作者：Mike Rose

过去几年来，好运一直对独立工作室Zeboyd Games眷顾有加。虽然工作室起初是基于Xbox Live Indie Games制作文本探险游戏，但其很快就凭借《死亡之息7：起源》而变得小有名气，这是款嘲讽传统RPG游戏的复古RPG模拟游戏。

这一成功继续延续至《邪神拯救世界》（游戏邦注：在XBLIG的另一热作），这两款作品最终通过Steam入驻PC，获得应有的辨识度。

本周Zeboyd Games推出自己首款基于知名作品的游戏《彭尼街道冒险：暗黑雨崖》第三章内容，对原作进行完整的2D Zeboyd风格改造。

彭尼街道冒险：暗黑雨崖 from pc.gamespy.com

在这一迅速成功之后，Zeboyd创始人Robert Boyd计划于2013年推出第四部，也是最后一部《彭尼街道冒险》游戏。这之后，他或继续基于新IP制作《Penny Arcade》，或着手工作室自己的作品。Boyd表示，无论如何，Zeboyd计划在第4部作品之后暂时告别回合RPG游戏，尝试不同的东西——也许是2D“塞尔达传奇”型的动作游戏。

但这里Boyd想要同大家分享工作室的快速成功秘诀。Zeboyd的独立领域支配地位计划遵循如下5点原则。

1. 避免孤军奋战

Boyd表示，“尽量寻找和你一样想要制作游戏、具备你所没有的技能的可靠伙伴。”

“作为团队成员，你能完成的东西要多很多——你不仅能够利用更多人才，还能够提高积极性，清楚把握构思的可行性。”

2. 锁定自己的优势

Boyd表示，“我很了解RPG游戏，Bill（游戏邦注：Bill Stiernberg，Zeboyd创始人）是位有才华的像素美工，所以我们的路线非常清晰——制作复古RPG游戏。”

3. 从制作若干小型项目（而非庞大而冗长的项目）入手

Boyd解释表示，“我们不是像许多著名独立开发者那样投入多年时间制作一款大型作品，相反我们通过开发若干小型游戏积累经验，建立粉丝基础及筹集资金。”

这一方法让我们这一二人组去年能够开始全职进行游戏开发，加快我们的潜在产出。

4. 瞄准大型发行商忽略的内容

Zeboyd设计师表示，“由于无法直接同大型公司进行较量，因为他们拥有的资源比我们丰富，因此要瞄准他们没有涉猎但又在我们能力范围内的内容。”

这归根结底就是Zeboyd团队的若干不同关注点。“就我们而言，这意味着着眼于有趣、快节奏、通俗但又不失深度的内容（尽管《传送门》系列非常成功，但如今有趣的游戏作品依然很少；多数RPG都是需花费很长时间方能进入‘精彩内容’的大型史诗故事；同样，如今多数RPG都包含较高的学习曲线，但若查看典型16位RPG游戏，你会发现，它们其实很容易把握）。”

5. 每款游戏都有所完善

Boyd表示，“若你查看我们迄今为止的各款作品，你会发现从《死亡之息》到《邪神拯救世界》，再到后来的《彭尼街道冒险：暗黑雨崖》，游戏得到极大完善。”

这些强化在3个地方表现得尤其突出——“玩法、故事和技术（从伪8位到早期的16位，再到中期的16位时代）。”他表示，基于首款作品的基础制作内容是扩宽视野的关键。

总之，在Boyd看来，每位独立开发者都应铭记于心的是：“找到你能够出色完成且其他开发者尚未涉猎的内容，若你的首款作品没有取得预期的成绩，也不要因此而气馁。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

5 ways to be a successful indie developer

by Mike Rose

Fortune has favored indie studio Zeboyd Games over the last couple of years. While the studio started out creating text-based adventures for Xbox Live Indie Games, it soon found small-time fame with Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, a retro parody RPG that took multiple digs at RPGs of old.

This success continued into quasi-sequel Cthulhu Saves the World, another big hit on XBLIG, before the two titles were finally brought to PC via Steam and received the full recognition they deserved.

This week Zeboyd Games released what is its first crack at a big-name franchise. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness — Episode Three takes the original, polygonal RPG franchise and gives it a complete 2D Zeboyd-style make-over.

On the back of this rapid success, Zeboyd founder Robert Boyd plans to release the fourth and final Penny Arcade Adventures game in 2013. After that he’ll either continue to work with Penny Arcade on new IPs, or crack on with the studio’s own titles. Either way, Zeboyd plans to take a break from turn-based RPGs after Episode 4, and try something different — perhaps a 2D Legend of Zelda-esque action game, hints Boyd.

For now, however, Boyd is all too eager to share with Gamasutra what he believes to be the key pillars to his studio’s quick march success streak. Zeboyd’s big plans for indie scene domination followed five key points, which he shares with us now.

1: Don’t do it alone

“Find someone who is reliable, wants to make games as much as you do, and is skilled where you are not,” begins Boyd.

“You can do so much more when working as a member of a team – not only will you have more talents to draw upon, but it also helps with motivation and getting a clearer view on the viability of your ideas.”

2: Focus on your strengths

Says Boyd, “I’m very knowledgeable about RPGs and Bill [Stiernberg, Zeboyd founder] is a talented pixel artist so our path was clear – make a retro-style RPG.”

3: Begin by working on lots of smaller games rather than a huge and lengthy project

“Rather than spend years making a magna opus like many famous indie developers have done, we would make several smaller games to gain experience, to build up a fan base, and to raise money,” explains Boyd.

This approach allowed the duo to eventually work on game development full-time last year, accelerating its potential output.

4: Focus on what the big publishers are missing

“Since we can’t compete directly against huge companies since they have far more resources than we have, figure out what they’re not doing that’s within our reach,” states the Zeboyd designer.

This came down to a few different pillars of focus for the Zeboyd team. “In our case, that meant a focus on comedy (despite the success of the Portal series, there are far too few funny games being released these days), fast-pacing (most RPGs are huge epics that take a long time to get to the “good parts”), and accessibility without sacrificing depth (again, most RPGs these days have a very high learning curve but if you look at most classic 16-bit RPGs, they were very easy to get into).”

5: Improve with each game

“If you look at our games so far, you can see drastic improvements from Breath of Death to Cthulhu Saves the World,” notes Boyd, “and later from Cthulhu Saves the World to Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.”

These enhancements are most notable in three main areas — “gameplay, story, and technology (from pseudo 8-bit to early 16-bit to mid-era 16-bit).” Building on the foundations of your first titles is key to expanding your horizons, he says.

Overall, Boyd believes that what every indie developer should keep in mind is the following: “Find something that you can do well that other game developers aren’t doing and do it. And don’t get discouraged if your first game (or first several games) isn’t the big success you were hoping for.”（Source：gamasutra）