
When Game Development Stinks - pertinhower
http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=1221
======
austinl
> “But look at that AI… look at those colors… look at that particle
> explosion!”

Unfortunately, while I admire all of these things, there's not good selling
points for most consumers anymore. Because of AAA titles, people come to
expect things like good AI and good explosions, and are only disappointed when
their expectation aren't met.

To truly break out in the indie gaming market, you've got have very unique
gameplay and a good bit of luck with marketing. Two indie games that have done
a really good job of this lately:

FTL: Faster than Light <http://www.ftlgame.com/>

Prison Architect <http://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/>

As far as mobile games go, most people aren't looking for depth. It's all
about quick fun -- e.g. Angry Birds

~~~
alanfalcon
Can't recommend FTL enough. My wife and I like to play it together, making
decisions together throughout the game.

It's like the video game analogue of Space Alert, a board game with a somewhat
similar premise. Funny enough in this case the board game is real time and the
video game has a (much needed) pause option.

------
akurilin
Is it possible that the market is now so saturated with games of all kinds
that it's simply hard to find enough customers to care about each separate
product? Between smartphone app stores, Facebook games, a half dozen different
consoles, an endless supply of entertainment through Steam, Kickstarter and
(basically free) Bundles of all sorts, it must be really difficult to stand
out without a truly unique product and phenomenal marketing.

As some of you folks pointed out, it's turning into a race to the bottom
similar to the music industry, where people won't even play your product for
free, even when it's really high quality. Think of all the games you
accumulated through Steam sales and never even touched. It's a brutal war over
the spare time of the average gamer, and it's highly contested space.

~~~
justinhj
It used to be that there was only a very narrow market for games, but now
there is casual, hard core, mobile, tablet and console, desktop, MMO's, indy,
web. But to offset that the market is also much bigger and more inclusive.
There are people that now pay for video games that would never have bought a
Nintendo or an Xbox. If you want to make money in video games you have to find
a niche and give that audience quality versions of what they want.

~~~
princec
It would seem that the niche we chose is a bit shite :) But that's why we're
abandoning it.

------
danso
So few Mac games make it down the transom that I do take note when they show
up on Steam's list. Ultratron was one of them, though I didn't buy it because
it didn't seem like something I'd be into. Whether or not the game deserves to
be a blockbuster, it indeed stinks when hard-working developers don't have
much of a net or runway to finally craft the next big indie hit.

That said, there still seems to be opportunities to break out for developers
of all sizes. Recent success stories that come to mind:

* Faster than Light, a space sim just made for Star Trek fans...it reached $200K on Kickstarter -- 2000% of what they had initially asked for -- and it still seems to be selling well. I just bought it last week and it has ruined my free time (<http://www.ftlgame.com/>)

* Block Fortress - a ingenious mishmash of MineCraft, first person shooters, and tower defense. These developers (apparently, four brothers) also made the great Heroes and Castles, a first person tower defense game. And both of these games are dirt cheap with totally reasonable/optional IAP: <http://foursakenmedia.com/>

* Ridiculous Fishing - a casual iOS game made by some all-stars of iOS development, including Vlambeer and the guy (Zach Gage) who did the awesome SpellTower, one of the iOS games I've played the longest: <http://www.ridiculousfishing.com/>

* 10000000 - A match-3 dungeon game for the iOS that the creator made in his spare time as a labor of love...it caught fire when a TouchArcade editor discovered it. Addicting as hell: [http://toucharcade.com/2012/08/01/the-toucharcade-show-bonus...](http://toucharcade.com/2012/08/01/the-toucharcade-show-bonus-interview-with-eighty-eight-games/)

One of my favorite dev reads from last year was "Starcraft: Orcs in Space go
does down in flames" ([http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-
space-go-d...](http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-
down-in-flames)), in which the Starcraft dev talks about how a completely
faked game, Dominion Storm, forced Blizzard to reboot Starcraft (for the
better)...the game was faked at E3, where companies spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars just to secure floor space and throw big BS publicity
stunts, because that was the only way to get press attention.

At least today, as a developer, you have options of getting yourself known and
your work seen without having to jostle for floor space with the big boys.

~~~
ricardobeat
I bought Ridiculous Fishing out of curiosity for the water-themed game
mechanics, but it's a very poor game, specially with the coins/store crap. It
was sitting at the top of featured games, makes me think it's success has more
to do with the names behind it than the game itself.

~~~
binarycrusader
I think you've made a very big insufficiently justified leap to "very poor
game". I also don't understand the remark about the "coins/store crap". Unlike
many other iOS games, it has no in app purchases.

If you read interviews with the creators, you'd see that they wanted a very
tight reward loop for the game. They also wanted to be certain that no matter
how you played, you'd always feel like you could make more progress.

As for "the names behind it"; it's a group of Dutch indie developers. It's
hardly selling because of their names.

I'd like to see a more objective, reasoned post from you about why it's a
"poor game".

One of the most important things I learned in life was how to more objectively
evaluate something by asking if it was well made, used techniques properly,
etc. You may not personally enjoy the game, but that does not make it a "poor
game".

I think you should have said, "it appears to be a well-made game that clearly
the creators spent years polishing, but the gameplay itself is not something I
enjoy".

~~~
ricardobeat
The parent called them "all-stars of iOS development". This is clearly only my
opinion, maybe I was too blunt - in-game currency is a real turn-off for me.

After a whole 15 seconds of gameplay I was greeted by a popup "please buy a
longer line in the store", that's probably what blew my experience from the
start. Now I can only think of it as an endless loop of [coins -> better gear
-> more coins -> gear], and have no interest in playing at all. Just trying to
break a depth/points record, like pre-farmville games, would be enough
incentive for me to keep playing.

~~~
ijk
You do realize that it's just a basic computer RPG equipment upgrade system on
top of an arcade game, right? At no point do they ask you for real money. The
coins are basically XP you can use to upgrade stuff.

~~~
ricardobeat
I do. In most RPGs there are much more complex relations at work, not a simple
single-path progression of coins/equipment. I don't think it adds anything to
this genre.

------
lmm
On the strength of this article I downloaded the demo, and it was a long way
away from "a visual lollipop of swirling color that leaves your eyes sparkling
and pixelated for hours". In fact, it was deathly dull. I gave it five minutes
and encountered nothing remotely resembling challenge or interest. The
graphics aren't _bad_ , but from the article I was expecting to be blown away;
I saw nothing that hasn't been done five years ago.

Maybe their sales stink for a reason. Back to Touhou for me.

~~~
Detrus
I played Ultratron too and it is a decent game but not very interesting.
Revenge of the Titans on the other hand is an excellent, exciting game and I'm
surprised it's not more successful.

It is worth adding more upgrades, mods and marketing to milk that cow.

------
vlad
A decade ago when I first released my shareware app for users of eBay, I
actively participated in a video game forum. Why a game forum? I wanted my
software to feel fun and exciting to use, and in 2003, nearly all software I
could think of had a crappy user interface and user experience.

Cas complained in many forum threads about about how hard and unprofitable it
was to finish a game. I remember writing a particularly long post about how he
should just work on his game and everything will work out. Also, I repeated
advice many gave that he should use existing game libraries and engines, and
focus on finishing the game. Also, that he should create casual games rather
than retro arcade games.

Knowing nothing about him, except how much he stood out trying to do things
his way, it's amazing how determined he's been.

I realized only recently that Minecraft was created using the lwjgl
(<http://www.lwjgl.org/>), the lightweight Java Game Library that Cas created
as a result of writing his own games in Java (how crazy!) instead of using
existing open-source and closed-source game frameworks.

Not many people have the drive to create exactly the kind of games they want
to play, as well as their own developer tools, for over ten years.

There was nobody there to tell him that he needs to quit his day job and join
a startup accelerator, as well as find a co-founder first.

The idea that you will eventually realize some financial gains if you keep
releasing quality games or apps is common wisdom. But to actually realize, ten
years later, just how rare it is for a developer to continue to make and
polish stuff for themselves, regardless of what other people think? Or to have
created something that enabled a massively popular video game to be created?

That's truly awesome, and I'm cheering for him.

~~~
princec
Indeed, if it weren't for people like us, there wouldn't be most of the games
that people love playing today. There'd be no Minecraft, no FTL, no Terraria,
no Binding of Isaac.

------
jmomo
I worked in the game industry between 2000 and 2006, mostly on MMO titles.

This is a simple supply and demand problem.

There is a HUGE supply of young males who want to work in the gaming industry,
and the customer demand for games of the quality which they can supply is
insufficient.

This is why you have so many gaming schools that can't actually take all the
potential students who want to join, but very few of the graduates can
actually get jobs.

In the last few years, there have been so many great games that I can't
possibly play them all. This has been lamented by many in recent times. There
are just so many people working on games that there are a ton of great games
out there, and some of the really good games get ignored because of the pile-
on effect that a few of the great games get.

I should note that Puppy Games titles are awesome and work on Linux.

Not related: Lately I've been playing FTL a lot. It's awesome too.

~~~
guard-of-terra
"so many great games that I can't possibly play them all" Are there? Outside
of the shooters.

For example, I'm a fan of turn based strategies but I don't see much of those
in the recent years. And not much other kind of strategies either. Blizzard
does it cool and CIV still survives, but this isn't "a lot" compared to the
times that were.

------
jbattle
I remember Cas (the game's author) from waaaay back in the day on Java game
programming forums. Always seemed like quite a character, but as far as I know
he's been plugging away at indie game development for at least a decade. His
company has a really slick asthetic. The games they make aren't really my cup
of tea (genre-wise) but they look fantastic.

<http://www.puppygames.net/>

------
alberich
> But the customers have stopped listening by now and are giggling along with
> a game that makes farting noises when you mash a red gradient rectangle with
> your nose.

People just want to have fun with games, they don't care about how advanced
the AI is, or the physics of explosions and stuff like that. Sure, some people
do care about this things...

Did the company make any research to see if there was demand for this kind of
game? Doesn't matter how technically advanced the game is if no one want's to
play it.

~~~
princec
We knew there was no huge demand for Ultratron. Although, Binding of Isaac.

Our original blog post was about how much it costs to make such a game, and
how much money such a game earns typically, not about whether it's a failure
or success.

------
jiggy2011
I don't know about anybody else but I'm starting to experience indie game
fatigue about now. Every time I open up Steam there is some other "8 bit"
sidescroller or zelda clone on offer for £2.99.

OTOH there are plenty of interesting RTS games I remember from the old DOS era
that could make a comeback that would require art assets beyond pixelated
sprites but still less technical than a modern AAA.

~~~
jay_kyburz
I don't know how any body game make a game profitable at £2.99

~~~
ido
By selling many copies? <http://superhexagon.com>

~~~
princec
By selling a lot of copies AND putting barely anything into it. Super Hexagon
is bereft of actual content and actually has very little actual game in it. It
is a perfect example of how to make money from not much work.

~~~
kranner
That's not cricket, old chap, to knock the competition.

Super Hexagon has highly polished gameplay and a stellar soundtrack, not to
mention being very, very fun. IMO Terry Cavanagh knew exactly what to leave
out.

~~~
princec
I've met Terry personally, and I didn't knock Super Hexagon. I've just said it
how it is: Super Hexagon (and VVVVVV for that matter) are examples of how to
make games on the cheap.

We don't do that, though. We put AAA polish and content into every title.

~~~
kranner
In that case, my apologies, and consider the statement retracted.

------
greggman
I'm a little sympathetic but ....

* Making games is like making music, movies, books, etc. in that the odds of you having a hit are very small. Thousands of people try, few are successful.

* I've seen a several articles about games here on HN that have been about "me to" games. Clones of clones of clones. The authors want us to pat them on the back for making a ripoff? Sorry. Make something original.

Personal opinion but Ultratron does not look even as good as the game it's
supposedly cloning, Robotron 2084, which has way more "visual lollipop of
swirling color that leaves your eyes sparkling and pixelated for hours".
Compare

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZZRjdfh4_4>

vs

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7HkaqmSCxw>

~~~
princec
Er, I think you meant to compare <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6gmgExmJbM>

~~~
greggman
I'm not sure what you're trying to show me. Robotron has 8x more stuff going
on in any shot.

~~~
princec
That does not make Robotron good.

~~~
greggman
No, but it does make Robotron far more of "a visual lollipop of swirling color
that leaves your eyes sparkling and pixelated for hours" than the clone

------
dyselon
Aren't gorgeous looking Robotron clones kind of a dime a dozen since Geometry
Wars?

~~~
princec
Ultratron actually came out originally before Geometry Wars.

~~~
dyselon
Interesting! When did it come out?

~~~
princec
Ah my mistake, I was referring to the 360 release of Geometry Wars (I've never
actually played it, mostly coz I've never owned a console!)

The original was 10 years ago now. Think about that for a moment! Some of the
people who are actually old enough to buy a game with their own credit card
now were only 8 years old when Geometry Wars first appeared. Crazy.

------
jpadkins
Why would the author expect big sales from a polished version of a 30 year old
genre? Look at his competition: Here is another $4.99 game in the action/indie
category <http://store.steampowered.com/app/211400/>

The recent big indie hits are genre defining or at least have very unique
gameplay. (minecraft, ftl, etc)

~~~
princec
When we were making Ultratron for Steam we knew that it wasn't ever going to
actually sell much, but that was not the point of the article. The point of
the blog post I wrote was simply to say, it takes this long and this much
money to make a game like this, and it earns about this much money, so we're
not going to do them any more. I think it's a shame because it scratches an
itch that just isn't scratched anywhere else. And that's what Jeff was getting
at, indirectly; it's a shame that these kinds of games aren't really all that
viable to make. I don't want to play endless zombie games and man-shooters. I
want to play games like Ultratron, and almost nobody is making them any more,
which is why we've made it.

~~~
jpadkins
Ah. Thanks for clarifying. For very small markets, like classics or nostalgic,
maybe you could up the price because your potential buyers are price elastic?

If you are selling to 10,000 older, rich guys who crave old school arcade
action, why not sell at a $40 price point?

That's the only solution I can think of that other niche markets do to stay
alive (collectibles, etc).

~~~
princec
Because that's what Valve tell us to sell them for....

------
mtdewcmu
I'm sure the author already knows the facts of life, and was merely sharing
his lament of those facts. But for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know,
especially kids:

This _is not_ a viable way to get paid.

1\. Do something you enjoy

2\. Collect payment

This _is_ a viable way to get paid.

1\. Select a person or group that has money

2\. Figure out what they are willing to pay for

3\. Do that thing

4\. If you haven't received payment, return to step 1

~~~
princec
This :D

~~~
forwardslash
Might I ask, what's your next planned game/genre?

~~~
princec
<http://www.puppygames.net/blog/?p=1307>

------
jamesgeck0
I'm sorry that Ultron and Droid Assault haven't done well, but they're both
twin-stick shooters that aren't playable using a gamepad. That's an initial
turn off for many hardcore fans of the genre.

I can't speak for Ultron because the demo (not available on Steam) won't run
on Windows 8, but last time I tried Droid Assault, it took a while to pick up
in difficulty. I didn't encounter much challenge until near the end of the
(rather long) demo.

Droid Assault was also pretty easy to exploit; the first few boss enemies
won't chase you off screen, so it was possible to pop in and out of hiding,
firing off a few shots at a time. This makes for boring gameplay, but the game
didn't discourage it.

The games don't seem to be aimed at hardcore gamers, and they're not popular
with casual gamers. Who is Puppygames target audience?

~~~
princec
_Ultratron_ works fine with a controller. Droid Assault is most definitely not
a twin-stick shooter.

We deliberately make our games easy because they sell more. The easier they
are, the more they sell. Simple formula.

The target audience is me. I am a child of the 70s, grew up in the arcades and
playing on C64s. The games of that era are shit. They weren't shit then, but
they are now. What I do is take old game ideas and make them not shit, and I
think I do pretty well at that. One of the biggest components of not-shitness
is making sure that most players can see most of the game before it gets too
hard for them.

FWIW I've never completed any of my own games, I'm that rubbish.

------
at-fates-hands
The comparison to music is apt. I have a friend who went through the 90's in a
grunge band and had a small modicum of success (they released three albums)
and said he's glad he's not in the music industry now. He described the music
industry these days in one word: saturation. Actually, an over saturation of
shitty music.

These days, it really takes an effort to find good music. It's the same thing
with the gaming industry. There's so many games, it's hard for people to sift
through the shit to get to a decent game. When you have an entire generation
of kids with an attention span of a goldfish, unless you have millions in
marketing, it's a long, long road till you make some money.

I'm reminded of the immortal words of AC/DC when they sang: "It's a LONG way
to the top if you wanna rock n' roll."

~~~
michaelgrafl
Right now is the best time to be a musician ever. Recording tools are cheap,
distribution is virtually free.

Being a fan of music has never been as awesome as now. Access to new music is
virtually free and instant.

It takes much less effort to find good music now than ever before. I can just
hit up TasteKid and listen to new music on Youtube, where I get further
recommendations, which I can instantly listen to, too.

There was a short period in the history of recorded music where you could make
a lot of money from it because making copies and distributing them was hard.
This is not the case anymore, and as a musician and a fan of music I can't be
thankful enough for that.

------
EvanKelly
I think the phrase is a little overworn and misappropriated but I think it's a
little bit applicable here:

"The customer is always right."

Recently I've seen this phrase thrown around more as a customer service
mantra, and in those cases I don't think the customer is actually always
right, though it may be the best course of action to act like they are.

In the case of a customer liking or disliking your game/app/widget. They ARE
right. Or at least they're not wrong. I think the greatest point of this
article is that the author (and hopefully the subject) enjoys developing the
games they do. That's a good enough reason right there to keep doing it.

~~~
pertinhower
The customer is always right, but the customer is not always _aware_. Getting
noticed is the great challenge of the age.

------
dubcanada
These games would most likely make money if he made them for mobile devices.

Sadly he is making them for desktops where people expect triple A games and
play only those.

Cas, if you are listening... MOBILE!!!!!!

~~~
evo_9
Cas didn't write Ultratron and mentions in the article he mainly writes flash
and iOS games.

~~~
dubcanada
I thought Cas was a java programmer? Am I wrong?

~~~
princec
Aye that's me.

------
princec
There are a few detractors from Ultratron in here - and that's fine, I know
it's absolutely not everyone's cup of tea - but often the reason given for not
"liking" (for want of a better word) the game are specious.

I can summarise some of the perplexity that arise with five words: Explain the
Binding of Isaac.

~~~
com2kid
Binding of Isaac starts off with some elements of classic Rogue Like gameplay
that also has a dual stick shooter battle mechanics and is finally topped off
with an action adventure dungeon exploration and upgrade system.

It is made from three classic successful genres all seamlessly blended
together.

Content in the game is given to the player at just the right rate of flow.
Dozens of initial play-throughs each reveal new items, and on subsequent plays
the player begins to understand how to start combining items together.

Then there is the masterfully done difficulty curve. Facing the game straight
on results in death, it is only through understanding of items and upgrades
that the player has a hope of surviving, with each new discovery extending the
player's life span by just a little bit more.

Then finally there was controversy around the game that got it great press
coverage, press coverage which was excellently taken advantage of through very
well managed sales and deals.

Binding of Isaac isn't a surprise at all. It isn't just a well made game, it
is a well made game that gradually unfolds before the player at just the right
pace.

So far from what I have seen in this thread, the primary complaint about
Ultratron is the pace at which it ramps up. It sounds like people are saying
the demo never really ramped up, which is fairly disappointing for a dual
stick shooter. Dual Stick Shooters should create a sense of outright fear at
times, and pretty early on in the process. Sure have the first level be a
"here is how you shoot!" and that level should be over as soon as the player
learns how to shoot.

The next lesson? "Here is how you run away. You'll be doing a lot of it."

------
xsmasher
There's a lot more to having a hit game than making a game that could be a
hit.

The world will not beat a path to your door.

~~~
rje
There's nothing to indicate the author doesn't understand that point. He's
simply being sympathetic to someone who has made a good game and wishing it
had more success.

------
kalms
To me, and this is strictly from the POV as a gamer: I hate when games fail to
tell a decent story. I lose interest almost immediately.

Screw visuals and focus on story. I can even accept crap gameplay if the story
compels me.

------
z3phyr
Game development never sucks! Believe me, what sucks the most is the public
mood.

Think about it, what if Gangnam Style would not have released, the RIGHT time?
Psy would have said music video development sucks?

------
DanBC
What's a good source for information (reviews, let's plays, video reviews,
etc) of best indie games?

It's surprising just how uninformative some game websites are. That includes
websites of the game devs.

~~~
kevingadd
There's no single good definitive source, but I'll link a few random ones I've
seen point to cool stuff in the past:

<http://indiegames.com/index.html>

<http://rockpapershotgun.com/>

<http://www.tigsource.com/>

<http://jayisgames.com/>

~~~
L4mppu
There is also indiestatik ( <http://indiestatik>. com) which is entirely based
around indie games.

~~~
Zarkonnen
IndieStatik's really nice - lots of in-depth stuff as opposed to rewritten
press releases. (OK, they gave my game a positive review, so maybe I'm
biased.)

------
JDDunn9
It sounds like there is a need for a good indie game publisher. Someone that
can find good indie games and get them the publicity they deserve.

~~~
princec
And that publisher is... Steam. The trouble is even with the might of all
those well-targeted customers there's still only a few thousand sales to be
made - and thanks to the sudden change in the pricing of games in the last 5
years or so, you can now only make 1/10th of the money from a sale that you
could before.

In my original posting I wasn't really trying to complain about the situation;
just showing the facts and figures, and the ultimate conclusion of course,
which is that we're not making any more of them. Probably. It is quite fun.

~~~
jsnell
Clearly there's way more sales to made than thousands, it's just that it's
going to be a power law distribution. There's only going to be one Minecraft
(10s of millions), a handful of Super Meat Boys (million copies) or Legends of
Grimrock (half a million), etc.

It seems like the more interesting question is what a developer can do to
increase their likelihood of winning the indie game lottery. Besides making a
good game. FTL did it by getting lots of publicity from being an early game
development kickstarter success story. Legend of Grimrock had excellent
graphics for a 4 man indie game, resurrected a genre that had been dead for a
couple of decades, and got good launch-time reviews in a lot of big PC game
publications. (I expect that the nostalgia effect was a factor both in getting
the reviews in the first place, as well as in them being so positive).

------
AimHere
I'm running _Linux_ exclusively these days. I think Eugene Jarvis' Robotron
2084 is one of the best video games ever made. I read the very positive
RockPaperShotgun writeup. I noticed that it was cheap on the Steam sale, and
I'm perfectly happy to fire money towards games that I feel might be worth it.
I also played and enjoyed one of Puppygames earlier offerings, some tower
defence game that made it to a Humble Bundle.

So I downloaded and fired up the Ultratron demo. I figure this might be right
up my street.

But I passed on it.

To begin with, it didn't play, or sound, anywhere near as compelling as
Robotron. Robotron is a visceral, intense experience. When it starts up, it
starts up LOUD, your gun fires a rapid, punchy pow-pow-pow noise, amidst
various other electronic squawks, you are placed slap-bang in the middle of a
higgledy-piggledy gang of hostile robots all heading in your vague direction,
and you've got about a quarter of a second to work out which is the right way
to move and which way is the right way to shoot to Macguyver your way out of
this wave and live for a few seconds more. It's fast, intense, and if you're
doing it right, at some point zen kicks in, and conscious thought gets out of
the way - you're running on instinct and adrenaline; the game has
shortcircuited most of your brain and you're just a vessel for connecting the
Robotron machine directly to your lizard backbrain, via a set of fingers.
Somewhere in that zone, high-scores get made.

When the Ultratron demo starts up, you're in the middle of the screen, a few
slow, passive bad guys are placed somewhere out of the way in the corner, and
you have plenty of time to shoot them all (by pointing and clicking) before
anything dangerous happens. And then you do it again. And again, with some
slightly-varying bad guys. There's nothing intense, or rewarding or difficult
about getting past a wave. I figure the game might get better or harder later
on, but there was nothing to indicate it would get harder in a satisfying way.
It's just chewing-gum for your thumbs.

Ultratron (or at least the demo) doesn't bring any new or compelling game
ideas or mechanics to the table either. There's things to pickup including
Pacman-style fruit. There's things to shoot at, including Centipede-style
spiders. There's boss monsters. There's powerups you buy with coins you
pickup. The demo didn't show me anything I hadn't seen a thousand times before
in a thousand other games.

The name and the advertising played up Ultratron's Robotron roots, but it
didn't once hit my Robotron G-spot, and I didn't see anything new to engage my
interest either. Nothing about the _game_ (as opposed to the front end) struck
me as bad, but nothing struck me as particularly _good_ either.

We're spoilt for indie games these days - even us Linux-users. I'm currently
divvying my gaming time between Super Hexagon (a hypnotic arcade-style one-
more-go two-button frustration-fest that DOES tickle that lizard-backbrain),
Kerbal Space Program (don't let the muppets fool you, there's a pretty
hardcore sandbox space sim going on) and Crusader Kings 2 (medieval grand
strategy, where incestuous Royal Marriages and tactical infanticide are as
essential as warfare for achieving your territorial ambitions. Think of it as
a blend of history book, wargame, soap opera and crack cocaine).

I'm being introduced to new, clever, and interesting games all the time now.
It's a buyer's market for gamers these days, and Ultratron just isn't cutting
it as far as my free time is concerned.

Oh, one more thing - if you're reading this Puppygames, having a 5-second nag
screen advertising the full version _after_ the player has played your demo
and is trying to quit is a big turnoff. I tried your demo, I quit it, and I
want to do something else. Making the player wait 5 seconds to watch your nag-
screen BEFORE playing the game is acceptable - these days, the person playing
the demo realises it's the cost of playing the demo without buying the game.
Holding the player's _operating system_ to ransom while you throw advertising
at him or her is simply not cool at all.

~~~
princec
What are you talking about? Just hit the button to close the game.

~~~
AimHere
On the demo, the button doesn't appear for 5 seconds.

~~~
princec
Strange, there's an exit button right there in front of me straight away on my
demo version.

~~~
AimHere
I downloaded the Linux version of the demo a few days ago from your site.
Maybe it's a Linuxism or version-specific.

~~~
princec
Nope, it's just you, I think.

~~~
AimHere
Very strange, because what I see has obviously been done deliberately.

From the main menu, after playing the game and dying and clicking the 'x' in
the top left to quit, the game goes to the nag screen. It's the same screen
that appears when you start the game, with with an icon in the bottom left to
click if you want to buy the game and one in the bottom right to continue to
the menu - only the bottom right icon is missing. After about 5 or 6 seconds
the button that lets you end the game appears - the button says something like
'Fight evil another day' - and the game finally lets you click it and leave.

When I get home, I might fire up a screen capturer and upload a video to
demonstrate the behavior for you.

~~~
princec
I know what it looks like, I coded it. Both buttons exit the game immediately.

~~~
AimHere
>both buttons exit the game immediately. See the one on the left? The one
that's always there?

And that button is clearly labelled 'Buy Now!'. I don't know which school of
user interface design you went to, but when I see a link labelled 'Buy Now!',
I figure that if I've no intention of buying the product, then I've no
business clicking that link. I don't think I'm an atypical user in this
regard.

Plus, since clicking that link does bring up your online store in a web
browser (which, I'll reiterate, I've no intention of using), no matter which
way you cut it, it still counts as an obnoxious nag and a user interface
peeve.

What's more, it's not immediately obvious, in these days of in-app purchases
and whatnot, that a link marked 'buy' will exit the game. For instance,
suppose this demo was downloaded from a Steam account with some actual cash
attached (I don't know if your demo is on Steam, this is a hypothetical),
there's no way that I, as an ignorant user, can tell whether you've made some
arrangement with Valve or if there's some call in the Steam API where clicking
the app can extract the money from my account to automatically buy this game.
Similar things are already in place in mobile app stores.

Asking users to go clicking on your 'Buy my product' links willy-nilly is
definitely much worse than the behaviour I was originally grumbling about!

