Teleporters are cool

I got my level start and end teleporters in yesterday. Which is good, cos now i can see the proper timing when starting and ending a level. Which is an important factor to the fow of the game. Especially if you are like me and counting how long a level lasts, to see if it is tweaked right, and also that it meets the criteria of sweet, fast levels to bring people into the game. Also of course because Trials are only so long.

So i borrowed some graphics that the artist did for Pellmell for now (it looked nice and had enough frames to use). It works quite well. So now the flow is in, i teleport into the game, the enemies start shooting 2 seconds after, and once i have collected all the civilians (though soon, some may die!) the teleporter dutifully appears and waits for you to enter, when it will then fade out over 1 second. Taking you with it, and the level also fades.

I also got in 5 of the level (scene) wall setup/designs. These are wheer all the enemies have to be written and placed. That of course is where there is going to be real fun. I also made a spawn list of places to spawn the civillians at. Makes it much tider than them all appearing in one corner, or worse in walls or in no go areas.

Laters

In Game Instructions are under rated

I know nobody really reads in game instructions and i am no exception of course. I just go for it when i get a new game. Usually games are pretty easy to pick up these days. However to really master a game you might have to go deeper into the game knowledge base and learn some useful tips and tricks. Hell, ya can learn some more buttons you had no idea what they did etc.

So lets take A Shooter. I took a while to put these instructions together and was quite proud of all they said. But as the weeks have passed since the game went live, i have come to realise there is an error in my ways. I am missing vital bits of information and if a player wants to know them, he will somehow have to find his way to this blog most likely. That is just not optimal.

Here are a few examples just to give ya more of an idea of what i am talking about.
1. Going for a high score in the game. In easy mode you can earn approximately 2.1Million by completing the game from the start. for normal it is about 2.5million and then 2.8million and finally for hardest mode 3.1million. this information would have been invaluable for people trying to win my top score competitions.
2. Practicing a level you just failed on is the fastest way to learn a new level or Boss and progress through the game.

So although those examples are quite different to each other. They are both really important. I chose those two because they are so different.

Conclusion...
Any time anyone gives you feedback about your game. Any question at all, you should note down the possibility that you need to add it into the in game instructions. Don't be lazy, just do it, and you will be rewarded with understanding of the game and therefore more likely to get good word of mouth.

good luck

What Quality Level?

If you are a game developer then you know this question... Or do you?

'The question is 'what quality level should i make this game' It can also be followed by extra questions like 'What can I afford' or 'how much time do i wanna spend on this game'.

I do believe though on Xblig that most of the developers do not actually ever ask this question of themselves or their game. I think they just work on a game with some basic ideas of what they want to put together and when they get bored of it they just put it out there for peer review. now i won't judge all of my fellow devs, as that would be wrong. In fact i know quite a lot of them trying hard every day they work on their game to answer the quality level question. the question has gotten a lot more difficult to answer lately with the power that 1 dollar games appear to have. so many good games have come out at this price point that i really think this is not the first evaluating criteria for answering the question. So what is ?

Well I think the first one is of Design, or more importantly labelled as vision. Some devs do not appear to have much of a vision for their game apart from taking one of the sample apps and making something that was their own. Or a way for them to learn Xna. I believe the quality of thos eproducts tends to speak for itself, though i know several games done in this way that have a nice feel and quality. Back to Design, just how much design work are devs actually doing before writing code? Any.. Some.. or Most? I would love to know the answer, but only so i can se how they all turned out compared to how they went about the design. Of course i also feel that people who design on the fly tend to stray a long way from their time and feature budgets.. but that is another topic for another post.

Another criteria for what quality level should your game be has to do with how you view yourself, or your company. What is acceptible to put out under your name? This is a tough one has has so many factors put in it. Take one of the devs i respect Kris Steele He started Abduction Action and the main game he appeared to have made rather quickly (so his blog and comments seem to read). then he found ways to up his quality level o what is a fairly simple game. Even simple games can speak quality to players who demo them. He added quality because he felt like it should be there. I love this kind of thing, i feel it is about pride and confidence in your product. If you don't have these then qhy the heck are ya publishing your code?

Tere is always more that can be added to up the quality of a game. This makes it very difficult to know when to stop. A lot of Xblig games do not have SFX when the selctors or menu highlights are moved around. this is a pet peave of mine as it is so easy to do, but so many games don't do it? Why.. I am not sure. One theory i have is that these devs do not know that this is something that adds quality to a game. And with so many brand spanking noob devs in the Xblig marketplace there will be a lot that do not notice these kind of things... yet! I say yet, because i have a lot of confidence that these things will be changed. These simplistic yet noticable items will slowly be commonplace (tbh, they are already).

Has anyone else noticed the amazing amount of quality games that have come out this year? The number is much higher than last year and this gets me very excited as i buy more and more Xblig games. I wish the world would take more note and see what Xblig games are doing and how far they have come. And for shocking basement prices too!

I never got to cover all the things i want to talk about for quality, Maybe my next post talking about this subject will label a bunch more, and compare good with bad decisions.

If anyone readin this has any comments on how they decide the quality of their games, please post away. I would love some feedback.

For Sorcery games Xblig games the decision of quality is one of pride. I have a list of things that i have to do on my games, but i also have a list of things i do not care about. I value the opinion of my peers in playtest and review and try my hardest to accomodate what i am told isn't good enough in their eyes. currently this is the best way to view the quality of your game for Xblig. Sales will not do that for you and are not very related to the quality of a game at the moment. I wish that was different of course. I have reports from my fellow peers that make me very happy. They tell me they think the game is a worthy addition to the Xblig catalogue, and that makes me profoundly happy. Some devs however, couldn't care less and just want to get it out... Is this the quality level you want to be known for ?

Thanks for reading
G'night

Marketing Where art Thou

The game in nearing completion. I know you have heard that before. But every day that goes by makes it more complete. When will it truly be ready. Well once i have the last few things sorted. At the moment that list is quite short.

Global High Scores
New Graphics
More balancing tweaks.

Yeah, still not got to finish the global high scores. I need to spend that money on a second creators account, and then hope that will sort out some of my issues. Noone has responded to my XNA forum posts about my issues, so it is go it alone time. I really just need time and that bit of money spending. with all the network experience I have, it should be easy enough to fixup watever is wrong. Even though this is not my code.

New graphics are coming along and I am putting them in slowly. at the moment slowly is an ssue i face in everything. Ahh well.

Balancing is something that is never done. A job I guess. It will be as good as it is when it goes live. But at the moment I am quite confident the balance is pretty darned good.

Still i put more tweaks in today, balance and graphics wise. The game is getting there.. so i need to get on with marketing.. But now my arm hurst (shoulder).. so the title of this post will have to wait to be fulfilled tomorrow.

g'night.

First 'A Shooter' playtest feedback

Tonight I thought I would post about something that is now happening with my latest XBLIG game. i have already mentioned that i have put it into Playtest, a place where my XBLIG Peers can check out what i have been busy doing, and give feedback in the forums if they so desire. This is a good place to take your game, anytime especially if you are new to creating games. As these peeps will find some bugs for you, and make suggestions that could greatly increase your chances of success when the game goes live.

Onwards...
On Monday i placed the game into Playtest. About an hour later I realised that I had left the default difficulty at HARD and not Normal. ARGH! I was at work now, so was unable to pull the game. However by the time i got home (late), someone had already given my game some feedback. Now i will not name the Peer that did this, as i believe in their privacy, and i don't want to go around asking permission all the time.

Here is what the FIRST Peer said:-
-I did some testing with memory card pulling and didn't find any issues.

-I noticed one title safe issue. While playing the game the player name is cut off of the screen on my television.
-This is a personal one but the controls bothered me (and my buddy I tried coop with). We really wanted to push A to shoot and kept accidentally using the special.

-Another issue with controls, specifically in coop. At the end of a level both users naturally push A to advance to the next level but what ends up happening is one user's push results in advancing the level and the other user ends up using their special. We ended up needing to designate someone to be the level advancer.
Playing through the trial I found myself wanting to keep playing after the time limit ran up. I think it's definitely hard enough, though that was on HARD, and in coop.
Overall a fun, well polished game. Good luck.
 
Woah, i was so shocked anyone got there so fast. Now let's break this down into what i did about this post.
1. I was very pleased to see no immediate issue with MU pulling. Phew.
2. ARGH i forgot to finish the SDTV screen safe stuff. I have it in the code but never gave it the right coords (so they only use widescreen coords). What an Idiot!
3. Ahh the controls. They feel switched to me also. Having someone remnd me they are the wrong way around is good. Though they are that way because people asked for it in my previous shooter. this time i will deal with this properly.. Thinking cap is ON.
4. Hmm, i have run into this. Stupid wrong firing of the smart bomb. First thought is to not allow smart bombs to be fired in teh first few seconds of a new level starting.. Thinking cap is now getting orangely hot!
5. Woot! they wanted to continue? This is excellent news, though i still feel there is more to go on this front.
6. The final thought was a very kind one. I appreciate this kind of thing, and always try hard to write something positive at the end of a review myself. I hope they mean't it 8D
 
Now I was thinking about all these issues. I hated the idea of other peeps testing it while in HARD mode. So I pulled the game. Then set about fixing my issues. Here is what i did about each one, numbered for your convenience.
2. Setup and tested the screen safe coords for my in game HUD. Looking good.
3. I switched the control to A=Fire. Then i put a new Option in the options to switch to the B=Fire haha! Solved! (thinking cap start to go back to grey!)
4. Solved this by puting the button through onto the X button and removed it from the smart button. Easy and solid. Thinking cap now at blue and cold)
 
These items took me a while, but ALL of them make my product better. This is very important to me.
 
When i get more feedback i will continue to post about what i did and why etc. This may be inetersting to some devs going through the same thing.
 
G'night

Colorblindness and my ships health

Above is the picture of my Ship from my upcoming shooter 5th Moon. I havementioned it before in this blog and even shown various stages of it's graphics changing and developing etc. Now I was recently introduced to the problem of colorblindness in games. I wasn't aware of the main issues faced by this group of people. However i do sympathize. I do not know much about all the issues faced, and currently am aware of only an issue related to the colors Red and Green. They cannot be told apart.

I feel this is an easy thing to be solved in any game for sure, but as most games have baddies colored red in some way (read name tags etc), and the good guys so often in green, it is obviously a big issue. Especially in a game like MW2. I only have a small game it's true. But i would love to address these kinds of issues as best as i am able.

So for 5th Moon i realised that i am using the center of the players ships to indicate their health. This will be bad when i color them in various stages of health and they start green, and end in red. Hmm, a colorblind player will not nescessarily be able to tell if they have one hit left or three. So i am wondering right now what would be the best way to alter this Health spot to make it work for colorblind peeps. so far i have a couple of ideas, but no idea which would be better for them.

1. As the health decreases, i can shrink the color/health spot on the ship.
2. I could fill the color spot up with Black from the center, so it looks like it is diseased haha!
3. What else could I do ?

If you have any ideas, please leave me a comment or email etc.

I also have the above picture showing the colors i chose for my multiplayer ships. Are these colors AOK for colorblind people to see fast and easily? If you have an answer please let me know. I can of course change them, and would love to if this helps players out.