PARTICIPATION IN THE GAME MAKING COMMUNITY

I know no one wants to hear, "this is just a developer's community, no one wants to play each other's games, deal with it." I don't either. There are obviously some exceptions to that sentiment, too. However, we simply can't make people play each others' games. People who want to, do. People that don't want to, don't.

That's not to say we can't motivate people. There is a lot of talk against "play my game and I will play yours" topics, but in a community of developers, is this not the simplest, mutually beneficial way to get the feedback we all want and need? Sure, there's more we can do, but we can't deny the success of topics like these. They just need some improvement so that it's not, one person plays and reviews 20 games, and 20 people review one single game in return.

WIP understands what we really need: consumers. RMN3 has given a push in the right direction in terms of getting your games to consumers, but it's not enough. RMN3 has also given the staff a great opportunity to better identify just what the issues are that are preventing producers from getting the juice they crave. As it stands, RMN needs to be a different site than it is now (or one half of an amateur gaming mega-site like previously mentioned).

There's also another point I wanted to bring up that people might not necessarily want to hear: appeal. If you want to get feedback from fellow developers on your game, then frankly, you need to create something that makes us take notice from a development standpoint. For you RM2K/3 developers out there, making pretty maps tends to be sufficient, so use the screenshot topic to get a feel for how people will respond to what you're putting out. Getting their attention shouldn't be enough, though, there should also be a rewarding play experience in it for people who try out your game.

Those making games in more advanced or higher resolution engines have a harder time with this due to the lack of resources (though games with custom graphics always tend to get noticed and people are automatically more willing to try them). Dream up ideas, and make them work. You still have eventing systems in engines like VX or XP, or in a more perfect world, take the time to learn some scripting and modify some uniqueness into your games (it's not as daunting as it seems). Presentation is important too; if you have heavy modifications into a battle engine that still looks default, people might not notice it. Even in-game, try to bring some attention to what it is you're doing to make the game stand out.

This is all I have for now.

This has been something I've thought for some time on, and I've come to a conclusion, though it might not be one that many people want to hear.

"Play my game and I'll play yours"

"Request a Review"

"Fuuuuuuuuck, nobody played my game I'll make a thread poorly disguised as something else as an outlet to complain about it"

These threads are a symptom to a larger problem that has proliferated over the years. Stagnation. This is not something that can be explained away simply by stating that we're a community of developers. As a matter of fact; if you fail to even inspire your peers to take a look at your work; what chance do you have with the average "consumer" just looking to kill some time? No, there is a severe drought of interesting games around here.

With few exception ( Kinetic Cipher ) the reason these games aren't getting feedback and downloads is because we've failed to take things further as a whole. We don't (for the most part) do collaboration projects, we use the same pool of tired resources over and over again, and we don't bother to innovate in any meaningful way. Those games that do seek to break the mold and go that little extra mile tend to get more attention.

Side Note! Though this should be obvious, but when teaming up with other developers it's typically a good idea for the group of you to have varying strengths. I've seen certain collab projects that were so flat that I wouldn't have known it was a team effort if I didn't look at the author list.

Also, haven't got any feedback on my demo so far, but that's to be expected, since its just the opening cutscene, I'd still like some thoughts on it though

Since at times, I have a difficult time getting my point across; I will use your game as an example.

Don't take this personally

I saw your game on the RS thread, the second or third reply if I remember correctly. I see a bunch of RMVX RTP with some rather poor lighting effects. That is the impression it left on me. That's it. This is just me, not going back to look at your post specifically; just the quick impression it left on me. I'm afraid you're just going to have a try harder to get your stuff to stand out; or if you'd like feedback, ask someone you trust / are friends with for their thoughts on your game.

I play RM games more than I make them.

However, If a game is sufficiently good at any point, I'm seldom analyzing it in an pseudo-objective perspective that carefully.

I generally only get pulled into game-analysis mode beyond 'what is the optimal action to take?' when I see flaws, bugs, things that break flow - or something that dovetails with an idea *I* had, but has better/worse execution.

Thus, my reviews(for games that don't suck) would generally be pretty much 'was good, except X sucked, and Y was like an idea I had, only better'. This isn't very constructive, nor much fun for me, so I don't bother.


Even if you increase your audience wider in the general public, the standard consumer isn't going to do anything, the really special ones may leave reviews - generally, brief, not very informative reviews, judging from what I saw on an Anime Music Video site - which is great to pump the ego, but not a very good to inform. Example: I had 500 DLs of a video on that site, and 2 short, kind, rather unhelpful reviews.

The only informative reviews I got on that site were those I traded/got by request from other music video makers on the forums, since they actually knew what they were talking about and were willing to go to a little effort to try to help me reach their level.

So I don't think that simply increasing the people who see your stuff is going to increase the quality of feedback.

No, the vast majority of people whose games I have reviewed have taken my criticism in stride (or at least pretended to) and seemed to appreciate the feedback. But Fallen-Griever has given more feedback than anyone and yet his work seems to go largely unrecognized and unappreciated.

If we want people to be more active in giving feedback, then it needs to be encouraged.

We need more co-op games.

We need a better reward system.

We need more competitions.

I thought the point of playing/making RM games was to have a bit of fun and kill some time

guess I'm just nuts

"Dropping the cynicism" is just another way of telling everyone to settle for mediocrity; and I sorely hope nobody actually takes what you say to heart. I'm not going to "kick back" and force myself to play something I find uninteresting just to spare someone's feelings.

I don't care how "mean" you think he is, I don't care how badly he's hurt yow feewings - This is about as true as a point can get.

I play the few RM games that I do because they provide me with the same entertainment that a previously new commercial game does. The only reason I don't play commercial games I already own is because I've played them to death. I've played FFTA to death. I've played Persona 4 to death. I've played LostMagic to death.

The thing is, I've already played most RM games to death, too. I've played Generic Mockery RPG #201 to death. Boring attack masher #367? Played it. Atmospheric lighting-overlays? Played it, too.

I enjoy the few RM games I enjoy because I haven't played them. Fully top-down puzzle/adventure game with likable characters that you have to befriend and betray to succeed? Haven't played that before. Mano-y-mano 8-bit RPG with a focus an sarcasm and counter-centric battles? Sign me up.

My point is, as independent developers we have the freedom to go beyond the established formats and create unique experiences for our players. That's our greatest strength. Indy games are free - so are games I've already purchased. Indy games are nostalgic (for those that are) - well, so's this Ultima VII box I grabbed from my shelf.

Hellion, Dungeon Crawl, Visions & Voices, Heroes' Realm, Alter AILA Genesis, Uber Quest, Complete Chaos, and several other RM games I can't think of off the top of my head are good as indy games. They're good because they take their, perhaps, tired and tested style gameplay, graphics, and storytelling and use them with finesse to create experiences I've not played before. All of these games were fresh to me, and were thus fun to me.

You might not agree with my examples - that's not the point. My point is - and this may sound completely obvious but it can't be stressed enough - don't try and out-FF a Final Fantasy game! Don't try to out-SMT a Shin Megami Tensei game! You can't win. Instead, use your resources to your advantage and create a unique, fresh experience that the players haven't quite seen before.

If you do, I'll play your game. And I can guarantee I won't be the only one who does so.

Hellion, Dungeon Crawl, Visions & Voices, Heroes' Realm, Alter AILA Genesis, Uber Quest, Complete Chaos, and several other RM games I can't think of off the top of my head are good as indy games. They're good because they take their, perhaps, tired and tested style gameplay, graphics, and storytelling and use them with finesse to create experiences I've not played before. All of these games were fresh to me, and were thus fun to me.

You might not agree with my examples - that's not the point. My point is - and this may sound completely obvious but it can't be stressed enough - don't try and out-FF a Final Fantasy game! Don't try to out-SMT a Shin Megami Tensei game! You can't win. Instead, use your resources to your advantage and create a unique, fresh experience that the players haven't quite seen before.

If you do, I'll play your game. And I can guarantee I won't be the only one who does so.

While I disagree with about 80% of your list, I'm not replying because of that. You exclaim that these games all did something different to attract your attention, but with the exception of Alter Aila (which just did something uncommon, but executed it really well); nothing on your list actually did that. Hellion, Hero's Realm and Dungeon Crawl are all old school styled games, Complete Chaos is actually heavily inspired by SMT, and apparently a acid trip and Visions and Voices is some kind of... Yeah, I'll skip over that part.

Distinctiveness, while helpful isn't a requisite here.

post=99484

post=99483
I thought the point of playing/making RM games was to have a bit of fun and kill some time

guess I'm just nuts

Given the reception you've received I don't think very many people have the impression that they would find your game any fun, hence nobody's even looked at it. It's really simple if you actually think about it.

How incredibly presumptious of you. LWG gave the playable demo of my last project a 3/5, now this ain't great by any means but its pretty damn good for a first ever attempt at an RM project. So at least there was somthing about it he enjoued so much that he gave the game a favorable review despite its obvious first-game-itis defects

This project is getting a little interest and the reason there isn't more is because I have little to show right now, being so early in development and the game page was created during release somthing alongside Hellion and Tina of The Starsso of course people are concentrating on the more established projects. Recognition and interest will increase once I get a playable demo available and can justify the creation of a game topic on the forums

and even if interest remains low, so what? I made somthing I wanted to make and some other people also like it. That is the point of all this, not breaking your back to please a couple of angry pissants whose tastes are so specific that you'd need a microscope to pin point it and that, for some reason, insist on holding somthing made in someone's free time, that only requires you to spend a few seconds downloading to play, to the same standards as a professional game that they had to pay $50 for. Go on only playing one or two games on the site and complaining endlessly about everything else, because it wasn't absolutely perfect as a player and lamenting that your game is not getting 500 downloads and 4 or more well thought out reviews as a developer. I make what I like, and I make it for fun, maybe someone else out there will like it too. I play games to kill a bit of time and see what the other person has created and see if I can have some fun in the game's world. The dang thing doesn't need to blow me away, because I did not PAY for it, all I gave it was a moment of my time and for that it just needs to be playable, and have somthing in it that can walk away saying "now this part of the game was kinda neat"

Harping on about how RM games are suckish because they use default or common resource graphics or they lack innovative scripting or whatever the hell your problem is seems to be completely pointless to me, and the lack of game playing that results from this crappy attitude is the heart of the problem that the topic's OP is addressing. Namely: you aren't playing games, man.