SEERIC'S PROFILE

Hello, I am currently making my way through the demo (I finished up with the cave) and it seems neat so far, but there are a few things I would like to point out:

1) It is possible to 'miss' Ignatius altogether by luring him to a larger area and then opening the chest containing the lock combination. While this is unlikely to be something a person does on accident, you may want to consider creating a scenario where something like this cannot happen (ex: place him in front of the chest or, preferably, the crystal orb blocking the path and make him stay put in order to guard the object in question).

2) There is a cave in when the party enters the boss area and the mine is blocked off by rocks if you try to reenter it, so how did the party get out of the boss room in the first place?

3) The farmer by the cows gives you infinite Stimulants.

4) You can climb the cracked walls on the second floor of the stimulant farmer's house and you can walk inside the walls on the second floor of the elder's house if you approach them from the upper-right segment of the room.

5) It's minor, but it's odd that you can pay for a key to an inn room multiple times in a row.

6) the scene where the protagonist 'saves' the village after the ogre teleports away comes off as a bit strange when people are crowding around Lucien to thank him and happy music is playing while the town is still very much on fire; you may want to consider changing this scene around to have the elder or someone else mention the fire first and then do a brief skip to after the fire has been put out.

7) Having the bandits say "Thou shall not pass!" is immersion-breaking and honestly isn't worth the reference in my opinion. The bandits themselves also all look human yet Lucien mentions to the elder that the cave was filled with orcs (ogres?).

8) This may not actually be an issue since it could have just been played for laughs, but it seems odd that Lucien helped to rebuild the town over the course of several days and the red-haired girl was apparently just lying there near his tent the whole time.

Thanks for taking my review well and sorry if it comes off as a bit harsh; the game definitely needs work, but it has some neat ideas which could work well once you get the balance down.

This is a really good article and it definitely covers the essential DOs and DON'Ts of marketing a new game, though I would like to add my opinion on one aspect of marketing which I think a lot of people tend to underestimate - the importance of a game's title. While first impressions of a game in terms of screenshots, feature lists, videos, reviews, and so on are very important, it is likely that the very first way in which an audience will 'interact' with a game is via its title, either in a list alongside a picture or as a part of a larger forum post title advertising it; when a person is simply browsing through games or forum posts, a catchy title can really make the difference between if that person decides to read up more on the game or to simply glance over it as one in a list of hundreds/thousands.

There are really two things which I think can really make or break the success of a title. The first of these is the use of alliteration and/or assonance - this doesn't matter too much if the title is a single word, but it can be valuable with titles consisting of two or more words. Alliteration is catchy and more blatantly appealing while assonance tends to be a bit less obvious, but can give a title a certain 'ring' which may make people stop and take notice. More than a few famous game series have certainly taken advantage of alliteration, such as Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Ghosts & Goblins/Ghouls, Might & Magic, etc. As for assonance, Nintendo makes frequent use of this tool such as with the various 'eh' sounds in The Legend of Zelda, the 'ih' of Kid Icarus, and the 'oh' of Super Mario Bros. (never the 'uh' of 'brothers').

The other aspect of a good title which I would like to bring up is the important of keywords and this is definitely the trickier of the two as it's best to use words which hint at what your game is about without sounding overly generic or redundant (ex: Legend of the Legendary Heroes) while also giving your game a sense of uniqueness or exoticism without being completely incomprehensible (ex: Xexyz). Words such as 'Legend' 'Quest' or 'Adventure' are almost always great for RPG's as they imply travel and 'legend' especially is good for fantasy settings as it implies the past. Likewise, such words are best avoided if your game has a small scope (ex: it takes place in a single town) and 'legend' rarely works with modern or futuristic settings. Since the appearance of a familiar word in some part of the title will have given potential players an idea of what to expect as to the setting and/or scope of the game, another word should be where the 'hook' of the title lies, something to draw people in out of curiosity.

To reuse a more or less perfect example, 'The Legend of Zelda' first tells people that it is likely a fantasy setting with an epic scope through 'Legend' and then hooks people in with 'Zelda' as Zelda is a fairly uncommon, exotic-sounding name and people will become curious as to who this person is, what is so legendary about them, what role they play in the game, etc. Furthermore, common words can be combined into a single hybrid word or used together in an unfamiliar way to attract an audience (ex: Donkey Kong, StarTropic, Breath of Fire). Two great examples of RPG Maker games with good titles would be Artbane and Volrath's own Master of the Wind and last year's Star Stealing Prince; the former combines common keywords in a way which will make people curious (wind is an element, it likely implies magic, a master must be a person with control over the wind, but just what does it mean for one to be a 'master' of an element?) while the latter using alliteration between 'star stealing' and blends the common with the exotic ('prince' implies a fantasy setting, 'star' usually implies planetary travel or science fiction , but 'star stealing' raiss the questions of how and why someone would steal stars).

While word of mouth and good marketing can rapidly increase a game's popularity, I think it is worth it to spend at least a half hour, preferably longer, simply on coming up with a good title to help catch that initial audience.

author=Ratty524
I'm up for writing a review for this, but I don't know how to tackle the bounty list since most of them seem to be demos and not full games. I'll figure something out.

Generally, I find it's best to refrain from giving an actual score to a demo, to make it clear within the review itself that the review is for the demo (this way it doesn't cause confusion if there are significant changes in the final release), and to look at both how the demo functions on its own and as an 'advertisement' for the final product (ex: it is possible for a demo to be somewhat mediocre, but to have one or two elements which really stand out and make you want to see more).

I'm actually in the middle of writing a review for the demo of The Arms of Reverie myself, but don't let that stop you if that was the one you had set your sights on.

I agree with the current majority and say that screenshot graphics are the primary factor I use when deciding if I should download a game (comments, reviews, and feature lists all being notable secondary factors).

Seeing RTP-based graphics in screenshots doesn't actually bother me too much (though custom sprites are always a nice plus) and I generally pay attention to what is actually going on in the screenshots. Screenshots of maps with way too much open space, with graphical assets which blatantly clash, or with some dialogue with spelling errors usually guarantee that I won't touch a game; the existence of a few spelling errors in a game is certainly tolerable, but when a screenshot a person uses as a representation of the game as a whole has one or more it usually doesn't bode well for the rest of the game. Likewise, screenshots of boring stuff also make me hesitate from downloading a game - if over half of the screenshots consist of things like the main menu, the party walking through a generic fantasy town, or of a fight with a run-of-the-mill slime I'll assume the game simply has nothing interesting or unique to offer.

Lastly, I want to mention that a video either of uncut gameplay (preferably not just of the first few minutes of the game) or in the form of a trailer can actually sway me more than screenshots, but I'll rarely seek out videos of games if the game's creator hasn't provided a link to one on the game's page and it's fairly uncommon for such a thing to be provided so, for the majority of games, screenshots remain the main factor.