fixious

Just had a quick play of your Crane game. Entertaining stuff, which had me cursing many a time when I missed the cuddly bear. With luck I'll be able to get my wife addicted to this, so she stops spending all my 20ps in Brighton seafronts arcade (the only time I ever won anything on one of those machines, I got a soft toy of a decrepit old man on a toilet. To be honest, I'd been hoping for Kermit).

farflamex

I agree about the point you made regarding making it more obvious who can move and who can't. Eventually, this'll probably be done with a few related animations, though I may not have time to do it before the Newgrounds competition deadline.

I'd love to simply make the characters flash when selectable, but effects can be very temperamental when it comes to being viewed on touch devices; at one point, I accidentally changed the dices blend mode from Normal to Source, and it completely stopped all other artwork from showing up on my ipad (everything looked fine on desktop, though). It took me four hours to figure out what the problem was, which is why I'm now trying to make all effects hand drawn sprites.

The potions will be explained in the How To Play pop up when I've made it (for now you can read about them in the first entry of this thread). I'm also hoping to put in a lot more visual helpers as to what's going on, when I get the chance.

Your feedback is hugely appreciated, and I'm glad you enjoyed the artwork (I made it all using Inkpad on the ipad. Drawing with your fingers is the way forward!)

A marketing topic is a good plan, if it hasn't already been done. It will be interesting to see people's responses.

Anyway, I've got to go write some Sketches and eat some form of Potato-based substance.

Cheers!

farflamex

Typically, the one thing I forgot to mention when writing the brief 'how to play' guide at the start of this thread was how to get your characters on the board! Basically, after rolling the dice click on one of the HUD pictures at the top (the three at the top left are for the blue player, and the three red ones to the right are for the red player). You can only get one character out at a time, until you roll a six (at which point, HUD pics of available reinforcements will light up with a yellow border, and you can either get another character out or move a character already on the board).

Good idea about putting a six on the dice to draw more attention to it; its simple things like that which can so easily be overlooked. The dice was even harder to spot in the earlier version of the game, as it was half the size and exactly the same colour as the devils.

Anyway, after the update I plan for tomorrow, the next three things on the agenda will be; updated HUD pictures that actually match the characters, a How To Play guide on the menu screen, and some sort of rudimentary Village Idiot level A.I, as I'm fed up of having to play against myself, and lose all the time!

I look forward to seeing how your Frontier game develops (its a damn site more polished than mine!). I also enjoyed playing your robot game on the arcade - a good Puzzle Bolderdash!

farflamex

thanks for taking the time to check it out, and for the kind words.

I should have an update ready for tomorrow, which will include Sound Effects, a new potion power, a few updated graphics, and a new spawning mechanic that occassionally spawns more potions and enemies when they're getting low so as to keep things interesting.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of exciting new bugs to discover as well. Hurrah!

farflamex

I think the best you can do in terms of marketing is look around on the Construct 2 site, search for success stories or examine different members approaches to tackling the market.

It is an area where most people fail, simply down to the fact that the majority of us are creative types who're more interested in making fun stuff that doing that boring 'promotion' thing.

Places like Google Market and Chrome store list the amount of plays/downloads that each individual game has had, so this is a good thing to study when it comes to gageing popularity (in the case of most contruct 2 games that I've seen on both stores, this tends to be extremely low unless they're free).

Mortar Melon by thehen is well worth studying, as its received over a quarter of a million downloads over on Windows 8 http://www.scirra.com/forum/mortar-melon-now-live_topic59762.html

Although I haven't played the game (as I'm still stuck in the stone age on Windows Vista) it's clear to see from the video previews etc that there's a high level of professionalism at work.

Super Ubi Land by NotionGames is another game that's worth inspecting closely, as it's close to achieving a $5,000 kickstarter fund to help put it on the Ouja and other devices http://www.scirra.com/forum/ouya-super-ubi-land-official-thread_topic51641.html

Dungeon Buster by Wrangler is also well worth following, as although he hasn't set out any financial game plan, he's using forums like IndieDB to help promote the product he's working on and build up a nice fanbase in the meantime http://www.scirra.com/forum/dungeon-buster-wip-thread_topic56656.html

As I have little knowledge of the marketing world, what I'm hoping to do with my own game (Board Horde - http://www.scirra.com/forum/topic65322.html) is use it to test the waters, find out which sites are good to sell on and where it bombs, whether in-app advertising works or doesn't, etc. I'm purposely trying to keep it to less than ten megs so that I don't have to host the game myself and incur any costs that I really can't afford. At the end of the day, my main aim it to make a fun game and learn all I can from the experience - if I actually make money, that's an unexpected bonus.

One option for your game (especially if it's a large file size) would be to sell it on your own website using a paypal account and distributing it as an EXE using Nodewebkit (which apparently curently has some export issues when trying to close from fullscreen view), though if you take that route you will need to try and build up a fanbase and direct traffic to your site by making announcements on all the various gaming social sites.

Anyway, I hope some of this is of help. There's some good books out there on how to market your game (can't think of the titles offhand, but I'll mention them when I remember) which are also worth studying.

Best of luck on your quest!

—

tested on internet explorer, and Chrome and it works fine for me (I seem to recall having also tested on my Ipad 3 at some point, and it worked well with the touch based controls).

But if, as Mineet has mentioned, the game also isn't working for some people, that might explain the one star rating (also it can come down to personal taste. If someone played your game and wasn't in the right mood, or were looking for something with a crazy amount of depth, then this could also lead to a bad rating).

I think suggesting that other members are downrating games to get theirs to go higher in the ratings is unlikely, though not impossible (there are, after all, unscrupulous folk in all fields of life). Don't forget that members of the general public can also play these games, and are less likely to be respectful of the amount of time that goes into creating them. It's possible that someone simply played it and didn't like it (I enjoyed it, but didn't find enough depth to keep me interested as I'm not a 'high score' fanatic. Whereas those people who enjoy trying to beat the latest score will no doubt enjoy it immensely)

Anyway, try not to get downhearted - pick yourself up, and create something even more awesome.

• Dave

farflamex

This is a game that I will continue to come back to and test many more times, as there's a lot more to it than first meets the eye.

I like all the extra options you've included, such as a tutorial, ability to adjust graphics, buttons to see your weapons deck etc. It's very professionally executed, and you've clearly put a lot of time and attention into it.

I tried playing as the rebels, and found the combat a bit more interesting (it was nice to see missiles flying at me from all angles). I think I've managed to put my finger on what's bothering me about the ship to ship combat, though; it's the fact that a lot of the time the beautifully rendered planets in the background are giving the false impression that you're travelling really, really slowly (since they edge across the screen a fraction of a millimetre at a time) - it's only when there's lots of moving objects on the screen (other ships, asteroids etc) that you start to get more of a feel for the speed your craft is going.

Anyway, jolly nice work, and I look forward to having a much longer playtest when I get the opportunity.

As for Monetising, you could try the Ads route and display on Kongregate, Newgrounds etc, upload to the Windows 8 app store, or if you do a hugely reduced version, perhaps give Android and IOS a try (though these can be problematic, as just one simple effect can be enough to throw your framerate out the window).

Keep up the good work,

• Dave

Looks like being a very ambitious project. The graphics look rather marvellous, especially with all the effects added (though there's a helluva lot of objects on screen at once, which may cause some frame rate drops).

The docking with space stations, trading, mining etc are all nice features, and I liked the alert that you get when enemy ships have spotted you.

I did find the actual combat a bit tiresome, as it basically seemed to consist of me staying in one place whilst the enemy ship cirled me, and firing endlessly at him for ages and ages until the little rascal finally died.

It might work better if you perhaps try to scale the enemy difficulty depending on what level the player is (so if they're just starting out, some of the first enemies they encounter might explode quicker, but as they progress things get more challenging as their foes get tougher to kill)

I would also recommend changing the title of the game, as Frontier was the name of the sequel to Elite. Although that's where you probably got your inspiration, your game deserves to have its own unique individuality.

Anyway, I'll give your game a bit more of a test soon, as I love space flight trader/combat games and this has lots of potential. There's definitely a market for this sort of thing, especially with the new Elite game having achieved funding on Kickstarter, and AJTilley's Spatial Flux C2 kickstarter also having been successful.

best of luck with everything!

—

I like your plan to make as many 100 event maximum games as you can - using the free version restriction as an asset rather than an obstacle.   The small size will mean your less likely to Feature Creep, and will no doubt stick to the essentials (a good example of what you can achieve in under 100 events is Kyatics asteroid game).

I'm fortunate enough to have purchased the personal edition (hurrah for Xmas money!) so I have a lot more events to play with, and will therefore just be trying to create one nicely polished game (Board Horde, for which the W.I.P can be examined here: http://www.scirra.com/forum/topic65322.html)

As its my first game, I'm gradually discovering the pitfalls of designing for mobile devices as I go (avoid effects, check sound works in all browsers, and expect massive frame rate variations between types of devices) but its certainly a fun challenge and its good to have a deadline to work towards.

Anyway, keep sharing any obstacles that you come across whilst making your game and I'll be sure to do the same.

Nice clean graphics, and a simple and fun game. It has inspired me, and I shall now spend the rest of my weekend attempting to catch fish with a plunger.

harrio

I'm hoping to have some sort of 'puff of smoke' effect when enemies and potions materialise, to draw attention to them. Making them glow is also a mighty fine suggestion.

Kuso

I have got plans to add a special 'event' system once I've got everything else done, which will be like a short Choose Your Own Adventure style scenario. Depending on the decisions you make, it may influence whether the character gets a special power, gets moved forward, dies etc.

I'm also hoping to add a Special Skill that's specific to each character (eg, the Necromancer will be able to raise the dead, and the Assassin will be able to Backstab enemies).

Oh yes, and Troll Bridge shortcuts (kinda like the snake in Snakes and Ladders. Except the troll might eat you).

Before all that, I must sort out Sfx and visuals. I added lots of sounds today, and now have the joyous task of figuring out how to make them run in all browsers, and stop the game visuals from stuttering. Ah well, its all part of the merriment!

Cheers for your comments, chaps. Much obliged!

Kuso

Lots of great ideas! The menu certainly needs a lot more adding to it as its a bit bare at the moment. A 'Re-enforcement Available' statement is a good suggestion, so thanks for that.