sved's Forum Posts

  • PeterPlatter I'm very happy to read about the gameplay lenght! I chose to make it short because that's what I prefer, (and that it would be shorter to develop) but I had no idea if people would like it or still prefer an average of 6-8 hours for their adventure game...

  • It was interesting, I'm using Firefox:

    • logo splash of your company is 3 times too long (takes about 10 sec on my side)
    • I didn't like to have to input my name to start playing
    • I thought for quite some time that I was the ship in the middle, maybe make it appear after me would help to clarify
    • I didn't know the controls, I clicked to start the game, so I assumed I was playing with mouse, took me some time to realise I have to let go the mouse to play with arrows and space
    • graphics are very cool, love them
    • I would love to have a black & white version, and maybe some old CRT screen effects ^^
    • the welcome back and input name fields have a different font than everything else, and it's not a nice one
    • I think all the icons on top and level selection should have the same kind of very thin line than the game has. And no rounds, just some polygonal circles like the ones around the middle ship
    • when I resumed playing the second time, the game recognized my name, but I can't click on any level on the level selection screen (even level 1 is locked)
    • when I finished the first level, the game showed me I completed both level 1 & 2 with 2 stars, level 3 was available
    • after finishing level 3, my mouse disappeared, cannot click the 'next' button

  • Try Construct 3

    Develop games in your browser. Powerful, performant & highly capable.

    Try Now Construct 3 users don't see these ads

  • You need to be honest with yourself, if you are not prepared to hear harsh comments about your work, maybe you shouldn't post it online.

    If you do, always be grateful for feedback, because you want more feedback. Make sure you understood the comment, ask questions on the parts you didn't get. Try not to be defensive, if they think some part of your game ***** and you disagree, let it pass. If you agree but it hurts you to hear it, let them know. Eventually explain what was your intention and tell what impact their feedback will have on your project (if any).

    Tell what you plan to do next.

  • Sketchup is easy, and they have a huge bank of assets premade by users. Not sure what's their payment terms since they got bought over, but they used to have a free evaluation version.

  • To encourage feedbacks to your game, you have to demonstrate how committed you are to its development. If you just post a link to your dropbox, you are cutting a lot of the potential feedbacks people could give.

    Game

    Describe in few words your game genre, view, mechanics and universe (e.g. a 2d side scrolling platformer featuring a plumber, on a quest to save the princess of a kingdom populated by evil mushrooms and turtles). You could also describe the scope of the game (8 worlds with about 10 levels each and some secrets ones, for an average of 10 hours of gameplay), the number of assets (types of enemies, power-ups...) or some other outstanding feature to make us feel your game is unique and interesting!

    Screenshots/Videos

    People like pictures and posts with pictures get much more comments than the ones without. Post some nice screenshots, gifs (check lhttp://www.cockos.com/licecap/), or an embedded video of your trailer and latest gameplay video. You should update these often, visuals are the main appeal of this page!

    Platform

    Tell us on where you plan to release your game, whether on pc, online portals, consoles, mobile and maybe the specs you envision. If you go with self-constrained development (CGA, 16 bits, 5 events...) you could also tell about it beforehand.

    Team

    If you didn't introduce yourself in the presentation thread (you should), and even if you did, a few words about you , your strengths and your background would help to give more accurate feedback. If you are more than one, it's a good place to give credits to the awesome people working with you. And if you are still looking for someone to fill in a position, it's also a good place to say so!

    Progress/Feedback

    It can be useful to specify what you consider to be done, what is in progress and what kind of feedback you're looking for. If you want people to comment on something specific or to ignore something that is not implemented during their playtest, you should indicate it as well.

    Test build

    The link for people to play the latest build of your game

    Here you go! Remember that this is just a template and you should modify it to suit your game. The first post of your devlog is the place people see first, so you should update often if you got any progress.

    Be open to bad critics when asking for feedback, people reply because they care!

  • If you want to check what exactly is a game copyright: this article was quite interesting: http://gbgames.com/blog/articles/indie-legal-copyright-and-trademark/what-an-indie-needs-to-know-about-copyright/

  • I've been freelancer for quite some time and I can't agree more with the article, I would also add few things:

    Whatever you do, don't start work before you get something written for the price agreed (Purchase Order). Best, don't start work unless you get a contract specifying the scopes of the job, expected results, ways to measure completion, x% downpayment and number of revisions. Also define what happens if the job is interrupted, if the job gets out of scopes, if the client doesn't pay on time. Don't write stuff you can't get behind with (for example don't threaten with legal actions if you don't have the means to do one...)

    The time when you didn't agree for the job yet is the only one when you get the upper hand. That's where you should make sure not to get screwed afterwards.

    If a client talks about trust, honesty, honor, credibility, but won't sign a brief, a purchase order and terms and conditions, avoid this client. Do a contract for friends and family. Be twice more strict on terms and conditions when working with friends and family.

  • Not sure about making this in Construct, but there was a 90s game named SimAnt that you could check out.

    You should be able to download the abandonware for free as well.

  • You mean in the right-click > align> edges > direction drop-down menu?

    A set of floating toolbars would make everything much more simple and faster to handle around. Actually tools and customizable toolbars for all functions would be much more efficient for manipulating stuff.

  • I think the whole forum is geared towards tool use rather than community feedback, or group building.

    And well, life is not easy for newcomers. Not to say that there are not lazy people out there, but try to put yourself in the shoes of a newcomer and look for something you need in the 'How do I' section, you'll get what I mean.

    I'm still a beginner with the tool and I found the manual to be a pain to read, the tutorials/template are badly labeled and difficult to scroll through when experimenting with the software. They are usually not compatible with each other, can't be pasted together or combined without making horrible problems... the exports are still obscure so testing is difficult. And if i have a specific issue, the search is giving me few hundreds results i need to browse through. There might be plugins I could use but there are so many of them that I would need to keep a notebook just to keep track of what I did install, and what do these thing do.

    So yeah, people write posts because that's the most straightforward thing to do. Maybe a FAQ directly on the beginner section of the forum could help?

    And regarding less people posting, the separation of complete games and in progress is a great add, now it would be up to everyone here to do goodwill and comment on few devlogs they like every week to propel the community forward!

  • I just finished Deathspank, and if it was becoming repetitive towards the end, the dialogue and silly quests made it quite enjoyable.

  • Most of us do play games besides creating them, feel free to share which game you are playing or have just finished, and do tell what you think about it so far!

  • Pokemon is one thing, but the theme is strong enough to be carried on many ideas:

    • A Professor Layton style where you go from people to people and solve their case through small puzzles
    • A Phoenix Wright style where you solve one big case through hints and methods
    • A tower defense that takes place inside the body, fighting virus invasions
    • A Diablo-like in the body where you use drugs as elemental attacks against sicknesses
    • A rhythm game where you need to create chemical combinations to synthesize drugs

    ...

  • Oooh replies! I didn't see these!

    rainbite Very glad you like the style! The main challenge is to have interesting things to do or discover in empty landscapes!

    philip Atkins Thanks, animations are on the way. I'm working on them when I have time, but as I am a total beginner they take LOTS of time. I need to get how Spriter works, realize my file was not properly set up, start again my character cut, redo the whole work... not easy, but getting there!

  • It would have been so much better to adapt this than the plastic skull...