Indie Obscure indies that deserve more attention - Updated Jan. 2020

[Charles-cgr]

Vogel's games consistently sell 50-200 thousand copies, compared to the titles listed here, or even to an average indie rpg developer, he's a rockstar. Not to mention that he's got a dedicated subforum here.
Anyway, the only thing including a game on this list can achieve is to slightly raise awareness of it on the Codex. I see no point in listing the games that are already well-known here, it just won't do them any good.

Hmm, good to know.

It did surprise me that Avernum on Android only has 1k total downloads. That's a bit low if he's selling 50-200 thousand copies on PC. But eh, if he's happy with that then what does it matter what I say? I didn't think his games were that popular.

Not sure where those numbers come from but according to Vogel it is more along the lines of 6000 recurrent buyers. This has been the basis for his high pricing argument. Things might have changed with Steam, tablets and bundles though but those are pretty recent things as far as he is concerned. If those are his new numbers they probably only apply to his last 2 or 3 games.

 

[aweigh]

hmm that Void Pyramid game looks very good. I am watching videos of it in action on youtube right now. thanks for the heads up.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Not sure where those numbers come from but according to Vogel it is more along the lines of 6000 recurrent buyers. This has been the basis for his high pricing argument. Things might have changed with Steam, tablets and bundles though but those are pretty recent things as far as he is concerned. If those are his new numbers they probably only apply to his last 2 or 3 games.

Ah, ok. 6,000 seems more like it.

I think he's underestimating Android a bit. Simple crawlers and RPGs on there have tens of thousands of downloads. If he just marketed that group a bit he could probably do a lot more business there.

I mean, it's his company and all. I was just shocked to see Avernum only had 1,000 copies downloaded. That is really low for an Android release.

 

[V_K]

Not sure where those numbers come from but according to Vogel it is more along the lines of 6000 recurrent buyers. This has been the basis for his high pricing argument. Things might have changed with Steam, tablets and bundles though but those are pretty recent things as far as he is concerned. If those are his new numbers they probably only apply to his last 2 or 3 games.

These are sales figures from his recent presentation:

It's unlear whether those actually include bundle sales, because Steamspy gives much higher numbers for some of them - 90+ thousand copies for Escape from the Pit, 200+ thousand copies for the first Avadon, around ~70 thousand copies for Avernum 4-6 etc.

 

[Charles-cgr]

V_K Avernum 2 seems to indicate that he's returned to his former model, when he sold his games over $20 and counted on long-tail sales and a consistent $100-150 turnover per game from his core fans. Avadon average price is about $5 and Avadon 2 $2 so clearly he made a forray in the world of discount (bundles, Steam sales...) and it seems he was ultimately unsatisfied with it.

I totaly understand that. A $2 customer requires the same support as a $20 one and tends to be less friendly. Concentrating on a narrow but strong fan base, made up of players that really appreciate your work sounds much more appealing.

 

[aweigh]

you're forgetting one thing tho: sword and sorcery is a much better game than anything vogel has ever produced in entire fucking life.

crawlers do VERY well on mobile and the best control scheme for a mobile game is one adapted to a control-pad (i.e. virtual control pad on-screen on the mobile device or a controller attachment); so this is like my 10th attempt at trying to convince you implement traditional controller schemes in some way into S*S future releases :D

one would think mouse-driven games, like the point-and-click ui design of Vogels' games, would naturally translate very well to touch-screen mobile devices but they actually do not. many people who game on mobile grew up with a controller in their hand and [insert argument again about muscle memory + quotes from Bruce Lee] it actually much slower UI implementation on a touch-screen to finger-point than to use a virtual controller or an attached physical controller.

anyway, i'll leave this stuff to the sword and sorcery thread.

EDIT: fuck vogel

 

[Charles-cgr]

Hey i'd like to take part in a conversation without it ending up looking like i'm trying to take over the thread plz

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Charles, any chance you can add controller support to your game? Or a touchscreen, mobile version? Just curious.

 

[Charles-cgr]

Charles, any chance you can add controller support to your game? Or a touchscreen, mobile version? Just curious.

Really, wrong thread

 

[Roqua]

There have been a lot of good recommendations in this thread, but I don't think nuclear throne and teleglitch are obscure at all, they are actually pretty popular, even LISA.

But seconding IJI anyway, one of the best free action/rpg platformers.

I'm mostly thinking of games that don't have very active threads here that people might want to try nonetheless. I agree that they're not too obscure outside the Codex though, which is why I'm curious what kind of obscure these games need to be.
That reminds me, AntharioN is a fun little game and has a thread.

Iji is also indeed great and it is shame that Remar is now wasting his time at Ludosity.

I was thinking of Antharion since it seems word or recommedations for it have died and that is a shame. This game is definitely worth picking up for crpg fans.

 

[Roqua]

V_K Avernum 2 seems to indicate that he's returned to his former model, when he sold his games over $20 and counted on long-tail sales and a consistent $100-150 turnover per game from his core fans. Avadon average price is about $5 and Avadon 2 $2 so clearly he made a forray in the world of discount (bundles, Steam sales...) and it seems he was ultimately unsatisfied with it.

I totaly understand that. A $2 customer requires the same support as a $20 one and tends to be less friendly. Concentrating on a narrow but strong fan base, made up of players that really appreciate your work sounds much more appealing.

Just to follow up on our last conversation. Your game has everything it needs to be considered against the classics. It does almost everything it tries to do very well. I've been playing a little bit of a lot of blobbers lately and this is the big difference I see between your game and games that were big deal releases at the time. GUI. You have a very minimal GUI. If you went for something like the oldies where the GUI looks great and surrounds the whole screen I think your game would appeal to a much bigger audience.

The last time I mentioned UI functionality and that is a huge deal to me and I'm guessing others as well, but that is more keeping customers happy. To get new and a bigger audience a great GUI goes a long way. I imagine your games graphics with the surround screen GUI of Wizardry 8 and the paperdoll and items like wizardry 8 and it is much more appealing to even me and I don't give a shit about much more than functionality. Hell, Frayed Knights didn't have the greatest GUI but it surrounds the screen and makes the game more appealing in my opinion.

Even if you do not have item icons for the inventory and stick with the list, a nice looking paperdoll with lines going to the parts of the body would be better than the list it is now. But, I should also say I am 100% against list for inventories. That is usually one of the great divides between civilized pc games and filthy monkey shit console games with controller UIs, that and the map, and you have a good map.

Again, this isn't to belittle your game as I lie it a great deal and will buy any future games you make. And you are the only person that I had no issue getting a steam key from when you went to steam with your automatic emailing it out.

 

[Alchemist]

But, I should also say I am 100% against list for inventories. That is usually one of the great divides between civilized pc games and filthy monkey shit console games with controller UIs, that and the map, and you have a good map.

I agree with most of your post (I love the large elaborate GUIs of old CRPGs, and agree it would have more nostalgic appeal), but this part about list inventories, not at all. List inventories were a staple of the old classic CRPGs (going all the way back to the 70's), and there's nothing wrong with them. They were around long before console RPGs, and they also hearken back to pen & paper D&D character sheets.

Might & Magic 2:

Wizardry 6:

 

[Jaesun]

I so much miss those screens <3

 

[Roqua]

But, I should also say I am 100% against list for inventories. That is usually one of the great divides between civilized pc games and filthy monkey shit console games with controller UIs, that and the map, and you have a good map.

I agree with most of your post (I love the large elaborate GUIs of old CRPGs, and agree it would have more nostalgic appeal), but this part about list inventories, not at all. List inventories were a staple of the old classic CRPGs (going all the way back to the 70's), and there's nothing wrong with them. They were around long before console RPGs, and they also hearken back to pen & paper D&D character sheets.

Might & Magic 2:

Wizardry 6:

ASCII graphics was an old staple also, but thanks to technology we can use real inventories instead of lists that have been around since before the wheel. Lists are stupid, real inventories are good. Lists are now for console games since they need savage controllers instead of civilized KB.

We can't hold it against old games for having lists, but we can expect a certain level of technology and civilization from new games, and that includes real inventories, and GUIs instead of UIs.

 

[Excidium II]

Textual lists are the proper way to represent inventories. Icons are only useful for children learning to read.

What modern technology allows is more space to have tables with more columns.

 

[Roqua]

Textual lists are the proper way to represent inventories. Icons are only useful for children learning to read.

What modern technology allows is more space to have tables with more columns.

So all the IE games, all the Trokia games, the dark Sun games, Realms of Arkania, pretty much every single crpg since 1988 is wrong for not having a caveman list? That is about as retarded as you. That is literally like saying graphical representation of anything is for kids, and text base is for adults. Which I will reply have fun playing Zork. Since I am a man of science and technology I believe in the advancement of science and technology and that mean graphics user interfaces are better than console UIs made for controller using monkey-savages and caveman retards.

You can hop on the train to progressville, or stay in 1982.

I guess everyone will start saying hunting and foraging for your dinner is better than buying groceries for a crockery store and buying a wagon and taking years to cross the country is better than flying.

You console Neanderthals need to get aids and die a slow, painful death so crpgs can get back to were they should be.

 

[Excidium II]

So all the IE games, all the Trokia games, the dark Sun games, Realms of Arkania, pretty much every single crpg since 1988 is wrong for not having a caveman list? That is about as retarded as you. That is literally like saying graphical representation of anything is for kids, and text base is for adults. Which I will reply have fun playing Zork. Since I am a man of science and technology I believe in the advancement of science and technology and that mean graphics user interfaces are better than console UIs made for controller using monkey-savages and caveman retards.

Those games were the beginning of the end.

Technology evolves but the best way to represent a collection of entities (such as an RPG inventory) visually is still a textual table.

 

[agris]

So all the IE games, all the Trokia games, the dark Sun games, Realms of Arkania, pretty much every single crpg since 1988 is wrong for not having a caveman list? That is about as retarded as you. That is literally like saying graphical representation of anything is for kids, and text base is for adults. Which I will reply have fun playing Zork. Since I am a man of science and technology I believe in the advancement of science and technology and that mean graphics user interfaces are better than console UIs made for controller using monkey-savages and caveman retards.

Those games were the beginning of the end.

Technology evolves but the best way to represent a collection of entities (such as an RPG inventory) visually is still a textual table.

I feel like I'm getting involved in the Afghanastan of RPG discussions, but I have to chime in. I love list inventories. I think Fallout 1/2 did them quite well. I also actually enjoy the inventory system of the IE games, and much more recently, the quasi-simulationist inventory of NEO Scavenger.

All that being said, list inventories have an achilles heel: designers properly naming things. I played a decent amount of FNV when it came out, and my god, the lack of unified naming principles and random inclusion of 'the', 'it' and ammo names being all over the fucking place just made it horrible. I firmly believe a list inventory is the fastest and most efficient inventory method when the designers make sure to write item names taking the list-as-an-organizational-tool into account. But when ammo is spread around as "Fusion Cells", "0.45 ACP" and "38 calibre" and everything is sorted alphabetically, fuck me with a mace.

 

[Excidium II]

Fallout 3/New Vegas inventory is a disaster. Mods try to fix with things like a bigger list and [categories] but it can only help so much.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Textual lists are for Skyrim. Icons are the way to go, but without inventory Tetris please, like RoA.

 

[Excidium II]

If you're gonna have icons might as well have both implementations with a toggle.

 

[agris]

Fallout 3/New Vegas inventory is a disaster. Mods try to fix with things like a bigger list and [categories] but it can only help so much.

But that's exactly what it needs, consistent and logical naming conventions that let you browse blocks of items that share traits like function, type, etc.

 

[Excidium II]

Well that's not what it does since it would require changes that aren't possible. It just puts a tag between brackets in front of the item name for better sorting.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Textual lists don't lend themselves that well to inventory restrictions, so preferences might be as well influences by preferences in that regard.

 

[Excidium II]

Textual lists don't lend themselves that well to inventory restrictions

What you mean by that?