期待中的独立游戏：雕文任务的故事

您可以为使用免费版Unity制作的游戏付费吗？ 是。 是！ 当然，靠游戏赚钱总是很难的。 但是，有了Unity，您就可以开始自己的独立项目而无需花很多钱。 这是一对夫妇使用Unity在最紧迫的期限内制作手机游戏的故事。 他们不是百万富翁，但他们自己创造了一些东西，赚了足够的钱来继续创造。 (Can you charge for a game you made with the free version of Unity? Yes. YES! Making money off games is always hard, of course. But with Unity, you can get your independent project started without breaking the bank. Here’s a story of a couple who used Unity to make a mobile game to the tightest of deadlines. They’re not millionaires, but they made something of their own and earned enough to keep creating.)

Both worked in the British game industry when they met. Leanne Bayley was a producer in a studio in Plymouth and Alex Trowers designed games in Brighton. In 2013, she left her job to move in with him. Soon afterwards, Leanne got pregnant and couldn’t find another job. He taught her the basics of Unity, and they started developing a game idea. Then he got fired from his job.

他们俩见面时都在英国游戏行业工作。 Leanne Bayley是普利茅斯一家工作室的制片人， Alex Trowers在布莱顿设计了游戏。 2013年，她离开工作岗位与他同住。 此后不久，Leanne怀孕了，找不到其他工作。 他教了她Unity的基础知识，并且他们开始开发游戏构想。 然后他被解雇了。

“Instead of doing the sensible thing and getting another job, we went indie. We believed in our game! It was really fun. Plus, there weren’t that many jobs around at that time of year. How hard can it be to finish the game before the baby arrives?” Leanne remembers.

“我们没有做明智的事情，而是找到了另一份工作，而是独立经营。 我们相信我们的游戏！ 真的很有趣。 另外，一年的那个时候没有那么多工作。 在婴儿到来之前完成游戏有多困难？” Leanne记得。

If you’ve ever worked on a software development project, you know that the timeframe you originally estimated for delivering the complete product is often way shorter than the actual length of the project, because unforeseen issues cause delays.

如果您曾经从事过软件开发项目，那么您就会知道，最初估计交付完整产品的时间通常比项目的实际时间短得多，因为无法预料的问题会导致延迟。

But babies don’t wait. A deadline you cannot move forced the dynamic duo into making design decisions early, keeping their project concise and leaving “nice to have” features out. It didn’t hurt that Leanne has been a project manager before and Alex has been a designer since “back in the days when you had to do a little bit of everything yourself, including sound.” At one of his old jobs, he used Unity to turn himself into a one man prototyping team.

但是婴儿不等。 您无法移动的截止日期迫使动态二人组尽早做出设计决策，使他们的项目保持简洁，并保留了“不错的功能”。 Leanne之前曾担任项目经理，而Alex曾担任设计师，这对他来说并没有什么害处，因为“在过去，您必须自己做一点点的事情，包括声音。” 在他的一项旧工作中，他使用Unity将自己变成了一个单人原型开发团队。

“I’m not a very good coder, it all just used to be a black box to me. But Glyph Quest is an old school sprite-based 2D game. All the fancy Unity Pro optimization features weren’t necessary. And well, I don’t know how to use them anyway,” he says.

“我不是一个很好的编码器，这对我来说只是一个黑匣子。 但是Glyph Quest是一款基于老派精灵的2D游戏。 并非所有花哨的Unity Pro优化功能都是必需的。 而且，我还是不知道如何使用它们，”他说。

Their advice for teams making their first project is clear: “Ambition is your enemy! You might want to make a massive multiplayer thing, but it’s better to start with something small.”

他们对团队进行第一个项目的建议很明确：“野心是你的敌人！ 您可能想制作大型的多人游戏，但最好先从小的内容开始。”

With Leanne drawing sprites and Alex working in the Unity Editor, things were progressing at a steady pace. A week before the baby was due, in January 2014, the game was ready to be submitted to the App Store. After some initial hiccups, it got approved and went out to the world.

在Leanne绘制精灵和Alex在Unity Editor中工作的情况下，事情正在稳步发展。 婴儿出生的前一周，即2014年1月，该游戏已准备好提交给App Store。 经过最初的打ic之后，它获得了批准并走向了世界。

Glyph Quest got featured in the British App Store and named Game of the Week by Touch Arcade. About 200,000 people have downloaded it so far. “We’re really proud of our community. It’s not really big, but very loud and positive. After the initial push, it got a bit harder to discover the game, but those who do, love it!”

Glyph Quest在英国的App Store中成为特色， 并被Touch Arcade评为“每周游戏” 。 到目前为止，大约有20万人下载了它。 “我们为社区感到自豪。 它不是很大，但是非常响亮而积极。 经过最初的推动，发现这款游戏变得有些困难，但是那些喜欢的人会喜欢它！”

The game monetizes like good old shareware: you get some levels for free and then you can buy the rest of the game. A full 10% of users did so, which is amazingly high for a mobile game nowadays. This was definitely a good start for the team and allowed them the financial independence to continue their work. But it was still a rather limited budget for producing the sequel they had planned.

该游戏像不错的旧共享软件一样可以货币化：您可以免费获得一些关卡，然后可以购买游戏的其余部分。 整整10％的用户这样做了，对于当今的手机游戏而言，这是惊人的高。 对于团队来说，这绝对是一个良好的开端，并且使他们在财务上可以独立继续工作。 但是，制作他们计划的续集仍然是相当有限的预算。

Working on the game while having the newest family member around is tough. “Sometimes, you just look at how cute she is and then you wonder where the whole day went,” says Alex. Working on Super Glyph Quest meant crunching hard on the little amount of sleep that new parents can get. “She’s our biggest distraction and biggest motivation at the same time. We have to aim to be financially sustainable.”

在与最新的家庭成员在一起的同时进行游戏非常困难。 “有时候，您只是看着她有多可爱，然后想知道整天去了哪里，” Alex说。 在Super Glyph Quest上工作意味着要努力解决新父母可以获得的少量睡眠。 “她同时是我们最大的干扰和最大的动力。 我们必须以财务可持续为目标。”

The game ended up releasing at the end of October, when many publishers plan big updates and new releases before Halloween. It’s also straight up premium and unfortunately hasn’t done so well as the original. It has way more content, building on the original’s match three to cast spells gameplay with a great story and some pretty interesting strategic elements. But that hasn’t been enough to attract players willing to pay up front.

该游戏最终于10月底发布，当时许多发行商都计划在万圣节前进行重大更新和新发行。 它也提高了溢价，但不幸的是，效果不如原始产品。 它具有更多的内容，可以在原著的第3场比赛中获得丰富的故事和一些非常有趣的战略元素，从而施展法术。 但是，这还不足以吸引愿意提前付费的玩家。

“In the Unity Brighton community, nobody’s really complaining about how hard it is to make games. We just always talk about issues with publishers and how hard it is to monetize games,” says Alex.

“在Unity Brighton社区中，没有人真正抱怨制作游戏有多难。 我们只是一直在谈论发行商的问题，以及通过游戏获利的难度。” Alex说。

We hope that Unity’s new focus on services will help teams like this one with the business part of game development. In the meantime, they’re working on updates, new projects, localization and other adventures. And they don’t plan on buying Unity licenses any time soon.

我们希望Unity对服务的新关注将帮助像这样的团队在游戏开发的业务方面发挥作用。 同时，他们正在进行更新，新项目，本地化和其他冒险活动。 而且他们不打算很快购买Unity许可证。

“We’re big fans of Unity, this whole endeavour wouldn’t be possible without it. It’s awesome that it’s free, since we don’t have any spare money in our monthly budget. Nappies are really expensive! Plus, we just never needed Unity Pro features.”

“我们是Unity的忠实拥护者，没有它，就不可能进行整个努力。 它是免费的，这太棒了，因为我们的每月预算中没有多余的钱。 尿布真的很贵！ 另外，我们只是不需要Unity Pro功能。”

Anyone can publish a game with the free version of Unity, our only restriction is that you need to buy Unity Pro after you’ve reached $100,000 in revenue.

任何人都可以使用免费版本的Unity发行游戏，我们的唯一限制是您必须在达到10万美元的收入后购买Unity Pro。

Super Glyph Quest is out on the App Store. It’s seriously a good game, ideal for killing time during the holidays. So go buy it.

Super Glyph Quest已在App Store上架 。 这是一款非常不错的游戏，非常适合在假期中消磨时间。 所以去买吧。

翻译自: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/12/17/indie-while-expecting-the-story-of-glyph-quest/