Me and a few other developers are working on a game. We’ve never created anything before, so we though making a simulator is at least a way to start getting players interested in our games (Since they are so popular at the moment).
Even sleeping simulator had players playing…
My question is, does this sound good for a simulator type game, and if not what would make it better.
Our plan for the game is to have the basic simulator game-play. (buy, sell, upgrade and rebirth).
Features
Here is a list of all features we are currently planning for the initial release:
Click while holding a tool to gain x currency which will be traded in later,
Trading of currency (10 currency-1 = 100 currency-2),
Rebirth system,
Upgrade-able items (buying new tools),
Daily reward system,
Save player progress,
Hidden currency around the map for the player to find and collect,
Robux shop (To purchase currency and game-passes),
One map to start using the theme of the game.
Future Features
I will put a few of our future ideas down below, so if any of those need to be added in on release we can do those.
Different worlds (Some unlock at certain rebirth levels)
Quests
Weekly reward system
Limited item events
Audience
The game is going to target people who speak English on release (though we will be changing this later on). It will also support every platform except console. The overall target is going to be the players of other simulators.
Small details
I will quickly explain some of the smaller details of the game. In the shop where you purchase items, we have rebirth unlocks. So you only can buy the item if you at least have rebirth required. You can double jump (no need to explain here). All buildings that simulators usually have, (shop and sell building) include interiors to the buildings (which most modern simulators I have tried do not include) that the player has to enter in order to complete the task (selling currency or purchasing new items).
Advertising
Here’s the problem. I don’t have like 100K Robux to spend on advertising. So, how would I “compete” with ads that have a higher budget of for example 500,000-1,000,000 Robux.
Conclusion
In the end, all we are wanting to do, is make a game that players will enjoy (simulators seem to be fun to a large player base). What do you think of it so far. Please let me know so I can add/remove/tweak stuff in game. Of course all feedback will be considered while we continue to develop the game.
It’s seems like a good idea. Maybe a few odds and ends are quite weird, but that’s fine I guess.
I do have a question about daily rewards stuff…
Will the rewards be “Group Only” member type things? As when I see a simulator with daily rewards, it’s always having group only daily rewards. But it would be unique to have non group rewards!
it’s uncommon due to how group daily rewards is an easy hook for free publicity yet I’ve seen simulators implement non group daily rewards in the past.
Making a simulator wont give you a player base unless you have lot’s of money to dump into advertising and even then the players you do gain will most likely be outside of your target audience.
Before when I said there are “millions of robux being put into advertising” I did not mean every simulator, infact most will only spend around 50 to 100K in ads.
If you are looking for money to fund your latter games and have a little bit of money to invest then I would say make a simulator, set up Game Passes and Dev products and invest like 40K robux.
You mentioned different currency systems, but so far the only difference is that one is worth more than the other? Different currencies sounds interesting, but there needs to be a reason for them to be different. Can type 1 only be gained by doing quests? Do you need type 2 to buy a certain category of upgrades? Does having a lot of type 3 increase a multiplier, creating an interesting choice between saving up at your current growth rate, or immediately going for the upgrades that makes growth happen faster? Otherwise, there’s no reason for the player to care about having 10 of type 2 vs 1000 of type 1.
We have two currency’s to pay for items in game. The one you trade in for the other currency is what fills the players backpack/cargo. Though we do have another currency that is going to be hard to obtain. Currently, we are planning on making obtainable from quests and weekly rewards (and a dev product). It can be used to customize your character. This currency is still in development so it’s purpose is not final so I will look into ways to make the player want that currency. Especially since everyone here says simulators seem to be all about making money (which now confirms the reason why their so popular)…
Hello! Ethan here, recently I actually went through with my very first “real” game if you will and although it didn’t do “Amazing” I was still able to profit and build a community off of the game. So I am going to go through what I learned and hopefully it will help you out!
Developing the game
I began working on “Headbutt Simulator” wayyy back in July and although I had no idea where it was going to go I just pursued it anyways. I just wanted to release a game and get something out there. I scripted the entire thing by myself and freelanced a bunch of builders and graphic designers to help me out with the other parts. I started with absolutely no R$ so I had to invest real money into everything. I ended up dropping around $800 USD into this game’s assets. At the time I was making this I had a summer job going so I was basically dumping everything I had into this project(A MASSIVE RISK). It took around 3 months to do this by myself while working 6-hours a day 5 days a week.
My initial investment in advertising
I focused wayy too much in marketing than I did with my actual game. I was in your position with no R$ at all so I had to spend money to make money here. I ended up purchasing around $R20,000 for $200 USD. This was just enough to kick start my game, but I am sure you could invest even less if you make the game right!
Lessons I learned
When it came close to release this is where my lack of experience really showed and I screwed up a lot.
Secure your scripts
SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY Boy did my game lack it. I put around R$1000 in advertisements just to get a small player base for testing. Almost right away exploiters filled the game. My scripts were completely lacking security so these exploiters screwed up the entire leaderboards and I have no idea how to stop them or even reset my leaderboards or anything. This stressed me out the most because right when I patched one exploit another would appear. I had people in the discord complaining about hackers everywhere and constantly throwing negative comments out at me. I pushed on though and ended up securing most of the scripts and creating a auto-kick system which fixed most of the exploit
Updating and interacting with the community
Another place I screwed up was keeping the game “Alive”. I did not have as many features as your game will have on release. It was a very simple game at first. I had big plans though and I wanted to release all of those plans in updates to keep the game from dying. At the time of developing though I ended up getting caught up with other life problems which ended up halting development. When I returned it seemed my game had already lost a lot of players and the discord was not active anymore. KEEP UPDATING YOUR GAME. Don’t give up just keep going keep releasing new features. Give the players what they want, create a discord and ask them what they think you should add to the game. Just don’t go silent.
My entire release
Like I said I put around R$1000 in a few ads to get a few players playing. This worked but I did something terribly wrong with this. I kept going even though my game was not complete. People were buying the gamepasses when there wasn’t even a map yet so I decided to keep going and spend more robux on ads for an UNFINISHED game. I really wish I was just more patient and waited an extra week or 2 for the map to be finished and players could actually look at something nice. So don’t get caught up in the Robux like I did. I started this game because I wanted to create something for players to have fun in, and ended money-hungry(Im basically the Lorax). Money will come with fun.
Earnings
That was basically the how my game was created. A complete mess of mistakes I made. But I learned from every single one. Now how much did this game end up making? I invested about $1,000 USD into the game(You do not need to do this). I earned around R$709,000 by the end of this dumpster fire of a development. Which is about $2481.50 USD. So I obviously broke profit and made all my money back. Some of that still went into advertisements, I cashed out some, and I kept some. If you put the work into this game, you will make money. Just don’t do what I did and you will make even more.
Other
I highly recommend talking to QA Testers of Robloxia for testing your game. I wish I did this instead of testing it with actual players first.
The post makes no sense and it’s kinda off from what you say. At the title you say if the idea is good but as a conclusion you ask how can you advertise it. You never needed or need much robux to advertise it. I personally have a friend that spent 4k on sponsoring and resulted making 400k robux in a month and a half.
The thing is that it doesn’t neccesarily need much funds to advertise but interest of the player to the game.
Thanks! This is exactly what I needed! (Oh, I actually remember your game I think. I saw it a while ago. I never played it since I don’t play simulators.).