This week on #AppDevChat we discussed "The cost of freelance graphics, music, and code for an independent game developer" with Donovan Vice, the Founder ofDioxis Mining, which is a gaming studio based in Canada.
Their first title, Whirl the Squirrel, is nothing short of a beautiful high-speed 2D racing platformer for iOS. Imagine the SNES classic Uniracer with some Sonic the Hedgehog. It is definitely not an endless runner, and there is no IAP. You play as Whirl as you race through huge levels, shoot through loops, jump hazards, and avoid a full cast of 'Nenemies bent on slowing you down and stealing your Treasures. "We think its gameplay style is unique to the App Store, You be the judge." said Donovan who takes great pride in this app. Be sure to follow Dioxis Mining on Twitter and check out their Facebook page.
QUESTIONS:
1. For Whirl the Squirrel you employed freelancers for the art and music. How should someone go about finding the right people?
- For me, finding freelancers with the necessary high-quality skills was the hardest part - @DioxisMining
- I must have chatted with 200 different art freelancers just to find maybe 3 dozen that I liked - @DioxisMining
- price point… costs can vary so much and when you need SO much art you need to count the pennies (cents)! - @debugdesign
- As to where I found freelancers, I tried all the game development boards where people post availability - @DioxisMining
2. Give us some estimates on what freelance art and music will cost.
- It was a long time ago, but boards like gamedev.net, tigsource, etc - @DioxisMining
- Music was in GBP. It was 100GBP for a 1 minute song, decreasing in price as the song grew. And 4GBP per effect - @DioxisMining
- Whirl took dozens of hours to get right. It was a big cost because of all the iterations we needed - @DioxisMining
3. Are there any costs first time developers might not anticipate when working with freelancers?
- If your artist is brilliant, but hasn't work on a game before, that will be your biggest cost - @DioxisMining
- be prepared to put some skin in the game if your artist has never worked on a game - @tapfortap
- The next biggest unexpected cost was for environment and character design. I expected it to go a lot faster - @DioxisMining
4. Should developers look at hiring a separate animator?
- Yes, if your artist isn't experienced in animation, absolutely hire a separate one. It will save you money - @DioxisMining
- My artist is great, but animation is a separate skill, I would hire a separate animator next time to do rough frame sketches, and let my artist do the rest - @DioxisMining
- Finding an artist/animator turned out to be like finding a 3D modeller/texture artist/animator all in one - @DioxisMining
5. For assets of the quality you have in Whirl the Squirrel, how long do those take to create? Give some examples.
- I'll just give an example. Game icons: For 6 of them it was 2 hours for sketches, 6 for 3 colour version - @DioxisMining
- I went through a lot of different game icons. It's extremely important and hard to pin down - @DioxisMining
- testing for what icon will work the best , for example which one catches users eye - @tapfortap
6. Since you did all the programming yourself, what estimation for cost can you tell others to expect, and what should developers look for?
- Honesty in game testing is essential. My testers were honest with me. Brutally so! That's a good tester - @DioxisMining
- Totally agree, I've found before that friends can sometimes be honest AFTER someone else says your game sucks! - @SuperTapp
- Without honesty in testing, the game's quality won't increase, and that hurts the developer in the end - @DioxisMining
This was the last #appdevchat of the summer, the chat will become an openchat for anyone who wants to continue chatting with developers on Thursdays. Tap for Tap would like to thank all the guests and member's who made the effort to come out. It has been an experience to say the least, and we hope to be back in the fall.
- Tap for Tap Team
The post The cost of freelance graphics, music, and code for an independent game developer Summary #AppDevChat appeared first on Mobile Ad Network Blog | Tap for Tap.
