[Project] Elemental Shifters (Post Ludumdare)

We have decided to continue work on our ludumdare entry and would REALLY REALLY appreciate all the help we can get from the MakeGamesSA community. Our goal is to sell our game on Itch.io, steam and maybe also a mobile version.
Please give honest and useful feedback no matter how harsh it is!

How can you help us?
* Give us advice on how we can get this game onto itch.io, steam and other platforms
* Tell us what you think should be removed/added to our game
* Give as much feedback as possible
* Tell us what to avoid and to do in regards to making this game successful

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There is a lot we have changed from our Ludumdare version which you can read about on our Devlog we have started.
http://obsessivenotion.com/blog.php?id=9

Ludumdare Version: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=92905
Post-Ludumdare Version: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4IoqR2pnZq4TDFPd2hJcDNiSEE

Will keep this post updated with out progress on the game.

Comments

  • I can already give you one immediately positive answer: to post your game on itch.io it's super easy, you pretty much just do it. There's no real obstacles or greenlight or anything you need to go through, you just register and post it :)

    For Humble it's a bit more difficult, but much easier than Steam IMHO. There's some resources https://www.humblebundle.com/developer/ and I believe it's easier to get a Humble widget, which you can place on your site and sell almost directly, and you can then apply to get on the store too. I think they'd prefer fairly complete games for the store, but the widget seems very flexible.

    For Steam I believe you need to go through Greenlight. I'm not sure what the best advice for that is, but I think there's a lot of online resources for that.

    What would a successful game be for you guys? If it gets a lot of players? If it makes a certain amount of money? Critical acclaim?

    I'm also a little curious why you've decided to work on this game. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I assume you had some reason for moving forward. Also, the LD results should be coming out in a couple hours. Are you gonna let those impact your decision(s) at all?

    Will try find some time to have a look at the new version.
  • I can already give you one immediately positive answer: to post your game on itch.io it's super easy
    We wan't to sell this game on itch.io for $2.99 once we think its close to being a complete game with more content. Would you agree that we only post our game there when it is close to completion?
    What would a successful game be for you guys? If it gets a lot of players? If it makes a certain amount of money? Critical acclaim?
    I don't think a success for us right now would be to become very popular or well known. Our aim with this game is to make something between R1000 and R10 000 which might be too high but we are aiming for it even if our stone comes a little short of it.[/quote]

    I'm also a little curious why you've decided to work on this game. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I assume you had some reason for moving forward. Also, the LD results should be coming out in a couple hours. Are you gonna let those impact your decision(s) at all?.
    This was probably our first game that did not have a massive scope to it making it much easier to reach our end goal for the game. We have also received a lot of positive feedback from people playing the game that says the game is very simple but nice at the same time so our target audience would be able to even reach kids that are learning shapes.

    The Ludumdare results will not be impacting our decisions because I think that the feedback received from ludumdare is ten times more useful than the results. I think the results would only boost our motivation if we have reached top 10 in any of the categories and maybe give some extra exposure to the game.

    Thanks a lot for the feedback so far!
  • edited
    I think it's worth looking at what other games are available on the marketplaces for $3, and how well or badly they're doing for what they're offering. To be honest, I don't think the market would look favourably on this game at the moment, and I think you're struggle to sell it at all right now.

    In particular, I don't think this game has any good "hooks". Good hooks might include: a great theme or fantasy, a novel or interesting game mechanic, beautiful aesthetics, or some other thing that makes someone want to recommend the game to their friends. I don't think this game has any of these at the moment that I can see. Because of that, to be honest, I feel that even if the game were free, you'd still struggle to get the game downloaded by players.

    That said, while I'm a little bit familiar with the Steam marketplace because it's the main one I buy games on, I know almost nothing about the itch.io environment. (I've considered using it as a prototype repo, but haven't actually done that.) If I were release on itch.io and hoping to charge for my games though, then I'd definitely be studying what the other games at the same price point look like, and if I can get stats on how well they're doing for the quality/product/hooks they're delivering.

    I'd personally make a bunch more prototypes and practise a bunch more, and either plan for hooks, or practise until hooks accidentally develop.

    Just keep it up, and make lots and lots more stuff! :) And try and find something great to use as your hook.

    [edit] Francois's advice below is pretty golden imo. Comparing views to downloads to how quickly these teetered off was pretty great feedback when Broforce was being developed.

    --
    By the way, there's a cube-like thing in the welcome screen below the text "Earth" that's z-fighting white and green.
    Thanked by 1Zaphire
  • Zaphire said:
    We wan't to sell this game on itch.io for $2.99 once we think its close to being a complete game with more content. Would you agree that we only post our game there when it is close to completion?
    I'm not sure. You could potentially put it up for free and then adjust the price upwards and charge later. If I had made this I would probably put it up for free on itch.io and see what the response is; then, only if I get a pretty strong signal that people really like it, would I consider taking it further (itch.io has some useful metrics you can measure against, including views, downloads, donations, ratings, comments, "launch" traffic spike, ongoing traffic, ...).

    So I think I'd have to echo some of what @Elyaradine said. To phrase things from a different perspective, maybe first try figure out if people are willing to pay for what you wanna make before you make it? That's obviously not trivial, but here are 2 ideas:

    1. Ask friends/family/people at local meetups if they'd buy the game. If they say yes, I wouldn't take that as a certainty they would pay for it, but if they say no that's probably a strong indicator. Although, maybe they aren't your market... (who is your market?)

    2. Make more prototypes and see how they compare relatively. If you have them on itch.io, what do the view analytics look like? Are views translating into downloads? How does that compare across your prototypes?


    Again, echoing @Elyaradine, maybe try make a couple more prototypes. Give yourself a time budget of a week or two per prototype and try make 4 or so (adjust these numbers to suit you, and the more the merrier). If you take 2 weeks per prototype and release 4, then you've only spent 2 months on it - that's not a lot of time to spend exploring alternatives. Then compare all of these games and see if one of them is better. Maybe you notice a trend where you're improving as you go? How much can you keep that trend going? Maybe you can make a prototype so good that people will be making donations on itch.io when they could easily just download it for free?!
    Thanked by 1Zaphire
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