HOUSEKEEPING'S PROFILE

@LockeZ: I'd totally be open to doing a short contest game next time one pops up. I'm currently an idiot and am working on a solo project that's going to take me several years to finish, so I'd feel like I was cheating on it unless I had a good excuse.

Actually, if I could expand this discussion (let me know if this is too off topic and I'll start a new thread):

I've been working on a game that I want to go commercial with. Because of this, my old schtick of "let's slap it on the website when it's done" isn't the best business model, so I've been thinking about getting it out there early so I can hopefully build up an audience prior to release. I know RMN isn't the best method to do this (though I do plan on making my RMN site the homepage). Social media seems like the poor man's hype machine, so I'd like to use it, but I tend to not really use social media aside from facebook, which I really only use to keep in contact with some old friends.

Twitter seems like the most ubiquitous site, so I'll set up one for the sake of announcements. What else should I use, though? From what I've seen, Tumblr seems like the most-used option for this kind of thing. So, I guess my questions are:

-Is Tumblr a good means of developing an audience while your game's in development?
-Are there any sites I should use in addition to or in place of Tumblr and Twitter?
-Once I get going, how often should I update said sites? I'm the kind of guy that likes to just keep his nose to the grind, but that seems like a great way to sell a game to an empty room.

@Ziegfried: Yeah, I realize Heroes of Umbra is more similar to a Diablo-style loot crawl than an MMO. I think my brain immediately wanted to compare it to an MMO since the game had so many similarities with Maple Story. I tried to play with a friend, but we weren't able to establish a working connection for whatever reason. I've got a pretty solid idea of how it plays with others, though (I watched that recent video of it on the front page, too). It's a cool game, so I can see why you wanted it to get more attention.

I'm afraid I've got LockeZ's narcissistic tendencies--at least with certain aspects of development, like writing and music, but I'm finding that the more I develop, the more hands-on I like to be with everything. I'd like to team up with Indrah and Fomar but I'm afraid that Indrah likes to do the writing, so we'd probably butt heads. I'd also like to team up with New Black--I talk to him a bunch, and I feel like we have similar goals in terms of expression, but we go about it in different ways. I think we'd either make something really cool or really goofy and stupid. I've got a few sweet horror premises in my idea folder, so add another name to the Snow Owl hat. I tend to attach different art styles to my ideas, though, so that'd probably be something I would have to bend on with him since he has a pretty distinct style. I'd like to work with LockeZ, too, since I've pretty much agreed with everything he's ever said on this forum. Then there are a lot of people I'd like to work with who I know are capable, hard workers, like Unity.

My Ms. America answer is that one day I would like to have enough capital to hire a bunch of folks from the community and form a development house that makes awesome RPGs that people everywhere can play and fall in love with.

Whoops! I was so busy with work that I had forgotten to make my nominations, but I've fixed that. Unfortunately, I mainly played IGMC entries and a huge backlog of older games, so I probably didn't have a big enough pool to pick from. The only category that I had a hard time filling out was "best characters;" nothing (that I played) really stuck out in that regard. My thoughts:

It Moves: Best Storytelling/Direction, Best Atmosphere
The atmosphere's kind of a no-brainer--this game was creepy as fuck. Storytelling, though, might not be something many people considered for this one. I value a lot of things in storytelling, but the technical things play second fiddle--I really just like stories that make me feel something. If a story can do that, it might be able to be better constructed and more efficient, but it's functioning on the most important level. There were only three games I played from this year's bunch that actually made me feel something: Unraveled, Oneshot, and It Moves. Unraveled had a scene that was one of the sharpest depictions of depression that I'd ever seen, but then it followed that with excessive melodrama that left a bitter taste in my mouth. Oneshot made me feel a lot of intrigue in the world, but, as often happens, it didn't deliver on that for me. It Moves, though, made me feel scared. And that's goddamn hard to do. And, when the climax hit, it fucking worked, and it worked well.

Unraveled: Best Setting, Best Sound and Music, Best Technical Prowess
As an overall experience, I think Unraveled fell short, mainly because of the story and characters, which is what it was really banking on. The setting is gorgeous, though: watching the rusted-out ship transform into a vibrant jungle through the main character's imagination was a magical moment for me. The music felt underrated, too. I'm a bit of a music snob, but the soundtrack worked for me, and I loved the creaking ship sounds juxtaposed with the upbeat exploration tracks once the main character's imagination kicks in. This game also had one of the most interesting battle systems I've seen in an rpg maker game; I'm not sure if it worked on every level, but it was unique enough to deserve best technical prowess, I think.

Painted Heart: Best Graphics and Artwork
I didn't really like Painted Heart, but this game looks pretty. Damn, damn pretty. It's also a pretty solid contender for best music and sound design, but, unfortunately, the track that I'm remembering the most is the pitchy vocals in the opening credits.

Sunken Spire: Best Gameplay Mechanics/Interface Design
Sunken Spire was one of my favorite RPGs this year, but it fell short in a lot of categories. I think this was probably my favorite in terms of characters, actually, but there was a lot of wasted dialogue and the characters didn't have much space to grow. Indrah's earlier work with these characters already rounded them out nicely, so this adventure was fun but not really a character/story piece. The GAMEPLAY though, is fantastic. This has some of the best stat progression mechanics I've seen in a long time, and while the battles could be a bit tighter (from the version I played), there were enough wrenches in the works to keep me engaged. The interface didn't have a lot of whistles and bells, but it was clean, custom, and effective, which is what I prefer, anyway.

Super Smash Bros. Crusade: Most Promising Demo
I didn't play many demos, but this one was pretty awesome. The gameplay feels a bit slow and rigid at times, and the online play was too unstable for me to really go nuts with, but this game did an excellent job of emulating Smash Bros. It'll be cool to see how well this game polishes up.

Oneshot: Best Level/Dungeon/Puzzle Design, Best Non-RPG, Game of the Year
When I learned that Oneshot got disqualified from the IGMC, it was the happiest day of summer because it was the only game that I knew would absolutely crush mine. This game feels fucking professional, and I hate how good it is. It was a close contender for a lot of categories: best graphics, best atmosphere, best storytelling, but other games that focused more directly on these categories edged it out. The levels are well-thought out and the puzzles are difficult without being impossible--and this isn't even covering the cool meta stuff this game did to fool with you. It's easily the best non-RPG I played, and the game is functioning so well across the board that I had to give it game of the year. There are a lot of things I'd change to make this game perfect, especially making more use of the whole "you only can play once" gimmick, but I can't deny this game's spot at the top.