09-13-2020, 05:06 AM
Hi there!
First of all, this project is amazing! Your conception of Mario's world is interesting and detailed. Your story brings together elements of the Mario universe in clever ways, and innovates upon them in ways that feel natural. I particularly appreciate your moments of compassion with the Broodals and Charlie Shroobson. It's also impressive that you've worked persistently at this for more than three and a half months. I would altogether very much enjoy playing the game than you have planned out.
That being said, game development is hard. Learning game development is even harder. Nintendo has whole teams of specialized professionals working on each aspect of their games, and they still take months and years to develop. So creating a game to fit this colossus of a story, especially with no prior experience, is going to take an extremely long time. As in, you are likely to sooner have children than to have this game completed.
So I'd like to ask you this: How committed are you to this story becoming a game, specifically? It's obvious that you've worked very hard on it already, and it would be a tragedy to see it go nowhere. But a story has value in itself, and I think you should consider some less involved mediums to bring it to life in. I could see this being realized as a webcomic, as a sprite animation a la Super Mario Bros Z, heck, even as a visual novel. You strike me as a story guy much more than a gamedev guy, and there are perfectly valid ways to showcase your video game story apart from making a full video game. You've got options, and some of those options align much better with your skillset than others.
But if you're fully committed to your current line of action, I understand. Scaling back your ambitions, throwing away ideas you like is never a fun thing to do, and can feel like a waste of time. (I would know, I'm terribly stubborn about it.) You may be able to pull this thing off eventually. You've got a good deal done already, you've got clear goals, and you seem incredibly well-focused. If you can put a good team together your odds'll be even higher. But it's always a race. It's a race between your progress on completing the project and your restlessness to move on to something new and more interesting. And however slowly the latter may move for you, I just know that the former has a really long way to go. So consider your options, and continue to consider your options as you go along. If you'd like to talk about this whole thing further, I'd be happy to DM with you.
(Oh, and a little side note: contacting Nintendo in any way is probably not a wise idea. They're not as anti-fangame as they're often made out to be, but the relationship seems to go that they tolerate us so long as they don't have to acknowledge our existence and we don't start treading on their profits. We're way less likely to get a Sonic Mania situation than with SEGA.)
First of all, this project is amazing! Your conception of Mario's world is interesting and detailed. Your story brings together elements of the Mario universe in clever ways, and innovates upon them in ways that feel natural. I particularly appreciate your moments of compassion with the Broodals and Charlie Shroobson. It's also impressive that you've worked persistently at this for more than three and a half months. I would altogether very much enjoy playing the game than you have planned out.
That being said, game development is hard. Learning game development is even harder. Nintendo has whole teams of specialized professionals working on each aspect of their games, and they still take months and years to develop. So creating a game to fit this colossus of a story, especially with no prior experience, is going to take an extremely long time. As in, you are likely to sooner have children than to have this game completed.
So I'd like to ask you this: How committed are you to this story becoming a game, specifically? It's obvious that you've worked very hard on it already, and it would be a tragedy to see it go nowhere. But a story has value in itself, and I think you should consider some less involved mediums to bring it to life in. I could see this being realized as a webcomic, as a sprite animation a la Super Mario Bros Z, heck, even as a visual novel. You strike me as a story guy much more than a gamedev guy, and there are perfectly valid ways to showcase your video game story apart from making a full video game. You've got options, and some of those options align much better with your skillset than others.
But if you're fully committed to your current line of action, I understand. Scaling back your ambitions, throwing away ideas you like is never a fun thing to do, and can feel like a waste of time. (I would know, I'm terribly stubborn about it.) You may be able to pull this thing off eventually. You've got a good deal done already, you've got clear goals, and you seem incredibly well-focused. If you can put a good team together your odds'll be even higher. But it's always a race. It's a race between your progress on completing the project and your restlessness to move on to something new and more interesting. And however slowly the latter may move for you, I just know that the former has a really long way to go. So consider your options, and continue to consider your options as you go along. If you'd like to talk about this whole thing further, I'd be happy to DM with you.
(Oh, and a little side note: contacting Nintendo in any way is probably not a wise idea. They're not as anti-fangame as they're often made out to be, but the relationship seems to go that they tolerate us so long as they don't have to acknowledge our existence and we don't start treading on their profits. We're way less likely to get a Sonic Mania situation than with SEGA.)