I'm curious. As I see games like Shiness and A Hat in Time get away with a low $100,000s budget I'm curious if anyone can estimate the cost of a game I want to make. I've been designing it for a while and am almost ready to start looking for employees to hire. See the game I want to make, I want to limit it by ps1 technology and actually work on ps1 dev kits. I've researched and found a community that is dedicated to ps1 programing so I'm set there. The game is a 3d jrpg with pre rendered backgrounds and a world map. The graphical style I want to be the same as FF VII (now that's where the similarities end, I'm in love with the blocky characters and charm it adds). How much do you think it will cost for pre rendered backgrounds, music, art, programming, etc? Since my design is very specific I think it would be harder to make and cost a little more but I'm not sure. What do you guys think?
Question about budget for specific game design
As a rule of thumb, professional development (if you hire a development company) costs about $10,000 per man-month. Count the number of people, multiply by the number of months, and you get your cost.
See http://www.sloperama.com/advice/finances.htm for more info on how to write a budget.
A game budget is something you should meticulously plan. If you can save money do, but remember that saving money can often compromise quality, ensure a balance and you'll be fine, in the end if a game is well designed and created with passion you should reflect that in the end product.
A game budget is something you should meticulously plan. If you can save money do, but remember that saving money can often compromise quality, ensure a balance and you'll be fine, in the end if a game is well designed and created with passion you should reflect that in the end product.
Yes but the thing is, my game is a little harder to plan since its limited by ps1 technology. I know there are devs out there who recently made genesis and dreamcast games, so I know what I'm doing isn't too far left field. It's just something I need opinions on.
my game is a little harder to plan since its limited by ps1 technology.
I don't see how that affects the planning. Just figure in a learning curve, if that's what you're saying.
Your above post tells us little of your actual scope.
It tells us a bit about the look and feel, but not the actual features, the amount of content, etc.
How large would levels be? (this will help determine the sort of performances you need to get and what optimizations will be required).
Blocky is fine, but what's the actual resolution of your textures? the amount of bones per character? etc.
One would need a lot more nailed down before making a credible evaluation of the project.
Best guess here would be to hire a tech and an art guy first and review the docs in-depth with them and see what questions they ask, and what they end up evaluating for you.
It is paramount that you communicate your ideas clearly though.
