[The J]

we've started developing an indie rpg, on LOVE engine (2D) its an original concept but its influenced from darksun and other great rpg's(tile based/turns). we are very early on development and are small team(about 5 people), question is, are we insane to even start such a thing? we are trying to incorporate dialogs, quests, items interface, npc's, world maps, which is a huge amount of work.
from most indie RPG i've seen no one really made one that has depth like commercial ones(from the reasons above) since its takes way too long for something to come out with a small team.

so i need your advice, from one point i don't want to disappoint the team, but it is also deluding them.

how should i go about it..?

[Hajo]

Five people is a rather big team already. So don't worry that you might have too little manpower.

It will need time, though, and such big teams tend to fall apart over the course of a year or two ... and big games can take several years to make.

If you can keep those 5 together, and motivated to really work on the project, you should have a very fine game in two or three years. Smaller teams have produced really respectable results.

Maybe more problematic than reaching AAA quality (which I think is not necessary to have a successful game) is the competion with the many other indie wannabe RGPs. There are so many made, and many bad ones, that players have a hard time to find the good ones in between, and you need something to stand out from the masses.

Good luck with your project :)

[RampantCoyote]

I'm going to echo what Hajo said - for an indie team, especially beginners, 5 members is pretty big and can be a challenge to manage.

I believe Jeff Vogel's full-time staff at Spiderweb Software (the oldest indie RPG shop still cranking out games, to my knowledge) is a grand total of three people... including himself.

I'd say take a good look at what the other indies have been doing (Here's a big collection o' quality, mainly commercial indie role-playing games, if you pardon the shameless plug) for comparison rather than trying to compare to AAA quality. And these are not "wannabe" indie RPGs - these are full-bore, commercial, and in some cases quite successful titles. Some of these indies have managed to go full-time with their passion.

You are absolutely right about it being a huge amount of work. If I have one piece of advice (one which I should take, myself, more frequently) to new indies, it would be this:

START SMALL.

Then get smaller. Success builds on itself - and so, unfortunately, does failure. A small success can teach you a lot and let you build upon it. I think most indies fail because they completely underestimate the task, get bogged down in mid-development, and quit. (I have something like ten completed, commercial games to my names, including some million-selling titles, over a decade-and-a-half, and I *still* suck at estimating the difficulty, risk, and time required for these things...)
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[tcaudilllg]

Definitely don't build on self-interest... ideas that a person can "prove their mettle" using a team game don't get very far. It's a catastrophic pressure on the team because all of a sudden no one on the team can concentrate on creating the game, only getting it done, and as such they get impatient and less focused on making the game enjoyable or even well made.

Money is an absolute no... if you're going to involve money in indie design at all, contract for the creation of specific items of content, then put it together yourself into a finished product.

Your best bet is to rely on a spirit of community interest and participation.

[The J]

thanks for replying guys, i hope our rpg will see the light of day.