I wouldn't say that you should be depressed about it. I worked on a game for about 7 months (It's a 9 month project). I made all the graphics for the characters and animations, and like 70% of the soundtrack. My two brothers programmed and made levels for it. We made a demo just to get a taste of how it would be received, and a lot of the responses in general were 50% neutral, 30% negative, and 20% positive.

Now, as the developer of the game, am I depressed? I think my feeling was more like "Aw man, oh well let's see what I can learn from this". I learned that retro 3D graphics are no longer a good thing, people will judge a book by it's cover, and judge whether the game is good or not before they download it. You shouldn't expect players to have the patience to figure things out, you need to cleverly guise instructions in the form of a basic level.

It was the first game to put our name out there. And as the first game, we are just happy it's almost done so that we can make something better right afterwards. You just gota keep going and making them better and better, and then if you finally make a good one, hopefully people will try the older games you made before you had a popular one. And then it will be appreciated then. That's how I see it. I'm not depressed, and I don't think you should. Rather, just be happy that you made a game and be proud of it. Make a better one and try to publicize it better. And for the love of god, don't make games for money- Make them because you want to let people experience an idea you thought would be fun.

For anyone that cares, the game I am working on, and almost done with, it's name is "Spheroid" and you can find it in the "indie project" forum area of gamedev.net here:
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/649361-spheroid/

Keep at it man- It's really unrealistic to expect for the first game to be successful anyway. lol

This is basically my greatest fear.

Potatoes are for eating, not for being.

Ok lols rejected , now serious

For me it doesn't matter if you are a starter or not, don't do something that has been done lots of times before

Orymus3

Your game needs better artwork, and effects, it feels very old and simple. And I can't see anything new.

SUGGESTION: Add force, momentum, collision physics and make that space fleet more personal by being more physically controllable, add two mouse support: with one mouse you controll the missiles trajectory and with the other the space ship movements, so you will have to move to evade the missiles that are being controlled by the enemy following you and viceversa, then as you progress the speed of the missiles and the fleet increase. So it will be no more strategy...I don't like strategy games.

Shade

That game is a metroid with starfox fusion, it has story, animations, models, ai, explosions effects... those takes time to do and the game doen't show something revolutionary in any of those, I will not want to do something that takes time and isn't new.

SUGGESTION: Buy an oculus rift give the game the support, get high, play the game, add to game the visions that you get

DecadeDesign

Insufficient gameplay, can't say something

SUGGESTION: show some gameplay

So for the exact reasons that you did not find our games enjoyable is probably the same mindset that people did not find your game enjoyable or bother to try it. They either didn't like the type of game you made, didn't like the graphics, or thought it was too simple, not engaging, etc. And the same way you can very casually label off and give our games a low score is probably the same type of mindset other people had when playing your game as well. The same way you have no idea how much effort, design thought, and time we had to muster in order to make these small projects, the players don't know (or really care either) how much effort you put into making your game. All they see is the final product and they "are" comparing them to the "best" indie games out there. If you fall short in one category or another, then your game is not worth playing. It's a harsh world for indie game developers. No one care's about your idea, and unless you can make it look and feel like something fun, no one cares how original, or how hard it must have been to make it.

It's hard, but there really must be a balance between, "I want to make my own idea my way" and "but will people like it if I do it that way?". Like I said, don't let yourself get down. Refine your game, OR in my opinion, just make a better one-

I don't like those kinds of games, you should improve the look of it. SCORE:6/10

The heck?

Wait I have not released my game yet, I am just preparing myself mentally, still don't want to show nothing about it, and just wanted to know about other people that have spent same time as me and alone in a game

My last comment was just for the lols, take it lightly

My last comment was just for the lols, take it lightly

Sorry I didn't saw the "sarcastic panel", I was wondering : "WTF OP, why so un-construcive!?" :)

But well, I didn't yet release (nor finish) my game, so I'm not yet depressed, but well, as Thomas Wayne said : "Why do we fall? It's to better get up." And as my aunt Susie also said : "Tu reprendras bien un peu de patates!" Which mean basicaly : "Potatoes!"

"Tu reprendras bien un peu de patates!"

Je n'aurais jamais pensé lire un jour quelque chose d'aussi insensé ;)

Not everything that glitters is gold, my friend. I remember when I was twelve or thirteen, I got very much into freeware indie games. I played half of the library on this one site (I can't recall its name, but it had a green layout that was pretty cool) and some of them stuck with me all these (eight) years later. There was a game featuring a toggleable number of AI enemies, allies and teams, where you'd play as a vehicle and attempt to either destroy all of the enemy vehicles or capture a flag. The graphics weren't very complicated (top-down 2D, basic tiles), the gameplay was simple, but the open endedness, the physics, and the tight gunplay combined with its differentiated classes stuck with me.

The point I'm trying to make is that even if your game is not popular, even if it does only have eight downloads on iTunes, some young buck might play it and love it immensely, making him happy as a clam, and remembering it warmly for years. If that doesn't motivate you to publish your game then go get a business degree, you heartless bastard.

I worked a lot too to make games, but so far, I failed miserably.

Here is a demo of my latest one:

http://creatures-of-gaia.com/demo

...but I really have some self confidence troubles. After all, it's not the first game I made and so far I only lost money with them.

I actually even quitted my job to try to make a living with games, but so far it has been 8 month without income and a career break.

It'll be the last game I make, I'm already planning to stop and look for a normal job, starting from scratch, not in games anymore. I have to pay my bills!

It hasn't really been a wonderful experience, more the opposite. There is simply no room for "average" games. If you don't reach top ratings, nobody will even look at it after a few days. Like somebody previously pointed out, with hundreds of new games per day on the apple store, your game has to be great and to be lucky enough to get noticed. It's much more likely that what you spent a year working hard on will be forgotten forever in ocean of "average" games nobody cares about. That's the hard reality of making games. It's an extremely competitive and ungrateful business. Or at least, that's how I experience it. Somehow, people seem to only see the top-100 successful games, without noticing the huge ocean of unsuccessful games behind. I don't know of any field with such high competition and so many studios closing and emerging.