Where The Money Goes

A comment on our last status update mentioned our budget. Our plan is to make a new game for a lot less than it cost to do King of Dragon Pass. Hopefully our experience (with KoDP and games in general) will let us do things more efficiently this time. We will likely do a lot less reworking of certain elements than we did the first time, since we have a better idea ahead of time what should work. And automated testing will let QA concentrate on bugs only a human can find.

budgetplanThe pie chart shows where we expected to spend our budget shortly after starting. The bulk of the expense (44%) was projected to be art.

Note that this doesn’t include any sort of overhead (like development machines, internet access, etc.). And I’m not directly expensing my own time. In other words, this is just what we expect to pay our freelancers.

This was just a plan, and once we were far enough along to see how things were working, we realized had to do more writing and art. So the final percentages will end up a bit different, though art will predominate.

(And yes, the title of this post is an excuse to watch OK Go.)

Author: David

Creator of Six Ages and King of Dragon Pass

9 thoughts on “Where The Money Goes”

  1. I’m happy my favorite game will get a sequel!!! There should be also a crime-strategy based on KODP mechanics, it would be hilarious!

    1. There is a game called “This is the police” wich remotly goes in the direction of KoDP in terms of openworld gameplay and chose your own adventure story. You get to do some crime sceen investigation within.
      I never had the opertunety to fully explore it because i got so much stuff to do, but it defenetly is one of these games i keep having the urge to get back to wich is a big compliment in days of Humble Bundle and PS+ overwelming me with heeps of cheap games.

    2. Also, superhero game! I need a Superhero sim like this. I actualy wrote up long concepts of how a game should work long before i knew KoDP existed (and long after it actualy got it´s original release wich i never heared of till the iOS rerelease came around).

      Imagine a City of Superheros/Villans and Civilians instead of clans in a Mountain Pass.
      Imagine the game having a big collection of Storys that will just assamble the Story of the city instead of an end game. (obviusly there could be big storys like in classic Marvel/DC events)
      Imagine your character ending up in different storys and choises depending on how you structure his day and what his stats are (is he mentaly tormented or sad? Might he end up only having the vilanus options because of that? Will he end up in a downward spiral?)
      Imagine that every character in the game, hero, villan or civilian gets these choises in the background. So you got a living breating city full of choises made while you play your story.
      Imagine that you might loose your secret identety because you were or had to be careless to often, imagine people actualy starting to kill your frinds right after everyone found out who you are.
      Imagine your frind being revealed as a supervillan.
      Imagine playing casualy as a civilian in this world – because why not? Maybe as a politician?

      This litteraly is the short version of a Superhero game i dreamt of since i was a child. 😀

  2. Hmm, well I hope someone does take you up on that offer 🙂 KoDP’s clan/advisors style of gameplay is so unique that there could definitely be other interesting games made in this genre. If it’s relatively straightforward to add/remake content using the Six Ages engine, I’m sure many players would be interested in an eventual DLC or three-quel adding new content or a different setting (perhaps based on intrigue in the Lunar Empire or Kralori Mandarins, etc..)

    I’m not sure what Jan’s thoughts were re a crime strategy adaptation, but now that you mention it I suppose playing a mafia family using this engine would be a unique & unexpected twist. I say go for it Jan 🙂

    1. Not really sure if it will be straightforward to repurpose the engine, but part of the reason I redid it was to make it easier to. (The overall game style is definitely applicable to other genres.)

    2. Exactly, imagine playing mafia family with advisors, feuds, moral dillemas, etc it would be greatest game ever! For example someone kidnaps one of our soldiers – do we pay ransom? call cops? go for vendetta?

  3. I’m programmer myself and i could definietly help with said game in free time, but i don’t have resources to make this game all by myself, maybe someone else have, feel free to use my idea!

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