Dave Hailwood's Recent Forum Activity

  • Hello folks,

    for anyone who's interested in comics, I just wanted to mention that I have a strip scheduled to appear in SPOD - the Oddities From Space comic anthology which is currently on Kickstarter.

    The Kickstarter only has 9 days left to go, and is over half way towards its target. It contains the work of 43 comics creators, including Jeff Mccomsey, Monty Nero and Neil Gibson, and is 130 colour pages.

    So please give it a look at the following Kickstarter link if you get the chance. And if you don't have any pennies to spare then spread the word.

    Thanks for your time,

    • Dave

    Spod Kickstarter

    <img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7299/9368353473_5f6c69561d_o.jpg" border="0">

  • Blacksmith

    Always a pleasure!

    Some more info which might be of use: After having received 400 plays in the first weekend on Kongregate (which are trailing off now, and I expect my game will soon sink into obscurity due to its low rating) I have earnt 40 cents (once Kongregate has taken its share). Doing a quick bit of maths, this suggests that all games launched on Kongregate would need to get around 25,000 plays before the creator is actually paid anything (based on the rough estimate of $1 per 1,000 plays, a 35% profit share if a score api is added, and the fact that Kongregate only pay the creator once $25 revenue has been reached). There are also bonuses that you can earn, but your game has to do extremely well before making these.

    I will continue exploring revenue options with Board Horde and posting my findings (I'm not expecting to make money from the game, just learn the best approach to the market). What I might do at some point is put an advert in the main game itself rather than just on the start menu (something I'd hoped to avoid doing, but since it's in the name of research, what the heck?) and see if a persistent ad raises the revenue, or lowers the play figures.

  • nutmix

    I usually use Audacity (free music program) to do my audio conversion, as I seem to recall it being mentioned somewhere that C2 won't convert if you're using Windows XP/Vista. So you could try converting the MP3's in Audacity (I think audacity requires an plug-in to handle the conversion) into both M4a and Ogg, then importing them into C2.

  • I finally got Board Horde up and running on Kongregate. It's taken me several weeks of testing and tweaking, so I thought it might be useful to share some tips (though my method might not work for everyone, or cause unforeseen side effects such as blindness or Cranial Explosions).

    Firstly, getting a game to work on Kongregate isn't too much of a challenge unless you want to add in their score Api, or host the game on a different site and link to it in an iframe (like I ended up doing). I tried the 'hosting on Dropbox' method, but found that for some reason the Kongregate score api would only work once (or when the cache was cleared) which would've annoyed any players who came back for seconds. So I decided to try linking to the version on clay.io. I achieved this by putting the iframe URL on Kongregate as 'http://boardhorde.clay.io/index.html'. Of course, the problem with linking to Clay was I got all the ads that came with it (you can disable these on Clay from appearing on external sites, but I still wanted them to appear on all external sites other than Kongregate where ads are forbidden). In the end I came up with the following method:

    Make a global variable named 'Kongregate' and set it to 0.

    Add the Browser object.

    Use the system 'regex' condition (i think thats what its called) to search for the word 'kongregate' in the browser.url, and if it finds it use an action to set the Kongregate variable to 1. Then use that variable to turn off/on the Kongregate specific parts of your project (such as ad visibility, Kongregate scores and clay.io achievements)

    If anyone needs this explaining more clearly at some point then let me know. I don't have my desktop on for reference at the moment, so I'm blabbering all this from memory.

    Regarding the Kongregate score Api; sometimes this may not show up instantly, though it will show up in your game before you hit the publish button. I added the Kongregate_shell from Cangame's Kongregate tutorial to the main export folder (not sure if this is still needed with the Export to Kongregate option in c2, but it did seem to bring my scoreboard to life), ensured the 'show up in Leaderboard' option was ticked on Kongregate and checked the Kongregate.api script was in the index file (which is automatically added if you use the export to Kongregate option, which I didn't as I was exporting to Chrome as that's what Clay.io ask for). I also added a link to the shell in Kongregates 'callback Api' box. My link was: boardhorde.clay.io/kongregate_shell

    It can help if you do two test scores (they can always be disabled when you're done with them, by unchecking the 'show in Leaderboard' option) so that once they show up in the menu on the right side of the screen you'll be able to refresh the scores by switching between them. It's also a good idea to instantly add a score of zero when the game begins, so you can check its all working. Also if you use a Kongregate Shout Box Message from c2's Kongregate object and get it to pop up at the start of the game, then you'll know everything's working (as the shout box only seems to show when the score api's working, if you have one added). Just remember to use 'trigger once' on the shout box otherwise it will refuse to close.

    Anyway, I hope my findings are of use to someone (you can probably also link to a game hosted on Newgrounds, just make sure you use their mobile link (i think it has something like 'ungrounded' in the url) or you'll get parts of the website that you don't want showing. There's probably a few vital things that I've neglected to mention, so if you're interested in trying any of this out and need more details just let me know.

    Right, time I started making something new I reckon!

  • Huzzah! I've finally managed to upload Board Horde to Kongregate:

    http://www.kongregate.com/games/davehailwood/board-horde

    It's been bit of a challenge getting the score api to work and to make ads not show up on Kongregate whilst linking from an external site, but I got there in the end! Works best on Chrome and Firefox, and if you fancy a bit of fantasy board game carnage then please give it a try.

    cheers,

    • Dave
  • I've been getting the same thing for a while now whenever I try to make a post on my ipad (sometimes it tells me that I don't have permission). What I've taken to doing is copying the text from my post before I hit send, then when I'm faced with a warning message I refresh the page, and paste my text and send again. It always works the second time.

  • farflamex

    Ah yes, it's nice to take a break from this game designing malarkey isn't it? I'm pretty much done with Board Horde for the time being (got a lot of other projects to be getting on with, including endless comic lettering and a few novels). I uploaded it to Marketjs today, and am getting closer to hitting the 'publish' button on Kongregate. Currently the main problem I'm facing is getting the scoreboard to integrate properly; I've had one score show up so far, and nothing since.

    I just gave Korelos a 5 star rating, as I enjoy it and it got a lot of low reviews due to circumstances beyond your control Are you hosting on dropbox, or with a direct clay.io link? One thing I noticed is you seem to have clay.io achievements and external ads on the Kongregate version, which I removed from my Kongregate version of Board Horde as I'm sure it states its against their rules (just thought I'd mention it).

    I think the best way to approach game development is to balance the quick and easy games with the lengthy but less popular games which mean more to you. Even if you don't find the right market yet, new markets are opening up all the time (take King Of Dragon Pass for example. That was released ten years ago on PC, cost millions to make and only sold 3,000 copies. Then when it was converted to ipad many years later it sold over 30,000 copies).

    Keep at it, and I'll be watching everything you create with interest.

  • judgephuz

    Thinking about it, I'm pretty much always online when I use c2 anyway as that allows me to keep previewing projects on various other devices (such as ipad, and whatnot). So even if steam was chugging away in the background I'm not sure if it'd make much of a difference. Then again, I haven't used Steam very much so maybe I'm missing something?

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  • farflamex

    I was just checking out a few games on Gog, and there's a new release titled Ring Runner which instantly made me think of Korelos. It's probably worth checking out the video on the site, as it looks like they've got the space combat sussed and it might give you some fresh ideas.

    http://www.gog.com/gamecard/ring_runner_flight_of_the_sages

  • mineet

    Cheers! Good luck with your strategy game - I hope it comes together well.

    By the way, for anyone who's a comic fan I keep forgetting to mention I have a strip appearing in SPOD! The Oddities from Space comic anthology originally conceived as part of Mark Millars Clint project. There's a Kickstarter running at the moment, and if you're generous enough to donate an entire tenner you also get a free 16 page digital comic made by myself and artist Dave Thomson.

    Anyway, here's the link if you're interested (there's some pretty damned amazing comic artists and writers involved). Even if you can't contribute in a financial fashion, spreading the word is always appreciated.

    Spod Kickstarter

    <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/716/069/85b1b304a59a7c9b3cd9c847cb9eec45_large.jpg" border="0">

  • Sulli

    With c2 being quite new, as well as html5 being refined on various browsers bit by bit, most of the games I listed were released for free as direct payment options are slim. However, the majority contained ads (which is a good way to make money with your game - just don't expect large figures for your first offering) and some no doubt had sponsorship deals (which is a good way to make a lot of money, if you can figure out who to approach and how best to do so).

    True Valhalla makes a regular income from his html5 games, which is large enough for him to live off. He also gives a monthly account of what he earned and how. It's well worth reading his blog here: truevalhalla.com/blog

    It's taken him a lot of work to build up a reputation, but if you're determined enough and put in the hours and do some research, you could get there as well. Just don't put all your expectations into making lots of money from your first game (currently my first game has earned 56 cents. But I learnt a lot through making it, which is the main thing at this stage)

  • Wenaptic

    By successfully created, I take it you mean games which have achieved a lot of success, rather than just games which developers actually finished making?

    To name a few off the top of my head;

    Mortar Melon by TheHen has probably had a million or so downloads on Windows 8 (I'm not sure of the exact figure, but it has been well received)

    Super Ubie Land by Notiongames had a successful kickstarter, gained recognition from Nintendo and is currently in development for the WiiU.

    Both 'No One Has To Die' and Magnetized gained over 200,000 plays on Kongregate in their first month or so of launch which is very impressive work (as most games only get a few thousand).

    Squidsters 'Airscape' has been very well received on gaming sites, as have various other games. If you do a search on those game names it'll probably get you a lot more details.

    • Dave
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Dave Hailwood

Member since 27 Dec, 2012

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