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    Feedback Friday #431 - Superior Gameplay

    February 12, 2021

    Feedback Friday #431 - Superior Gameplay

    Feedback Friday #431 - Superior Gameplay

    Posted: 11 Feb 2021 08:58 PM PST

    FEEDBACK FRIDAY #431

    Well it's Friday here so lets play each others games, be nice and constructive and have fun! keep up with devs on twitter and get involved!

    Post your games/demos/builds and give each other feedback!

    Feedback Friday Rules:

    Suggestion: As a generally courtesy, you should try to check out a person's game if they have left feedback on your game. If you are leaving feedback on another person's game, it may be helpful to leave a link to your post (if you have posted your game for feedback) at the end of your comment so they can easily find your game.

    -Post a link to a playable version of your game or demo

    -Do NOT link to screenshots or videos! The emphasis of FF is on testing and feedback, not on graphics! Screenshot Saturday is the better choice for your awesome screenshots and videos!

    -Promote good feedback! Try to avoid posting one line responses like "I liked it!" because that is NOT feedback!

    -Upvote those who provide good feedback!

    -Comments using URL shorteners may get auto-removed by reddit, so we recommend not using them.

    Previous Weeks: All

    submitted by /u/Sexual_Lettuce
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    Engine for 10-year-old who also wants to learn how to write code (ie. not block programming)

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 04:51 AM PST

    Hi all.

    Our 10-year-old is very interested in making games. What engine should I research and start teaching her (her english is okay, but not good enough to follow english tutorials - yet).She has some experience with block programmering from Lego Spike / Mindstorms, micro:bit and a MakeBlock robot.But she really wan't to learn how to write code (like her mom and dad ;) ). And she wants to learn while making games.

    Currently she is making a game in Roblox Studio, but it doesn't feel like scripting in Roblox is the way to go for her.

    I'm considering Unity (mostly because it is widely used here in Denmark), Godot and Game Maker Studio 2.I don't have much experience myself with either, since I personally prefer working with C++, SFML, OpenGL etc.

    So, what engine would you say is the most beginner friendly and easy to script in?

    EDIT: thank you all for all your input. I will try to answer your comments the best I can, but I can't keep up at the moment (and the kids are calling for me ;) ).

    submitted by /u/MakerTech
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    A Guide to Marketing your Indie Game! How I got 20,000 Followers on Twitter

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 10:13 AM PST

    So I had a few requests from my Kickstarter post to write up a bit on how I do marketing for our game. I run the Twitter account for our 3D platformer, Billie Bust Up. With my team, we've managed to cultivate a small fandom following during the pre-alpha stages of our game.

    Marketing your game early is extremely important. We live in an age where anyone can develop games, the industry is oversaturated. Start building an audience as soon as you can or you'll find yourself without customers when your game is ready to sell.

    Find Your Unique Selling Point!

    In the world of indie games, it's hard to stand out, find out what makes your game unique! What gets people excited to play your game? You'll need to focus it down to one line.

    Here is an example of our USP "Billie Bust Up is a musical 3D Platformer with cute characters and catchy villain songs!"

    I use it on all of our social media posts. It can take a very long time to find that unique selling point, so don't stress if you're struggling, it took me 2 years of working on Billie Bust Up to find ours.

    Your story will very very rarely be your USP! You won't find people invested in your story if they are not yet invested in your characters, and it is extremely hard to sell a game on story alone. Focus more on how your gameplay stands out. Think "purple elephant", something so interesting and bizarre you have to tell your friends about it. Word of mouth can be one of the most important means of advertisement. Take a look at some big indie games, see what made their product stand out, what was their unique selling point? I recommend watching the GDC talk "30 things I hate about your pitch" for more help. It is extremely important to figure out the parts that make your game stand out and make them clear to your potential audience. Use your audience to your advantage too! Originally only one character was going to have a song, but after community response, we expanded the entire game to a full musical.

    It's All in the Name

    Unless you're a AAA company with a huge marketing budget avoid using one-word adjectives or nouns unless you are using a made-up word. I have seen games in the past that have used a generic word and then found it impossible to find their game, even when I was actively searching for it on google I couldn't find their game anywhere. People should be able to find you quickly. Ideally, you want to google your name and find yourself at the very top of the results.

    Try and think of something catchy that's easy to remember. Don't make your name too long or confusing.

    Try out multiple names and see what people think of them. We had multiple suggestions for names before we all decided and voted on one we liked.

    Setting up your Page

    I use Twitter for most of our advertisement and it is where I've had the most success.

    When it comes to Twitter you're going to want a nice clean and attractive page. When people click on your page they're going to want to know everything about your game at first glance. Don't make them look for information.

    When people first see your Twitter, without even having to scroll down, they should know

    • The name of our Game (make this your Twitter tag, not your company name!)
    • Gameplay footage of our game pinned to the top of the feed
    • Our unique selling point/elevator pitch
    • What our logo looks like
    • What genre the game is
    • Where our Discord is
    • Where our Patreon is
    • Where our Facebook is
    • Our email address

    Try to do the same with your game and nail down the most important aspects of it. You have limited space to use so make sure you use it effectively. Does your audience really need to know where you're based or how long you've worked on your game? Use this opportunity to elevator pitch your game and USP, not your company. I would encourage you to set up a special account with your game name and avoid using personal accounts or company accounts, you want to advertise ONLY your game here. On your personal Twitter, you are then free to post cute pet photos or selfies. It focuses your feed and gets people to know the name of your game when they see it pop up on their feed. No one knows our company name, but it doesn't matter. Your company will gain a reputation after your game's launch.

    Keep your Timeline Clean

    Your audience will have a very short attention span so keep your timeline clean and relevant. If you retweet unrelated content or respond to comments with gif reactions then make sure you delete them a day after. If I look through your media tab I want to see your game, if your audience is having to scroll through unrelated gif responses they will eventually get fed up and leave your page having learned nothing of your game.

    Reshare & Retweet old work

    You'll want to make sure you retweet or repost your older work so that you can maximize how much of your audience sees it. I will try and tweet at peak hours when Twitter is most active (usually early morning and late evening) and then retweet again 8 hours later for people in different time zones.

    Repost your older work! Your new followers won't have seen it, just because you didn't get lots of views on your first try doesn't mean the post itself is bad, and creating constant new content for your followers is a lot of work, save that time and work more on your game instead! I usually repost the same gif MULTIPLE times and they always succeed in bumping up our follower account. Here is a quick example:

    https://twitter.com/BillieBustUp/status/1359229467332407302?s=20

    https://twitter.com/BillieBustUp/status/1332970175319207936?s=20

    https://twitter.com/BillieBustUp/status/1309108832782749701?s=20

    https://twitter.com/BillieBustUp/status/1280171202854748161?s=20

    https://twitter.com/BillieBustUp/status/1200563661477163008?s=20

    https://twitter.com/BillieBustUp/status/1140658124837347330?s=20

    Analyze your Work

    I'm always asking myself these questions; "why did this tweet do badly?" "Why did this tweet do well?" Try and figure out where you're going wrong and learn from your mistakes. You can use Twitter analytics to help you

    You can check under the 'tweets' tab for analytics and look at how individual tweets performed. Sometimes a tweet won't get a high amount of likes or retweets but you'll see that it had very little in terms of impressions on the analytics. This could be down to multiple reasons, perhaps you posted at the wrong time of day, or you didn't use the correct hashtags, figure out why people are not seeing your post and fix it.

    Study more into engagement rates and learn what your baseline is, 8% engagement sounds like a low number it's surprisingly high for Twitter! Don't feel disheartened if these are low for you, it's very normal. Try increasing your engagements by asking an open-ended question at the end of each tweet, responses will help boost your engagement rating and thus the visibility of your post.

    I also end up learning more about what my audience wants from our game, when tweets do well it helps me figure out what characters or environments people like. We wouldn't have made a musical 3D platformer if the reaction to one song hadn't been so strong.

    Using Hashtags

    When it comes to hashtags, try to limit yourself to a maximum of three hashtags per tweet. Sometimes I don't use them at all, but to get started I'd recommend using #gamedev #indiedev #UE4 (only if you're using that engine of course) and #indiedevhour and #screenshotsaturday. I found the most success finding an audience with #screenshotsaturday, but find what's best for you!

    Moving Images

    This is very important for Twitter, people will quickly be scrolling through their feed and you will need to grab their attention. Movement will always draw the eye to a tweet and is an easy way to maximize your engagement. I try to avoid videos as Twitter has a bad habit of compressing the video quality and creating a blurry mess. If you need to show a long section of gameplay you should use video but default to gif if you can. I will very rarely use static images, you're selling moving interactable art, show people your game in action. If it's a static character pose put them on a turntable! I use ezgif to make all my gifs, it has no watermark and is super easy to use. Make sure your gifs are under 15MB

    Don't Mass Follow or Follow Back

    I would never encourage someone to mass follow other accounts or to follow people back for an easy high follower count. People will see right through that. An account with 1000 following and 1000 followers is less impressive than an account that is only following 10 people with 1000 followers. You want people who are actually interested in your game.

    You definitely should not follow a bunch of people and unfollow after they follow you back either, your account may seem impressive at first glance but people will be able to tell from your lack of engagement that the follower count is not genuine. It doesn't give a good impression on you or your business ethic either. I only follow people related to the project in some form, like a verified list of our employees or contract workers.

    Engage with your Followers

    Never undervalue your audience and try your best to engage with them! Once you get thousands of followers it will obviously be harder to do this but dedicate a set amount of time each day to respond to people and encourage conversation. Make your followers feel loved and valued, they're the reason you're able to pursue your passion and make video games and they should know how important they are. Conversations will also pop up onto other people's feeds and in turn motivate more people to join in and discover your game.

    Giveaways

    Giveaways are an easy win-win scenario, you reward your audience with something free and you can easily reach your target audience. Don't feel the need to give away something flashy or expensive, especially when you're a struggling young developer with not much money. You can give out hand-cut stickers, buttons, or even in-game rewards.

    Make sure you ask for a retweet and a comment as an entry. It will help with engagement and thus boost your post's visibility. Don't ask for follows, they will follow if they are interested in your game. You don't want to artificially increase your follower count with people who won't engage with any future content.

    Brand your Work

    I make sure to add our logo to all of our videos and pictures, that way if someone shares our work outside of our social media someone will be able to find us easily by googling our logo name. You should keep the logo in the same position for every post you make. The more people see your logo the more they'll start to recognize your content too! Maybe they won't follow you straight away but the more they see your work pop up the more they might start to warm up to your game.

    Discord

    Set up a Discord! I was very nervous when I first set up our server, we were a new game and I was embarrassed by the thought of having an empty server, but we now have an active verified server of 3000 members!

    Just make sure you actually talk in it yourself! I've found empty game servers where the community is clearly eager to chat but the developers never seem to respond. Get to know people and keep the chat going and you'll slowly grow a nice community there, it's up to you to build it.

    The discord server has been a huge help in keeping the hype for the game-high. This will be the main hub for the most passionate part of your community, and you can also set up a bot to send your tweets to an announcement page for the server. I often find that if a post gets high engagements quickly, it will spread fast. I want to get as many people retweeting and sharing ASAP!

    We often have comments from our audience that they appreciate that we are so easy to contact via our discord. Communication and being open is key! But don't forget to separate this from your home life. Set up a discord account for work and one for friends if you have to. Don't make your work seep into your time off. Yes, I said to take time off!

    Patreon

    I've had a couple of people ask me about Patreon and if I would recommend it as a good funding platform. Personally, I've found Patreon great so far but make sure you have an audience first. Before I set up the Patreon I had several people ask where they could make a donation to help fund the game so I knew I had people who were willing to pledge the second I went live. It's a great way to reward people for helping support the game.

    Luck?

    Finally, one last part to consider. Luck is indeed a big factor. There are many occasions looking back at my game dev journey, where one small action would completely change the course of this game. I've worked hard but that I am incredibly lucky to be in the position I am now. Survival is the most important part of this business. Getting an indie off the ground isn't easy by any means, and even if you try your best you might not make it. I wish you all the best of luck in your game developer journey! If you have any questions please let me know.

    - Katie

    submitted by /u/Kitmit13
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    How Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator 2 can have 10 million characters on screen. BTS Pt1

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 10:39 AM PST

    How RollTable moved to scalable game servers using Agones, Node, and DigitalOcean

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 11:13 AM PST

    Why I started YouTube and my dev plans for 2021 - I posted posted part 1 here a couple weeks ago and y'all liked it so heres part 2

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 09:14 AM PST

    Games for blind people or playing while working. Is it worth making?

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 01:53 AM PST

    If I wanted to make a game that can be played without looking at the screen.

    For example, the 3D world automatically described by the AI narrator (not so hard to code I think), and the Player can choose options what to do next, or use voice simple commands (go forward, use time, look at.. etc). You can play it when doing something boring or has poor eyesight etc.

    Is it failed idea or maybe should try? I'm sure the same projects were made before but don't know much about them.

    submitted by /u/johnsmith3458
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    Made £150,000 from Kickstarter, Funded in 17 hours, Thoughts and Tips!

    Posted: 11 Feb 2021 04:21 PM PST

    ​

    Hi! I'm Katie! and I'm the director at Blueprint Games.

    We recently made £150,000 from our Kickstarter, including slacker backer and donations. We're a musical 3D platformer, Billie Bust Up! Our company had previously failed a Kickstarter back in 2016 and I was determined to make it work the second attempt. I thought I'd write down some tips I picked up throughout, along with some general thoughts. Just a disclaimer, I am an indie dev and have been in the industry for about 6 years. Any thoughts or opinions of mine may not be the best advice out there, but I'd like to share what I've learned so far!

    • Make a proper project plan, make sure to have contingency baked into your timeline, and don't be afraid to overestimate your goal! On average game developers underestimate their time to finish by a factor of 3. Our release date is 2024, yet this didn't put people off! If we get out earlier than that? even better!
    • Ask for a decent sum of money and be clear where that money is going. Don't add on lots of stretch goals that expand your scope. We broke our game budget down into chapters and used that as our stretch goal.
    • Don't over-promise on physical rewards, focus more on exclusive digital merchandise, like Kickstarter only skins and comics. Keep physical rewards to a minimum and try to keep them to the size of an envelope for shipping. Think enamel pins, buttons, stickers, etc.
    • Kickstarter is a job in itself. I've heard plenty of stories about the difficulty of a Kickstarter, but still underestimated the amount of work it was, meaning I could not complete my tasks on time for the game's production and messed up the project plan as a result. Keep the month before Kickstarter, during Kickstarter, and after Kickstarter fairly free. Plan it into your day and project plan. You'll want to focus on marketing, answer questions, and self-care.
    • You'll need to market ALOT up before your Kickstarter. For our first failed Kickstarter I barely announced the Kickstarter before pressing launch. For Billie Bust Up, I spent 3 years hyping up the game and its eventual Kickstarter on Twitter and had 15,000 followers at launch. I won't go too far into detail, as marketing is a whole topic in itself, but I'm happy to answer any questions below or make a separate post for marketing! EDIT: Here is a guide for marketing your indie game
    • Start a mailing list to email people once your Kickstarter is live. Add an incentive for signing up for the newsletter. We offered a free enamel pin for day 1 backers by sending out a unique code with the email with every physical merch order. But you could also do exclusive behind the scenes content, skins, or other digital rewards.
    • Don't do a Kickstarter before or after Christmas. You can find the exact perfect dates, months, and times you can expect to have a successful Kickstarter online. We did ours in November as we were forced to due to the pandemic, but I would highly recommend against this. I believe the best month is March? and certainly not in a pandemic.
    • Kickstarter will want a few days to "inspect" your project before you can launch. Make sure it looks polished. Our campaign was not ready yet when we sent it off, and I believe this lead to a very low magic score, as despite our fast funding and the good funding result we were buried by Kickstarter's "magic" rating system from the get-go. This is selected manually by Kickstarter staff.
    • Your first few hours are extremely important. People will flock to projects that are doing well and hype can be very important. Make sure you have all your bases lined up for the launch, make an event of it! We prepared a new trailer and advertised the Kickstarter day and time. Everyone watched the Youtube premiere and we launched at the very end of the video to drive up the hype
    • Be careful of cross-promotion! Many advised me to cross-promote with as many games as possible, this can be good, but research who you are helping advertise. I have seen Kickstarter scammers be recommended by good projects, you don't want to lead your audience towards a scammer, so make sure you check out their game and history first.
    • Consider live-streaming the countdown to your campaign ending! We ran two very successful live streams that helped pick up pledges at the end of the campaign. The voice actors would take voice requests for pledges and donations. It might help you cross the threshold on a stretch goal!
    • Make sure you sell your game first, and yourself second! We have about 10 seconds to grab our audience. No animated logos for your company, or talking heads, get to the action!! You are here to sell your game, not your company! Show that unique selling point loud and proud. Grab their attention, sell your game, then you can advertise your team, your story, and the budget. If people aren't sold on your game, they're not going to read your game developer backstory.
    • Are demos a good idea?... Maybe? A demo can be a mixed bag of results. You could put someone off from pledging completely and missell your unpolished project, and I would generally recommend against it. Make sure you are 100% confident in your demo before you put it out, is it worth the risk? We had a lot of playtesters and handed out free keys to test the waters first before making the demo available.
    • Use gifs more than pictures! The movement will attract the eye, make your page look nicer, and show more of your gameplay off.

    And finally, luck is always a factor. I have been extremely lucky with my team, my life situation, and how things turned out. Don't be disheartened if things don't work out first try. I found it extremely hard to get back up again after my first failed Kickstarter. Take time for yourself, find out what went wrong, try again if you have the opportunity to. I wouldn't advise Kickstarter is a great path for everyone, it will come down to your game, team, scope, budget, and audience, but I hope I was able to help a bit for anyone who may be considering this path to funding their game! Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to help! I've probably forgotten a few tips, but I'll edit if I remember them. Thank you for reading! <3

    submitted by /u/Kitmit13
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    Google Poly will be shutting down forever on June 30, 2021.

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 11:06 AM PST

    Anybody know a formula that prioritizes diversity over abundance in a set? (and where to find this kind of thing in general)

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 11:48 AM PST

    So the specific problem is, I have a town, the town is surrounded by X types of resources and each resource has a random abundance (maybe there is one node of it, maybe two, maybe three etc..)

    Ideally, I'd like some way to say: In an area around this town, tally all of the resources and then give a rating of that town's total surrounding resources, based off of 1) How many different types of resources there are 2) How much of each resource there is 3) How important that resource is

    I've got all the data in separately, I'm just not sure how to properly make a formula for this rating. I also want to prioritize diversity over abundance, in the sense that its better if a town has food AND water rather than a lake and then nothing else around.

    As a separate inquiry, does anyone know a good resource where I could find this kind of information in the future?

    submitted by /u/Onerandomchicken
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    If you're working on a Sci-Fi project, here's a tutorial on how to create laser sounds and other space noises.

    Posted: 11 Feb 2021 04:15 PM PST

    Are there any resources out there for implemented sail physics?

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 05:01 AM PST

    Edit: Found this wonderful video by the maker of Windward. I'll be using this method for now but in the spirit of learning, I would still like to hear everyone's thoughts on how to implement this.

    I am making a game and want to implement sailing for ships. At first, I was using basic steering behaviors but I am not too happy with the results.

    I would like something more advanced such as the sailing on Sid Meier's Pirates! or Windward

    Does anyone have an idea of how these games accomplish this? Any tricks being used here to save on physics computations?

    submitted by /u/bacb
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    Continuing on the path to make a Canabalt style endless runner. Ground collision detection using simple raycasting.

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 04:58 AM PST

    Unity - Free Car Controller (2021)

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 10:47 AM PST

    Does anyone work with affective computing tools

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 10:35 AM PST

    Hi all, I was hoping to pick a few brains if you work with affective computing or feedback response in your games. I'm hoping next year to begin research in this area with developers and am just canvassing to see what may be happening in this area.

    submitted by /u/captainlux87
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    How to credit someone who suggest some ideas to put on a video game ?

    Posted: 11 Feb 2021 09:56 PM PST

    Hi I'm new to game development industry and currently working on a game as a solo-developer but as I'm working on it and show my friends they can't help themselves on suggesting great ideas to add into my game ... but I'm concern that I take all the credits that I don't deserve... All I can think about is to credit my friends below the title " special thanks " Does it suit this situation?

    Some ideas like they suggested... Specific enemy behavior Ideas for power ups New character design ideas ... etc.

    Or credit doesn't work this way?

    submitted by /u/DarkMaigo
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    How do you research publishers?

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 12:25 PM PST

    How do you guys research a publisher? I was recently contacted by a publisher looking to see if I wanted them to publish my game. And Im wondering if you have any tips as to what to look for in a good publisher.

    Also, Im a newbie game dev, what are some reasonable things to expect from a partnership with a publisher?

    submitted by /u/dr2277
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    Hi, anyone have ideas to add to my in game level editor? Besides online level sharing (my endgame)

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 12:24 PM PST

    Resources for developing Gameboy Color games? [Feb 12,2021]

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 08:14 AM PST

    I saw a reddit topic similar to this, but it was from 8 years ago.

    I wouldn't mind trying to make one Gameboy Color game as a hobby. That seems fun.

    I was wondering what resources should I use today?

    Gonna keep researching it.

    submitted by /u/Nekomatagami
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    The most simple way to melee attack! (Unity 2D platformer)

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 08:12 AM PST

    Where did you go & what did you learn to develop games?

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 11:43 AM PST

    Hey everyone I need help, I've decided to become a game developer but I don't know which colleges I should go to. I live in Mississippi and I would really use y'all advice. Pls and thanks!!!

    submitted by /u/YoloDFox
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    Could anyone give me some game idea categories for me to do? As a challenge?

    Posted: 12 Feb 2021 11:40 AM PST

    I am coming back to Unity2D and have taken an extremely long break. I can't come up with any ideas and I need some ideas to run off just so I can challenge myself and better my skills.

    I have seen a few videos on youtube where this guy (Dani) was challenged to make a game in X minutes. I have also seen Brackeys and some other people do this thing called the Ludum Dare.

    I would be extremely grateful if some of you guys could give me a game theme/type/category (Like Ludum Dare) and a time limit to make it!! I will respond to your message saying when I started and then update you.

    Thank you!

    submitted by /u/Most-Situation5985
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