Hello! I'm looking to find a long-term partner/co-founder to create games with. This is my second post. The feedback I got helped me gain more clarity on what matters to me most and I've refined the post further.
The Goal
My goal is to build a business, not just make games. I happened to choose the field of gamedev to do that in, because it strikes a good balance between my interests and my skills. So I wanted to leverage that.
I look at gamedev more as a science. If I make a game that nobody's interested in, that tells me I still don't understand some important pieces of what makes a good game. Or my execution is lagging behind my understanding and I'm just unable to deliver on the plan.
The point is there are always reasons for the outcome and I'm interested in understanding what those reasons are. Improving on them going forward and releasing a better product. Rinse and repeat the cycle.
What I am really allergic to is attitudes along the lines of "it's mostly luck", "marketing is impossible without a huge budget", "people don't appreciate good games anymore".
I've done a lot of games market research and it's one of the things I love to do. There are plenty of people out there who make a very comfortable living from games who have no social media of any kind, so you never hear about them. But they consistently produce games that do well. That's not luck. They know something we don't. They think differently than we do. It's a skill and knowledge gap that we need to overcome in order to get there.
The Strategy
I see a gap in the market that I like to call "small multiplayer co-op/pvp games". It's games like Peak, Tricky Towers, Nidhogg, Stick Fight, Bopl and so many others.
AAA studios are not interested in small multiplayer games. They make Overwatch, they make League of Legends. They're not gonna make the next Tricky Towers. There's just not enough money in it for them.
Most indies are not interested in multiplayer games because they are notoriously hard to get right. There's a lot more technical knowledge that is required in making a truly playable multiplayer game that is ready to ship.
I specialize in responsive fast-paced multiplayer using rollback netcode. It's what many fighting games use, such as Tekken. Overwatch uses it. I'm sure League of Legends uses some version of it.
My strategy is to stay in this "small multiplayer game" space and keep compounding my codebase, expertise and knowledge. Making each game significantly better than the last, precisely because each game builds upon the lessons learned from the previous title. Instead of making completely unrelated random game ideas each time.
Who I'm looking for
I'm looking for one person and only one. To make a flexible fast-moving duo that shares in the business as equal partners, 50/50. I'm really interested in someone with art skills, because programmer + artist is the strongest combination. However if you really resonate with my goals, with my strategy, then I want to hear from you regardless.
What I've been doing
At the moment I'm working on a multiplayer physics based game inspired by the movement mechanic from the game "Getting Over It".
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fyuCmIkeL6JUSLn6l3-tFxSIwnmkIHmf/view
Previous examples:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2484140/Wicked_Brawler/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3566790/Too_Many_To_Kill/
https://papacashew.itch.io/ (gamejam submissions)