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

1000 Pieces of software

Today the news came in that XLIG now has a 1000 pieces of software on it. Simply amazing. I was also informed that this mean't that 1.8 games a day was being produced for the channel from it's inception.

This is truly amazing that this much could have been created by people and placed on this successful service.

However, it makes me wonder a few things.

So I called it all software, to avoid the distinction of calling everything an App (bad word on xblig), and the Games would have taken umbridge at that too. So Xblig is full of games and applications.

oh my wonderings...

1. How many games are there on Xblig?
2. Therefore how many are apps?
3. Which gives the channel more press coverage (remember there is no such thing as bad press!)
4. If the average is 1.8 a day. Who has been writing software and publishing it that took less than 11 hours to create? I am sure there are some examples out there, i could name a few but i won't.
5. Will i also get lucky or something and get one of my games in lights? Or do i already need a name to make a name?
6. Should I jump on the Avatar / Zombie etc bandwagon. This is one of those questions that so many Developers are asking at present. I am also asking myself... And , yeah.. I sort of hate myself for it.
7. Should I just go sensationalist with my next game?

Too many questions, too many choices... And if you get off to a good start when released, you are so much more likely to be successful. anything that misses that early boat, for whatever reason is probably doomed. sometimes you cannot control the tide..

8. When will i be able to control the release date of my game. This is still so freakin STUPID. I have money and prizes and promotions to setup and I cannot truly set them up properly till I know when the game is to come out. Give me some control. I know most of the developers couldn't give a hoot. They do not advertise Xblig, they do not advertise their game.. Hell most don't even do a stinking poor attempt at video. But some devs care, some have the understanding of marketing. Some need just a bit more help.. Please?

g'night
Voodoochief