#I HAVEN'T BEEN HERE BECAUSE OF WORK HAHAAAAA

[resharc]

a recap on jam

It's been a few weeks since I finished the Acerola Jam 0 (check out the jam if you haven't, there's a lot of cool games!) and I've had a bit of time to decompress and think about my experience. I also was literally unable to do this until this week so hahaaaaa.

If you haven't already, please check out my game jam game, Gunmatic Aberration. Some of what I'm gonna go over will make more sense if you've played it.

but maybe you like having no clue what I'm talking about, in which case, read on

A Summary

This was a good experience and has given me a good bit to think on for the other game. Which is both good and bad: part of the reason why progress has seemingly stopped is because of this. I've been working on stuff behind the scenes and polishing up bits (and rethinking others) to show off later.

I'm happy I was able to release a project that people could, you know, play. From start to finish, with very few bugs that soft-locked or broke the game. People found it fun too, which was a plus.

However, there's a few things that were problems and I'm unhappy with:

The game is confusing to play without any guidance; there wasn't obvious enough signposting or tutorials, which meant I had to tell people how to play (this is not a good sign).

The balance isn't great: some rooms are too hard. Others are too easy. Some powerups just suck, others are too good.

The boss doesn't take advantage of the core gimmick.

The presentation is lacking.

The last one is the thing that stings the most.

The Problem Of Visibility

In the three weeks the game has been around in the jam, my game was viewed 52 times, downloaded 19 times and rated 4 times. I posted it a few times and passed it around my friends. Around 6 of those downloads were from my friends. These are, by all means, not bad numbers. Someone on the Acerola discord found that the mean number of ratings is around 4 - so I'm perfectly average.

Part of this is just due to there being over 900 entries. Part of it is luck. A lot of it is because the game fundamentally doesn't catch your eye. My visual competency is, well

The biggest problem, I feel, boils down to marketing. Let's list a few problems with Gunmatic.

The game looks like a flash game made in 2008. This isn't bad but there's a stigma against those games.

The thumbnail does an awful job at describing the game and getting people to click.

The screenshots are confusing without context and frankly, suck.

The title sucks.

Part of this is just my own general competency. I am not a good artist by any means. This is something I struggle with constantly - I can, at best, make nice-ish looking animations and use some basic tricks to make it look a bit smoother. You can see this in a lot of my other clips. I also suck at names (honestly, my other game has some awful names...).

Focusing on GA, I could've done a few things better here. The easiest ones here are, add a gif to the screenshots and make a better thumbnail. I've done a quick mockup below of what that could look like (note i spent like 5 minutes on this). I could've used the gif in this very post on my screenshots screen too.

Getting People To Play

The second hurdle was actually getting people to play the game. It's one thing to get people to click, but how do you get people to actually play it?

I had a click-to-download ratio of about 3:1. That's, all things considered, not that bad! However, getting people to actually download your game, in a game jam with 958 entries, is difficult. Why play this flash game you need to download when you can play MEGA CHESS, which looks like a Real Game that you can play in your browser?

It probably would've been smarter if I'd just exported this to HTML5 and embedded it into the browser. This would've reduced the hurdle to play significantly: a lot of the most popular games in the game jam were, expectedly, browser games. And games Acerola had boosted (hint hint haha jk unless..........?).

Playtesting

This relates to my other issue: a lack of playtesting. by people who weren't me, i mean.

This is probably one of the hardest problems I've faced - both here and in my actual game. Unless you have friends who are into game development, it's hard to get someone to sit down, play your game, and give you their thoughts on what works and what doesn't. It's a fairly significant ask of someone! They have to play it for a bit, understand how it works, suffer through any problems, and then formulate their thoughts.

I developed Gunmatic Aberration over 2 weeks while working full time. I had a lot of dead time to fill in those two weeks - I should have been bugging my friends for their opinions and telling me what sucked and what didn't.

I didn't do that often.

This, above everything else, is what hurt the game the most. The game is fun, but it's incredibly unpolished and has more potential than anything else. The randomness of the game hurts it (it's a roguelite, after all): you can effectively just Die if you get a difficult room without the right powerups. It's difficult to figure out how to play without explicit instruction. These are all problems born from the developer being the only person to play it.

This is slightly just anecdotal, but I believe the top games in the Game Jam are both made by exceptionally talented people who also had some people giving them feedback. Maybe some more than others - but there was a conversation that I didn't have until the last few days.

i guess thats it?

So! That's what I did for about half a month in March. Then I went on a holiday and have been ruminating on this since.

You might be asking, "wait a fucking minute, you haven't posted anything since... November! What the hell! What have you been doing for the 4 months prior!"

That's cause, uh

um

woah check this out

[lightmaiiden]

Repost, don’t reblog! Tag 6 muns you would like to get to know better when done!

Name: Amber OR DEE IF YOU KNOW ME FROM GROUP RP CITTA OR ISOLA!!! Or very rare but twitter rp too!  Nickname: UHM I have a lot but I’d like to see people come up with fun nicknames actually <3 Age: I’m older than ten! 23 for real tho Faceclaim: I use best worst girl teruhashi kokomi but sometimes I forget to add the fc or I post on mobile making it impossible to use fc Pronouns: she/her Height: I think I THINK!!!! 5′5″ like... look it’s been ages since I measured myself man, I got this measurement from junior year of high school when I was hospitalized  Birthday: October 6

Aesthetic: sunny beaches, fall aesthetics (sad to say that i can no longer witness fall junk since i now live in florida rip), food that’s pleasing to look at, pastel aesthetics, spoopy aesthetics 

Last song you listened to: hee hee, the opening of the mob psycho 100, what can I say it’s bomb as HELL! 

Favourite muse(s) you’ve written: I have a lot weeps mainly because I rped so many characters but def my first muse the real viola (long story), hilda, sky zel without a doubt, this zel too though, teruhashi kokomi, saiki kusuo, pike queen lucy, kumatora, my oc, several horror rpg characters, fiona beli... namine!!

What inspired you to take on your current muse (that you are posting this on): Uhm, haha no big reason really I just love old characters and I want more people to love old characters too, also I love underrated characters and lemme tell you until ultimate this zel did not get all the love she deserves, that’s legit it. 

What are your favorite aspects of your current muse: Dang I can talk all day about her teasing side, since she can be playfully cute once she feels comfortable enough to bully your character it’s just a whole other side to her that’s always fun to write. Aside from that, I admire her tenacity it’s a lot of fun to write just how much she is willing to do to ensure peace for her kingdom. She’s pretty informal, often referring to people by their names instead of using titles since she feels that being polite 24/7 is not only distancing yourself but also exhausting, she likes to view herself equally with just about everyone!

What’s your biggest inspiration when it comes to writing: What is this inspiration you speak of? I HAVE NONE, I JUST DO WHATEVER SINCE INSPIRATION EITHER COMES TO ME OR DOESN’T, WHEN IT DOESN’T I FORCE MYSELF TO WRITE! Although I can say that music and coffee or tea helps a whole lot.  

Favorite types of threads: Cute fluffy ship stuff where our characters are just comforting each other and being soft, I like more gentle threads but adventure threads are also a lot of fun too!

Biggest struggle in regards to your current muse: My gnarly prose, I feel like it’s boring or all over the place and messy, I hate it so much! Sometimes, her dialogue can be a pain too... I’m trying to go for a more simple approach now since I’m tired of thinking. 

tagged by: nope! tagging: whoever!! feel free to say I tagged you or something!