Only Us [Pre-Alpha] - (Teaser) Trailer Up Now!

I_Am_Developer

Greetings Community,

I am currently working on a (commercial) video-game currently in the *Pre-Alpha* stage.

Only Us is an indie game which crosses the Action Adventure, Puzzle and Role-Playing Game genre boundaries.
Developed by me, Dominic C. Arendse, for the PC-platform.

Follow the game's progress by following the official facebook page, twitter account and youtube channel:
* https://www.facebook.com/OnlyUsOfficialGamePage
* https://twitter.com/OnlyUsGame
* https://www.youtube.com/user/OnlyUsGame

A trailer will be released next week for the game.

In the meantime, attached are two screenshots of the game and a game wallpaper to enjoy, so you know it's real.

I would really appreciate your support from one indie developer to another.

Thank you,
Dominic C. Arendse

I_Am_Developer

The Only Us (Teaser) Trailer is up, watch now and leave a like:

dislekcia

Hmm.

I have no idea what the gameplay is after watching that. I was about to come back and tell you that there was something wrong with your video after 48 seconds of solid blackness, then something happened, although I assume now that you meant it that way?

Also, not strongly convinced by the voice at all. Text can speak much clearer and plainer, letting you get away with talking about difficult-to-frame emotions without the danger of being called pretentious. Just look at how the trailer for Night In The Woods dances with and around some pretty big topics, but doesn't alienate viewers with highbrow concepts:



Finally: What's with all that copyright/attempted legal doohickery at the end of the video? You already own the copyright on your work, if you don't own the song, that's all you need to say. You can even say it in the description :)

I_Am_Developer

I take pride in doing things by the book, so stating the copyrights is what I want to do at the end.

Secondly, my voice actor well, his my voice actor so I'd back him up, I don't need my audience to be somehow convinced by the voice acting, I need my audience to just have a single thought of relevance, if I raise a brow, if I give you a flashback, if I even discourage you, I made an impression and that is what is important to me, to get you as the viewer to be involved, positively, negatively - it does not matter.

Last but not least, I don't intend to let you see the gameplay, rather my art style in motion. Like it's called, a teaser, I'm teasing you with the game - not really revealing too much anything.

Elyaradine

if I even discourage you, I made an impression and that is what is important to me

Done. Congrats. :P

[edit] I felt the pace was pretty off, where I sat around waiting for something to happen, and nothing did. Which is probably a terrible use of the medium of a "game", where interactivity is kind of the whole point of picking the medium in the first place. I imagine a game about standing in the snow for 20 seconds at a time probably wouldn't be my cup of tea.

And I kind of appreciate when a designer tries to make me feel uncomfortable. If I can see the marks of design, I can appreciate that real thought has been put into something, and even if it's something I don't like feeling, I can appreciate how the feeling may have been encouraged within me. (I find this in particular with horrors. I don't like being scared, but I can appreciate the techniques that are used to do so.) But when a designer says that they were trying to get a response, any response, anything at all... then it pretty much just sounds like someone crying for attention, or trying to excuse otherwise poor design. :( If you could give more insight into what you were trying to do with the teaser, perhaps I could learn something, because as it is, I really don't think it was a very good marketing tool.

I_Am_Developer

You got me on that last note, I admit.

Even though so, I'm riding on this just being a teaser.

[Edit]: Let me not be cliche:

then it pretty much just sounds like someone crying for attention

- that is exactly what I want to do with my game's teaser. I am looking for my viewer's attention.

But I'll explain my game further at tomorrow's meetup.

Tuism

@I_Am_Developer

I get the sense that you're defending something simply because you made it, not because you are convinced that it is perfect.

Here's the thing - the feedback these guys have given are not an attack on your work, your voice actor, or anything remotely related to you. They're unbiased observations. They're what the rest of the world may say about what you're showing.

Now if you're utterly and truthfully ok with showing people something that will receive this kind of response out of people, then well done, you've succeeded. In fact there's no need to work on the project anymore, it is done :)

But we all know that the project is unfinished and as such is not perfect. Therefore, criticism is absolutely normal. In fact it should be welcome. For without criticism the project cannot grow.

So... Why be defensive about receiving criticism? By taking a stance and saying "this is not bad at all", you're only asking for people to either 1) Give no critique or 2) Lie to you and say your work is perfect and done.

In which case, well, why ask for feedback? :)

Around here, us indie developers support each other exactly by giving valuable feedback, so that we can all catch mistakes each other make. This is valuable support. Cos the piddly few likes and follows we can give each others' social media accounts don't do squat if our actual work don't improve and improve over time, and improvement happens with criticism.

I_Am_Developer

Let me re-phrase, I am actually glad for the feedback and when I said let us not be cliche, I was talking about myself... That even though it sounds cliche, I actually want attract attention.

But thank you, I very much want to be criticized :)

And honestly that's what I intended, feedback no matter the form. :) @Tuism

[Edit]: perfection is far from it, there's always room for improvement.

Tuism

OK cool, it didn't come across that way, so I'm glad we got that out of the way :)

Looking forward to more gameplay... Cos ultimately that's what we care about here if we're supposed to be looking at a "game" :)

I_Am_Developer

Of course @Tuism :)

dislekcia

Tuism said:

Around here, us indie developers support each other exactly by giving valuable feedback, so that we can all catch mistakes each other make. This is valuable support. Cos the piddly few likes and follows we can give each others' social media accounts don't do squat if our actual work don't improve and improve over time, and improvement happens with criticism.

Quoted for reference, this is the spirit the rest of this post is in... To be honest, I didn't feel like it would be worth trying to reply after the first reaction to crit, but I guess @Tuism stirred some faith ;)

I_Am_Developer said:

Let me re-phrase, I am actually glad for the feedback and when I said let us not be cliche, I was talking about myself... That even though it sounds cliche, I actually want attract attention.

After that video, I'm less curious about the game than before. If a teaser doesn't respect my time, if it doesn't reward me for participation, then I have no guarantee that the game will treat me any better. Your screenshots were much better at fostering interest (even then, two shots of a logo are over the top, 1 is fine, show more gameplay), at least I could glance at them and move on quickly.

I_Am_Developer said:

I take pride in doing things by the book, so stating the copyrights is what I want to do at the end.

If you want to do things properly, speak to a lawyer. There will be one at the meetup tomorrow. This focus on copyright enforcement at the end of the video smacks of amateurism and helps to create an image of the game as the product of someone that's overly defensive about their work, which is a developer image that hasn't magically led to any of the games I really loved playing. I'm not saying this is who you are (I don't know you), I'm just pointing out that this is very similar to what complete newbies do. If you're not a lawyer, don't try to be one ;)

I_Am_Developer said:

Secondly, my voice actor well, his my voice actor so I'd back him up, I don't need my audience to be somehow convinced by the voice acting, I need my audience to just have a single thought of relevance, if I raise a brow, if I give you a flashback, if I even discourage you, I made an impression and that is what is important to me, to get you as the viewer to be involved, positively, negatively - it does not matter.

This is very strange... Regarding the voice actor, I thought it might have been your own voice and I didn't want to be mean to you. If it's a paid voice actor though... Stop paying them, they're bad. "Backing up" a poor resource out of loyalty to some shared experience is not in line with the "kill your babies" mental attitude that helps build good games. It's still early in the project, you can change voice actors easily, you can even remove voice acting entirely and nuke a big time/money sink. If you do want to keep it, find a voice actor that understands accents, timing and metre. They're not that rare!

@Elyaradine already responded to the "any reaction is good enough" sentiment super well. I just want to reiterate that as a designer, your job is to evoke specific responses in your players. A much better use of the criticism people are offering you, should you really want to provoke disinterest specifically, is stuff like: "Ah, I see. So what made you most disinterested there? Would you be more tuned out if I waited longer on the black screen, or if the game logo appeared even later on the rain scene?" It very much does matter how people respond and why. Getting any response at all, including indifference, undermines the entire point of trying to create something for an audience.

I_Am_Developer said:

Last but not least, I don't intend to let you see the gameplay, rather my art style in motion. Like it's called, a teaser, I'm teasing you with the game - not really revealing too much anything.

If anything you put out has to be qualified as "just a" whatever, then it's probably not a positive thing to put out there seriously. Yes, post stuff tentatively to garner feedback, but don't actively market a thing and expect people who aren't you to give you the benefit of the doubt the way that your own context bestows on your perspective. They don't have that.

If you want attention on your work, people have to want to give what you produce to other people. You have to show the value of the thing you're putting out there - what's the value of your art style here? I don't want to give people that teaser, because they'll be more interested in your game without it. I'm dead sure you can make a better teaser with a bit more effort.

Rigormortis

After watching this I was left with an odd feeling. I felt like I just watched a teaser, but not sure of what. It could be a game, it could be a music video it could even be a animated film. I didn't quite feel like I had to find out what this was about because I needed it in my life(which I think a teaser should do).

I have some additional comments on the dialogue as well. I'm not a writer or anything, so I'm just going to try and explain what I thought while he was talking. Firstly, I couldn't quite figure out if he was talking to me or just talking. It seems like he's talking to me, but he's talking about all the people in the world. Also, he's talking about love...why is he talking about love? He mentions later that I asked him who he was...but what has that got to do with love? I'm also not sure if I'm supposed to BE this person talking. Also, it seems like there is a use of big words for the sake of using big words. To me it seemed like these few sentences were supposed to be telling a mini story of sorts, only it didn't quite flow or make me feel a connection to the character.

I hope this isn't coming of as too harsh. In general I think this was a good attempt at a teaser(not trailer :P). I'm going to be at the meetup tomorrow as well. Hopefully we can find some time to chat about the game. :)

I_Am_Developer

@Rigormortis
@dislekcia

Wow. :) I really appreciate it, but I am fathomed and I quote

fathomed

by why you are so offensive about copyright. I simply feel it is my game, and in that aspect, you are the only one that keeps pushing the copyright button - so all other critique = great; copyright critique = not so great. As in some singer's lyrics

turn down for wot???

[Edit]: I look forward to it @Rigormortis, thank you guys for the feedback thus far though, I appreciate it.

Elyaradine

I see everything from an art point of view, as I make game art for a living. I know back when I was a much younger, much more naive artist, I used to sign my work all of the time. The work wasn't any good, but hot damn, I spent a lot of time practising my signature! :D

The fact is, whether you sign it or not, whether you mark it as copyrighted or not, your making it in the first place, turning it from a mere idea into an actual product, already puts it under copyright under SA law. So putting extra copyright stuff there to sound all big and special is a lot like my practising signing my work when my work was so bad that nobody was going to steal it anyway. That's the sort of coming-across-as-amateur that I believe @dislekcia's talking about.

(I'm a much better artist now, and I almost never sign anything any more (mostly because I forget to, because I'm so focused on the work itself). I figure if I'm pretty active in art communities and show the work around, I'm already connected to my work, and people have actually come back to me and let me know when my stuff has actually been stolen elsewhere -- something that would've happened whether or not I signed all of my stuff.)

I_Am_Developer

@Elyaradine

That sounds more understanding than the way @dislekcia explained it or rather just stated it. I could connect with what you said, truly. I understand copyright law basics, but as you said - I am quite young so I am rather naive to a certain degree, especially when it comes to my work. :) lol ;)

[Edit]: (18 in fact)