Messages

61

Ludum Dare 29 / Re: Community Postmortem - What went right and wrong for you?

« on: April 29, 2014, 04:32:17 pm »

What went right?
I spent two days constantly working on a feasible idea. The idea played different and it was fun to think up all the ways it would work. As happy as I am with the way the game turned out I still feel like I'm fighting so hard just to meet the deadline and cutting corners to do so. Perhaps I should be trying out even simpler concepts to allow for more fine-tuning.

What went wrong?
I was tired and stopped caring the moment I published the game resulting in it being unplayable through the main link for the first day, which could have been corrected with one extra playtest of the game. Also I got sick.


Things to keep in mind when participating in game jams:
1. Never let your guard down.

62

Ludum Dare 29 / Re: Bellhook

« on: April 28, 2014, 11:25:21 pm »

I'm definitely not against mobile games, just the lame practices that commonly show up in them. Thanks for the feedback, I'll consider what you said. I've actually thought about putting select past games on mobile, and touching up a bit on the Ludum Dare ones.

63

Ludum Dare 29 / Re: The Valley Rule - LD29 Jam

« on: April 28, 2014, 08:43:03 pm »

Great atmosphere, smooth controls, and simple/fun gameplay. I was expecting the first puzzle to be more generic and straightforward than it ended up being, which resulted in a nice surprise, and the progression adds a nice flow to things. Not seeing much tie-in to the theme, but probably one of my favorite entries so far, so good job!

I also ran into the bug where you don't respawn, which I believe is caused by dying too quickly after respawning (in Stencyl you can't transition when a transition is already happening).

64

Ludum Dare 29 / Re: Bellhook

« on: April 28, 2014, 03:02:33 pm »

I was so stupid that I didn't even check to make sure the Newgrounds version was working properly, and that costed me a day where the first link to the game wasn't working. I've solved the problem now, but it's a bummer to think that probably lost it some attention. I've still been fortunate enough to receive plenty of feedback though.

Also now the game title for the Newgrounds version has a period after it because it still registers the old Bellhook project name as taken. Hopefully that can be changed down the line?

Edit: Also also, It seems like the Newgrounds listing for LD entries  might be hand-selected, and it still links to the old (now removed) project. Does this sort itself out or should I contact someone?

65

Ludum Dare 29 / Re: Bellhook

« on: April 27, 2014, 06:59:01 pm »

COMPLETED!!!

66

Ludum Dare 29 / Bellhook

« on: April 26, 2014, 11:10:20 am »

Playable Here

67

Ludum Dare 29 / Re: Ludum Dare 29 - (April 25 - 28) Theme: "Beneath The Surface"

« on: April 26, 2014, 04:45:52 am »

I became significantly ill for the first time in years, but I'm feeling better now and still intend on making something. Thankfully I didn't miss much time.

68

Chit-Chat / Re: STREAMING MIBIBLI'S QUEST

« on: April 23, 2014, 03:07:58 pm »

Still streaming but now FEZ.

69

Chit-Chat / STREAMING MIBIBLI'S QUEST

« on: April 23, 2014, 12:17:51 pm »

CHECK IT OUT

70

Game Art / Re: My game art.

« on: April 18, 2014, 05:31:54 pm »

Shape's bad. I'd recommend looking at reference images while you're practicing.

Color's bad. Your gray has 0 saturation and your cyan has full saturation. Non-artificial colors usually don't fall into these extremes. Also the colors you have are generic (they look like default swatch colors) and don't compliment each other at all (cyan and pure gray are not usually well used to begin with).

Shading's bad. You can barely parse the shading on the ship's glass, it's also typically amateur to make the shading just a darker shade of the color it's cast over (usually hue/saturation shifts coincide with it), and as Hectate said you weren't consistent with what parts were and weren't shaded. Even though I just said the shading is hardly noticeable, glass doesn't really leave much in the way of lowlights, at least not lowlights that look like that, so it would actually look more realistic if the glass top weren't shaded, and were given a sharp highlight. Also the shading is being casted upward, which will only end up making sense if there's a light-source partially underneath the ship which I'm not sure you accounted for.

The stroke's inconsistent depth also looks odd, the top looks stretched because of it.

71

Chit-Chat / Re: Video Game Poll

« on: April 17, 2014, 10:06:12 pm »

I want you to make the kind of games you're passionate about making.

72

Chit-Chat / Re: What it takes to popularize stupid words

« on: April 11, 2014, 02:10:56 pm »

Drippin'

Flump


.

73

Ludum Dare 29 / Re: Ludum Dare 29 - April 25 - 28

« on: April 07, 2014, 12:22:26 am »

If I keep my track-record then I will be entering.

74

Chit-Chat / Re: How to get the most money from a sponsorship?

« on: April 04, 2014, 04:18:39 pm »

Please don't misread my intentions, nobody should be offended by my post if they feel like the criticisms don't apply to them, none of my post was an accusation that people in this discussion adhere to what I was criticizing, it was just a cautionary tale of what does go on in the gaming industry.

The only part of my post that applied to people in the discussion was my distaste with straw man arguments being facilitated, which still persist. It is a straw man to say that I think anyone here is an evil stereotype who employs what I'm criticizing, I don't. It is a straw man to imply that I said you said you want to make bad products, I didn't. It's mislabeling me when you refer to my intentions as 'nanny' intentions when I don't believe in any government or 3rd-party  regulations over games. I am not accusing anyone here of being any kind of person, but I am certainly being accused of doing so. I don't want my points to lose validity because they're being taken personally.

75

Chit-Chat / Re: How to get the most money from a sponsorship?

« on: April 03, 2014, 04:00:55 pm »

I was hesitant to post here but while this thread is in circulation I guess it's a good enough time to join the discussion.

The straw man of 'you're saying making bad products for money is greedy therefor you're saying trying to make money is greedy' really needs to stop. I don't want to call out people but this fallacious choice of interpretation has happened even recently elsewhere. As far as I can tell the criticisms made aren't directly about money but are about making design decisions that only exist when money is taking precedence over ethics, such as ripping off (not being inspired by, ripping off) other works and designing hollow game experiences where gameplay is used as an inconvenience that only money can bypass.

If someone enjoys a game, it's a good game. Doesn't matter if it's pay to win, ads, IAP etc. if people play it and enjoy it then the game has achieved it's purpose.  To that person who played it and enjoyed it, it's a good game.

The reason I'd say this isn't universally valid is because people don't have perfect judgement. People can be tricked, they can be manipulated, they can be gullible, they can have biases, and they can be ignorant of better alternatives. Somebody who knows nothing about technology might be swindled into thinking a crummy laptop from the 1990s is state of the art and worth 100x its value, they could walk away from that deal happy and fulfilled, but does that mean it was a good deal? More extreme examples of this would be snake oil and praying away cancer, things that have probably given people a great deal of relief and satisfaction, that does not mean they are good creations, and I would have no problem comparing some of the scummiest gaming has to offer to these. Ignorance is bliss but that's not a justification for playing off of people's vulnerabilities.

Another side to this which is just as important is that things like pay-to-win and IAP aren't just means of manipulating people, but they're very slippery slopes to making poor structures for games. I've said that free-to-play prevents games from being self-contained, and what I mean by that is if you're setting out to encourage people to pay money in-game then often times that entails putting the ulterior motive of inciting want/need in the player, which means the game can't just focus on being enjoyable in whatever way it pleases, it needs to keep that intention in mind which can have results like splitting up content, making core gameplay an inconvenience, and making material desire a focal point to the game in place of something better.