Internet back and was able to download a few demos from XNA.com and watch some YouTube videos. In other words, download everything
while you can, download extra tutorials/demos. And actually learn some basics of programming. Plus watch tutorials more before starting.

2. I kept making new projects to test little things. I should've just copied my current project to a new folder and added from there.

3. Didn't realize I could copy/paste a null/blank texture/sound all over my materials/sounds folders.

4. Didn't realize I could use one single null/blank texture/sound and create as many things as I wanted in the actual code.

5. Breaking my game so the game wouldn't compile. When you first start XNA, it works... You get a screen. When I finally learned how to make classes,
I had to chop up all my code to put them into the classes. This stopped the game from compiling. When you're a total n00biE, it's impossible to add features
to the game if you cannot actually visibly see them work. I absolutely do not break my game's code now.

Moneyless Modder™ to Money Maker!
1. I knew the game or my game making career would have to be a number of years before I would make money. I figured five to ten years before I could quit
any normal job I had. Luckily I'm still jobless! You'd think I should work more and harder... But I know that will get me nowhere quick and dreading life.

2. I picked the only genre of game I play... You're a man or woman. With weapons. You kill other men or women! Everybody knows what this is. You can pick
any theme you want. Any camera system you want. And other variables. But at the end of the day, this is a billion dollar genre. There's also a ton of
games you can already look at, steal from, add to, and the community will help you via tutorials, etc.

3. No non-generic code, aka no platform specific things. Achievements, avatars, etc. This would crush my code base, add bugs, make the game laggy, and
make it difficult to port.

4. Modding... Like I was used for a decade, I shall use the modders! In one week, one month, one year... One modder or a group of modders could make me
millions. I give them the code, the textures, the sounds. They do as they please as a third party. This is the main reason to be on Windows!

5. Females... Unlike other video games, I will have strong female villains, strong female heroes. The ability to play as a female.

6. Only thanks to MonoGame, I can suddenly hit every platform known to gaming!

7. Release early, release often. Unlike AAA, I am one man. Once the game is barely playable, release. Patch. Patch. Patch. One year later, when you would've
released anyways, you have a fanbase, they tell you what you did right, what you did wrong. Eventually at some point, you actually make profit.

8. Because of my genre and the way I coded the game, at some point I can flip a switch. Suddenly the sky camera view game is a side view platformer.
Flip another switch and suddenly the game is in 3D. At least this is how I want to think will happen :P

9. Release. Patch. Patch. Then market the crap outta that turd! A one man game is gonna be crap for a while. Took forever to get to this point.
But now you know more. And after a few patches, the game is starting to become decent. Then you market it. My plan is simple, go to every gaming website's
forums and make a post. Go to the local libraries and hang fliers. Have people hang fliers at schools. Cheap paper, printed on, all over the local community.
I spend a lot of my time wasting it on social websites(MeetMe, etc) talking to women. If I'm able to get on Android and iPhone, it will be much easier
to convince them to look at the game and buy it. I don't normally talk to men unless they bother with messaging me, but if I can get on X-BoX OnE and
PlayStation 4, then I'll have both sexes covered. There's a lot of other little things to do. Needless to say, the game is crap. Don't spend money marketing. But once the game becomes decent, MARKET it everywhere!

Conclusion:
I learned some coding, I started my project. Year one was making a simple static screen game(Think PacMaN). Year two was making the static screen move around
(Think Zelda). Year three is polish, actually making the game worth playing. Year four is story/online multi-player. Perhaps year five I'll make enough
money to buy that $99 Windows Phone... Cause I'll need it if I'm still unable to find a normal job and live on the streets.