I'm an indie game developer - is this worth its cost?

[Down with Orrix]

Preferably i'd like the opinion of anyone whos used this to follow a project all the way through from start to finish (more relevant and experienced to my question) but i'll take anyones comments.

As an indie developer, things are costly, everything is so costly. i have two projects im planning and im the kind of person who could really use this kind of planning, to manage my characters and all the items that come up in the game, i'm the story writer, artist and programmer for my projects at this point and time (i have a guy for sound and music, my falling down point).

so to organise the designs, to create branching dialogue, to get everything together in one collective easy to use, easy to follow through with place, is this program worth it for the 100 dollars investment? (both my projects have a heavy story and character focus, im not planning call of duty or anything that disregards story)

100 dollars is nothing in the end for creating games, everything is costly, but, i want my money to be best spent on things that are worth it

thank you for the info!

[Vendrium]

Personally - I think so yes.
I'm just breaking into the indie scene myself and never really had any doubt about purchasing Articy: Draft and I never looked back either.

I might not like their licensing model very much - but personally I think the amount of planning you can do with this software for various projects in the years to come - outweighs the "lousy" 100 dollars you pay.

In fact - I'm starting to wonder why everyone is complaining about the price, because it is pretty much on-par with other game design software (even though you cannot use this software to actually build your game) - but software packages such as Unity / UDK or Construct2 have very similar prices.

I think what you already mentioned "getting everything together" is a key term for Articy.
Once you get the hang of the program you realize that pretty much everything is connected.

You can even go as far as inserting game assets (music / sound / concept art / etc) directly into the program and connect it to levels, actors, etc.

If I were you - I'd get it =)

[Down with Orrix]

If i had a better flow of money, i would truly not be so miserly about buying a 100 dollar program when i know the prices of other things, but the prices of the other things is why im being so careful with the little money i have haha.

Seeing as getting everything together is the key part of it, thats exactly what i think is going to get a purchase from me very soon in future. Thanks for the answer my friend.

[Donoghu]

To answer that question, there are some questions you need to ask yourself :

#1 ==== Are you currently in a team? Yes/No ====

#2 ==== Based on your answer at #1 ====

If you answered "Yes", is your team member located in the same room/environnement? Yes/No

If you answered "No", will you work alone on your project or with people close to your location in the futur? Yes/No

#3 ==== Based on your answer at #2 ====

If you answered "Yes", do your partners all have access to a single computer without interfering with someone else work? Yes/No

If you answered "No", do your team have a budget of at least 849 € (while 30% is off) for one user and 99 € per additionnal user? Yes/No

#4 ==== Based on your answer at #3 ====

If you answered "Yes", are you the kind of person who like to plan and make a structure in a digital structure when working on a long term project? Yes/No

If you answered "No", do you have access to any kind of funding that could cover the base cost of 849 € (with the 30% off) with an additionnal 99 € per additionnal member in the team? Yes/No

#5 ==== Based on your answer at #4 ====

If you answered "Yes", you could have some good use of this software and it will come in handy to plan, manage and design your game. Throught brainstorming, managing the informations about the items, monsters, traps, areas, scripts and whatever you might need in your project, this software is mostly like a billboard where you can store the informations in case you forgot something or wish to revise the information related to your game. (As mentionned earlier, it's usefull for movie or even books too. Could even work for web comic! As long as you need to plan, manage and maybe discuss the content before making it.)

If you answered "No", you should avoid paying for this kind of software. The Steam version is limited to a single desktop view. That's the reason why I said that, if you're part of a team that is living in unreachable places around the globe, you will need to pay 849 € (with the 30% off) per teamates who will have to change things in the "billboard" (so could be just one) and 99 € per teamates who only need to access the informations (It's a read-only access).

[Kill0byte]

I would definitely say A:D is worth buying. It's probably the most in-depth organizational tool I've ever come across, and although you could probably make do with some cheaper or even free programs, one of the things that sells me on A:D is the interface. Everything looks slick and polished, and once you learn how to use the software you can basically do anything with it short of actually building the game itself, although your proect data can be imported directly into your game thanks to the A:D API as well as it's export options.

[SarahAnn]

No, there are many free alternatives out there such as yEd or Chat Mapper.

[Syrsly]

There are also many Linux distros which make great virtualbox environments for planning projects. The Ubuntu distro includes a desktop widget that lets you make tons of sticky notes that can use HTML mark-up to link between notes. I forget what that program is called, but it is great for writers. I have yet to find something similar to it that I actually like that is also free, so I highly recommend it if you can find the package.