lamar's Forum Posts

  • well that is because the arcade has a rating system, and only the best rated or most views are pushed in front of pages... however if you go around page 15 ... ul find copy pasted naruto images... and some kid screaming saying best game in title. (it also depend on the category... most bad examples are on tutorials... or work in progress stuff that are not further developed and just dumped.)

    but yea... arcade has its own..."filtering system" sort off.

    I have to disagree and the arcade rating system is a joke. Watch the top games list and you will see several games that are always pushed to the top but are not getting new plays. That is people using multiple accounts to rate up their own games and rate down other games.

    There are many good games that fall off the front screen almost immediately for that reason and that discourages game developers that see a crap game sitting on the front page forever.

    The rating system has to be changed and I suggest only registered members with at least 500 reputation or licensed members can rate games and get the free edition games separated from the licensed edition games and that would solve that problem.

  • >

    > Interesting?

    >

    > I also write and sell books and ebooks and I was going to publish on Amazon but they wanted exclusive publishing and I publish all over the world through different outlets and my own website so there was no way I would do that and then it turns out one of my other independent publishers sells through Amazon so my books ended up on there anyway without me doing anything lol!

    >

    > I don't see Amazon as a prime target for game developers. Too many free games to compete with and it won't show up in any searches so you have to advertise it yourself.

    >

    The small amount of experience I have with the Amazon App market does seem to match your view. Like I said I had literally zero downloadson Amazon, while in the same period of time I had maybe a thousand installs from GooglePlay and tens of thousands on iTunes... so clearly there is no traffic on the Amazon App Store. I even tried out their advertising to try and promote the game within Amazon and that generated no sales and cost too much compared to AdWords.

    Hey, Im interested to hear about your books. What kind of books do you publish, I don't see them linked on your website? If you don't want to reveal your genre or whatever thats totally fine.

    I published a print book on Amazon CreateSpace and I sell that on Amazon. Again its not exclusive though, I also have the same book published on IngramSpark as well.

    Self publishing books is lucrative! I have plans to publish more in the future when I have time! Too many irons in the fire at the moment!

    The game arcade is just a website I am trying out.

    I have been publishing books and ebooks and vidoes on how to subjects for many years.

    I burned out on that for awhile so that is why I got back into game programming. I don't expect to make a lot of money from games but it makes enough to pay for my time and I can do that in between other projects.

    I don't discuss or link to my other work on here because I don't want to be accused of spamming and that is totally separate from my game projects.

  • Well, I had my app on the Amazon market for a while but it wasn't exclusive there, it was also on iTunes, GooglePlay, Win App Store. Amazon allowed me to publish it, but the game got no sales whatsoever.

    So I decided to try Underground. I had to delist the app and make a new listing, reupload etc.

    And as far as I can tell with Underground, while it doesn't have to be exclusive to their market they DO want it to have features that make it significantly better than versions available on other markets. Or alternatively I think they will accept it if its a paid app on other markets.

    In my case, my game was a paid app on WinAppStore and free with ads on GooglePlay and iTunes. So I was hoping that by removing the ads and pointing to the fact it was paid on WinStore, that would be enough for them to approve it. But nope! They said I need to add something to the game to make it eligible for Undergound such as 'extra levels'.

    I might get to it in the future as an experiment.

    Interesting?

    I also write and sell books and ebooks and I was going to publish on Amazon but they wanted exclusive publishing and I publish all over the world through different outlets and my own website so there was no way I would do that and then it turns out one of my other independent publishers sells through Amazon so my books ended up on there anyway without me doing anything lol!

    I don't see Amazon as a prime target for game developers. Too many free games to compete with and it won't show up in any searches so you have to advertise it yourself.

  • Nice write up lamar Very useful info! Have you experimented with Amazon Underground? Had any luck? I tried to get my game on there but they have some requirements about the game needing to have additional benefits that make it better compared to versions of the game on other markets. For example by adding additional levels or something similar.

    Thanks- I have looked at the underground but have not tried it yet.

    I will have to go read their requirements.

    I don't sell my own stuff through Amazon because they have some strict requirements and want exclusivity and I mostly use my own website to sell.

    Read their contracts closely.

  • First things first:

    What genre of game are you making?

    Is it platformer, RPG, infinite runner etc?

    Platform games can be made all in one layout using layers or by random placing platforms and enemies.

    RPG can also be made all on the same layout using different layers and random placing of enemies, objects, friendlies and obstacles.

    I rarely use more than 3 layouts in any game I make and one of those is a menu and one is for storage of items for inventory or maybe a special scene like transferring from outside to an inside perspective.

  • >

    > > No takers? :/

    > >

    >

    > Well, I still think using the bullet behavior and On Line Of Sight and Pathway behaviors might be better to get that boomerang to return to you instead of falling off the screen but do what you are doing and maybe someone can get that boomerang to return every time.

    >

    > Best!

    >

    Say again? So, can pathfinding be used in realtime?

    Sure pathfinding and on line of sight work fine in real time.

    Use the bullet behavior so it detects collisions when you release the boomerang but use on line of sight and pathfinding to bring it back to you.

    If it has you locked in on line of sight just have it return to your position. If not find a path and clear obstacles until it has line of sight.

    It should always return along the X axis towards you so include that to keep it moving.

  • Hello,

    I designed a random dungeon generator. The dungeon's walls are solid.

    I have a player object with 8-directional control (WASD). I want the player to spawn at a random location within the dungeon. I currently have:

    [Player] On Created

    set position to X: random(32, LayoutWidth-32) Y: random(32, LayoutHeight-32)

    More often than not, the player spawns in an empty space, or the 8-Directional properties bump it out of a wall. However, occasionally the player spawns WITHIN the wall and can't move. How would I prevent this from happening?

    I hate it when my character gets stuck in a wall lol!

    There are a few ways to fix that problem. You can turn off the player collisions until they are moved or you can respawn the character if they are ovelapping the walls or any other solid objects or you can destroy any sprite that might be in the location you spawn the character.

    I like the respawn method but if you have lots of solids it may take awhile before the respawn finds a suitable location.

    Destroying anything the character overlaps on spawn is the simplest way. Just turn of the destroy command after they start moving or they will destroy every wall they contact.

  • https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6p7N_9K5vHTaWY2N2FRWHMteVk/view

    Excellent! I downloaded both and the one in your link seems to be locking up when you play so between that one and the one Rojo linked to maybe I can figure out how to get it to work.

  • Make the videos about how to turn off adblockers.

    LOL- well the video can be about anything you want but my channel has over 13.5 million views and 85,000 subscribers with an average of 6K views a day and those ads bring in a nice amount of money each year so it is definitely something game developers should consider using in their games.

    That new video already has over 200 views in the first hour. How many clicks would you get on a banner in a game in an hour?

    I will be doing better game vids of my games and this is just an example I threw together for the tutorial. I am working on a game channel where I will also do video tutorials for beginners using C2.

  • Here's something similar.

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/542 ... dproj.capx

    The rotation bit could be useful to look at.

    Thanks- I think I can figure it out from that.

  • lamar

    Edited: wow nice tutorial! im intrigued and slowly pushed back into the gaming portal hahaha... for some reason(i guess was fun tweaking at it all day and micromanaging it).

    This is my bread and butter.

    How To Integrate Youtube Monetized Videos Into Your Games!

    Tutorial:

    https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/9449/how-to-integrate-youtube-monetized-videos-into-your-games

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  • > ...so I am now publishing on Itchio, Kongregate and other arcades because I don't feel the Scirra arcade is helping promote our games and has some unresolved server issues with CAPX files and loads get screwed up leaving my games in 404 limbo.

    >

    While I agree with most of your points I understand why they wouldn't want to implement Ads anyway.

    Even if there were ads you would still need to have at least 100 visitors to accidentally click on them to be able to get what? $0.03?

    Another way I make money from my games that pays a whole lot more than 3 cents for a 100 clicks.

    How To Integrate Youtube Monetized Videos Into Your Games!

    Tutorial:

    https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/9449/how-to-integrate-youtube-monetized-videos-into-your-games

  • From my tutorial here:

    https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/9449/how-to-integrate-youtube-monetized-videos-into-your-games

    If you have a monetized Youtube account you can easily include a link to your videos to make some extra revenue from your games.

    You will need a monetized Youtube account and that requires a Google Adsense account.

    You can get all that info here:

    How to earn money from your Youtube videos:

    https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72857?hl=en

    Once you have your monetized Youtube account you need some videos and I use videos of my games to explain or demonstrate the game or promote a new game.

    This is my latest game and what I want you to notice is the advertisement that plays before my video because THAT is how I make money.

    Turn off any addblocker you have on please or you will miss the point of this tutorial.

    Video:

    Now those video ads pay a whole lot more than any click banner you put in your games so you should be including those videos in your games and it is very easy to do.

    You need some place in your game to have a banner link or a pause in your game where you ask your user to watch a short video before resuming the game.

    I have a new football themed game so I have quarter and half time pauses and this is the picture for my half time pause:

    This is a perfect time for a break and the users do not even have to watch the video and they just click on it and it opens in a new window so it does not interfere with their game and the video will show the youtube google adsense ads and my game video in that other window. The game resumes and they continue playing.

    I get paid for having the ads on my youtube videos and I have been using monetized ads on my vidoe's since they first started allowing that and my average income from those ads is over $700 a month and I have made as much as $1500 a month from youtube ads.

    I make money from the advertisements even if you don't watch them but my videos are also designed to attract you to my other videos (more advertising) and to other products I sell from my website and to products I promote from Amazon so I get multiple streams of revenue from just one simple game video link in one game.

    You will need to add the WEB object to your games so you can link to your videos and then decide where would be best to put those ads but after that they do all the work!

    I included a simple to follow CAPX so you can see how I set up my half time video.

    Game Demo is available on Itchio still in Beta:

    https://lamar.itch.io/gladiator-ball

  • Unfortunately I don't have his CAPX. Like you said it's down in the arcade. I really meant I got as far as I did with trial and error. I followed his example one line of code at a time.

    Ok Thanks!

    I PM'd him so maybe we can get that CAPX as I would sure like to give it try.

  • Edited: wow nice tutorial! im intrigued and slowly pushed back into the gaming portal hahaha... for some reason(i guess was fun tweaking at it all day and micromanaging it).

    Thanks- that is just one new way I have found for increasing revenue and works well and next is integrating my youtube channel videos that have advertising that brings in a lot more than any click banner or even Amazon ads.

    The best thing about Amazon and Youtube is I am not sharing any of my revenue with another 3rd party source like AdMobs and I can direct them to my own website and store for viewing and sell my games directly through my games using my Paypal mobile buttons.

    No more relying on Cocoon and other apps to make money and much easier to integrate and change as needed!