Everybody knows what I should do but me
Don’t get me wrong. When a player gives me his opinion on what I should do it’s great. It means he cares. Of course he might be completely off the map but he’s trying to help.
On game development forums it’s different however. Forums are what they are, self-promotion spaces where people like to hear themselves talking. It’s not true for everyone but I don’t really expect sincere help there. You need to have a good advice filter when it comes to forums.
One thing in common though, everybody seems to think I didn’t do some homework, that I didn’t already tried a couple of things. It’s just annoying.
“You should do a better tutorial, execution is rough, graphics should be better, there should be more GMs, there should be more content, there should have less PvP, you should run some ads, you should write your press emails that way” and so on. According to these advice it would change everything.
In the first months of Golemizer I was trying to “fix” everything. “Fixing” by following too many advices because I was a noob and thought I couldn’t follow my own idea. I was afraid of making mistakes. Well that’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve made. I knew that most people giving me advice had no idea what they were talking about but doubt was created and I couldn’t help myself but to think “maybe if I do this it would work”. Guess what! It only lead to more mistakes!
I tried something for Blimp Wars release. I went to IndieGamer and started a thread with everything I done to release the game. The answers went from “you did everything” to “you should do a completely different game, here’s how you should do it”. Since the release of Blimp Wars was a failure I had to work on myself to not believe those saying “you should make a whole different game” as what they were telling me was to make a game like Golemizer. Those that told me that I did everything didn’t count the fact that the others that gave me advice on how to write to the press would make me waste hours of emails writing as the game wasn’t covered at all (the advices were from someone that still didn’t covered the game).
Of course, there’s always the possibility of “the game just sucks”. Well the more I discover new games the less I believe that. I’ve seen ridiculous ideas succeed and also good ones fail (not just mine). Success is a mix of a lot of small things that nobody knows for sure the exact recipe. It’s hard to actually believe when you never released a game (if I had a penny for each time I heard that “it will work” I’d be rich already) but then I’d invite those people to actually release a successful game before making such statementsÂ.
So no, sorry to tell you, you don’t know what I should do. I just need one hand to count the people that actually helped me. The others were just saying empty words filled with good intention. I can’t be mad at them as they were trying to help me. I can however blame myself for listening to them from time to time.
As I’ve come to realize it always comes down to hopes and expectations. When I look at people on IndieGamer I realize that even if I’m not making profits with Golemizer it is making more money than a lot of people there. It doesn’t mean they aren’t successful. It just means they are happy with less than I am. There it is. Success isn’t defined by the perception of others but by what you expect of yourself. That’s why advice often fails. Few can understand what you’re after.
about 5 months ago
hm this is true you wont get anywhere by listening to every one else tho, There is a recipe for success Winston church hill said it i just forget what he said.
(Quote)
about 5 months ago
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
That should be the quote
(Quote)
about 5 months ago
no its something about success is failing and still moving forward without losing motivation that one sill works.
Tho btw failure is some times fatal remember if at first you don’t succeed then sky diving is not for you
(Quote)
about 5 months ago
More unwanted advice since I can’t find your email.
These are some practical tips I found out when releasing complex Flash games on low attention portals.
- Defer login. It makes logical sense to put the login up front, but we found that it knocked a whole point off the rating of Bunni. Instead get the player into the game and then at a later point ask them if they want to create a login to save. An alternative that folks used is to simplify login so that you are only asking for a user name and password, but this still gave us bad results.
- Less text. There have been some great usability studies done over the years on how much text people read in games. A) Use graphics and highlight what players should click on instead of text (since most players do not read) B) When players do read, they read 5-7 words at most. This sounds like rather harsh limits, but I’ve seen in play out in usability tests again and again.
- Tutorials are shockingly important. They are worth tweaking and rewriting a dozen more time than you were planning.
Put the game in front of strangers and watch where they hesitate or become confused. How fast can you smoothly get them to the point where they are having fun?
All the best,
Danc.
(Quote)
about 5 months ago
Danc, not all indie online games are flash games. My game (economic strategy) isn’t even playable without an account since a user is required for the game engine.
About the less text part, unfortunately it is a mixed bag. I know people hate reading texts (I’ve reached the sad conclusion they can’t read properly) but depending on the game, such skill is required. We can’t dumb down the game to ‘quest: me need [icon] object, you fetch it’. Unfortunately this seem to be trend everywhere: flashy graphics, BIG icons, BIG 3 words text, simplistic gameplay.
I agree with you about tutorials, they are important. But when you are one man army, it’s hard to write proper tutorials since you lack the time and energy.
I’m in the same position as Dave and it’s very annoying when everybody knows better than you what the game should be and what you should do. Especially when some are playing the game for 2 days and they have already lots of suggestions (which many times just show they didn’t know or understand the existing features or just want to transform your game in a clone of something they like).
It seems it’s just fate…
(Quote)
about 5 months ago
Mike, the feedback was in context of Dave attempting to distribute on Kongregate, a Flash portal.
Making games is an ongoing learning process. There’s a lovely quote that I need to track down that says “You have 10 bad games in you. Start getting them out of your system as soon as possible.” So it is only natural that your first few games have major playability issues. And players will let you know. The key is put aside your ego, accept that there is room to improve and get down to the hard work of making something better. And yes, it is hard work.
I think of tutorials as the entrance to your house. You can lavish months of effort building the most impressive house possible, but if no one can get in, what is the point of building the house? I’m very familiar with being a one man army and slogging through tutorials. It is another critical game design skill that you need to practice over and over again. Again, there is no point in complaining. The slow and steady experience of creating and recreating functional tutorials is the only way to improve.
Over time, you’ll learn to put customer feedback in the appropriate context. If someone complains about the game after playing for 10 minutes, don’t ignore their comments as uninformed. Instead, examine what it was about the 10 minute experience that provoked their reaction. By building your customer empathy skills and your analytic skills, you’ll become a better designer.
All the best,
Danc
(Quote)
about 5 months ago
Thanks for the advice Danc
though that’s pretty much things I already knew. The problem is always time. Try to do a bit each day but when you’re alone the “perfect” result might only be there in a few years (as I still have to keep a day job so time is very limited). So will I be able to keep up for so long?
That comes down to the fact that I decided to build an MMO as a first game (ouch!). I couldn’t get my first 10 games out of my system and leaving behind 2 years and half of work to work on something else is difficult to do (thought ultimately can happen).
But even there, I don’t think the problem is the game itself even thought things can always be improved. I expect few will like it and that it’s difficult to get into. It’s really the exposure.
With very little help I’ve been able to get the word out to finally get the game to pay for its cost. I can’t imagine what would be the result with a little push from a significant source of traffic. The game monetize quite well and it wouldn’t require a whole lot of traffic to generate an interesting salary.
(Quote)
about 5 months ago
Oh an my email is dave@machine22.com
I updated my “About” page. I’ve been following your blog and work for quite some time Danc so I’m always open to hear from someone actually “doing it”
(Quote)