Shenmue Dojo

Posted: **Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:40 am**

So the characters seen in the Greenlight video were drawn by your old man? I mean, I like the Technos "Nintendo World Cup style" characters but the ones in the Greenlight video look so much better and give this game so much more personality. Congratulations, your dad is awesome! =D>

Posted: **Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:01 am**

Hyo Razuki wrote: So the characters seen in the Greenlight video were drawn by your old man? I mean, I like the Technos "Nintendo World Cup style" characters but the ones in the Greenlight video look so much better and give this game so much more personality. Congratulations, your dad is awesome!

Thank you )

I was trying to find a characters artist for 2 month (paid artist of course). And it was a hell. I asked to redraw a photo in this design i came up with. Mainly they said that my game is shit and wouldn't sell and money for an art are so low and all that stuff. Saddly that is a gamedev scene in russia looks like. And when I was totally tired and my mom asked about the game and artists I aked if she could ask dad once again (i asked once because he has some basic drawing skills but he refused cause he was trying to use Photoshop and was overwhelmed by it and said that pixel art is so hard and he can't do it at all). So this time I installed him graphics gale and teached the basics. And he slowly strarted to dig in.

Then he did all npc designs and made girls uniform. And about 700 frames of Ringo animations. He is not employed last years (because of age mostly) so I'm glad that he has something to do and to be passionate about now.

Posted: **Wed Feb 07, 2018 8:20 am**

That's kind of a touching story behind it. Makes me wanna support the game even more.

From what I've experienced - although being in a completely different field than video games - whenever projects I've worked on came to a "do or die" point which meant that we either were gonna pull the thing off or lose a client, it was mostly not the most skillful team members but the ones who were willing to "bite" the most, if you know what I mean, who ultimately saved the day. Did we have more skillful, "better" guys with a more fitting educational background on the team? Definitely, but in real life passion and dedication almost always beat skill and education.

Just like your dad didnt receive any formal training in Photoshop and pixel art but he "bit" into the project and put his heart into it. I'm sure your dad must have suffered the recent years, but whithout some suffering you cannot create good art. This is why your dad was able to create characters with so mch personality.

Oh yeah, have you thought about contacting some gaming magazines about your game and tell them the story behind it? Your Greenlight video has like 3000 views on Youtube which is something I guess, but it should be a lot more, taking into account what this game seems to offer.

I mean, you got nothing to lose. Gaming Magazines, indie/homebrew gaming websites, gaming conventions even, maybe. The more doors you knock on, the more likely one of them is to open. You said you're not in this for the money but it's worth spreading the word and if you guys happen to end up making a few bucks off of this, that's nothing to be ashamed of, is it?

Posted: **Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:34 am**

I mean, you got nothing to lose. Gaming Magazines, indie/homebrew gaming websites, gaming conventions even, maybe. The more doors you knock on, the more likely one of them is to open. You said you're not in this for the money but it's worth spreading the word and if you guys happen to end up making a few bucks off of this, that's nothing to be ashamed of, is it?

It's no so simple. As a developer you have a motivation energy as the most important resource. And then time. When you knock the door and don't receve an answer it is very dissapointing and demotivational. And even when you get an answer this don't do much to sales. If the game doesn't worth it it's ok. If it does it'll sell itself somehow. I don't really wanna dig into it much.

I've done some basic PR steps: topic at tigsource, twitter, some articles on popular webresources, topic on target audience forums (like yours) — that's enough. It's the game and youtubers who sell the game ) And to be noticed by popular youtuber is luck for the most part. So I need to focus on the game. If it'll turn out good that's good. If not I'll make another one.

Many times i saw guys did all these (Gaming Magazines, indie/homebrew gaming websites, gaming conventions) and games didn't sell. Recent example Iconoclasts: http://store.steampowered.com/app/393520/Iconoclasts/. So much hype and it failed.

Posted: **Wed Feb 07, 2018 2:47 pm**

How come you think Iconoclasts failed sales-wise? It's only been out for two weeks.

Of course there's no guarantee a game will succeed. Even big "AAA" games with gigantic marketing campaigns can fail: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2018/01/30/ea-star-wars-battlefront-2-misses-sales-expectations/#6bd403327977

Anyway, please keep us updated on your game. It looks great.

Posted: **Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:19 am**

just spotted your game. it looks really good.

Posted: **Sat Feb 10, 2018 3:59 am**

redline wrote:just spotted your game. it looks really good.

Thanks.

Added some 8-ball action (actually they play russian pyramid):

Posted: **Sat Feb 17, 2018 11:10 am**

Working on ping pong now

Posted: **Sun Feb 18, 2018 3:02 pm**

The artwork and color palette really set a wonderful mood.

Posted: **Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:54 pm**

Tired. Started to cut things out. So there won't be a dodgeball, and boxing, and basket, and...

Next time maybe. Next game.

Posted: **Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:18 pm**

Can you speak to all the NPCs? And are a lot of them named? Looks really good so far btw.

Posted: **Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:13 pm**

Abraham_1 wrote: Can you speak to all the NPCs? And are a lot of them named? Looks really good so far btw.

There're 6 types of NPC:
1. Your friends
2. Your classmates
3. Guys and girls from your school
4. Boys from other schools (whom you can beat)
5. Teachers, sellers, coaches etc.
6. Grown NPCs (13 of them)

You can speak with 1,2 and 5.

3 and 6 live in the game like shenmue's NPC, so you can follow them through backs (but like in shenmue it was a waste of my time to do this cause the player actually doesn't matter).

2 and 5 are stuck on their backs.

4 are hanging out on their territories, walking through town, fighting with each other.

1,2 and 5 are named.

Posted: **Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:48 am**

Hyo Razuki wrote: Definitely, but in real life passion and dedication almost always beat skill and education.

I get where you’re coming from but you still need skill/talent. Passion goes a long way for sure, but I would say his dad was skilled to some extent in the first place before passion kicked in.

Maybe someone here could tweet Huber at Easy Allies with this trailer. I don’t use my twitter, but he’s a huge Shenmue and Yakuza fan; if multiple people tweet the trailer and say look at this awesome indie game inspired by Shenmue and Yakuza, he would no doubt show interest and he tends to reply to tweets. He may even retweet or bring it up on a podcast. His twitter is: @michaelphuber

Yeo, I encourage you to tweet him if you haven’t already. Ben Moore from Easy Allies is also a good option. His twitter is: @benmoore035

Posted: **Wed Feb 21, 2018 5:12 pm**

Thanks, Abraham. I'll think about it.

Posted: **Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:33 pm**

yeo wrote:

Tired. Started to cut things out. So there won't be a dodgeball, and boxing, and basket, and...

Next time maybe. Next game.

Somebody get this man some coffee!

Shenmue Dojo

The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

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Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa

Re: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa