"SELLING FEATURE" OF YOUR GAME

post=110475
Graphics and presentation I guess.

this.

also, once it can be shown at least, i like to think The Colony has some pretty damn awesome characters.
and boy does it have a fucktonne of them.

Writing and presentation.

from Kaempfer
I hope my winning personality will convince people to play it.

This is how I used to operate, but that...ah...hasn't worked so good.

My problem is that my games have nothing to sell themselves on. I mean, the graphics are RTP, the music and sounds are RTP, and the gameplay is standard RM* fare. I'm a good writer, but my playable characters are all damp towels (likeable damp towels), so no dice there. Then, on top of all this, there's the big "POKEMON" in the title that turns 90% of everybody away at the gamepage (if they even make it that far). Then there are other design choices I make that seem to put people off, too.

So the one thing my games really have going for them is their construction. They are extremely well put-together and nearly bug-free. But that's the kind of quality people should rightly expect, so there's no point in emphasizing it. And what prospective player would believe it if I said so, anyway? It's gonna take a hell of a lot of e-cred to save this series now, but I am undeterred. Maybe someday I can turn it into something more impressive, but until then, here we are.

I mostly advertise them here and on GW (even though they think it sucks). I also post them on charas and phanxgames, but the latter of those two might as well be dead. I'm thinking of expanding to RRR in the future. I never hype things just for the sake of hyping them, though. The most I ever do is post screenshots for visual advice. And even that doesn't happen too often.

post=110482
Writing and presentation.

Hi


(Same Here)

big ole titties

actually probably graphics?? that sounds really shallow and obnoxious but really most people just glance at screenshots anyway (which is pretty understandable given the amount of projects out there) and also I kinda think EXPLORE ENVIRONMENT is my favorite part of games as opposed to other media and graphics are the most immediate part of that so you know. It's still probably not the best thing to actually hock games upon but my favorite parts of gamemaking (in terms of actually sitting down and doing them) are generally music selection and coming up with cool graphical ideas and since the music part is based on stealing stuff from other more talented people...


Also just throwing it out there but I dunno why you guys only post games to RM sites. The ANTI RPGMAKER BIAS I guess but really I dunno how far this goes: I've seen several rm games posted on tigsource or wherever where most people didn't even recognise the default graphics (although they still didn't really care for the games, and of course rips are gonna be more noticeable, but they still got CRITIQUES or whatever out of it), and what was that one rpgmaker game that ended up being sold at a tidy profit? Also stuff like Exit Fate which was more polished than most rm games but still I suspect a big part of its success was due to being picked up by somethingwaful.com instead of just dumped on the handful of RM websites. There are also several notable breakout games like the Barkley demo, part one of Wilfred The Hero, the Homeland demo, Ghosts Of Aliens: most of these weren't even finished (at least, not on RM) and the Barkley demo and Ghosts Of Aliens weren't too hot gameplay-wise but they still got picked up by places like indiegames.com. You could put this on custom graphics (people are more likely to try out funny or cartoonish short games than dour brown-grey-coloured fantasy sagas NO SHIT) but I think that was kinda tied in with the fact they were more immediately ORIGINAL and thus more interesting than some potentially more polished final fantasy remake or something.
I guess what I'm wondering is why more people don't try to go for a wider distribution of their games: I'm not saying they SHOULD and I doubt most of the indie game dudes would be interested in generic games with ripped graphics anyway, but I'm not entirely sure why there aren't more people making the attempt. I also think that games like say Ocean's or maybe some of the more polished finished games or more imaginative demos could be fairly successful on the ~freeware scene~ if they were ever actually introduced to it.

post=110590
big ole titties

actually probably graphics?? that sounds really shallow and obnoxious but really most people just glance at screenshots anyway (which is pretty understandable given the amount of projects out there) and also I kinda think EXPLORE ENVIRONMENT is my favorite part of games as opposed to other media and graphics are the most immediate part of that so you know. It's still probably not the best thing to actually hock games upon but my favorite parts of gamemaking (in terms of actually sitting down and doing them) are generally music selection and coming up with cool graphical ideas and since the music part is based on stealing stuff from other more talented people...


Also just throwing it out there but I dunno why you guys only post games to RM sites. The ANTI RPGMAKER BIAS I guess but really I dunno how far this goes: I've seen several rm games posted on tigsource or wherever where most people didn't even recognise the default graphics (although they still didn't really care for the games, and of course rips are gonna be more noticeable, but they still got CRITIQUES or whatever out of it), and what was that one rpgmaker game that ended up being sold at a tidy profit? Also stuff like Exit Fate which was more polished than most rm games but still I suspect a big part of its success was due to being picked up by somethingwaful.com instead of just dumped on the handful of RM websites. There are also several notable breakout games like the Barkley demo, part one of Wilfred The Hero, the Homeland demo, Ghosts Of Aliens: most of these weren't even finished (at least, not on RM) and the Barkley demo and Ghosts Of Aliens weren't too hot gameplay-wise but they still got picked up by places like indiegames.com. You could put this on custom graphics (people are more likely to try out funny or cartoonish short games than dour brown-grey-coloured fantasy sagas NO SHIT) but I think that was kinda tied in with the fact they were more immediately ORIGINAL and thus more interesting than some potentially more polished final fantasy remake or something.
I guess what I'm wondering is why more people don't try to go for a wider distribution of their games: I'm not saying they SHOULD and I doubt most of the indie game dudes would be interested in generic games with ripped graphics anyway, but I'm not entirely sure why there aren't more people making the attempt. I also think that games like say Ocean's or maybe some of the more polished finished games or more imaginative demos could be fairly successful on the ~freeware scene~ if they were ever actually introduced to it.

I would ask you to use paragraphs next time, or at least bold the important parts so I don't have to sift through a wall of text.

I'll try and address everything you've said one by one. There was one RM game that was sold, if I'm thinking of the same thing it was a rather awful game enjoyed by a certain niche I can only describe as clinically insane. As far as tidy profit; that much I can't be sure of.

You're probably right about Exit Fate's success, though simply being posted on one of the most notorious forums isn't an automatic escalator to fame (IE: Visions and Voices). It was a great game that I enjoyed immensely; but I can't exactly call it polished when it had such an awful soundtrack and certain TERRIBLE levels that stood out like a sore thumb (the volcano with the recolored 2k3 RTP water for lava comes to mind).

On the matter of distribution; I can only tell you my own reasons. I've been reluctant to put forward my earlier efforts (Demon Legacy) due to how shabbilty it was put together. It was a learning effort that I enjoyed making - but I don't think it's fit for the wider audience that have less than or no appreciation for certain nuances in the game. Once I release a game I'm comfortable with (the revised Phantom Legacy, most likely) I will go ahead and get the word out.

post=110600
Just putting out there that I don't think most of these sites would react well in general to like a mass influx of rpgmaker dudes with rudra chipsets but for people with custom graphics / finished projects / OFFBEAT SHIT or whatever then yeah it probably wouldnt hurt to try and connect with a larger audience!

More and more people have been attempting to get their stuff out there, but not nearly enough. I can't be sure of the exact reason for this. Gamejolt is actually run by a very nice guy; and they have contests every quarter. I should really go and post there more often.

Posting Visions & Voices on SA didn't make it famous; it's not as typical enough or good enough as Last Scenario or Exit Fate to do so. However, it did get over a thousand downloads over the course of a week when we posted it there. It also has attracted several people who are either assisting Krazuman with their next project or helping to further V&V elsewhere; see the V&V tvtropes page that has been started and maintained by not-Krazuman (or any RMN buddies, either).

So yeah. We didn't take off and jump onto a bigger ship, but Krazuman has decided that it likes the not-RM* community for its full releases.

sense of humor.

That is all I really have going for it and me, honestly.

Pretending that my games have a selling feature.